What is your config?
Well, your configuration files contain two types of data, game settings and game bindings. Game settings are the things that control the audio, visual and computer specific settings that Quake Wars uses, game bindings are the controls you use when actually playing the game. This is a pretty basic concept, but it is important to note that both are controlled through a series of files. The data stored in these files can be created by the game (when you make adjustments through the settings screen) or by you manually (when you make changes to your autoexec.cfg file).
Depending on your operating system, these files will be stored in different locations, if you are unsure of where to locate this, ask and list what operating system you are using and I will provide you the exact location. If you are using a windows based machine it should be located within your /documents and settings/application data/ this may not be exactly what it is called as different OS' use different naming conventions. If you are unsure of the exact location provide me with the operating system you are using and I can provide you the typical path.
Can I just use some comp player's config?
The short answer is no. There is usually settings stored in a config that are hardware specific. For instance:
com_videoRam "512"
This particular command informs Quake Wars that I only have 512MB of RAM present in my video card, if you have a 1GB vid card this command would tell Quake Wars to only utilize half of it. Each of these lines in a config file are called CVARs, or Console Variables. They control very specific aspects of the game. It should be noted that line I posted above wouldn't look exactly like that in my config file, instead it would look like this:
seta seta com_videoRam "512"
The seta part at the beginning of it tells the game to include this data in the primary profile for the game. This is an integral part of your config, each line with a CVAR on it should begin with seta or setp. setp informs the game to include this CVAR in the profile of the specific username you are playing as.
What are the most important CVARs?
This is the meat and potatoes of your config file, there are literally hundreds of different CVARs and to someone that hasn't played around with them it can be daunting the first time you see them. Here are the ones that I think are the most important for people to use and that don't require fiddling based upon your hardware (I have listed these based upon the importance I give them):
seta ui_showGun "0" --> This gets rid of your weapon/tool model, although there is a bit of a learning curve to get used to what weapon you have out this gives you roughly 30% more screen to see stuff. This makes a huge difference.
seta pm_skipBob "1" --> When you run your head doesn't bob around in a realistic fashion, instead it stays steady, thus giving you an advantage when trying to maintain headshots.
seta g_weaponSwitchTimeout "0" --> Normally there is a delay when you switch weapons, this gets rid of that. It is best used when you have all of your different weapons/tools bound to specific keys instead of just using the mouse wheel.
seta g_voteKeepVote "0" --> This means that after you vote for something that the little vote box disappears. This gives your screenspace.
seta com_allowConsole "1" --> This means you just have to press the tilde key (~) to open up your console instead of CTRL+ALT+~
So those are the extreme basics of what you can do.
How do I increase my frames per second?
seta com_unlockFPS "1" --> This unlocks your FPS so it is not stuck at the default of 30.
seta com_unlock_maxfps "120" --> The number in parenthesis will be the maximum amount of frames per second that you will let the game run at. Typically you shouldn't have this number be higher then what you get normally. So if you set it to 120 and it usually stays at around 90 you should lower it to 90, this will prevent choppiness in your game. Also try to keep the number at intervals of 30 unless you have manually changed your timing method.
That's all for now. I'll update this with more information as I have time and also answer any questions you might post. Some later topics I will cover are advanced techniques and how to do bindings properly.
Thu Apr 04, 2013 2:20 pm by 
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