Quake III Arena Manual - Last Minute Additions

Contents:

Manual Addendum
Low Memory Message During Player Model Selection
Deferred Model Loading
Allocating Memory Using com_hunkmegs
Multiple Monitors
Default Hot Key for Team Orders
Weapon Re-spawn Times in Team Games
Changing Video During Victory Sequence
Config file Load/Save
Last Minute Video Card Compatibility Results
Problems Opening the On-line Manual
Setting up a Server With Map Cycling

Help System Main Page


Manual Addendum

Medals
Medals measure and instantly reward outstanding combat performance. When a player receives a verbal praise award, such as "Excellent!" the medal for that award appears above the gladiator's head. It swiftly fades away. All your medals of that type earned in this match are displayed for you. They also swiftly fade. When the match ends, all medals earned in the match are proudly displayed. Between matches you see the grand totals for all medals earned since the game began. The RESET control will wipe these values out.

CTF (Capture the Flag) Rules
Slip into the other team's home base, grab its flag, and run home to score.  What could be simpler? Now do it while dodging heavy artillery fire and you've got an idea of how this fast moving team game feels.  Score the most and win!

Scoring:
The "Capture" Point - Each time a member of the team captures the enemy teams flag and returns it to their own flag, the team receives 1 "Capture" point.

Winning:
The first team to reach the Capture Limit (which can be set or modified in the Server Setup Screen), or the team with the most captures when the time limit is hit, wins!

Individual Scoring:
Quake III Arena also keeps track of each players person scoring throughout a game.  This information is displayed on the left side of each player in the scoreboard.  These points do not affect the outcome of the game, but it will reveal if someone on the team isn't pulling their weight.

Capture - 5 Points awarded to each player on the team.
Frag (Kill) - 1 Point
Killing Flag Carrier  -  3 Points (1 point for the Frag, and 2 points because he had the flag).
Returning Flag to Base - 1 Point
Defending the Flag Carrier - 2 Points (1 point for the Frag, and 1 point for defending the flag carrier).
        --You are awarded these points if you Frag an opposing player who is in the immediate vicinity, if your opponent has inflicted damage to the flag carrier within approximately the last 5 seconds. 


Low Memory Message During Player Model Selection
When choosing models from the Player Menu you may encounter a low memory message. This tells you that memory space is currently not available to display your selected model. This is not a problem and will not interfere with your game. Select the portrait of the model you wish to play and exit the menu as normal. Your new model will display in the game.  To "flush-out" the memory, you can also restart your video by pulling down the console (accessed by pressing the ~ key) and typing:

\vid_restart

This will restart your video and enable you to view additional models.


Deferred Model Loading
In order to maintain the best game play, Quake III Arena may wait to load a model until you press the Tab key (or your Show Scores key), or die and respawn into the arena. A red "negation" circle over your face in the status bar indicates your desired player model has not been loaded or is being 'deferred.' In the same manner, other players' deferred models will not load immediately. They will appear the same as your model in the game. Once again, press Tab (Show Scores key) to update to the appropriate models.


Allocating Memory Using com_hunkmegs
The command com_hunkmegs is used to increase or decrease the size of memory used by the game. By default it is set to 56 which allows the game to run on computers with 64 megs of ram.  If your system has more than 64 MB of RAM, you can adjust this value to allow for the loading of more unique models. 

For example: If you have a machine with 256 megs of RAM you can use the command com_hunkmegs 128 to allocate more memory to the program.  You would do this by accessing the game console (press the ~ key), and typing in:

\com_hunkmegs 128

(substitute the amount of memory that you would like to dedicate for the "128" in the example above).

NOTE:  You can only allocate up to 3/4 of your total system memory before you may experience problems with your computer system. 

Please refer to the Dedicated Server document for an example of how to alter com_hunkmegs on dedicated servers.


Default Hot Key for Team Orders
Press the function key F3 (default) as a shortcut to access the Team Orders menu.


Weapon Re-spawn Times in Team Games
You will notice in Quake III Arena that the weapon re-spawn times are slower during teamplay games (Team Deathmatch and CTF).  This was done for increased playability in the way the arenas resources are controlled.


Changing Video During Victory Sequence
In single player, if during the victory sequence after a level, you do a vid_restart from the console, the screen will return without buttons for continuing.  At this point you will only be able to access the menu by pressing the Esc. key.  From the Esc. menu you can then go to the main menu, restart the arena, or exit the game.  You can also progress to the next level by going back to the level selection menu.

Also, in single player, if during the victory sequence, you press the Alt. and Enter keys to change between windowed mode, and non-windowed mode, the menu buttons at the bottom of the screen will not appear. At this point you will only be able to access the menu by pressing the Esc. key.  From the Esc. menu you can then go to the main menu, restart the arena, or exit the game.  You can also progress to the next level by going back to the level selection menu.


