Client Setup for PVP

Original text by Rells Updated by Nero Prime

Copyright© 2006 by the Authors, updated 2009

All Rights Reserved

Rule number 1 for life in 0.0 and PvP combat 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. The last thing you want is a slide show when you're in a 50 man gang and another 50 hostiles warp in. For this reason 0.0 and other PvP pilots turn off several game effects.

First, with the Apocrypha update to EVE Online, CCP has done away with the classic client. Now there's just Premium and Premium Light. All the bells and whistles look great, but can drop your frame rate through the floor, especially when there is a large number of ships on grid. (Like in our Basic PvP Classes.)

After logging into EVE, and are in station hit the 'Esc” key to bring up the settings menu. Across the tip you will see a row of tabs. In this article we will only be dealing with the first 3. Display & Graphics, Audio & Chat, and General Settings. Finally, we will change a setting in EVE Mail so that Agony Instructors are not charged when sending chat requests to students.

Display & Graphics: File:Http://yfrog.com/09displaygrphicsj Display Setup: The first panel is Display Setup, put a check mark in advanced settings. This expands the setting below the line. Next you must decide if you want to run in windowed or fullscreen mode. Fullscreen will lighten the CPU load, but makes it a bit more difficult yo tab between windows. Personally, I run in windowed mode, and fill the screen with the EVE client.

Resolution/Window Size: One thing you will discover very fast with EVE is that you need a lot of screen real estate. Run your client at the highest resolution possible, but keeping in mind that you also want a good frame rate. This can be a tricky balancing act. (Use FRAPS to mesure your FPS during game. [1])

The most important setting in this panel is Present Interval. This will limit your FPS to 60. The reason you want this is when sitting in station you can have a FPS through the roof. I've seen it as high as 210 FPS. Needless to say, this put a great deal of strain on your video card, which can lead to your system overheating and shutdown. To prevent this, select “Interval One”.

Effects: Turn off all the settings in this panel. I personally leave “Sun Is Occluded by Ships” This allows me to see celestial icons near the sun in a system when trying to scan for targets while scouting.

Graphic Content Settings: Again, our goal is to have the lowest lag possible, therefore uncheck all the boxes and select the lowest settings for all options.

Audio & Chat: File:Http://yfrog.com/09audiochatj The next tab is Audio & Chat, again with 3 panels.

Audio Engine Settings: This whole section is easy. Uncheck 'Audio Enabled”. The sounds in EVE are nice, and do provide a bit of situational awareness. But the load it puts on the CPU can cause lag, so turn it off.

Voice Settings: In Agony we use Vent to communicate. It functions much better then EVE Voice.(http://www.ventrilo.com/) Another reason for turning off the sound ,is that you don't want to miss important information coming from the chat on Vent.

Chat: Logging chat can create lag, but the information stored in the logs can be very useful. I have mine turned on, but if you wish, you can turn it off.

General Settings: File:Http://yfrog.com/0ageneralsettingsj The next tab is General Setting. This one has a few more options that need tweeking.

General: You can set the options in this section to what ever you want. But the one you must have checked is “Show Session-Change Timer”. This is, in my opinion, the most useful part of the EVE UI. It will display a small circular timer in the top left corner on your UI when you are changing sessions. (Like when docking.) Mousing over the circle will display the time left until the change is compleat.

Help: Uncheck “Show Damage Notifications”. This options creates a lot of lag in a large group. Every time you take damage or deal damage, a window pops up on the UI informing you of the fact.

The second change in this section is the most important in this whole process. Select “Auto Target Back” to 0 Targets. Here's the reason why. 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.

Layout: You can set this up any way you like.

EVE Mail: This last setting is located in you EVE Mail window. To open EVE Mail, look at the left side you your EVE client and find the third icon down from the top. Click it to open. File:Http://yfrog.com/09evemail1j Once the EVE Mail window is open right click your “Inbox” tab and select “Settings.” File:Http://yfrog.com/09evemail2j In the General tab we need to change the CSPA setting. This was put into the game to help prevent spamming. This is not a big issue now in EVE, and when in an Agony gang, we require the CSPA to be disabled. This allows Agony Instructors and admin to invite you into gangs with out being charged. Select the “Default Access” to Allowed. File:Http://yfrog.com/09evemail3j Secondly, change the “CSPD Charge” to 0. File:Http://yfrog.com/0oevemail4j

After applying all these setting, your EVE client will be as lag free as possible.