Game settings

POST PLAYING SETTINGS AND SUGGESTIONS HERE
Oldsparky

Game settings

Post by Oldsparky »

To improve your on line play Tweaking some settings in the game engine
will make your movements more smooth and responsive.

In the game or the opening flyby is probably best

type <tab>preferences

Click on + next to networking
Click on + next to TCP/IP play
Click on maxclientrate and type in 2500 for dialup or 5000 for broadband
click on netservermaxt and set to 1
In advanced and game engine settings near top of list
If your system has 256meg or more of ram,
in +game engine set cache size to 128 meg,,or if you have less than 256m
maybe set to 64m cache size.

turn off weapons flash
turn off view bob
set mouse sensitivity to at least 10
you must be able to crouch, jump and change weapons
left mouse is primary fire
right mouse is secondary fire
wheel if you have one will change weapons

To keep from having to re download maps from server your
purge cache should be set to 0 days. This is found in game Engine
setttings

Because of some handicaps And desiring the least wrist movement
sparky plays on the number pad side of the key board,
set up is as follows

8 is forward
5 is backward
4 is strafe left
6 is strafe right
0 is crouch
. is activate item
+is next weapon
-is next item
*is previous item
enter is jump

IF YOU HAVE A AGP VIDEO CARD SUCH AS A GE FORCE
NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THE ADVANCED OPTIONS LIST YOU CAN FIND A SETTING
TO SET THE VIDEO TO PRE-CACHE TRUE,,THIS MAY HELP,,MAY NOT
CHECK ON +ON RENDERING AND THE + ON D3D.

In the menus, select ISDN line under networking,, do not use cable or dsl or Lan setting. If your dialup of course select the modem.

Oldsparky
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Post by Masterman »

Ok here's some more good game setting tips:

1. I see alot of you guys' screenshots, and notice in most of them that you guys have your weapon hand on the right-side. This is a no no. Set your weapon hand to middle. This will help you stay on target better, just like looking down the sights on a real gun.

2. Do you hate running over DP power-ups or picking up a crappy gun in the middle of a fight and having it switch? Well in UTF there is no option in the console for never switch weapon on pickup like in EDM. What you need to do is pick a key, and bind the command "neverswitchonpickup 1" The only problem with this is that every map change it disables this command, so you will have to remember to hit the key. Also, (and I can already hear Glen getting on me about this lol) is you can use this command in combination with your throw weapon key for fast weapon switch. When you throw the weapon, it automatically goes to your highest priority weapon. For example lets say you have ASMD, Flak Cannon, Razorjack and Rifle. You are currently using the Flak and have one shell left, so you hit your throw weapon key, and it will very quickly give you the rifle while still letting you keep the Flak. If you hit throw weapon again, it will go to the next high priority weapon and since the game sees that you just threw your rifle, it will give you the Razorjack. This will not work without the neverswitch command as it will give you the highest prioirty weapon and thats it. Now there's more to this, and I don't use it, but you can go into Adv. Options and change your weapon priorities. Default priorities are DP, Automag, Stinger, ASMD, 8Ball and so on. Well you can put all the weapons you never use in the lowest priority slots, and your favorites in the higher slots. For instance, lets say you hate the Biorifle and Razorjack, well put them in the #1 and 2 slots, that way you will never switch to them when using the throw weapon key. Also take note that you must be running forward or at a positive (forward) strafe for this to work. Running backwards will throw the weapon on the ground.

3. Mouse sensitivity. Everyone's settings are different because of the windows settings. So if Glen says he runs his at 10 and you change to that value, you may find that it is not what he is really running. My personal setting is 1, yes 1. If I take my mouse and move it sideways until I hit 90 degrees from where I was originally, my mouse moves 1.5 inches. The lower you go in mouse sensitivity, the more accurate you will be because it will feel more steady. You dont want it so low though that you knock everything off your desktop while trying to do a 180 degree turn heh.

