Difference between revisions of "Client Setup for PVP"

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(New page: Category:Agony/Ensign Original text by Rells Copyright© 2006 by the Authors, updated 2009 All Rights Reserved For 0.0 life and PvP combat the first thing you should know is that ...)
 
(→‎Configuring EVE Mail: New image)
 
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[[Category:PVP_University/BASIC]]
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[[Category:PVP_University/COVOPS]]
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[[Category:PVP University/ADVANCED]]
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[[Category:PVP University/BOMBERS]]
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[[Category:PVP University]]
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__TOC__
  
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Original text by Rells
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==Introduction==
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Rule number 1 for life in 0.0 and PvP combat is that lag kills. Your graphics settings might look cool, but if these settings cause your client to lag when 10 hostiles land on grid and a battle starts, you are dead. The last thing you want is a slide show when you're in a 50 pilot gang going against another 50 pilots. For this reason, before engaging in combat in EVE you must take time to set up your client properly. To reduce lag, 0.0 and other PvP pilots turn off several game effects.
  
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Copyright© 2006 by the Authors, updated 2009
 
  
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All Rights Reserved
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Explore the options you get when hitting "Esc" key to bring up settings menu. When all the bells and whistles are set to "high", the client looks great, but these additional features can drop your frame rate through the floor.  Especially when there are a large number of ships on grid (example: a PVP-Basic class). To reduce the chances of this happening we're going to look at some of these options. In this article we will only be dealing with four of these tabs: Display & Graphics, Audio, Chat, and General Settings. Then we will move on to EVE Mail settings.
  
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'''NOTE:''' Client performance will vary from computer to computer so use your best judgement when configuring your settings. You know your rig better than we do.
  
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For 0.0 life and PvP combat the first thing you should know is that lag kills; any graphics settings you might have, might look cool, but the lag will murder you if 10 hostile ships jump in on you and a real battle starts. For this reason 0.0 and other PvP pilots turn off several game effects.
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==Configuring Client Settings==
  
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Firstly, the premium graphics may look really, ''really'' cool, but they, like everything else, will slow you down. (Note: Premium graphics executes the graphics calculations on your video card, as opposed to your computer's primary CPU.  In some configurations, premium graphics will outperform classic graphics.  Try both, use what's fastest!) To go back to classic graphics, hit escape, go to the Display & Graphics tab and uncheck the box labelled 'Premium Graphics Content Enabled'. Don't restart EVE just yet, we are not finished here.
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===Display & Graphics===
  
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If you look to the left of where you just were, you should see some check boxes. Untick the top three ('Turret Effects', 'Effects' and 'Trails On/Off'). Now, go to the Audio tab and uncheck 'Audio enabled'. Unfortunately the sound in EVE really is more trouble than it is worth (plus you don't want to be distracted while the instructor is talking).
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[[Image:Settings Graphics.JPG|700px]]
  
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One other Eve setting that you will want to turn off is auto-relocking of targets. This is a utility that makes you automatically relock anything that locks you and its deadly. The main reason to turn this off is that there are a number of cheesy tricks that can be used to get you CONCORDed in a war situation. For example, a war target might undock from a station, you start all your weapons and send off the drones to kill him; however he docks back into the station. Your ship will automatically switch to the non-war target that tried to lock you as his buddy came out of the station. Your drones and turrets go for the wrong guy and CONCORD does the rest. In addition, in 0.0 or any other kind of PvP you will be choosing targets much more intelligently, not letting them choose you. Go to the Generic tab and look for Auto Target Back 1 Targets. This setting is on the bottom left and may contain a number other than 1. Make sure that number reads 0.
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====Display Setup====
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You must decide whether you want to run EVE in windowed, fixed window or fullscreen mode. Fullscreen mode will lighten the CPU load, but makes it more difficult to tab between different windows. Windowed will show the "bars" all around your client, and "fixed window" is windowed mode but no "bars" around it.  For Mac Os users the shortcut to switch between fullscreen and windowed client is Apple+Return.
  
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Your overview will need to be tweaked as well. If twelve enemy ships warp in you will want to make sure you are locking the enemy and not the friendlies. This can be problematic in a hectic situation with your heart racing (yes it happens to us all) and your adrenaline flowing. Therefore, it's best that friendlies not show up on overview at all.
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Resolution/Window Size: One thing you will discover very fast with EVE is that you need to utilize the entire screen and the higher the resolution you can support the more room you will have. Run your client at the highest resolution possible, but keep in mind that you also want a good frame rate. This can be a tricky balancing act. You can press Ctrl+F to see your frame per second (FPS) count in game, or use [http://www.fraps.com/ FRAPS] to measure it. Generally you want to keep your FPS count between 30 and 60.
  
