Cheating Death
Speed_2_Dave
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8788Members
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8788Members
<div class="IPBDescription">and why I uninstalled it same-day</div> Wow. Interesting idea, cheating death. My first time testing it out was on CoFR's server, a highly respected (by me) server, against good marines and I think I got to go aliens once. Cheating Death is a program that runs outside of Halflife to discourage cheaters from breaking games. I applaud this, it sounds exactly like Punkbuster way back when.
I however had remarkable difficulties seeing enemies with a ping of 80 or below and FPS no lower than 50.0 (I play with netgraph on at all times). My difficulty was that every time a skulk would run from behind a wall, he would pop in front of me, "disappear" randomly for a fraction of a second, then reappear right in front of me again. This is all fine and dandy, were it not for the fact that skulks are hella fast so the only assumption of a skulk that disappears is that he got behind you (also it completely throws off where I aim, I can't shoot what I can't see, and I need to see the skulks for the first fraction of a second or I'm toast). I turn around, and the skulk's not there, so I turn around again, he's in front of me. Then he's one me circle-strafing like any smart skulk would. That's fine, aim low, look for skul... wait, he's popping in and out of your view. One second you see him charging towards you, the next.. Then he's there again. I'm sorry, but until Cheating Death stops sucking I refuse to use it. I have NO clue what causes this, my only assumption would be this: Cheating Death is a plug-in for games like Counterstrike, to stop the incessant cheating that goes on. They program C-D to work optimally with Counterstrike, but try to make it compatible with other mods as well. NS does something differently and bugs C-D to work inefficiently and causes a "lag" that doesn't factor into your ping. I play on a 1600 mhz Laptop, with more than enough ram to run CS, DoD, NS, and HL at the same time, but even with an 80 ping I couldn't target a skulk for the life of me, even down long corridors.
My solution to the C-D problem: Spray and pray. If i knew he was coming around a corner, start firing then, you won't see him for a little bit, so just hope that he's actually still there, you just can't "see" him. That worked like a charm. After changing my way of shooting aliens (from leading, targeting, any kind of rational way to Pray'n'Spray ) I started dropping aliens like flies again. Strange. I'm going to run a test on some random pub with less of a guarantee of quality of the players there to see if this was a server-side issue, NS-specific issue and not C-D, or C-D for my very-decent PC. perhaps it's the fact I have an ATI and use Open-GL to render, who knows. I'll try to confirm that it's C-D and not my laptop being funky now, Expect an edit in 30 minutes to 2 hours.
I however had remarkable difficulties seeing enemies with a ping of 80 or below and FPS no lower than 50.0 (I play with netgraph on at all times). My difficulty was that every time a skulk would run from behind a wall, he would pop in front of me, "disappear" randomly for a fraction of a second, then reappear right in front of me again. This is all fine and dandy, were it not for the fact that skulks are hella fast so the only assumption of a skulk that disappears is that he got behind you (also it completely throws off where I aim, I can't shoot what I can't see, and I need to see the skulks for the first fraction of a second or I'm toast). I turn around, and the skulk's not there, so I turn around again, he's in front of me. Then he's one me circle-strafing like any smart skulk would. That's fine, aim low, look for skul... wait, he's popping in and out of your view. One second you see him charging towards you, the next.. Then he's there again. I'm sorry, but until Cheating Death stops sucking I refuse to use it. I have NO clue what causes this, my only assumption would be this: Cheating Death is a plug-in for games like Counterstrike, to stop the incessant cheating that goes on. They program C-D to work optimally with Counterstrike, but try to make it compatible with other mods as well. NS does something differently and bugs C-D to work inefficiently and causes a "lag" that doesn't factor into your ping. I play on a 1600 mhz Laptop, with more than enough ram to run CS, DoD, NS, and HL at the same time, but even with an 80 ping I couldn't target a skulk for the life of me, even down long corridors.
My solution to the C-D problem: Spray and pray. If i knew he was coming around a corner, start firing then, you won't see him for a little bit, so just hope that he's actually still there, you just can't "see" him. That worked like a charm. After changing my way of shooting aliens (from leading, targeting, any kind of rational way to Pray'n'Spray ) I started dropping aliens like flies again. Strange. I'm going to run a test on some random pub with less of a guarantee of quality of the players there to see if this was a server-side issue, NS-specific issue and not C-D, or C-D for my very-decent PC. perhaps it's the fact I have an ATI and use Open-GL to render, who knows. I'll try to confirm that it's C-D and not my laptop being funky now, Expect an edit in 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Comments
actually I experienced huge problems (seems unrelated to your problem though) connecting to CoFR with CD yesterday as well, but after like 4 hours of whining alot on irc and trying everything I could think of, I finally figured out what the problem was (I think).
after that I havent had any problems, as I understand it cheating death has "features" to block out players that you arent supposed to be able to see, I have heard of similar type of problems with cd erasing players it shouldnt. maybe try looking around on unitedadmins.com and see if there is some fix for your problem.
