Broadcasting isn’t that difficult, but if you aren’t sure where to start or have low technical experience, it can be very intimidating. Basically there are two things that you need:

1. Something to capture the video and audio from your computer or console.

2. Something to transmit that captured video and audio to justin.tv’s servers (in other words, the internet).

Number one can be either a video capture card or something that’s known as a virtual webcam. Capture cards are devices that connect to your computer and capture video from a variety of sources–DVD players, consoles, computers, video cameras, etc. Most capture cards support a variety of video inputs, the most popular of which are S-video (super video) and composite. To make this tutorial as friendly as possible, I’m providing pictures of what both kinds of cables look like here:

On the other hand, a virtual webcam is software that runs on your computer. It allows you to create a video feed of a portion or all of your computer screen. You do not need an actual webcam to use virtual webcam software. However, capturing your screen using a virtual webcam may adversely affect your system performance, because it requires processing power unlike having a video out signal. Your best bet is to try some software available to you and decide if it will work for your purposes. In my opinion, virtual webcams work decently well for capturing smaller areas of your screen, for instance if you play an emulated game in a window. If you are trying to broadcast your entire screen or newer games that take a heavier toll on system performance, virtual webcam software may not be right for you, but I think you should at least give it a shot if you are looking for a low-cost alternative to capture cards. Also, since the software can only capture what’s on your computer screen, virtual webcams will only be useful for broadcasting computer games. There are a variety of softwares that you can use, but I have limited experience even with the two I’m going to suggest.

Superwebcam was the first of two that I experimented with. It is very easy to set up and use, but it has limited capabilities. The largest area of your screen that you will be able to capture is 640×480, which is pretty small. If you try to capture a larger area, the colors and picture will be distorted beyond usability.

Keep in mind that if you only order Windows 7 itself without the “Backup DVD” (which is actually just a normal installation DVD) Digital River will only provide you with files needed to UPGRADE to Windows 7. They do not provide an .iso file to make a bootable Windows 7 DVD. It IS possible to make a bootable DVD using these files with some finagling, but you may find it to be tedious or outside of your tech comfort zone. You may wish to purchase the backup DVD for an additional $15 or so which basically covers the shipping charges. You can do a fresh installation of Windows 7 using the DVD they send you. If you have a friend who’s already purchased through Digital River, you can borrow their DVD or make a copy for the installation.

I’d suggest selecting the Professional edition which is the same price as Home and comes with extra features (last I checked Professional retail was selling for close to $300, so again, this is a killer deal).

Even if you don’t currently have hardware that can support Windows 7 or don’t want to upgrade right away, you may want to take up this offer by 11:59AM Central Standard Time on January 3rd, 2010 at which time the offer ends.

Type “mouse” in the windows bar and press enter.

Select the “pointer options” tab.

Uncheck “Enhance pointer precision” and click apply.

Unreal Tournament 3 may not have enjoyed the success that its previous versions mustered, but Epic Games is looking to turn that around with the release of the Titan Pack update which offers a huge re-working of the game’s interface, maps, gametypes and loads of other stuff. Just about everything you can think of has been tweaked in some way, and to top it all off, Epic and Steam are offering a free play weekend so you can try the game out yourself. Those who have already purchased Unreal Tournament 3 through Steam will be automatically updated, so no worries there. For the rest of you chums, head over to steampowered.com and search for Unreal Tournament 3 once you get the client installed.

And if you are so inclined, check out the following patch notes and updates:

In all, players will find that the two downloads deliver:

• Two new game types: Greed, a “tug of war” skull-toting team points battle, and Betrayal, a cutthroat style of play where alliances and teams can shift fluidly through a match.
• The Titan Mutator, where you can become a 30 foot tall behemoth in any game mode.
• Nineteen maps for Deathmatch, CTF, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes, including 11 new maps plus eight popular maps from the first UT3 bonus pack and Xbox 360 version.
• New vehicles and pickups, including the X-Ray field deployable, the link station deployable for vehicle repair, the slow field powerup, the Stealthbender vehicle, the Eradicator artillery piece, and the Stinger rail turret.
• Client-side demo recording.
• Revamped User Interface, including an improved server browser, improved server filtering options, all new advanced options menu, streamlined and polished the whole system.
• Awards: Fifty-seven different awards mark your progress and mastery of UT3. Progress screen in the UI shows which awards you have earned, and your current progress on awards not yet completed.
• Maplists and voting: New maplist system and mid-game voting support for gametypes and mutators as well as maps.

