This document is not intended as an alternative to the documentation included with the Defrag 1.9 distribution. For more information on any of the Defrag features, cvars or settings mentioned, please see the docs directory in your Defrag installation directory.

This document is a work in progress, so please direct comments and suggestions to me at the email address above.

I've tried to make this as simple as possible to make it useful to as many people as possible - novices to experts - so my apologies if I am teaching you to suck eggs

2. Requirements

All you need is a copy of Quake III Arena, the latest Quake III point release (as of writing, version 1.32) and the Defrag 1.9 distribution (http://www.planetquake.com/defrag/).

3. Installation

If you haven't already done so, install Quake III and the latest point release. I'm not going to write a tutorial on that

Next, unzip the Defrag 1.9 distribution zip in the Quake III installation directory - which will extract to a directory called 'defrag' (make sure you extract with folders). Once extracted, your directory tree should look something like this:

Obviously if you're on Linux and using the command line, it wont look much like that at all - but the directory structure will be the same

Wow, that was easy

4. Configuration

Ok, let's hit the nitty gritty already. But before we start, you need to be aware that there are minor differences between running a dedicated and a non-dedicated server, so be sure to read the notes below.

Defrag is configured like any other Quake III mod - using configuration variables (cvars). In this document, cvars are indicated in red, and values are indiciated in green.

If you are running a dedicated server, you may prefer to configure your server via the remote console or by the local console (the blue box that pops up when Quake III runs under Windows, or under Linux the terminal from which Quake III was invoked).

If you are running a non-dedicated server, you can also configure the server through the 'Defrag Setup' menu in the Defrag user interface, or on in-game the console - the choice is yours.

Or in either case, you may wish to load the configuration from a cfg file (I have provided a basic cfg for download in the examples section).

Changing the value of a cvar via the console is pretty straight forward. For example, if we want to set the maximum player limit (sv_maxclients) to 8, we would type the following on the console:

/sv_maxclients 8 To check the value of a cvar without affecting its value, simply omit the value when typing the command. e.g:

/sv_maxclients

Game type

Defrag 1.9 has a total of six different game types, and a special automatic configuration mode. To set the game type, set df_gametype to the appropriate value.

Game type	value
Auto config	0
Single player defrag mode	1
Single player tricks mode	2
Single player fastcaps	3
Multiplayer defrag mode	5
Multiplayer tricks mode	6
Multiplayer fastcaps	7

The best way of running a dedicated Defrag server is in it's automatic configuration mode. In this mode, Defrag will decide itself which game type is appropriate for the map.

Note for non-dedicated servers: Due to the nature of the Quake III engine architecture, Defrag cannot detect a multiplayer game type unless Quake III is running as a dedicated server. If you are running your server as a non-dedicated server, you will need to set the appropriate game type manually.

The df_gametype cvar can also be configured using the 'Game type' option under the 'Misc' entry in the the 'Defrag Setup' menu.

The game can be customized further by using df_mode in conjunction with df_gametype and df_ndm_weaponsSet. For more information, consult the Defrag documentation. For now, we will set df_mode to 0 (custom settings) so that df_ndm_weaponsSet is enabled (next section).

Weapons Another benefit to Defrag's auto configuration mode is that when in Defrag mode, the law of the mapper is obeyed - and players are only provided with weapons that have been specified by the mapper. However in tricks mode and fastcaps mode we can select which weapons players receive by using the cvar df_ndm_weaponsSet.

The configuration for df_ndm_weaponsSet is a little more advanced then most other cvars, but it's not complicated. Each weapon is assigned a value, and you pick a set of weapons by adding the values for the weapons you wish to enable.

Weapon	Value
Gauntlet	2
Machine Gun	4
Shotgun	8
Grenade Launcher	16
Rocket Launcher	32
Lightning Gun	64
Rail Gun	128
Plasma Gun	256
BFG	512
Grappling Hook	1024

For example: to enable all weapons, you would set df_ndm_weaponsSet to 2046. Or to enable just the Rocket Launcher and the Grenade Launcher, you would set df_ndm_weaponsSet to 48.

Also, you can choose to enable normal item spawning by setting df_ndm_itemsSpawn to 1, and normal weapon pickups by setting df_ndm_weaponsPickup to 1.

Physics Defrag cannot automatically decide which physics are appropriate for a map, you must specify this yourself. Set df_promode to 0 for vanilla Quake III physics, or 1 for Promode physics. The physics can be changed whilst the server is running by setting df_promode or by calling a vote (/callvote df_promode 0|1) - but you must restart the current map or load a new one for the change to take effect.

Framerate To enable overbounce and client framerate independent jump heights, the server framerate should be set to 125 frames per second (sv_fps 125) and pmove should be enabled (pmove_fixed 1). By default pmove should already be enabled.

Players You may want to raise or lower the maximum player limit with sv_maxclients depending on the power and bandwidth of your server. Note that a server with a higher framerate uses more bandwidth.

