Tyrquake port in libretro/retroarch.

I like fairly pure QuakeSpasm. 😊

Best is so subjective. I personally prefer the software way enough to do my own port for filling my preferred 'hd software mode' niche.

Mappers prefer something resembling cruft-free vanilla that supports their super map limits, Quakespasm and Fitzquake fall nicely into that category.

DirectQ is now obscure, but still remains the ONLY accelerated engine to recreate Quake's sky/water effects with pixel shaders, and is generally polished enough while not shitting on quake's aesthetic so many engines tend to do.

Avoid "nextgen HD remaster pack's" unless you really like tiny FOV in super blue water and horrible lighting and shadows with bad bumpmaps. the usual 'newbie novelty' stuff really destroys the game.

Rod Primitive wrote:

I prefer to emulate it in DOSBox for purist reasons.

Why emulate at all? WinQuake still works. It's pretty much the same as the DOS version, just running inside a simple DirectX-wrapper.
Of course, GLQuake also works, which would still qualify for some values of 'pure', since it is an official ID release (as was WinQuake).

WQ runs very slow for me on almost any 4:3 resolution I throw at it

GLQuake + MiniGL 1.49 + nGlide.

Yeah. GLQuake did the trick. It looks like it did when new but also has some nice effects small enough to not become annoying (a la Darkplaces)

there should be awareness that you're missing out on overbrights and glowing textures when you play GLQuake, features Quake originally had

Thanks for telling me since I never had a clue about that. Can you give an example?

Lots of examples (screenshots) in this article: https://www.quaddicted.com/engines/software_vs_glquake

Thanks. The changes are pretty huge

What I do is run Dark places but turn the effects to "Quake" and the lighting at. "Normal". replicates GLQuake but with overbrights pretty much.