DarkPlaces Ideal Deathmatch Settings

[Baker]

First, this is a fair amount of setup.

Second, within the next month I will have something that makes this brainless and isolates deathmatch settings to a gamedir --- these aren't the same kind of settings that you want in single player.

So basically, you should probably wait.

However, for the impatient here is how I configured DarkPlaces to play some very high performance Quake for online internet play. I did a great deal of experimentation to see what gave me the best "feedback" from lightning gun and rocket usage and played a ton of games on several servers.

When the new DM features are added into DarkPlaces, combined with this, DarkPlaces will be a very viable choice for a full-time use DM client, except for CA+ due to the cheat-free.

Main Options

Crosshair 2

Video

I use Width 640, Height 480 and BPP 16.

Yeah, you might disagree with this but it gets higher FPS. Some people knock 640 x 480 x 16 BPP.

Monster uses 640 x 460 x 16 with ProQuake. Almost no one plays with the sheer slaughtering power of Monster, so you might argue this on personal preferences, but you can't argue with Monster's Quake ownage and air shafting.

Effects

Corona Intensity .. set to 0
Use Only Coronas ON
Quake Style Particles ON // gave me best feel for rocket explosion radius
Explosion Shell OFF
Explosion Shell Clip ON
Stain Maps OFF
Onload Clear Stainmaps OFF
Decals OFF
Bullet Impacts ON // need this on for sure
Smoke ON // rocket trails on, you need that on
Sparks OFF // those distract me when playing
Bubbles ON
Blood ON // need that for shafting ownage
Force New Blood Effect OFF
Polygon Lighting OFF
Smooth Sweep Lightning ON
Waist Level Lighting ON
Lightning End Light OFF
Model Interpolation OFF
Sprite Interpolation OFF
View Blend 0

Graphics Panel

Gloss Mode 0
Turn EVERYTHING OFF that has OFF/ON on this screen

In Your Config

cl_bob 0
cl_bobcycle 0
cl_bobmodel 0
cl_rollangle 0
v_kickroll 0
v_kickpitch 0
v_kicktime 0

This is a bandage for now for the impatient.

[foq]

I appriciate your hard work on this baker, but if you turn everything off and run 640x480x16 then it would just look like crap, IMHO.

[Baker]

Actually, it doesn't look like crap at all. All those settings do is turn the real time lights off, turn the bloom off, and set the particles to basically a Quake level default.





IF you don't want to use Quake particles, just use the above and flip OFF Quake particles and then it uses fancier particles.

I tried both styles, the FPS doesn't really make a difference, in the end I basically preferred the Quake style particles over the DarkPlaces ones because I got a much better feel for the explosion radius of rockets and grenades and felt I got better feedback from the lightning gun.

You can use the above settings as a base and play around with them a little to see what you like best. The above settings provide incredibly smooth play on the internet even on my old GeForce 2, so it will certainly satisfy someone with a newer graphics card and will work very well for most use computer that aren't the latest and greatest.

[LordHavoc]

I tried both styles, the FPS doesn't really make a difference, in the end I basically preferred the Quake style particles over the DarkPlaces ones because I got a much better feel for the explosion radius of rockets and grenades and felt I got better feedback from the lightning gun.

Perhaps you should make an effectinfo.txt (grab the one from dpmod for reference) which includes a lot of quickly fading particles using originjitter of 120 120 120 in the TE_EXPLOSION effect, then you could see precisely the region affected by each explosion.

You can use the above settings as a base and play around with them a little to see what you like best. The above settings provide incredibly smooth play on the internet even on my old GeForce 2, so it will certainly satisfy someone with a newer graphics card and will work very well for most use computer that aren't the latest and greatest.

I play at 1280x960 or 1600x1200 because I don't need to zoom in to snipe (in mods/games that have such weapons), and it runs at a solid 60fps on my BFG GF6800 ULTRA OC as long as I don't use realtime world lighting or bloom or HDR. (I play on an LCD so 60fps is all I need)

[foq]

Those screenshots are sesized =/

[Canadian*Sniper]

640x480x16 is ghey. Tried that long ago and couldn't bear it. Lowest I'd go now is 800x600x32.


1024x768x32 is what I use now. With FOV 128, I can see pretty much all of my surroundings

[foq]

I like 1024x768x32 and FoV 90. I was raised on fov 90, and I hate that fisheye effect.

[Canadian*Sniper]

I like 1024x768x32 and FoV 90. I was raised on fov 90, and I hate that fisheye effect.

I was used to fov 90 as well. Never really tampered with it long. I've only been using fov 128 for a few months.

[foq]

I know some of you only play Quake and might hate me for saying this but I like other games too, and what if I'm stuck in fov 90 and im used to 100 or so? That just souldant work...

[Canadian*Sniper]

I know some of you only play Quake and might hate me for saying this but I like other games too, and what if I'm stuck in fov 90 and im used to 100 or so? That just souldant work...

I hate you because you're not checking your PMs

[Monster]

According to Hydro Smoke, Fov 101 is the highest that you can go without getting the fisheye effect. It's also what I use. Try it foqer, if you can't get used to it within 2 hours, then something is wrong.

[LordHavoc]

According to Hydro Smoke, Fov 101 is the highest that you can go without getting the fisheye effect. It's also what I use. Try it foqer, if you can't get used to it within 2 hours, then something is wrong.

That's also roughly the fov you get on widescreen in DarkPlaces with fov 90.

[Sajt]

Play with 640x480 if you wish, but 16 bit?

[Baker]

I have a GeForce2. I get about 70-120 FPS with 32 bit, 150-200 FPS with 16 bit.

A stable 120-150 FPS is basically, at least in my book, the ideal FPS and I don't get that with 32 bit typically.

The basic problem is Dark Places starts up in 32 bit per pixel mode, and for low end machines this chokes the frame rate, and you have to spend several minutes slowly changing the configurations in screen as each cycle update runs through at molasses speed.

Once 32 bits per pixel is changed to 16 bits, it does speed up to a normal clocking speed and I can use Dark Places for any Quake task.

It isn't a big problem for me as I usually just edit the configuration file before start up if I need to do so, but I could see someone that isn't familar with Dark Places getting the mistaken impression that DP is too next generation to operate on their machines.

If I had the latest and greatest machine -- my 2 Ghz isn't bad -- with the newest graphics, maybe I could use 32 bit and get the same performance.

[foq]

maybe... lol
We'll see how much FPS Monster gets with 4 1gb pci express cards and a 3.8ghz
dual-core processor w/ 4 gb ddr3 ram. And thats not even the greatest. lmao
maybe... heh