OpenArena Message Boards

Running a pure server and want more fair players? Then use this pk3.

how does it work?

This is how it looks like when using picmips (when now that ever became a cheat) considering you are able to connect to a server :)

Right now it just sabotages bigchars for the picmip abusers so they can't read any text.

One of my pet peeves is the unnecessary lowering of detail to gain a visual advantage over other players.

Well, I abuse picmip so that I can gain FPS enough to play the game. With default OA settings it is barely playable on my system. When it comes to settings to tweak and make your own configurations, there are some that will agree that changing the setup is allowed, others will say that changing the default settings is cheating. Included in that sort of cheatlist would be /com_maxfps 125, /rate 25000, /snaps 40, /cg_fov 120, /com_blood 0, /cg_gibs 0, doppler, smoketrails and so on...h*ll, even cg_drawtimer 1 is cheating. The worst of them is the /com_maxfps since with default settings you are not able to perform the same jumps as players using key-settings of 125 or 333.3. What about forcing models then? Or maybe the lightmap->vertex changes? So is changing any variable cheating? Or where do we draw that line? Even while playing in official tournaments, you are not always allowed to change your gamma to a value higher than 1.2, but that is in a professional tournament, sponsored by international firms and played on location. So in that aspect, what do we consider cheating in Open Arena? There is of course Punkbuster which has a picmip filter limit at, I believe 4, but don't know if this applies to all games it support. But do we want punkbuster? I think not. Personally I consider it cheating to use a high-dpi mouse since I don't have one, how can I control that on server side? disallow1200dpi_mouse.zip, is that what I need? My system is not designed for gaming, nor do I try to achieve anything gaming-wise anymore. If I was in to serious, professional gaming, where cheats may occur, then it would be Q3 or Q4 since they have a large established base for tournaments, hence stricter rules. Another thing that I enjoy is /r_bloom 1, since what I've seen it makes characters more visible due to glow, almost like r_fullbright. What is does for me with r_bloom 1 is that is gives me the magical wonder of 1 FPS, good luck with that Lightning Gun :)

Added 2 screenshots just to show that r_picmip, and lower texture settings improves fps to a playable level even on low-end systems.
[edit: edited the h*ll out of this post]

lol

If it doesn't look much like the original game anymore (i.e. no shading) i'd consider it unfair.

Also the 333fps jump exploit is obviously an exploit that was never intentionally intended by id software.

Well if I could use a 1280x1024 resolution with 108 fps, then I would. I can barely reach 80 while playing in 800x600. But if the choice between getting obnoxious because of insane pixel-mania since my hardware isn't extreme or quit playing the game, then I'd rather choose the latter.

It's not a matter of whether we want Punkbuster* or not it's a matter that we can't have Punkbuster no matter what due to their stupid license being incompatible with the GPL.

* Frankly, I rather enjoyed being kicked off q3 servers because Punkbuster refuses to auto-update on GNU/Linux... what a great feature to add to any game...

I don't think anyone is being obnoxious here, however the picmip thing is a bad idea, as there are people with old Macs that have to use high picmip and low detail levels levels to play the game at a decent frame rate. 

A better idea would be to just limit the max_fps to 120 which eliminates the majority of the jump exploits and puts everyone on the same playing field while allowing the game to be playable for those on low end systems that don't want to or can't update their hardware for whatever reason.

That is an idea that makes more sense but would probably create a whole lot of controversy from experienced players since they can't perform the stair jump on aggressor (for instance) easily anymore. It is still possible, but much harder to perform. I think issues like this will always be around todays FPS games since nowadays they are generally depending on the hardware/system more than equality in play. Older games was more independent on the form of hardware and relied more on skill, rather than setup. You can match two individual opponents with equal skills today, the one with the better computer will have a better determined outcome of winning the game, that is a sad fact.

I lived through the complaints about my supposed qvm hacks that favor the uber elite, I think I can live through any complaints that might come out of providing a level playing field without ruining game play for people on old hardware. 

