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**itchi** · 18 January 2000, 20:10

kind of a funny setup you have there.. Raid 0 eh? I guess if you like wasting HD space. And with a Raid controller no less. I'm guessing you have a bit of a home network with the net card too. I'm using a cable modem and i get pings in the 40's but i still play games in the 100 range. The carmack article I read on this subject did say there would be laggy times. Especially in open levels where lots of players are visible. I even get lag when 15 players walk around a corner. Why not splurge and sell that Raid controller and buy adsl or cable?

**xortam** · 18 January 2000, 20:36

RAID 0 is simply striping. I use it to increase my disk performance. It doesn't reduce the total amount of storage available.

I'm considering installing another DSL line for gaming. I already have two voice lines (one for modem) and my wife's DSL line (behind firewall). Her DSL line is fine for most of my surfing needs but the firewall prevents me from gaming and NetMeeting, etc.

The issue is how to get Quake 3 to perform well on a 56K modem. I try to pick games with the lowest pings and less than 8 players. Doesn't anyone have this working well?

**Travis L. Knodel** · 18 January 2000, 21:02

Wow... I find it hard to believe you have all that cool stuff, but no T1, cable or DSL.... sorry dude

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Travis L. Knodel
ICQ 5570732

**Kruzin** · 18 January 2000, 21:25

I think Q3A runs great on my USR 56k. 10x better than UT.

Try these settings:
rate "3500"
cl_maxpackets "20"
cl_packetdup "2"
cg_deferPlayers "1"
snaps "10"

**xortam** · 18 January 2000, 22:31

Well Kruzin, I tried your settings and was all ready to sing your praises when I decided to go back and try my old settings again ... a little slower but much better than before. You see, I just made a modem setting change as well which proved to be the problem. I turned off error correction and compression and that reduced my ping by over half (280 to 114) to a local server. Do you run your modem this way? Do you switch settings just for gaming? I'll test your settings some more tomorrow.

**Fyrespray** · 19 January 2000, 09:39

You really want to have your rate at 3500 as kruzin suggested, especially if you have turned your compression off. 56k modems are really 33k modems with some fancy software/hardware compression to get the d/l rate up to 56k. If you cut your rate to 33k modem speeds (3500) it will give you less lock ups while playing, as 56k modems cannot allways sustain a constant rate higher than 3500. If you can get away with a higher rate 56k modems can take a rate of up to 5000, but it has to have good compression software/hardware to prevent the phone jacking and periods of lockup, hence why most ppl prefer to use 3500. Snaps is the rate the server updates info to your machine. For example where ppl are standing, and if you really did pick up that rocket launcher. So really the higher the snaps the better, as what you are seeing is more likely to be happening. You should be able to get your snaps at 30 on a modem. It should make a fair differance to your aim, even if its not notible when you are playing the game.

Also a good command for modems players to use is

\cg_predictItems 0

it will turn off the item pickup prediction so that you no longer hear yourself pick up a weapon and then realise you don't have it when to try to use it : )

hope all that helps a bit

Fyrespray

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Celery 366 @ 550,Abit BM6, 128Mb PC100 Ram, G200 8Mb, AWE64 Gold, Win98SE.

**Kruzin** · 19 January 2000, 18:06

Xortan- Yes, those are the settings I use (I have a lousy ISP )

Fyrespray- From what I have read (at a couple of different tweaking sites), "snaps" should be at 10, 20, or 40. The servers run at 40, and you are best off setting yours at an evenly divisable number. Of course, I have not tested this theory, but that's what "they" say

**Fyrespray** · 19 January 2000, 18:26

Well some people say that snaps 30 is no different from 20, and some say its makes it feel much smoother. Having heard both statements I usually advise people to go for 30 because they might find it smoother, and if they don't everyone else says it is no different from 20 anyway

Fyrespray

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Celery 366 @ 550,Abit BM6, 128Mb PC100 Ram, G200 8Mb, AWE64 Gold, Win98SE.

