I joined steam bans and was reading thru their forums when i found a thread re: settings. Since this topic is still a little confusing, i figured i would copy and paste another explanation of ex_interp that i found. The full thread is located here&gt;&gt; its a post by dani near the bottom of the first page.<br /><a href="http://www.steambans.com/forums.php?fid=3&amp;tid=4217" target="_blank">Click here to see the original thread</a><br /><br /><!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->ex_interp is the time a client delays rendering updates sent _from_ the server. This is to allow interpolation or &quot;smoothing&quot; using known points, similar to extrapolation which is smoothing using known and predicted points in the future. In video games, you want to avoid extrapolation of players like the plague because the longer you extrapolate, the more likely the extrapolated position is incorrect.<br /><br />There WAS a bug in half life that when interpolation was turned off, the lag compensation still took the ex_interp delay into account, so you could aim behind a player and kill them. This is where the ex_interp controversy came from and is no longer relevant since this bug was fixed.<br /><br />To break this all out, cl_updaterate is how many updates the server will try to send the client in a second, default is 20 and should be left there, any more is a waste of bandwidth. The servers default to send a max of 30 updates a second, and most pub servers will be set here, can be changed with sv_maxupdaterate.<br /><br />Next, your rate defaults depending on your connection setting in Steam, if you are on cable or a decent connection, set it to 20000 and likewise with cl_rate. Servers default to 6000 tops and can be changed with sv_maxrate.<br /><br />ex_interp defaults to 0.1 or 100ms. Leave it there&#33; Do not set it to your ping, do not set it lower, do not set it higher, just leave it&#33; This means updates from the server are delayed from rendering for 100ms and with a cl_updaterate of 20 or once every 50ms, you have three points within 100ms to interpolate with and create all the frames needed to display on the client. The interpolation is accurate since the client cannot move very far in 50 ms.<br /><br />Now what happens when you fire? Well cl_cmdrate is how many usercmds are sent to the server a second, i recommend setting this to your FPS and do not be a twit and uncap your framerate. Keep it vsync&#39;ed which for most is 60 FPS and FYI if your FPS is higher than 100, you are too an idiot as your mouse input has to be clamped to fit into the cl_cmdrate and you will loose that little bit of precision.<br /><br />These usercmds contain your ex_interp setting which when the fire gun usercmd reaches the server is used in the lag compensation to move all the players back to where they were when you fired the shot on your screen, perform the hitscan and then move them back. This means the lag compensation will take your ping divided by two plus the ex_interp delay and move all players back to where they were at that time so you do not have to lead your targets because of your ping and interp. (See how that cl_interpolate bug worked now??  )<br /><br />Now what goes wrong when you screw with your rates and play on default servers? Lets say you 101 101 20000 and set ex_interp 0.01. Ok so that is an update every 34 ms with an interpolate of 10 ms and you have no updates to interpolate with so you end up extrapolating for 20 ms during which time you fire a shot at the players head, you see blood then the player warps back just a fraction and shoots you dead. Remember your cl_updaterate was locked to 30 by the server but ex_interp allowed a setting for 101. The same situation can happen when you have choke and the prime reason why you should not really screw with ex_interp then have the nerve to complain about poor quality game play.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->