medium to large symmetrical tourney map using standard q3a textures. there is also a health regenerator.

This map plays fine...on my new pentium4 1.7 "gloats". And its also a realy cool map too.

WOW!!! Played good with my 64 mb GeForce 2 GTS and Athlon 800 with 128 ram

Wow!!!Nice cool map!!!Simple the Very Best!!!

I love this map. I don't have any trouble at all and I use a P3 550 with a TNT2 Ultra (Diamond version) very fun with the RL - DOWNLOAD NOW

Great map! Runs smoothly on my PIII866 w/ 64meg DDR geFORCE. Good game flow, and a lot of fun with the rocket launcher. Download now!

I thought the graphics were great. Nice to see something different. I didn't have any problems running the game on my machine with two other people hooked up and all the settings on high. (G4 450mhz 768ram) You must be using a pc. Get a good computer if you are going to talk about speed!

Hmmm... lets think here. How do I include a sound file here...
What I need to include is a wav of some babies crying.

Wahhh!!!

plays ok at 800x600 w 5 bots, on my p2 450 with a viper 2, even with all the graphic optons on high.

Course i'm one of those that likes my fragging to happen in wonderous surroundings, gave it a 9, keep up the good work!!!

why doesn't, PowZeR redo this with some smart architectural shenanigans?

This map looks great.

How does it play? I don't know, it is literally unplayable on my machine. Just running around by myself I'm getting under 20 fps in some areas... what the hell is that?

No, I don't have a really low end machine (its average, neither fantastic nor poor) and yes I do have some options tweaked for the sake of performance. But this map runs like twice as slow as any other map I've ever seen, either id or custom maps. That is not acceptable.

Lopiba... change my settings for one map? Umm.. no. Besides which, if I reduced the texture detail and stuff like that, then it defeats the purpose... I could play it then, yeah, but I wouldn't enjoy it as much. In any case, I refuse to reduce the texture detail or change to vertex lighting, not for one map.

The point that this map is 'ahead of its time' and it'll run fine on a geforce or the next wave of 3d cards doesn't mean dick to me. I can't afford one of those new cards even when they are released. That's beside the point though... the map is here NOW, he wants us to play it now and as we can see from this thread, most people can't play it (or are unhappy with the performance).

As for this comment... "Get with the program people... At least not if you want to play with all the bells and whistles and in high resolutions." Err.. well I don't expect to be able to play with all that stuff. I have a celeron 400 with tnt2 which I think is a reasonable machine for Q3A. I DO NOT expect to play in a high res tho, I leave it in 640 by 480 and turn some options off...

But I flat refuse to use anything other than high texture detail, high geometric detail, lightmap + high quality sky. Why do I refuse? Because I don't have to. EVERY OTHER MAP runs fine on those settings. Only this one author has failed to produce a playable map.

I guess I have a higher than mainstream system, it plays fine for me, no better or worse than the id maps, which I think q3tourney4, q3dm9, q3dm11 are even laggier than this map. I originally skipped this one, because of the dogged review, but I said WTF, and it's great. I'm glad I did.

-Y

LoPiBa
Sorry its has everything to do with specs.
Theres a system spec on the box that Q3 ships with...
If you can't stay within those limits then you you need to go back to square one and either learn how to make your map work, or start from scratch...

LoPiBa
only a limited number of ppl can actually afford to buy a new video card every 3 months.
So yes the common man still has a ATI rage pro.
It should still RUN...
This map has crap for layout, the author didn't think about r_speeds at all...
Thats really sad...

"systems.. it has nothing to do with the boundaries of the engine being pushed." and i think its safe to say that this map doesnt push any boundaries of the q3a engine anyway. just the pcs sys sepcs needed to play it. i would really like to see powzer fix the map, really not much to fix, a bit of hints, bit of 90 degree halls etc. then he'll have a good map that doesnt limit its audience so much.

The map isn't "large and complex" at all. It's just poorly designed as far as the way the engine draws things. It shouldn't be drawing almost all of the map at the one time. Rooms should've been broken up with L-shaped hallways and using hint brushes or some other tricks to stop everything being visible in the one go.

