Homebrew ioQuake3-PSP

[Mayo1990]

This was mostly a thing I wanted to make out of curiosity, since it was for an essay project. There was already a Quake 3 port for the PSP made by Crow-bar, which hasn't been updated in 15 years. Despite the long gap that it missed in the Homebrew development scene, I want to come clear and say that I didn't plan in fixing their port because per-my rule, unless I'm being asked by the official authors, I'm not gonna add slop to their codebase. I did take some very good things out of it, which helped me greatly with my port. Just as if it wasn't clear, AI has been used in this project. But everything has been tested on real hardware.

Now that I came clean, what's the point of this port if there was already one?
My primary goal was to provide a new Quake 3 port that can be easily compiled with modern toolchains. But at the same time, make it a bit easier to maintain. Compared to Crow-Bar's, this port also has the online fully working (note: their port still connected online but you needed to place the IP in the autoexec), as well as taking more advantage of the console and adding a few more aggressive cvars, thus achieving, with a 333 MHz clock speed, a median of 30 FPS on the benchmark demo. (still 30 in-game, though) Be aware that this is still a work in progress and I plan on polishing it further in the future.

Now, another addition is that the latest Ark does support overclocking, and Quake 3 does take great benefit of it.
Funny datas:

Installation
Place pak0-8 in /PSP/GAME/QUAKE3/baseq3/ from your own Quake III Arena copy.
Installation

Quake III Arena
Place pak0-8 inside /PSP/GAME/QUAKE3/baseq3/ from your own Quake III Arena copy.

Open Arena
Place all the pak files in/PSP/GAME/OPENARENA/baseoa/ from your own Open Arena copy.

Team Arena
Place pak0-3 in /PSP/GAME/TEAMARENA/missionpack/ from your own Team Arena copy. You also need to install Quake III Arena following its instructions

Known limits

• Limited mod support

Button layout:
You use the stick to aim, and Triangle/Square/Circle/Cross to move. L to jump and R to shoot. Left and right are next/previous weapon. Down to crouch, Start to pause and Select to check the scoreboard.


It doesn't work with PSP 1000/FAT or PPSSPP. Untested on Adrenaline since there's VitaQuakeIII over there.

Get it here

More funny screens:

Pre-1.5 just for jiggles:

 

[radicalten]

Great display of skill again sir! May your project and essay go well.

 

[Mayo1990]

Fixed an issue with the internet browser

Download

 

[Krzyzaw13]

Fixed an issue with the internet browser

Download

Hi, I’ll start by saying I’m a huge fan. Today, before leaving for vacation, I wanted to test the build on my PSP 3004. I set the memory to MAX and the CPU to 333; I have the latest ARK-5 and copied over all the .pak files from the GOG version, but I’m getting this message on psp screen:

PSP: build unlabeled, product 1.36_g19e6092, compiled Aug 18 2026 18
PSP: clock set rc 000000 -> cpu 333 MHz, bus 166 MHz
PSP: resolving base path, argv[0] = 'ms0:/PSP/GAME/IOQUAKE3/EBOOT.PB
PSP: accept argv[0] dirname: 'ms0:/PSP/GAME/IOQUAKE3'
PSP: base path, argv[0] = 'ms0:/PSP/GAME/IOQUAKE3'
PSP: max free user mem 25586 KB
ioq3 1.36_g19e6092 psp-mips Aug 18 2026

 

[Mayo1990]

Did you let it load?

 

[Krzyzaw13]

Did you let it load?

Yes, when I turn on homebrew, I see this screen after 10 sec, console shutdown.

 

[Mayo1990]

Did you place the pak files inside baseq3?

 

[Krzyzaw13]

Yes

 

[Mayo1990]

Yes

https://github.com/Mayo1970/ioQuake3-PSP/releases/tag/1.0 Can you try the previous build and let me know if it runs? And are you connected online or not?

 

[Krzyzaw13]

https://github.com/Mayo1970/ioQuake3-PSP/releases/tag/1.0 Can you try the previous build and let me know if it runs? And are you connected online or not?

I will try today, main problem is now we are in Greece on vacation with my wife, and I don't take notebook, I try copy new files with USB C otg adapter from smartfone to psp but my phone think the SD card need format. But when I plug this adapter with card to my wife Samsung phone I can copy files. Soo.. I will check first release today but later.

 

[Krzyzaw13]

Unfortunately, testing version 1.0 gives almost identical results. Do the Quake 3 files have to be from a specific version? I have the one from GOG.

 

[Mayo1990]

Unfortunately, testing version 1.0 gives almost identical results. Do the Quake 3 files have to be from a specific version? I have the one from GOG.

it's your files. Be sure to FTP them correctly.

 

[Krzyzaw13]

Ok I managed to make a breakthrough: I installed OFW 6.61 and then Ark-4 instead of Ark-5. Version 1.1 launched successfully.

Edit: btw. I tested other ports. Great job.

 

[Mayo1990]

Just found out that it crashes on latest Ark for some reason, I'll get this sorted asap

Post automatically merged: Sep 19, 2026

Fixed, now the latest version will work fine on latest ARK

 

[Mayo1990]

Just posting a small update to confirm that I'm working on the next update for this port.
Thanks to my Quake 3 port for the OG Xbox, I learnt a few optimization tricks that I applied to my PSP port.
First of all, all stock Q3 maps will be playable (big maps such as Q3DM11 will fail to load in the current build).
I also managed to improve the texture quality. This means the game won't look like a muddy mess but It's going to be as close as the PS Vita/home ports, at no CPU cost:

Third and last, the next release will feature Team Arena and Open Arena.

 

[Mayo1990]

New update.

New builds​

• Team Arena
• Open Arena

Features​

• Performance improvements
• On boot the console will also set the username from the console instead of Unnamedplayer
• Memory improvements
• Improved loading times
• Graphics improvements
• Overall stability fixes

Download

I want to focus mainly on the graphics overhaul because It's probably the best thing I ever accomplished in this port so far, at no performance cost. Here's a comparison with VitaQuakeIII.