Darkplaces Ideal DM Settings?

[Baker]

I'm trying to play with DarkPlaces and get it to the point where I can get nearly the same level of bludgeoning of other players as the other commonly used NQ clients.

I've tried turning off a lot of stuff, but can't quite "get it".

1. I'd like to, if possible, turn off the rocket explosion effect entirely and get something similar to the grainy GLQuake effect.

Right now, rocket explosions pretty much incapacitate me on a server and give me perceived lag, but it's probably just an FPS variance.

Is there a way to either turn off the rocket explosions or get a higher performance version.

2. Is there a way to turn off the blinding teleporter effect? That one also causes me trouble.

I've tried playing around in the options and haven't figured it out.

What I am looking to do is set up an instructions page on how to get rock solid DM performance from DP if possible. Any additional tips or suggestions are welcomed too.

(I use a GeForce2, which isn't the latest or greatest, but I do get 200 FPS easy, but I cap it at 120. I get similar FPS in DP but still rocket explosions cause me real grief).

[Sajt]

Sounds like you're using an ancient version of Darkplaces.

[Baker]

The 8/2005 build. Should I be using a different one?

[LordHavoc]

1. cl_particles_quake 1, I'm guessing you missed the option in the menu. However I think this is actually slower than the normal effect.

2. What? It's identical to the one in Quake in every way except that the particles fade out rather than stay solid until they disappear, they're the same size, same life time, same movement, everything, it's one of the only effects that has no different cl_particles_quake 0 behavior. Are you sure you're using the current beta version from the files area? (not the latest official version, which is old)

But I think what is slow about rocket explosions is the fact it uses per pixel lighting effects (like Quake3 or Doom3) rather than modifying lightmaps like glquake, I've struggled to improve the performance to match lightmap updating performance but haven't succeeded so far.

[Baker]

But I think what is slow about rocket explosions is the fact it uses per pixel lighting effects (like Quake3 or Doom3) rather than modifying lightmaps like glquake, I've struggled to improve the performance to match lightmap updating performance but haven't succeeded so far.

I managed to get the teleporter effect off.

Yeah, no matter what I do I still get trouble when more than a few rockets go off near me. The second that happens, I know my next view will be as a corpse. Hopefully I can experiment and someway/somehow avoid the rocket issue.

I know you must get a million suggestions, but something I noticed is that you can't actually record demos in-game in DP when already connected to a server.

Something I was wondering, I get "crackly" sound from certain effects and I tried -sndspeed 11025 to see if that fixed it, but only partially.

I figure the low quality Quake sounds are at fault and maybe I'll try one of the sound resampling projects to see if that solves it (I don't have crappy speakers, btw). Is there possibly a cvar or cmdline option that might assist with that?

[leileilol]

ns, but something I noticed is that you can't actually record demos in-game in DP when already connected to a server.

That's a netquake feature, not a bug.

[Baker]

Actually I think I've just found a great combination of settings.

[Baker]

ns, but something I noticed is that you can't actually record demos in-game in DP when already connected to a server.

That's a netquake feature, not a bug.

I know the original Quake can't record demos while in-game.

But try explaining that to an average player who is accustomed to being able to do that -- ProQuake, JoeQuake, QRack, EZQuake, FuhQuake, etc -- and see what they think about that.

It is merely an observation from a player point of view.

[LordHavoc]

Yeah, no matter what I do I still get trouble when more than a few rockets go off near me. The second that happens, I know my next view will be as a corpse. Hopefully I can experiment and someway/somehow avoid the rocket issue.

Try r_coronas 0, r_shadow_realtime_dlight 0 and see if the slowdown is lighting related (note: this works when playing back demos, so it shouldn't be that hard to repeatedly test as long as you catch it in a demo), cl_particles 0 to see if it is particle related.

I know you must get a million suggestions, but something I noticed is that you can't actually record demos in-game in DP when already connected to a server.

You never could in netquake, that's a QuakeWorld feature, and was later added to ProQuake. The code involved is nasty (writing out enough information at the beginning of the demo to describe the current situation), which is why I've hesitated to add such a thing.

Something that would be much easier however is if I automatically recorded demos in memory (the data is pretty small), and then you could tell it to record and it would really just dump the progress thus far to a file and continue recording from there.

Something I was wondering, I get "crackly" sound from certain effects and I tried -sndspeed 11025 to see if that fixed it, but only partially.

Try -sndspeed 11025 -sndstereo, then it should match Quake.

Also try both the darkplaces.exe and the darkplaces-sdl.exe, as they handle sound very differently (the sdl one is often more compatible and often faster, the normal engine will eventually get more compatible and faster sound when Elric finishes his changes that he's been sitting on and tinkering with on and off for months).

I figure the low quality Quake sounds are at fault and maybe I'll try one of the sound resampling projects to see if that solves it (I don't have crappy speakers, btw). Is there possibly a cvar or cmdline option that might assist with that?