You may also wish to prevent chat spamming by enabling flood protection (sv_floodprotect 1), although this can be perceived as anti-social.

Interference A new option in Defrag 1.9 allows players to co-exist with minimal interference. The multiplayer aspects of Defrag are still under development, and there are currently minor issues with checkpoints and item pickups - but we now have the ability to selectively prevent both player and weapon interference using the cvar df_mp_interferenceOff.

Interference	Value
All interference on	0
Player interference off	1
Weapon interference off	2
Player and weapon interference off	3

PunkBuster Unless you've invented some mad game type (in which case you should tell us, so we can all have a go) you probably won't want PunkBuster enabled - disable it by setting sv_punkbuster to 0.

Example settings seta sv_hostname "I didnt edit my cfg!"
seta rconpassword ""
seta sv_maxclients "6"
seta sv_floodprotect "0"
seta sv_punkbuster "0"
seta sv_fps "125"
seta pmove_fixed "1"
seta df_gametype "0"
seta df_promode "0"
seta df_ndm_weaponsSet "2046"
seta df_ndm_interferenceOff "3"
seta df_ndm_weaponsPickup "0"
seta df_ndm_itemsSpawn "1"

map vineyard

You should place your configuration file either in baseq3 or the Defrag installation directory.

Download config

5. Repacking maps

It's widely known that Quake III has problems dealing with a large number of PK3's at one time (usually resulting in the engine crashing), but there is hope. On my servers, I have repacked all of the Defrag map PK3's and consolidated them into just a handful of PK3's. Note that this is not advised for a client, as you may encounter problems with older scripts and textures potentially overwriting newer ones - but for a server, this is not a problem.

Note however, that if you repack your PK3's you will need to disable auto download (sv_allowdownload 0), otherwise clients with auto download enabled (cl_allowdownload 1) will end up downloading your repacked pk3's - causing them problems, and sucking your bandwidth.

I have written a script that will automatically repack all of the maps into PK3's according to their initial letter (defragmaps-1.pk3 to defragmaps-z.pk3), but before I can release it I need to tidy it up and make it compatible with Windows (currently its Linux only).

If you want to repack your PK3's manually, extract them into directories according to their initial letter (using Winzip or some other Zip archiver - PK3's are just Zip files with a .pk3 extension) and zip up the new directories and give the zip files .pk3 extensions. You can then place these zip files into baseq3 or the Defrag installation directory and all the maps will be available to your server.

Ensure however, that you extract the pk3's into the same directory as shown below:

And not like this:

Otherwise it simply won't work

6. Starting a dedicated server

The easiest way to start a dedicated Quake III server is with a script.

Under Windows, open notepad and enter the following:

@echo off

set NET_IP=192.168.1.50
set NET_PORT=27960
set DEDICATED=1
set CONFIG=defrag-mp.cfg
set Q3_HOME="d:\games\quake iii arena"

cd %Q3_HOME%
quake3.exe +set fs_game defrag +set net_ip %NET_IP% +set net_port %NET_PORT% +set dedicated %DEDICATED% +exec %CONFIG% Make sure you change NET_IP and NET_PORT to match the IP address and port that you wish your server to listen on, and if you want your server to be listed in game server browsers such as ASE, set DEDICATED to 2 - otherwise leave it as 1 and it will not be listed.

Then save the file in your Quake III installation directory, naming it appropriately (with a .bat extension). Feeling endowed with originality, I called mine 'defrag-mp.bat'. Alternatively, you can download the example one above and customize it.

Under Linux, open your favourite editor and enter the following: NET_IP=192.168.1.50 NET_PORT=27960 DEDICATED=1 CONFIG=defrag-mp.cfg Q3_HOME="/usr/local/quake3"

cd $Q3_HOME
./q3ded +set fs_game defrag +set net_ip $NET_IP +set net_port $NET_PORT +set dedicated $DEDICATED +exec $CONFIG

Again, make sure you change NET_IP and NET_PORT to match the IP address and port that you wish your server to listen on, and if you want your server to be listed in game server browsers such as ASE, set DEDICATED to 2 - otherwise leave it as 1 and it will not be listed.

Then save the file in your Quake III installation directory, naming it appropriately. I called mine 'defrag-mp.sh'. Alternatively, you can download the example one above and customize it (dont forget to 'chmod +x defrag-mp.sh').

To start the server, just run the shell script

7. Starting a non dedicated server

Since a non-dedicated server is not separated from the Quake III client, a non-dedicated server is started simply by loading a map - either through the user interface, or on the console using '/map

Important note: When you play single player defrag, sv_maxclients is reset to 1 (as you would expect) - but this is persistent. So if you are setting up a non-dedicated server in multiplayer mode, you must first set sv_maxclients to the value you desire before actually starting your server, or if you change the value while the server is running - you must restart the current map or load a new one for the change to take effect.