[TiC]EVIL.'s Half-life & Counter-Strike Tweaks

Half-life HUD Tweaks: (works in any Half-life Mod)

Centering Names under your crosshairs *

Fast weapon switch *

Turn off "play CD Music" to stop lag *

Set Gamma to max to see in dark corners  *

Turning on NetGraph to monitor FPS & connection *

Change text color *

Disable annoying GUI Menu interface *

Disable annoying Auto-help *

Disable annoying Map Briefing *

Occasionally delete custom.hpk for faster map loading *

Counter-Strike ONLY Tweaks:

Set Models to Minimum amount *

Grenade Quick Binds *

C-4 Countdown Timer (bombpl.wav) *

Turn ON "High Quality sound" for sneaking with 3D sound *

Setting fastsprites to help with smoke lag

Adjust non-zoomed Crosshairs color *

Lag Causes & Prevention Tweaks:

What is Lag, ping, latency, what causes lag

Dialup Lag, Hardware vs. Software Dialup Modems

Turning down your Video settings if it lags you

Turning down your Sound settings if it lags you

Turn off in-game voice if it lags or crashes you

Setting fastsprites to stop smoke lag (in CS)

OTHER Handy Tweaks:

Install better Crosshairs  * (a must have)

Counter-Strike Buy Scripts  * (a must have)

Tweaks for Cable/DSL internet (DSL-reports.com)

NetGraph Explained (Half-life's Internet Connection Utility) *

In-Game Voice on/off Script  *

* = (this tweak is for highly recommended for newbies & others) * = (this tweak is for advanced players)

Half-Life HUD weapons tweaks:

There are several QUICK little tweaks, that will DRASTICALLY help with the use of weapons in any Half-life Mod. The word "Mod" is short for Modifications. Mods are extra add-on games to Half-life (like TFC, Counter-Strike, DoD, etc). These tweaks work in Counter-Strike or with ANY OTHER Half-life Mod whether its it TFC, DoD (Day of Defeat Mod), Firearms Mod, etc, etc. These installation instructions show how to install these tweaks for the Counter-Strike Mod. I highly recommend that you do these tweaks with the GREEN "*" by them if you ever want to be more then an average player. If you have a dialup connection you might want to turn off Half-life's in-game voice feature prevent lag. (Note: the following Half-Life tweaks will have to be done to EACH MOD if you want to use them in those Mods.) Also, read your Half-Life readme.txt file (on your computer) for all kinds of other helpful tips, also read and "manuals" or any readme.txt files that came with a mod.

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Centering people names under your crosshairs (center id):

By default, when you point your crosshairs at someone, the name of the person you are pointing your weapon at will show up at the lower left hand side of the screen making you move your eyes from the center of the screen (off of them) to the lower left hand side to read their name.  If you turn ON hud_centerid, the person's game name will then be displayed in the center of the screen underneath your crosshairs when you point their weapon at them, this will make it much easier and faster to identify and target enemies (and also help you avoid shooting friends).

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-life console, type in:
    hud_centerid "1"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

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Putting a weapon in your hand when it's selected (fast switch):

Usually when you select a weapon by pressing the number keys (1,2,3,4,5), you have to hit a number button to select it, then hit your fire button before the weapon actually appears in your hand. If you have fast weapon switch turned on (hud_fastswitch 1), as soon and you select that weapon by pressing a number, it appears in you hand, saving precious time during a fire fight. (This does not affect the Previous/Next weapon mouse scroll, only the keyboard's number keys).

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-life console, type in:
    hud_fastswitch "1"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.
Now, when you select a weapon, its "in your hand".

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Turn off "Play CD music" to stop online lag:

If your Half-life game trys to play music files on your Half-life CD during a game, there might be a momentary delay (or lag) while you are playing, to prevent, this turn off "Play CD music".

1. Start up Counter-Strike.
2. Select  "Configuration".
3. Select "Audio".
4. Make sure "Play CD music" is un-checked (turned off).