Anyways, I agree with you, C-D does screw me over some times. (not from da h4x not working)
cd_fps 5
If the problem STILL happens, note specifically <i>where</i> and <i>in what map</i> the problem occurs, and report it to the United Admins folks.
Non-standard viewpoints still muck with C-D sometimes, for instance going prone in FireArms has caused havoc with Cheating-Death and short ledges in the past.
Sidenote: I visited the UA page and read up on some "features" of C-D that you can edit, and I think I'll muck around with it. I'll be finished with my analyzation around friday or saturday. I have a lot of homework to complete, so don't expect it soon.
As it stands now:
Lag seems to double or triple with C-D on, or the "putting creatures behind you when not visible" is what's causing this issue.
proposed solution:
Mess around with the configs of C-D and see if that solves my problem. If not, I will email C-D and ask about why it does this, and if it's fixable. When this fails, uninstall, and never play on a C-D server again.
Night all.
Here's why it is on the server and won't go away:
- It prevents cheats. Basically it is the most effective anti-cheat available. This, however, is not the best feature.
- It removes the majority of the n00bs, lamers and ragers. These "persons" don't bother downloading CD since, well, why should they, there's plenty of non-CD or optional-CD servers out there.
- It removes doubt. Now you know it *was* a nice shot and he *did* probably hear you coming.
CD is not optional, it is required on the server. This means people actually have to make an effort to play there, download the program *gasp*. A side-effect of this is that the server doesn't fill up as quickly right now, which I don't mind at all. It used to fill up in, if not seconds, minutes. It would go from 4 players to 18 in a jiffy. Now, people who want to try the CoFR server and haven't been able to get in have two ways of making it a lot easier:
- Install Cheating Death
- Download ns_lost (it usually clears the server of 2-10 players when it comes up since not everyone has it yet).
I hope you get it fixed, Dave, I would miss you on the server. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
but 2.10 removed this bug, and CD works perfectly for me. ive enver seen any sort of lag or players dissapearing or teleporting.
do you have a rediculously slow CPU? that could possibly cause some lag between CD and your screen. my 800 mhz does this fine, but theoretically your computer doesnt like running so many programs in tandem. whats your operating system? the problem seems to lie in the CD program itself lagging, not the halflife connection.
and dont tell me it causes connection lag, because it only sends about 22 bytes up and down once every 3 minutes.
edit: ooh, maybe a laptop video card bus doesnt like a third party program editing the graphics of the major operating program, HL.
but 2.10 removed this bug, and CD works perfectly for me. ive enver seen any sort of lag or players dissapearing or teleporting.
do you have a rediculously slow CPU? that could possibly cause some lag between CD and your screen. my 800 mhz does this fine, but theoretically your computer doesnt like running so many programs in tandem. whats your operating system? the problem seems to lie in the CD program itself lagging, not the halflife connection.
and dont tell me it causes connection lag, because it only sends about 22 bytes up and down once every 3 minutes.
edit: ooh, maybe a laptop video card bus doesnt like a third party program editing the graphics of the major operating program, HL. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
that's the only problem I ever had too, but my PC specs are a little diff...
I play with a ping of 1-20 (depending on how many other people are on the server) and fps 100 on an ATI 8500 AIW (2200+ Athlon and 512 PC2700 DDR).
It's NOT a problem with CD (unless you actually have some sort of wallhack installed and don't know it lol) (I'm not seriously suggesting this)
Like people say, go to www.unitedadmins.com and ask them what it might be.
Roo
- It removes the majority of the n00bs, lamers and ragers. These "persons" don't bother downloading CD since, well, why should they, there's plenty of non-CD or optional-CD servers out there.
- It removes doubt. Now you know it *was* a nice shot and he *did* probably hear you coming.
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Agreed Stoneberg, we have it on our server as required as well. Though I disagree with the majority of l4mers and ragers comment as I have come across some dedicated muppets in my time all happy to DL CD <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> We also try and actively encourage n00bs - we need our community to grow so our rejection message hopefully points them in the right direction.
The best thing is the vibe. Beforehand we would have the occasional "OMG He haxs" I would then automatically do a double take to ensure I wasn't playing CS - this has now gone and the vibe is good <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> As you say congrats now abound instead of the usual dark mutterings and Paranoia.
Now I have the confidence that I am not Paranoid and all my fears are real...........
ARROWED!
But I hever had such problems like you...
LOL, ARB2!! But of course. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
In reality, HL uses OpenGL 1.0 style immediate mode.
About the original question... go check if the server you played on uses HLGuard WH block, which can cause this kind of behaviour. C-D never produces blinking players for me.
Is anyone else getting that too or just me?
The ping rates are the same for me as if i don't have c-d on, although they still suck, stupid server side cpu load.
also, look at the readme file of c-d, it has some options that you can use to force it to not use as much cpu power.
personally it sounds like you guys have "tweaked" you version of HL to death and now it's getting its revenge on you <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
the latest version right now is 2.10.0, so go update your version if you haven't, and hopefully that will hopefully help most of your problems.
note: i do not work for the u a nor am i a paid advocate for u a or cheating death. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> www.unitedadmins.com