Unreal on XP with 4890?

[Lurk]

Is it possible?
Need to do something special? (OpenGL patches and the like?)

[FiggyG]

http://www.cwdohnal.com/utglr/ has updated renderes for Direct3D9 and OpenGL. Use the 2nd cd's compressed textures, latest patch and you're golden. These even work flawlessly on Vista/7.

[Lurk]

Thanks a lot for the link, FiggyG.
Should I use the community-made 227 patch?
Do you know anything about the S3TC high-res textures?
What do you mean by '2nd cd's compressed textures'? I have only 1 original Unreal cd.
Also, should I run it OGL or D3D?

Hope you can answer my questions, I'm taking this plunge in the past quite seriously!

EDIT: oops, maybe you're talking about UT, while I meant single player Unreal!

[kn00tcn]

UT99 & unreal1 are dx arent they? that is, designed for dx, ogl is experimental & 'just in case'

i have unrealanthology installed actually (unreal gold, unreal2, ut99, ut2k4), works fine in vista64, cat9.11, 4870x2

i dont know about the fancy patches or texture updates

[Trunks0]

Originally Posted by kn00tcn

UT99 & unreal1 are dx arent they? that is, designed for dx, ogl is experimental & 'just in case'

i have unrealanthology installed actually (unreal gold, unreal2, ut99, ut2k4), works fine in vista64, cat9.11, 4870x2

i dont know about the fancy patches or texture updates

True enough. However, the version linked to is an enhanced OpenGL renderer that was last updated as recently as February of this year.

p.s. Technically Unreal was designed for software rendering at the start. However, Glide became the renderer of choice for Unreal 1 because of the popularity of 3DFX's Voodoo1/2 cards. Neither D3D or OpenGL performed as well on systems of the era.

[felikx]

uh, dx9 renderer?

Try dx10. Can play it in 3d using that one, too.

[GanjaStar]

Originally Posted by felikx

uh, dx9 renderer?

Try dx10. Can play it in 3d using that one, too.

dx 10 for a 1998 game on winxp? what are you talking about

[cmar]

The Gold Version contains all the patches necessary to play on a modern OS. It also contains the "Return to Na Pali" mission.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by Trunks0

True enough. However, the version linked to is an enhanced OpenGL renderer that was last updated as recently as February of this year.

p.s. Technically Unreal was designed for software rendering at the start. However, Glide became the renderer of choice for Unreal 1 because of the popularity of 3DFX's Voodoo1/2 cards. Neither D3D or OpenGL performed as well on systems of the era.

I'm a big fan of the OpenGL renderer. It works great.

[Nunz]

Originally Posted by felikx

uh, dx9 renderer?

Try dx10. Can play it in 3d using that one, too.

Throw some 3D on that bitch.

oh, and DX10 too.

[kn00tcn]

i'm a big fan of HL1 opengl since it has fog (& on my SiS onboard, it didnt slow down as much), also the quakes, except 4

otherwise... doesnt quite feel right, but that could be the devs

[Lurk]

Ok guys, I'm up and running. When it 1st came out this game opened a void into my brain, and now I'm filling it up by playing again.
Such greatness!
Here are the heads-up, 4 any1 intersted:

The S3TC high-res textures are an absolute MUST, making the game actually match the memory I had of it. They can be found on this site http://www.unrealtexture.com/Unreal/...lesHighEnd.htm
and are split into 4 large dloads (~200Mb each). They simply replace .utx files in the game's Texture foldera and make the game 100 times better than with original textures thus maintaining exact look and feel of the original.

As for the renderer, I've tried both OGL and D3D. They all perform great, but OGL gave me a few missing textures on chars and med packs, while D3D was allright except for an annoying 'glowing' frame on the sides of the screen. It might be that I was using user made patch 227 (last official is 226) from this site www.oldunreal.com, which has updated OGL and D3D renderers, but it might just be a problem with the latest cat drivers coupled with my 4890 as well.
I'm going to try re-installing and patching 226 to see what happens.
Good thing about the unofficial 227 patch is it adds FMOD and OpenAL sound support.

Ok, I'm off to kick some Skaarj ass.
This has to be the most intense nostalgic moment of my vg life!

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by Lurk

Ok guys, I'm up and running. When it 1st came out this game opened a void into my brain, and now I'm filling it up by playing again.
Such greatness!
Here are the heads-up, 4 any1 intersted:

The S3TC high-res textures are an absolute MUST, making the game actually match the memory I had of it. They can be found on this site http://www.unrealtexture.com/Unreal/...lesHighEnd.htm
and are split into 4 large dloads (~200Mb each). They simply replace .utx files in the game's Texture foldera and make the game 100 times better than with original textures thus maintaining exact look and feel of the original.