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Set Mod's Gamma to max to see in dark corners:

There are several ways to adjust the "gamma" brighter on your computer. Each  Half-life  Mod has an adjustment to make areas on the map seem "brighter" by adjust the gamma higher. This will enable you to see snipers hiding in dark corners and other dark areas.

1. Start up Counter-Strike.
2. Select  "Configuration".
3. Select "Video".
4. Adjust the "Gamma" slider all the way to maximum (the right).

Some video cards with main nvidia video chips (and some some others) allow you to also boost the gamma setting more by tweaking the advanced settings for that video card. Also your monitor's brightness can be adjusted up too, but the better way is to adjust it up in the game's video settings, then on the video card's advanced settings, if possible, only turn up your monitor's gamma (brightness setting) if there is no other way .

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Turning on "NetGraph" (frames per second & internet connection monitor):

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-life console, type in:
    net_graph "1"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now, when you get into a game with that mod, you will see a graph in the lower right hand corner of the screen. The netgraph contacts the FPS (frames per seconds) of video card while playing. A higher FPS number is better, lower FPS looks "jerky" like an old silent Charlie Chaplin movie. There is also a "graph" that show several colors, basically you want a green line to stay "solid" and at the top of the graph and the blue and red line (might appear as single violet line) to stay solid and at the bottom of the graph. If you get a bad internet connection you will start to see the lines "ramp up and down" and look erratic (bad connections graphs looks like a saw's teeth shape). Note, with NetGraph on, it does not actually change any video settings, it is only a tool for monitoring your internet connection quality and your FPS in games, the effects of it "loading" (no extra lagging) your video card are usually negligible. To turn of the netgraph, just enter in net_graph "0" in the console and hit your ENTER key.

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Changing the text message color to an easier to read color:

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    con_color "255 255 0"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now, when you you get into a game, the colors of your text is now an easy to read YELLOW color (con_color "255 255 0"), instead of that nasty puke orange default color. ;-)

You can set the text message color to any color, brighter colors are better and easier to read in the game, especially at higher screen resolutions. The 3 numbers relate to how much RED, GREEN and BLUE of each color is added together to form the color of the text messages in that Half-Life mod. There can be any value from 0 to 255. Setting a color to 0 turns that color completely off. Setting it to 255 turns it completely on, so if you set it to con_color "255 0 0" your text messages would all appear on your screen as red text.

These are just a few of the possible text message color settings:
(they are colored the same color your text would be if you changed to that setting)
 

Half-Life Text Color Setting	Color
con_color "255 0 0"	red
con_color "0 255 0"	green
con_color " 0 0 255"	blue
con_color "255 255 0"	yellow
con_color "255 0 255"	fuchsia
con_color "0 255 255"	aqua
con_color "255 255 255"	white

con_color "255 155 50"
(orange is the default color in Counter-Strike)

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Disabling the annoying initial GUI info menu:

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    setinfo "_vgui_menus" "0"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now, when you you get into a game, you will NOT see that big GUI menu that pops up initially. Newbies will probably NOT want to use this tweak. This gets rid of the annoying GUI menu if you have buy scripts and uses the old style text menu instead. setinfo "_vgui_menus" "1" turns it back on.

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Disabling  annoying Auto-help popup menu:

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    setinfo "_ah" "0"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now, when you you get into a game, you will NOT see that help menu that pops up. Newbies will probably NOT want to use this tweak. setinfo "_ah" "1" turns it back on.

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Disabling annoying Map brief popup menu:

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    setinfo "dm" "0"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now, when you you get into a game, you will NOT see that map briefing menu that pops up. Newbies will probably NOT want to use this tweak. setinfo "dm" "1" turns it back on.