And as for the full patch notes:

•  
  • Steam Achievement support for Steam installations of UT3.
  • Integrated Steam Authentication support.
  • 57 achievements mark your progress and mastery of UT.
  • Progress screen shows which awards you have earned, and completion progress on all awards.
  • You can activate a non-Steam purchased version with Steam (making it a full Steam version) by:
  • Open Steam main window
  • In Games menu, select Activate a Product on Steam…
  • Type in your CD Key
  • Install UT3 via Steam
  • Note this make an entire new UT3 installation, so uninstall the previous version (your settings/profile should not be affected)
  • Server Browser updates, expanded query filtering, clientside filters and a new UI option list.
  • Added mutator filtering to the server browser (filter by installed mutators, mutator classes and mutator names)
  • Now displays each servers IP in the server details box
  • Added ‘Join IP’ and ‘Spectate IP’ buttons to the join game menu
  • Added an ‘Add IP’ button to the favourites menu
  • Modified the main menu to return to the server browser after disconnecting
  • Added a new button to the midgame menu ‘Add Favorite’, and a new console command: AddServerToFavorites
  • Updated server browser code, so that custom gametypes are properly filtered.
  • Added a ‘List All Game Modes’ selection to the server filter menu.
  • Added more information to the server browser player list.
  • Fixed servers not being added to history, when following a friend to a server
  • You can now attempt to directly connect to offline servers in History and Favorites (even during master server downtimes).
  • Show “+” for player counts that are populated by bots.
  • Major visual and menu flow overhaul for improved useability.
  • Made the instant-action and host-game menus keep their settings.
  • Scoreboard double click functionality for kicking, messages to specific players.
  • Enabled gamepad stick sensitivity setting in UI.
  • Improved gamepad support on PC.
  • Added support for a whole mess of options on Advanced video settings page.
  • Easier to click buttons by fixing cases where mouse went just past them.
  • Max player counts always fit on all scoreboards.
  • Modifier cards should take display priority in toasts over character unlocks.
  • Improved voice command menu positioning and offsets.
  • Fixed showing as teleport destinations on map nodes which could not be teleported to.
  • Added tooltip while deployed in stealth vehicles to show drop deployable button.
  • Bot count UI changed from “Number of opponents” to “Number of combatants” to be less confusing.
  • Added support for showing top weapon user in end of match scoreboard. This shows which player got the most kills with a particular weapon. If a player was the leader with more than one weapon, it picks the weapon he or she got the most kills with.
  • Show beacon with name of enemies in DM if they are close enough.
  • Fixed ammo number on HUD pulsing on armor pick up instead of ammo pick up.
  • Third position for powernode beacon, when just looking at base.
  • Added speaking icon to player beacons.
  • Portraits shown for player speaking with VOIP.
  • Fixed onslaught teleporter tooltip not always displayed correctly.
  • fixed toasts that don’t shut down properly popping up later unexpectedly
  • More delay before going back to ambient music from action.
  • Fixed text being obscured after removing a friend from the friends list
  • Fixed showing proper weapon icon on weapon bar for selected weapon when two weapons are in same slot.
  • Fixed issue where playercard and friend message screens were disappearing.
  • Reduced chat log spam.
  • Fixed rules for showing “change team” button.
  • Added John Barrett (programming contractor), Michiel Hendriks (programming contractor), and Pancho Eekels (level design contractor) to credits.
  • Fixed duel match rules in scoreboard.
  • Fixed player information on server browser history page not refreshing correctly.
  • Fix a crash caused by some mod UI scenes during the gamne
  • Increased radius/volume of Manta, Raptor, and Viper engines.
  • Fixed scavenger legs disappearing in kill volumes.
  • Force occupied manta to rise if underwater.
  • Added sound effect and recharge bar to SPMA to indicate when the weapon is ready to fire
  • Increased water damage taken by vehicles.
  • Increased Goliath health.
  • Fixed nightshade beam weapon accuracy.
