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Counter Strike Professional Optimization Part – 2

Tushaar — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:37:51 +0000

Welcome back gamers, hope you had good time with my previous post about calibrating your mouse and optimizing it for better performance. Now in this post, I will discuss about three main settings for Counter Strike 1.6

Frames Per Second
Adjusting Resolution
Bindings

As far as I guess, majority of people never paid attention to these settings, but fraggers, its really important.

So, what is Frames Per Second (fps)?

‘Frame rate, or frame frequency, is the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames.’ -Source Wikipedia.

Now ask yourself, do you have hard time controlling recoil (blowbacks) of guns, drags rarely works while sniping and the game lags while going through smoke.

If yes, then surely you need to pay attention on FPS of your game. Make sure you play on 100 FPS and it should be stable. Best ways for increasing FPS are,

- Turn Vsync Off.

For Nvidia cards

Open Control Open>NVIDIA Control Panel

Now in Nvidia Control Panel, go to Manage 3D Settings and there by click on Global Settings
There you will find Vertical sync, select Force Off and then hit Apply.

Now start Counter Strike and press ‘~’ on keyboard to open console. Enter following commands in console:

fps_max 100
cl_cmdrate 50
cl_updaterate 50

For ATI Cards- To turn Vsync off in ATI Cards, simply download this software – ATI Tray Tools

After installing it, follow this steps -

Right Click on the icon on task bar>3D>Wait for vertical sync>Always Off.

* to override Counter Strike FPS for more then 100, type ‘developer 1’ in console. That will allow you to go more than 100 FPS in Counter Strike. Type maximum FPS you want in console (e.g. fps_max 300), but 100 is considered the best for rich gaming experience. Even after this, you are not able to get 100 FPS stable, get a good graphic card in your PC and if you have one, then its good to be thrown in dust bin.

That’s it for FPS Settings, now coming on Resolution.

What is resolution (Res)?

Resolution is the term used to describe the number of dots, or pixels, used to display an image. Higher resolutions mean that more pixels are used to create the image, resulting in a crisper, cleaner image.

But for Counter Strike, low resolution is better. A lower res makes crosshair movement less distinguishable while higher res makes crosshair movement more noticeable. Lowering res makes the same sensitivity potentially more accurate as there are less pixels skipped per the same sens number. Higher res makes potential precision of accuracy higher by having more pixels to aim at and making subtle crosshair movements noticeable to the eye. Lowering res also means that when you do for example, a 180, less virtual physical space is traveled thus making it easier to track what you are looking at. And since you are still moving the mouse the same amount of distance the crosshair moves slower to travel the same amount of distance to compound the effect. Even, having low resolution gives you much stable FPS and while you are in smoke, FPS wont go down.

Now for in game settings, Make sure you use OpenGL render because its really stable. You can notice a remarkable change in FPS with both renders, i.e. DirectX and OpenGL.

640*480, 800*600 and 1024*768 are good choices.

BINDINGS -

Coming to bindings, it is setting your keyboard and mouse buttons according to your game play. Now, what if you are in close quarters and you go out of ammo, surely you will scroll your wheel down and so to switch to pistol and try to land more frags. But it really takes time, prefer using number keys to switch weapons, for that you have to use a command in console ‘hud_fastswitch 1’ that will switch to weapon as you tap the key without showing that HUD option for guns. Now by pressing ‘1’ you switch to Primary Weapon, press ‘2’ for Secondary, ‘3’ for knife, and here the big trouble comes, switching between grenades.

Grenades are stacked up under same category so its really tough to get the right one on right time. Players have to buy time to scroll between grenades and that’s really time consuming. Best way is, assign different key to different grenades. For instance in my case, ‘4’,’5’,’6’ are assigned for grenades. To do that, open console and type,

bind 4 weapon_hegrenade
bind 5 weapon_flashbang
bind 6 weapon_smokegrenade

Now its your personal choice what keys you want to assign.

By switching your weapons from number keys, frees your mouse wheel and you can bind it for jump and duck, console commands -

bind mwheelup +jump
bind mwheeldown +duck

Or, you can do it in Keyboard options.

So, play game, make yourself comfortable with keys. Make sure to do any action in game, you must not be struggling with keys. Whatever you are comfortable with, bind it to your preferred key.

* Bindings differs from player to player, so make your own configs rather then following someone else configs. Just the goal is to be quick while swapping weapons and making fast reflexes.

Well Then, That’s it for today. Keep turning on for more updates.

Adios.

HAPPY FRAGGING

Counter-Strike 1.6 Professional Optimization

Tushaar — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:36:13 +0000

Counter-Strike 1.6 was released on September 15, 2003, way-way back from today, but still players are struggling to master it. The game is too old, it has low poly animation that works mostly on any computer, and even the game is very simple. There are two Teams, Counter Terrorists(CTs) and Terrorists(Ts) that try to achieve their objectives.

This game is round based, i.e. on a bomb site situation, Ts have to plant bomb on either of two bombsites and save it until it explodes while CTs have either to prevent it or if bomb is planted then they have to defuse it before it explodes. While on other hand, in hostage situation, CTs have to rescue hostages to rescue points before time runs out and Ts have to stop them from doing so.