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Occasionally delete custom.hpk for faster map loading:
(or turn ON hpk_maxsize)

Large custom.hpk files can slow your game during "loading" on a map change. To prevent this, simply delete that Mod's custom.hpk file, so that when the game starts, it regenerates an empty custom.hpk file to start over with. Spay logos of other people (that are playing on the same server you are play on) are downloaded and stored in your custom.hpk file so you can see them during the game. If left un-checked, the custom.hpk file can grow to over 100MB if you play a lot, this will cause a huge delay in loading the after a map change or loading initially on the server.

1. Just in case, make a back up copy of Half-life Mod's "custom.hpk" at  C:\SIERRA\Half-Life\cstrike\custom.hpk (located on your computer).
2. Now delete the custom.hpk file for that Mod.
3. Simply get in a game now and that Half-life mod will automatically regenerate an empty custom.hpk file for that Mod.
4. Now, during map changes and on initial server loads, you should be able to "load" and  and reconnect to the server quicker. You can repeat this for each Half-life Mod that has a custom.hpk file over 1MB or so.

ALSO:
5. You can also set a command in half-life to limit the future size of the custom.hpk file for that mod.
6. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
7. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    hpk_maxsize "1"
8. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now the game will automatic limit the size of your custom.hpk file for that Mod, if you want to see other people's spray logos and have trouble seeing them sometimes, reset the  hpk_maxsize command  to "0" (off).

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Tweaks that are specific to Counter-Strike ONLY:

These tweaks are specific to Counter-Strike ONLY, but are very valuable. I highly recommend that you do these tweaks with the GREEN "*" by them if you ever want to be more then an average player. Check out  your Counter-Strike Mod Manual (or your Counter-Strike RETAIL) or your Counter-Strike readme.txt  (located on your computer) for even more tips.

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Setting the number of models in Counter-Strike to the minimum amount:
(this is a MUST DO tweak for newbies!!)

NOTE: If you are new to Counter-Strike and usually can't figure out who to shoot before you end up dead ;-(, set Counter-Strike to use only (3) models instead of the default of 11 models. It would use (1) "model" for the Terrorist team,  (1)  for the Counter-Terrorist team and  (1)  for the VIP/Hostages.

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-Life console, type in:
   cl_minmodels "1"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

  Note: cl_minmodels "0" sets to the default of (11) models.

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Turn ON "High Quality sound" for sneaking with 3D sound.

If you ever want to be a great Counter-strike player, you absolutely must get 3D sound to work in Counterstrike. If you are standing still and can hear enemies walking towards you, but you can never tell if they are coming from your left or your right side, your 3D sound is not working, you really need 3D sound in CS. 3D sound makes playing Counter-Strike about 30% easier. If you make this adjustment and your 3D sound still never works in the game, you must correct your Windows Advanced Speaker settings to  Stereo Speakers (or higher quality speakers).

1. Start up Counter-Strike.
2. Select  "Configuration".
3. Select "Audio".
4. Make sure "High Quality Sound" is checked (turned on).

ALSO:
5. If you computer's sound card/chip supports it and it does not lag you, you might want to turn on (check)  "A3D sound effects" or "EAX sound effects" (high performance sound effects). Only turn on "A3D" or "EAX", but not both.

Note: With the extra sounds effects, you can clearly hear people on tin roofs, etc, making it easier to tell just how far they are away from you and what direction they are when they are running, even if you can not see them. Your sound card/chip will have to work extra during shoot outs with your sound settings cranked up, if this lags you, turn them back down.

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Counter-Strike Grenade Binds:
(this is a MUST do tweak!!)

First up, in my opinion, without the proper use of grenades in CS, you will probably never be more then just an average CS player. This tweaks binds one key to  a grenade so you can quickly select then throw it.

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    bind "m" "weapon_hegrenade"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.
5. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    bind "n" "weapon_flashbang"
6. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.
7. In your Half-Life console, type in:
    bind "k" "weapon_smokegrenade"
8. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now, when you want to throw a frag grenade quickly, just point you gun where you want the grenade to go, then hit your "m" button (this puts a frag grenade in your hand if you bought one), then hit your "fire" button TWICE really fast. You will be slinging grenades around like a wild man soon!

