Quake Live and your config (.cfg) file

So we’ve had a few questions about Quake Live concerning custom configs.  If you’re in beta, you may have noticed that even though the configuration interface is nice and shiny, it’s far from comprehensive and as I said before, somewhat limiting.

Let’s start with what happens once you log into your beta account, download the browser plugin and then basically let it do it’s thing.  What’s happening is that you’re automatically updating (or downloading for the first time) the files necessary to run Quake Live via your browser, and storing them in various directories.  The files of interest to us are the .cfg files…or more specifically, the location where need to place your .cfg files.  So if you’re running Windows Vista, the directory that you need to drop your file into is as follows:

(your harddrive letter)\Users\username\AppData\LocalLow\id Software\quakelive\baseq3

whereby the harddrive letter is typically C: but it’s really whatever you name your root drive and the user name is obviously your userid name.

If you happen to be a little more oldschool and are running winxp, then your directory should be as follows:

C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\id Software\quakelive\baseq3

Now, if you have a .cfg file that you’ve used in the past, drop it into one of these two directories then issue the command exec filename.cfg (you’ll have to proceed the exec command with a backslash if you have a map loaded and running in the background), where filename is whatever you named your .cfg file.  If you recall, the way to pull down the console is to hit the “~” tilde key but by default it’s disabled, so you’ll have to hit Alt+Ctrl+tilde in order to bring up the console.  If you want to permanently enable the console and thus avoid having to do the Alt+Ctrl+tilde key sequence, then punch in the following at the console or you can put it into your config file:

seta com_allowConsole 1

Just in case some of you are new to Quake Live and you don’t have your config files stored from like 1995, like my old ass does, then here’s what I use.  Take it from it what you will and hopefully it’ll give you some ideas about tweaking your own settings.  The text preceded with a double forwardslash is for commentary and will not be processed by the game:

//blood splatters get in the way of viewing your opponent, especially at long distances
seta com_blood “0″

//stabilize your fps
seta com_maxfps “200″

//same idea behind setting blood to zero
seta cg_gibs 0

//makes the railgun beam feel more accurate
seta r_railCoreWidth 3
seta r_railSegmentLength 64
seta r_railWidth 4

//definitely recommend changing your field of view, allows you to see more of the environment at once
seta cg_fov “118″

//gets rid or reduces the wet noodle LG beam
seta cg_trueLightning “.7″

//you can change the size of your chosen cross-hair with this command
seta cg_crosshairSize “10″

//and x-axis location of said cross-hair
seta cg_crosshairX “0.11″

//100% recommend setting a different sensitivity level for EACH weapon. Key bindings included and will //change mouse sens on the fly as you switch weapons. Can’t emphasize the importance of this //enough.
bind c “weapon 4;sensitivity 11.25″
bind e “weapon 6;sensitivity 11.00″
bind f “weapon 8;sensitivity 11.25″
bind v “weapon 9;sensitivity 11.25″
bind q “weapon 2;sensitivity 12.00″
bind MOUSE2 “weapon 7;sensitivity 6.40″
bind MWHEELDOWN “weapon 5;sensitivity 11.70″
bind MWHEELUP “weapon 3;sensitivity 11.30″

//chose your model and the default model of your enemy. Still buggy with quake live
seta model “keel/red”
seta cg_enemyModel “keel/red”
seta cg_enemyColors “333333″

//force your enemy to use the model you have selected
seta cg_forceModel “1″

//set all items, health…ammo, weapons etc. to simplistic icons. increases visibility of opponents on //maps
seta cg_simpleItems “1″

That’s all I have for you, create and account and post in the forums if you need additional questions answered or post a comment if you find any inconsistencies.  Oh, one last thing.  If you don’t know how to actually create a file and have no idea what to do with the above config, this is what you do.

Open up Notepad (not Wordpad, it adds a bunch of extra formatting), copy/paste the above .cfg info into that file, tweak it to your liking, save it.  Then, right-click and rename it to whateverfilenameyoulike and then change the extension from a .txt to a .cfg.  Ignore the warning from windows.  You can still open the file with Notepad even after you’d changed the extention, just do an Open With.  Later on and good hunting.

-dd1sk