The actual UT2003 demo

that's odd - the game really does look just fine to me, 40.41's and all. I read that too. I can't spot anything like that.

I was noticing that there were problems with older versions of EAX, too, but it seems to work just fine on my C-Media 6-channel.

 

If you're running a creative soundblaster live under windows XP make sure you are using Software Sound under the sound options tab. Setting it to hardware causes SIGNIFICANT peformance degradation. Creative Labs Live card is apparently a decelerator.

As to the actual demo, I like it quite a bit. Great visuals and very good performance. Its the first game in a long long time though to make me play in 800x600 to get smooth and steady framerates though. The 9700 is looking awfully tempting but I swore to myself no big overhauls until Doom.

 

Hmm I've actually played on some full servers on asbestos now and it does seem as fast as q3 but Q3 had a smoothness that this doesn't have. Maybe its because UT2k3 is only running at 30-50fps or less.

 

I liked both Q3 & UT very much and possibly like UT2003 demo even more. There are some weapon balance & gameplay speed issues, but I think they'll be ironed out for the final release.

Graphically, I can't really complain here. A step above UT & Q3 in my opinion, (awesome particle effects) but the demo is lacking some detail textures which again I think will probably be ironed out in the final.

 

Demo textures only go up to normal size instead of the highest that will be used in the game to keep the download size down.

 

Whats with the giant Nvidia logo at start up?
Says something about "the way it's meant to be played".

I am sure ATI are happy about that.

I was expecting more eye candy. Graphically, it was a let-down for me.
Still having a blast playing it though.

 

It tells everyone who dounloads the game that for the *best* gameplay experience in Ut 2003 you had better own an Nvidia card.

Which is of course a DERN LIE. Unless there Is an Nvidia card out there right now, or when the game launches in a coupple weeks capable of this. These are at 1024x768x32 with maxx detail settings Trueform enabled in the system.ini and 4x FSAA + 4x Aniso

 

From the readme:

I checked the game under WinME with 30.82 detonators and under WinXP with 40.41 detonators on a gf4ti4600 and found no problems or whatsoever...

 

Hi Guys,

I just downloaded the demo for linux and am using nvidia's newest linux drivers. I'm on a 1700+ athlon with a ti200. (though only sdram atm, as my board supports both and I haven't upgraded to ddr yet)

Here are some rough scores for on the outdoor map for those intrested:

1024x768 No AA No AF:

39fps Current
35fps Average

1024x768 2x AA No AF:

27fps Current
25fps Average

1024x768 Quincunx AA No AF:

22fps Current
23fps Average

1024x768 4x AA No AF:

17fps current
15fps average

1024x768 4x Guassian AA No AF:
18fps current
17fps average


And just for fun:

1024x768 4x AA "high" AF:
12fps current
10fps average

Nite_Hawk

 

Got to spend a little more time with the demo, but here's my opinion so far:

I dunno about the graphics being "distracting", IMHO its really the first game besides Morrowind that has this kind of visual detail, especially when it comes to level geometry. I for my part am willing to bet that once we get used to the more detailed environments and the game itself, it will get a lot less distracting and at some point it'll be the same way it is with yesterday's and today's games. We've been playing in blocky low-poly worlds for so long (Half-Life anyone?), its almost shocking to suddenly get a much smoother and more detailed game world and at decent framerates to boot! Models and animations look good, but Doomtrooper is right about the models sliding over the surface, it doesn't look very convincing, they gotta tweak that...

About gameplay, I always liked UT over Q3. Although both could be fun in multiplayer, UT was the one with far more creative gameplay in my book and could even be fun in single play for a while. Deathmatch-purists may complain about lack of response in multiplay or weapon balancing, but I for my part am not one of those, I'm in it for fun, not competition and UT had lots of fun. How this translates to Ut2003? I dunno yet, right now it plays a bit worse then UT did IMHO, but it definitely has its strong points and might even turn out better, who knows, its only a demo and lacks a lot of content! Levels, gamemodes and MODs make or break these games, shame assault is gone. The Unreal engine is already a prooven development platform for high-quality MODs though, I can't wait to see what the first good MODs can make out of this toolset!

Oh Hellbinder, good bit about the Ad being "a DERN LIE", I really laughed hard at that one. But please do keep those shots coming, they look great...

 

Might as well throw in my .02 here too.

I'm loving it so far! So much better than the original UT, which is didn't like all that much so it wouldn't be hard to improve on that one for me. Like the physics, like the animations and models. The level design seems very well done from what I've seen and I'm definitely looking to the full game.

I also think that we will be seeing some really awesome mods for this thing as well. A game like this is worth buying for the community support, especially if something like a DOD is pushed out using it

Just a quick note on performance too:

I ran the benchmark.exe program on the following system and received the following numbers:

P4 2.0a GHz
512MB PC2700 DDR
Asus P4S533 Mobo (645DX)
Audigy X-Gamer
9700 Pro

1024x768 - 126.44 flyby
1024x768 - 48.98 botmatch
1280x960 - 95.03 flyby
1280x960 - 48.96 botmatch
1600x1200 - 66.29 flyby
1600x1200 - 44.63 botmatch

Oh and those number come with all game options maxed out. Physics set to high and all that fun stuff.

As for video driver settings in control panel:

4x FSAA
16x Anisotropic Filtering
Highest quality textures and highest quality mip-map selected

9700 OWNS!!

 

Anyone having trouble using the "speech key", or is this feature not supported in the demo?

 

Heh. I'm wondering if this isn't a bit of an 'own goal' for nvidia. A demo out, with nvidia plastered all over it, that screams for a high end video card upgrade and whats the best on the market?

 

I wonder about the botmatch scores.

Almost everyone with a highend (AtlhonXP 2000+ or P4 2000) CPU and memory configuration seems to be getting about the same results.. about 45 - 55 fps regardless of GF4 TI 4xxx or Radeon 9700 Pro. Does this mean that the CPU is holding the game back.

Again? Like in Unreal Tournament?

Interesting.

 

You can change the pace of the game you know.... just slide down the slider from 100% to may be 80% if you want the UT physic. The weapons are still nerfed though.

 

Some layman´s preliminar subjectives impressions:
- the gameplay is good
- the level of detail is good too
- graphically it is a step better than Q3 or UT
- no stutering for me

My system P3-S 1.13GHz/256MB/GF3Ti200 playing smooth at 800x600x32 high detail.

 

Sorry, I accidentaly broke that 10 hours before release by changing some high level code code related to handling lack of cubemap support which in turn triggered a Voodoo3 driver bug. D'oh! It currently is fixed and will be in a future update. Sorry about that.

BTW, I heard someone got the game up and running on a Voodoo Banshee.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

 

Detail texures are in the demo though without anisotropic filtering you won't notice them much. The full game has higher res textures (there is a reason we require 3 GByte of HD space) so it will be far less blurry.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

 

Heh, that probably should've been removed. It doesn't do anything on PC.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

 

man i cant get this game to run on my Matrox G400 max Everytime i start up the a dark blue screen comes up and my comp crashes