Game Tweaks

[FadedOasis]

Every game sucks a little bit. This thread is for ways to tweak your games so they suck a little less. Let's try and keep this thread as informative as possible. Please post tweaks, and try not to post "OMG Thank you I didn't know you could do that!"

Left 4 Dead 2 - Always search for servers with less than 70 ping
1. Go to your Left 4 Dead 2 config folder: Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\cfg\
2. Make a new file called "autoexec.cfg"
3. Open it in notepad and add the following to it:

mm_dedicated_search_maxping 70
sv_region 0

4. Save, close, and start up L4D2.

[carbad]

*deep breath*

//Netcode Settings (change to your preference)
rate "30000" // Must be set to 25000+
cl_cmdrate "100" // Must be set to 66+
cl_updaterate "101" // Must be set to 66+
cl_smooth "0"

paste these on your TF2 autoexec, they tell the server that you want more updates more often to smooth out your game. the cl_smooth 0 disables client side "guess" correction which makes players with bad connections look jumpy but makes hitboxes more accurite.

Relevant to this discussion is cl_interp, set so something like 0.02000 by default. Projectile classes probably want this set low (i forget the minimum but it's around 0.015ish). Hitscan players (scout, sniper) will want this set just a bit higher than your ping divided by 1000 (ex at 50 ping set cl_interp to .0500). It's largely a matter of preference so you might decide you don't need it, but some players believe it helps them shoot accurately by lining up hitboxes with world models or some jazz.

low FPS got you down? check this: www.m0re.nocrits.com/index.php?site=files&cat=1
the highfps script makes your game look like poop, but it guarantees you'll get a decent frame rate even during intense action. I get 250 FPS on empty servers and never less than 100 on full ones. Paste in autoexec or put it in a new file and exec it manually from console.

Also, be sure to go to options > mutliplayer > advanced and check out the options there. You can turn on damage display, medic autocall (my favorite feature ever), color blind jarate (i'm not colorblind but I like it anyway because it's easier to see) and FOV settings (actually under graphics > advanced). I recommend setting your FOV to 90, because it allows you to see more of the world around you.

[FadedOasis]

I should have specified. This is not a scripting thread. This thread is for ways to tweak your games so they suck a little less, not to tweak the playstyle so the player sucks less. :-)

Edit: Thank you, carbon, for editing your post. :-D

[phevnil]

Not saying there is any suckishness in the game but I have three quick Torchlight mods to point out. Only the first is really important but the second and third add some to the overall game.

The first is the "official" (a staff member made it, at least) respec mod. Basically, the mischelanious vendor in the town now sells 15000 gold potions that, when used, refund all your skill points (class skils, there is a mod for things like strength and dexterity but it isn't official and not as important)

The second is the champions mod. Basically, extends the range of champions (stronger enemies that grant fame on death) by adding in scaled up (in size and strength) versions of the majority of common enemies that randomly spawn along with the regular ones. It also adds in a few new enemies (such as the summonable imps and golems, slightly scaled in size) to spawn along with everything else. On top of that, there is a slight change for the leveling of portal maps.

The last, and least, is a small enemy weapon variety mod. Basically, it randomizes the weapons that enemy’s spawn holding. It doesn’t effect what they drop or how much damage they do, it just means you get a variety in the cookiecutter skeleton mass rushing towards you.

[Jeziah]

Hmm, cl_smooth actually only applies to personal input lagjumps ("errors"). It's cl_predict you want lower to remove these, however it will cause a delay in input the same as your ping (or no lower than 100 milliseconds). Either way, it will only effect you, and if turning off a) cl_predict will cause a delay in input (press of a button, slide of the mouse) and b) cl_smooth will actually cause MORE (albeit more minor) prediction errors :/. The only reliable way to fix lagjump problems is to have the server admin set sv_minrate to something high so everybody has to send in enough data for the server to make strong predictions. Personal lagjumps could be fixed with cl_updaterate (times per second server will send data) and cl_cmdrate (times per second client will send updated data to the server).

Also all the optimizations depend on the server, as you can only set a higher updaterate if the server tickrate is high enough, and then only to the maximum/minimum values the server is set to allow. If you have a good connection and a good processor, just set everything to 99999etc and the server will automatically limit you to the best number... and FYI, an increased updaterate/cmdrate is an increased CPU load+network traffic.

Oh, and cl_interp can only be set to cl_interp_ratio/cl_updaterate. cl_interp_ratio is the number of packets interpolation will wait for to act on, and it's 2 by default so that a dropped packet doesn't cause a lagjump. You can try to set cl_interp to something different, but that will just cause it to act on incomplete data, so it's best to tweak cl_updaterate and cl_interp_ratio and use the formula to set cl_interp accordingly, so that each interpolation is full and steady.

Clarification: cl_interp is the client delay between data processing. It takes the server data (sent at the delay of 1/cl_updaterate, or the server rate limit, whichever is lower), organizes it, and at the delay of cl_interp 's value (in seconds) renders it to the client. So, your ACTUAL ping is your ping+cl_interp(default 100ms); changing cl_updaterate to allow for a lower stable setting of cl_interp will decrease your relativistic ping accordingly.

Oh, and don't worry about setting your cl_updaterate or cl_cmdrate lower than 66, the TF2 default is 30 and whatever you set the server will still control it.

EDIT: Quantum's Little Config is great for setting your game quality, from lowest possible (got TF2 running well on my 800mb ram, 128mb video card friend's computer ) to highest possible (mine, with some additions and 15-25 fps on Sawmill :'c)

Edit by Faded: Added extra line between paragraphs to make this wall of text a little more readable. :-)

[.: sora]

Dec 30, 2009 19:17:31 GMT -5 FadedOasis said:

This thread is for ways to tweak your games so they suck a little less, not to tweak the playstyle so the player sucks less. :-)

But I'm bad. :<

crbn plz pm scriptz 2 maek gud @ gaems thx <333

[Jeziah]

Sora is NOT bad. That lier.

[FadedOasis]

How to tweak Windows 7 for gaming (to fix that nasty FPS spike)

support.microsoft.com/kb/948066

Basically, do this:
1. Open regedit
2. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Cu rrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
There will be an entry for network performance throttling, default value is 10; double click the entry, and where it says "a" change it to FFFFFFFF hex (IT will look like 0xFFFFFFFF to the right of the entry)
3. Reboot

[snakeeyes]

In all Source games, adding -novid to your launch options removes the intro videos.

In Company of Heroes, -nomovies will remove the 8 or so intro videos (Powered by Intel, Powered by nVidia, powered by Cocaine, powered by hamsters, RELIC!!!!), and -dev will allow you to play custom maps (if you have them). This also works on non-steam versions of CoH, just add them to the end of the shortcut target after the quotes.

Defragging Steam:

The way Steam defragment works is it essentially hooks into the Windows defragmenter to make sure all your steam files aren't fragmented across the hard drive, but Steam GCF files are actually archives, similar to a zip file, and the data within these GCF files can become fragmented. This increases load times and generally results in a poorer gaming experience. To fix this, you can download HLExtract and a batch file to fix it, but I've compiled a zip for you.

Copy the contents of the zip to your "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\" close Steam, then run the batch.

portfolio.itas.ca/~jake.skelcher/fragasm/defrag.zip


Contents of the bat:
@echo off
for %%F in (*.gcf) do "HLExtract.exe" -f -p "%%F"
pause