looking at vids of q4 it looks great but even on the highest settings it looks more like a cartoon than the prey game am I missing something
thanks

Load quake change your aspect ratio and max resolution ratio and set it to ultra exit out and then In Quake4Config.cfg add/edit these lines:

seta image_downSize "0"
seta image_downSizeBump "0"
seta image_downSizeSpecular "0"

you can optionally add/edit custom resolution:

seta r_customHeight "2560"
seta r_customWidth "1440"
seta r_mode "-1"
seta r_aspectRatio "1"

Use seta r_aspectRatio "0" for 4:3, "1" for 16:9, and "2" for 16:10.

if you do all that you'll get the nice ultra resolution textures but the GUI interface will look squished still.. ambient lighting looks bad keep it off.

Unfortunately, Quake 4's source code was never released, unlike Quake 1 through 3 Arena, so there are no Quake 4 source ports that would address all of these issues early on.