settings optimization for lower end computers..?

[LukeW]

You see, I recently lost my fancy nice computer in a house fire, and I made a computer at home out of spare parts in my parents basement.

The specs are:

600 Mhz (P3)
Radeon 7000 (got the best drivers installed for it)
512 RAM (Pre-DDR)

I also have a ball mouse, but find that irrelevant since I've always played MS:C without a mouse.

Its got XP/SP2 and basically has all the same software as my old computer, save raw power.

Now, granted, its a piece of trash and I should just wait for the insurance company to replace my old computer, but I don't do anything all day, and I'm sure theres gonna be some other sad chap with a lame rig that would appreciate the help as well.

MS:C Runs, to the point where if I was really really devoted, I could play all day and get some levels and get used to the lag.

But I want some tips on settings/sliders, anything I can change or play with the raise the FPS of poor poor MS:C to maybe a consistent 20-25.

Any cvars that will effect FPS (and your suggested settings for them) are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Thothie]

Some big ones I remember off hand:

r_mirroralpha 0 //turn off mirror alphas
r_traceglow 0 //occlude check monsters
r_decals 0 //don't track decals
r_dynamic 0 //disable some dynamic lighting
r_mmx 1 //force MMX optimizations
r_drawviewmodel 0 //hides weapon model (best if you use 3rd person)
r_detailtexture 0 //disables detail texts (but dun think any map uses em)
cl_giblife 0 //don't track gibs
cl_gibvelscale 4 //scale gibs (def 1)
cl_himodels 0 //lq models prob no effect in msc)
gl_alphamin 1 //don't blend alpha
gl_cull 1 //obey occluders
gl_dither 0 //dont dither
gl_keeptjunctions 0 //dont do fine calc on junctions
gl_lightholes 0 //dont do fine calc on lights
gl_max_size 64 //max texture size (256 is default)
gl_palette_tex 0 //ignore local texture palettes
gl_picmip 2 //scale textures (0 is default)
gl_playermip 2 //scale textures on models (0 is default)
gl_round_down 6 //round down texutrse, 3 is default)
gl_smoothmodels 0 //do not anti-alias models
gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_NEAREST //texture scaling mode
//(this is fastet, highest quality is: GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR)
gl_texsort 0 //disable texture sorting
gl_wateramp 0 //do not render water waves
gl_ztrick 1 //speeds up some older graphics cards

I think gl_picmip and gl_playermip can actually go all the way up to 4. But not entirely sure if MSC supports these options proper.

Most of those will require you to restart your game before they take effect so best to stick em in a config file and exec it.

There's a bunch of others, but tis what I recall off hand...

There's also these MSC specific ones:

ms_reflect 0 //disable reflections
ms_hidehud 1 //remove ms hud (wont see red guy - or health)

Making the txt huds transparent might be good too. (ie. no alpha blend on it.)

ms_txthud_bgtrans 1
ms_evthud_bgtrans 1

You can adjust the size of the event huds and chat, so they put less lines on the screen. Maybe not such a good idea with chat, as often you cannot find said chat in console:

ms_evthud_size 4 //combat text, default 8
ms_txthud_size 3 //chat text, default 8

Also make sure you tweak the hell out of the catalyst drivers. I dunno if there are any good alternate drivers for that series card. Disable services, put in high priority, yadda yadda.

 

[LukeW]

Yeah I've got the best benchmarked catalyst drivers for this card.

and thanks thoth, as always.

 

[LukeW]

ms_hidehud 1 //remove ms hud (wont see red guy - or health)

Does that mean you play without the hud? hmm... Id do it if there was any way to see mana

 

[Thothie]

No. :\ Although you could make a toggle for it.

alias +hud_on "ms_hidehud 1"
alias -hud_on "ms_hidehud 0"
bind x +hud_on

(Would put hud on for as long as X was held)

I might be able to add a command to the scripts that would let you get health and mana readouts in the combat events as an option, everytime you were struck or cast a spell... Hmmm...

Oh yeah, that's an ATI card so don't forget:

ati_npatch 0
ati_subdiv 0

Kinda a big one with those cards, otherwise it attempts to add more poly's to models to tweak them into being smoother looking.

