I have a vague recollection that it was fixed or mostly eliminated in Quake 3. It was definitely still an issue in Quake 2, and one relatively well-known cheap trick was leading people towards particularly architecturally dense parts of the map and using a weapon such as the hyper-blaster, which was a high rate of fire laser gun for some unfortunate reason was implemented as a discrete particle/projectile for each shot. This would sometimes slow down the opponent(s) significantly enough to make a difference.
There were also special moves, especially rocket jumps, and double-jumps that were impossible <60fps, and got easier towards 100+ (This being in the days of 200MHz pentiums and software rendering, "Monster 3D 4MB", and intense envy of those who could afford 2x 12MB Voodoo II cards.
And yet another reason why the serious competitors would turn off almost all graphics so that all you saw were colored boxes running around in colored boxes.
There were also special moves, especially rocket jumps, and double-jumps that were impossible <60fps, and got easier towards 100+ (This being in the days of 200MHz pentiums and software rendering, "Monster 3D 4MB", and intense envy of those who could afford 2x 12MB Voodoo II cards.