Ultra graphics settings question

[CarpeNoctumXIII]

So, I recently picked up Q4 and noticed something odd about the graphics: It was missing dynamic lights, which were present in Doom 3. Or so I thought, once I switch it to Ultra Detail, I get my dynamic lights from my flashlight, BUT, this is stressing on my PC since I only have 256mb of memory(7800gtx). Is there a way to keep the dynamic lights, but use the textures for the High Detail settings? Ultra textures are just too much, but I know the lighting isn't. Thoughts?

[obsidian]

Quake 4 uses ONLY dynamic lights regardless of quality settings. Something else is acting up if they're not displaying properly.

[CarpeNoctumXIII]

Hmm, odd. Maybe I didn't explain it right. You know when you point your flash light behind an object, and that object will then cast a shadow behind it? When I set my details to High, that doesn't happen. All the other shadows are cast, but not the ones cast from my flashlight. I'd leave it in Ultra, but the stuttering that goes on because of the texture resolution is too much. Anyone mind trying this out?

[Don Carlos]

What version of Direct X are you running? It may have something to do with that?

[CarpeNoctumXIII]

I think it's 9c? Or whatever the best one I can get aside from 10. I mean, it works just fine in Doom 3, no reason for it not to work here unless I put it on Ultra.

[AnthonyJ]

IIRC, its actually an explicit check on the flashlight that it wont cast shadows unless you're set on ultra. The lighting is always realtime, and other lights will cast shadows (assuming r_shadows 1).

I think people found that you could generally enable it by manually changing the cvar com_machineSpec to 3, rather than doing it through the menu (which will trigger lots of other cvars to be changed, which is why your system will struggle with this if you dont have a powerful enough system).

[CarpeNoctumXIII]

I doubt my system will struggle as long as the texture stays the same as the "High" setting textures. I mean, it's not like it looks THAT much better then DooM 3, and yet I run THAT at 60fps+, at 1600x1200, 8xAA, and V-sync on. So are you saying that there is no way to turn on dynamic shadows that are cast fro0m my flashlight? Half-Life 2: Episode 2 has FAR more things going on, and yet, I can have my shadows there with a very minimal(if any)hitch. Here are my specs in case it helps:

nVidia GeForce 7800GTX
Pentium 4 3.4GHZ
2GB of RAM
Windows XP(SP2)

Well, any ideas?

[AnthonyJ]

Maybe I didnt make it clear enough. If you change to "ultra" through the menus, it changes com_machineSpec *and* all texture compression etc cvars.

As long as you just change com_machineSpec and not the other cvars (ie, change it manually at the console / in a .cfg) it shouldnt struggle so much. Obviously this functionality was turned off for < ultra because they considered it to be more demanding on the system though.

[CarpeNoctumXIII]

Just tried that, worked. Thanks a bunch man. It's not that you weren't clear enough, you were, it's just my reading comprehension failed me for a sec. Now I'm curious though, are there any other commands I can use that might have positive effects on the game, since this makes it so much better looking, for me, and my FPS didn't even take a hit. Thanks again!

[obsidian]

Make sure you do frequent backups of your config before messing with this list.

http://quake.freakygaming.com/pc/action ... ables.html