UII shots

[T2k]

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/U2shots/Shot00000.jpg

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/U2shots/Shot00001.jpg

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/U2shots/Shot00002.jpg

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/U2shots/Shot00003.jpg

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/U2shots/Shot00004.jpg

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/U2shots/Shot00005.jpg[/img]

[BoddoZerg]

Framerates?

[BRiT]

I can't believe it takes up 2Gigs of drive-space.

[Tagrineth]

Why couldn't UT2k3 have a clean HUD like this?

[Rodéric]

Looks nice, but having played Unreal, I've to say I failed to see any interest in it past the first 3 levels.

The first got me straight, but after that, it was just plain old school, looking good but... it wasn't what I thought.

Anyone played it, yet ?
(Don't even know if it's released ^^)

[hughJ]

Why couldn't UT2k3 have a clean HUD like this?

i dunno.. that hud would strike me as being a bit too small for multiplayer DM (especially in competitive games).. should really be able to read your hud with your peripheral vision in such cases.. unreal2 has a bit more breathing room for form over function..

[T2k]

Framerates?

WinXP Pro SP1, DX9, Catalyst v3.0, pagefile customized for 768-1536MB and 512-1024MB (on two SCSI3 drives), all the details are maxed (on high or on ultrahigh, if there is such an option), 4x Quality AA + 8x Quality AF, mipmap and texture sliders are maxed out from driver control panel, Vsync ON, 1280/85Hz - no swapping, even though heavy action: it's runnin' smoooothlessssly... :D :D

UPD: I'll do a timedemo... ;)

[T2k]

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/U2shots/1280x1024/Shot00020.jpg

UPD: It's really nice, currently the best, sure - check the pool, the water surface! Look at those shadows and reflections of that big curved something on the sky... I love it... :)

[Crusher]

How did you hack Unreal 2's UI into Half-Life?

[Dave Baumann]

I hope those shots aren't representative of the entire game - it seems to be suffering from the grey/brown interior design scheme from Quakes gone by!

[Crusher]

The reviews aren't very favorable, and the movie trailer didn't impress me much. Also, given the fact that UT2003 runs like crap on my computer, and word is U2 runs worse, I don't see how the mediocre graphics are worthy of the performance. Worst of all, it apparently has little more gameplay value than the original did. I think I'll pass on this one.

[John Reynolds]

Yea, the mixed reviews/first impressions are worrisome. I was going to pick this one up the first day but it's looking more like a "wait for a Best Buy $35 sale" now. Blech!

At least C&C: Generals and Splinter Cell are due in February. Now if I can just get through Morrowind: Tribunal, get my DAoC paladin to 50 (currently 47), and finish Mafia, Medieval: Total War, and Arx Fatalis. . . .

[overclocked]

Is the game running on the UT2003 engine, i think it is.
Or is there any use of something new in the engine or are it mostly
Artwork that´s improved?

[BRiT]

It's certainly using the UT2K3 engine, or a variant of it.

I'm about an hour or two into the game, and unfortunatly it seems to suffer from the Q2/Brown/Black syndrome. I'm on the mission to defend the ship/shield-section from attack. My favorite part so far was the Halflife-ish science research plant on Hell. Some of the weapons are nice/nice-looking, like the flame-thrower, but we've seen it elsewhere. The other weapons seem rather dull and uninspiring. The electric barrier walls and rocket defense cannons are kind of nifty on how you deploy them.

It doesn't have the same feel/immersiveness as the first Unreal, or even the Unreal mission packs. Its an interesting choice the designers made, tieing otherwise disjoint (mini)scenarios together throw an ongoing larger story. Unfortunately, it isn't holding me as captive as other games are. Perhaps its the seemingly insane number of cut-scenes.

