Star Trek Voyager tweak guide
Posted by Thomas McGuire on October 23, 2000

Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force is the ultimate, sci-fi first person shooter using the Quake III: Arena engine. The first game based on the Star Trek: Voyager universe, Elite Force pits players against a multitude of Star Trek enemies, including the relentless Borg & never-before-seen aliens, in intense single-player & multiplayer combat missions.

Did I mention Seven-of-Nine is in it too? The demo can be downloaded at Fileplanet if you haven’t bought the full game yet. Thanks to James Monroe (Lead Programmer; Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force) of Raven for his help with a few settings in this guide.

Troubleshooting/Update

Next download the latest drivers for your video card & soundcard. This may solve (some) display or audio problems you might encounter. There are links to various manufacturers on the Drivers page. If you own a 3dfx card you should consider downloading the WickedGL for better performance than the 3dfx OpenGL driver.

If you are using an Intellimouse you’ll also need to install the latest drivers. You can get them from Microsoft. This should fix any problems related to that mouse with the game (Or rather, issues with the Quake 3 engine itself).

Should any Elite Force patches be released, be sure to install them, although currently none exist. Also you should download the official Elite Force Bonus Holomatch Map Pack from Fileplanet, which contains some extra maps for the game.

If you experience any lockups & such they might be caused by overclocking, if so try reducing the clock speed of the overclocked device. Elite Force can be quite sensitive to overclocking at times.

If you happen to have a 17 character long CD-key (A few CD’s came with this amount incorrectly – they should have an 18 character long CD-key) you’ll need to do the following procedure to enter a correct CD-key. If you have yet to enter in your CD-key, then simply add a 0 to the end when entering it in. If already entered in go to C:\Star Trek Voyager Elite Force\ (Or wherever you installed Voyager: Elite Force), open the BaseEF folder. Open the efq3 file with Notepad, once more add a 0 to the end of the CD key. Save the changes & exit.

Should you find that the game crashes when I go to a new area or level you should try disabling GL Extensions as shown in the Graphics section, although updating your video card drivers should fix this unless your videocard is quite old.

Config files

The tweaks here can be either changed in your Hmconfig.cfg (Holo-match - Multiplayer settings), Efconfig.cfg (Elite Force – Single player settings) or you may make your own custom Config file for the game. If you want to make you own config file then simply create a New Text Document, enter in the settings & save the file as All files & name it autoexec.cfg. Save it in the BaseEF directory of where Elite Force is installed.

To load your customconfig.cfg in Elite Force (If you didn’t name it autoexec.cfg), bring down the console & type /exec customconfig.cfg & hit the Enter key.

NOTE – If you choose to make the settings in your own custom config file then you can omit the seta (space) from each setting. In the Hmconfig & Efconfig.cfg there will need to be a seta followed by a space. E.g. In your Efconfig.cfg a setting would appear as follows, seta r_texturemode "LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR", while in your own autoexec.cfg it would appear simply as r_texturemode "LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR”.

If you wish to use command toggles, e.g. instead of holding down a key to run you may bind a key to it, pressing the key once to enable running, pressing it again to walk. To use this toggling you must bind a key as follows.

Graphics

Load the game, select Configure, Video then Video Data.

Video options. You can use this to select Pre-configured visual settings, e.g. Fastest. Don’t bother; use Custom settings instead so you can set what you want.

GL Driver. This setting allows you to select the OpenGL driver that you are using for rendering. If you own a 3dfx Voodoo 2 or earlier select Voodoo as your GL driver, otherwise select Default.

GL Extensions. Set this to On for improve performance. Setting it to Off should definitely be seen as a last resort to try if you can’t get the game to run. Performance will be significantly lower when set to Off as well.

Video Mode. Select a lower resolution (800*600 or 640*480) when playing online. Graphics may be slightly less appealing, but it will run better, which is more important.

Color Depth. Set this to 16bit when playing online to improve performance. In single player you can set it to 32-bit for improved visual quality (only if your card supports 32 bit colour).

Fullscreen. Set this to On. If you’re using 3d hardware then you’ll want to run full-screen anyway, not windowed.

Geometry Detail. Options available are High, Medium & Low. Each setting gives progressively less geometry detail in maps, resulting in better performance, but less curved architecture. Set it to High for best visual quality & Low for best performance.