  • Fixed spidermines confused about nightshade that switches teams.
  • Tank shell is always relevant, so you’ll see it if it kills you from a hidden tank.
  • Leviathan shield doesn’t stay around after death.
  • Fixed leviathan passenger beacon positioning.
  • Fixed hoverboard rooster tail positioning when traveling over shallow water.
  • Fixed flag positioning on tracked turrets.
  • Fixed flying Manta exploit.
  • Fixed boost exploit with Fury vehicle
  • Fixed exploit to damage own core/nodes with rocket turret.
  • Added burn trail for link gun beam.
  • Weapon pickups now disappear for the player who picked it up, until it can be picked up again (now works like weapon lockers).
  • Weapon throwing always enabled.
  • Improved force feedback for various weapon and pickup actions.
  • Simpler crosshair for instagib rifle.
  • Third person translocate sound.
  • Stinger now higher priority than flak cannon by default.
  • Back splatter decals for hits with sniper rifle, stinger, and enforcer.
  • Improved spidermine aiming help on console with hitscan weapons (enforcer, stinger, sniper).
  • Fixed enforcer anim problems when become dual during initial loading.
  • No ammo display for instagib rifle.
  • Improved spidermine herding with Avrils.
  • Improved redeemer blast screen shake.
  • Spidermines work properly in deathmatch.
  • Fixed translocator discs being able to get embedded in geometry with zero extent collision on but box collision off.
  • Fixed deployable exploit (run over deployable while firing weapon, get in vehicle while still firing, and never switch to deployable).
  • Fixed trans discs getting stuck on instigator’s head.
  • Fixed redeemer bug where redeemers impacting ceiling sometimes had explosion center imbedded in ceiling, affecting damage dealt.
  • Fixed stinger alt-fire stops with 1 ammo.
  • Fix for rare stinger shard crash when shard tries to impale two overlapping dead bodies at the same time.
  • Fixed fast avril firing exploit.
  • Added Drop Flag/Orb command (accessible through voice menu) to get bot teammates to drop the flag they are carrying.
  • Improved bot handling of navigation failures, don’t stay stuck.
  • Bots understand ducking under obstacles with the Darkwalker.
  • Bots understand getting off hoverboard to use a lift.
  • Adjusted bot new enemy acquistion speed.
  • Low skill bots don’t slow down if carrying flag.
  • Bots understand how to effectively use Orbs in Warfare much better.
  • Bots use the hoverboard more effectively.
  • Improved bot AI for using Translocator.
  • Improved AI for picking best weapon to use.
  • Improved AI for Leviathan, including aiming with the leviathan, and navigating the Leviathan.
  • Improved AI for using the Hellfire SPMA.
  • Improved Scorpion AI for trying to run over enemy foot soldiers and self destruct into big vehicles.
  • Improved Manta/Viper AI for trying to run over enemy foot soldiers.
  • Improved stealth vehicle deployment AI.
  • Improved bots yelling “same team” when player is actually trying to hit nearby enemy.
  • Fixed bots not able to get in Darkwalker secondary turret in some cases.
  • Fixed bot AI issues in secondary turrets.
  • Bots go after countdown nodes if core can’t be attacked.
  • Fixed bots grabbing orb without getting all the way to orb spawner.
  • Improved AI for bots deciding whether to get out of vehicles and continue on foot.
  • Automatic fix for not letting bots in vehicles try to go into areas that are blocked for vehicles by turnaroundvolumes.
  • Bots are move aggressive about driving vehicles without slowing down too much for slight turns.
  • Bots fully understand kismet disabled nodes.
  • Improved bot AI for fighting enemies in Slow Fields.
  • Improved bot understanding of targeting occluded powernodes.
  • Added support for clientside demo recording.
  • Demo playback is now delayed until precaching completes.
  • Fixed SPMA camera crash during demo playback.
  • Fixed demo playback log spam.
  • Added DemoFF and DemoSlomo console commands. Can be bound to a key in UTInput.ini. DemoFF toggles between 1x, 3.3x, and 10x fast forward. DemoSlomo takes a float between 0.1 and 10 which adjusts playback speed by that factor.
  • Fixed localization of certain networking messages received from different language server.
  • Improved dynamic netspeed system based on player counts.
  • Improved hoverboard smoothness in net games.
  • Friend following now attempts to place friends on the same team.
  • Added team balancing between matches.
