OpenGL Error when Running Quake 3 in Windows 2000

I had this problem with Quake 3 and OpenGL running under Win2k. Our group of MCSEs at work have read many possible solutions and tried different approachs to solve this problem. Finally we installed Quake 3 Arena on some Dell Optiplex GX1 and GX150 machines some using ATI 3D RagePro 8Mb and Intel 82845G/GL Chip. All machines running Win2K, 128Mb+ RAM and Direct X 8.1. What we found was the following:

  1. Use an administrator account to increase Windows Virtual Memory (we doubled the machines physical memory 128Mb=256Mb VM).
  2. Configure Netmeeting on the target machine. Don’t leave the application running (since it conflicts with the game) but CONFIGURE IT anyway. Note: This is actually the KEY action to get the game running. We still don’t know why.
  3. Verify the WIN.INI file (using SYSEDIT command) and remarks any DVA=0 entry.
  4. Install the most current driver for your main video card. (Disable any other video cards present on your system)

With only the Netmeeting configuration we got Quake 3 running in more than half the machines we tested it on, with different user accounts. The others were lacking the latests video drivers.

We hope this helps anyone that is having this same problem.