Tutorial: Improving your aim

Hi!

I'm Henri3, many of you might not know me but I have been playing on Gamingmasters servers for quite some time now (mostly Prophunt, Orange and MGE). I thought I would therefore do something for this community in return and that it would be a good idea to write a small article on how to improve your play, especially in terms of AIM. Some of these points are specifically for TF2 (or other Source engine based games) but some points can be applied to all FPS's. I have divided this small article into three sections: Equipment, Settings and Practice.


Equipment:

Some of this info is basic knowledge for many gamers but someone might find this information useful. One of the most important things in playing TF2 and FPS in general is to have a good and accurate mouse and a strong performance in terms of fps.

A mouse which is relatively cheap and proven to be good might be something like Logitech G400 (personally I use Steelseries Sensei as I prefer ambidextrous mice). The most important things when buying a new mouse is that it has a good sensor, all the features you need and that YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE USING IT. What should be remembered is that a good mouse should ALWAYS be accompanied with a good mouse mat (I prefer having harder plastic ones but some people prefer cloth pads). Pick the one YOU feel more comfortable with. Whenever buying mice etc. try to get to a shop and try how they fit your hand before deciding on which to buy.

Good fps performance is reached by having a combination of good PC and a fps config (more of this in the setting section) (ohh! and a good server provider who does not run Dayz servers ). I would say that in any game, fps of 60 would be advised, however in quick paced games such as TF2, CS, Quake 3 something like 120fps+ is a must (especially if you have a 120hz monitor). Technically 60hz monitor won't be able to show more than 60 frames per second (the refresh rate) however the physics in source engine games are somewhat affected by the fps even if the extra frames cannot be shown (some tech guru can correct the info here )

120hz monitor for me is a must. I'm using BenQ XL2420T. XL2420T being a TFT, does have its weaknesses: the colours are inferior when compared to IPS panels and the viewing angles are relatively bad as well, however the fact that the panel has 120hz refresh rate makes up for it. If you have money, the perfect solution would be to have IPS panel as your main screen and then 120hz TFT as your gaming screen. 120hz monitor is something you don't appreciate before you try it. The difference of having double fps in a game is like a difference between night and day. Just make sure that before you try 120hz monitor you have the money to get one in an instant, otherwise you will be very grumpy until you get the money for it Think of playing with 120hz monitor like having sex without a condom, once you've tried it, there's no going back
Good headphones in a game like TF2 is not that important, however if you enjoy playing games like CS then you might want to consider getting a nice pair of headphones. Generally the quality of headsets is inferior to headphones + standalone mic, however the extra utility of one less chord running around your neck is for you to decide. Currently I'm using Steelseries Siberia V2 which are "rubbish" when you ask any Hifi enthusiast but are generally "good enough" for me (but then again I'm known to be like half deaf )

Mechanical keyboard is a nice addition but doesn't affect your game play directly. For me it's nicer to use than typical rubber dome. If I find it nicer and more enjoyable to use then I will enjoy playing more and perform better. However this is most likely the final thing you should be concerned about when customising your gaming setup. I am using Qpad mk-50 (red switches) which is excellent in terms of quality/price.



Settings:

I would strongly recommend using Chris's fps configs. These configs might make your game look "shit" but I would rather play "shitty" looking game with 120fps+ than an "ok" looking one with 20fps. The fps config can be found here http://fakkelbrigade.eu/chris/configs/ and a quick tutorial on the installation can be found here


Second thing which should be set are "rates". Setting up rates will set up how your client talks with the server. Your rates should be put into your autoexec.cfg file to ensure that they are loaded every time you launch the game. Autoexec.cfg is not in tf2 folder by default so it need to be created into: \Steam\steamapps\account name\team fortress 2\tf\cfg . Just simply create a file using notepad and name it autoexec.cfg . The common rates and the ones I use are following:

cl_cmdrate 66
cl_interp 0
cl_interp_ratio 1
cl_lagcompensation 1
cl_pred_optimize 2
cl_smooth 0
cl_smoothtime 0.01
cl_updaterate 66
rate 60000