LoPiBa, those specs you quoted are an average system these days and the maps SHOULD run well on those systems.. it has nothing to do with the boundaries of the engine being pushed.

Wow. This just goes to show that there are more people who think that their outdated hardware can handle this game when people start playing with the current boundaries of the game engine by making large complex maps.

Get with the program people.
128 megs of ram doesn't cut it anymore.
TNT2s don't cut it anymore.
CPUs under 500 mhz don't cut it anymore.

At least not if you want to play with all the bells and whistles and in high resolutions.

Sweet feet: I wasnt implying anything towards you or monkey. i used those quotes becoz i thought they accurately pointed out the 2 problems with the map, fps & powerups.

hahahahahahah!

Hey Loser, I said I have to turn down the graphics to get a playable frame rate. Most people have a better comp than me, and I don't see why people are complaining so much, especially since it's not all that good of a map in the first place.

Hey sweet feet, your missing the whole damn point. Wtf should we have to turn down the settings for one god damn map? And like you said the powerups dominate this thing way too much. 2 powerups is bullshit imo, especially when you can get both of them so easily. So what does it got going for it? the visuals...but no I have to turn down the visual settings to play it decently? great fucking logic.

Wow, the guy testing this must have a complete POS of a comp. "(because I couldn't play it) Wow.. what is he running? A 486, that's a bit harsh. I was averaging 60 to 70 fps on my GeForce. Great level.

Tim Willits commented on this map? Where?????? I'm lost!

I have a p3 500 overclocked to about 600mhz and i got a TnT2 with 128 megs of ram and i get a steady 30-45fps in high quality mode.I think that the author could of cut down on the extras and i dont think its a very good DM map but I its good for about 4 players.Its a ok map that will be on my hard drive for about a week no longer!!!!

p3 550 @ 616 128mb ram tnt2ultra truckloads of tweaks.

This map's framerate is far lower than any other custom map I have seen to date, and it looks pretty plain. And for a tourney map, that pretty much kills it. I can't believe willit's comments.

Quick note to Hobbes: You quoted me about all the power ups in the map, then went on to make it sound like I enjoyed the lop-sided score. Read it again. I was complaining that the map is too easy to dominate.

To everyone else: I still don't understand why everyone is complaining so much about the frame rate. I play on the lowest of machines that can run q3 - PII 300, 64 megs of ram, TNT. The level IS choppy, but unplayable? No way. Even on my system. Yes, I do have to turn some of the graphics down, but not so much that it's ugly. I do agree that the map could have, and should have, used some vis blockers. This would've helped a ton. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I don't get a frame rate on this map that I'm proud to tell people of, but all this complaining is stupid. So the mapper made a mistake and now you don't get your lucious 60 fps. Deal. I get between 20 and 30 fps (I know that's not good, but playable), and I know it runs better on your system than mine, so I know it's playable.

But, turning down the texture qualities will increase playability by quite a bit. The actual geometry of the level is fine, it is just having to load the textures every couple seconds when they are too large is what will kill you. Same thing goes on Q3dm9 I believe it is. I was shocked when I first ran a demo on it and saw how horribly my computer ran on it in 800x600 with everything cranked. Something about having to load 30 megs of textures into the onboard memory of my video card every couple of seconds and then dumping that memory by leaving the room and coming back in... I learned quickly to put my texture color depth down to 16 bit. Turning down texture quality would have also fixed it. Another thing to do is to turn down shadows. Running a crusher demo I made with this map with cg_shadows @ 1 rather than my standard 2 increased performance by 25%. Same goes for gibs and blood... having blood turned on really kills your system when playing I've noticed. I got a 25% boost by turning that off also. Check it out and get back to me @ tensen.1@osu.edu... I'll hook you up with a good system config that should boost performance(just be sure to send me your current).

Don't worry about losing your CDkey in that b/c they no longer store that in the config if you didn't know that.

sorry, I forgot this: Why did Tim Willits comment on the 'fast gameplay'? The level is huge and framerates are low. weird. Don't think i'm bashing this level, because like i said I really like this one. pity.

Great looking map, but not so well thought out, and it shows in the fps department (and that's without bots or other players added)... No vis blockers means that sometimes 50% of the level has to be drawn by the engine... A little tweaking in the layout and some blockers would have rectified this. Too bad, as I like this level (a lot). Next time, ok?

