Best settings config for instagib

Sometimes a good config is more important than player's skills. So I want to share with you all some of my "secrets". I don't yet know the advanced/console settings, so here are only ones found in GUI.

I assume that all settings are set to default.


Green = You should find which is best for you
Blue = Very important setting, the best config for instagib imo




Input

The most important setting you want to play with is the Mouse Sensitivity (mouse speed). I found the default setting too slow, so I set it to 11. Untick the Enable built in mouse acceleration and tick Disable system mouse acceleration. Acceleration makes the screen move when you have stopped the mouse, which makes aiming difficult.

Video

Disable all the settings and set to lowest, except:

• Set the Resolution to highest. For me it was low and the game looked very ugly by default
  
• Set Font/Ui size to normal or huge or whatever you find good
  
• Brightness and Contrast - very important settings, you might want to play with these and see which is best for you. For me brightness=0.02, contrast=1.20
  
• Leave Ambient and Intensity settings to default. (Ambient=4.50, Intensity=1.00)
  

One of the first things to adjust is the brightness and contrast, so that shadows are not too impenetrable, and areas of alternating light and dark don't create difficulties in tracking opponents.

Eye-candy can make the game very appealing to look at, but can also act to obscure in-game events - the flares and smoke caused by rockets, for example, can make spotting your target much more difficult in the heat of battle. Eye-candy also incurs performance hits on slower machines. Many players disable some of the visual effects, so as to make the game easier to play in this regard (things to turn off include Bloom, HDR, Gloss, Coronas and all the Realtime stuff in the settings/effects menu). Although it may seem as if removing visual (and audio) effects will make the game less immersive by reducing the mood which the game designers were aiming for, in the long run it will make it much more rewarding and fun to play. Darkness and shadows make it harder to spot opponents or items and end up being frustrating.

Effects


Set the general setting (Quality preset) to low. It does not set everything to low, so manually change these:

• Set all sliders to low
  
• Uncheck the Decals box - so dead enemies don't lay there and confuse you
  
• Uncheck Coronas box
  
• Set lighting to No dynamic lighting
  
• Enable the Reflections and set to sharp. This enables the visibility through "blue portal" things found on some maps.
  

Audio

Although music can enhance the feeling of a game by complementing the action, it can also obscure the sounds of other events - such as players shooting at you or picking up items nearby. For this reason, many people turn off music while playing

• Uncheck the Music box
  
• Disable the Chat message sound
  
• If you use headphones, check the Headphone friendly mode
  
• Set number of channels to how many speakers you have
  

User

• Check Disable gore effects and harsh language
  
• If you want to appear in the leaderboard statistics here, check the 2 other boxes
  

Misc

• Set Network Speed to whatever you have
  
• I set Framerate Maximum to Unlimited and Target to 200, and Idle limit to 10.
  

Now the Multiplayer->Demos and Multiplayer->Player setup tabs
Demos

If you want your matches get recorded, check the box. You can view them later and upload to youtube (don't know how exactly yet)

Player Setup
The most importantest settings are found here.

• Set your Model to Mega Erebus and both model and weapon colors to bright green.
  
  
• Crosshair is something that everyone should decide what is comfortable with.
  • Selecting Per weapon crosshair by default sets a small circle for minstagib.
    
  • If you select Custom crosshair, test whichever you feel comfortable with. Usually I prefer these 7th in first row or 3rd & 5th in second row.
    
  • Play with Crosshair size and find the best size for you. (I choose 0.30)
    
  • Crosshair alpha is how bright it is. Usually I set it to 1, except when I use 7th from first row, in which case I use 0.6.
    Set crosshair color to custom and set a color. I set it to bright red, so it's comfortable to see on green enemies.
    
  
  
• Other crosshair settings
  • Check Enable center crosshair dot and set the size you feel comfortable with. The dot size changes for different crosshairs.
    
  • Uncheck the Blur crosshair if the shot is obstructed and Animate when picking up an item boxes.
    