Graphics (Continued)

Texture Quality. Set this to 32 bit for best image quality & 16 bit for improved performance. Again, your video card must support 32-bit rendering. I’d highly recommend selecting 32-bit texture quality & using 16-bit colour depth for the best image quality/performance trade off.

Texture Filter. Trilinear will give the best image quality but take up a few MB’s of your graphics card memory. Elite Force uses a lot of textures; as such I’d recommend you set this to Bilinear. This will free up some video memory for all these textures. If you are using a 32MB+ plus graphics card you might be able to set this to Trilinear & enjoy the better image quality. Although even then some maps use over 32MB of texture memory.

See the r_textureMode "x" setting for more detailed information on settings available.

Simple Shaders. Setting this to On will lower the detail of some animated textures & transparencies. This will improve performance. Set it to Off for best visual quality.

Compressed Textures. Set this to Off to disable texture compression support (slower, but better visuals). This is for S3TC texture compression so if you have an S3 card, are using the 5.xx nVidia drivers or have a Voodoo 4 or 5 installed then you should set this to 1. Texture compression can vastly improve frame rates, although may cause some visual degradation in certain areas of the game.

Now select Video Additional & edit the options available here.

Brightness. Use this slider to set the brightness level in the game. I’d recommend checking the visual configs section for more accurate ways for changing brightness levels in the game.

Screen Size. Use this to select the screen size of the game, this is different to running full screen or windowed. Using a smaller screen size may improve performance, although will making viewing the game more difficult. I’d recommend leaving this set fully to the right, to run with maximum viewing area.

Cinematic Quality. Available options are High or Low quality for the videos in the game. Leave it set to High unless you are experiencing skipping/stuttering in video playback. Set it to Low if you are, this should result in smoother playback, although with less pleasing visual quality.

Anisotropic Filtering. When set to On image quality can be improved - elements of the scene will appear smoother when viewed at near edge angles. Your video card must support this however. Set it to Off to disable anisotropic filtering for improved performance, or if your video card doesn’t support it. If not supported it will automatically be disabled.

Now go into the Game options menu.

Light flares. Set this to On to enable light flares in the game, this allows effects such as light flares & halos to occur. Setting it to Off will improve performance.

Sync every frame. Leave this set to Off unless you are experience input problems. See the r_finish "x" setting for more detailed information.

Identify target. Set this to On as it will help when playing both online (Enemy models names will appear when aimed at a target, if aiming correctly you may be warned of a target before you see them, e.g. around a corner) & offline (A descriptive text will appear when aiming at certain targets).

Dynamic lights. See the r_dynamiclight "x" setting for more detailed information.

Wall marks. See the cg_marks "x" setting for more detailed information.

Text. Use this to set your language preferences, be it English or other

Voice. Use this to set your language preferences, be it English or other.

Crosshair. Use this section to select the crosshair you wish to use in the game, if any.

Subtitles. Set this to On to enable subtitles in the game & cinematic scenes or Off to disable subtitles in cinematic scenes & in-game as you see fit. Set it to Cinematic only if you enable subtitles in cinematic scenes only.

General config tweaks

Once you’ve all your basic settings chosen open your Config file using Notepad & Add/edit the following lines. Search for the following lines & edit the x value as appropriate.

com_hunkMegs "x". You can use this to set the amount of memory available to Elite Force. A general guideline to setting this value would be 2/3 of RAM. Keep in mind Windows needs about 16MB RAM minimum to run. You should also have closed all other programs before running Elite Force.

m_filter “x”. Set x to 1 to enable mouse filtering. This will average out mouse movements resulting in much smoother scrolling. A setting of 0 disables the filter. I’d high recommend enabling this.

in_joystick "x". You won’t be using a joystick to play Elite Force so set x to 0. If you are, set it to 1. Mouse & keyboard is by far the better way to play though.

in_mouse "1". Set x to 1 to enable mouse support. If for some reason you aren’t using a mouse then set this to 0.

g_subtitles "0". Setting x to 1 will enable subtitles in the game, 0 disables them. A setting of 2 enables the display of subtitles during cinematic scenes.

r_finish “x”. Setting x to 1 may eliminate lag from input devices (such as keyboard/mouse) at the cost of a few FPS. The default is 0 so only change it to 1 if you experience any controller lag. This ensures proper timing.

r_ignorehwgamma "x". Set x to 1 to enable the game itself to set the gamma level to be used. Set it to 0 to disable any in-game gamma settings & use one set by the video card driver instead. Setting it to 0 may make any brightness slider in the game menu ineffective.

cg_autoswitch "x". Set this to 0 to disable auto switching of collected weapons. This setting won’t affect performance, but I’m sure no-one wants to switch from the Rocket launcher to a shotgun just because they walked over it.