As for the renderer, I've tried both OGL and D3D. They all perform great, but OGL gave me a few missing textures on chars and med packs, while D3D was allright except for an annoying 'glowing' frame on the sides of the screen. It might be that I was using user made patch 227 (last official is 226) from this site www.oldunreal.com, which has updated OGL and D3D renderers, but it might just be a problem with the latest cat drivers coupled with my 4890 as well.
I'm going to try re-installing and patching 226 to see what happens.
Good thing about the unofficial 227 patch is it adds FMOD and OpenAL sound support.

Ok, I'm off to kick some Skaarj ass.
This has to be the most intense nostalgic moment of my vg life!

I never tried that texture pack, thanks for the link. Any screenshots?

[night]

this does bring back memories.

i got Unreal for $10 at a midnight windows 98 release at compusa.
me and a friend stood out there and got to pick from a list of cheap promo stuff.
i also specifically remember it sitting on the shelf for a year because my comp couldn't run it.

[FiggyG]

Sorry for getting back to you so late Yes, you're right, I was thinking about UT99. I used to do lan 4 player co-op on Unreal with some friends ohh 7 years ago. Nice link with the s3tc textures I thought somewhere that you could use the files from the UT 2nd cd with Unreal as well, or maybe I was smoking the good stuff. I haven't seen the artifacts you're describing, but I am using an older versions of what I linked you.

[GanjaStar]

Originally Posted by Lurk

Ok guys, I'm up and running. When it 1st came out this game opened a void into my brain, and now I'm filling it up by playing again.
Such greatness!
Here are the heads-up, 4 any1 intersted:

The S3TC high-res textures are an absolute MUST, making the game actually match the memory I had of it.
Ok, I'm off to kick some Skaarj ass.
This has to be the most intense nostalgic moment of my vg life!

once a year or so i go through the same ritual. the original unreal is still one of my favorite pure FPS games of all time. Why Epic never really made anything like it again is beyond me.

Even now I can hear the song in my head now when you exit the spaceship

[kn00tcn]

Originally Posted by GanjaStar

Why Epic never really made anything like it again is beyond me.

dont like ut3? that & the market changed

[GanjaStar]

Originally Posted by kn00tcn

dont like ut3? that & the market changed

nope, not a fan of the engine, or the game. for me unreal=single player.

and unreal 2 was a total step back. cutscenes, longer load screens, weaker AI, story, etc.

[BababooeyHTJ]

This sucks, it's running like crap with the OpenGl renderer for me. I need to figure out if it's due to 191.07 or Windows 7 since it always ran great on Vista x64.

[GanjaStar]

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

This sucks, it's running like crap with the OpenGl renderer for me. I need to figure out if it's due to 191.07 or Windows 7 since it always ran great on Vista x64.

yes a new version of opengl was released with the recent sets. have you tried the extension limit in cp?

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by GanjaStar

yes a new version of opengl was released with the recent sets. have you tried the extension limit in cp?

Sorry should have tried a couple of things out before I posted that. Nvidia and Microsoft are always to blame anyways.

It turned out to be an audio problem the first time around. Apparently my onboard sound dosent like the openal audio in the patch linked here and the second install I just used the opengl renderer and the texture packs linked here and that dosent work very well either.

I just installed the patch and textures and everything looks really good and runs great.

[Lurk]

Back for some news.
I've tried playing with the official 226 patch, but truth is patch 227 adds loads of interesting .ini options that make it fun fiddling with the game's engine. In addition you get anisotropic and AA in-game adjustment.
Out of all renderers offered by patch 227 I ended up using D3D (out of a choice between D3D8, D3D9 and OGL, although Glide and Metal are left in for game integrity).
I was able to solve the random missing textures on the dispersion pistol and med-packs in OGL by changing one of the .ini settings through advanced options (can't remember which, though!), and right now I'm playing with the regular textures, as somehow the excessive detail in the S3TC textures is distracting me from enjoying the game as it was (yeah, this is an afterthought I had on that).
Also patch 226 was borking alpha textures, so I would get leaves and bird's wings to show with their black transparency poligon included.
Running D3D is so far the method which is giving me no bugs and great performance.
I'm running 1280x1024, 8xAA edge-detect, 16xAniso and Quality AAA.
Nedless to say the game runs like pure bliss w/o even heating up the card.

Why they can't make games like this anymore is beyond me, and all this work of art would need to start shining again would be a litlle remodelling and re-texturing, that's it.
The AI is quite good, the Skaarj being probably the most obnoxious enemies I've confronted in video games; they dodge left and right extremely fast, take cover when your fire is consistent, charge you aggressively when you hesitate, in a fighting frenzy I had lost memory of!
I remember a few levels where they come in flocks, and I know I'm going to piss in my pants when it's time!

BababooeyHTJ, I do confirm that the method of using S3TC textures coming from the 2nd UT cd is a suggestion I have been reading of as well.
Actually I'm going to give those another try after backing-up the original Textures folder, and see if I can get to like them. The problem is they do not replace ALL game textures, so I've noticed areas where the difference between high-res and low-res is too striking and immersion braking.