  
  
• Model settings
  • Set Body fading to 0.
    
  • Check the Force player models to mine and Force player colors to mine boxes.
    

  A very useful setting is to use bright player models. You can choose to replace the player models and colors chosen by thy other players with your own player model and/or colors. Now if you yourself choose the Mega Erebus model (which is the only fullbright model and therefore far easier to spot than models lighted dynamically according to the light situation of the spot they currently move in), you can make everyone get displayed with that model and so be extremely visible to you. Note that this works only if you select "Mega Erebus" for yourself. So by making everyone extremely visible to you, you become extremely visible yourself to everyone, even if those didn't enable fullbright models. Which is rather fair.

  
  
• View settings
  • Set Field of view to something bigger than 100. Usually I prefer 120, but you might find other numbers better.
    
  • Uncheck the Smooth the view when landing from a jump and Smooth the view while crouching boxes
    

    try increasing you field of view (fov) - the amount you can see to the left and right. By default, Xonotic uses a fov of 90 degrees. Increasing this improves your peripheral vision, but also makes everything seem smaller and thus reduces your ability to aim. Decreasing it has the opposite effect. Most gamers find a nice balance somewhere around fov 100-120.

  
  
• Weapon settings
  • You can uncheck the Draw 1st person weapon model. This needs time to get used to.
    
  • Disable the Gun model swaying and Gun model bobbing boxes
    
  
  
• HUD settings
  • Set Damage Overlay to 0
    
  • Disable the Show names above players box
    
  • Now Enter HUD editor
    Disable all the panels which are visible during a game. Double click on them and uncheck the Enable panel box. Who needs the health and armor indicators and minimap for instagib? They only clutter the display.
    

Mouse speed actually depends also on the dpi of your mouse's sensor - on a typical desktop 800dpi mouse the default is too low, but on a normal gaming 3200dpi mouse I bet its' just fine ;-).

Not the best settings for instagib but still better than the default config, with exception of the audio stuff. To put it simply: number of channels = number of speakers.

Link me to a better config? I will gladly add corrections.

I set Framerate Maximum to Unlimited and Target to 200, and Idle limit to 10.

Setting framerate to maximum can give you input lag, better use a fixed value like 125.

Also with a high fov and fast mouse sensitivity, in instagib you will always be disadvantaged versus players who use a low fov (85-100) and mid-low sensitivity (25+cm/360). They have more precision and you lose time on zooming which is deadly when the opponents are fast shooters.

Setting framerate to maximum can give you input lag, better use a fixed value like 125.

Really? I didn't expect that... is this also relevant if your framerate is below the maximum most of the time?

Also with a high fov and fast mouse sensitivity, in instagib you will always be disadvantaged versus players who use a low fov (85-100) and mid-low sensitivity (25+cm/360). They have more precision and you lose time on zooming which is deadly when the opponents are fast shooters.

Well this obviously depends on your playing style. I use high-sens all the time (I'm now down to 20 with my Razer Diamonback which has 1600dpi afaik), and I'm not that bad at Insta... However what you say is somehwat true, since when I started playing I used a sens of about 30 and my accuracy improved quite a bit after I lowered sens to 20

Well but without the optimal config you will always be stuck at "not that bad".

Well but without the optimal config you will always be stuck at "not that bad".

I absolutely can't play with 25cm/360 .. I may further reduce my sens in future, but not that much. Also, I don't think there's "the optimal config", only one optimal config for each player, which largely depends on personal preferences

As a gaming veteran that mostly plays for fun, I have to sit back and laugh at those that use "pro" settings because all those really do for me most of the time is further separate me from the game I'm trying to get into making me play worse. As a result, I only turn off obstructive things such as bloom and HDR if they're a real problem and I fine-tune the audio to my surround system so that nothing (music and in-game sounds) gets cut off. I'm more likely to be on the look out for those trying to kill me in a world that I can get immersed in rather than one that I don't feel like I'm a part of.