Aztec Overhaul

[Mr. T]

maybe they are just blaming aztecs weather for their suckiness

[durex]

Its called stopsound ladies... learn it, bind it, love it.

[Ghengis]

Edited by [user="54146"] @ [time="1079707047"]

I have to say on the whole I agree with Nighthawk. Theres simply not enough of a problem to warrant the map being revised and removing these nice effects, unless as he says, the cpu is in use and valuable resources are being wastde even with ckl_weather 0.



Ram seems to be the issue here, and one might ask why these cal players, with aspirations of being pros one day, are not investing more money in their machines?



I have a simple 18 month old, cheap crappy p4 2.7ghz with (upgraded to ) 786 ram, a gef4400 128mb fx card. i get 100 fps through and through, i play with cl_weather 0 but only for visibility, the mist is cool when not being serious, but if im on for score, or playing scrims pcws, weather goes off.



I also agree with those who are voicing a minority opinion here on aztec being an unrealistic awp map to all intents and purposes. Its fun, for the first year of cs, and 1.6 weather made it fun again after the shinyness had worn off. Now Im afraid the map has just become boring.



Maybe a server side command to change weather would be best.



Ive always thought realistic maps like piranesi, chateau, and de_747 deserve a lot more credit for the visual pleaure they give using this 5 year old engine.



In any case, with Hl2 out this year, is it really worth whining about such things? CS2 will kick ass, and aztec and cs will look like a 2d platform game incomparison.



None of this is a criticism of the map creater, the maps most favoured, dust, aztec, and dust 2 are slightly less bland versions of league play "cpl fire, and clan mill" type maps. If peopel want to play in 'plays' (a la NFL) and tactically play the same thing again and again and again, thats fine.



Personally I like not knowing where exactly the enemy will be or how long till he gets to the point 3m ahead of me, so that when he does get there, I can shoot him based upon my reaction and aim, not because my x hair is lined up within the 25 pixel window of error as to where that t will approach from.



Tacops maps are much more interesting, (maybe cos i dont play it so much) and Vietcong graphically eats all your base for breakfast.

[MrBo]

Edited by [user="88159"] @ [time="1079719652"]

Removing the weather effects from Aztec is hardly going to "destroy" your pub gaming experience. Its just a little change that you'll probably hardly notice. In fact, the only people who will notice are those who get an extra 30fps from the removal of the effects. Those who actually do participate in clan play will see a major difference. As pointed out before, the combination of weather effects/rain/recording demos can be devestating to fps.



Btw, before I updated my video card I had a 2600 athlon, 512 ram, and a 64 meg Radeon 7200. My computer ran horribly on aztec. Why? Because this engine was not meant to handle such effects, as it was built many years ago. With the upgrade of my video card to a 128 meg I get a solid 100 fps on aztec, 150 on all other maps, and when smoke and recording is added to the mix I drop down to 70 or 80.



I've got ten bucks that says the people who say that only age old computers have issues with aztec have never turned on net_graph. Chances are they run with about 30-50 choke/loss at all times cause they dont know how to adjust their rates.



Btw, aztec is a crappy map that is easlly decided by the skill of a single awper.



One last thing to add regaurding those who say that you should upgrade your computer. AN OLD COMPUTER SHOULD BE ABLE TO RUN A GAME THAT IS OLDER THAN IT. I doubt many people here play with a computer that is much older than this engine.

[ph33r.hell_raiser]

masterying01 wrote..

the map is already t sided with the new updates.....now he's going to take out the lightning.



if a t has a good awper in bridge room, a ct won't peak bridge unless he's retarded...now, t's can walk bridge and easily take over b.



everything should be left as it is.......leave the lightning, leave the rain, leave the mist................and just make cl_weather 0 legal in leagues like cal cause no one has weather on anyways and cal aint going to turn over a match because 1 player didn't have weather on..

1. he never said he was taking out the thunder ( there is no lightning)

2. its a ct sided map

3. ct gets to bridge before the T does, therefore has the advantage

4. cl_weather 0 takes away from how the developer wanted it to be.

[Mr. T]

there used to be lightning, but narby took it out because it caused big lag spikes olololol



i have a shitty mcsuck geforce2 and i usually get 50fps on aztec, which isn't bad...

[tvpvp]

Holy god what's the problem with you all? Writing huge reviews for nothing, Thortok2000 had right thought. (Comment #57)



Just write cl_weather 0 in the console, and fps_max 100!! I usually get around 500 fps with my "overclocked" GeForce 4 TI 4200, thought many of you will say like all other newbies around "oh noooo valve engine allows only 100!!" NO, write "timerefresh" in console and it shows you the real fps..



I could play with 100 fps on opengl with 233 MHZ Pentium 2, Geforce 2 (the bad version) so its just sad that so many people think they are the best and write what they think is right..

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Running in 16-bit color fixes any serious smoke lag issues for most people with even an early GeForce or better card. If you're dropping to 5fps in smoke, either you've got some seriously messed up video drivers (like the 27.xx-4x.xx series of nVidia drivers) that don't handle those images properly, or you need to simply drop to 16-bit color.



