Effects of process variables of HCD ion plating on the film composition of Ti(C, N) were analyzed. The mole ratio of carbon to nitrogen and that of non-metal to titanium in the film primarily depend on the partial pressure ratio of ($C-2H_2$/ $N_2$) and total reactive gas pressure, respectively. The amount of nonmetallic com-ponents increases in nonlinear fashion as the total gas pressure due to the different reactivity of $C-2H_2$ and $N_2$ gases with Ti. The nonmetallic components was saturated dwith nitrogen when the nitrogen gas was more than 60% of total reactive gas. These two process variables could be related systematically using the concept of effective pressure in which the difference of reactivity of each gas was normalized.