In Counter-Strike, I personally have 2 keys bound specially bound to the Flashbang grenades and the High Explosive grenade. I almost never use the smoke grenade, because of the lag created by the video from the smoke grenades, but it is handy for cover.

NOTE: you can substitute any un-used key for the "n", "m, or "k" keys. There are CS "grenade scripts" out there on the internet, but I personally think that all is needed is simply to bind a key to quickly select a grenade, then hit fire twice to throw it, also a lot of the "grenade scripts" just don't work correctly or at all for dialup guys because of internet delays.

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Counter-Strike crosshairs color changes (non-zoomed):

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your  Half-Life console, type in:
    bind j "adjust_crosshair"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Now , when you you get into a game, and want to change the colors of your NON-zoomed crosshairs just hit your "j" key .

NOTE: you can substitute any un-used key for the "j" key. There are (5) colors (neon green, red, fuchsia, yellow, aqua) for the NON-zoomed crosshairs, you can cycle through all of them.

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Counter-Strike C-4 bombpl.wav countdown timer from Nextwish.org:
(this is a MUST do tweak!!)

GET this AWESOME C4 count UP TIMER for CS.

The Nextwish.org "C-4 count up timer" for Counter-Strike is a small download that replaces your "C:\SIERRA\Half-Life\cstrike\sound\radio\bombpl.wav" file (located on your computer). Your "bombpl.wav" file is the "The bomb has been planted" sound effect. Nextwish.org's"C-4 count up timer" is a wav file that uses the Half-life HUMAN voice to count UP once a Terrorist plants the bomb.

The timer works for either team, Ts or CTs. The replacement file tells you the "Bomb has been planted", then ever 5 seconds, it counts out (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 seconds (BOOM!!)). This REALLY helps a lot to let you know how much time you have left as a CT to get to the bomb and defuse it. It also helps Terrorist know how long they have to guard the bomb and how long they have to get away from the blast. Before installing this version of "bombpl.wav" file, BACK UP your ORIGINAL "bombpl.wav", just in case you don't like this one (simply rename the original file).

INSTALLATION STEPS for Timer:

1. BACKUP your original "C:\SIERRA\Half-Life\cstrike\sound\radio\bombpl.wav" file (located on your computer).
2. Click here to download our copy of the Nextwish.org's "the bombs been planted" C4 count up Timer .
(nextwish-cs-bombpl-aug01.zip, 82KB zipped, Aug2001)
3. Replace your original file with the downloaded one.
4. Now when you plant the C4, you will hear "The bomb has been planted", also after 5 seconds has past (since the bomb was planted) you will hear "Five", after 10 seconds you will hear "Ten", after 15 seconds you will hear "Fifteen", etc, etc, until the bomb explodes. Only your computer plays these new sounds.

NOTE:
A. The Nextwish.org "timer" may -NOT- work all the time, sometimes its just does not count up at all. Especially if your sound card get used a lot right after a bomb has been planted (like a firefight breaks out and your sound card most play all those sounds: gun shots, ricochets, hits, etc, etc).
B. Just so you know, the C4 usually blows up 45 seconds after its has been planted (by default) (server owners sometimes change this setting).
C. It takes 10 seconds to defuse a bomb WITHOUT a defuse kit.
D. It takes 5 seconds to defuse it WITH a defuse kit (a defuse kit cost 200$ in the game).

Nextwish.org:
"Nextwish" is great guy that runs the Nextwish.org and the Z-maloc Script web sites. If you are looking for a ton of neat stuff (including his Counter-Strike C-4 countdown timer), go there and check it all out.

I use both the Nextwish C4 timer and my TFC grenade timer and I highly recommend them, If you like them, spread the word about them to others.

The Nextwish.org C4 timer is posted here with his permission for use by our Clan Members. For more scripting stuff, check out the [TiC]Scripts tutoriuals page .

