Ultra High Mode in UT 2003

[up]

What about this?

Ultra High detail mode:
If you look in the diagram options of Unreal Tournament 2003, then the detail degree "high" will only encounter as top. The "Ultra High detail" mode, like it the developers ensure, would be on current cards a call for Choppy-orgies and are not implemented therefore in the game - not yet. According to Epic´s Mark Rein the mode will come with a patch delivered subsequently as soon as Nvidia's new NV30 appears.

Source:
Pc Games (German)
Issue 11/02
http://www.pcgames.de/?menu=0401&show=index

 

[Bigus Dickus]

That seems a bit odd, seeing as how the 9700 handles the game quite well. It has a bit of room still for higher detail, considering that it has plenty of headroom for AF and AA on the fastest systems already.

 

[Mephisto]

That seems a bit odd, seeing as how the 9700 handles the game quite well. It has a bit of room still for higher detail, considering that it has plenty of headroom for AF and AA on the fastest systems already.

UT2003 is an NVIDIA sponsored game, so it is obvious that NVIDIA wants some goodies for their hardware in it for the $$$ the put in the game.

 

[demalion]

Well, I'm more than a little upset that the nVidia ad is in the same prominent position in the purchased game as the demo...but...

Before we credit this as being factual, note that there are a few layers of translation here that could be getting in the way...
An owner of the retail game could clear up if there is a difference between UltraHigh and the level just below.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Well, according to the translation, Ultra high doesn't exist in the shipping game, and will only appear in a patch. So this probably won't be cleared up until nVidia launches the NV30.

I would be really disappointed in Epic if, once the patch is available, it requires NV30 to be the rendering device to enable "ultra-high" mode.

It's one thing to let an IHV "advertise" on your game...annoying, but they presumably paid for it, and that's business.

It's another thing to withold a higher level of detail for everyone until such time that said paying IHV releases their product that can handle it, even if a competing and already shipping product one can already do it. That's REALLY annoying, but still borderline acceptable.

It's a completely different thing to simply make available the higher detail for one product....assuming it can also run on another product. That's just "wrong."

I'm un-eagerly waiting for all the "nVidiots" to give their opinions on this...you know...the same folks who bashed Epic for supporting Glide and special 3dfx demos for Unreal Tournament....

 

[Philibob]

May mean NV30 is the only one that can run ultra high quality
Unless it does require NV30 for it I think R9700 should be able to run it too.
Never seen this site, can anyone say it's a reliable source?

 

[Babel-17]

Hehe, I'm a naturally suspicious cuss. Forgive me if the following shows too much paranoia and/or ignorance.

Didn't nVidia "inherit" 3dfx technology and patents? IIRC 3dfx was able to do in hardware, ummm, 8 to 1 compression. Now, if nVidia, like S3 before them, has subsidized a special set of compressed textures using this level of compression, (I'm assuming the NV30 has the ability and that it would be unique) they'd be almost guaranteed a better looking gaming experience for their customers and probably better framerates as a bonus.

Sorry if I'm way off base in my basic assumption, my recollection is that the Voodoo5 had this better compression and that GF2 cards didn't. Still and all, a more advanced solely held ability to use higher compression ratios would dovetail nicely with a subsidized texture pack. Lol, in this case throwing money at a problem (customer perception) would almost certainly have a good effect imo. Lord knows the games developers could use the cash.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Saem]

I believe 3DFx "open sourced" it so that other companies would rapidly adopt it. If they were smart, they would have released it much sooner that way adoption might have taken place or atleast a game or two would use it.

 

[Simon F]

Hehe, I'm a naturally suspicious cuss. Forgive me if the following shows too much paranoia and/or ignorance.

Didn't nVidia "inherit" 3dfx technology and patents? IIRC 3dfx was able to do in hardware, ummm, 8 to 1 compression.

I'm guessing that you are thinking of 3Dfx's FXT1 system which was a 4bits/pixel compressed texture scheme. Although it was released as "open source", the problem, AFAICS, is that at least one of its four compression modes infringed S3's texture patent.

 

[Reverend]

I just tested this with a Radeon 9700 Pro and it appears to be true. There are differring levels of texture detail available within the in-game menu, from "Lowest" to "Highest". Testing every one of them shows the expected difference in texture detail except between "Higher" and "Highest" - there is no difference in texture detail between "Higher" and "Highest" that I can discern using a 9700 Pro.