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Go into your overview settings by right clicking on the arrow right beside where it says Overview and selecting the Settings menu option. Once there you will start by modifying the filters tab. Make sure that anyone who is in your corporation, alliance, gang, has good or excellent standings do NOT appear. Also make sure you filter out all concord and NPC fleet ships (leave rats filtered on but turn off things like customs officers and so on). In addition make sure that you filter '''off''' all cargo containers, drones, sentry guns, secure containers, etc. '''The ONLY things that should be on your overview are rats, neutral player ships and gates.'''  There is a setting to filter out neutrals, however there is a problem with it: if you check it off, everyone except those with standings will be filtered out. That includes war targets! Unless your corp has set them to negative standings, they will not appear on your overview. Unfortunately, by leaving neutrals checked, you may get a lot of people on your overview that you don't want, however, we can make it as good as possible.
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The most important setting in this panel is Present Interval. Here you want to select “Interval One”. This will limit your FPS to 60. When sitting in a station your client can have very high FPS count (up to and over 200). This will put a great deal of strain on your video card, which has been reported to lead to overheating and your system shutting down or worse.
  
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Now we need to adjust the colors and order. Look at your background colors tabs and make sure you have the colors set so that all people in your alliance, corporation, gang, and with good standings are various shades of blue. Next make sure that the icon colors match the colors of the background. Finally you need to set the valid empire targets to blink. This means that you set pilots at war with you and pilots with sec status below -5 to blink. That way you won't ever have to check anything to make sure the guy can be popped in empire or that he will pop you.
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====Effects====
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For large scale fleets, turn off "Turret & Launchers", "Effects", "Missile Effects", "Camera Shake", "Ship Explosions", "Trails", "GPU Particles" and "Drone Models".  
  
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The next step to adjust the order of the icons and background colors. To understand how this work know that Eve evaluates from the top, down. The top color and icon is more important than the bottom one and will override the bottom one. So if you have security status coloring on top and alliance member on bottom, Eve will color the pilot according to their security status and not according to their alliance or standings. This is bad because you could end up shooting friendlies. In 0.0 the standings of the pilot are more important than the security status of the pilot. If friendly pilots pirate you, you should take that up with your CEO or officer and he will handle it for you. You should not shoot at alliance, corporation, gang or high standings pilots, no matter what their security status; nor should you return fire if an alliance, corporation or gang member fires on you (unless you are both just playing around of course). A fair few wars in 0.0 space have started because of pilots who didn't set up the overview correctly.
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For small scale fights, however, leaving them on can be beneficial. It will allow you to visually distinguish between different electronic warfare effects, such as when your ship is being webified or warp disrupted, as well as let you to see remote repair and neutralizer/nosferatu effects.  
  
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Your final order for your color tags and icons should be the following:
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Turn off “Sun Is Occluded by Ships” and turn on "Use LOD". LOD stands for "Level of Detail. Turning it on means that EVE client will use simplified 3d models to show things that are far away from the camera. Enabling LOD can result in smoother graphics.
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* Pilot is in your gang
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* Pilot is at war with you
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* Pilot is in your corporation
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* Pilot is in your alliance
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* Pilot has high standing
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* Pilot has good standing
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* Pilot has horrible standing
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* Pilot has bad standing
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* Pilot has bounty on him
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* Pilot (agent) is interactable
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* Pilot has security status below -5
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* Pilot has security status below 0
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* Pilot has a neutral standing
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I would advise you to turn on all of the color-coding and most of the icons because the more information you have on the overview, the faster you can react to changing conditions in the game. The only icons that I don't use are the skulls for low security status pilots, reserving that for bounties, and interactable agents.
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Turn off "Physically simulated cloth and hair"
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Turn on "Low quality characters"
  
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You will also want to reconfigure your colors according to your taste. I imagine mine would be far different than yours because I am slightly red-green colorblind, but the magic of Eve accommodates us both. However, you want to make sure that valid empire targets (those below - 5.0 security status and those at war with you) are blinking and no others are blinking. This means that you will know at a glance if the target is a legal empire target or not.
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====Graphic Content Settings====
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Again, our goal is to have the lowest lag possible, therefore select the lowest settings for all options.
  
