PUMPED! Gaming

THE LIST OF CONFIGURATIONS/BINDS IS AT THE END OF THIS POST. IF YOU WISH TO SKIP STRAIGHT TO THEM FEEL FREE TO DO SO NOW.

So, you’re sick of being arena fodder and you’re ready to move up to the next level of l33tdom, right? Then you, young fragged one, need to customize your config file. What is a config file? The Quake 3 config file stores all kinds of information about how to draw your HUD (heads up display), what keys you use for certain actions, and how high or low your mouse sensitivity is, just for examples. Why do you care? When you customize the game you ensure that you’ll have a better experience and almost guarantee yourself more frags, more ‘omg-i-cant-believe-i-made-that’ shots, and just plain more pwnage. Noone likes to lose, right?

Well, don’t worry, I’ll teach you everything you need to know.

Okay, if you’re really new to Quake 3, Quake Live, or first person shooters, READ THE FOLLOWING SECTION. It may contain important information that other sites won’t explain to you because they assume it is common knowledge.

As far as I know, most Quake Live and first person shooter players still use what is known as a WASD setup, that is, they use the keys W, A, S, and D on the keyboard to move forward, backward, left, and right respectively. Most also exclusively use the mouse to look around and aim, and most also use left click to fire their weapon. As you might have guessed, most also use the spacebar to jump. That’s about the extent of the similarities between configurations, and Quake Live allows for a great degree of customization. Each change you can make in Quake Live may also be referred to as a tweak.

If you find switching or keeping up with your weapons difficult, have no fear! The answer is to “bind” each weapon to a separate key so that you can switch to it easily and efficiently. “Bind” might be a confusing word, so I’ll explain it to you. “Binding” can be replaced with the word “setting” or “assigning.” When you move forward, for example, you are only able to do so because the move forward action is “bound” or “assigned” to the letter W on the keyboard. That’s all it means. Binding all your weapons on the keyboard may sound like a daunting task, but you will eventually figure out where you want each weapon to be bound. For instance, I have the lightning gun bound to “e” and the rail gun bound to “q,” since they are frequently used weapons and are near my fingers with the WASD setup. You will also find other helpful things that can be bound to keys. For example, telling your teammates that a particular powerup is about to spawn with the press of a single button is easily accomplished with binds.

When playing a game like a first person shooter, your “frame rate” or “frames per second” is very important. In effect, what you are seeing when you play a computer game or watch a movie is simply the combined effect of many still-frame shots which can be compared to pictures. The rapid succession of these pictures gives the appearance of motion. Most of what you see on television clocks in at 30 frames per second (fps) or pictures per second, while the standard frame rate for most video games, especially consoles, is 60 fps. Quake Live, however, has the ability to run at up to 125 fps, and you should aim for as high a framerate as possible because it will make your gameplay experience smoother and give you more control. Some people will tell you that the human eye can only see about 30 frames per second, and therefore framerates any higher than 30 are inconsequential. However, if you feel this way, I charge you to perform a simple experiment by setting a limit on the maximum number of frames per second that the Quake Live engine is allowed to output. I will teach you how to do this soon.

NOW, LET’S MOVE ON TO HOW TO CUSTOMIZE AND MAKE BINDS:

Here’s our first step:

1. Make sure you’ve got Quake Live running.
2. Hold down Ctrl+Alt and then hit the ~ key (it should be to the left of the ‘1′ on your keyboard). A red screen overlay will appear where you can enter commands.
3. Type this and then hit enter: com_allowconsole 1

What we just did is “enable” the console, so now all you have to do to bring it up is hit the ~ key by itself. Try it out for yourself now! You’ve made your first customization!

Now that the console is readily available, you can easily change and customize lots of options in Quake Live. Below are listed many common customizations that you may or may not like for Quake Live, along with descriptions. Some of these configuration changes are intended to improve your framerate, especially on older or lower-end computers. Also, many customizations can be made by using the in game menu, so be sure to check there for options that you may wish to change.

cg_drawfps 1
1 - shows a frames per second counter at the top right of the screen. this is how you determine how many frames per second you are getting. if you do not have 125 fps consistently, you may want to lower some graphic options until your framerate is more stable.

cg_drawtimer 1
1 - shows the timer for the current map, either how much time is remaining or how much has passed. 2 - shows no timer.