4. Dodging. Gosh, I don't know why everyone is so afraid to try dodging. It is THE MOST BENEFICIAL movement in the game. I'm sure some of you guys watch me and think "God, this guy must be on crack. He's all over the place." The fact is I play very laid back believe it or not. You'd be amazed at how much distance you can cover when you dodge, and there's also a little secret to it as well which I'll get to soon. Dodging, for any newbies wondering, is when you tap your movement keys twice as fast as you can. You don't have to be stationary when you do it, you can do it while moving, and with practice you can do it all the time when moving. The secret in this game is to NEVER stand still at all. Dodging off of platforms is also a great way to get to another area that is far away and/or escape Turok's Eightball massacres :P Also, it is very hard for people to hit you while you are in the air, but for you, it is very easy to hit people that are on the ground. Now to the little "secret." Everyone knows you can dodge forward, but that is just about useless in DM and hard to do. To dodge forward onto something, turn your mouse 90 degrees to the destination and dodge where you want to go. While in air point your mouse forward so when you land you can pop Sparky's head off with the rifle :twisted: Also, when running forward, turn your mouse to the left or right between 45-60 degrees and at the same time while doing this, dodge in the opposite direction. So if you turn left, dodge right. Just as soon after you hit the dodge, point your mouse in the direction you were heading. Continuously doing this will allow you to get somewhere 2-3 times as fast as just running.

* On a special note to number 4, I have had a few people tell me that I either dissappear briefly when midway through dodge and when I move fast. This is on their end. Most likely their software rendering, settings and/or computer can't keep up with the speed. If you are running at anything below 25 FPS, your computer just can't handle OpenGL or D3D rendering. Glidewrapper or software rendering will cure this and give you better FPS, just won't look as pretty. Ideal FPS is between 60-90. My computer runs at 78-85 FPS using openGL and 1152 x 1024 resolution. Also, a lot of you tend to mistake this dodging speed as me sliding. I rarely slide in Newbies server anymore, and if I do then it is subconcious and I'm sorry.


5. In regards to maxclientrate, the higher the netspeed the better. Glen argues with me about this, and I respect his opinion, but a netspeed of 20000 will generally give you better results. Stunner is also an advocate of this. In Unreal Gold, default netspeed for cable/DSL is 15,000.


Here is a very good informative atricle from HLK website (sorry can't post a link to atricle):

From a player only perspective, the only thing that is interesting here (other than ping and pl, of course) is bytes/sec. This will always be capped by your netspeed (with a very few rare exceptions). For OUT side, it should actually NEVER exceed netspeed - because that is what the frame cap is for. If this reaches your netspeed on IN side, you might start missing out some information. If that happens only rarely in extreme situations, it's no reason to worry; however, if its a permanent condition, you might miss important data the server cant send you because your bandwidth is saturated. This usually happens due to unreasonably high tickrates on server side.

Tickrate basically is the "fps" the server is running at. It's basically the most important variable a server admin can change. There is a tradeoff here - higher tickrate means more cpu load and more traffic server->client, but also means better pings (both in display and effective) and generally a more precise simulation on the server.

The default tickrate (20 for internet servers) is what causes the horrible ping in stat net display - when the server runs at 20 ticks a second, that also means it can take up to 1/20th of a second before it can acknowledge a ping from a client - that means 50 ms! This also affects gameplay - having a server run at tickrate 20 means that player commands have to wait for 50 ms in worst case before they can actually affect gameplay. And aiming becomes less accurate - just think of playing with 20 fps. If you move your mouse fast, there are large "jumps" in your viewrotation at these low values, and that is exactly what the server will do with your aiming if it is running at such a low tickrate, causing "gaps" in your aiming movement. This is also the cause for the seemingly increasing damage for the continously firing weapons (pulse secondary and minigun) - aiming just gets more precise, causing more of the actually single shots to hit the target.

In the last year, server admins seem to have discovered that at a large scale. However, some of them went too far when fixing that misconfigured default setting - you can find servers running at tickrate 100 out there. Now while that is fine for people with a lot of bandwidth (as long as the server cpu and network connection is capable to sustain it), it is NOT fine for the average ISDN player.

The server->client traffic increases nearly at the same rate as the tickrate does, and tickrates of 100 generate too much traffic for a 64 kbit isdn line. That results in either packet loss (if maxclientrate on server is high enough and netspeed of the client is set to more than the line can actually handle to increase fps rates - see above for that..) or in the client missing game information ranging from decals to really important stuff like player movement.