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Finally you will want to set up your columns in the overview. The columns that you should have visible are the following columns in this order: "ICON", "DISTANCE", "NAME", "TYPE", "VELOCITY", "ALLIANCE". The tag column is no longer necessary since in the invention of the fleets and broadcasting targets. The "ALLIANCE" column should be resized so that they can display 6 character sized corporation and alliance tickers. The "NAME" column should be set up so that you can read longer names and the type column also appropriately resized. The type column tells you what ship you are facing, while the velocity column gives you an idea of how fast the target is moving.  When in battle you may want to sort your overview by different columns depending on the engagement.  In most small engagements sorting my distance is your best option; however, when in a larger engagement against many ships you'll want to sort your overview by the name column.  Clicking on the top of the column will sort everything on your overview alphabetically, allowing you to easily find targets that are called primary.  Finally, sometimes a fleet commander will sort his or her overview by the type column, making it easier to pick out specific ship types to pick as primaries.
 
  
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Once you have your settings modified you should have your overview set up to PvP. You will probably want to keep any number of overview settings. You might have a setting for empire that only shows valid high-sec space targets (and unfortunately neutrals). You could have another setting that you use for ratting, another for 0.0 space and yet another for mining. You can click on the arrow beside "Overview" and save your settings or load them again. Once you have this set up you will be ready to get into action while minimizing your chances of firing on something you aren't supposed to.
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===Audio & Chat===
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[[Image:Settings Audio.JPG|700px]][[Image:Settings Chat.JPG|700px]]
  
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You can save your overview settings in the overview settings panel. This gives you a chance to create presets that will have various things on them. You can have a setting for ratting, another for pvp and still more for other specialized tasks. The settings can be changed out at a flash by using the menu available by clicking on the icon to the left of the overview. This enables you to have configurable overview settings at a moment's notice (which, once you get into PvP, is more useful than you could imagine).
 
  
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Other things you can do to assist in reducing the lag incurred in PVP situations are:
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Thanks to recent improvements in the game client, audio doesn't impact the client performance nearly as much as it used to. However, if you are continuing to have lag and other performance issues, the following may help a bit.
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Turn off logging - To do this you will need to open logs (it might be under accessories on the side bar) - settings tab and then uncheck the various options.
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Turn damage messages off - To do this you will need to press ESC and under the General Settings tab and uncheck "DAMAGE MESSAGES ON/OFF'".
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Keep bookmarks within folders - Only have the folder you are currently using open. The client will re-sort any open folders everytime you enter a new area, go through a gate or undock.
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Set Chat windows to text only - Make sure that you set any chat windows to the option that does not show avatar images. These avatars take time and resources to load and can potentially increase the lag in systems where large numbers of pilots are present. This option is in the chat window, above the channel member list, and looks like several lines stacked on top of each other.
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====CCP's Advice====
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In November 2008, CCP created [http://support.eve-online.com/Pages/KB/Article.aspx?id=492 this page] with their advice about minimising lag in large fleets.
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====Audio Engine Settings====
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Uncheck "Audio Enabled” to turn off sound.  The sound in EVE provides more situational awareness, but the load it puts on the CPU can cause the game to lag. For many players turning the sound off when playing the game improves its performance.
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====Voice Settings====
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Most alliances and corporations in EVE use either [http://www.ventrilo.com/ Ventrilo], Mumble or [http://www.teamspeak.com/ Teamspeak]. This way if the server goes down or one of pilots becomes disconnected, he or she will still be able to use voice communications and hear what is being said. EVE Voice however is a nice alternative to use when your Mumble, Vent or TS goes down.
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====Chat====
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Logging chat can create extra lag, but the information stored in the logs can be very useful. Whether you want to leave this option on of off is up to you.
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===General Settings===
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[[Image:Settings General.JPG|700px]]
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====General====
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Find the box that says “Show Session-Change Timer” and place a check on it. You can have other boxes set to whatever you wish. This option will display a small circle at the top left corner on your UI when your session change is on. Mousing your mouse over the circle will display the time left until the change is complete. Being able to see the session change timer is very important in PVP, for example, in a situation where you have to evade a gate camp. Session timer is enabled every time you change or leave your ship, every time you dock or come through a gate, and every time you jump clone or get podded. Refer to the following article if you do not know what the session change timer is [[Using Session Change Timer]].
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====Help====
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Uncheck the “Show Damage Notifications” box. "Damage Notifications" are a small pop-up typically seen in the middle of your screen informing you of damage dealt or received every time you take or deal damage. Needless to say, this creates quite a bit of lag in large group PVP situations. This option can be quite useful in small scale PVP and PVE however.
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Another important change is to set the “Auto Target Back” option to zero (0) targets.  When checked, your ship will automatically target-lock on any ship that locks target onto you first. If your modules are cycled this will make them activate on the locked target. However, often in combat situations the ship that locks you first is not the one you want to be shooting at. In 0.0 or any other kind of PvP you will be choosing targets much more intelligently, not letting them choose you. The ship locking you might be a friend simply trying to test locking time (or a logistics pilot in your gang). If your weapons are cycled you might end up killing your friend's ship. There are also several tricks used in empire space that can get you CONCORDed if your auto-targeter is enabled. It is a good idea to have this option turned off.
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====Layout====
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You can set this up any way you like.
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==Configuring EVE Mail==
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This last setting is located in your EVE Mail window.  To open EVE Mail, look at the left side of your EVE client and find the third icon down from the top.  Click it to open.
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[[Image:Settings_Mail.JPG]]
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Once your mailbox is open, click the triangle in the top left corner to access settings, and set 'CSPA charge' to 0. This means people don't have to pay money to invite you to fleets, etc.
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Next, right click on the Inbox again and turn blink off. Whenever your ship gets destroyed you will receive an email stating the amount of ISK that has been transferred to your wallet via insurance. This will prompt your mail box to blink, which causes a small amount of lag.
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==Other Settings==
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It is also a good idea to turn off the blinking effects of your wallet. Each time your ship gets blown up, you will receive some ISK from its insurance. If your wallet settings are set to make your wallet blink, it will blink upon this event and cause a small amount of lag for your client. In turn, it will make it more difficult for you to enter warp with your pod and avoid getting pod-killed.
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If you find that your EVE client loads slowly and is persistently being bugged by various small bugs it might be time to clear your cache. It is a good idea to periodically clean it out in any case. To do this press "ESC" button and go to "Reset Settings" tab. Find "Clear all cache files" option and click on "Clear". You will have to restart your client after this.
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After applying all of these setting, your EVE client will be as lag free as possible. If you are still experiencing large amount of lag in PVP you may have to upgrade your computer.