Maybe I can get around to post a few comparison pics in the next few days.

Well, sorry for writing so much, but I'm totally into this atm!

EDIT: Oh, and yes, the music in this game is pure poetry! The FMod sound engine made available with patch 227 gives extremely good quality, surround sound and the original echo and reverb effects really stand out!

[night]

dammit, yall are gonna make me dig out my cd

[jimjobob]

Originally Posted by kn00tcn

UT99 & unreal1 are dx arent they? that is, designed for dx, ogl is experimental & 'just in case'

i have unrealanthology installed actually (unreal gold, unreal2, ut99, ut2k4), works fine in vista64, cat9.11, 4870x2

i dont know about the fancy patches or texture updates

actually they were glide games and took a huge hit when running dx or ogl.

[GanjaStar]

Originally Posted by Lurk

Why they can't make games like this anymore is beyond me, and all this work of art would need to start shining again would be a litlle remodelling and re-texturing, that's it.
The AI is quite good, the Skaarj being probably the most obnoxious enemies I've confronted in video games; they dodge left and right extremely fast, take cover when your fire is consistent, charge you aggressively when you hesitate, in a fighting frenzy I had lost memory of!

The a.i is only quite good???

name any other game other then mp games with bots that have better A.I.


half life 2 doesnt have anything on the skaarj, the closest think i can think of is the elite's in halo 1 in certain situations.

[Lurk]

Actually I'm impressed at how good the AI is in this game. I just had a nerve-breaking duel with a Skaarj and I happened to hit a few shots in a row using the ASMD gun. The rotten lizard started running away from me in one of the corridors in Dark Arena (where you meet the firs Stone Titan) until he disappeared from my sight. Only as I advanced he sneaked back out of a dark corner and started charging me again. Before he was too close I was able to lock a heat seeking rocket on him. He stood no chance and his reptile flesh went flying all over the place.
What a great game!

[Andy N]

Originally Posted by GanjaStar

and unreal 2 was a total step back. cutscenes, longer load screens, weaker AI, story, etc.

Interestingly, I replayed Unreal 2 recently (a year or two ago) and was very pleasantly surprised by it. I liked the story, weapon upgrades and the length of the game.

Unreal 2 might not have been too good when it came out but compared to today's games I think it's pretty good.

EDIT: BTW, I still have Unreal installed on my HDD, I just copy it over with every PC upgrade since 1997 or so :-) That says something about how awesome the game was for me.

[xNaquada]

Originally Posted by felikx

uh, dx9 renderer?

Try dx10. Can play it in 3d using that one, too.

Uh DX10 renderer?


Try dx11. Can play it in 3d using that one, too


/lolz

[crunchysuperman]

Originally Posted by Andy N

Interestingly, I replayed Unreal 2 recently (a year or two ago) and was very pleasantly surprised by it. I liked the story, weapon upgrades and the length of the game.

Unreal 2 might not have been too good when it came out but compared to today's games I think it's pretty good.

One of the things that made Unreal great was the passive nature of the gameplay. There were no cutscenes, mission briefings, objectives, or dialogue with a c.o. You were just alone on this planet - go figure it out. It was by no means non-linear, but it felt that way without all those objectives being barked at you, or escort missions being shoved down your throat. Unreal2 took only the Skaarj from the first game, but changed them from nimble hunters into lumbering tanks. The levels were much more confined and when they weren't, there were always blocking volumes plugging everything up.

Other than the Skaarj, the game's engine and the fact that it was an FPS, it had absolutely nothing to do with Unreal. I guess it wasn't a bad game on it's own merits, but to call it Unreal2 was a crime.

[Lurk]

Originally Posted by crunchysuperman

Other than the Skaarj, the game's engine and the fact that it was an FPS, it had absolutely nothing to do with Unreal. I guess it wasn't a bad game on it's own merits, but to call it Unreal2 was a crime.

Agreed with that, I remember I uninstalled the demo right away back at the time.

On the other end Unreal is MASSIVE.
The feeling of loneliness (a good point, crunchysuperman), together with the sad story of the enslaved Nali's, the struggle for survival of those humans that shared your fate before encountering death, the catartic ascension to the Sunspire, the crashed ships sitting on top of crests and canyons, the way the story is beautifully told through translator messages, a flash light which wears out too soon before the next dim corner, the BEST ROCKET LAUNCHER EVER CREATED IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, the uncoherent mix of religious beliefs and architecture, the hostile nature combined with the most breathtaking landscapes ever seen, the glorious heights and dark passages, modern technology and stone pillars, laser weapons and clay vases, all of these and much, much more, make the game absolutely unique.
To me Unreal is a work of art, and possibly the most intense and well stored 432Mb's - yes, that's 432 Megabytes - ever to occupy my hd.