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Lag Causes & Prevention Tweaks:

What is "Lag", "Ping", "Latency":

"Ping" is roughly the time it takes for the electronic signals to go from your computers dialup or ethernet card thru the wire and any other modems or electronic equipment and  over the internet to the game server's ethernet card.

"Latency" is similar to "ping", but includes the time it takes for your computer to send out the signal (calculation/processing time),  plus the "ping time" it takes for the signal to travel over internet to the server's ethernet card, the time it takes for the game server to calculate and process the signal. Also,   plus sometimes, send out a response to your computer,  and then your computer to reprocess it. Most people use the terms "ping" and "latency" interchangeably, but almost always your latency is always higher than the ping times.

"Lag" is "extra delay time" that gets added  to your latency time because of one or several reasons. "Lag" can be caused by the client computer, your ISP, the internet, the game servers ISP, or the game server.

Lag can be cause by many things on your computer : software programs loading your CPU while you are also playing games, software programs also using bandwidth over the internet during games (like ICQ, MSN, downloads, etc), not enough RAM in your computer (~128MB or more is needed), incorrect Window settings, incorrect modem settings, incorrect Firewall software settings, loose physical wire connections (causing packets to be re-sent), older/slower computer's CPU speed (MHZ or GHZ), your modem/modem settings, IRQ conflicts, etc, etc.

Lag can be cause by many things NOT on your computer : bad connections at your cable/phone company, your ISP might be over loaded at night during peak gaming times, routers at your ISP might be mis-set,  other routers on the internet might be mis-set,  the game server's ISP might be overloaded at peak times, the game server's ISP might have other problems, and the game server might be over loaded, etc, etc.

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Dialup Lag, hardware modems vs software modems:

There are also other things that can contribute to "dialup Lag" that can be caused by many other things: bad physical layout of phone lines in your house, junky phone wires used in your house, older phone sets/answering machines/ faxes/etc that interact with the internet signal when they shouldn't, software modems, older dialup modems,  long distances of  phone line coming to your house (if you live in the Country), "splitters" ("multiplexers") installed by the phone company to split the bandwidth of the phone line in half (from 56k to 28k), etc. There are generally 2 basic types of dialup phone modems "software modems" and "hardware modems". Software modems lack an extra "controller chip" that hardware modems have (that's why hardware controller modems cost more). Software dialup modems depend on the motherboard's CPU to do some of the work that a hardware modem would all be do on the hardware modem. There is also a "DSP modem" that is sort of in between a software and a hardware modem. DSP Modems usually lack the extra full blown "controller chip", but the DSP chip on the modem does a little more processing (on the modem) than just a regular software modem would, making it sometimes work a little bit faster. Note, that "DSP" is not "DSL", a DSL modem is something else. There are  56K, 28K, 14.4K dialup phone modems, basically you want a 56K modem. A 56K modem is twice as fast as a 28K modem, a 28K modem is twice as fast as a 14.4 modem, most phone lines support 56K internet connections. It is almost impossible to play 3D shooter games with less than a good 56K modem/ISP. There is also V.90 and V.92 modems (and older "V" standards). V90 is a standard that tells the modem how to talk to the the phone company's receiving modem. V92 modems have more features than a V90 type of a modem. V92 modems support call waiting and quicker connection times, etc. You can also get "internal modems" and "external modems". Internal modems are circuit cards that plug into your computer. External modems have a little housing and their own power supply and plug into connectors on the back of your computer  and cost more because of it. The external dialup modems cost more for the same internal modem, most people prefer an internal PCI modem, because they are cheaper with the same features. Not all ISPs support them, but the preferred dialup modem is a 56K V92 hardware PCI modem (like a US Robotics Performance Pro Modem), they are pricey (about 100$), but if you can not get a cable internet or DSL internet connection,  a hardware 56K V92 hardware modem will help a lot with downloads or with 3D games like Half-life and it's Mods. If you are not going to play 3D shooter games, a cheap software dialup modem would be okay.