Latest revision as of 19:47, 7 March 2016

Introduction

Rule number 1 for life in 0.0 and PvP combat is that lag kills. Your graphics settings might look cool, but if these settings cause your client to lag when 10 hostiles land on grid and a battle starts, you are dead. The last thing you want is a slide show when you're in a 50 pilot gang going against another 50 pilots. For this reason, before engaging in combat in EVE you must take time to set up your client properly. To reduce lag, 0.0 and other PvP pilots turn off several game effects.


Explore the options you get when hitting "Esc" key to bring up settings menu. When all the bells and whistles are set to "high", the client looks great, but these additional features can drop your frame rate through the floor. Especially when there are a large number of ships on grid (example: a PVP-Basic class). To reduce the chances of this happening we're going to look at some of these options. In this article we will only be dealing with four of these tabs: Display & Graphics, Audio, Chat, and General Settings. Then we will move on to EVE Mail settings.

NOTE: Client performance will vary from computer to computer so use your best judgement when configuring your settings. You know your rig better than we do.

Configuring Client Settings

Display & Graphics

Settings Graphics.JPG

Display Setup

You must decide whether you want to run EVE in windowed, fixed window or fullscreen mode. Fullscreen mode will lighten the CPU load, but makes it more difficult to tab between different windows. Windowed will show the "bars" all around your client, and "fixed window" is windowed mode but no "bars" around it. For Mac Os users the shortcut to switch between fullscreen and windowed client is Apple+Return.

Resolution/Window Size: One thing you will discover very fast with EVE is that you need to utilize the entire screen and the higher the resolution you can support the more room you will have. Run your client at the highest resolution possible, but keep in mind that you also want a good frame rate. This can be a tricky balancing act. You can press Ctrl+F to see your frame per second (FPS) count in game, or use FRAPS to measure it. Generally you want to keep your FPS count between 30 and 60.

The most important setting in this panel is Present Interval. Here you want to select “Interval One”. This will limit your FPS to 60. When sitting in a station your client can have very high FPS count (up to and over 200). This will put a great deal of strain on your video card, which has been reported to lead to overheating and your system shutting down or worse.

Effects

For large scale fleets, turn off "Turret & Launchers", "Effects", "Missile Effects", "Camera Shake", "Ship Explosions", "Trails", "GPU Particles" and "Drone Models".