**xortam** · 19 January 2000, 20:42

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Been a real crazy day (and not in a good way) and I haven't been able to fire up Quake yet. I will before the nights out. I'll let you know what works for me.

As far as ISPs. Mine was great, IBM, but they sold it to ATT and its really degraded since. Time to change (after many years).

**xortam** · 20 January 2000, 17:06

Guys? I've been experimenting with Kruzin's settings. How do you test these comm settings? I reconnect to the local server (Stanford) that I was getting 114 pings from the other night ... now this morning I'm getting anwhere from 280-500+. Its hard to compare my .cfg settings when the ping is bouncing all over the map from minute to minute. Also lagging fluctuates as players connect and disconnect. Also, I suppose you can only compare settings over a narrow time period due to fluctuations in available bandwidth throughout the day. Do you just find an empty server to test on? Any other tricks to control the testing?

P.S. Does /seta snaps "10" take effect immediately during a game (entered through console) or does it only take effect at startup? I didn't notice a difference in the lagometer profiles as I switched this between 10 and 30.

[This message has been edited by xortam (edited 21 January 2000).]

**Fyrespray** · 20 January 2000, 19:20

Yes all the connection varibles will take effect straight away, snaps shouldn't show up on your lagometer anyway, its just how often the server updates, the lagometer will show your packet loss and also reflect your ping to a degree.

You can test this by setting your rate to something stupidly high and watching your lagometer fill with red and start phone jacking

also it is best to get an empty server to tweak your connection, your ping will go up as more people join, as there are large battles with lots of rockets flying about, and generally fluctuate as people run past you. With a modem you want to stay on servers with 8 or less players really to get a decent ping.

Fyrespray

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Celery 366 @ 550,Abit BM6, 128Mb PC100 Ram, G200 8Mb, AWE64 Gold, Win98SE.

[This message has been edited by Fyrespray (edited 21 January 2000).]

**xortam** · 22 January 2000, 16:38

Fyrespray, now I am seeing snaps effect the lagometer. The sites mention to adjust this in reaction to your lagometer readings: You can read that here in particular. I found I run smoother at snaps set at 20 on an empty server and improved a crowded game by dropping it to 10.

I still find it very difficult to test these settings. I always reconnect to the same empty server and run and jump in the same room each time. I'll get pings from 365-535 once and 261-355 the next time I connect. I'll sit and wait for the lagometer to quiesce and then run and jump in circles. I'll continue circling until the lagometer quiesces agin before recording my readings. I can stand up against a wall and the pings will bounce from 380 to 812! Tough environment to test anything. How do I control this?

**Fyrespray** · 22 January 2000, 17:25

Ok first thing to do is lower your settings (eg snaps cl_maxpackets and rate) till you are getting a stable ping when you run around an empty level. You should not get wild ping variations just running about, unless there are lots of ppl or projectiles (ie rockets) moving about as well. If you have got them to stupidly low levels and you are still getting problems then its either something to do with your modem setup, your modem, or your isp. Is it doing this in other games, or just Q3 ?? If its other games its time to go through those modem tweaking webby's again and try some different options

Fyrespray

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Celery 366 @ 550,Abit BM6, 128Mb PC100 Ram, G200 8Mb, AWE64 Gold, Win98SE.

**xortam** · 22 January 2000, 19:44

I've tried trimming back my settings to:
seta snaps "10"
seta rate "2000"
seta cl_maxpackets "10"
and I still get 100ms variations in pings just looking at a scene with no animations. I tried disconnecting my NIC (connected to DSL router) while on-line with the modem and no difference. I think I'll try my other voice line and see if that makes any difference. I ran the 3Com modem wizard and it says I'm up to date (double-checked by hand). I'm running with the modem set to 8N1 with FIFO buffers set to max, no error control, and hardware flow control. I bumped the max speed to 230400 from 115200 with no difference. I have Quake 2 but haven't tried using it on-line (is that bundled in or do I need to download that support?): Never had a chance to do much with Quake 2 but I played Quake to death. I don't have any other on-line games.

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Quake 3 on a 56K modem sucks!

Quake 3 on a 56K modem sucks!

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