A word on performance... The worst section was outdoors in a snow-storm, with a large vast world and building in the background. On an AMD 2.2Ghz (actual clock), ATI 9700Pro, 1Gig Memory, 768M Swap File, MAX driver quality, 4x-AA, 8x-AFqual, 1024x768 + highest/ultra-high ingame settings, it was hovering around 20fps on that snow-storm scene. On the other sections, it was mostly around 60fps, with times of 120-180fps in the smaller rooms. Even at the 20fps, it felt smooth due to lack of action. There hasn't been a time yet where I said "damn, this is a dog."

[On semi-related note, a TeamFortress-like mod for U2/UT2 would be nice. Even if someone started on it now, it'd prob make it out before the official TeamFortress 2.]

[T2k]

it was hovering around 20fps on that snow-storm scene. On the other sections, it was mostly around 60fps, with times of 120-180fps in the smaller rooms. Even at the 20fps, it felt smooth due to lack of action. There hasn't been a time yet where I said "damn, this is a dog."


:shock:

Did you try switch Vsync ON?

[overclocked]

T2k-

Did you try switch Vsync ON?

Good question, personally when adding VsyncON in the 2003UT-Benches
makes the framerate drop HUGE.
I prefer playing with VsyncON but i have it off because of the performance
when comparing to other and all sites benches with off so it´s easier to compare.

[BRiT]

Did you try switch Vsync ON?

What was such a shock to you?

Nope. Haven't tried with VSync on, yet. I usually run with sync at 75, so the times it wouldn't be able to do that, the rates would prob down by quite a bit.

[T2k]

T2k-

Did you try switch Vsync ON?

Good question, personally when adding VsyncON in the 2003UT-Benches
makes the framerate drop HUGE.
I prefer playing with VsyncON but i have it off because of the performance
when comparing to other and all sites benches with off so it´s easier to compare.

Of course. :) But for playing... I started using Vsync ON just recentl;y but I think it's cool. 8)

[T2k]

Did you try switch Vsync ON?

What was such a shock to you?



THat 20fps - I never had such a low speed.

[BRiT]

THat 20fps - I never had such a low speed.

Ah. Like I said, it was only that one part where you're outdoors and it's snowing heavily, but it did not feel slow at all. I may have also had Folding@Home running in the background too, sometimes I forget to shut it down when I start playing. Unfortunately, I dont seem to have a saved-game at that point to go back to see if it was due to Vsync OFF, Folding@Home, or some other setting. Anyone have one they can send to me?

[overclocked]

overclocked wrote:
Quote:
T2k-

Did you try switch Vsync ON?


Good question, personally when adding VsyncON in the 2003UT-Benches
makes the framerate drop HUGE.
I prefer playing with VsyncON but i have it off because of the performance
when comparing to other and all sites benches with off so it´s easier to compare.


Of course. But for playing... I started using Vsync ON just recentl;y but I think it's cool.

You have a 9700pro, i have a MX440 do i need to say more? :lol:

[Tagrineth]

Hmm, on G4tv (Pulse) I saw a brief 60fps realtime video of the game running (I'd guess a maximum-end system). Looked pretty decent... nothing incredible though.

I have to say that whoever recorded the video has crap aim though :) I can aim better than him...

[T2k]

THat 20fps - I never had such a low speed.

Ah. Like I said, it was only that one part where you're outdoors and it's snowing heavily, but it did not feel slow at all.


You're right. :) Loaded back snowy mission and I got the same fps... :D


Anyone have one they can send to me?

Hmm... do you still need it after I admit it? :wink:

[T2k]

overclocked wrote:
Quote:
T2k-

Did you try switch Vsync ON?


Good question, personally when adding VsyncON in the 2003UT-Benches
makes the framerate drop HUGE.
I prefer playing with VsyncON but i have it off because of the performance
when comparing to other and all sites benches with off so it´s easier to compare.


Of course. But for playing... I started using Vsync ON just recentl;y but I think it's cool.