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Turn down your video settings to prevent lag (if needed):

About every 18 months or so a new generation of faster more powerful computer video card/chips are produced. When you buy a video card, the main thing you are buying are the GPU (the graphical processing unit) which is the main chip (power and speed) and the RAM (amount and spped) on the video card. The GPU  usually has a heat sink or fan on it to cool it, most video ram now comes with heat sinks too now. Better faster chips and more ram make better video cards cost more. Currently (February 2003)  nVidia's geForce4 video chip are the top video card chips. The geForce4 64MB video cards are pretty compatible with just about any other computer hardware and can handle most anything the game of Half-life could currently need. nVidia video chips (TNT, TNT2, geForce, geForce2, geForce3, geForce4) have similar software drivers that enable you to make a lot of advanced tweaks. "Drivers" are software programs that come with a card (look on your video card's CD) that tells the computer how to use/interact with the video card. Read the instruction manual that came with your video card (no matter which one you have) to find out all the tweaks for your video card (look on the CD that came with it). To get the most out of your video card, make sure you have the latest software drivers for your video card, no matter who makes it. You can go to your cards web site and look for the latest driver downloads there. Just so you know, you have to download the driver that EXACTLY matches the model number of your video card, "close" is NOT good enough. If you can not find drivers at your video card company's web site, if you have a nVidia chip and want to take the risk, you can download nVidia's generic driver (that works with their newer chips) at the nvidia web site. There are several versions of geForce chips and cards, the "MX" cards have slower RAM on the video card.  If you can only play Half-life or mod with the video mode set to "Software Mode", there is a good chance you need to update your computer's video drivers, or have incorrect video drivers, or don't have the video cards drivers installed at all. If you are upgrading your video card to a newer one, UNINSTALL the drivers of the older card BEFORE you physically remove it from your computer to prevent conflicts when you install the new video card's drivers. Read all the instructions that came with your computer and cards before attempting to upgrade any drivers. Also make absolutely sure that you have (download) EXACTLY the correct driver for your video card's exact model number and version BEFORE installing it, or don't do it. Half-life's readme.txt file has some tips/exceptions about video drivers and their web sites.

 If you want to run in 32 bit (high color) in a 3D game, then you need faster video ram on your video card for higher FPS. "video RAM"  is NOT your motherboard's SIMMs RAM, but the non-replaceable ram soldered on your video card, NOT your motherboard's RAM. If you have a bigger (19 inch or 21inch etc) monitor, you need a really good video card with faster ram and a lot of it and a faster GPU (graphical processing unit / main video chip) if you want to run in 32 bit color in a 3D shooter game like Half-life and get really high "frames per seconds" (FPS). Higher FPS keeps the screen from looking too "choppy" (low FPS) (like a old timey  silent Charlie Chaplin movie). If you want faster ram on your video card, it will cost you a lot more, as you can NOT replace the ram on your video card, you would have to buy a new card. Most video nVidia chip video cards have advanced settings that allow you to adjust many things: 32 bit color or 16 bit color, gamma, etc. Basically the higher the "color depth", the more realistic the screen looks, but this lowers your FPS. The higher the video "screen resolution", the more detailed your screen will look, but this lowers your FPS. On some older video cards there is no way to set your openGL color depth, it simply "follows" what your Window's Desktop's color depth is set too (16 bit high color, 32 bit true color, etc). GeForce "MX" video cards (~$100) usually have slower video ram, that's why they cost less, they usually will work almost as good as the expensive ~$300 video cards if you set them to 16 bit color depth instead of 32 bit. What does 32MB versus 64 MB versus 128MB of video card ram all mean, well more video card ram translates basically into MORE color depth at a higher video resolution, but if you have "more" video ram it still has to be fast video ram to run at 32 bit color depth at higher video resolutions and get higher FPSs.

