New quake 3 player needs some guidance!

[old.thadevil]

Ok here goes lol....
I am an Ex Unreal Tourny player,(ARRRRRGH THEY SCREAM lol) but recently i have dug out my Q3 demo and i find myself left wondering why i never brought the full game of Q3 ages ago, and this weekend i am going to buy it for sure and throw away my UT game
I just wondered if there is any1 out there who knows how i find out my frames per second rate because i have been told the game aint worth playing unless its above 80 - is this true???
I have also been told my Riva tnt2 3d graphix card will not be good enough to have a good online battle - is this true???
Soon i will be getting a cable connection which supposedly will connect me to the net at 560kps and a minimum 256kps (Kewl) will this bring down my ping currently 300-600?? and i would like any suggestions of what i can expect ping wise from this kinda connection ???
my comp specs are PIII 600 - 128 fast sd ram - 19 inch monitor - riva tnt2 GC - 23 gigs h/d ...
Is this machine going to be able to play Q3 comfortaby and is there any thing i could add to my system to improve its performance to play Q3??(nothing toooooo expensive lol)

Well i hope there is some 1 out there who knows their Q3 inside out and is willing to answer my questions ....
Hope to be playin yall soon ...
HAPPY FRAGGIN PEACE WE OUT !
Gav

 

[Guest]

I think its cl_drawfps 1 , but if you type cvarlist in the console it will list out all the settings you can set (cmdlist for commands).

I play Q3 at around 40fps and Im perfectly happy with that. I suppose if you are a good player it would make a difference. Fortunately I'm not burdened with that

 

[old.MeanMrMustard]

I don't see why you should throw away UT. They are both great games, when i bought Darkreign 2 i didn't uninstall Halflife. The reason? they are different games (RTS, FPS).

ok ok UT and Q3 are both FPS but Q3 is more fire at everything that moves, and UT is more teamplay gameing. I have them both and they are both very fun to play (although I don't play Q3 much since i don't like Deathmatch but i do play Q3 team arena). IMHO I find UT more of a thrill because everytime you go online you know that you are being marked on NGworldstats, however, I love Q3's graphics.

"I am an Ex Unreal Tourny player,(ARRRRRGH THEY SCREAM lol)" you make it sound as if Q3 players hate UT players. This is not the case (in my expirience) everyone i know who plays Q3 plays UT aswell.

I am not trying to be a fart but i was just makeing sure you knew what was what .

Anyway as for those specs, it depends what is your idea of acceptable. I can play a game comfortably at 25 frames per second but i get 40+ on TNT2 @ 140mgz, Celeron 400, 128mb pc133 sdram.

 

[old.sjp]

tbf, plenty of q3 chaps hate UT

your pc will play q3 fine, also if you want high frame rates you dont need to upgrade your card, there is nothing stoping you from playing it in ugly doom mode, with 0% eye candy, before i upgraded to a geforce2, i was using a v2 sli, and i had a frame rate of arround 100 and it was certianly a slower card than a tnt2.

if the forums are still going, pop back in, and ill/others will tell u how to double them

 

[Chameleon]

That pc should run it 'ok', as ppl have said.
With the default q3 settings the fps might be a bit low, but you can change a lot in the menus and then other stuff through config changes, gaining lots and lots of fps depending on how ugly u dont mind it being.
Your ping sounds high. Presumably your on 56k?
With a decent isp that supports software compression you should theoretically be able to get about 120 ping. If you get cable, your'll get anything between 10 and 100, but usually around 40.
Graphics is quite important in q3, but lots and lots of ppl play it quite happily with low fps. A good praphics card is well worth the money if u find u start playing it a lot, as their are thresholds which u can reach in fps which make some of the game physics considerably better. A fast cpu also helps a lot with putting the power behind your gfx card also, i.e. fps on a p3 1 ghz machine will be much more than a p3 500, even with the same graphics card. Maybe obvious, but some ppl fail to recognise this one.