You have a 9700pro, i have a MX440 do i need to say more? :lol:


:D

Ooops, sorry... ;)

[BRiT]

You're right. :) Loaded back snowy mission and I got the same fps... :D
Hmm... do you still need it after I admit it? :wink:

Actually, if you would/could, send it my way. I want to toy around and see what, if any, settings can make a difference in that section. I also had shadows set to high and checked the align-to-light-source option. I'm wondering if its cpu or vpu limited.

[overclocked]

What is the engine capable of exactly?

It´s a dx7 engine basically if i understand right that looks real good because of the high poly-counts and the LOD.

[T2k]

What is the engine capable of exactly?

It´s a dx7 engine basically if i understand right that looks real good because of the high poly-counts and the LOD.

I don't think so: PS, VS...

http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/TechPapers_&_Presentations/Optim/

[BRiT]

T2K, nevermind with the save-game. I fjust figured out the "missions" tab off the load-game menu.

I tried varying all sorts of settings. The particle density had a somewhat mild influence on the low end extremes. The shadow settings did nothing for performance. The setting which has the largest effect on performance on the Hell (snow-world) mission is "World Texture Detail".With a setting of 255 for particles and High or Medium world, 15-17 fps is typical. With a setting of 0-100 for particles and High or Medium world, 17-20 fps is typical. With a setting of 255 for particles and Low world, 39-45 fps is typical.

This is once again at 1024x768, 4x-AA, 8x-AF-qual, max control panel IQ settings, 75Hz refresh, VSync off.

[Tagrineth]

Hell is a snow level? o.O

[BRiT]

Well, it's not really snow, something like volcanic ash/sulfer is in the air and falling. But it's white. It may as well be snow.

[overclocked]

Could someone name the "goodies" of the engine :D thanks!

[BRiT]

AFAIK, it's the UT2K3 engine.

[Luminescent]

I believe it was vogel which stated that the game engine didn't really use VS, but T&L with multiple vertex streams. It uses PS ( supports 1.4) to collapse terrain rendering passes.

[T2k]

I believe it was vogel which stated that the game engine didn't really use VS, but T&L with multiple vertex streams. It uses PS ( supports 1.4) to collapse terrain rendering passes.

According to ATI's list (mirror: http://hrc.webzeppelin.hu/-=Utils=-/TechPapers_&_Presentations/Optim/ ) U2 sports VS, PS, T&L.

[Nupraptor]

Unless I'm mistaken, it's a more recent build of the Unreal engine than UT2003 uses. Splinter Cell seems to use the same build as Unreal 2, since they both exhibit the see-through lights (where bright lights will shine right through character models and even walls). it was hovering around 20fps on that snow-storm scene. On the other sections, it was mostly around 60fps, with times of 120-180fps in the smaller rooms. Even at the 20fps, it felt smooth due to lack of action. There hasn't been a time yet where I said "damn, this is a dog."
Over at Rage3D, I heard that there's currently a bug which causes the framerate to display at exactly half of what it really is: eg, if it's saying you're getting 35fps, you're really getting 70. The same rumor says that they're fixing it in the upcoming patch. If this is true, that would explain why 20fps didn't feel too bad at all.

I've noticed that, when the game tells me I'm getting 30fps, it feels exceptionally smooth. So I'm willing to believe this particular rumor.

The first couple of levels were extremely boring, and made me want to stop playing. But I decided to stick with it, and I do think that it gets a little better as you go along. I rather liked the Hell levels. And the Acheron ones aren't too bad, so far.

[nggalai]

Unreal2 takes a huge hit when enabling AF with my Ti4400. Even at 2°AF settings ("optimised" to filter only texture stage 0), my framerates drop by as much as about 30% depending on the level. Never have seen anything like this.

On my new system (P4 2.4GHz, ASUS P4PE, 512MB/333MHz RAM), Unreal2 scales nicely with screen resolution and FSAA/AF settings for the most part. Lowest framerates I experienced were about 15fps in heavy fire fights, average is about 40-50fps, Hell (first stage) runs with about 25fps. Nevertheless, even in heavy fire fights gaming doesn't become laggy or choppy too much--yes, it's considerably less fluid than in an empty level, but still "feels" far more comfortable than I'd warrant the low fps. Perhaps results really are screwed when using stat fps . . .