///Type 40:

Right.I was kinda angry when I played the map, because all those amazingly well playable maps like ztn's Beatbox, Lunaran's Coriolis Storm didn't get a "thumbs up" from id.

I wouldn't even dare to release such a map.

it's not texture detail that's the problem, it's geometric complexity, appearantly due to relatively poor map construction. (not BAD in the sense of leaks etc., just not nearly as efficient as it could be)

Did anyone happen to read my post thoroughly? I happened to mention turning down texture details to get max performance as an alternative to buying a decent rig. Do you think that everything is perfect straight out of the box?

NO! You gotta tweak your settings and get new drivers once in a while(BTW the leaked 5.08s caused problems on my system).

You can't expect every map to run well for a low end system when you have your settings too high. It isn't hard to change things around to get a huge increase in speed. Try it out for this map and perhaps make different configs to run. People should learn to accomodate maps like this. Take Vexar's maps for example. I bet most of you bitched about his second large release which had very little game play to it, but it was visually stunning. I went to numerous lengths to make it run well on my system. It was well worth it.

From the readme,

"JK_TOURNEY! -- If you are a fan of 1 on 1 tournament play, this map is a must have.
Built in a classic Quake3 Arena style JK_TOURNEY1 delivers fast paced exciting deathmatch.
I highly recommend it."

-Tim Willits
Lead Level Designer, Id Software

Since Q3A was released, I've heard a lot of ppl saying how id have lost touch with what makes a playable map - perhaps this is the most telling evidence yet??!! Yeah, it's a great-looking map, but you got to be able to enjoy playing it too.

Menace, why do you only post in pairs? LOL

well, i got a amd k6-2 450mhz that runs at like 540 mhz, with 64mb ram (i know thats low!) and a tnt2 video card and it didnt really play that well on mine, it got to the point where it paused for a few secs during gameplay, the visuals are nice and the idea was good but the composition i thought was bad! it just didnt work for me, and i was thinking, maybe if he were to release it again, only without the extra flags and and lights on the floor and just take away some of the excess garbage that REALLY doesnt need to be there, maybe then people will be able to play it!

(4)

400 Mhz celeron
128 Mb ram
3dfx voodoo 2
Suse Linux 6.2

Ran perfect on my box at 35 to 50 fps. This map rules!

My machine: Celeron 500Mhz, Tnt2, 128Mb RAM (and im picky about ram usage BIGTIME)

Several issues:

The obvious one is the r_speeds. They are SHOCKINGLY high. I wonder if the author used ANY hint brushes at all in this map? Or perhaps the wall brushes are too thin or something? The layout of the map doesnt help r_speeds or VIS either. Basic 90 degree corners, which would make the map look gridlike in q3r. Too much visible at one time.

As a work of art, this level is a success. But as a game level, which people can thrash and have fun in, it fails.

MISERABLY.

The performance of this level massively overshadows the painstaking work this guy has doen on his detail and brushwork.

The entire point behind deathmatch-based levels is speed. THATS IT. It must play well online, and in a lan situation, and its construction must ALWAYS be targetted to medium/lower end machines.

Someone here made a point that ID cut out a lot of eyecandy to make the game feasible. A logical and correct decision, and good on them for it.

As pretty as this map is, I have to give it 2/10.

The audacity of someone to make a map like this is a self-embarassment.

However, I do look forward to what his next level is like. hes obviously (looks-wise) very professional in his mapping style.

Next time will be better:-)

for a map that runs this bad I would of thought it would blow my mind in the visuals saddly it dosn't.. actually it looks quite plain to me

oh, and besides which, are you saying that only people willing to spend $1500+ on a brand new top of the line computer should be able to play this game? cause that's what some of you seem to be advocating. I can just see the box in the store: "Quake 3 Arena. Total cost: $1550"

including new computer, required.

hey, i'm not commenting on q3 as a whole, or on any other map. Just this one. This map has like 1/3 the average framerate of any other Q3 map I've tried, which is about 100 non-id maps so far. That's what I'm commenting on. The framerate stinks, it's only playable by a small number of people, and it loses major points in my book for that reason. It's also not THAT good a map in the first place--as I said, it looks nice but the layout is only mediocre, in my opinion.

