cl_bob "0.xxx". x determines how much you roll back & forth while running. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement. This & the other 2 settings below may help you aleviate any motion sickness you may experience after prolonged gaming sessions. Aiming may also be improved when the bobbing is disabled.

cl_bobcycle "0.xxx". x determines how much you roll back & forth while moving. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement.

cl_bobup "0.xxx". x determines how much you bob up while moving. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement.

cl_himodels "x". Setting x to 1 enables higher quality player models when playing network/internet games. 0 is the default, which uses slightly lower quality player models, although performance is oosted as a result.

cl_showfps "x". Setting x to 1 enables the display of your current frame rate, 0 disables this counter. I'd recommend setting this to 1 if you want to see the "real" effect tweaking display settings has on your frame rate.

gl_alphamin "x". This has to do with surfaces such as fences. If you experience that such surfaces aren't displaying correctly (e.g. Not appearing) try a lower value than the default. Otherwise, leave it at default.

gl_clear "x". A value of 0 for x fills cracks between textures, 1 makes these visible. 0 is slower than 1, although more pleasing visually.

gl_cull "x". Setting x to 1 enables the rendering of visible objects only. 0 renders all regardless which should reduce performance. I'd recommend setting this to 1.

gl_dither "x". A value of 1 for x enables dithering. If you have a card that can render in colour depths greating than 16 bit then try set this to 0.

gl_keeptjunctions "x". Setting x to 1 may fix some visual tearing (fills cracks between textures), although possibly at a slight performance hit. 0 disables this & may run faster, although potentially with visual anomolies (cracks between textures).

gl_lightholes "x". If you've set r_lightmap "0", then also set x to 1, otherwise set it to 0.

gl_max_size "x". x sets the maximum texture size. 256 is the default. Depending on your video you may be able to use larger textures, e.g. Pre-Voodoo 4 users should use 256. Others may be able to set 512 or higher.

gl_overbright "x". A value of 1 for x enables maximum brightness mode. This will yield brighter & more vivid textures being displayed.

gl_palette_tex "x". A value of 1 for x enables paletted textures. Set it to 0 if your videocard doesn't support palettized textures.

gl_picmip "x". A setting of 0 for x gives best image quality. Setting it higher (0 to 4) may improve performance but reduce image quality. I’d recommend leaving this at either 0 or 1.

gl_playermip "x". Setting x to 0 gives best texture quality for models. Setting it higher (up to 2) may improve performance but reduce image quality for models. I’d recommend leaving this at either 0 or 1.

gl_polyoffset "x". x sets polygon offset factor. Other values may fix flickering with decals or missing decals. NOTE - This will not solve flickering cause by gl_ztrick "1". Leave at the default if none of the glitches mentioned are occuring. 0.1, 1 or 20 reportedly fixes these problems.

gl_round_down "x". I'd recommend leaving this set to 0 or 1.

gl_smoothmodels "x". Set x to 1 to enable Gourad shading of models for better improved visual quality. Setting x to 0 disables this, although performance may improve as a result. I'd recommend leaving it enabled.

gl_spriteblend "x". Leave x set to 1.

gl_texsort "x". A value of 1 for x enables Multi-texturing, which can improve performance on some cards. Setting this to 0 allows you set gl_overbright "1".

gl_texturemode "x". Valid entries for x are GL_NEAREST (worst),

GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_NEAREST (2nd worst),

GL_LINEAR,

GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST (Bilinear),

GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR (best).

Setting it to GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR (Trilnear) will yield best visual quality, but lowest performance. Setting it to the other settings will improve performance, but give increasingly worse image quality. NOTE – 3dfx cards cannot perform Trilinear texturing filtering & Multi-texturing at simultaneously.

gl_wateramp "x". A value of 1 enables waves in the water. 0 may improve frame rate in areas with normally wavy water.

gl_ztrick "x". Setting x to 1 may improve performance, although it may cause flickering with distant objects. 0 will eliminate the flickering although can lower performance.

r_decals "x". x sets the maximum amount of decals that can be active in a singleplayer game. Reducing this number may help improve performance, especially in areas where there is a lot of action. 4096 is the default. Once this amount is reached the oldest one(s) is removed & new one(s) placed.

r_displayrefresh "x". With this you can force a specified refresh rate. Replace x with the desired refresh rate you want to use, e.g. 85. Don't set it above your monitor refresh rate though or you may damage your monitor.

r_drawviewmodel "x". A value of 1 for x enables your weapon model to be shown on screen. Setting this to 0 will remove the weapon model from view. This has 2 beneficial effects; A. You gain a few FPS & B. You can see more of the screen (especially with larger weapons). There are 2 disadvantagous side-effects however; A. It looks strange (e.g. Bullet casings are ejected from nowhere) & B. In the heat of battle you may have difficultly knowing weapon you have (e.g. Accidentally using a Rocket Launcher up close). As a result I'd recommend leaving this set to 1.

