The Config settings below will help you further tweak your settings to improve your Quake 3 multiplayer experience.

com_maxfps "x". x to sets your maximum frame rate. In Quake 2 this was used to stabilize online connection. This is no longer the case; instead the cl_maxpackets "x" & snaps “x” is used. I’d recommend setting this to 30 when playing online.

This will help keep the frame rate constant (no dropping from 60FPS to 30FPS) & will aid in distinguishing between graphics card “lag” & lag in your connection to a server.

cl_allowDownload "x". A setting of 0 disables auto-downloading of maps/models. Set this to 1 to enable it.

cl_maxpackets "x". This sets the maximum amount of packets that get sent to the server. The default setting is 30, which is fine for V90/56K connections. If you are on a 33.6K modem you should lower this value a little (say to 25). Those on ISDN or faster can set this higher than 30. You may need to experiment a little with it.

cl_nodelta “x”. A setting of 1 for x will disable Delta compression. Don’t do this for any reason.

cl_packetdup "x". Set x to 1. If you are experiencing packet loss this will allow retransmission of lost packets. Only set this to 0 if you are playing on a LAN (as there should be no packet loss).

cg_predictItems "x". Set x to 0. This controls whether the Client or Server decides if an item has been collected. When set to 1 you may be incorrectly led to believe you collected an item when you did not. Those on high bandwidth connections would probably be best of setting this to 0.

cl_timenudge “x”. Similar to push latency in Half-life, you can use this to set “fake lag” when playing in single player, & more importantly in online games you can give this a negative value. A general rule of thumb would be to set this to half your average ping (negative value of course, or else you’d be adding lag). E.g. If you normally have a ping of 200 you should set this to –100. This may help smooth your online gameplay out.

net_noipx "x". Set this to 0 to enable the use of the IPX/SPX protocol. You must have IPX/SPX installed to use this so set it to 1 if you don’t. Most Internet servers use UDP (part of the TCP/IP protocol). I’d recommend setting it to 1.

net_noudp "x". Set this to 0 to enable the use of UDP, which is part of the TCP/IP protocol. You must have TCP/IP installed to use this so set it to 1 if you don’t. Most Internet servers use UDP. I’d recommend setting it to 0. This is only really useful if you play the game solely on an IPX/SPX network/server.

You should also take a look at the Modem tweaking guides for Windows 9x, Windows Millennium Edition & Windows 2000 (as appropriate) for how to optimize your Internet connection & reduce ping times further in online games. If you play on a LAN then check out the LAN tweaking guide.