Difference between revisions of "FAQ"

From Cube Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
(A: In your Cube 2 home folder)
Line 10: Line 10:
 
===A: In your Cube 2 home folder===  
 
===A: In your Cube 2 home folder===  
 
On Windows XP and down, you probably don't have one. Thus, ''C:\Program Files\Sauerbraten\'', or wherever you installed the game.
 
On Windows XP and down, you probably don't have one. Thus, ''C:\Program Files\Sauerbraten\'', or wherever you installed the game.
On Windows Vista and up, if the advice for Windows XP doesn't work, try ''C:\Users\$USER\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Sauerbraten\''.
+
On Windows Vista and up, if the advice for Windows XP doesn't work, try ''C:\Users\$USER\Documents\My Games\Sauerbraten\''.
 
On a Mac, it's ''~/Library/Application Support/sauerbraten''/.
 
On a Mac, it's ''~/Library/Application Support/sauerbraten''/.
 
On Linux, it's ''~/.sauerbraten''.
 
On Linux, it's ''~/.sauerbraten''.
  
 
<span id="screenshots"></span>
 
<span id="screenshots"></span>
 +
 
==Q: How do I take good screenshots?==  
 
==Q: How do I take good screenshots?==  
 
===A: <tt>hudgun</tt> and <tt>hidehud</tt>===  
 
===A: <tt>hudgun</tt> and <tt>hidehud</tt>===  

Revision as of 04:58, 18 January 2018

Contents

Frequently Asked Questions

When experiencing problems running the game, this is the first place to look as it contains the fastest method of getting an answer to your question or a solution to your problem. Should your question not be answered here, use the Cube Forums to ask a question, and not the this page's discussion.

If you're just starting out, consider going over the Beginners Guide and the Documentation, which touches on more topics in depth.

Note to readers: If a word or phrase appears in a fixed-width (monospaced) font, like this, then it is likely CubeScript, Sauerbraten's scripting language. To use CubeScript, press the / (slash) key in-game or create a script.

Q: Where are my saved maps, configs, screenshots? Where do I put things I wish to add?

A: In your Cube 2 home folder

On Windows XP and down, you probably don't have one. Thus, C:\Program Files\Sauerbraten\, or wherever you installed the game. On Windows Vista and up, if the advice for Windows XP doesn't work, try C:\Users\$USER\Documents\My Games\Sauerbraten\. On a Mac, it's ~/Library/Application Support/sauerbraten/. On Linux, it's ~/.sauerbraten.

Q: How do I take good screenshots?

A: hudgun and hidehud

hudgun 0  // This hides the HUD gun, the gun that you see onscreen.
hidehud 1 // This hides the HUD, including the stats and crosshair.
sleep 10000 [ screenshot ] // Waits 10,000 milliseconds (ten seconds) then takes a screenshot.

For more detailed information, see Map Screenshot.

Q: How do I record movies?

A: The movie command

Type /movie moviename to save as "moviename.avi" and /movie to stop recording. See the Cube 2 command reference for more details.

Q: The game runs very slowly, how can I fix it?

Performance is an issue with 3D games, and it is essential to a quality experience with the game.

A: Ensure you have up-to-date drivers

Retrieve and install the drivers from your manufacturer's website.

A: Manipulate game settings

Refer to the Performance Guide for steps on how to configure the game for more speed.

A: Tweak graphics drivers settings

Common issues with performance are settings in your graphics driver configuration that determine your quality. Many of these are forced. How to tweak graphics is beyond the scope of this document, please refer to your driver manufacturer's website for further information:

Q: Why is the game behaving strangely?

The most common cause of this problem is having configured (knowingly or otherwise) obscure settings or attempting to install over an older version of the game.

A: Remove your old config

Most of the time, it should be sufficient enough to simply delete the file config.cfg in the game's base directory, this allows the game to load updated bindings and commands from data/defaults.cfg. Read more about these files on the page Configuration Hints.

A: Perform a clean install

A surefire way to ensure the game will run correctly is to completely delete/uninstall and install from scratch.

Q: How do I fix the "Hall of Mirrors" effect?

This problem occurs most frequently on older ATI video cards or cards with incorrect or poor support for pixel shaders.

A: Limit or disable shaders

You should first try the console command shaderdetail 0. Failing that, you may try disabling shaders completely by using the -f0 switch on the command line as a last resort.

Q: The game locks up my system, how do I get back?

A: Linux

With ATI cards, your problem could be related to driver issues with 3D Acceleration, for more information visit the Fglrx article on ThinkWiki.

  • Try pressing Control-Alt-Fn to switch consoles (from X).
  • Try logging in from another computer using SSH.

If you manage to get to a console, run ps ax | grep sauerbraten to find the process id of the process (the first number) then kill -KILL N where N is the process ID. If you are unable to do any of this, it might indicate a hard lock which could be related to a hardware/driver problem.

A: Windows

  • Try pressing Alt-Tab until you find the console (also known as the command prompt) window for Sauerbraten. If you are able to select the icon that comes up with this, press Control-Pause/Break to terminate the batch process.
  • Try pressing Control-Alt-Delete (forward delete, not backspace) to bring up the task manager, to manually find the sauerbraten.exe on the process page. Select it and End Process.

If you are unable to do any of this, it might indicate a hard lock which could be related to a hardware/driver problem.

A: Mac OS X

  • Try pressing Command-Option-Escape to get back to your desktop. If the Sauerbraten launcher consistently misbehaves, right-click on it, click Show Package Contents and go to Contents>gamedata>sauerbraten.app. Select Sauerbraten and press Command-I to open the get info panel, and make sure you have Read & Write access.