 

[LukeW]

Thanks.

Multiple Questions, since your reading this post anyway:

Whats the best SC to aim for for a good glow radius,

Does Ice Shield duration go up SC, and if so, by how much,

Do helmets add any damage reduction yet, if so, where can I get info on how much? (Wiki?)

 

[Thothie]

Whats the best SC to aim for for a good glow radius,

Glow starts being brighter than a torch around level 5. At level 12 it gets its full nova-glory.

Does Ice Shield duration go up SC, and if so, by how much,

The minimum Ice Shield duration is 30 seconds + Concentration level

Do helmets add any damage reduction yet, if so, where can I get info on how much? (Wiki?)

Helmets reduce the % chance of being stunned by attacks (such as those stun attacks employed by boars, ghouls, ice reavers, orc brawlers, etc. etc.) Some helmets have other special properties. (atm: fire/cold resistance).

 

[LukeW]

Way cool. Okay, some more:

Is it possible to script a full unequip/re-equip at map change? So people can see your gear? Or even script it for a 1 button-press sort of thing?

Does it rain anymore? If so, is there a way to stop it? (When I ran a server that repeatedly set the time to 7 am, I got lots of rain problems.)

Is there any way to train a spell casting skill other than fire/ice/lightning?

Is there ANY WAY, Short of changing the games deepest bowels of coding, to remove the central server messages? Those things drive me crazy!

Thanks

 

[Thothie]

Is it possible to script a full unequip/re-equip at map change? So people can see your gear? Or even script it for a 1 button-press sort of thing?

Not that I've figured.

Does it rain anymore? If so, is there a way to stop it? (When I ran a server that repeatedly set the time to 7 am, I got lots of rain problems.)

Yes. Eh, but potentially abusive, so I'll PM. You can also change time repeatedly - but to some OTHER time (or one minute backwards also works, as it forces the day to wrap around).

Next month, you'll be able to just type 'clearsky' and it will only affect your client.

Is there any way to train a spell casting skill other than fire/ice/lightning?

Affliction and Divination also have trainable spell snow. There's also ways to train them without casting any spells at all, but that would be spoilers (req. special items).

Is there ANY WAY, Short of changing the games deepest bowels of coding, to remove the central server messages? Those things drive me crazy!

Not that I can think of... I maybe able to change it into a console message or something.

 

[LukeW]

Not that I can think of... I maybe able to change it into a console message or something.

Do it. ASAP.

 

[Thothie]

To expidite this effort - can you give me the EXACT text used when FN gets disconnected? If I start searching for strings like "disconnected central server" - it's going to take a while to search the megabytes of code involved.

 

[The Man In Black]

 

[Netrogor]

Making that flood the console instead, would be awesome... it does get annoying when I host and have that pop up while in-game...

 

[Thothie]

Oh this is effing cute; I can't find that text string, or any signifigant part of it, anywhere. ><

It's not in the client code, the central code, or the ms.dll code, or the scripts... Gah, where is it hiding!? ><

Tried searching for "loaded or saved" and "re-established" and "established"

 

[The Man In Black]

I'll take a look around later, but wasn't the file for making the char-select-screen-fuznet-message thing ON FuzNet?

Anyway, I would highly doubt that it's in cl_dll as it's more of a server thing.

Edit: I think this is it, not sure without finding the String though.

else
{
	//Notify the server admin
	Print( "Central Server connection broken." );
	MSCentral::m_TimeRetryConnect = 0;

	//Notify players
	MESSAGE_BEGIN( MSG_ALL, g_netmsg NETMSG_CLDLLFUNC] );
	WRITE_BYTE( 6 );
	WRITE_BYTE( 2 );
	WRITE_BYTE( MSCentral::m_Online );
	MESSAGE_END();
}

That's in MSCentralTransaction_DLL in the "think" function.

 

[Thothie]

I'll take a look around later, but wasn't the file for making the char-select-screen-fuznet-message thing ON FuzNet?

Anyway, I would highly doubt that it's in cl_dll as it's more of a server thing.

