You will get a better ping if your service provider is running the servers your connecting to Jolt has lots of servers running more than just Quake III Jolt also offers dial up access and broadband so do Demon,BlueYonder,Claranet,Manxnet,Supanet
Other Options For Finding Servers
Q3 has its own internal server finder which is ok but can take awhile to find local servers with a good ping. Not all servers are listed on this master server and its not that reliable.
Lots if not all Quake 3 players have used or use Gamespy its a server finder not only for Quake III but Quake II halflife etc etc. Some love it some don`t the unregistered version is free and can be downloaded from.
The All Seeing Eye is a great server find and is used by most serious games players because of its ease of use automatically checks and updates itself. Gives you the option of downloading the latest patches, mods for your installed games, excellence server filters and its cheap. Click here for home page. To download a trial version please Click here it costs $30 US for a lifetime subscription to the service or $10 yearly and as a user of ASE I would say it rocks.
Connecting Using Server IP Address
From the list of servers below left click on the IP address of the server you wish to connect to drag the mouse along so the whole IP address is highlighted in white now right click and select copy from the menu. The IP address has now been copied onto the clipboard. Run Q3 wait untill the game has loaded and your at the main menu screen bring down the console using the tilde key ` and type \connect press ctrl first and while holding that key down press v will paste the IP address from the clipboard into the console. Your console should now look like this \connect 195.147.246.79:27975 simply press the enter key and the game will connect to the server and start.
You can also type in the IP address by hand at the console or specify it in game select multi player and then click on specify and enter the IP address and port number where prompted.
Reading the lagometer
If for some reason the lagometer is not beening displayed turn it on by bringing down the console
and enter \cg_lagometer 1
1A
If you look at the lagometer above fig 1A you will see a thin blue line towards the top of the picture. The blue line displays the packet traffic and if its being received properly and updating the graphics in real time it should be thin and blue. The thickness of the blue line indicates if the the graphics are beening updated in relation to the packet traffic. The thicker the blue line the more lag the game suffers some players use a negative value in cl_timenudge to reduce this effect. If the received packet traffic is broken there will be yellow spikes in the blue line or it will be totally yellow see figs 2A and 3A below. If you consistently getting lots of yellow spikes try reducing the snaps value. See lowering ping for more information on snaps and cl_timenudge.
2A3A
The bottom line of the lagometer displays the number of packets being received the thicker the line the higher your ping. The line should be green and as thin and smooth as possible. Red in the line indicates lost packets or packet loss yellow in the bottom line indicates damaged or broken packets. Fig 4A Is showing packet loss.
4A
Red Spikes = Packet Loss/Lost Packets
Yellow Spikes = Damaged/Broken Rejected Packets
Smooth Green Line = Received Packets OK
Recording A Demo
Recording a demo is easy you can record yourself playing Quake 3 Arena or a multi player on-line game say your clan kicking other clans butt. There are three commands used in this process and they must be spelt correctly for the recording to start stop etc.
\g_synchronousClients 1 (This ensures that all the players are in sync so the demo plays back correctly may slow down your Frames per second rate).
\record mydemo (Starts recording the demo and saves it to C:\Program Files\Quake 3 Arena\baseq3\demos and saves your demo with the file name mydemo)
\stoprecord (Stops the demo recording).
Recording Demo Sequence In Order
1 . Start Quake III Arena. 2 . Start your game single player multi player on-line whatever. 3 . Bring down the console (Press the ` Tilde key). 4 . Type \g_synchronousClients 1 in the console window and press enter. 5 . Type \recordmydemoname where mydemoname is the name you wish to call the demo press enter to start recording. 6 . Type \stoprecord into the console press enter to stop recording the demo.
Recording Lots Of Demos
If you find yourself recording lots of demos it may useful to blind some keys to do that for you see autoexec.cfg files for more information about key blinds if your unsure.
Blind F1 "seta g_synchronousClients 1"
Bind F2 "record"
Bind F3 "stoprecord"
The demo files will be saved with a file name like demo0000.dm_68 which means 1 demo recorded and protocol version 68. demo0001.dm_68 would be the second demo file recorded.
Playing Back A Demo
To play back demo files you have recorded run Q3 select demos from the main menu screen choose your demo from the list click on it and it will run.
To play demos you have downloaded place the demo file in C:\Program Files\Quake 3 Arena\baseq3\demos\ assuming you installed Q3 Arena to the standard directory if the demos directory does not exist you will have to make it and place your demo files in here to be played.
Playing Demos Using The Console
Bring down the console (Press the ` Tilde key).
Type \demo mydemoname Press enter. where mydemoname is the name of the demo you wish to start playing.
Using Timedemo To Test Frame Rate
If your playing about with autoexec.cfg files or you just want to make sure Quake 3 Arena is running smoothly the timedemo command can be used to test frame rate.
Bring down the console (Press the ` Tilde key).
Type \timedemo 1
Type \demo mydemoname Press enter. where mydemoname is the name of the demo you wish to start playing.
When the demo has finished playing bring down the console (Press the ` Tilde key) Displayed here you will find time to play demo and average frame rate.
Coloured Names
Quake III allows players complete control over the colour of their name. Each letter could be a different colour if you wish.
^ followed by a number 1 to 7 will render the next letter and all others untill changed again in the same colour.
0 Black
1 Red
2 Green
3 Yellow
4 Blue
5 Cyan
6 Purple
7 White
Examples
To Render the name Zsdead
Enter the following using the in game menus setup, player, name or bring down the console and enter better still use an autoexec.cfg file and save your player name with that.