This should be copy-pasted into your autoexec file. Using net_graph 3 command in the game console you should see that your "lerp" is 15.2ms (default 100ms). Lerp should be orange, if it is yellow the server is simply bad and cannot keep up with what's happening. If the lerp is rapidly changing between orange and yellow the server is generally ok for public play but not up to competitive standards (i.e. the server cannot keep up with the update requests your client is asking thus resulting in choke and loss of packets), you might experience that your projectiles are just vanishing into thin air without doing any damage. Changing lerp into 15.2ms means that you are reducing your lag compensation. This is especially important for projectile based weapons because lowering your lerp will make your shots leave the gun quicker when you press your mouse button and it will also make the projectiles fly faster?!?! crazy how this game works (although it needs to be said that this is hardly noticeable speed change).

Next thing you might be interested in are custom HUDs. These huds are usually customised to take all the unnecessary stuff out of your screen and make the important stuff more visible. Personally I use a self customised version of Broesel's hud but one of the most common and easiest to use huds would probably be Garmen HUD http://www.sdx-gaming.eu/?page_id=4097 which has dozens of different versions available.

You might also want to consider changing the fov (field of view) and viewmodel fov. Fov should be set to 90 as it is the current max, this will allow you to see the maximum amount of your surroundings on your screen! Keep in mind, if there would not be any limitations on the fov set by the developers I would personally use fov of 120. Viewmodel fov will change the "size" of your weapon in hand (more specifically it will pull/push the weapon model in/out of your camera). The default is 70 and a lot of people like 90. Personally I play with viewmodels disabled except for melee, this allows me to have maximum visibility and enemy players can't hide "behind my weapon".

Now to the most important things which if not setup correctly will likely to give you the biggest boost in your performance in a very short period of time. The mouse settings. You should ensure that in your in game mouse settings EVERYTHING is disabled apart from "raw input" which should be enabled. What raw input does is that the game will directly pull the mouse sensor data from your mouse without letting windows itself alter the data. This will also disable any mouse acceleration! This is very important. Mouse acceleration is very bad for games as it will effectively introduce another dimension which you have to account for while playing (the speed which you move your mouse). Mouse acceleration will change the sensitivity of your mouse based on how fast you move your mouse on the mouse mat. As you can immediately understand, it is much easier to learn how much you need to move your arm to achieve certain shift on the screen when you only need to consider the direction and distance of travel and do not need to worry about the speed of travel.

The other important point is the sensitivity. A lot of people make the mistake of playing with high sensitivity (low cm/360). When talking about sensitivity the easiest way to discuss is using cm/360 or inches/360. This is the distance you need to move your mouse on your mouse mat to achieve full 360 degree turn in the game. You should ensure that your cm/360 is above 15cm! The higher you feel comfortable with, the more precise you will be. I am using something like 17cm/360 and it is often times considered "high" sensitivity. A lot of people tend to use something along the range of 25-30cm/360. I know that there are few good scouts who use something along the lines of 50-70cm/360!!! That is a whopping over half a meter shift on the mouse mat just to achieve 360 turn in the game!!! Once you increase your cm/360 and get used to it, you will realise a sudden improvement in your aim and consistency. The theory behind this is simple and is best described on following video at around 0:37.

In a nutshell as you increase your cm/360, you need to move your arm more but you don't need to be as precise with your arm movements.



Practice:

Best way to practice is to just play the game. You can use maps like tr_rocket_shooting2 to practice your soldier juggling skills, warm up etc. (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/98066010/tr_rocket_shooting2.bsp) (simple demo on how to practice http://dl.dropbox.com/u/98066010/aim.dem supplied by yours truly). Aim to play a lot on DM servers with good players (always play with better players than you are if you want to improve!). Also try out MGE, it's great for practice (gamingmasters even have a MGE server!). What sometimes makes me feel sad is how people completely miss the point of MGE. They will do anything just to win, this is not a good starting point. You should be there to practice! Do NOT stand on the badlands spire metal fence! Do not rocketjump straight up when someone jumps you! It might work in MGE but you would never do it in a real situation so why practice it? In real situation you wouldn't jump straight up when someone jumps spire as you would end up getting 2 rockets, nade and 2-4 scatter gun shots your way. Maybe even get sniped.