On a sidenote - the reason for "f1-ping" being lower than stat net ping is simple: most clients will run at more fps than the server. That means the server will get an acknowledge to a ping request faster than the client will get it from the server - he just has to wait 1/fps seconds (plus the actual icmp ping, of course). For some strange reason (probably an attempt to filter out those dependencies) the client substracts half its frame-time (1/fps) from its own ping - that is why you'll always see a lower ping on your own machine than others will see for you.

There is one thing left to mention about packets/sec - if your fps get lower than this, you will most probably experience lag; this is the situation called "invisible packet loss" because it feels exactly like pl, but no pl is shown. I've yet to see that phenomenon myself, but it seems that UT has problems with handling two waiting packets in one frame. No solution is known to this - I'd suggest tweaking your UT for more fps. If you're willing to give up the "looks", there are many ways to improve your fps. Try one of the many many UT tweaking guides out there. Or buy a faster machine.


I'll post more tips as I think of them :)
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Post by Little Daisy Sunshine »

Thank you Louis. :D Some excellent helps in this. It is appreciated.
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Post by Masterman »

Also, to add to this discussion that nobody seems to be responding to except for Deborah, which dissapoints me into thinking that the rest of you are disregarding these tips as I spend alot of time writing them trying to help you guys. Anyways, here are a few more tips:

1. Jumping: Jumping is the worst habit you can possibly get into, however there are a few exceptions which I will get to in a minute. When you jump, you are an easy target as people are going to know exactly where you are going to land, especially with no air control, not only that, but you stay in the same place as where you jumped. Jumping should only be used mainly for getting up somewhere that you cannot run into. Now, the exceptions for jumping are when you are engaged with a player who is shooting you with either the eightball gun or Flak cannon. It is much harder to get hit because most people aim for the feet with these weapons. Also, when on a lift and people try to shoot the area that they think you are going to be, jump when the lift is almost to the top. This will give you time to escape while the player is reloading after shooting where they think you were gonna end up on the lift.

2. Crouching: I had a discussion on TeamSpeak last night with Deborah after I have been noticing her and other players crouching alot while in a fight. Crouching is an excellent tactic, but there is more involved than just crouching. If you are shooting or being shot at with the rifle or ASMD primary, being in the crouched position makes you a smaller target therefore making you harder to hit. You are also invulerable to headshots when you are crouched.

If you are going to crouch, you need not to stay in one place, you want to move. This is how I discovered sliding, but you don't have to slide to be a good moving croucher. You should only crouch during 1-2 shots, then move to a different location immediately while making sure you are still not being shot at; this is where dodge becomes beneficial. Alot of you may have trouble with doing this because your keyboard configuration is not set up optimally for your reflexes, which I will address next. Futhermore, crouching should only be used when using the Rifle or ASMD for beginners. Other weapons can blow up in your face until you know how to use them properly. Also, if you happen to be crouched next to a dead corpse, you will hit it and either shoot it, or blow yourself up. Floor elevation differences can complicate things as well, so make sure your line of sight is not obstructed.

3. Keyboard/Mouse Configuration. Some people I have talked to about their keyboard cofiguration should take up playing the piano, lol, at least IMO. You need to experiment with the most comfortable config you can find. You want to set it up in the fashion that you don't have to look down at the keyboard and can stay focused on the screen. Everyone is different with this depending on the size of their hands and other factors.

My current Configuration is as follows:

1. Arrow keys are my forward, backward, left (strafe left), right (strafe right). There is alot of empty space around this area, so there is less of a chance to hit the wrong button.

2. Crouch is my right shift key. It is a very large key, therefore creating an easier target. Also I have my neverswitch on pickup double binded to crouch. The command looks like this: Shift=Duck | Neverswitchonpickup 1. This way I don't forget to hit a separate binded key after every map.

3. Forward slash ( / ) is my throw weapon key.

4. Enter is activate.

5. Inventory select are delete and end keys

6. My Mouse config is as follows: Left click is primary fire, Middle mouse click is my Alternate fire, I use the scroller to switch weapons (up is next, down is prev), and right mouse click is jump.

X, C ,V, B, N, M are my binded say commands.

P is the command viewclass playerpawn, which allows you to spectate without being in spectator mode. This is a great command not only in COOP, but in a DM server when you enter a map and don't spawn. In COOP you can do it while actively in the game, but once you spawn in DM, it will not work. This way you don't have to go into options and change to spectator. Hit key continually to cycle through different players. Not only that, but you can view other spectators either flying around and who they are specing. :)

If some of you prefer to access your weapons with the number keys, try changing them over to the Number pad. Much easier to do.