r_dynamic "x". A value of 1 for x enables dynamic lighting. You shouldn't set this to 0 for any reason. Probably the best example of a dynamic light in the game is your HEV suits Flashlight. As you can guess, playing without the flash light can be very awkward.

r_fullbright "x". Leave this set to 0. Other values, 0 - 4 (Of which 3 & 4 affect software renderer only), will affect visuals adversely.

r_lightmap "x". A value of 0 for x will enable Lightmap lighting (real-time) of levels. Setting x to 1 will enable Vertex lighting instead, which is faster, but uses static lighting of levels.

r_norefresh "x". Not a tweak as such although setting x to 1 will freeze the screen. Leave it set to 0 at all times. This is included here more as a warning than anything else.

r_novis "x". The default value for x is 0. When set to 1 underwater polygons are rendered. Seeing as underwater items generally cannot be seen until you are underwater it is quite futile to enable & will effect performance adversely when near areas with non-transparent water. See r_wateralpha "x" if you decide to set this to 1.

r_mirroralpha "x". A value of 1 enables reflective textures (e.g. The alien warriors armour). 0 disables them, which can improve performance.

r_shadows "x". A value of 1 enables support for shadows, which looks ok, but reduces performance. I'd recommed leaving them disabled, 0.

r_traceglow "x". A value of 1 will make player models non-transparent with regards to light halo's, e.g. If there is a scientist in front of you & a lamp behind him you should not be able to see any light halo from the lamp through his body. While this is graphically realistic, it results in a fairly significant performance hit. 0 is the default & recommended for most users, as from the earlier example, this setting would let the light halo from the lamp be seen through the scientists body.

r_wateralpha "x". If you previously set r_novis "1" you should also set this to 0. This will make all water transparent & as a result you will be able to spot underwater enemies with ease. Leave this set to 1 if you set r_novis "0".

vid_wait "x". x is used to enable/disable Vsync. Vsync effectively limits the frame rate to your current refresh rate at a given resolution. Performance can improve with vsync disabled (Frames are rendered as fast as they can be regardless of refresh rate), although you can experience image tearing &/or controller lag as a result. With vsync enabled you won’t experience either image tearing nor controller lag, although frame rate will be limited to your refresh rate. As such I’d recommend enabling vsync for best image quality & disabling it when you intend to benchmark Half-Life performance.

violence_ablood "x". A value of 1 for x enables standard blood effects. Setting x to 0 can improve performance.

violence_agibs "x". A value of 1 for x enables standard gibs. Setting x to 0 can improve performance.

violence_hblood "x". A value of 1 for x enables extra blood. Setting x to 0 can improve performance.

violence_hgibs "x". A value of 1 for x enables extra gibs. Setting x to 0 can improve performance.

traceralpha "x". x sets the transparency level of Tracer ammo. Valid values for x are 0 – 1. The higher this value is the less transparent Tracer ammo is, & vice versa. Setting this to 1 will disable the transparency effect, while 0 will make it completely transparent (defeating the purpose of the Tracer).

tracerred "x". x controls the intensity of the colour Red in Tracer ammo. Raise this value a slider to increase the intensity of the Red element of Tracer ammo, & vice versa.

tracergreen "x". x controls the intensity of the colour Green in Tracer ammo. Raise this value a slider to increase the intensity of the Green element of Tracer ammo, & vice versa.

tracerblue "x". x controls the intensity of the colour Blue in Tracer ammo. Raise this value a slider to increase the intensity of the Blue element of Tracer ammo, & vice versa.

lambert "x". This setting controls model lighting. I'd highly recommended you leave this setting at the default value.

precache "x". When x is set to 1 this enables the precaching of textures in Video memory before loading a level. This can improve performance on many graphics cards (In the sense that Textures aren't loaded during a level if the Graphics card has sufficient texture memory), although it will also increase loading time. When x is set to 0 textures are loaded during levels instead, which will improve level loading time, although can adversely effect performance in levels as textures are loaded into Video memory.

tripplebuffer "x". Triple buffering allocates a 3rd frame buffer. This frame buffer can improve performance by allowing the hardware to render at the same time that the 3D application performs other tasks. Set x to 1 to enable Tripple buffering for improved performance. However, Tripple buffering requires extra video memory, so on older Graphics cards (Low Video memory) you can improve performance by setting this to 0 instead.

s_2dvolume "x". x sets the maximum volume which 2D sounds are played at. By the nature of the filters being applied to the A3D buffers, they are quieter then their 2D counterparts. Hence it is important to quiet the 2D sounds to make up for this.

