When navigating the world of Quake III patches today, keep these points in mind:

From a modern perspective, the CD check for Quake III Arena was doomed to fail for several fundamental reasons.

Nevertheless, for most players, the removal of the CD check was a welcome change. As one forum user aptly summarized years later: "id added the check to satisfy the publisher, then ripped it out as soon as they could. I wish more developers would do that."

Marcus tried to quit. ESC did nothing. Ctrl+Alt+Del was a silent prayer.

The most stable way to play without a CD is to update the game to the latest official version.