Graphics CFG

Open your Config file using Notepad/Wordpad & Add/edit the following lines. Search for the following lines (If they already exist) & edit the x value as appropriate;

cg_draw2D "x". Give this a value of 1 to enable 2d items to be drawn. Items such as the HUD would fall into this category so leave this enabled.

cg_drawCrosshair "x". A value of 0 for x will remove the crosshair, which will make aiming making more difficult. 1 enables the crosshair. Leave this setting alone.

cg_drawCrosshairNames "x". Set this to 1 to allow the name of the targeted person or item to appear. 0 will disable this. It’s probably best to set this to 1, particularly in multiplayer games.

cg_drawFPS “x”. A value of 1 for x will enable the display of a small counter on the screen showing your current frame rate. This may help you in tweaking your game for the best performance/image quality trade off.

cg_drawGun "x". Set x to 1 to enable weapons to be shown on your screen. A setting of 0 will improve FPS but no weapon will be drawn. Visibility will improve a little with this but you’ll want to know what weapon you have. I’d recommend leaving this set to 1.

cg_forceModel "x". Setting this to 1 forces all players to use the same model in multiplayer. This can improve performance by reducing texture memory usage (only 1 player model is used for all players), although there’ll be no way to distinguish between players. I’d recommend leaving this at 0 unless you are using a graphics card with a low amount of video memory.

cg_marks "x". Set x to 1 to enable marks on the ground/walls being displayed. A setting of 0 may improve performance a little. Although this is somewhat dependant on how bad your aim is. I’d recommend setting this to 0 for online play.

cg_shadows "x". A setting of 0 disables shadows (recommended). 1 enables, basic, circular shadows. 2 will enable volumetric shadows (You must also set r_stencilbits "8"). Enabling shadows will reduce performance.

cg_simpleItems "x". A value of 1 will disable the display of 3d models for items, instead using 2d icons in their place, this may increase frame rate on older videocards. 0 enables the display of 3d models for items, which will make image quality a little better.

com_FirstTime "x". A value of 1 means that the intro was already played, so it isn’t played again. Give it a value of 0 to enable it being played each time you load the game.

The next 5 settings may help those of you that get motion sick (like myself). It will also make aiming/shooting a target while you are moving a little bit easier as an added bonus.

cg_bobup "0.00x". This setting determines how much you bob up while moving. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement.

cg_bobpitch "0.00x". This setting determines your pitch up while moving. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement.

cg_bobroll "0.00x". This setting determines how much you roll back & forth while moving. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement.

cg_runpitch "0.00x". This setting determines your pitch while running. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement.

cg_runroll "0.00x". This setting determines how much you roll back & forth while running. Leave it at the default value or 0 to remove the movement.

r_allowSoftwareGL "x". Set x to 1 to allow software rendering of the game. Although this really is an extremely bad idea unless you absolutely cannot run the game with your current video card. Get a new video card if this is the case, or try updating your drivers. Leave it set to 0 at all times.

r_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.

r_colorbits "x". Use this to set the colour depth. Leave it at 16 unless you have a card that supports 32-bit colour output. Performance is slower in 32-bit than 16-bit however. So when you play online be sure to drop this back to 16.

