TUTORIAL: Unreal Tournament Audio & Visuals Tweaking Guide

[Gustavo6046]

What guide?
CD2 has broke because of I accidentally stepped it.

[sn260591]

What guide?
CD2 has broke because of I accidentally stepped it.

http://www.unrealtexture.com/Unreal/Web ... emeEnd.htm
http://www.uttexture.com/UT/Website/Dow ... emeEnd.htm

[Gustavo6046]

Thank you!

[papercoffee]

What guide?

Read the title of this thread ...you are posting already in it.

[Phorce]

Great guide ! It could include as a link "Everything you need to know about using UT99 on new hardware".

I appreciate the comments about possibly buggy OpenAL drivers, but is that still up to date ? I downloaded from "ALAudio for UnrealTournament - development and links" because I knew surround sound with my X-Fi CMSS 3D (headphones surround sound, HRTF) was not working properly. Then with the new OpenAL driver installed ... WOW! What a difference. Full surround sound, all the UT sound effects sound a lot sharper and EAX effects are better. I actually installed "Creative Labs, EAX patched Galaxy driver" first but I'm not sure if that step is strictly necessary. It may add EAX profiles that the OpenAL driver can use. So, I think the driver should at least be mentioned as it makes a MASSIVE difference to the sound.

I'm also in the process of installing S3TC textures. I don't assume to fully understand the process yet. The guide seems to concentrate on CD2, but should we not be installing from http://www.uttexture.com? I think those are the textures with fixed alpha masks, and anyway people getting UT on Steam (most these days?) won't have CD2. Plus installation is very confusing. The UTTexture guide has broken links (names are wrong) to files which are here .

EDIT: There also seems to be some confusion out there about S3TC textures which I noticed in the UT Steam Group. A few say "Valve did not include the S3TC textures because it would mean that you could not play online", but as far as I understand it this is NOT accurate. Only the client ever sees the updated textures. Online play and servers don't check the texture files, although it can cause the "skating player glitch". All this needs to be stated very clearly. It would be shame to put off people fully appreciating a game which is such an important part of gaming history.

[papercoffee]

There also seems to be some confusion out there about S3TC textures which I noticed in the UT Steam Group. A few say "Valve did not include the S3TC textures because it would mean that you could not play online", but as far as I understand it this is NOT accurate. Only the client ever sees the updated textures. Online play and servers don't check the texture files, although it can cause the "skating player glitch". All this needs to be stated very clearly. It would be shame to put off people fully appreciating a game which is such an important part of gaming history.

The S3TC textures are not for servers and mapper shouldn't map with 'em ...if you want to map for UT use a different install with the default low-end textures.
If you don't care and map with the S3TC textures will this cause the skating player glitch. If you don't care and don't want to map ever in your life ...use S3TC and be happy with pretty graphics.

[Phorce]

What about the rest of my post ?

But, yes, you know about the textures, but the next generation, or whatever they are called these days, has been bought up with Punkbuster and think adding anything to the installation will mean they get kicked off servers.

[papercoffee]

What about the rest of my post ?

It's fine ...why you ask?
Your first link is a thread started by our Dr.Flay.
And the other links are also Flay's field of expertise.

But, yes, you know about the textures, but the next generation, or whatever they are called these days, has been bought up with Punkbuster and think adding anything to the installation will mean they get kicked off servers.

Steam uses VAC not Punkbbuster. But yes ...that's for me a reason not to use the steam UT version.

[Dr.Flay]

*cough*
You called ?

OK.
AUDIO
The Creative Labs patch, is a patched version of the Galaxy renderer, so to use the profiles for the original maps you have to swap back to using Galaxy.
This only has any effect in the maps that have "EAL" profiles (so no custom maps).

I discussed the options with Smirftsch a while ago and sent him the unpacked files, but nobody has any idea how to read or make these files, so we cannot link the zone effects to the new system
If someone can decrypt them or find out how they were made, we can do something about it.

VIDEO
The S3TC textures are all compatible for online play.
Valve probably decided it will be a problem because most UT99 servers on Steam will be someone hosting from home with their playing install, not using a dedicated server install.

Ignore the textures on CD 2 as they have a few borked textures.
If you have installed them you either need a patch to fix them, or just overwrite with fixed textures instead.

The textures at UTTextures come in 3 sizes, aimed at different amounts of Video RAM.
The packs vary in completeness, and the highest resolution pack needs you to have installed the medium pack first.
Even the smallest pack is higher quality than the originals, so is good for a basic install that should play on almost anything. Try that first.
http://www.uttexture.com/UT/Website/Dow ... LowEnd.htm
http://www.oldunreal.com/textures.html

Compatibility notes:
Server admin that do not monitor OldUnreal or look for new updates will not have white-listed the new renderers in their anti-cheat system.
If you get kicked, you will have to inform the server admin to visit OldUnreal so that they can allow players to move into the 21st Century.
http://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/ ... atselect=1

Do not map with the EFX zones in the original Beta OpenAL renderer (OMP0.99b-UT436-UT451).
The newest versions (currently v2.2) has separated the audio ambients into "EFX.u" so that maps work for people that do not have it, and it can be installed from a server.
http://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/ ... oard=Sound
The new versions also support MP3 so music files will usually be smaller than OGGs

[Phorce]

What about the rest of my post ?

It's fine ...why you ask?

Thanks, was having a bad day when I posted that, no offence intended

*cough*
You called ?

OK.

Thanks for the info. Still think that should all be spelled out more clearly in the guide. Just my observation, I'll leave it at that

[sepul]

Thanks, great tutorial!

One issue I have is that the game play in quite different on Windows 10 - it is extremely fast paced (turning down the game speed doesn't help) but seems to be slower at other times without any clear reason why. Overall it's much less enjoyable like this.

[papercoffee]

Thanks, great tutorial!

One issue I have is that the game play in quite different on Windows 10 - it is extremely fast paced (turning down the game speed doesn't help) but seems to be slower at other times without any clear reason why. Overall it's much less enjoyable like this.

Sounds like the multi-core bug.
Did you search the forum for solution?

[Renegade]

Thanks, great tutorial!

One issue I have is that the game play in quite different on Windows 10 - it is extremely fast paced (turning down the game speed doesn't help) but seems to be slower at other times without any clear reason why. Overall it's much less enjoyable like this.

I had this issue on my machine. If you're using the new OpenGL renderer (UTGLR), start up a game, then press T and type preferences. Navigate to 'Rendering', then 'OpenGL', then set Frame rate Limit to 60 (or 30, if you prefer). This should fix the issue!

[darksonny]

Is this guide usable for win 10?
The last date was from 2013, Im plannin' to install my old ut99 in my new laptop (that it does have win 10 -I hate it-) I heard several people having issues with drivers and renderers for ut 99

[Dr.Flay]

The issues with Windows 10 are commonly because of people trying to use the original renderers on an OS that does not have full DirectX support going back to DX5.
Windows 10 needs the full DirectX 9 runtime distro to be installed.
It needs for you to NOT put UT in the programs folder.
It needs Admin access and DEP exclusion.
It also needs the CPU to be at 100% speed during install, or the use of a multicore patch.

Other than that the info here still stands, as changing any of the settings will have the same results on any OS.
This tutorial is for the older renderers from 2008, so does not include the newer functions in the OldUnreal versions, and also has functions that are now obsolete.