s_a3d "x". A value of 1 for x enables A3D on supported Soundcards. This will allow for enhanced audio effects such as reverberation, for improved audio quality (More realistic), although performance may be reduced as a result. A value of 0 disable A3D support.

s_bloat "x". x controls the Bloat factor for polygons. Effectively this scales each polygon by a certain amount. This is a rough way to fill holes left by unrendered small polygons.

s_buffersize "x". x sets the audio buffer size. I'd recommend leaving it at the default value.

s_doppler "x". x can be used to adjust the doppler effect. Valid values are from 0 – 10. This is a very sensitive setting. I'd recommend leaving it at the default.

s_eax "x". A value of 1 for x enables EAX on supported Soundcards. This will allow for enhanced audio effects such as reverberation, for improved audio quality (More realistic), although performance may be reduced as a result. A value of 0 disable EAX support.

s_geometry "x". A value of 1 enables A3D geometry processing, 0 disables it. If you enable this feature then you can also edit the setting below. Enabled is slower however.

s_geom_reverb "x". A value of 1 enables geometric reverb (Which sounds more realistic), 0 disables it, which will improve performance.

s_numpolys "x". x sets the maximum number of polygons to be rendered in A3D. Setting this to 0 is equivalent to s_geometry "0". Valid values are 0 & above. I'd recommend leaving it at the default value, although setting it higher may result in more accurate 3d sound.

s_occfactor "0.xx". x sets the transmission value of material - the smaller the number, the more occluded the sound is (less sound passes through the material) & vice versa. Valid values are 0 - 1.

s_occlude "x". A value of 1 for x enables occulsion effects (Sound passing through materials gets muffled by them), 0 disables this for improved performance.

s_refdelay "4". x sets the delay between a source & its closest reflection. The higher the delay (x), the longer it takes between when the source & its first reflection is played, valid values are 0 - 100. I'd recommend leaving it at the default value.

s_reverb "x". Set x to 1 to enable reverberation effects. This can improve audio quality (more realistic), although performance will be lower. 0 disables reverb, & performance can be improved as a result.

s_reflect "x". Set x to 1 to enable audio reflections. This can improve audio quality (more realistic), although performance will be lower. 0 disables reflections & performance will be improved as a result.

s_verbwet "0.xx". x sets the wet/dry mix for reverb in A3D. The higher x is, the wetter the sounds. Valid values are 0 to 1. I'd recommend leaving this at the default.

ambient_fade "x". x sets the distance at which ambient sounds fade out, with 100 being the maximum distance. Using lower values may improve performance slightly.

ambient_level "x". x sets the audio level for ambient sounds in the game. This value represents a fraction of volume setting, e.g. if ambient_level is set to 0.33 & volume is set to 0.90 then the ambient sounds are effectively played at 0.3. Valid entries for x from 0.00 – 1.00.

hisound "x". Set x to 1 for best sound quality (22Khz). Set it to 0 for better performance (11Khz), you should only change it to 0 if you have an old soundcard (ISA) as audio quality will be reduced.

loadas8bit "x". Set x to 0 for improved audio quality (16-bit). A setting of 1 may improve performance a little but reduce audio quality (8-bit).

nosound "x". Setting x to 1 disables all audio. You might want to do this when benchmarking so as only your video card will be taken into account for performance. I'd recommend leaving it at 0.

net_graph "x". For x there are 3 different types of Netgraph you can use. A value of 1 enables the standard netgraph. 2 enables a more detailed netgraph, while a setting of 3 displays a cut-down netgraph. I'd recommend setting this to either 2 or 3. You should note that using net_graph "3" will have no adverse effect on frame rate (1 or 2 can).



1: This area shows numeric information about the performance of your computer & its net connection. The numbers registered are as follows (based on the above snapshot). As shown, the client is rendering frames at 41.2 frames per second. The client believes that it has a 332 millisecond round trip message time to the server (this is a latency reading, rather than a pure ping, since it includes processing overhead on both ends). The last packet the client received ("in") from the server was 32 bytes long. The average data rate over the last second or so from the server has been 1.05 kilobytes/second & the last packet had 3 bytes of "player" data in it. On the other hand, the last command issued by the client was only 29 bytes long & the client is generating 1.31 kilobytes/second of upstream data right now.

2: Below the numeric readout is the well-understood green/red/yellow/blue readout that most users are familiar with. In particular, the height of the green line indicates how much latency exists in the connection for the specific packet received. The green lines max out at around 1000ms of latency, so our player here with 332 ms of latency has a green line that goes about 1/3 of the way up the area. The red vertical lines you see indicate dropped packets. In addition, if the client & server encounter severe connection problems, they can become so out of date that you will see blue lines similar to the red ones. Finally, if the bandwidth choke is active (your rate setting is holding back packets at the server because your connection can't handle them), then the green dot for the next packet you receive will be drawn in yellow instead.