Half-life has a several video "modes" settings: "software", "openGL", and a "Direct3D". You can set the video mode setting in Half-life's "Video" "Configuration" Menu. It's usually best to select "openGL" video mode. "openGL" uses the video card's on board video chip, where  the "software" setting relies mostly on using the computer's motherboard's CPU (and working it more) to do all the video processing along with it's other tasks. So basically, if you have a fancy video card and are running in "software" mode, you are not using the real guts (GPU) of your video card in Half-life, but are instead loading your CPU on your motherboard  instead. Some people with junky video cards might have to use the "Software" video mode in Half-life, because that is the only mode that works, always try "openGL" mode first though. Note, most older laptop computers have onboard video chips (usually ATI)  that choke on most heavy 3D shooter's complex graphics. Most people prefer to run the Half-life Mod's video resolution to the maximum setting, as long as it does not significantly reduce their FPS during fire fights in games. Higher video resolution settings make the picture look more detailed and clearer at the cost of less FPS usually. During firefights, when your video card has to draw all the guns, player models, flashes, grenade explosions, dead bodies, bullet marks, etc, is when your video card is going to be working it's most (don't forget all the sounds the sound card will have to create too in that 5 seconds of hyper activity of a fire fight). If you lag bad at firefights, try turning your video resolution down a setting or 2 (lower numbers) and see if that helps your lag or FPS increase during shootouts. BTW, different maps lag more then others, also detailed models (high definition models) lag more too. Fastsprites (less detailed smoke/ricochets)  help to reduce shootout lag.

In Half-life Mod's Customization/Advanced/ Menu is where there are options to set the amount of "displayed decals", "dead body display time", "bullet marks", etc, etc. If you have an older video card, lowering these setting (lowering the number displayed) will usually help you a little during a firefight, because your computer won't have to work so hard to draw you and the other people's models, guns, dead bodies, bullet marks, ricochet marks, spray logos, etc. The most important time of the game is the FIREFIGHT (if you lag then, you DIE),  it's also the time your computer must work it's hardest drawing all the people, bullets, and creating all the sounds where and when as quickly as it can, if it lags during a firefight, you DIE! ;-).

The best way to find out what is the best video settings for your computer is to simply TRY changing (1) setting at a time, then testing it in a game (on the same server with the same map) for a hand full of minutes to see if it is better or worst in a game during the most demanding time (during a firefight).

To summarize, if you run at 16 bit color depth at about 800x600 video resolution in Half-life,  a geForce4 MX (~$100) video card is ok, if you want "the best", then you have to spend the money to get that $350 high speed video card. There is currently another big name video chip company that makes a video chip called Radeon (9500), but Radeon (made by ATI) has a notorious reputation of supplying crappy drivers, however we do have several members that love them. Me personally, I am sticking with my old geForce3 64MB ti-500 for now, if I hit the lotto, I'll upgrade it then. GeForce video chips have a great reputation of always working out of the box and working well, from the TNT1 to the GeForce4. ;-).

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Turn down your sound settings to prevent lag (if needed):

Most modern sound cards or even on board motherboard chips now are pretty good compared to just a few years ago. 3D sound in a 3D game like Counter-Strike is very important. Usually, a modern sound chip or sound card will support Half-life's "High Quality sound" and also support "A3D" or "EAX" sound effects with out lagging during the most demanding time (firefights). If you notice lags only during  firefights, try turning the sound quality down and see if the lagging clears up. The lag could be caused by the other person in the firefight have a higher bandwidth internet connection that is "stealing" most of the server's bandwidth", it could be your video settings, it could be your sound settings, it could be other things, or combinations of these. Try changing one sound setting at a time in that Half-life Mod's "Audio" "Configuration " Menu, and then see if it helps significantly during firefights. Currently (February 2003),  Sound Blaster sound cards are the top sound cards, however, onboard sound chips and other sound card manufactures are quickly catching up. Sound Blaster sound cards, while working better than most other sound cards, are notorious for having unusual problems. If you have Sound Blaster Live sound card or better, try the EAX sound effects for the extra sounds effects, if it lags you, disable it.