Again, keyboard configuration is the key to improving your game play because you don't have to look at your keyboard and can just go by feel.


7. Audio. Listening to what is going on in the game is imperitive. Music and other can things interfere with this. Listen for people picking up ammo, health, footsteps, gun's firing, rifle slug sounds around you, water splashes, jumpboots activating, weapon switches, jumping, dodging sounds etc.. They all can give a players position away dramatically.
Try not to pick up things you don't need like ammo you don't use, guns you dont use, try not to jump unless you have to etc. Avoid making sounds as much as you can.
However, pick up armor, belts etc. even if you already have them, this way people can't pick them up until the items respawn, and hopefully by that time you will already have fragged 'em :twisted:

8. Alot of you guys are too eager to get in the fight and rush each other. I do it as well and it ends up getting me killed. If someone is shooting at you, find an alternate route and give them a surprise, or trick them into thinking you went the other way. Also, this can give you a great chance of finding armor which alot of you disregard. Armor is your FREIND 8)


Ok, this is getting wayy to long and I still have alot more, but I'll let you guys catch up with these tips and practice. Again, I want to help you guys so you can have more fun instead of getting frustrated. I love playing in Newbies because of the atmosphere and the great people that play there. Glen has done a great job with the servers trying to keep this game alive, but for it to stay alive, things have to change. Change is what keeps people interested and challenged, and that's what I am trying to assist with here..


Thank you for reading. 8)
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Post by Little Daisy Sunshine »

On one thingy. :) I tried the middle gun setting and found my aim was even more off then. :shock: :?: :?: :?:
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Post by Masterman »

You gotta get used to it, once you do though, you will be ALOT better with your AIM...

All good players use the weapon in the middle... 8)
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Post by Cactus »

Regarding the weapon center idea, I usually have mine hidden. unless Jules has been playing then I have it center. I never used left or right view as it always seemed odd to me, even from day 1.
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Post by Oldsparky »

Good tips but this makes my brain hurt.
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Post by Masterman »

No problem guys, I enjoy helping people out that are having difficulties :)
PS: About the weapon ,I do, do you?


Not sure what you mean by this BBG?
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Post by Masterman »

BeachBumGuy-(DOG)- wrote:Ah, never mind, it's just a twisted sense of humor. Totally off topic.
Good Games ,BBG :)
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Post by DaveAnd___ »

Thanks MM,

Personally I change the position of my gun depending on the gun im using and my position but its 80% right, 10% left and 10% center.

I dont really think there is much difference between center and you natural sight hand. I think its just what you get use to. When I started using center my aim was off for a week or so - but it corrected itself (as long you correct your aim).

Note : Newer players dont realize that bullets travel from your hand to the cross hair. So that even if the cross hair is on player you will not hit them unless they are on the line of travel which runs from your gun (hand) to the cross-hair(hence gun center can help). If a player is up close this is exaggerated, and is meaningless if the player is very far.
The gun is also lower than you eye too - which also has an effect which ever the position of the gun - Like MM says just because you can see some one, dont mean you can shoot them - and if you are using the 8ball your gonna blow yourself up - until you learn this.

Straight line shooting is easier/better with center but if you are jumping round a left hand corner and are right handed - right is better (and visa versa).

I used the cursor keys from about 1995 to 2006 (Doom and Doom2, Duke3D, etc...) but changed to:
z: jump
alt: crouch
xcv : left, back, right
space : alt-fire

mouse: left-btn: pri-fire, right-btn: fwd

b : throw-weapon

s : sniper-riffle
d : eight-ball

Etc...........

This took two weeks to get use to but now i dont have to think about anything.

But, keyboards do differ and I have big hands - and have been playing guitar for 21 years - so this suits me, but maybe not everyone :)

It is definitely worth changing you set up from time to time - but it will screw you up for a few days...and you can always change it back...

One good thing about this setup is accessing all you major keys easily and secondary keys almost as easy and so on.... if you want to bind a key there is usually a free one quite near.
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Post by Masterman »

Been awhile since I posted here, as to let all this absorb, but there are a few more tricks, some good tricks and some dirty tricks (yes, I'm going to share them with you to make you all aware).