3: Area 4 is correlated to how quickly the client is rendering frames. For each frame rendered, the graph indicates how much interpolation was used in drawing objects in the world. If you are not getting a sufficient number of server updates (Less than 10/second) or you drop enough packets, then the client won't be able to interpolate any more & will have to extrapolate instead. In that case, you'll see the lower part of the graph go above the grayish line (above the dark blue area) & turn yellow to orange/red depending upon how far out of date your data becomes.

4: The number here is the number of updates per second you are currently requesting from the server. The default is to receive 20 updates/second from the server. You can change this value by setting the cl_updaterate "x" cvar from the console.

5: This number is the maximum number of command packets you will send to the server per second. By default you send up to 30 command packets per second up to the server. If you are running faster than 30 frames per second, then multiple commands will be put into some packets. You can change the rate of sending command packets to the server by setting the cl_cmdrate "x" cvar. In addition, with each command, we re-send the last few previous movement commands (in case there is packet loss) so that we can keep moving smoothly in the face of minor network problems. The default number of "backup" commands that we send is 2, but you can change this number by setting cl_cmdbackup "x" to another number. You can send more than 8 backup commands & you should note that sending backup commands will increase your outgoing bandwidth usage.

6: The final area is the light blue & (sometimes) red line at the very bottom of the netgraph. This line is based on your framerate & your cl_cmdrate "x" setting. For every frame where a command packet is actually send out onto the wire, a light blue dot is placed on the graph. If commands are accumulated for deferred sending, you'll see a red dot instead. Try setting cl_cmdrate "x" to half your framerate to see the effect.

net_graphwidth "x". x sets the width (In pixels) of the Netgraph. The default width is 192. Increase/Decrease ythis as you feel necessary.

net_graphheight "x". x sets the height (In pixels) of the Netgraph. The default height is 64. Increase/Decrease ythis as you feel necessary.

net_graphpos "x". x sets the position of the Netgraph, where valid values for x are 1 (Bottom Right), 2 (Bottom Middle) & 3 (Bottom Left).

cl_allowdownload "x". A value of 1 for x enables downloading of maps/models/decals when joining a server. 0 disables this. I'd recommend leaving it enabled.

cl_allowupload "x". A value of 1 for x enables the uploading of Maps/Models/Decals when joining a server. 0 disables this. I'd recommend leaving it enabled.

cl_download_ingame "x". A value of 1 for x enables downloading during a multiplayer game. This obviously can have an adverse effect on your netplay, for this reason I'd recommend leaving this set to 0. You can always have cl_allowdownload "1" which allows downloading in between games.

cl_gaitestimation "x". Setting x to 1 enables estimated player movement motions, 0 disables this.

cl_nodelta "x". A value of 0 for x disables delta compression. You shouldn't do this for any reason. Leave it at 0.

cl_nopred "x". Setting this to 1 disables client side prediction, 0 enables the prediction. It is strongly recommended you leave prediction enabled.

cl_resend "x". This sets how many times a packet may be resent if it fails. I'd recommend setting x to 1 or 2.

cl_showmessages "x". A value of 1 for x enables the display of messages in multiplayer games, 0 will disable this. It's probably best to leave this set to 1, although a bit of user discretion comes into this.

cl_cmdrate "x". This sets the maximum amount of packets that get sent to the server per second. The default setting is 30. Those on ISDN or faster connections should try setting this higher. You may need to experiment with it this setting to find the optimal value for you (Try using lower values if you have a slow upload speed), as you may notice via the Netgraph your upload rate is generally more stable than your download rate.

cl_updaterate "x". This sets the maximum amount of packets that get sent from the server per second. The default setting is 20. Those on ISDN or faster connections should try this higher (35+). You may need to experiment with it this setting to find the optimal value for you.

mp_decals "x". This sets the amount of decals that can be active in a multiplayer game. Reducing this number may help improve performance, especially in areas where there is a lot of action. 300 is the default. Once the amount is reached the oldest decal(s) is removed & new one(s) placed.

mp_footsteps "x". Set this to 1 to enable footsteps during a multiplayer game. This can be useful in locating (hearing) the enemy before you see them. 0 disables this & may improve netplay slightly. I'd recommend leaving this enabled.

pushlatency "x". It is recommended that you set x to half your normal ping. & make the value negative, e.g. If your ping to a server is normally about 300, then you'd set x to -150.


Remember you can place these commands in your userconfig file. You can also bind these commands to a key to where you can change them while in game.