Graphics CFG (Cont.)

r_detailtextures "x". Set x to 1 to will improve texture quality when up close. Setting it to 0 will improve performance.

r_displayRefresh "x". Use x to set your refresh rate in the game. It is recommended that you set this to the highest refresh rate that your monitor can handle at a given resolution. With vsync enabled this value also limits the highest frame rate you can achieve. You shouldn’t set it any higher than the highest refresh rate your monitor can sustain at a given resolution.

r_drawSun "x". A setting of 1 enables the sun to be drawn. It won’t improve performance much if set to 0 although it will add a little to lighting calculations in areas where the sun shines. I suggest leaving it set to 0 as most maps will be played “in-doors” or have few areas with sunlight (Voyager – Elite Force has no outdoor levels).

r_dynamiclight "x". A setting of 1 will enable the dynamic lighting of maps, e.g. the light surrounding an explosion. Improve performance by setting this to 0, although visual quality will be reduced.

r_ext_compress_textures "x". Set this to 0 to disable texture compression support (slower, but better visuals). This is only for S3TC texture compression so if you have an S3 card, are using the 5.xx nVidia drivers or have a Voodoo 3, 4 or 5 installed then you should set this to 1. Texture compression can vastly improve frame rates, although may cause some visual degradation in certain areas of the game.

r_ext_multitexture "x". Set it to 1 to enable multi-texturing, this can improve performance. 0 will disable it.

r_ext_texture_filter_anisotropic "x". When x is set to 1 image quality can be improved - elements of the scene will appear smoother when viewed at near edge angles. Your video card must support this however. Set x to 1 to disable anisotropic filtering for improved performance, or if your video card doesn’t support it. If not supported it will automatically be disabled.

r_fastsky "x". A setting of 1 will remove the sky texture & portals won’t be seen through. I’d recommend leaving this set to 0 unless you’re on a really slow system.

r_gamma "x". Default is 1. Increase this to make the game brighter. The brighter the visuals the more washed out the textures will look (not quite the same as the brightness setting though). This adjusts the RGB colour intensity. Higher values will reduce texture detail by brightening textures up. Performance isn't affected.

r_lodbias "x". This controls the detail level of models. Increase the value to improve performance but reduce detail. Lower the value to increase visual quality but lower performance. 0 is the lowest it may be set. I’d recommend leaving it at the default of 1. 2 is the least detailed but also the fastest. Elite Force models are skeletal so there’s no memory savings by using a less detailed setting (higher), just a frame rate improvement.

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

r_nocurves "x". Set this to 1 to disable curves & vastly improve performance. You may notice visual faults in maps though as a result. I’d recommend setting it to 0.

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.

Graphics CFG (Cont.)

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

r_smp “x”. Use a value of 1 to enable support for multiple processors, Elite Force Arena does have support for multiprocessors (SMP). In order to get the benefits from SMP, you must be running a SMP capable OS e.g. Windows 2000 & have an SMP capable video card driver combination. Right now, The Detonator drivers for the TNT/GeForce generation of cards are the only ones that are working properly. Leave it at 0 unless you have such a system.

r_stencilbits "x". If you enabled Volumetric shadows above then you’ll want to set this to 8. NOTE – Your graphics card must have a stencil buffer to do this, e.g. GeForce or Voodoo 4/5. Voodoo3 does not.

r_subdivisions "x". Use this to set how complex (rounded) the curves will be in maps. A setting of 1 gives the most detailed (smooth) curves. A setting of 999 gives the least smooth curves but improved performance. You should play around with this value for yourself until you find a good balance between performance & detail.

r_swapInterval "x". This is the Elite Force equivalent of vsync. Set it to 1 to enable vsync (recommended). Only set it to 0 when you are benchmarking game performance, this will allow for higher frame rates (than your refresh rate).

r_texturebits "x". Sets the bits per texture. A value of 16 for 16-bit colour & 32 for 32bit colour. 32 will give best texture quality.

r_textureMode "x". Valid entries are GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_NEAREST (worst),

GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST (default),

GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR (second best),

GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR (best).

Setting it to GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR (Trilinear) will give best visual quality. Setting it to the other settings will improve performance, but give increasingly worse image quality.

r_vertexLight "x". Set this to 0 if you’ve enabled Lightmap lighting. Setting it to 1 will enable Vertex lighting, which is faster but uglier.

These last 2 settings are obsolete, due to the non-gore violence of the TV series (This ain’t Soldier of Fortune you know). Basically remove them from your config if you had previously added them in – they won’t have any effect in the game.

cg_gibs "x". Elite Force has no gibs (regardless of the value).

com_blood "x". Much like the above setting Elite Force has had blood removed from the game too (regardless of the value).

Audio

Open the Configure menu & select Sound.