Config file Load/Save
Since the release of Q3DemoTest, the loading and saving of personal config (.cfg) files through the game menus has been removed.  The ability to "exec" a config file is still available through the console (accessed by pressing the ~ key while in the game).  A config file is saved when you change any of the game or system options.  The name of this file is the same as the name you type in for your "in-game" character name.  You can exec this file by accessing the console and typing:

\exec name.cfg

In the example above, substitute the name that you have given your character, for the word "name."


Last Minute Video Card Compatibility Results
Quake III Arena has been tested on many, but not all of the major cards incorporating the chipsets listed below.  As with any piece of advanced computer technology, Linux Quake III Arena requires the latest video card Linux drivers available, and as drivers change results may also change.  Below is a list of compatibility results based on our most recent pre-release tests.

3dfx:
Voodoo 1 (Voodoo Graphics) - Video replay might be slow.
Voodoo Rush - Not tested.
Voodoo 2 - Video replay might be slow.
Voodoo 3 - DGA mouse mode might break.
Voodoo Banshee - DGA mouse mode might break.

The most recent drivers are available from 3dfx Gamers' website. The DRI pre-release drivers are not supported at this time.

Matrox:
G200 - Not tested.
G400 - The Accelerated GLX driver for G200/G400 is under active development.

NVidia:
Riva128 - Not tested.
TNT - Not tested.
TNT2 - Does work with the XFree86 SVGA server, GLX, and Mesa-3.0 library available from Nvidia's website.
This driver is an early release, performance might not be sufficient on slower systems.
GeForce256 - Not tested.

Make sure to visit the GL drivers page in the support section at the Loki website for updates.


Problems Opening the On-line Manual
Use a web browser like Netscape Navigator or lynx to conveniently access the HTML pages on the CD. If you are experiencing any problems opening the on-line manual, please make sure that you are using a browser that support frames. 


Setting up a Server With Map Cycling
Advanced users can create configuration (or .cfg) files that will execute many commands at once.  One application for this is in creating a multiplayer game where the game cycles to the next arena listed in the "config" file and sets a new fraglimit for that arena.  An example config file is listed below.  To create this or a similar config file, you will simply need to create a new text file, copy everything listed below, save it, then rename it to FFA.cfg (or whatever name you choose).  You should place these files in your \baseq3 directory.

//This config file cycles through all the maps in the game. Free For All mode.

set g_gametype 0

set m1 "fraglimit 10; map q3dm1; set nextmap vstr m2"
set m2 "fraglimit 10; map q3dm2 ; set nextmap vstr m3"
set m3 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm3 ; set nextmap vstr m4"
set m4 "fraglimit 10; map q3tourney1 ; set nextmap vstr m5"
set m5 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm4 ; set nextmap vstr m6"
set m6 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm5 ; set nextmap vstr m7"
set m7 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm6 ; set nextmap vstr m8"
set m8 "fraglimit 10; map q3tourney2 ; set nextmap vstr m9"
set m9 "fraglimit 20; map q3dm7 ; set nextmap vstr m10"
set m10 "fraglimit 20; map q3dm8 ; set nextmap vstr m11"
set m11 "fraglimit 20; map q3dm9 ; set nextmap vstr m12"
set m12 "fraglimit 10; map q3tourney3 ; set nextmap vstr m13"
set m13 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm10 ; set nextmap vstr m14"
set m14 "fraglimit 20; map q3dm11 ; set nextmap vstr m15"
set m15 "fraglimit 20; map q3dm12 ; set nextmap vstr m16"
set m16 "fraglimit 10; map q3tourney4 ; set nextmap vstr m17"
set m17 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm13 ; set nextmap vstr m18"
set m18 "fraglimit 20; map q3dm14 ; set nextmap vstr m19"
set m19 "fraglimit 20; map q3dm15 ; set nextmap vstr m20"
set m20 "fraglimit 10; map q3tourney5 ; set nextmap vstr m21"
set m21 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm16 ; set nextmap vstr m22"
set m22 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm17 ; set nextmap vstr m23"
set m23 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm18 ; set nextmap vstr m24"
set m24 "fraglimit 15; map q3dm19 ; set nextmap vstr m25"
set m25 "fraglimit 10; map q3tourney6 ; set nextmap vstr m1"

vstr m1

To execute a server setup configuration file, you should bring down the console (accessed by pressting the ~ key) while in the Quake III menu system and type:

\exec ffa.cfg

Substitute the name of your config for "ffa" in the example above.