  • Fixed reachspecs occasionally keeping level references across seamless travel, causing levels not to be properly unloaded.
  • Increased net priority of movers with viewer based on them. Reduces mover popping in large playercount games.
  • Networking bandwidth use optimizations.
  • Improved prioritization of actor replication.
  • Improved network pawn position update smoothing using mesh translation.
  • Tweaked finding floors for simulated falling pawns.
  • Yaw and pitch change smoothing for other players on clients.
  • Fixed character mesh not getting onto hoverboard right away in high player count games.
  • Improved turret replication in high player count games.
  • Fixed remaining cases where team color skins weren’t being properly set.
  • Fixed clients auto-switching to better weapon when they stop firing.
  • Don’t dynamically adjust listen server client netspeed above max client has requested (for modem clients).
  • Make sure all audio components get cleaned up on seamless travel.
  • Fixed various exploits.
  • Try multiple STUN servers if first one fails. Fixes users incorrectly getting the “Your network configuration may not be compatible…” warning.
  • Fixed spectator choppiness when camera is following a player.
  • No spectating bar when spectating in first person.
  • Removed download speed limitations, when hosting LAN servers.
  • Implemented auto-reconnect code for Gamespy uplink and advertising. Servers now continuously try to advertise to the master server upon failure.
  • Fixed buggy URL parsing function, which was breaking mutator advertising
  • Added code to recreate serveractors after seamless travel
  • Fixed case insensitivity issue with admin and game passwords
  • Added session banning, with the command: AdminSessionBan
  • Security fixes.
  • Added config variable ‘SpawnProtectionTime’ to UTGame.ini.
  • Optimized stats sending bandwidth.
  • Support ‘n as n in MOTD.
  • Collision Octree optimizations
  • Particle system optimizations
  • Safe handling of inversing nil matrices. Addresses rare ragdoll physics crashes.
  • Removed unnecessary profile saves, improved saving progress when player expects it.
  • Improved Garbage collection performance.
  • Optimized decals.
  • Warfare Teleporter portal rendering updates are now disabled by default, even for high end systems (for performance reasons). To enable, add the following to your UTGame.ini file [UTOnslaughtNodeTeleporter] bRealtimeCapture=true
  • Reduced non-warfare teleporter update range if bRealTimeCapture is false.
  • Added a dialog warning users of nvidia driver version that are known to crash UT3, and to upgrade.
  • Fixed Engine.* localization files being in the wrong location
  • Option to allow for custom characters to load at all times (no default characters, but may get hitches when new players join).
  • CTF flag is hidden for player carrying it.
  • Can no longer teleport to node that is under attack.
  • Improved victim death messages (precise cause of death).
  • In game types using weaponlockers, players spawn with weapons from nearest weapon locker.
  • Fixed scoreboard issues during seamless travel.
  • Fixed lifts returning if you jump or get shot while on them.
  • Play taunts on upper body only for moving players.
  • Fixed black boxes on Leviathan shock balls.
  • Fixed lighting on first person spidermine death effect
  • Improved code for leaning players which are going around turns.
  • Reduced foot jittering on stairs.
  • No team change penalty for automatic swaps.
  • Improved lighting for characters.
  • Reduced mesh offsetting on slopes, removing exploit allowing players to hide.
  • Fixed winner pawn rotating after round ends.
  • Fixed sender not hearing autotaunts.
  • Fixed krall missing footstep sound notifies.
  • Fixed bots leaving game affecting TDM team score.
  • Fixed bad low LOD meshes (spiky when feigning or dead).
  • Fixed gamespy rank query results. Now always properly centers the querying player in the returned list.
  • Added GameInfo.bForceNoSeamlessTravel config var to completely disable seamless travel
  • UTHUD now responsible for drawing player and vehicle beacons, making it easier to support custom beacons for custom game types.
  • Added support for stretching IK limbs (see SkelControlLimb.uc).
  • Merged PC version script functionality to PS3 to improve mod compatibility for mods on PS3.
  • Added spectator notification hooks to Mutator.uc:
  • AllowBecomeActivePlayer: Allows mutators to prevent spectators from joining the game
  • AllowBecomeSpectator: Allows mutators to block players from spectating (not fully implemented).
  • NotifyBecomeActivePlayer: Notifies mutators when a spectator successfully becomes an active player
  • NotifyBecomeSpectator: Notifies mutators when a player becomes a spectator (not fully implemented)
  • Added two new functions to Object.uc, ‘IsNetScript’ which returns true if the current code was remotely executed, and ‘GetNetFuncName’ which returns the name of the replicated function where script execution began
  • Added a new function flag, ‘DemoRecording’, which replicates the function into the demo file when recording demos NOTE: Implicitly flags the function as simulated
  • Added the ability for mods to specify custom settings scenes, through new values in UTUIDataProvider_GameModeInfo.uc:
  • ‘ModGameSettingsScene’, allows mods to specify a custom settings scene which is accessible through a ‘Mod Settings’ button in the Instant Action and Host Game menus
  • ‘ModClientSettingsScene’, allows mods to specify a custom settings scene which is accessible through the main menu settings page, and the mid game menu settings
  • Added ClearConfig and StaticClearConfig functions to Object.uc
  • Added team change notification hooks to Mutator.uc
  • AllowChangeTeam: Allows mutators to prevent players from changing team
  • NotifySetTeam: Notifies mutators when a player successfully changes team
  • Added bCanRagdoll flag to UTPawn for mod authors.
  • Added slight player glow support for darkmatch (maps with DARKMATCH at start of worldinfo name
  • Made UIObject ‘ResolveStyles’ function accessible to script.
  • Added support for loading a Splash.bmp in a mod directory.
  • Fixed server browser not being able to filter custom gametypes; in the gametype data provider, set ‘GameSearchClass’ to: UTGameSearchCustom
  • Added code to reinitialize ServerActors after seamless travel
  • Added editable ‘MouseBounds’ property to UIScene, which allows you to configure mouse boundaries for the current scene
  • ‘MouseBounds.BoundaryObject’ is set through the ‘Set Mouse Boundary’ submenu in the UIEditor context menu
  • Also added a selection to the UIEditor View menu, ‘Mouse Boundaries Outline’, for viewing the current mouse boundaries
  • Mouse boundaries can be changed during runtime using ‘UIScene::SetMouseBounds’ and ‘UIScene::ResetMouseBounds’
  • Now writes mod config files to mod directory, and auto-find config files in moddirconfig or moddir.
  • Now autofinds localization files in moddirlocalization.
  • Now finds splash image in moddirsplash.
  • Supports compiling script code with -mod
  • Supports publishing with -mod
  • Fixed not being able to publish default (startup) map
  • No longer copies RefShaderCache files when publishing
  • Supports Bink movies in -mod dir (ModDirMovies)
  • Fixed problem with completely overriding UTCustomChar.ini in the mod config directory
  • Added -solomod option to restrict game looking in non-loaded .ini files for maps/gametypes/etc
  • When using -mod, LocalShaderCache is ignored, instead it uses ModShaderCache*, which can be pre-generated with PrecompileShaders commandlet
  • Fixed bug when cooking for PS3 that manta shots are black
  • Fixed redeemers nopt able to damage power cores in Islander.
  • Don’t allow disabling of fog volumes. Fixes VCTF-Sandstorm exploit.
  • Fixed collision issues in VCTF-Suspense and Suspense_Necris.
  • Fixed real-time teleporter portal updates in WAR-Avalanche.
  • The old maplist system has been replaced with an entirely new one, which is configured through UTMapLists.ini, this allows mods using custom .ini files to have map cycles setup from the ingame menus
  • To recover the old server maplist settings, you need to open UTGame.ini and go to the [UTGame.UTGame] section, then for each ‘GameSpecificMapCycles’ entry you need to find (or create) an entry in ‘GameProfiles’ under [UTGame.UTMapListManager] in UTMapLists.ini, which has a ‘GameClass’ value that matches the ‘GameClassName’ value in ‘GameSpecificMapCycles’. Then you need to find the maplist in UTMapLists.ini which is specified by ‘MapListName’ value in the ‘GameProfiles’ entry, (e.g: [DMMapList UTMapList]), and then you must manually transfer each map name in ‘GameSpecificMapCycles’ to the maplist in UTMapLists.ini.For example, Maps=(”DM-Arsenal”,”DM-Biohazard”) in ‘GameSpecificMapCycles’ would become:[DMMapList UTMapList]