Effects Volume. Use the slider bar here to set the volume level for sound effects in the game. The further to the right, the louder & vice versa.

Music Volume. Use the slider bar here to set the volume level for music in the game. The further to the right, the louder & vice versa.

Voice Volume. Use the slider bar here to set the volume level for voices in the game. The further to the right, the louder & vice versa.

Sound Quality. Setting this to High to use 22Khz sound for best audio quality. Set it to Low for 11Khz sound for better performance, you should only change it to Low if you have an old soundcard (ISA).

A3D. Use this to enable (On) or disable (Off) A3D support on supported soundcards, e.g. Vortex 2. I’d recommend checking the config settings below for more advanced features of A3D however, this way you can enjoy the improved positional effects of A3D & disable the more performance adverse features, such as reflections or occlusions.

In your Config file, add/edit the following values & entries as appropriate:

s_a3d_weapons"x”. Set x to 1 to enable A3D play weapon sounds. If your soundcard which supports either EAX or A3D reverb, you'll get the geometric reverb effect rendered on your weapons. Set this to 0 if your soundcard doesn’t support this effect.

s_enableA3D "x". Set x to 1 to enable A3D on supported soundcards. This will improve audio quality (or to be more accurate, the positioning of audio sources). Set x to 1 to disable A3D audio. This will improve performance.

s_khz "x". Set to 22 for best sound quality. Set it to 11 for better performance, you should only change it to this if you have an old soundcard (ISA).

s_loadas8bit “x”. Set this to 0 to improve audio quality. A setting of 1 may improve performance a little but reduce audio quality.

s_volume "x". Use values from 0 to 1 for x to increase/decrease in-game volume. Use your own discretion for this of course. 1 is the maximum, 0 will mute the game.

s_musicvolume "x". Set to 0 to disable playing music in Elite Force. This will of course improve performance & I’d highly recommend doing that. Especially when you’re going to play online.

s_volumeVoice "x". Use values from 0 to 1 for x to increase/decrease the volume for voices. Use your own discretion for this of course. 1 is the maximum, 0 will mute voices in the game, which is not recommended.

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

s_occfactor "x". Leave x at the default setting, which is 0.5.

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

s_occlude "x". Set x to 1 to enable occlusions. This will improve audio quality (more realistic), although performance will be lower. 0 disables occlusions & performance will be improved.

s_geometry "x". A value of 1 for x 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, 0 disables it. Performance will be improved when set to 0.

s_mixahead "x". x sets the sound mixahead value, changing this value may fix sound stuttering with some soundcards. I'd recommend setting it to 0.2 unless you encounter problems, lower it if you do.

s_numpolys "x". x sets the maximum 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. Performance may be decreased with values too high.

s_initsound "x". When x is set to 1 all audio is enabled. When set to 0 no audio is played. This is completely different to muting the volume levels. Performance will be vastly higher when set to 0 although its only really useful if you want to purely benchmark video card performance in Elite Force.

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. I’d recommend leaving this at the default value, 0.7.

If you have a SoundBlaster Live Platinum card (as I do) or other non-A3D2+ capable card then you in order to get A3D support you’ll need to download the A2D drivers from Aureal. You can now enable A3D support in Elite Force’s audio menu. NOTE – I don’t recommend doing this as it is currently very erratic in how it works & most soundcards will be best off not trying this. Enabling A3D sound (even with an A3D card) will result in a performance drop, so disable it when you play online.

Netplay

Load the Elite Force multiplayer game. Select Configure then the Sound/Network option.

Data Rate. Use this to select a (general) connection type, e.g. 33.6K. Select this as appropriate for your internet connection.

Effects Volume. Use the slider bar here to set the volume level for sound effects in the game. The further to the right, the louder & vice versa.

Music Volume. Use the slider bar here to set the volume level for music in multiplayer. The further to the right, the louder & vice versa.

Sound Quality. Setting this to High to use 22Khz sound for best audio quality. Set it to Low for 11Khz sound for better performance, you should only change it to Low if you have an old soundcard (ISA).

A3D. Use this to enable (On) or disable (Off) A3D support on supported soundcards, e.g. Vortex 2. I’d recommend checking the Audio configs shown earlier for more advanced settings for A3D however, this way you can enjoy the improved positional effects of A3D & disable the more performance adverse features, such as reflections or occlusions.

