America's Army Tweak Guide

[Page 9] Advanced Tweaking (Pt.2)



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User.ini


[Engine.Input]


This section contains all your keyboard/mouse control mappings which are currently assigned. You can edit the majority of these under the Control Configuration section of the in-game settings. However to insert, delete or edit a key function here find the key entry you want to change (e.g. the E= line is for the 'E' key on your keyboard) and alter the command following it to change its function.


Note that as of Version 2.5, commands for the crouching, crawling, reload, swaphands and jump actions cannot be combined with any other command, with the exception of reload being modified to "reload / teamsay "Reloading, Cover Me!!" / reportin". This prevents double-action commands which were unrealistic and against the spirit of the game.


For more details on all the main commands to use, and how to bind various commands to keys using the Bind command see this detailed All Console Commands, Switches and Keybinding Help thread on the America's Army Forums.



[Engine.PlayerController]


DynamicPingThreshold=400.000000


This setting controls the Ping threshold before the Dynamic Netspeed option kicks in and alters your Netspeed value. The lower this setting, the more likely Dynamic Netspeed will continually alter your Netspeed to maintain your ping below this value. The default of 400 is recommended for most people, and if you want to alter it you should only try to set it to something which is realistically achievable on most servers, otherwise the constant changing of your Netspeed by the Dynamic Netspeed option could see you experience more rather than less lag.



[Engine.Player]


ConfiguredInternetSpeed=10000


This is a vital setting because it determines your network rate in bits per second (bps), also known as Netspeed. Adjusting it can improve your ping and reduce online lag problems. The trick is to set a Netspeed which is not too low, but also not too high. For 56K modems, depending on your actual connection speed try values around 3000 for an optimal ping. For DSL/Cable and faster connections try values around 8000, once again depending on your actual connection speed. The default value of 10000 (which is also the maximum value for most servers) should be fine for fast connections (i.e. 1.5mbps or higher), however slightly lower values can still help better maintain a steady ping. Note that you can adjust Netspeed 'on the fly' during the game by using the Netspeed command - See the Console Commands section for more details. Further note that if you have the Dynamic Netspeed setting enabled, your netspeed will vary here depending on the DynamicPingThreshold setting above and the servers on which you have been playing recently. If you want to manually adjust your netspeed I recommend you disable the Dynamic Netspeed setting first.


Importantly you should note that your maximum FPS online is limited by your Netspeed value. The Unreal Engine has an FPS cap of 90 when playing online, however Netspeed values below 5000 will further reduce this FPS cap. For example, I get 60FPS maximum with a Netspeed of 5000, but I reach the 90FPS maximum with a Netspeed of 8000 or higher.


Ping Lag: Online lag due to your connection is measured by your Ping. Look at your Ping by using the 'Stat Net' command (See the Console Commands section) or observe the Ping shown in the F1 scoreboard - both should be accurate as of the latest version. If the Ping is showing a value higher than 150 then you will experience noticeable Ping Lag. This is represented by a delay between when you initiate an action, and when the effects are seen on screen - e.g. firing a gun with a 500 ping will result in a 500ms (half a second) delay between you pressing your fire button, and the bullet impact actually being seen on the screen. While having a high ping can be annoying, players with high pings do not affect other players' pings in America's Army as confirmed by the game's Developers.


Graphical Slowdown: If your Ping is showing a low value when viewing the Stat Net statistics but you are still experiencing laggy graphics and movement at certain times, particularly during heavy combat scenes, this is called a Graphical Slowdown and is caused by your hardware struggling to render the game. To solve this, tweak your game to increase average FPS as per the In-Game settings and Advanced Tweaking sections of this guide.


Packet Loss: If your character starts 'warping' around while playing then this is usually due to game information being lost on the way to/from the server. The only solution to this is to make sure your connection is sound (i.e. if it doesn't happen in other online games then it's probably not your connection), and going to another America's Army server.


ConfiguredLanSpeed=20000


You should leave this value at its default since LANs can quite easily accommodate Netspeeds of 20000. Lower it only if you experience a higher ping than usual on a LAN. This setting only has an impact on LAN games, and has no impact at all when playing on the Internet.



[Engine.HUD]


ConsoleFontSize=8

MessageFontOffset=-4


Unfortunately the above settings do not seem to be functioning in the current version, otherwise they would allow customization of the console font sizes.



[Engine.TextToSpeechAlias]


Aliases=(MatchWords=("gg"),ReplaceWord="good game")


The Text to Speech engine in the game (see In-Game Settings section) uses the settings in this section to determine how to translate common abbreviations into spoken words. For example "thx" (without quotes) gets translated into the word Thanks, while "omg" becomes Oh My God. If you want change or add abbreviations which you or your friends use, add a new line and use the same format to enter the abbreviation first, then the words which should be used by the speech engine as substitutes.



[XInterface.GUIController]


bQuietMenu=False


Set this option to True if you don't want any clicking sounds while you're navigating the America's Army game menus.


bNoToolTips=False


Set this to True if you want to disable the small description boxes which popup every time your mouse moves over a setting or option in the America's Army game menus. Note that this will make adjusting some sliders difficult as their current value is shown as a tooltip popup.



[AGP.HumanController]


Username=

UserPassword=


This is the section of the User.ini file which records your player's Username and Password - the ones which are entered in the Personnel Jacket to log into the game. If you ever forget your password, it is stored here in plain text format. For that reason, make absolutely certain you do not share your User.ini file with anyone, whether in a P2P program like emule, by email, or by providing a cut-and-paste of the file, since these details can be used by other people to log into the game and play using your character.


bFlushOnRoundRestart=False


If set to True, this setting performs the Flush command (See Console Commands section) each time a new round starts. This can remove or reduce any graphical anomalies you get over time in the game, but it will increase loading times significantly.


bNoClientSideEffects=False


If set to True, this option disables all Client Side Effects, which includes all weapon effects such as bullet shells, gun sounds, muzzle smoke, bullet impacts etc. This can help improve performance and online lag, however it is not recommended that you set this option to true since it is highly unrealistic. Only turn this on if your system is really struggling.


SkinTonePref=


This setting is blank by default, and you are randomly assigned a skin tone when joining a server. If you want to set a preference for a particular skin tone, you can assign a value of =SKINPREF_African, =SKINPREF_Caucasian or =SKINPREF_Latino to this setting and you should get the skin color of your choice when playing online, although it is not guaranteed.



[Engine.PlayerInput]


MouseSamplingTime=0.008333


This setting effects how fast/slowly your mouse moves by taking samples at more/less frequent intervals (in seconds). As this number increases from the default the slower your mouse will seem as samples of your mouse movement are taken less often. Experiment with fine tuning this setting if the default sampling time doesn't seem to help your mouse speed, however be careful with extreme values as they may be seen as cheats.


DoubleClickTime=0.250000


This setting controls the length of time in seconds during which a double-tap of a movement key is registered. In particular, since the sprint function in America's Army is tied to a quick double-tap of the Forward key, if you press W (default Forward key) twice within 0.25 seconds then it will register as the signal to start sprinting. Increasing this value will mean more time during which two presses of the forward key will trigger a sprint. I recommend setting this higher than the default, say to 0.400000 so that you can more easily engage the sprint mode. If you want to turn off double-tap sprinting altogether, set this value to 0.000000.


Note, if the above section and/or some of the settings are not in your User.ini, first change some of the mouse settings in the In-Game Settings, exit the game and check back in this file.



The next section covers America's Army Console Commands.