    Maps=(Map=”DM-Arsenal”)
    Maps=(Map=”DM-Biohazard”)
  • Configuration options for [UTGame.UTMapListManager]:
  • GameProfiles: This is a list which is used to define custom game type settings (mainly for game voting), options include:
  • GameClass: The FULL class name of the gametype, including package name as well as class name (e.g. “UTGame.UTDeathMatch”)
  • GameName: The name that is displayed on the vote menu when selecting a gametype (e.g. “Deathmatch”, “Warfare
  • No Orbs”)
  • MapListName: The name of the maplist that this game profile will use (e.g. “WARMapList”)
  • Options: Additional URL options which are used when switching to this gametype (e.g. “? WarmupTime=60″)
  • Mutators: Mutators to be loaded for this gametype (e.g. “UTGame.UTMutator_LowGrav,UTGame.UTMutator_Instagi b”)
  • ExcludedMuts: Mutators which are disallowed for this gametype (e.g. “UTMutator_Instagib,UTMutator_Slomo”)
  • bIsTeamGame: Specifies whether or not the current gametype is a team game (used internally for game voting)
  • MapReplayLimit: The number of matches which must pass before any one map can be played again
  • ActiveGameProfileName: The ‘GameProfiles’ entry which is currently active; mainly used by the game during runtime
  • PlayIndex: A value used for keeping track of when maps were last played, represents the total number of games played
  • AutoStripOptions: A list of URL options which are automatically removed upon map change (e.g. “LinkSetup”)
  • AutoEmptyOptions: The same as ‘AutoStripOptions’, except these options are given an empty value on the URL (e.g. “GoalScore,TimeLimit”)
  • Configuration options for [UTGame.UTMapList]:
  • Maps: The list of maps used by the maplist, options:
  • Map: The filename of the map (minus the file extension)
  • ExtraData: An array of arbitrary data which can be associated with each maplist entry; mainly used by the game at runtime
  • AutoLoadPrefixes: Maps with the prefixes defined here will be automatically added to the maplist (e.g. AutoLoadPrefixes=CTF,VCTF)
  • LastActiveMapIndex: The index into the ‘Maps’ list which was last active; mainly used by the game during runtime
  • Added support for midgame voting for maps, game types, and mutators.
  • All vote related variables have been moved to UTVote.ini
  • To recover the old vote configuration values, you need to open UTGame.ini and go to the [UTGame.UTGame] section, then manually transfer the vote configuration values to the [UTGame.VoteCollector] section in UTVote.ini; the affected values are: ‘bAllowMapVoting’, ‘VoteDuration’ (now ‘MapVoteDuration’ and ‘GameVoteDuration’), ‘bMidGameMapVoting’ (now ‘bMidGameVoting’), ‘MapVotePercentage’ (now ‘MidGameVotePercentage’), ‘MinMapVotes’ (now ‘MinMidGameVotes’), and ‘InitialVoteDelay’.
  • Added new configuration options ‘InitialVoteTransferTime’ and ‘RushVoteTransferTime’; the first slows down the speed at which vote related data (e.g. maps, game info) is transferred, to spread out bandwidth usage and prevent lag; the second speeds up the remaining transfers, for when the client opens the vote menu
  • Added gametype voting, allowing players to vote in a different game type before voting for a map (if map voting is enabled). Gametype configuration is setup in UTMapLists.ini, through ‘GameProfiles’ under [UTGame.UTMapListManager]; configuration options in UTVote.ini:
  • bAllowGameVoting: Enable/Disable gametype voting
  • Added mutator voting, allowing players to decide which mutators get enabled/disabled in the next match; configuration options:
  • bAllowMutatorVoting: Enable/Disable mutator voting
  • VotableMutators: The list used to determine which mutators should be votable, options include:
  • MutClass: The FULL class name of the mutator, include package name as well as class name (e.g. “UTGame.UTMutator_Slomo”)
  • MutName: The name that is displayed on the vote menu for this mutator (e.g. “Instagib”, “Low Gravity”) N.B. When left blank, the game will attempt to set this automatically
  • MutatorVotePercentage: The percentage of votes required to enable or disable a mutator; percentages are only checked at endgame
  • Added kick voting; configuration options:
  • bAllowKickVoting: Enable/Disable kick voting
  • bAnonymousKickVoting: If true, then the voters name is not shown when performing a kick vote (except to admins)
  • MinKickVotes: The minimum number of votes required in order to kick a player
  • KickVotePercentage: The percentage of votes required in order to kick a player