I personally like playing Unreal2 better at a lower resolution such as 800x600. Quite a few textures appear to be very low-res, almost placeholder content "quality", and at higher resolutions those textures stick out like a sore thumb. I'd rather have a uniformly less detailed game than being annoyed about a particularly bad texture, hence I play at 800x600 with 4xFSAA. Yeah, I'm weird.

ta,
-Sascha.rb

[BoddoZerg]

Just about *everything* sucks with AF on a GF4... try running TeneBrae or the DOOM3 alpha with AF, it doesnt run well even at 640*480.

By the way, is Unreal II any good of a game? I just ordered a Radeon9700 and am considering getting it to show off the videocard, is it actually worth playing? The reviews I've read of it are frighteningly inconsistent.

[Entropy]

Just about *everything* sucks with AF on a GF4... try running TeneBrae or the DOOM3 alpha with AF, it doesnt run well even at 640*480.

By the way, is Unreal II any good of a game? I just ordered a Radeon9700 and am considering getting it to show off the videocard, is it actually worth playing? The reviews I've read of it are frighteningly inconsistent.

All this is IMHO, OK?

The BAD.
The game is short. Very short. I finished it in less than a day.

It is incredibly linear in actual path. This has its good side, you never have to be in doubt as to where you should go next. Just walk in the direction of your nose. You typically have one choice only as to which path to follow.

The storyline isn't really linear, because it barely exists. You do the linear missions, and you are briefed in between in preparation for your next mission. "Go down, get artifact" but in a lot more words that sometimes felt frustratingly slow, since I couldn't figure out a way to cut them short. Everything is done within the engine - no WarCraft 3 style cinematics. Nothing really unravels as you move along either. This is downright bad. It would have cost them very little effort to make the game LOTS better in this respect.

Speaking of slow, you move like a slug on methadone. When running. If you have played Morrowind, it feels as when you start out in that game. Only in Unreal2 you never level up.....

Lots of mostly redundant weaponry. You basically use what suits your style, which for me was the assault rifle, the rocket launcher, the flame thrower occasionally and the pea shooter when saving ammo. Never found any particular use for the alt-fires. Didn't look all that hard though, it feels like a crummy idea to start with which has just sort of got stuck in the Unreal universe. Better if they cut down the hardware, and actually made separate graphics for the different weapons. Exception: the grenade launcher where different types of grenades actually make some sense. Didn't find much use for the different grenades though - they all did decent damage in a fair radius except for the EMP grenade, which was special purpose. If you are looking for interesting weaponry in a game, the grenade launcher was that. Still, I didn't use it except on a couple of occasions for the EMP grenades. Range/speed/precision too bad in comparison to the rockets.

The ending is horrible. No strings are tied up. No reasons are ever given. It just ends. Ugh.

The good.
Gameplay flowed forward. Repetitiously, in spite of the shortness, due to the linearity and lack of storyline. But you never got stuck.

Although not directly related to gameplay, the graphics were mostly good. Framerates felt OK on my system, so you should be able to play it on for instance a 1 GHz Athlon + Geforce 2 GTS and get a quite good experience with somewhat dialled down settings. Haven't had occasion to check that out though. The modelling had its highs and lows. The cute little sea goat was modelled the way I wish the whole game had been. But nice overall.

Sounds and music are appropriate, if not noteworthy.

Voice acting is OK, with only the odd instance where the intonation felt completely off.


Summing up: An extremely short game, very linear and predictable making it somewhat boring in spite of the different settings and the short time it lasted. Nice graphics, but otherwise a lackluster production overall which surprised me - this game should have had both time and budget to become much more interesting than it turned out.