To the uninformed (or to those that don't have the retail game), in UT2003.ini :

"Higher" means TextureDetailTerrain=High
"Highest" means TextureDetailTerrain=UltraHigh

No difference in texture detail between the two on a Radeon 9700 Pro.

I will try and find out exactly what this "Texture Detail" or "TextureDetailTerrain" means (ultra high tex rez that may not be available on a 9700Pro or some funky filtering or whatever). Until that time, perhaps Daniel Vogel can explain in this thread.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I hope part of that 3Gig of drive space I've had to use for this game isn't for textures that I can't even use yet...

 

[Reverend]

I hope part of that 3Gig of drive space I've had to use for this game isn't for textures that I can't even use yet...

Personally, if this is true (i.e. ultra high tex rez that can't be used on the most advanced vid card available now, i.e. the 9700 Pro), I wouldn't be concerned... I'd probably be happy since it means Epic is an example of being forward looking. Or, based on the article that started this thread, that they're convinced a NV30 won't be just all paper.



Oh well, back to NOLF2 (have I said this is a great game?) !!

 

[LeStoffer]

Well, that newsbite suggest that NV30 has a feature that other cards (like the R 9700) doesn't, but I haven't seen anything in the leaked DX9 Beta 2 specs or the OpenGl_NV30 papers that points to this NV30-only feature.

Some new fancy form of on-the-fly texture compression between the chip and card memory is really the only thing that pop into my head, but I kind of doubt it.

 

[maskrider]

Personally, if this is true (i.e. ultra high tex rez that can't be used on the most advanced vid card available now, i.e. the 9700 Pro), I wouldn't be concerned... I'd probably be happy since it means Epic is an example of being forward looking. Or, based on the article that started this thread, that they're convinced a NV30 won't be just all paper.

I would say they should just bundle it in every NV30 boards when it is released if it is NV30 specific than including the option in the retail games but making it unavailable to current hardware.

Anyway, I don't play FPS much (only NOLF and MOHAA up til now).
(supplement: but I watch other FPS demos, ha ha )

Oh well, back to NOLF2 (have I said this is a great game?) !!

Read all the good things and played the demo, but the late arrival of the shippment of it has kept me waiting, damn !

 

[Dave Baumann]

Personally, if this is true (i.e. ultra high tex rez that can't be used on the most advanced vid card available now, i.e. the 9700 Pro), I wouldn't be concerned...

No, I am concerned about games requiring 3 Gig disk space in general. However, my concern would stretch to annoyance if a large chunk of that space is for something that I can get no benefit out of.

 

[John Reynolds]

I'm down to 3GB free after installing NOLF2 (which, yes, is a great game). Time to sell the wife on another 18GB 15k rpm Cheetah drive. 8)

 

[Randell]

aye I couldnt even install build 927 until I dumped out a load of games. One reason I'm holding off buying the game - the demo is fun enough for now - until I get a new HDD.

I sold the wife on a new HDD on teh basis I needed the space for home video editing (Which is true)

 

[Doomtrooper]

If I wasn't a huge UT fan I would not even purchase this game due to the obvious IHV bias, the game has issues though..with Modern cards this game should not be choking on... I get 50-80 fps with a Athlon Xp 1900 and Radeon 8500 overlocked to 300 mhz.
A 9700 will not be in my plans until xmas due to financial reasons, so we'll see how a 9700 Refresh shakes out.

Its funny they need Nv30 to do Ultra High Detail when Epic has already stated many times its a Dx7 engine..pathetic. A obvious sign of Dx7 coding is the huge amount of CPU utilized to run this game, and I will be honest...although the fancy lighting is nice, the maps, especially CTF maps are poor and don't look much better than three year old Quake 3.
And whats up with the lame packaging from Atari, they don't even give you a Jewel case but some lame paper sleeve

 

[ben6]

Does anyone have official comment on this from Mark Rein or Epic? It would be sad if 3GB of install doesn't include all the details in the models...

 

[breez]

Its funny they need Nv30 to do Ultra High Detail when Epic has already stated many times its a Dx7 engine..pathetic.

Wait a sec, a DX7 engine? Are you sure? It utilizes Pixel Shader AFAIK.