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Turning off in-game voice to prevent lag (if needed):

The new in-game voice feature of Half-life can be enabled or disabled in each Mod. Some people find that the in-game voice feature lags them if it is enabled. Also some people that use 3rd party voice communication software like Roger Wilco find that sometimes the in-game conflicts with add-on voice program. Some people find out that using the Menu in a Half-life Mod to turn of in-game voice feature simply does NOT always turn it off. To counter this bug, it seems best to put the command to turn it off in your autoexec.cfg file for that Mod. A simple quicker way to make sure that the in-game voice is turned off is to by the that Half-life's Mod's Menu.

1. Start up Counter-Strike.
2. Select  "Play CS".
3. Select  "Customization".
4. Make sure "Enable in-game voice" is UN-checked (turned off).
5. Click OK to save the changes.

If the in-game voice feature just won't turn off by setting it off in the Menu, then edit (or create if needed) an autoexec.cfg file for that mod (for Counter-Strike, add if needed in your C:\SERRIA\Half-Life\cstrike\ folder) (on your computer) and add these commands to that file:
voice_modenable "0"
You might have to execute the autoexec.cfg file in that mod by doing the exec autoexec.cfg command after you edited that file to activate the new changes. You will have to set this in every single Mod you have installed to turn it it off in each mod.

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Setting "fastsprites" setting in CS to help with smoke lag:
(in Counter-Strike)

If you have an older video card, the "fastsprites" Half-life setting might significantly affect your game play when smoke grenades or during other intensive sprite drawing times in games. "Sprites" are pictures that get drawn on your screen during a Half-life game. Muzzle flashes, grenades explosions, smoke grenades, ricochets, etc, are examples of sprites. If you have an older video card and seem to lag badly when you are looking at smoke grenades going off, turning down and sacrificing the quality of the smoke (sprite) effects will usually help the quality of the display and usually keep the FPS from dropping drastically when smoke grenades go off.

1. Get into a Counter-Strike game.
2. Pull down your Half-Life console by hitting your "`" key.
3. In your Half-life console, type in:
    fastsprites "2"
4. Then, hit your keyboard's ENTER key.

Note: fastsprites "0" is the default setting, also there is a mid way setting fastsprites "1". There is also a way to change this setting in the "Customization" "Configuration" Menu.

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OTHER Handy Tweaks:

There are many other handy tweaks, I high recommend getting my #2 "zoomed crosshairs" (256x256 pixels) for all your zoomed weapons in any Half-life Mod, see the [TiC] Crosshairs/Sprites page for more info. My #2 "non-zoomed crosshairs" (24x24 pixels) work in every mod except for the non-zoomed crosshairs in Counterstrike, they do partially work for the "medium range zoom" crosshairs in CS however, like CS's  Sig rifle. If you play Counter-strike a lot, you must get the "Buy Scripts" that make it so much easier to buy everything you need at the 6 seconds at the start of each round of CS. Installing scripts are a little complicated, but the tutorial will walk you through it in an hour or so for a newbie. Half-life's in-game voice feature lags out some people and might cause trouble if you use a 3rd party voice communication software like Roger Wilco, etc. If you never use in-game voice, then use the instructions above to simply turn it off and leave it of in each mod. If you like using in-game voice, but only on some of the "clean servers" (like ours ;-)  (or to prevent any lag troubles sometimes if you have them), use the "in-game voice" off/off script to disable/enable it only when you want to use it. The in-game voice script is a little complicated for newbies. NetGraph is a built in utility for Half-life, it can be enabled in any Half-life Mod, for more detailed info see the Valve's info on NetGraph.
 

OTHER Handy Tweaks:

Install better Crosshairs  * (a must have)

Counter-Strike Buy Scripts  * (a must have)

Tweaks for Cable/DSL internet (DSL-reports.com)

NetGraph Explained (Half-life's Internet Connection Utility) *

In-Game Voice on/off Script  * (easily toggles it on or off)

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This page was originally created by [TiC]EVIL 28Aug01. Last updated 04/18/03.