That’s it. The game is Simple, the rules are too easy, then why we struggle?

Answer is here: Majority of players don’t have their own settings. They play with default in game settings which might not suit them. Before starting to play just enter the following commands in the properties of your game.

-noforcemparms

* reverts to desktop mouse acceleration settings.

-noforcemaccel

* reverts to desktop mouse button settings.

-noforcemspd

* uses desktop mouse speed settings.

If you are a Steam Player here is how to enter the commands:

Open Steam.exe
Go to your games “LIBRARY”, right click on Counter-Strike and click on Properties.
Then click on “SET LAUNCH OPTIONS…” and paste each of the above commands with a space in between.

In case if you are a non-steam player then all you have to do is:

Right click on the desktop shortcut of your game and go to properties.
Enter the three commands in the Target space after the path of the game.
Hit enter and thats it.

Also make sure ‘Enhance Pointer Precision’ is unchecked in your mouse properties.

If you are concerned about mouse sensitivity then try keeping it less than 5. Personally, my sensitivity is 1. Adjusting sensitivity depends on DPI (dots per inch) of your mouse, Lower the DPI-higher the sensitivity and vice versa. Make sure that a minute mouse movement must not be resulting in more movement on screen. Calibrate your mouse sensitivity such that movement of mouse and reaction in game is near about same.

SELECTION OF A MOUSE

Before starting playing Counter Strike at enthusiast level you must have a gaming grade mouse. For low budget buyers, Logitech MX 518 is the best selection but the mouse performs really well. Beyond that you must take care that mouse fits in your palm, you can comfortable use all buttons on mouse without changing your grip.

That’s it for mouse settings, later in next post I will be telling you how to bind your mouse buttons for better game play and more exciting stuff about this wonderful game.

Till then, Bye

Keep Fragging

Indian Students To Get Rs 1,500 tablet PC

Rishabh — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:24:00 +0000

Today, Government of India announced a Rs 1,500 (around $ 30) tablet PC designed specifically for students. The device would be made available to students in 2011.

When the ministry floated the concept of a low cost laptop some years ago, officials said it would cost Rs 500 ($ 10). It will now cost about three times the initial projections.

The ministry expects the prices to drop to Rs 1,000 ($ 20) and reach Rs 500 ($ 10) as innovations are introduced.

The device, no bigger than a conventional laptop, is a single unit system with a touch screen and a built in keyboard along with 2GB RAM, Wi-Fi connectivity, USB port and powered by a 2-watt system to suit poor power supply areas.

The ministry also invited private players to produce similar low cost computers.

"When we started the project, the response from the private sector was lukewarm. Now many are willing to join the innovation," Sibal said.

The ministry started its efforts by holding discussions on this concept with a group of experts at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras and IIT Bombay, a ministry official said.

The low cost tablets will be distributed in institutions by the HRD ministry. The final price will depend on the transportation cost.

"We will give some subsidy on the device. As far as transport is concerned, if the transport cost in less, the government can bear that as well," Sibal added.

Cisco Unveils the iPad Killer

Rishabh — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:20:19 +0000

Cisco has unveiled its first entry into the tablet computer space: the Cius, a 7-inch HD business collaboration device running the Google Android operating system. It is a virtual desktop and telecommunication machine, complete with a front facing 720p HD camera and a second, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera.

The device is designed to be mobile. It runs a modified version of the Google Android operation system. It also comes with 3G capability, along with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Micro-USB support. Cisco claims that the device will go for eight hours “under normal usage.”

Tablet Specs

802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, 3G/4G data and Bluetooth
3.0HD video (720p) with Cisco TelePresence solution interoperability for lifelike video communication with the simplicity of a phone call
Virtual desktop client Android operating system, with access Android marketplace applications
Collaboration applications including Cisco Quad, Cisco Show and Share, WebEx, Presence, and IM
Tablet Highlights:
7” diagonal, high-resolution color screen with contact-based touch targets
HD Soundstation supports Bluetooth and USB peripherals, 10/100/1000 wired connectivity and a handset option
Detachable and serviceable 8-hour battery for a full day of work
Highly secure remote connections with Cisco AnyConnect Security VPN Client
HD audio with wideband support (tablet, HD Soundstation

256 GB Flash Drive By Kingston

Rishabh — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:02:41 +0000

Kingston, which is a renowned name in USB and Flash drive market is out with yet another innovation of theirs. This time, they have introduced 256GB USB flash drive with the name of Kingston DataTraveler 300. It also comes with a 5 year warranty. With such huge capacity Flash Drives being introduced in the market, we can see the external hard drives getting obsolete.

DataTraveler 300 Product Features and Specifications:

Capacity – 256 GB
Speed – Data transfer rates of up to 20 MB/sec. read and 10 MB/sec. write
Safeguarded – includes Password Traveler security software for Windows
Convenient - does not require Administrator rights to access the Privacy Zone
Dimensions – 70.68 mm x 16.90 mm x 21.99 mm
Enhanced – for Windows ReadyBoost on Vista-based systems