Edit: I think this is it, not sure without finding the String though.

else
{
	//Notify the server admin
	Print( "Central Server connection broken." );
	MSCentral::m_TimeRetryConnect = 0;

	//Notify players
	MESSAGE_BEGIN( MSG_ALL, g_netmsg NETMSG_CLDLLFUNC] );
	WRITE_BYTE( 6 );
	WRITE_BYTE( 2 );
	WRITE_BYTE( MSCentral::m_Online );
	MESSAGE_END();
}

That's in MSCentralTransaction_DLL in the "think" function.

Yeah, saw that. I searched the code for Fuznet too, and didn't find any relevant string (I used both the VS search, and a hex search). I'm worried that this means we're missing some vital bit of code.

The message text could very well be client side, just triggered by a server message, but if it is, we don't have the file it's in. IIRC the linkage for the client side moduel came out okay though - I've not tried the Central Code yet *gulp*.

 

[The Man In Black]

Could be. Try compiling, running on FN, then yanking out your internet cord. I can't do it atm, gotta head to class NOW.

 

[Thothie]

Well, I just ripped out my graphics card (I'm takin git back to the shop in about an hour). I'm using my on-board graphics card now, and I'm trying to figure how to get it to run in Half-Life.

Damn thing is pretty sweet, in that it runs Quake3 at a flat 60 FPS with all the goodies (60FPS being the vsync cap - so it likely could go faster). However, it won't run Half-life DM in OpenGL at more than 1 frame per 10 seconds (gets about 25FPS in D3D mode), and crashes on MSC in OpenGL (and MSC doesn't accept D3D), atm. Playing with it...

Should add that on the list of hard-code things to do: make MSC accept D3D - just don't render the OpenGL fx... Sadly, that's certainly a client side thing - but I think it'd be worth a re-release by itself, since so many MSC players are on low end machines. (This is pretty much THE mmorpg for crap puters)

edit:
*sigh* There is something SERIOUSLY wrong, when you get a solid 60FPS in Quake2 in OpenGL (mind, you, this is the engine HL1 is supposedly built on), and... Better yet... Get a solid 60FPS in the Half-Life2 demo at moderate (default) quality mode. - Yet can't get more than 1 frame per 10 seconds in Half-Life1, and can't get it to work at all in MSC. ><

To make matters worse, the search function at the Steam forums is broken, so I can't search for my internal graphics card and any issues there maybe. (Intel Graphics Media Accelerator G965 3000)

I dunno, I can't test jack right now, and if I can't suitable replacement for this graphics card at the store, I doubt I'll be able to test anything for the rest of the month. I suspect FEB2007a will just have to be what I have now.

 

[Thothie]

Good news, is it mysteriously started working... Seems I have to do some odd dance where I have to connect to a server once, watch it crash to console, then start my own server, and repeat. (I hope it still works after restart).

The disgusting thing, is my Quake3 looks like this:
http://www.thothie.com/msc_dev1/crap_graphix2.jpg
Runs at a SOLID 60fps that I cannot bring down no matter how intense things get... Does fairly good in HL2 as well, but screenshots don't come out for some reason.

...and with HL1?
http://www.thothie.com/msc_dev1/crap_graphix.jpg
Even at those settings, it barely holds onto 40fps. Often drops below 10 - but at least I can test with it.

Best running theory is that the Intel GMA 3000 is a half-assed version of one of those older ATI chipsets that LOVES Half-life2, but HATES Half-life1.

I'm stuck with this POS for a week or two. The store couldn't take my card back because a loose sticker (read 'deliberately loose') fell off. I had to do a special RMA with EVGA, and I could only do that due to a friend who works there (read: 'dont buy EVGA') - after that I'll have to use the RMA for their stepup program and pray the next chipset up does what I need, or sell the card and cut my losses. (All has to be done within 90 days of my original purchase date)

Meh, at least I wont waste anytime playing NS.

 

[Netrogor]

Is it normal to vomit upon seeing ugly models for MSC? I feel like I'm about to, but it seems to be holding itself in...



Messing, must suck testing things when it looks as graphically advanced as the latest winXP Tetris

 

[evilsquirrel]

tetris?

i've got a blockstorm game built on the source engine 8)