For small scale fights, however, leaving them on can be beneficial. It will allow you to visually distinguish between different electronic warfare effects, such as when your ship is being webified or warp disrupted, as well as let you to see remote repair and neutralizer/nosferatu effects.

Turn off “Sun Is Occluded by Ships” and turn on "Use LOD". LOD stands for "Level of Detail. Turning it on means that EVE client will use simplified 3d models to show things that are far away from the camera. Enabling LOD can result in smoother graphics.

Turn off "Physically simulated cloth and hair" Turn on "Low quality characters"

Graphic Content Settings

Again, our goal is to have the lowest lag possible, therefore select the lowest settings for all options.


Audio & Chat

Settings Audio.JPGSettings Chat.JPG


Thanks to recent improvements in the game client, audio doesn't impact the client performance nearly as much as it used to. However, if you are continuing to have lag and other performance issues, the following may help a bit.


Audio Engine Settings

Uncheck "Audio Enabled” to turn off sound. The sound in EVE provides more situational awareness, but the load it puts on the CPU can cause the game to lag. For many players turning the sound off when playing the game improves its performance.

Voice Settings

Most alliances and corporations in EVE use either Ventrilo, Mumble or Teamspeak. This way if the server goes down or one of pilots becomes disconnected, he or she will still be able to use voice communications and hear what is being said. EVE Voice however is a nice alternative to use when your Mumble, Vent or TS goes down.

Chat

Logging chat can create extra lag, but the information stored in the logs can be very useful. Whether you want to leave this option on of off is up to you.


General Settings

Settings General.JPG

General

Find the box that says “Show Session-Change Timer” and place a check on it. You can have other boxes set to whatever you wish. This option will display a small circle at the top left corner on your UI when your session change is on. Mousing your mouse over the circle will display the time left until the change is complete. Being able to see the session change timer is very important in PVP, for example, in a situation where you have to evade a gate camp. Session timer is enabled every time you change or leave your ship, every time you dock or come through a gate, and every time you jump clone or get podded. Refer to the following article if you do not know what the session change timer is Using Session Change Timer.

Help

Uncheck the “Show Damage Notifications” box. "Damage Notifications" are a small pop-up typically seen in the middle of your screen informing you of damage dealt or received every time you take or deal damage. Needless to say, this creates quite a bit of lag in large group PVP situations. This option can be quite useful in small scale PVP and PVE however.

Another important change is to set the “Auto Target Back” option to zero (0) targets. When checked, your ship will automatically target-lock on any ship that locks target onto you first. If your modules are cycled this will make them activate on the locked target. However, often in combat situations the ship that locks you first is not the one you want to be shooting at. In 0.0 or any other kind of PvP you will be choosing targets much more intelligently, not letting them choose you. The ship locking you might be a friend simply trying to test locking time (or a logistics pilot in your gang). If your weapons are cycled you might end up killing your friend's ship. There are also several tricks used in empire space that can get you CONCORDed if your auto-targeter is enabled. It is a good idea to have this option turned off.

Layout

You can set this up any way you like.


Configuring EVE Mail

This last setting is located in your EVE Mail window. To open EVE Mail, look at the left side of your EVE client and find the third icon down from the top. Click it to open.

Settings Mail.JPG


Once your mailbox is open, click the triangle in the top left corner to access settings, and set 'CSPA charge' to 0. This means people don't have to pay money to invite you to fleets, etc.

Next, right click on the Inbox again and turn blink off. Whenever your ship gets destroyed you will receive an email stating the amount of ISK that has been transferred to your wallet via insurance. This will prompt your mail box to blink, which causes a small amount of lag.

Other Settings

It is also a good idea to turn off the blinking effects of your wallet. Each time your ship gets blown up, you will receive some ISK from its insurance. If your wallet settings are set to make your wallet blink, it will blink upon this event and cause a small amount of lag for your client. In turn, it will make it more difficult for you to enter warp with your pod and avoid getting pod-killed.

If you find that your EVE client loads slowly and is persistently being bugged by various small bugs it might be time to clear your cache. It is a good idea to periodically clean it out in any case. To do this press "ESC" button and go to "Reset Settings" tab. Find "Clear all cache files" option and click on "Clear". You will have to restart your client after this.


After applying all of these setting, your EVE client will be as lag free as possible. If you are still experiencing large amount of lag in PVP you may have to upgrade your computer.

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