I'll just have to dig out my asbestos underwear.

also probably forcing vertexlight to 0 if more than one tmu is detected on the video card (read: any post-97 video card)

Trying to stay on-topic:
What about the server-side variable sv_fps, does that limit the clients actual fps in a way that they still have an equal fps on the server, or does the individual client-side setting override this?
P.S asbestos underwear, where can I get them (non-used prefered) ;)

Again, that might ruin gameplay on old Mac hardware.


No, sv_fps has more to do snapshot data (the amount of info being sent back and forth from client -> server) than it does with actual frames per second, increasing sv_fps can cause more lag.

Staying on topic is no fun :P
S-Mart has asbestos underwear on sale this week, shop smart, shop S-Mart. :D

How old are we talking? My iMac DV (which is dead) from 1999 used an ATI Rage 128 and had multitexture.

hey,
I just wanna give you my oppinon, I think its not really important the neat anti-cheat thing, who cares if there are cheaters, they are in "every" game, its impossible to avoid them, but, after playing and "enjoying" a game thats the only thing that's really important, in time, the cheaters are spoted and the other players just avoid them. its simple people hate cheaters, and they are always cheating maybe 'cause they have not enough skills or they know about coding but not about "fair game"..

but, fromhell, u r the admin, so thats your call, in my opinnion, dont waste your time..

pd: (sorry the grammar, I did my best) ;D ;D

This old (http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=684.msg4536#msg4536).  I agree with his assessment that 11+- fps is not playable, if I were stuck on that kind of hardware, for whatever reason, I would be upset to download this game only to find out that I was forced to have to play the game at an insanely slow fps, which would gives people with better hardware an advantage, exactly the sort of thing we are trying to avoid.

+30 FPS is good for me. Now i got have a new graphic card ( i was played before on integrated Via Delta Chrome 9 -  30-40FPS)

Now...

On the other side of that coin there is that aspect that some people do buy new hardware and upgrade their systems only so that the games will perform better. If I were to buy a $500 graphics-card and then sat down with Open Arena and started playing, getting the same performance as of that with a $50 card, that would make me wanna hump some tennisballs in a dark alley.

People that buy $500 video cards have too much money and should consider donating to their local homeless shelter instead of buying a luxury item that they do not need (my opinion, feel free to flame me for being socially conscious).  The nVidia 8600's are priced between $100 and $150 and provide more than enough power to run any game currently available.

Also it should be of note that they will notice improved performance, they just won't be able to increase FPS beyond 120 which is more than enough for any serious game enjoyment without causing eye strain which low fps and low refresh rates on CRT monitors cause.

It is interesting that folks (normally liberals) confuse telling other people how to spend their hard earned money with social consciousness. No flaming, just pity and disappointment in the educational system that produced those misinformed attitudes. With that said...

I don't think that cheating (or using little known settings) is a given. I would like to see a game that enforces the same gaming experience with the common denominator being based on average hardware. I don't mind getting beat, as long as we are playing the same game.

Amusing...


Limiting the FPS would accomplish that while leaving room for the low end systems to still have enjoyable game play with the caveat that the game wouldn't look as nice as it could.  Now if all of our users had hardware that could run the game at a decent FPS without using picmip, I would agree with lei and remove the low end settings altogether.

The only thing that makes the picmip text skew a bad idea is that it kills decent game play on low end systems.

But the argument for using a r_picmip filter to penalise users of it because it simply gives an visual advantage is in my opinion incorrect. In that aspect we should not be able to remove rocket trail smoke, change to r_bloom 1, use simple items, switching between cg_oldRail 1, cg_oldRockets 1 or cg_oldPlasma 1, changing from lightmap to vertex and all these other "visual enhancements" which in effect gives a user higher FPS count. If everything that makes Open Arena divert from it's original state is considered to be a cheat then even /cg_fov and /cg_drawfastsky 1 should be locked down for fairness of play. Using a patch which a server administrator can apply to his/her server, or a simple variable to change, which locks FPS to a given amount is however a solution. This would give the same dis/advantage to every user on that server.