You can also get into some 6vs6 mixes (lobby, pixelpickup, to name few). Also there are sometimes 6vs6 events going on with gamingmasters players (check out the events section of the forums!)

Here's some good servers to try:

DM:
194.187.214.64:27016
82.203.213.117:27100
94.23.68.246:27065

MGE:
81.19.212.48:27146
217.112.254.25:27015
81.19.221.204:27026
81.19.221.204:27019


This has been quite a long post and I hope that it might help someone improve on their game. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask See you on the servers!


PS. Dark, fix the red X's on prophunt please


Cheers,

Henri3

 

Nice thread though, what i want to edit is the rate commend. If you have a great internet connection, you should definitly use a rate of 100000 instead of 60000 because with rate 60000 there are still some choke.
Choke: As per Whispers Tickrate Guide - Choke is quite simply the server wanting to send an update to the client, but cannot.

It can be hard to completely remove choke on low end PC setups but if it's as low as you can get it, then that's about the best you can do.
The following is a list of (but is not limited to) the things that cause choke. >http://whisper.ausgamers.com/wiki/index.php/Source_rates#Choke<

 

Very good point on the mouse mat information.

An issue with cheaper mats is the large drag and resistance. This is extremely noticeable when transitioning from a cloth mat to a metal one.

Having too much resistance will have a tremendous impact on your overall accuracy, but having too little will result in a loss of control for the untrained hand.

A metal mat will provide smoother movements and better potential accuracy, but a high quality cloth mat will provide decent resistance and portability.

 

Nice guide, but one problem though: cl_interp can not be 0. Even if you set it at 0 the game will auto adjust it to 0.0152 (the lowest possible value.)
While this is good for projectile based weapons on a server where you get low ping, it isn't preferable on higher ping servers or hitscan weapons.
For hitscan weapons, the 'ideal' interp is 0.033. However, if shots feel "off", you should tweek with your interp to make it feel "better".

Now depending on the ping you get, you might want to edit it too. You can find more info on what to keep in mind doing so here.

And don't bother too much with the chris config if you have a decent PC, or if you're not that much interested in comp play and just want to see cp_orange in it's full glory. Also, I don't use chris' fps config, have my game maxed out and get a consant 132 fps (capped).

Maybe most important: Run with whatever you prefer, and do not expect a boom in your skill level because of some changed settings. Changing everything will cost you time to adapt to those new settings.

 

cl_interp cannot be 0, you are correct, however it is easier to set it to 0 instead of typing 0.0152. Doesn't make a difference at all. Thus I said that you can check your lerp using net_graph 3 to ensure it is 15.2ms (i.e. the minimum value).

Regarding the hitscan interp. You might want to have 15.2ms interp for your RL but 33ms for SG and this can indeed easily be incorporated into your weapon change scripts (personally though, I will try to avoid fiddling with my rates etc. during game, people try to abuse their rates to make their hitboxes wonky...) However what I wanted to achieve by the set of rates posted was to give "basic" settings which are definite improvement over the original 100ms lerp etc.

Regarding fps configs, sure if you can pull 132fps with everything maxed and you don't value the added visibility/clarity of having less effects and clutter on the screen then there's no point in using any fps configs.

No one will become master over night but changing certain settings like changing mouse sensitivity from 5cm/360 to 15cm+/360 and disabling mouse acceleration WILL make you more accurate once you get used to it. (I know, because I've gone through that ) However if you already have your mouse settings this way then it's only practice practice practice


Cheers,

Henri3

 

You could always change interp that way I guess. Or you could leave it at 0.033 if you like, you know, not main soldier but scout/heavy/sniper instead...
Atleast that's why I brought it up.

 

Or you could just use your AIMBOT OMG BAN