Unreal looks bad even for an old game?

I didn't know that. I was a Q2 freak back then & never really played Unreal1. I must have gave away 5 Unreal CD's. Now I am pretty curious about those S3TC textures with the original.

 

How to post a link that doesn't stuff the phpbb formatting for everyone

 

that's the funny thing, Unreal had such a good SW renderer that, in the old days when i was trying to get it working under acceleration, it was somewhat hard to tell!

i've played Unreal more recently on a KyroII and geForce2 and it looked sweet on both using newer D3D and OGL drivers
i also did the UT S3TC texture trick for Unreal, but i'd still say it still looked remarkably good without it

i would still play Unreal today if the AI was more akin to that in Half-Life
high-res textures on weapons and monsters would be nice, as i think the world textures are fine at the res they are

btw, it's probably mentioned on the OldUnreal site, but the Unreal Gold D3D driver fixes the palm frond / wing feathers transparency issue - saves doing the Bind key flush trick

that just leaves the "holes" in a few maps as the only real flaw that's left in the game

 

Unreal was good !



and I loved that intro music.

 

Agreed and better looking than Quake 2 by a long shot. Quake with it's dark colors did little for me graphically.

 

All of which used pre-rendered CGI backdrops.

Unreal, for it's time, was THE best looking FPS game ever released. Gamespot, IGN and Avault all gave it 10/10 for graphics:

 

Unreal is one of the best looking games ever. Not to mention the fantastic music and huge open levels. It was a real blast back then when it came out.

Actually, I'm still waiting for a game which will top Unreal's atmosphere, perhaps with exception of DeusEx.

 

Agreed, I really liked the atmosphere of the first Unreal. Unfortunately they managed to fuck Unreal II completely up. Gone was the great vastness and adventure feeling of the original Unreal.

 

I seem to remember an issue with the D3D renderer that caused the game to run without any MIP mapping. Dunno what version of the game this was in, but I definitely saw it happen. This is probably what you saw.

 

Bear in mind that Unreal II wasn't made by the same developers.

 

i really dont think you understood what he was saying. you were making a statement that unreal looked bad, when instead you should have been asking a question.

 

ok, enough!
so, the wording of the post title was bad, leading to it meaning the opposite to what the poster intended
the problem was the use of the word "for" to mean "compared to"
the title ended up with a kind of double meaning because one wasn't strictly correct:

Unreal looks bad[!] even compared to an old game?

i put the exclamation in because that's how i read it
i assumed the poster was surprised by this revelation*, that's why i guessed he felt the need to post in the forum in the first place
*because popular opinion (if you have been around gaming for a while) is that Unreal looked good

most of us figured this out without the need to comment

 

May I be the first to say that in terms of the sheer scope of its level design, Unreal has yet to be surpassed. It takes my breath away when I stand at the bottom of the Sunspire at the looking up at the peak I can barely see, knowing that the entire structure is a single level and that the outer geometry corresponds to the inner... no portals, no tricks, it all fits inside. Amazing.

Likewise, running across the castle from the opening... just wow.

It still makes for a sweet co-op game, if only there were a few more enemies around.

 

I think Gothic has surpassed it. . . Not a shooter, but the map sizes are insane. There's obviously alot of streaming going on, but it's fast and doesn't slow gameplay at all. Even teleporting from one end of the map to the other involves only a brief pause.

*wants Gothic 3*

 

I don't think Unreal will ever look bad. Especially if you compare it to its peers of the time. Remember, Unreal was supposed to run on Pentium 166MHz CPUs. In software mode. Was pretty unrealistic, but even with a Voodoo1 you weren't going to be going anywhere fast. I played it on a Pentium II 266 with a Orchid Righteous 3D (Voodoo1) at the time. Seemed to run great, but I was sitting pretty having just upgraded from a 486!!!

BTW, there's a unreleased private beta of Unreal on eMule that's from about '95. You should realize that's a few years before it was actually released.....

 

I posted a screenshot above.

Also, I didn't have to "convert" the S3TC textures, since it's still UT playing Unreal maps.

I still find the AI to be very good, and better than many new games. Skaarj will dodge your fire like there's no tomorrow.

 

The AI, even in UT2004, still has issues when dealing with multiple enemies. It tends to lock its focus onto a single target and ignore incoming fire from a new foe. Of course, in Unreal this isn't much of a problem since it's a single-player game.

 

This thread made me install the game again. I had forgotten how good the music is!