Increasing fps in Quake 3 without lowering quality

[5545Trey]

Whenever I start the tutorial, the game runs at around 1-2fps. I tried to look up how to increase the framerate, but none of the websites that I searched seems to work. I have no idea how my computer can run games such as L4D, Half-Life, etc, with ease but not an Arena Shooter that was released in 1999. If I can get at least 45fps, then I am fine with it. However, playing the game on 80-125fps is more competitive. Then again, I am playing against difficulty-dependent A.I.

 

[Tagaziel]

That avatar freaks me out.

That said, are you sure the game is being rendered through your GPU? I have a (very vague) recollection that this can be the result of the game trying to run using only your CPU for everything.

 

[Hassknecht]

Do you have an AMD GPU? Those might have problem with OpenGL. Try installing the 13.1 Catalyst, I heard that's supposed to work.
Also, there might be issues with GPU clock speed. If you have an AMD card, do you have AMD Overdrive activated? It clocks down the GPU when it's not in use, and Quake 3 Arena might not put enough stress on the GPU to force it to clock up, bottlenecking the performance.

 

[5545Trey]

I have not try to these solutions yet (because I have been busy), but thank you two for helping.