Using the in game menus enter this ^2Zs^3de^1ad
Using the console enter this \name ^2Zs^3de^1ad
Using an autoexec.cfg file add this line name "^2Zs^3de^1ad"
From the example above its easy to see the structure of player names in Q3 Arena ^ followed by a number changes colour If your playing with the OSP mod you will notice players with different colours than above in their names and names that flash check out the OSP docs to find out how to do that.
Console Commands And autoexec.cfg files.
The Console
Whats the console you may ask its a way of entering commands into Quake III which will in someway change the way the game will play. To use the console you enter commands into it usually with a value to turn an option on or off or to change a value. To enter commands is easy start Q3 then press the tilde key (strange name hey) its the one below the ESC or escape key. Pressing the tilde key will bring down the console and allow you to enter commands. Lets enter our first command to see how it works run Quake 3 bring down the console by pressing the tilde key and type in \set cg_drawfps 1 press enter. This command turns the frames per second display on or off to turn it off type \set cg_drawfps 0 press enter the arrow keys can be used to scroll though previously entered commands. There are many console commands lots we will never use I have included the important ones and linked to sites which contain all those found so far. Please note any commands or command variables entered into the console are entered into your config.cfg file if they are different from the default setting they are loaded and run each time you play Quake III until you change it again.
Why Bother
Its important to get Q3 to run as smoothly as possible on your system and console commands provide a way of doing this far and above the in game options. Using console commands you are able to customize the game heavily for you own way of play and display. Graphics lagging can be a problem on slow PCs see reading the lagOmeter in frequently asked questions for more information.
Whats a Cvar
A Cvar Is Simply a Console Command variable.
Autoexe.cfg file
Whats an autoexe.cfg file you may ask. Its simply a collection of console commands and console variables which are loaded by Q3 Arena before the game starts. A custom made autoexec.cfg file can seriously give you the edge over a player without one.
Invalid cdkey, mistyped cdkey and client_unknown_to_auth have nothing to do with punkabuster. The master cdkey auth server was turned on after 1.32 patch was released. Punkabuster anti-cheating was added with 1.32 but its nothing to do with Punkabuster honest gov.
1. Find the quake III directory where Quake3 is installed usually C:\Program Files\Quake III Arena.
2. Select 'baseq3' directory
3. Delete file 'q3key'
4. Run Quake 3 from the desktop not via a server finder.
5. When its loaded you will be asked for the cdkey re-enter it and exit the game.
6. If the above does not work delete the q3key file from any other folders on your hard drive.
Now that should have worked.
Rocket Jumping
Rocket jumping can be used for getting out of trouble and moving around the map. Rocket jumping in vanilla Quake 3 will cost you health points and armour but playing cpma or osp clan arena it plays an important part of the game.
How to rocket jump well its easy no seriously like everything else practise lots and lots.
what you what more detail ok.
1. Stand still look down point weapon down press fire. See you jumped ok now before you get to excited your health points and armour suffered do that a couple of times and you will frag yourself.
2. Same as before stand still look down point weapon down press fire but this time press jump at the same time. See how much higher you jumped and suffered less splash damage.
3. Ok got that now try moving forwards pointing your weapon down pressing fire and jumping at the same time master that and a rocket jumper you will be.
A good place to practise rocket jumping is death match 6 rocket jump from.
To download a quake 3 demo of a simple rocket jump click on download button.
To play demos you have downloaded place the demo file in C:\Program Files\Quake 3 Arena\baseq3\demos\ assuming you installed Q3 Arena to the standard directory if the demos directory does not exist you will have to make it and place your demo files in here to be played.
How To Rail
Prefered weapon of the the elite Quake 3 player you won`t stand a chance against the masters of this weapon. Slow to regenerate difficult to use practise practise practise hitting bots is easy humans are much harder to frag.
Railing is hard hitting a moving target is not easy so practise railing players at the top of bounce pads and where players movement is confined tunnels arches as they appear around a corner etc. Don`t be afraid to take some damage remember you only have to rail them once or twice and there history. Lots of the better quake 3 players will crouch down when railing to reduce there target area.
To download a quake 3 demo of me railing a few bots click on download button.
To play demos you have downloaded place the demo file in C:\Program Files\Quake 3 Arena\baseq3\demos\ assuming you installed Q3 Arena to the standard directory if the demos directory does not exist you will have to make it and place your demo files in here to be played.
General Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How do I enable cheats in single player mode?
A. At the console (~ key) type: \spdevmap "< mapname >"
This will enable cheats on the chosen map :)
Q. How do I back flip?
A. By pressing your back and jump keys simultaneously, your model will do a back flip.
Q. How do I Change music tracks?
A. At the console (` key) type /music < track >.wav So for example:
/music Fla22k_02.wav will play the Fla22k_02 track.
Here's a list of the music tracks in Quake3 (Thanks Foxhart):
Q. What are 'Easter eggs', and where can I find them?
At the console type /map test_bigbox. This will put you in a very small box shaped room which contains ???
Q3DM11: Head to the are near where there is a shotgun in front of a teleporter. Turn your back on the teleporter and then run into the wall and hey presto it will open up to reveal ????
Q3DM15: Down to the bottom of the stairs and look in the door ways. One has a head, whose eyes open and close.
Q3DM16: Join as a spectator, and fly under the map, and you'll see a cartoon guy :)
Q3DM19: Again become a spectator and fly under the map. Now head under the platforms (solid ones, not moving) and by one of the red lights you'll spot the ???
Frequently Asked Questions
Other Options For Finding Servers
Reading the lagometer
1A
2A
3A
4A