com_maxfps 125
sets the maximum framerate or frames per second that Quake Live can render. recommended at 125. experiment with setting this to 30, 60, or any other number to see how varying framerates affect gameplay.

seta sensitivity x
replace x with a number to set your mouse sensitivity.

seta cg_crosshairPulse 0
0 - crosshair will not enlarge when you pick up an item, 1 - crosshair will enlarge when you pick up an item.

seta cg_crosshairColor 2
values 0 - 7 change the color of your crosshair (needs cg_crosshairhealth “0″ to work).

seta cg_drawgun 1
1 - show equipped gun at bottom of screen. 0 - do not show gun. a lot of pros like to keep this set to 0 because it lets them see more of their screen and eliminates distractions, but if you are a new player who is inexperienced with switching weapons, you may not remember which weapon you currently have equipped.

seta cg_bob 0
removes bobbing while moving (bobbing is the slightly moving up/down of your screen as you walk).

seta cg_kickscale 0
0 - your screen won’t shake when you get hit.

seta cg_newWeaponBar 1
1 - puts the weapon bar on the left side of your screen. 2 - puts it above your health and armor at the bottom of the screen.

seta cg_truelightning 0.75
values 0 – 1 determine the stiffness of your lightning beam. 0 considers lag, 1 is totally stiff. A good mix used by many is 0.75.

seta r_picmip 5
set between 0 - 10 to determine the level of detail on walls, floors, and other surfaces. 0 is the highest, 10 is the lowest. higher numbers may result in a higher fps.

seta r_vertexlight 1
1 - use lower quality lighting, this should increase your frames per second.

seta cg_fov 120
field of view eqautes to how much of the environment you can see at once. basically, a higher field of view results in a fish-eye lens effect. as far as I know, most players, including myeslf, use a field of view of about 120. you may not like it at first, but i really do suggest using a field of view of 120 to help you see more of your surroundings. minimum is 75, max is 130.

seta cg_noprojectiletrail 1
removes smoke trail from rockets and grenades to increase visibility.

seta cg_leveltimerdirection 0
1 – timer counts down, 0 – timer counts up. good players keep up with the respawn time on powerups such as the mega health or quad damage, it may be easier to use a timer that counts up so you can add time instead of subtracting in your head.

seta r_drawSun 0
remove the sun. may slightly improve fps.

seta r_dynamiclight 0
0 - remove rocket flash and other dynamic light effects which should increase fps.

seta cg_switchOnEmpty 1
1 - switches gun when the gun is empty. 2 – doesn’t switch gun when empty.

seta s_ambient 0
turn off the ambient sound that may be distracting to gameplay.

seta model “Mynx”
set your player model.

seta cg_forceTeamModel “Sarge”
force all team models to be this model.

seta cg_forceEnemyModel tankjr/bright
force all enemy models to be the same model. 0 - do not force models. use this at your own discretion as i do not know how to full reverse it yet. note: this may be beneficial for locating and hearing your enemies, especially in team games, but may prove problematic in differentiating targets. for example, you may be battling more than one enemy at a time, but you won’t remember which one is low on health because they all look the same now. some models do not have a bright skin.

seta cg_crosshairSize 10
sets the size of your crosshair.

seta cg_simpleItems 1
1 - makes all item pickups like armor and guns appear as 2d objects in the game world. this may increase your framerate or improve your ability to identify items. 0 - uses default 3d models.

clan x
x is where your clan tag goes. your clan tag shows up at the beginning of your name and denotes what clan/team you belong to.

WEAPON BINDS:
You can determine personally how you would like to bind your weapons using the following formula:

bind key weapon 1

in this bind, ‘key’ stands for any button on your mouse, keyboard or other input device and ‘1′ denotes any weapon between 1 and 9.
example: bind e weapon 6 would bind the lightning gun to “e.”
Weapon numbers are as follows:
Weapon 1: Gauntlet
Weapon 2: Machine Gun
Weapon 3: Shotgun
Weapon 4:Grenade Launcher
Weapon 5: Rocket Launcher
Weapon 6: Lightning Gun
Weapon 7: Rail Gun
Weapon 8: Plasma Gun
Weapon 9: BFG
Weapon 10: Nail Gun
Weapon 11: Proximity Mine
Weapon 12: Chain Gun

I sincerely hope this information is helpful to you. I will be updating this post whenever I receive new information so be sure to check back soon or inform me of something you think would be a useful contribution to the list.