What should the sv_maxspeed and sys_ticrate be set at on quake servers?

[PapaSmurf]

sv_maxspeed should be self evident as to what this does; it is the maximum running speed one can achieve without strafe running, strafe jumping, etc.

sys_ticrate may be unfamiliar to some of you. sys_ticrate is the rate at which the server updates the client, so a ticrate of 0.05 will have the sesrver update the client 20 time every second. Essentially the smaller the ticrate the value, the more the quake server feels like playing in quake single player or playing on your own listen server, ie, it's more responsive. The consequence, however, of having to small of a ticrate will yield to poor performance with those with low bandwidth (HPBs) or (possibly) high latency connections.

The ticrate was commonly set to 0.07 back in Quake's heyday (96-9; this was to help with all those poor HPBs. Around the year 2000, with more and more people having LPB connections, most of the remaining servers set the ticrate at its default value of 0.05 for a more responsive feel.

So what is the consensus, keep maxspeed and ticrate at their default values. Or increase maxspeed for "OMG I NEED MORE SPEED" and decrease ticrate for more responsive controls.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with decreasing ticrate to a reasonable level, somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.015-0.025. However, increasing the maxspeed on servers just seems wrong to me.

Note: decreasing ticrate in and of itself will not only make the server feel more responsive, but it will also make it feel faster. You will be able to do trick more easily with lower ticrate; for example, rocket jumping from pent to top of lifts and strafe jumping across the gap over the nailgun in the RA room on DM3 are easier to do with a lower ticrate.

[Baker]

Nothing smart to say, but I really like speaknow's 0.01 ticrate. Maybe if I had 70 ping there, I would think 0.05 was better.

Is the downside of lower ticrates is that lower ping players have super-shaft? I don't know if this is true.

I don't mind Rage's ticrate of 0.05 (I think that is the setting #), ticrates of 0.15 and higher numbers, I don't enjoy that at all.

[=peg=]

I definitely prefer a low ticrate now that i finally got my brain to get used to normal strafing (i used to strafe with the mouse believe it or not)

The euroquake server runs on .015 and is very smooth (for me anyways) and i love the movement there!
The speaknow server feels good to me too with its .01 ticrate but i ping 140 there so i cant move as well as i would like due to the latency..

as far as the maxspeed is concerned.. i have played quite some time at the old topsid server which ran servermod 3.12 with sv_maxspeed 360 and ticrate .05. The increase in speed took some getting used to but i realy liked it then.. not sure how that would work out combined with a lower ticrate tho... 320 is fine for me atm.

[R00k]

Speaknow was accidentally set at ticrate of ZERO its incarnation; great if you are on a lan, but bad if you are hosting a server to the masses. As most Northern players flocked there to try it out they had pings sub 50 and immediately felt the difference. This wasnt just ping but "hey i can strafe more fluidly. And omg i can rj from lower bridge and hit my head on the ceiling!" At lower ticrates, the physics (ie friction), have less time to apply to the entities, thus bunnyhopping is enhanced. and that rj to pent window from top lift is exploited. About a year ago i tested having double wall jumps in CA, means you could jump on a wall and then as you touched the wall press jump again and jump up and off gaining more height, you can do something like this if u jump-release-in mid air-press jump again before you land and hold, when u hit the ground u continue to jump, BUT wall jumps are on a vertical (ack i've wandered off topic!), but bottomline.. lower ticrate is good if ping can handle it IF it doesnt alter the physics too much to sway the gmeplay. But to bolseter this with higher runspeed makes me think that someone was sleeping at the wheel of logic and wanted to play runequake drunk on a sunday morning. (damnit there i go crossing the double yellow line again). Anyways, lower ticrate good altered standards in speeds bad, next i guess they will increase the speed of rockets, or the rate of fire for nails or hey lets just make people fly! Ugh..... imho i prefer a ticrate of 0.025 at sub 40 ping, sv_maxspeed 320!

[Canadian*Sniper]

Whitehot's sys_ticrate is 0.0333. Polarite has mentioned that the server is really smooth. As for what Baker said about speaknow, I normally ping around 80-130 on American servers and I do notice that it's easier to rocketjump and bunnyhop for a few seconds there.

I'm all for a higher sv_maxspeed just to see how it affects internet DM. I've done it a few times on LAN. It's pretty wicked.

[Cataklysque]

r00k, it was no accident, I take full responsibility

Anyway, I prefer a lower ticrate and default maxspeed. I think most of us have some form of broadband and can handle 0.025 - 0.01.

Back to r00k, %x at the %y, I'll exploit lift to pent window with a 150 ping on ticrate 0.05, the big problem exists in TDM; easily jumping from high bridge to rl box. It changes the game significantly.

Logically, it sounds like a lower ticrate could hurt hpbs, but I've heard the opposite from one out of the zero hpbs left in existence. Good thing we have a large sample group to ask, otherwise this would be a huge waste of time.

[PapaSmurf]

Cat, how good are you at making that jump from bridge to RL box in QW? in NQ single player? IE, are you fairly consistent at it under the rigth conditions?

If so, the ticrate could be increased incrementall until that jump becomes almost impossible. Turtlevan would also be a good player to test this out, as he's one of the better trick jumpers i've seen.

[Mr.Burns]

...I'm all for a higher sv_maxspeed just to see how it affects internet DM. I've done it a few times on LAN. It's pretty wicked.

@CS: Just as an aside, years ago I used to play a quake mod called Deathmatch plus on the Junker server based in the USA. It was pretty tough playing local people like Slurpee Machine mostly due to the high ping, but as the sv_maxspeed was set to 600 you could, to some degree at least, compensate once you adjusted to the sheer speed at which you were playing. Of course you have to put the breaks on a bit at times else you would be launched in to oblivion. Great fun though.

After many hundreds of hours playing at that speed and developing the reactions of a fly, the problem came trying to adjust to 'normal' servers running at 300-350. It was like playing in treacle. :d

@Smurfy: For trick jumpers you might also consider talking to 'Big bottomed' Peg and/or Cortex both of whom are very accommplished and fluid 'jumpers'.

Kind regards

Monty

[Cataklysque]

I'm not that consistent, tv would delight in this task. But I think it would be difficult to do it in 1 jump at 0.025 and not worth the effort

[Zop]

Bam is our local HPB if I recall.

[Phenom]

Last thing I heard Bam say was 0.05 was much better for him when we are on the Bomber server a while back.

Bam and me also tried to recreate the feel of sys_ticrate of 0.01 by lowering gravity by a small margin and a couple other tweaks which I can't fully remember at this point since im not fully awake yet . Needless to say it didn't give the full effect of a sys_ticrate 0.01 but it made things easier for the borh of us (HPB & LPB) by leaving it at 0.05 and adusting other settings for testing purposes.

I would say it mimic'd sys_ticrate 0.01 almost up to 75% to 80%