UT99.org | Unreal Tournament Community

Excuse my absence, I was recovering from a vicious arrow to the knee. I didn't think I was going to make it.

In all seriousness here's the scoop: I did shut everything down and I've begun posting my work and mods to HoF clan so they can keep them posted up. I'm a full time L4D2 server admin/Source coder now but I do still occasionally help people out. I've been passing along some UT coding help to Schlong via teamspeak and he sent me the newly posted source code to Mapvote that was put up at UA. I wasn't really interested in entering UT public coding again but then I saw these ridiculous array numbers assigned to mod updates with no testing at all. Mapvote is just too important a mod to screw around with so I carefully made some expansions and updates to the mod and I'm releasing it here.

Changes: the main screen has been made much larger

normal screen


and the updated one


There is roughly twice the size now for map names and even the maps with long clan tags in front can now be read. I also set the ListFilters from 48 to 256 and the ExcludeFilters from 16 to 64. On the visual side the background was made a pleasing sandy color to ease eye strain, the white is just too bright late at night. Also I got a chance to fix the spelling errors that have irritated me for years

The downside: Enhanced real estate comes at a price. The minimum resolution you can use is 1024X768. If you play at 800X600 then the ends will be chopped off (but the mod still functions). Does anyone still play at that low a res?

Changing over from LA13:
1) At the top of your mapvote.ini file change this
[MapVoteLA13.BDBMapVote]
to this
[MapVoteLAv2.BDBMapVote]
You can manually copy in the extra ListFilter lines as needed from the blank ini I posted, all the way to 255 (as needed) and the extra ExcludeFilter lines all the way to 63 (as needed). Everything else will function as it always has.

Now change the ServerPackage line. You might need to update your startup batch or ActorCLP, just see which way you load mapvote.
If you want you can change the headers on the mapvote history ini files too if you don't want to lose that information. It's not necessary, this new version will continue to write to them in a new section if you don't, no problem.
Please let me know if you see issues with this. I server tested it up to 255 listed maps and it's slow but it didn't lag me out. With a fully loaded 1024 map list a manual map sortation can make people drop out but you shouldn't sort maps on a running server anyway.

Thanks for letting me put this here.

THX ,Great upgrade to it Gopo,In my MH we can now see the full map-name.

Your welcome. I'm trying to fix Val Av too and that will pretty much close the book on anything I ever wanted to accomplish in UT.

Be aware that 800X600 players will get some chopping of the screen because it does require a 1024 minimum width. I've gotten a couple of mails about it but I just can't imagine someone being forced into that res nowadays. I could work out resolution checks for <1024 and render the old mapvote but it would take some major time and effort. Someone else is welcome to take up the challenge if they want, this mapvote UWindow code is very hard to work in.

JackGriffin wrote:I've gotten a couple of mails about it but I just can't imagine someone being forced into that res nowadays.

I had to play with 640x480 until a few weeks ago (my laptop was really that bad, but only relative the onboard gcard, and it was a dual core, yet...).

Although yes, most people should be able to play this game at 1024x768, I mean, any old machine with even an old nvidia, ati or intel onboard should be able to have that res.

Until I installed the replacement hi-res ST3C textures, I found no real benefit in going above 800x600, unless I'm playing an SP game, or have the anti-aliasing off for some reason.
I commonly run over 30 mutators at any given time and use permanent decals which slows things somewhat
(also why I never play on line. No one would ever host that level of madness).

Now I have huge texture-packs and play mostly huge maps, I find 800x600 the best compromise with the higher requirements needed !
If my 64 bit MoBos were as rock steady as my old Asus board, I'd be using 1024x768.

Try 1920x1080 on CTF face, you'll be able to easily snipe using a shock rifle, I'm not kidding.

I do find the antialiasing kinda worthless, I'd rather increase the resolution and texture detail instead (my UT folder is 5GB, being 2GB of S3TC textures)

I have designers monitor I found in the street. I could max the resolution on that to well over 2000 px wide (never tried), but it won't make the visible screen any bigger, or give me any more polygons, but yes if you are a sniper, or get to stand still much, the smoothness if you are not using anti-aliasing is a definite plus as you can shoot the hind-legs of a fly.

I'm more a "blood-in-the-face" player who likes to get mucky, so I prefer responsiveness over visuals, unless I'm playing single player story maps.
My love affair with the Zombies!!! mod mixed with Monsterspawn also means I constantly have a lot more going on than the mapper intended, so again it's an issue of compromise.

Good job! The small collums always irritated me and you can see more maps instantly, instead of scrolling, scrolling to find that 1 map.

Only thing I found is that in the Info-tab it still says "Map Vote LA13" ("about" button part)
and it would be nice if you could drag the window if you click and hold the upper part (the darkblue)

I'm still playing with a 800x600 resolution and I believe many others do as well. I would be upset if I join a server and can't vote, because the vote-menu doesn't work properly on a 800x600 screen.

I haven't tested the new Mapvote, but isn't it possible to scale the window relatively to the screen?

Yeah if you want to undertake the project then by all means I'll send you the source code. I'm not going to even attempt it because Cratos hard-coded this thing to work at 800X600. The spacing is done manually and in order to add on-the-fly scaling you'd need to do some very serious coding of it. Just to make the rather minor adjustments I did took me a full day of adjust/compile/test/adjust/compile/test. It's incredibly tedious work and now I know why subsequent private mapvotes I've seen didn't use his UWindows code.

Sorry if you get stuck not being able to see all the voting HUD. You can always ask the server admin to keep the old version. I had to expand it to make room for the map names so it forced me to use 1024 in order to create space, I was certainly not trying to exclude anyone from enjoying things.

Seriously you play at 800? That's like looking down a toilet-paper tube and playing. How do you stand that?

You should play UT at the native resolution for your monitor (check it via the desktop: right click, dig around in the properties). Of course the players will be smaller, you are seeing much more of the playing field. Trust me, in 2 days you'll not notice the change and you'll be glad you adapted.

In the old days I played in 640x480 and 800x600 ...but I got slowdowns and couldn't figure out what the source of the problems is..... I swiched some day the resolution to 1024x768 out of curiosity ...I couldn't belief it the slowdowns did disappear. Why ...I don't know.
Only thing I could think about is, that the lower resolution was not the native resolution of the graphic card and caused more trouble than it does benefit ...

but I don't know if this is even possible (my knowledge of this stuff is very low)

medor wrote: i have a lcd 4/3 and if i go 1024*768 the players are smaller ( more distant ).

You do know that no matter the resolution, within the same screen, the players have the same size, right? I mean, the only thing that actually changes in size with resolution are HUD elements (like crosshairs), while anything rendered in 3d in the screen has always the same size, the resolution only influences the jaggy edges of those models and the texture rendering.

I played with 640x480 in the past, I changed to 1366x768 recently, my skill actually got better, because I don't have so many HUD elements cluttering my screen, as for players, they have the same size, and the crosshair is actually smaller therefore more accurate.

What you're experience is actually a visual illusion: since the HUD is bigger, and things more jaggier, the players look bigger, but they aren't bigger nor smaller if we're make a printscreen with both resolutions.