"One point: In a few months from now with the new Voodoo and Nvida cards, maps like these will run like butter on a hot griddle. So he's just a few months ahead of his time (unless you own a GeForce like some of us) hehe"

true but had the proper vis blocking been done the map would be playable like you say now, not in 3 months.

"There were a few times when I had the quad, haste, and plamsa gun all at once. Do you know how many kills you can get with that combo in a short time?"

and this is a tourney map? i know ppl have differing opinions on powerups in tourney maps, but isnt 5 excessive? put a regen or haste at the rl and rl's at invis & haste and put a plasma in the pit in front of the rail.

One point: In a few months from now with the new Voodoo and Nvida cards, maps like these will run like butter on a hot griddle. So he's just a few months ahead of his time (unless you own a GeForce like some of us) hehe

Now here is one visually stunning map. The architecture and detail is excellent. Unfortunately you pay the price for all that detail by sacrificing fps. When I first started running around, I was thinking "ok, the guy that wrote this has got a GHz PII and a GeForce DDR", so I HAD to read the readme that came with to see what kind of machine he's running. Somehow I have trouble believing that he's still getting 29fps worst-case at 1024x on his 450 Celeron/GeForceSDR at full detail. My P2/300/Voodoo2 combo has trouble craking out 28 fps on demo001 timedemo @640x at almost max detail (16 bit, all visual effects max/ texture quality 1 setting below max).

Anyway, back to the map. It's simply a work of art. But the one major thing I have to say about it, despite the fact that the file is named jk_tourney- this is NOT a tourney map. All weapons but the BFG, quad, haste, invis, PLUS a regen chamber, and its size, mean that this map ain't made for just 2 players. I'd throw at least 6-8 players on if I had a machine worthy enough to crank out the fps on such a high-detailed map.

By the way, I did like the location of the regen chamber, and all the detail of the power conduits it was hooked up to. The theme and atmosphere are very well done here, from all the power core/conduit detail to the ambient sounds and lighting. I good 8- probably would have given it at least a 9 if it weren't for the low fps.

Keep 'em coming PowZer...

I feel for those out there that dont have better powered systems, but of someone wants to make a map for us higher end users then why not? I agree there should be some kind of disclaimer though. I just get sick of this "Part of good map design is it's frame rate" Well, yes and no. If its for the masses yes, if its made JUST for high end users then no, you werent invited to the part so stop complaining when no one offers you a drink!!

:)

Well Lopiba, you've kinda missed part of the art of mapping. People shouldn't have to upgrade their computers just for ONE map. If the framerate starts taking a dive, then it's the mappers job to redesign the layout.. that's the mark of a good mapper. I could quite easily make a map that would require a 1Ghz machine with the next generation video card for it to be "playable" but that would just be stupid. The target system should be around a p2-450 with a tnt2 I believe, and minimum framerates of 30-40fps.

It's a very nice looking map, layout seems ok.. but the framerates suck. If you turn on r_showtris you'll see that not much consideration has gone into vis blockers.. meaning that if you're in one room, it's also drawing connecting rooms which is totally unnecessary and could've been fixed quite easily. The level of detail is just fine, it's what shouldn't be drawing around the corner that's the problem.

The health thing in the centre area is quite cool.

Anyway, a bit of practice and a guiding hand, and PowZeR will be churning out some great works =)

Ah, I'm sick, back to bed for me :(

My heart bleeds for you guys. Perhaps you should learn that this game was meant for a high end system if you want to run with high quality graphics. There are simple fixes within the Quake3 config file that can vastly improve performance. I'm talking like 25-30% increase on the new Crusher Demo. Perhaps you should fix up your computers before you whine? BTW I only run with a PIII-500@522, 3d Prophet Pro@145x340, 256megs of RAM, and a cable modem.

Point being. UPGRADE AND TWEAK YOUR SYSTEM BEFORE YOU START WHINING!!! It isn't all that hard to get things running well on lower end machines.

oh yeah, the bots WERE stupid on this level, 3/4 of the time I'd just jump down into one of the powerup rooms and they'd just be standing there, like "how do I get out?"

