.UNR file size upper limit?

[Dennis]

Hi good people.

I am new to mapping but am on a learning curve and have started a promising project. Now that I am deep into the map and import a lot of textures and sounds into the map I see my .UNR file has reached 48 MB. Have any of you got XP in how big such file can get to not cause problems for others to use? I think no problem downloading huge files by redirect but how big a file can the engine itself handle? Anyone tested/reached a limit?

[Buggie]

AFAIK no special limits exactly by map size. I see map in 50-60 MB. But such maps usually able compress or UZ tool, or latest v469c. Older version will stuck forever on compression.
And players can left if see downloading 100 MB map.

[Feralidragon]

Given that UT is a 32-bit binary, the effective limit of a map total size is 2GB, maybe even up to 4GB if UE1 is large address space aware, given that maps are loaded completely into memory as far as I know.
Which is unlike more modern engines, which are able to use "streaming" techniques to only keep loaded into memory what is actually being used, plus they are often 64-bit, so they don't have any practical memory limitations.

Although, the game itself also needs memory to load its own packages and the engine itself, setting the map size to something lower than that, let's say 1.5GB (or 3.5GB at best, as mentioned above), so the engine gets some good wiggle room for anything extra to be loaded, like mods and other stuff (NW3 alone, for example, is over 200MB once installed, so large mods need to be taken into account as well).

Having that said, if you release a 1GB map, almost nobody will download it, unless it's of a quality never seen before.
Servers won't really host it either, as even if a player waited long enough, the download would likely just keep getting interrupted as the match would finish before the player could finish downloading it.

But the engine does also have some hardcoded limits for the things you add to the map itself: BSP node count (must be below 65.5k), zone count (63 is the maximum), path nodes (at some point it will just crash), etc.
So you will probably bump on those far before you get into trouble over the map total size.

[Buggie]

Dependps what do. If embed in map music, meshes and insane quality textures you can reach big size, without hit limits.

About limits: from 2001 pathnodes start flood in log if something not able found.
128k points just kill UT by render.

And about size - UT alloc memory in chunks. If no free chunk in system enough for your map - allocation fail and game crashed.

Maybe in v469c it is better work (maybe via mmap for example), but in some v436 it can crash.

In general make huge map in one file or few is bad idea. I know one egypt map, which is 200 MB, but not single file. It is total overkill.

[Delacroix]

Also, myleveling stuff such as textures hinders the HD retexturing efforts as only one driver in existence supports loose dds replacements. Myleveling sounds... well, if they're speech for instance, that would hinder any fandub add-ons for other languages. Myleveling code? Holy moly, if code turns out to be buggy on future versions of the UT unofficial patch 469, you'll need to update the whole map. Sharing stuff across multiple maps in a single project will bloat the file size of it overall if stuff is myleveled because duplication is just about the only way.

And so on, and so forth. Myleveling should be very carefully used.

[EvilGrins]

There's a mapper who pops up when this forum has mapping contests, forget his name at the moment, but he packs his maps with excessive amounts of detail.

His average map has 3 digits in the MB for any given .unr file.

So, yours isn't that big really.

[OjitroC]

There's a mapper who pops up when this forum has mapping contests, forget his name at the moment, but he packs his maps with excessive amounts of detail.

His average map has 3 digits in the MB for any given .unr file.

So, yours isn't that big really.

Perhaps you're thinking of KingJosh?

Of the 4500+ DM maps that I have in my 'played' DM map folder, 5 unique maps (11 overall but muliple versions of the same map) are over 48 MB in size - so maps of that size are uncommon to say the least.

[Dr.Flay]

Is there a reason you want to put everything in the UNR, rather than have them as separate asset files with a smaller map file ?

If you or someone else wish to update the map or change even one asset or actor, players need to download everything all over again, rather than have the server only send out the files that have changed.

Both ways have their advantages/disadvantages but that is based on what you are trying to achieve.

[EvilGrins]

Perhaps you're thinking of KingJosh?

That's him!

[sektor2111]

Me one I'm not bother to download and install 1 GB of map even for playing OFF-LINE and UE1 is not designed for "size upper limit" and it never was. One of my misery has 70 MB - still can be compressed UZ. Said "map" is like that due to meshes and textures embedded and it's the mostly "low-polys" like, under 64 zones. I won't lie when I'll tell you that I won't do ever in forever such maps. It's a waste of time.
Who is playing that On-Line is the big question ? Does it worth working a long time and developing X bugs for no players ? And no Engine won't deal with anything over 2GB unless we talk about finding files using natives that are guided by OS itself.

Game State ?
Perhaps I won't run in map 10 minutes for killing something. Perhaps I won't run with flag 12 minutes for a capture, and so on. It's a story ? Okay, you can have EPISODES, Series, etc. this is how this engine was supposed to work.

Off-Topic tech note:
#1 The tablet which I have on 32 bits is not having more than 2 GB - however, it's faster than the most of devs on 64 bits - but yes, it has access at more than 2 GB storage.
#2 I have some memory which I wanted to use in my 32 bits rig computer. After adding more than 2GB machine did not even start. I swapped those memories and they worked but still in a limit of 2GB doesn't matter combinations - all was working only up to 2GB. Also in system I can see and work with X GB drives.

[Dennis]

Thank you for your replies I have plenty of free room on my map still then

@Dr.Flay I want to keep everything in same file to ease management. The map will not be distributed and will only go on our own server for fun. If someone decide to cache clean and use or edit it they must devide it if that is what they want to do when they map. most if not all custom stuff is original and has not been used in other packs so no duplicates