This is going to be a guide on how to get quake to look really good for this weeks tnt. You need a few things. 
 
ultimate quake patch. 
vis files for transparent water 
high res textures and bumpmaps 
water reflections and refractions. 
 
1. First get quake installed via steam.   
 
2. Download the ultimate quake patch here.  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8E2L7FCO 
 
3. download the vis data files here.   http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/project/vispatch/vispatch/1.4.5/vispatch-1.4.5.tgz 
 http://surfnet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/vispatch/vispatch%20data/1.0/id1_vis.tgz  
 
extract both into the ID1 subfolder 
rename id1.vis to vispatch.dat 
 
open a command prompt in the id1 folder. type vispatch and you are done. 
 
Next install the high res bumpmaps and texture maps/models pack. 
  http://facelift.quakedev.com/download/qrp-maptextures-2007-10-06r2-7files.zip 
  http://facelift.quakedev.com/download/QRP-NormalMaps_20.12.09-BETA.7z 
     http://www.quake-1.com/files/textures/darkplaces-qrp-remodel-plus-plagues-pack.pk3
http://fvfonline.com/FvFmonsterSkins.zip 
 
Put these in Id1 as well. for the skins put them in id1/textures   
 
Lastly install   http://urre.quakedev.com/water/dp_pretty_water.zip 
Put this in ID1 as well. Start up glquake.exe in the main folder of quake. open the console with ~ and type exec water.cfg 
 
Now go through the options and turn everything to max. Turn on RTworld and go down and make sure the water has some opacity.  
 Under RTworld there will be options for the lighting which will let you turn up the brightness. I think its rtworldlights or lightmaps. 
Quake will now look freaking amazing.  
 
Hope this helps some of you who want a little more "modern" in your quake :) 
 

screenshots before and after?

" screenshots before and after? "

Bah, just use Darkplaces if all that fingle-fangle up there sounds too complicated.

" screenshots before and after? "

Pics or I'm too lazy to do it.

there are your pics lazies.

Thanks for the screen shots. I don't have quake or the time right now to do it. And yes image search may work but it is tough to know which images are from where.

I tried following this, and so far it's not getting the same results. When running the water.cfg, I get told it's read only, and I'm not getting any normal mapping for the life of me. Should I be running glqwcl.exe instead of just glquake.exe?

" I tried following this, and so far it's not getting the same results. When running the water.cfg, I get told it's read only, and I'm not getting any normal mapping for the life of me. Should I be running glqwcl.exe instead of just glquake.exe? "

The thing you HAVE to install first is the ultimate quake patch. This will create the glquake. It has all the options you need. If you are getting crashes with RT world than you need to make sure the pak file is in the Id1 folder.  
 
You do not run quake from steam. You run glquake.exe from the steam/steamapps/common/quake directory. The water pak file must be in Id1 as well and you must run water.cfg by typing exec water.cfg from the console. 

This is making my brain hurt. But I'm stoked for the TNT. Nice of you to throw up a guide like this.

What texture filter stuff did Brad have off in ezquake? I couldn't get mine too look exactly like how it did in the stream.