Quake3 won't utdeom2003 works fine! what could be wrong with q3?
 

I installed latest nvidia drivers on my Suse 8.0 linux ( all updates installed ).
I installed utdemo2003 and runs great.

Quake 3 and Wolfenstien both starts display messages to the console screen, the last line stats RENDERER ... GeForce 2 Ti ...
The focus switches to X session and goes black and dies.
If I switch back to my console screen I can see an error saying that the Xserver has received the kill signal.

Anyone have any idea why the Xserver should receive a kill signal.

Attaching your /var/log/XFree86.0.log file might help.

Here is tail end of output from quake3 2> q3.err
--------------
4405 files in pk3 files
execing default.cfg
couldn't exec q3config.cfg
couldn't exec autoexec.cfg
Hunk_Clear: reset the hunk ok
Joystick is not active.
----- Client Initialization -----
----- Initializing Renderer ----
-------------------------------
----- Client Initialization Complete -----
----- R_Init -----
...loading libGL.so: Initializing OpenGL display
...setting mode 3: 640 480
Using XFree86-VidModeExtension Version 2.1
XF86DGA Mouse (Version 2.0) initialized
XFree86-VidModeExtension Activated at 1280x1024
Using 8/8/8 Color bits, 24 depth, 0 stencil display.
GL_RENDERER: GeForce2 Ti/AGP/SSE2/forceSW
X connection to 127.0.0.1:0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).

--------------------------------------
Here is tail end of XFree86.log
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Mouse[1]" (type: MOUSE)
(II) Open APM successful
(II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "1280x1024"
(II) Open APM successful
(II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "1280x1024"
SwitchToMode - scrn: 0 clock: 108000
hdsp: 1280 hbeg: 1328 hend: 1440 httl: 1688
vdsp: 1024 vbeg: 1025 vend: 1028 vttl: 1066 flags: 5

Fatal server error:
Caught signal 11. Server aborting

Full log is attached.

I've had similar problems with XVidMode a while ago... does setting X to 640x480 (using Ctrl-Alt-KeypadMinus) before you load up Q3 work? If so, then maybe you need to set Q3 to use the same resolution you run X at?

I'm not sure (and there was nothing of use in your X log, either), I'm just guessing here...

Other GL programs work, right? Yeah, you said that above, with the UT demo. So it's probably not a mismatched GL library issue...

Edit your baseq3/q3config.cfg file and change com_maxfps to whatever your monitor's refresh rate is.

tried changing to 640x480
 

Lowering X resolution didn't make any difference.
CTRL-ALT-minus doesn't work for me. It works on a Suse 7.0 machine we have work but that machine doesn't have 3d card can't try Q3 on it.

I'll try setting max_fps to match refresh rate but I don't think that will help as it doesn't get as far as playing the idlogo movie.