 If you have have ever played on the *rainbow|defrag* you have already experienced such a lockdown of FPS. On that specific server I have limited a users FPS to a maximum of 140. The "problem" with many of the training steps and maps for that modification is that it is designed to use 125 fps and overbounces.

Yeah, and don't forget to force everyone to use the same monitor. Fiddleling with the brightness settings is a cheat too.
And darken the room is even worse. And of course, graphic cards that cost more then a 100 bucks aren't allowed too;)
Rebinding of keys has to be seen as the uebercheat.

Come on, this is plain silly. The Q3A engine is highly configurable and that is a plus. Everyone can tweak it to
his likening.  If you bind a key to do RJ, i'm fine with it.

As far as the FPS thing goes, wasn't pmove introduced to take care of this?
This is not in issue in CPMA btw., they fixed the FPS-dependend pysics (and are hated for that;)

I always play q3a under linux with pb, I've even got PB running on my own (linux) servers. Had some trouble in the beginning with that stupid update script, but it seems to work now.


I'd suggest you allow people to play the game the way they want to. Using picmip is allowed even at official CPMA contests, so what's this all about?

EDIT: Sorry, just noticed that the pk3 isn't a part of OA by default. I'd only suggest that it stays this way then.

I haven't used iD's binary (and pb) since ioq3 made the code 64-bit clean which means I can't use pb without a lot of reverse engineering that I really don't want to do.


Trying to prevent people with high end systems using the lowest possible settings to gain an advantage over people.  Capping the FPS in the client and/or adding a cvar check in the vms for the max_fps to prevent people from changing the client on their own will probably be the only "anti-cheat" implemented.

I would strongly encourage you NOT to do this. Setting max fps 125 is fine (125, not 120 although 120 rounds to 125 in any case) and has good reasons for the limit but graphical tweaks are a seperate area. The Quake 3 community, of which one would hope Open Arena would want to be a part, already has standards in this area, you're allowed to tweak visually. By setting your own standard you isolate yourselves and reduce the potential use of Open Arena. If you want to play with pretty settings that's your personal choice but expecting your needless decorations (the equivalent of expecting tennis players to put paper streamers on their racket) to be imposed on other players misses the point of the Quake games that are about competition and reaching your personal limit.

There is no skill involved in adapting to over-complex graphics (infact research on pattern recognition shows that people who learn in a simpler environment have better analysis in the complex environment than those who always practiced in the complex environment, the point being your skill level improves more because of the simpler environment, PM me if you want details), all you are doing is taking away skill from the player as well as increasing the practice time required to reach a particular skill level. No skill comes from the simplified graphics, it does not make you more coordinated or add some ability you never had which is how some like to portray it, it just means you don't have skill taken away from you by the medium.

There is also the issue of the pleasure in playing, if you want to play for a few hours higher detail settings cause far more eye strain and possibly head aches than lower detail ones.

The purpose of Quake is to provide a medium for competition with another person or persons, you should be competing against the opponent, not fighting the game just to achieve what you intend. The tweaks allowed in competition, such as those allowed by the CPMA mod, do not give you access to information you would not otherwise have had; they just present the information you're supposed to have more clearly.

For these reasons preventing graphical tweaking is a very negative thing for the game and it's especially silly to call it cheating since it does nothing outside the normal range of available information. If you want to play in pretty settings do so and if you wish only against other people who want to as well but do not try to make it a more general rule, you will damage OA in the long run.

It should be mentioned that it is not such a big problem in Open Arena.

Yes, you can see people more clearly but the advantage is limited.