/cg_drawfps 1

will display your fps in the top right of your screen.
If its very low, check that you do not have

/com_maxfps

set way higher than your average fps, cos this will create graphics lag.

Definately buy it and play it lots tho ......... it rox

Ch@m

 

[old.MeanMrMustard]

Of couse if you have eyes that don't see the difference between 30 FPS and 200 fps like me then you can have play with great graphics on a low end system

No i am not blind i have 20 20 vision

 

[old.MeanMrMustard]

Originally posted by sjp
tbf, plenty of q3 chaps hate UT

we agree to differ

 

[Chameleon]

You cant SEE 150 fps, but Q3 sees it.
Try playing on a system with 40 fps and then try playing on a system with 150 fps and a com_maxfps setting of 125. It's a different game entirely. Everyone mentions the mega health jump on dm-whateverITis (I dont play dm, only ctf), but thats just the tip of the iceberg. Play with high fps and com_maxfps 125 and you will be totally amazed how much smoother the whole game is. It's equivelant to playing with a ping of 200 and then getting isdn.

 

[kryt]

Well, personally I have a TNT2 card also, and I get very nice framerates with the config I use without making the game look too ugly. > Grab it here if you like

http://www.mooo.eu.org/kryten.cfg

You might wanna change the controls (i'm an odd bugger with mine) - The config itself is an amalgamation of a few of the better ones I have found (blokeys, timbers and lockis) with a few of my own additions. It is also optimised for modem play, so you may wish to change the network settings if you are on ISDN or broadband.

Also take a look at the guides on Barrysworld, they will also be very helpful for you on tweaking quake 3 to look how you want it to etc, and the best way to get started.

Regards

 

[old.fallen]

FPS Maths

While some people have the belief that anything above 30 fps is ok for gaming, I'll show some math (not the boring kind) to prove that that is not the case.

With 30 fps, you'll have 30 Frames Per Second (yeah I know, just establishing the basics here) Now, imagine a 360 circle around you, with you facing the 0 degree mark, 90 is to your right, 180 is behind you and 270 is on your left. An enemy comes up behind you and you do a quick 180, this, for easy math, takes 0.1 seconds.

Here's the interesting bit, as you turn, you'll have one frame every 0.033 seconds, that means that in the time it takes you to turn 180 degrees, 0.1 seconds, you'll have 3 frames! Let's say one at 60 degrees, one at 120 and one at 180, that's it. Now, if the enemy has moved to the side and is at 150 degrees, you will see him on one side in the second frame, and on the other in the 3rd. However, at NO POINT will your crosshair be over him during the turn.

This is just a sample to show you that fps matters big time, as the unfortunate owner of a fux0red gfx card (that's going back tomorrow btw) I usually play with 15-30 fps even with extremely low settings. Aiming and close combat is HARD with sub 30 fps. But it's interesting math eh? Now with the above formula you'll see that even with 60 fps you'll snap in 30 degree steps for a 0.1 second 180 turn...So get back to tweaking them configs a bit more

 

[Chameleon]

Hehe, good example mate ...... funny too.

I'll look out for you standing around 'in-game' with protractor in one hand and slide-rule in the other and try not to frag you as u attempt to get to 120 degrees from your starting position

Good point tho. Thats why I love my 150 fps

Ch@m

 

[old.fallen]

hehe, well the card will be going back now, hope to get it changed and returned quickly so I can get back to fragging. But I've found a way to adapt to low fps, the secret is....SPAM! Toss a rocket there, a grenade here some plasma over there...it's soo much fun hearing "GS" when you were just tossing out a rocket at that entrance just in case

 

[Wij]

Um, that's normal tactics init Good shots just help things along a bit more.

You can certainly FEEL when your FPS is real high even tho some ppl will tell u u cannot SEE it. Higher the better

Oh, and UT is still a great game. Keep it man !