And I guess I'm mistaken, but I was thinking there was still lightening in Aztec, but not the old style "frags people and lag spikes like hell" style, just the odd flash in the sky. I'm gonna have to sit there and watch for it sometime now, and make sure I'm just tripping out.

ph33r.hell_raiser wrote..

1. he never said he was taking out the thunder ( there is no lightning)

2. its a ct sided map

3. ct gets to bridge before the T does, therefore has the advantage

4. cl_weather 0 takes away from how the developer wanted it to be.

Let's address this. First off, comment number 1:

Narby wrote...

I have decided to look into this issue very soon (once my PC is setup again) with the intention of disabling the weather effects and "instant" sounds (such as thunder effects).

Well, that kind of shoots that one to pieces, now doesn't it? My, how very helpful reading is -- you should try it sometime.



Second and third points. Aztec was a CT-sided map. Now with the CT spawns moved so that CT's cannot reach the A site before T's do, you could easily argue the exact opposite, or at least that it's more balanced. In most maps CT's can get to both sites long before terrorists can. That is balanced by the fact that they have two sites to divide the forces between, where as the T's are able to attack at full strength to a single site, should they choose to do so.



Now, the fourth point. If the developers (in this case, apparently a combination effort between VALVe and Narby) hadn't wanted the ability to disable the rain in Aztec, the cl_weather cvar wouldn't have been added specifically to allow this option. Rather, everyone would simply be stuck with it. Seeing as it is an option, obviously they realized some people would prefer to play without. When I play for fun, I don't care enough about the "extra edge" that disabling weather might give me to take away from the immersion of the experience. If I was in a competitive league, perhaps I would.



The real issue at hand throughout this whole debate really has been the fact that CAL has not allowed modifying the cl_weather cvar. That decision should be reversed through a esports community outcry, not through removing optional features. Nothing so far in this whole discussion has really gone against that simple, straightforward reality.



Finally, I appreciate all the guys in here voicing their support of keeping the extra features in Aztec. :) In the end Narby will do what he chooses, as is his right, but it's nice to see people willing to go against the grain and say when they think someone's decision is the wrong one.

[blinkage]

I've never liked aztec, with it's bland as hell grey textures and cricket noises it seemed aimed at league players who study exactly where the best AWP areas are all day.



Upon getting 1.6 I was pleasantly surprised to see the rain and other graphical tweaks, now removing it will again make this map suck.



If you can't run counter-strike smoothly these days then you need upgrade, seriously, it's hardly a graphic heavy game.



I just think it's harsh that Narby gets a few complaints and removes it, what about everyone that wants it?

[narby]

According to the poll, 53% do

[Crimson Phantom]

Yeah, I agree that CAL should just allow cl_weather 0. I think the reason why its illegal is that it gives the players with it off a disadvantage. I mean common, if somebody has a crap PC, they cant just switch it off and get good FPS. They need to go waste a few quid. However, if somebody has a good PC, all they have to do is type a command and its done. JUST ALLOW US TO SWITCH IT OFF CAL! and CPL, AND CLANBASE,AND ALL THE OTHER EVIL LEAGUES OUT THERE!

[Nickysan]

here is an idea. go out and get a new computer! thats right you can get a $600 computer that runs cs with every single setting on full and cl_weather set to 3 and still get 100 fps! i know its amazing. i dont know why people are so intent on running games on computers that are as old as the game and expecting to see some awesome god like performance.

[Pharlap]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

either you've got some seriously messed up video drivers (like the 27.xx-4x.xx series of nVidia drivers) that don't handle those images properly

lets not start talking out of our ass shall we? ..you were doing so well.

i havnt had any probs with those drivers whatsoever.

[naem]

narby wrote..

According to the poll, 53% do

I don't find the poll reflective of the true nature of the reasons for the overhaul. Unless, of course, the thunder is what's creating the lag for people, but I doubt that.



Should thunder be removed? I don't see a compelling reason why it should be. Should r_speeds be improved? Yes. Should weather be disabled? Yes. I see an optimal solution being that VALVe creates a button in the "Options" menu to disable or enable weather - it would take less than a minute to program into the next release just by copying and pasting the code from a different option. If weather was configurable via the click of a mouse in the Steam/CS Options menu, I would bet money it would become legal to change the value in leagues. Everyone wins.

[Thortok2000]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

Running in 16-bit color fixes any serious smoke lag issues for most people with even an early GeForce or better card. If you're dropping to 5fps in smoke, either you've got some seriously messed up video drivers (like the 27.xx-4x.xx series of nVidia drivers) that don't handle those images properly, or you need to simply drop to 16-bit color.

There's only one driver for my card. nVidia GeForce 2 Mobile. In my laptop. And I'm pretty sure it's on 16 bit already, but I could probably lower my resolution, that might help a bit. Right now it's on max resolution of 1600x1200. It runs great at around 25 FPS, which is all I need to not get owned by newbies. I'm still tweaking settings here and there to get higher FPS, and may eventually sacrifice resolution for FPS.



However, I see better at higher resolutions, and can aim better. I dunno if faster FPS would be worth the sacrifice. Hmm.