Q: Why aren't my maps in the menu?

A: The game already knows about them

Either use auto-complete on the console or manually modify your maps menus. See Script Demo - Map Menu.

A: You didn't put them in the right place

Look at this FAQ: Path-Info

Q: Where are the monsters?

A: Start in Single Player

You need to be in a singleplayer mode (-1 or -2) -- see Beginner's Guide - Singleplayer.

Q: How do I change my name?

A: Use the commands

Press slash (to the left of the right shift key) and type /name myname. Note that your name cannot contain spaces. t opens your text-console, if / is the first character the input is interpreted as a CubeScript-command. You can put these commands into autoexec.cfg too (create if it doesn't exist); in this file you do not, I repeat you do not, need to prepend the / as all lines are interpreted as CubeScript! Welcome to the world of CubeScript.

Q: Which ports do Sauerbraten servers need opened?

A: Read config.html

It's on the configuration page of your local documentation (README.html); always check there for most accurate information. Rumour has it they`re fixed at udp 28785and udp 28786.

Q: How can I save my settings?

A: Use config.cfg

The engine autosaves into config.cfg. You should always check config.cfg for "on-the-fly" scripting and personal settings before erasing it; keep it backed up from time to time. A missing config.cfg will be replaced by defaults.cfg and autoexec.cfg. autoexec.cfg overrides defaults.cfg. The engine first checks for a config.cfg, if it isn't there it uses defaults.cfg then autoexec.cfg.

A: Use autoexec.cfg

Put any required settings into autoexec.cfg. It's executed after config.cfg.

Q: The screenres command doesn't work, so how do I change my screen resolution in-game?

A: Use the command-line parameters

Depending on your operating system this can be either the sauerbraten.bat file (Windows) or a shell script. Add the -wWIDTH and -hHEIGHT, so if your screen is 1280 by 800, type -w1280 and -h800. On Windows it might be advisable to simply create multiple shortcuts to the BAT and change the parameters solely in the attributes of that shortcut -- that way you can have multiple setups for running -- e.g. one with shaders and filters off, one with all features on that your card can support, etc. See Performance Guide for hints at what to tweak.

A: On Linux screenres works fine

The screenres and fullscreen commands only work on UNIX based systems (e.g. Linux systems such as Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, etc.) or OS X.

Q: How do I make and delete waypoints?

A: showwaypoints and dropwaypoints

Use showwaypoints 1 to make waypoints appear as blue lines and dropwaypoints 1 to drop them as you move. When you do drop them, don't jump except when absolutely necessary (such as over lava or an endless pit), and don't riflejump at all. Run around all pathways in your map a few times. To delete all waypoints for a map, use clearwaypoints. To only delete in the selection, use delselwaypoints (think "delete selection waypoints"). If your waypoints aren't loading, use loadwaypoints filename replacing filename with a specified file ending in .wpt if it is named something other than the current map.

Q: I get an exception dialog on Windows, what do I do?

A: Grab the output in the console

This message contains information useful to the developers, you can contribute to eliminating bugs by posting a copy and paste of the output in the console window running the game on the forum. It also helps if you add information on your system (OS, CPU, RAM, GFX, drivers installed, etc).

Q: I get the error "your video card is WAY too old". How can I fix it?

A: Check out your system configuration

A fatal error like this could mean several things. Most likely, you have a video card far too old to be playing Sauerbraten with. If you have a modern card though, it could be because you have failed to install the drivers for your card. Go to your video card manufacturer's website and download the latest drivers there (links at the top of the page). If you however have a modern card with proper drivers installed and still get the error, make sure that "extension limit" in your Nvidia/ATI control panel is turned off.

Q: How can I make the game run on old hardware?

A: Tweaking Settings

There's no easy answer to this question, as every computer is different. If you're having problems running the game due to graphical glitches, try the -f0 command line option. For further performance tweaking see the Performance Guide.

Q: Where do I get the latest development snapshot?

Q: How do I download SVN files?

A: Use an SVN client

Actually, most people will not really want to download a development snapshot from SVN, but since it is regularly discussed and hence asked about in the community: SVN stands for "SubVersioN" meaning that all the developers around the world share this system. So when you download from SVN you don't know what you're getting. You have been warned. Now just go and read Sourceforge SVN Repository Primer (for Sauerbraten). You will need to install a SVN client for yourself -- e.g. SmartSVN (a Java client that should work on most platforms. It is available from Syntevo) or TortoiseSVN. Sauerbraten previously used CVS, as a sidenote.

Q: Where can I obtain the music files?

A: In Fanatic's folder, or on his website.

Check out: (Sauerbraten base folder)/packages/fanatic. There are a bunch of *.ogg (Ogg Vorbis) files there, numbered 1-41. The track names are also there in Track Names.txt. If you want to download the MP3s, go to Fanatic's website and look for the albums "Two Minute Warning", "Sauer Anger", "Panexypnos Dimiourgia", and "Spontaneous Failure".

Q: How do I use colors in my text?

A: Use the FormFeed Control Character

ASCII-12, "\f" -- see the colored text explanation.

Q: Why is my mouse not working in OpenGL (Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex))?

A: It seems to be caused by Compiz

Try installing the Compiz-Fusion Button and switch to Metacity whenever you're gaming. For some reason, this fixes the mouse problem. See the following message and its followups on the official forum Mouse Fix on Ubuntu 8.10.