I have Zalman Surround Headphones, and I don't mind the Quake sounds, though some people are complaining about the ogre sounds which are 22050hz in Quake but were never heard 'properly' until DarkPlaces and certain other engines defaulted to 22khz or higher. But I'm sure you're not talking about ogre sounds.

[Baker]

Oh WOW!

I've got it nailed!

I've hit upon the PERFECT settings for high performance DM.

Let me digest some of the new info you've provided.

--------

Portability question:

Is there an easy way for me to save my settings in a way that could be handed off to another player? How does DarkPlaces store these settings and can I export them for others to use easily via a download or something?

Btw ... what is the difference between DarkPlaces and DarkPlaces-SDL?

[LordHavoc]

Portability question:

Is there an easy way for me to save my settings in a way that could be handed off to another player? How does DarkPlaces store these settings and can I export them for others to use easily via a download or something?

config.cfg, the only non-portable settings would be vid_* settings (and only non-portable in the sense that they'll end up running the same resolution as you are, if possible, otherwise it falls back to 640x480).

But you can probably look through config.cfg and find the specific settings you want.

Also note in the console there is help text for every cvar/command when tab completing their names.

Btw ... what is the difference between DarkPlaces and DarkPlaces-SDL?

One uses Windows functions directly, the other uses Simple DirectMedia Layer which is a cross-platform library.

[Baker]

Portability question:

Is there an easy way for me to save my settings in a way that could be handed off to another player? How does DarkPlaces store these settings and can I export them for others to use easily via a download or something?

config.cfg, the only non-portable settings would be vid_* settings (and only non-portable in the sense that they'll end up running the same resolution as you are, if possible, otherwise it falls back to 640x480).

But you can probably look through config.cfg and find the specific settings you want.

Also note in the console there is help text for every cvar/command when tab completing their names.

Btw ... what is the difference between DarkPlaces and DarkPlaces-SDL?

One uses Windows functions directly, the other uses Simple DirectMedia Layer which is a cross-platform library.

Well, I can say that I thoroughly just enjoyed giving some bots a smackdown and beat 'em up just as bad as any other engine.

Plus, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and smooth as hell.

In fact, I liked doing it so much with the DP atmosphere that I did it 3 times in a row

I've seen DarkPlaces screenshots with the weapon on the right side. How do you do that or was scar3crow using a special model?

(Thanks for all the information, btw!)

[LordHavoc]

I've seen DarkPlaces screenshots with the weapon on the right side. How do you do that or was scar3crow using a special model?

Those models are in dpmod (progs/v_dp*.mdl) and they are frame-compatible so you could use them with id1 if you wanted by renaming them.

I think scar3crow plays dpmod more than id1 though

(And I certainly do!

Have you tried dpmod? Good fun with deathmatch 7 in dpdm2.

[Baker]

I've seen DarkPlaces screenshots with the weapon on the right side. How do you do that or was scar3crow using a special model?

Those models are in dpmod (progs/v_dp*.mdl) and they are frame-compatible so you could use them with id1 if you wanted by renaming them.

I think scar3crow plays dpmod more than id1 though

(And I certainly do!

Have you tried dpmod? Good fun with deathmatch 7 in dpdm2.

I've played around with dpmod but not with other players. I checked it out sometime last year but didn't thoroughly investigate it aside with playing with some of the weapons. I have to admit my inability in the past to get smoothness was somewhat of a discouraging factor, but now that I have that it is really great.

Two last questions, and I hate to keep asking these, but the docs are sparse.

1. The lightning gun/thunderbolt gives kind of a Quakeworldy feel when strafing while firing. The lightning bolt goes off center.

I can deal with it, but is there a setting to give it the classic "always centered" look. sv_protocolname Quake didn't seem to adjust this.

2. Is there a "writeconfig" command or equivalent to force the writing of config.cfg or save as a designated filename? I still have DP running and don't want to risk losing my settings, although I did take screenshots of each "options" panel and paste them into a graphics editor in the event I somehow lose them.

[LordHavoc]

1. The lightning gun/thunderbolt gives kind of a Quakeworldy feel when strafing while firing. The lightning bolt goes off center.

I can deal with it, but is there a setting to give it the classic "always centered" look. sv_protocolname Quake didn't seem to adjust this.

The latest beta has lightning changes that make it look like Quake, and indeed go a bit further in having smooth sweeping. (Can be disabled by cvars as usual)

2. Is there a "writeconfig" command or equivalent to force the writing of config.cfg or save as a designated filename? I still have DP running and don't want to risk losing my settings, although I did take screenshots of each "options" panel and paste them into a graphics editor in the event I somehow lose them.

You mean saveconfig which it has had a long time? Doesn't take a filename though.

I've been tempted to automatically saveconfig when exiting options menus.