Mousesettings²

I have always been interested in the technical aspects of ET. This article is ment as an expansion to 'Mousesettings for newbies". Much like Mousesettings for newbies I do not claim the stuff I talk about will work for everybody. In theory the stuff I write about is correct, in practice most ppl prefer to play with what they are used to play.

First off, I believe in consistency. ET as a game that has a certain 'lotto' factor built into it thanks to spread, antilag and the teambase factor =] You can however reduce this 'lotto' factor by playing
a) intelligently, taking calculated risks which give you a good chance of succeeding automaticly giving you enough of advantage to overcome but the biggest lotto. Playing intelligently requires both the attitide to analyze oneself and to practice practice practice!
b) aim consistent xD

The first thing is nothing I can do about. Some people were just born as plug and play, some ppl have a tendancy to try to understand. The second thing you can improve on. First you want your aim to be as consistent as possible. This is why so much people play relative low sensitivity in ET. You might be able to aim perfectly with sensitivity 5 cm = 180° but you need a way higher concentration to reach the same kind of tracking. Relative low sensitivity makes your aim more consistent, i'm saying relative as some players take this lowering of sensitivity to a new level which seriously hurts their playstyle of forces them to use fov/senstoggles.

Next you need a stable FPS, stable mouserate and a displayrefresh at least as high as your framerate. Ofcourse this is all theory. Some pc's just cant get stable fps, some monitors only give 75hz etc. But lets have a look at the theory. How can we make our aiming more consistent / predictable / stable.

As explained in "Mousesettings by newbies" removing acceleration is a good way to go. Either use accelfix or use your mousedrivers to remove the acceleration. Ofcourse if you have been using windows inbuilt accel for ages, I dont recommend turning it off. CPC showed that there are only two characteristics shared by all top players: Big ass mousemats and relative low sensitivity compared to other games like CoD or Quake. A lot of the players were using the windows inbuilt accel or just didnt give a shit and played with what they played for ages.

So how can you make your aim more consistent? Synching! So what is synching. Lets say i'm playing the piano and playing 2 notes a second, while Loekino is playing the drums, also at 2 beats a second. Both of us will be playing in synch, as we will either play a beat at the same time, or the interval between beats will always be constants. Say if loekino plays his first beat 0,2 seconds earlier, the next beat he plays will also be 0,2 earlier. Also Loekino could be playing 4 beats a second, while i'm only playing 2 beats a second. Common sense tells you he is still playing in synch with me. All sounds nice.

So lets apply synching to ET. What would we want to synch? FPS and Mouserate. Every time a frame gets rendered Q3 looks at the mouseinputs previously received. Say we got 1 frame per second and 1 mouseinput a second, the interval between frame and input will be [1-1000]ms. If we got 125 frames per second and 125 mouseinputs the interval will be in [0-8]ms. Notice that 125 fps = 125/1000ms = 8ms

I say [1-8]ms as there is no way to predict if frames or mouseinput will be 'perfectly' synched: the ms before the frame got rendered a mouseinput was received so the delay between mouseinput and frame is 1 ms. Or the 'worstest' synched: the ms after a frame got rendered and mouseinput was processed, a new mouseinput was received. The maximum delay between mouseinput and frame will be 8ms.

So how could we do better 'in theory'. We cannot increase the FPS due to config restrictions preventing spreadlaming. So the only thing we can do is increase the mouserate. As shown with loekino's drumming, we want to double the mouserate to keep the beats in tune. So if we have 125fps / 250hz the delay interval will be [1-4]ms.
The 'bestest' synch: 1ms, a frame gets rendered the ms after an input was received.
The 'worstest' synch: 4ms, just before the frame got rendered a mouseinput was received. This time the interval is 4 because mouseinputs are beeing sent at double the speed.

Continuing this line of thinking we should decide 1000hz is the 'bestestest' synched as it in theory should give you a 1ms interval as mouseinputs are beeing sent 1000 times a second and there will always be a mouseinput the ms before the frame. In rL mouse dont give stable 1000hz polling rates. You can check it out for yourself: even while doing the most fast circles on your mousemat its impossble to keep a stable 1000hz. This results in loekino skipping some beats and in the end the delay that was constant turns into one big chaos.

fps= 125 = 8ms usb= average 666
frames 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
inputs. 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1

So lets take the highest possible mouserate thats stable at all times?
fps= 125 = 8ms usb= 500 stable
frames 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
inputs. 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
OR
frames 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
inputs. 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
As you can see no matter what the the mouseinputs will be stable, the delay will be a constant 1 or 2 ms. But what happens if you got a shit pc that doesnt do 125fps?

fps= 100 =10ms usb= 500 stable
frames 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
inputs. 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

As you can see there is no problem when using lower fps as long as the 500/ fps = integer 1,2,3, etc. The result is you will have a fixed amount of beats every frame, a fixed amount of mouseinputs per frame. This results in a more consistent tracking.
500fps
250fps
166fps
125
100
83
71
63

Long story short:
use 500hz
cap fps: 125, 100, 83, 71, 63

Stuff missing:
prerendered frame limits ;)
direct input, buffering

To be continued:
Antilag and me, I have known :'(