Knowledgebase

The Half Life 1.6 engine allows admins to boost their servers tickrates and frames per second that the server renders, which allows for smoother gameplay and better shot registration.

There is however a tradeoff in this process. The higher you set the tickrate and FPS, the more system resources the game will use. In particular the systems CPU(s) will show more usage when a game is boosted using this method.

There are a few settings which are needed to adjust tickrate and FPS.

sys_ticrate 1000
sv_timeout 90
fps_max 500
sv_maxrate 25000
sv_minrate 4500
sv_maxupdaterate 101

These values are set in the server cofiguration file for the game (server.cfg). Place these valuse within the server config to acheive the higher frame and ticrate.



There is also another key element which is required to achieve the higher tickrate. This is the adjustment of the windows multimedia timer. This can be adjusted using the following 2 methods.

1. Open Windows media Player on your server desktop. You do NOT need to play a file, but simply have it open on the server desktop at all times.
2. Open Internet Explorer on the server desktop, and goto http://www.macromedia.com. This forces the system to open the files required to play Flash content, which will also adjust the timer.

Keep in mind that both of these methods require that the program stays open on the server desktop. If you close the program or use the "log off" method to disconnect from your server, the ticrate will then revert back to default. One of the above mentioned methods MUST be used on all servers that you have Half Life based games on.


****PLEASE NOTE***** This tutorial is taken from information gather from the HalfLife Wiki, and the forums at steampowered.com.
We cannot answer questions regarding tickrates within our support system for game related issues, such as tickrate not working etc...
If you require assitance with tickrates, please visit Valve's website.