Entropy

[BoddoZerg]

how can Unreal II be short? They took an eternity making that game! :evil:

[Tagrineth]

Unreal2 running on a 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 (http://www.tdhq.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=5;action=display;num=1044738565)

[BoddoZerg]

o_O

[nggalai]

I fully agree with Entropy. The textures especially have put me off the game, somewhat.

Kai (3DCenter.de moderator) did a nice, short, bile-spewing article on the texturing and performance issues with Unreal2 (here (http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=691015#post691015), German--but images explain a lot, I guess). The worst bit:

"Atlantis" in U2, no actors: 25fps
"Atlantis" in UT2003: 72fps . . .

ta,
-Sascha.rb

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I fully agree with Entropy. The textures especially have put me off the game, somewhat.

Kai (3DCenter.de moderator) did a nice, short, bile-spewing article on the texturing and performance issues with Unreal2 (here (http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=691015#post691015), German--but images explain a lot, I guess). The worst bit:

"Atlantis" in U2, no actors: 25fps
"Atlantis" in UT2003: 72fps . . .

ta,
-Sascha.rb

I'm really disappoinnted with U2. :(

[T2k]

I fully agree with Entropy. The textures especially have put me off the game, somewhat.

Kai (3DCenter.de moderator) did a nice, short, bile-spewing article on the texturing and performance issues with Unreal2 (here (http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=691015#post691015), German--but images explain a lot, I guess). The worst bit:

"Atlantis" in U2, no actors: 25fps
"Atlantis" in UT2003: 72fps . . .

ta,
-Sascha.rb

That's normal: UT2k3 is a multigame, of course sports much less polys/effect...

[Nupraptor]

True, but I do have to agree that the texture work is pretty lackluster. Most notably, the side of the CAR looks pretty ugly, even with 16x AF.

[nggalai]

Hi T2K,
That's normal: UT2k3 is a multigame, of course sports much less polys/effect...You might have missed the point. The "Atlantis" comparison uses the exact same level geometry and textures on both UT2003 and U2. Actors have been removed, so AI and skeletal animation shouldn't be an issue. In the particular scene used for the fps comparison, you also won't see many particle effects, so you can discount them as well (even though, apart from different gamma values, the scene looks identical).

Something seems to have gone wrong with the portal system in U2. Or, Legend's addition to the Unreal Engine made it necessary to adapt the renderer, too, in such a way it loses out a lot against UT2003's renderer.

ta,
-Sascha.rb

[BoddoZerg]

Yeah, it sounds like there is something horribly wrong going on. The two screenshots look identical (The Unreal II seems to have slightly better texture quality on the floor, but it could just be different lighting) but UT2k3 has 3x the framerate.

[Babel-17]

There are some early indications that the Unreal 2 .ini file in the system folder is screwy/sub optimal. Sound seems fixable too with updated OpenAL drivers just like UT2003.

For example, why is CacheSizeMegs set to only 8 by default?

[John Reynolds]

There are some early indications that the Unreal 2 .ini file in the system folder is screwy/sub optimal. Sound seems fixable too with updated OpenAL drivers just like UT2003.

For example, why is CacheSizeMegs set to only 8 by default?

I kept experiencing constant CTDs until I disabled the usedefaultdriver line for sound in the .ini.

[Babel-17]

Thank you JR! I'll file that info away, you know I usually try to jump in at other forums when people ask for help with Unreal engined games. I currently am using onboard sound from my Asus P4PE mobo (SoundMAX). It's working well albeit I'm only using software mode.

I assume you have a Creative card, are you using the Audigy 2 drivers? They worked really well with my Audigy 1 in UT2003 on my last rig, especially with headphones and after I used the new Audigy 2 utility that optomizes the experience of using them (the name escapes me). But I only used the card for gaming and mileage may vary. The install was tricky.

[mr]

Thank you too JohnReynolds. :)

I had regular CTD using EAX on an nforce2 that are now gone.