Headphones vs. Speakers: Using speakers, unless you have a REALLY nice system, is going to give you a fair sized disadvantage. Alot of real sharp noises (ammo pickups, weapon switches etc.) are not produced through speakers as well as they are through headphones, which have fundamentally Dolby surround-sound like properties. You can hear alot more that's going on around you. Stereo headphones are the best because they use your primary device (SBLive, SoundMAX etc). USB uses onboard sound which in my experience is not as good of quality. Audio is a major part of a gaming experience, and optimizing it is very important, even though a good freind of mine from way back is deaf but yet is one of the best players in the U1 community. You may know him as Prof3ssional.


Rendering Devices: As some of you may have seen in the UT section, I provided the openGL driver and well as the list of patches for various game versions. OpenGL is superior to D3D in my book. Have tried both extensively, and openGL is the best. Before you go tweaking with your rendering settings, do a quick test to see your FPS. Hit tab, then type timedemo 1 (0 to reverse it). See what your FPS is while you walk around the map. 30-40 = Average; 40-60 = Above average; 60-90+ you are doing very well :wink:

Those that have choppy performance near walls and players should enable VSync. If you get up near a wall or player and your FPS goes berserk, then this is a must do. For D3D, go into your preferences or .ini and under rendering, choose D3D, then look for Vsync. Set it to true. It will smooth things out quite considerably. OpenGL shouldn't have this problem, if it does it is related to something else which is too broad a subject to cover here. I'd have to know your exact settings.

Refresh Rates: If you are using an LCD or LED monitor, max refresh rate is 60HZ, and most likely it is already set to that. For people using CRT monitors, you can adjust your refresh rates sometimes to 100+ HZ depending on the monitor. To set this, right click your desktop, go to properties, select the settings tab, click advanced in lower right, then click monitor. There should be a scroll browser for refresh rates. Set it as high as it will go. My last CRT monitor allowed 75HZ. This will improve gameplay dramatically as well.


Now for some (not all) of the dirty tricks. I do NOT use these, but I do know about them and feel that you guys should too. You should be familiar with how and why they work so you can spot them while playing (especially true for admins).

Dodgeclicktime: Default is .25000. the higher the value (1 being maximum) the more sensitive it is. You can set it so sensitive that you just have to press the movement key once and it will dodge. This is in your user.ini in your system folder.

Behindview: I know some players that have this bound to keys so they can toggle back and forth, and I don't agree with it. The benefit of this is to be able to look around walls, down elevator shafts etc. without the other player(s) seeing you. Command is Behindview 1 to enable and 0 to disable. Good for looking at skins!! Bad for DM advantage.

Onrelease: This is an especially a dirty trick. So dirty that I almost don't want to even post the command script for it, so I'll just give the description. This is a double or triple bound command. What it does is allow people to do a variety of things, most notably the ASMD combo. What these people do is double bind this command to their secondary fire key. When they press down on it, it will shoot the ASMD ball or secondary, when they release it will immediately fire the primary fire producing a combo basically instantaneously (hence Onrelease). It is very cheap and I've even been in a situation with a player where his combo killed both me and him because it detonated so close. It can be used for other weapons and "things" as well, not gonna tell you which ones.

FOV: This script allows you to bind a key for different Fields of View (FOV). When doing this you can set different keys to different FOV values to allow you to instantly zoom in with the rifle (or other weapon if you script it right) without the delay and instantly zoom back...UTeam supposedly fixed this, but I still see people doing it. I don't zoom period FYI...


Ok, enough of that BS, just figured I'd let some of you know about them. And once again I DO NOT use any of these.
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Post by Oldsparky »

Well with a true monitor, and D3D I can get over 120FPS. As far as the head phones and stuff, well Im half deaf anyway. With all the fancy stuff you can do to the game, If my game is on, and my connections good, I will still kick some Youngsters Butt. Hehe. Good post on things not to do Masterman. :wink:
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Post by Masterman »

Hehe Glen, yes you do have your days where you kick my butt, and those are the days I like to see!!! :D

As far as posting these, no problem.. 8)
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Post by Little Daisy Sunshine »

Good info, :D

hate the avatar. :?
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