Now select the Game Options menu.

Light flares. Set this to On to enable light flares in the game, this allows effects such as light flares to occur. Setting it to Off will improve performance.

Wall marks. See the cg_marks "x" setting for more detailed information.

Dynamic lights. See the r_dynamiclight "x" setting for more detailed information.

Identify target. Set this to On as it will help when playing both online (Enemy models names will appear when aimed at a target, if aiming correctly you may be warned of a target before you see them, e.g. around a corner) & offline (A descriptive text will appear when aiming at certain targets).

Sync every frame. Basically leave this set to Off unless you experience input device lag. See the r_finish "x" setting for more detailed information.

Force player models. Setting this to On forces all players to use the same model. This will improve performance, although there’ll be no way to distinguish between players. I’d recommend leaving this at On unless you are desperate for a performance boost.

Draw team overlay. Use this to allow the display of the location of team members if team-based games, which is fairly useful in those type of games.

Automatic downloading. See the cl_allowDownload "x" setting for more detailed information.

Simple Items. This sets whether or not items will be 3dmodels or 2dsprites. Turning it Off will improve image quality. Setting it Off will improve performance.

Text. Use this to set your language preferences, be it English or other.

Netplay (Continued)

You will most likely have to play around to find the right settings for you. So do some testing with them. Open your Config file & Add/Edit the following settings as appropriate.

cg_lagometer "x". Give x a value of 1. This will enable the Lagometer, which will aid you in diagnosing & improving your online gameplay. The lagometer is displayed in the bottom right of your screen & looks like this.

The lagometer is effectively split into 2 sections, top & bottom. I’ll deal with the top section first. The top section shows world updates. Yellow is bad indicating dropped frames; Blue is good & indicates no frames are being dropped. Information on this line should be used to tweak your snaps “x” setting.

The bottom indicates packets received. The Green indicates packets received, which is good. Red indicates lost packets, which is bad. Yellow indicates incomplete packets which is also bad. Information on this line should be used to tweak your rate “x” setting.

snaps “x”. The default value for this setting may not be correct for you. Depending on your connection, try changing the value depending on your connection. You can change this variable during gameplay to suit your needs. Use this to increase/decrease the amount of snaps (world updates) sent to the client. If your world updates are bad (lots of Yellow in the top half of the lagometer) you should lower your snaps setting. 30 is a good value to begin with for this setting. Try adding/editing the following to your Config file.

bind END "snaps x"

bind KP_PGDN "snaps x"

You can substitute in your own keys & rate values, I use 26 & 30. As shown earlier you’ll want to change this according to the how your lagometer is displaying.

rate “x”. The default value for this may not be correct for you. Depending on your connection, try changing the value depending on your connection. You can also change this variable during gameplay to suit your needs. If your ping is high you may want to lower your rate. Try adding/editing the following to your Config file.

bind KP_INS "rate x"

bind KP_PGUP "rate x"

You can substitute in your own keys & rate values, I use 2600 & 3000. Set one low in case your ping starts to rise (or have a lot of yellow/red in the bottom section of the lagometer), this is a sign you may have set it to high for the current server, try increasing it for better results whenever possible.

The Config settings below will help you further tweak your settings to improve your Elite Force 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.

Netplay (Continued)

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.

cg_deferPlayers "x". Set this to 1 to defer loading of new models for people that join games until you get killed. Then the new player model will be loaded. Don’t set this to 0 unless you want to lag a little when new players join & their model gets loaded.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Timedemos

Recording a timedemo in Elite Force is a fairly awkward process, but here is how to do it.

1.       Start an Elite Force server.

2.       Type /g_synchronousClients 1 in the console, hit Enter.

3.       Again, in the console type /record demoname (Replace demoname with whatever you wish to name the timedemo) & hit Enter.

4.       The timedemo is now recording so take whatever actions you wish recorded.

5.       In the console type /disconnect & hit Enter to finish recording the timedemo.

6.       To playback your time type /demo demoname in the console & hit Enter.

Conclusion

You Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force gaming experience should now be greatly improved with better visuals & audio & minimal performance loss. Netplay should also be a lot better. This guide will be updated when new patches become available.

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