ROQ File

What are ROQ files and how to open them

Are you having problems opening a ROQ file or are you simply curious about its contents? We're here to explain the properties of these files and provide you with software that can open or handle your ROQ files.

What is a ROQ file?

A .ROQ file is an Id Software RoQ Video file.

Id Software RoQ Video files store pre-rendered motion video and audio used in video games developed by id Software, especially in id Tech 3 (Quake III Arena) and id Tech 4 (Doom 3). These files serve as in-game cinematics, cutscenes, or texture-mapped video playback rather than gameplay recordings. Their purpose is to deliver visual storytelling or cinematic sequences inside the game engine, not to capture or replay player activity.

The files are produced by encoding raw video frames and audio input (often compressed/decompressed tools provided by id or community toolsets) into RoQ format. Once created, game engines decode these files to display video frames and play the audio in sync. The RoQ format uses vector quantization for video compression so that visual content is tiled or reconstructed via a set of codebook vectors rather than storing full raw pixels each frame, reducing size and processing demands. For audio, the format uses a type of DPCM (differential pulse-code modulation) encoding.

Internally a RoQ file consists of a sequence of chunks, each prefixed by a chunk type identifier and size. The video portion operates in YUV 4:2:0 color space and can contain initial full codebooks followed by frames encoded by referring to these vectors. Audio chunks use IDs (e.g. 0x1020 mono, 0x1021 stereo) with an initial predictor and DPCM bytes. Additionally there is a byte signature - bytes 0x84 0x10 FF FF FF FF 1E 00 at the very start (offset 0) - that identifies the format.

How to open ROQ files

We have identified one ROQ opener that is compatible with this specific type of ROQ file.

Programs that open Id Software RoQ Video files

Last updated: August 13, 2026

Various apps that use files with this extension

These apps are known to open certain types of ROQ files. Remember, different programs may use ROQ files for different purposes, so you may need to try out a few of them to be able to open your specific file.

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