UT freezes on first server download

[ShaiHulud]

We're having an issue with a UT install whereby the game freezes up completely for several minutes - no interaction is possible at all - the first time a download is triggered from a server. Once that initial download has completed, any subsequent downloads do not block the user interface.

For reasons that are a little long-winded to go into, I don't have direct access to the machine, and - while I understand that it would be a logical testing step - re-installing, or installing another copy of the game in parallel isn't an option. I'm hoping for a solution that will leave the current install in place.

For the same reason, while I'd like to try out XC_Engine, to see whether it alleviates the problem, that's not going to be possible either at the moment.

So, with these significant limitations in place... The game is running in Software Rendering mode. It's an older PC that doesn't play well with the D3D or OpenGL renderers. I've speculated whether this might be connected to the issue - that the game might be busy decompressing a received file, and blocking the UI while this is in progress - but that wouldn't explain why additional downloads have no such effect.

Has anyone ever encountered anything like this?

[Barbie]

UT freezes [...] the first time a download is triggered

Does it happen on every server or only on specific ones? Is the window with the server list ("Server Browser") shown without delays? Does the DNS resolving work without problems on that operating system?

The game is running in Software Rendering mode

My test installation in a VM runs also in this mode, but I've never noticed such a behaviour (and also not with my develop/gaming installation using OpenGL/DirectX).

Maybe the server's and client's log files can give more information.

[rjmno1]

Depens on the machine .
What are the specs of your computer?
Wich processor do you have?How much memmory?
And the most importend question wich videocard do you have?
Maby you have a tnt or 3dfx videocard if so then you must install othe videocard drivers.
And wich windows version are you running?
Othewise delete your cache files and run ut99 again.
Did you update your videocard drivers?

[ShaiHulud]

Good thought and suggestions, thanks Barbie, I'll pass them on - at the moment I can only reply speculatively: I believe that it occurs on every server, though I haven't explicitly confirmed that.

No information about your other questions just now, I'll try to find out.

Thanks rjmno1 - it's an AMD Sempron 2600+ processor; not sure about RAM, I'll ask. Graphics card is an Nvidia model, but I've lost details about the specification, I'll see if I can find that out too. It's a Windows XP install, I think with no service packs.

[Barbie]

I believe that it occurs on every server

Maybe the networking specialists here can answer the question whether a time out on DNS resolving blocks UT or not.