I agree with your comments 100% tigger, this map had the slowest framerate throughout that I've ever encountered in q3. VERY nice looking, but with only an ok layout, but the framerate makes it unplayable.

I think what people state is acceptable fps is highly subjective. I like to keep the min. to above 30...hopefully in the 40's min. So I had to drop the rez down to 800x600 from my usual 1024 on a ddr, p2450 sys.

The map has great atmosphere and design, but the bots just stand there half the time looking stupid until you jump down at them. What up with that? ANyone else experience ulta-dumb bots on this level?

My pc at work is always a good test system for lag. While it's powerful enough, the Voodoo2 (w/o any video tweaking) tends to bring out the worst in maps.

I must say that I was expecting the worst with this map. I was happy to see that it wasn't that bad at all. In general the middle area had an avg FPS of 25 or so for me. I had 2 bots active and didn't experience any lag at all.

The layout and look of this map is awesome. The ever changing powerups add for some exciting gameplay.

PowZer is sick!

geezer - Team 3

Getting away from the r_speeds issue for the moment...

The map's construction looks like it could be great for 1 on 1, and in fact that's the default bot setup, but I don't think it works well with the truckload of powerups and items placed in the map. If those were axed (and r_speeds cut), this could be a fun duel map.

I enjoyed playing this map on my cel. 500 tnt 2Ultra,For 1on1 but when I added 4 bots,It got nasty =) if you can keep a consistant frame rate it's very enjoyible. (like the floting thing that gives ya health and armor) Im gonna keep it till i get a vaster system =)

This map is beautiful. It's playable on my machine 333mhz, 180 megs, voodoo banshee, 16 meg. (not that high end of a computer..but high enough to play it). Even if I had a way slower machine this map would still stay on my hrddrive. It's just beautiful. This map is definately woth a 10 but i have to subtract at least 2 points for gamespeed.

P II 400, 128 mb RAM, voodoo 2, and no lag. Weird. Video settings aren't really crappy, either. Love the map, play it a lot.

This map is helluva nice looking, but in my black book of joy the speeds is as important (even more) as looks. The mapper that can do great visuals and butterflow is a better mapper. Next time powser, you have the eye for it.

btw im on a dual 600 265mb and geforce system and it runs fine, but just how many got such system?

This level plays great on a gf-ddr card. It is definetly not a q3 engine limitation. The q3 engine is not even close to being taxed.You need a better system ,period.. No offense I like your page and am not trying to flame you. later --R

Why do authors do this? Don't they understand that game speeds are an important aspect of a good DM map? Even ID Software knows this, and had to ditch a lot of curves to get playable speeds. These speeds in this map is riduclous. I won't be going back to this one anytime soon.

Was i the only one who could play this map smoothly? I am on a P3 450 256 RAM and a Viper V550... but i warn you, i am as anal as they come with my gear and it is fully tweaked =)

I was doing just fine on framerates at 1024x768 with all detail options cranked.

The flow is great for 1v1 play, very fast and no dead ends. I like the floating health tube thing, its different.

I think there is a lot going on in this map all at the same time which may be a little overkill, but i like it. Nice work.

Yeah it's laggy...if you turn all the graphics options on high. I play on a PII 300 with a TNT, and this map was playable for me. Of coarse I didn't get an amazing frame rate, but it was definately playable. If you turn down some of the graphics, it runs fine and it STILL looks amazing. I don't like the layout of the map much, though. It's a bit too easy to dominate. There were a few times when I had the quad, haste, and plamsa gun all at once. Do you know how many kills you can get with that combo in a short time?

I found it laggy on a medium grade machine and don't approve of such design. Tiger is dead on in his summary of this laggy beast! Make those maps to play on medium grade machines and the majority of the world can play them :) if not, there will be a lot of people left out like me and tiger steady pissin and moanin wishing they could play it. After all, how many can afford a new machine every 6 months anyway?

Well on my old machine it lags like hell. but if you play it on a modern machine (600 Athlon, Geforce) it's simply marvelous! As i don't mind pushing the engine to its limits i rate it a 8.