cvars for better performance

[Bundy]

I cannot share your oppinion on that topic. You can customize the settings in any good 3dshooter and because of that I doubt that this will ever decrease the playerbase. I am 100% sure that removing these options would be a reason for many players to leave. I want to see my opponents as good as possible and I also need it to run the game smooth with stable FPS on most maps. Without these options Nexuiz would be unplayable for me and many others.

[Lee_Stricklin]

I don't see much of a problem, I play the regular version of Nexuiz with almost everything maxed (save for HDR and gib time) and notice it's more understanding weapons and reacting faster. The ONLY three exploits I see that would cause problems are if somebody were to use a wall hack (which wouldn't work that well do to the speed of the game), an aimbot (which would also not be super effective most of the time due to weapon ballistics), or a speed hack/strafe bot (in which case it would be so damned noticeable that the player would be kicked).

[The mysterious Mr. 4m]

The thing tends to get worse, because you will be rapidly confronted with it at present.

The prize for compatibility with every configuration is to have only players, who are willing to take every advantage and to play the game in the ugly version to win, if it is not already the case. It will scare new players away and it does not allow a relaxed atmosphere. I think that this will result in lesser number of players over time, because it's not easy to build up something around the game against this background.
Just take a look at how it works on some minsta dm server and you will understand.

If equality of opportunity is not a concern, then the game is not built for online gaming.

i don't think new players are aware of your theory. Unless they read it here.

[dana]

Many people use these settings not because they have insufficient hardware, but because they have more frags with it. In every game, which allow a bit more competition such settings are not tolerated in matches and tournaments. The game allows with the modifications of few variables to have a big advantage and now everybody is using it. Nexuiz is a very fast game and this makes the visibility even more important.
Isn't it a bit strange, that a configuration, which is not in graphic menu is commonly used?
I just don’t believe that every good player and people with a gaming mouse don't have the hardware to play in low settings(graphic menu) with a good frame rate. And I don't think that if most of the players play the game in disabled mod, it is a sign of a good fps.

For open source and cheating. Not every player is a programmer. It is just too easy at present and people don't feel that to take an advantage with r_showsurfaces, r_sky, r_drawfog, r_shownormals and such stuff is not fair play. I think there is just no way to say that this is not a cheat. Maybe it could be helpful if a server can check these cvars or take screenshots on the client side. But that should be combined with an authentication system for player, who want play the game in the competitive way, otherwise people have nothing to fear.
I think it would be enough if you let know people that cheating is not ok.
The problem is not people, who make their own cheat, but people, who just download it. For open source games it is a big problem I know but I think there are ways. Probably it's easier to make detectable cheats than to make a cheat detection system.

I think it usefull that new players are aware of the theory 4m :)

[divVerent]

Even if these features were removed, someone would simply host a changed engine binary.

Detections for this do exist, and some servers run it. But even a kick for a violation would be enough to make someone distribute an engine that circumvents this.

[parasti]

Even if these features were removed, someone would simply host a changed engine binary

That would be a clear admission they're cheating; it's not something many people would want to do, even to themselves. The problem is that it probably doesn't even occur to them that setting those cvars could be considered cheating because "the game allows it by default". Most will not bother if they first have to set a i_am_a_fucking_cheat_i_want_nexuiz_to_die cvar.

[Bundy]

In every game, which allow a bit more competition such settings are not tolerated in matches and tournaments.

In Quakeworld and Quake 3 Arena I played competetive over years it is/was allowed to change the settings. Some values were not allowed, but it was no problem to get perfect view of the enemy with the allowed settings (reducing textures, fullbright skins, better lights). So it is for sure tolerated in some games

[Radiohe4d]

As for r_showsurfaces: Well it makes your game look very ugly. I tried to play with that but it actually made me play worse. Sure it can be an advantage for some people, but imo its far less worse than the widely used and accepted r_picmip "5" in q3a. So I don't really see that cvar as a problem to fair play.

About the "wallhack" cvars:

Detections for this do exist, and some servers run it.

That would be cool. Could you give more details on that?
The only anti-cheating cvars I know about are the sv_cullentities_* ones. But they wont give you a perfect result. Here is what I found to work out best (tested in 1on1 only):

sv_cullentities_trace 1
sv_cullentities_trace_samples 8
sv_cullentities_trace_samples_player 32
sv_cullentities_trace_delay 0.001
sv_cullentities_trace_delay_players 0.001
sv_cullentities_trace_prediction 0

It would be very neat if either the mappers fix/optimize their maps or the sv_cullentities_* cvars get optimized somehow.

[dana]

As for r_showsurfaces: Well it makes your game look very ugly. I tried to play with that but it actually made me play worse. Sure it can be an advantage for some people, but imo its far less worse than the widely used and accepted r_picmip "5" in q3a. So I don't really see that cvar as a problem to fair play.

As far as I know, in some games picmip is limited to 3.With default punkbuster as well.
What makes you think that picmip 5 is worse than r_showsurfaces 3?
picmip reduces the quality of the texture, with r_showsurfaces there is no texture at all.


and some other examples "why it is not fair play":

[Bundy]

Picmip limitation in Q3 was at my times always at 5. When you use enemy models (FB which everyone uses) in Q3 screenshots you can see them on any distance perfect like in nexuiz. The difference here is just, that you can force the enemy model on your quake3client wheras you have to vote them over the server in nexuiz. On nexuiz public servers they are always OFF. If fullbrightskins are on, it doesnt matter to much if you use r_showsurfaces 3 or gl_picmip 5 in nexuiz or none of these settings at all (like in q3). Because of that, you cannot compare that really. That is like saying that it is a cheat to use a grey skin on a grey map in nexuiz ...