Improved Steam integrationServer Browser:UI:Vehicles:Weapons:AI:Demo Recording:Networking:Server Administration:Engine:Game:Mod support:Level specific:MaplistsVoting

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.

Well, the time has finally arrived! I’ve been awaiting the release of Quake Live since I first heard about it (seems like years ago, now). Here’s the scoop: Quake Live is a free-to-play browser-based version of Quake 3 Arena. All you need is a small plugin for your browser and you’re good to go! I know some of you are thinking that you could never feasibly run Quake 3 Arena in a browser well enough to play it comfortably–but rest assured! From what I have seen personally, the game runs at an impressive and solid 125 frames per second and you can run it fullscreen at any resolution you like.

Look, I’m not sure if this will explode into an internet phenomenon or not. Honestly I’m kind of hoping it will, because Quake 3 Arena was probably my favorite first person shooter of all time. All I can say is go and give it a shot later today when the open beta goes live. You don’t have anything to lose because it’s completely free to sign up and play, and basically you’re getting the full version of a tried and true retail game.

Here’s where you go: http://quakelive.com

1. Overcrowding is a problem. The  entire CGS is held on 2 floors of a community college building, and with 1,500 or more attendees, things get cramped. Maybe at some point expansion to other buildings or a different facility will be possible.

2. Many tournament directors were just not prepared for their day. Without mentioning anyone in particular, I want to say that competence in setting up the tournaments, having the PCs or other equipment ready to roll, and possessing the overall social skills needed for something like this were qualities that were hard to come by. However, some tournament directors did an excellent job, so I won’t melodramatically act like this problem plagued every event.

3. The music at the awards ceremony was too loud!

4. Having Papa John’s there to charge $2 for a slice of pizza was a bit much. That is some major exploitation of young males who have little else to turn to for food in the moment. I don’t know what Chik-Fil-A was charging but I’ll assume they followed suit.

5. I couldn’t attend or enjoy most of the exhibits and speakers (any, really) because of the chaos associated with the tournaments. I know the myriad of attractions on one day is really the heart of the event, but I can’t help but wish that the exhibits were one day and the tournaments on another. Having the event on two separate days would create a multitude of issues, so I’ll just leave that one alone.

6. I would have liked to see the BAWLS sponsorship back this year. Vitamin water just doesn’t feel like its a gamer’s drink.

Okay, enough bitchin’ and moanin’, yeah? Let’s talk about what I enjoyed about the event this year:

1. The awards ceremony was awesome. There were introductory videos of each game so that people who weren’t familiar with particular games could see what tournament winners were actually playing. This part was fantastic! Good job CGS and a great idea!

2. The plaques for first place look really good. They are something I would proudly show to friends and nongamers as proof of my worth as a human being.

3. Although I couldn’t listen in on any of the speakers, I presume that they were a good addition to the event that provided some more intellectual focus on the gaming industry.

4. It is great to have a chance to compete in a local setting. CGS is only thirty minutes from my house, and I probably wouldn’t be able to attend if it were in a different location. Hoorah for local events!

So, that’s the short list of how I felt about CGS this year without going into a lot of details. As some of you may know, I competed in the Unreal Tournament 3 tourney this year, and I’m proud to say that my partner and I did quite well and won first place! The major drawback is that we didn’t actually play Unreal Tournament 3. We had major issues with the servers freezing computers and other various crap, so we ended up playing an open source version of Quake 3 called Open Quake. I had never heard of it before, and I hope I never hear of it again. Open Quake tries to be like Quake 3 but it just ain’t. The weapons are screwy, the movement is terrible and the mouse input is godawful. However, I won’t complain further seeing as how we won the tournament.

The prizes were pretty cool. My teammate and I both received a 1000W Kingcraft FSP Power Supply, a beautiful first place plaque with UT3 graphics, and a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 signed by Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney. We had to squeek out our win against a couple of great players, so kudos to them for playing some great games!

I’m pretty sure I’ll attend the event again next year, so be ready for another report on what improves and what doesn’t!