There have been other games based on the Quake 3 engine that had bigger problems with picmip. In Return to Castle Wolfenstein you was able to look through some trees if you sat picmip low enough. Imagine that one player looking into a wood and only sees the tree-covered players in the wood and can easily kill them while they look around and see nothing but trees.

Therefore a low picmip was considered cheating in that game. Of course the developers should not have picmip to interfere with threes in the first place.

The mappers should have added nopicmip to the tree shaders. And yes, you're right that in that context that would be a cheat because it changes the available information although only due to mapper oversight.

Well u can't consider it to cheating when u use a optical mouse over 800 dpi bcuz it's an a peripheral equipment for ur comp. and not for OA. And btw. most ppl don't believe that it's a must have to have those xtreme dpi addicted mice @ 4000 DPI ;)



Well I think u won't like to play with this lower detail configured Q3 for a long time ;)

(http://www.abload.de/img/adadadadadadmof.jpg)

Well, that ain't low detail, that is missing textures so there is a slight difference.
But again, the question is: where do we draw the line for what is considered cheating?
Or rather, who decides what is cheating, and what is not?
Some people change their com_maxfps, rate, snaps, cl_maxpackets, cg_fov, cg_drawTimer 1 e.t.c to improve gameplay and network rates, others are content with the default settings, be it modem or T3. Should we prevent any changes to any variable so we get one default standard and hence prevent 'cheating'? That way we would get rid of 'professional' players and all forms of 'cheating' for sure.

since it's a competitive game and you can change so much of how the game appears these problems will always be there. i've never played quake 3 in any competitive style at all. however i did play in a clan when return to castle wolfenstein was popular. in that game i "had" to change a lot of the settings - my computer wasn't up for it on certain maps but most of all everyone else altered it so much that unless you lowered the settings you had no chance. you felt something was wrong when you could hit people in the head down at the beach from upper base on mp_beach with the mp40, a submachinegun. was that the intent of the mapdesigners? wouldn't think so...

later when the punkbuster was introduced the game became more fair but since every server could apply it's own forced settings you ended up with a bunch of different configurations for every possible server you regularly visited. and some of the settings really made the play different. apart from the visual things you had to change the com_maxfps on maps like mp_assault, or you couldn't jump up on the crates...

now when i play OA i have a computer that can handle the graphics rather well and i've capped the fps at 125, turned off the drawgun, bobroll, blood and gibs. this gives me a nice playing experience that i can have some serious fun with.

I just registered to post here.. hello

I am admin since 2 years in another game Enemy-Territory, we use punkbuster to limit tweaking possibilities, due to some things like seeing through trees, disabling fog and such things.
The rules there are made so, that everything which is a unfair advantage is dissalowed, now what is defined as a unfair advantage?
For example, when tweaking allows you to disable fog, or to see enemys through walls. Means that there is additional tactical game information compared to untweaked.

If for example in openarena, one makes textures blurry so that a wall has just a color at the end, and enemys are polygons with a color. You have still the same tactical information as one with all textures detailed. Allthough I believe it takes longer for the human brain to process.

For tweaking changing your movement, like com_maxfps, with its magial errors ...
this is a unfair advantage, but it is also related to hardware (at least in enemy-territory, your not able to get enough fps on a low end system).
On enemy-territory, it is possible todo the calculations server side, so that all have a jump with 125 fps or whatever you set it at, but this is not possible with vanilla enemy-territory.


Only limit things which give a tactical difference, com_maxfps I suppose is discutable.. for competitive fair gameplay it would need to be set to a specific value..

Beside their is to mention that a korean pro player, will surely not play quake3 with detailed graphics, he will only want to display tactical information, and not a nice ornament on the wall...

PS: some may know me, i play as peyote, and I manage that cpma server Bunker #5..
I am fairly new to openarena/quake3 ... still learning what is possible and what not.

yes, well, the trouble is that you can't limit any settings since we can't use punkbuster with OA

afaik openarena should be same as vanilla quake3, if so - it needs something to replace punkbuster asap!