Minimum needed to play?

[Hanging Johnny]

Hello again,
First I'll give you my basic specs: oldish laptop 1.7ghz, integrated intel graphics, 1gb ram.
All I want is to play UT lag free; i could care less if worse graphics havent been seen since the 90's. I did the guide "Tweak Your UT Graphics To The Maximum!" and the game is now virtually unplayable. ie. normal speed for a second, then 3-5 seconds of super slow speed, then back to normal for a second. I did everything the guide said and messed around with some settings such as res, graphics (high to low) and 32 bit/16 bit. Nothing made a difference. Also set my preferences to windows classic instead of aero. In my other topic someone suggested using D3D instead of OpenGL, but tbh that made it even worse. I have CD1 and Cd2 so i'm going to uninstall everything UT related and start from scratch. What is the bare minimum I need?
Thanks

[papercoffee]

Do you use a dual/quad/whatever core cpu?

[Hanging Johnny]

Do you use a dual/quad/whatever core cpu?

Dual core

[Dr.Flay]

Your problem is easy to diagnose.
You have an intel graphics chip

Many of the things in the tweaking tutorial give you higher quality settings. You need to tone everything down.

Check the thread on tweaking windows for some help with windows.

If you are using a laptop, plug in an old CRT monitor. (this makes a huge difference! It should not, but it does)
Try 640x480. (yuck)
Make sure antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are off or minimal.
Curved surfaces, shiny surfaces etc. =off
in fact anything that says "high-quality" switch off.

Until you ditch intel you are running with an arrow in the knee!

[Hanging Johnny]

Thanks Doc, I'll go fill my Rx tomorrow and begin treatment. I'll let you know how it worked at our next appointment.

Seriously tho, thank you! All I want to do is play ut!

[Raynor]

Unfortunately you cannot expect any reasonable performance with Intel integrated graphics. You should definitely turn off AA, AF and set most variables to False. You can find detailed description for each setting from Tweak Guide thread. Regarding game speed issues, did you follow basic guidelines (disable SpeedStep from BIOS and limit UT's framerate)?

[Hanging Johnny]

I'd think i could at least play somewhat smoothly with low settings.. i mean i played this game on god knows how awful of a computer back in the day and it worked perfectly then. Everything else you said is in a foreign language to me , is their a link to a topic that has a list of what to turn off/low to best increase performance? I would search the forums but honestly i don't know where to start.

[Raynor]

The reason you need more capable PC today is because of the newer video renderers (OpenGL and Direct3D9). They provide alot better compatibility with modern systems and have tons to customizable settings compared to original Direct3D renderer.
Try this attached INI, it has significantly tuned down visuals.

[Dr.Flay]

It is also very likely that as it is a laptop, the amount of shared memory available for graphics is low (often 8 MB).
You may be able to increase this value.

[Hanging Johnny]

Well doc how would I increase this value? You forget that I'm a noob

[JackGriffin]

This bears being said too: UT demands a lot from your processor when it is running. Now this scales up or down depending on what your computer has to offer but it does poll the processor when it installs and sees what's available. It will then consider that as available resources the next time it starts (hence the cool-n-quiet problem). It's not that you have an old computer. This should run UT fine but I think it's an environmental issue more than anything. The laptop ought to be cleaned up thoroughly to see if this stops the problem:
> removal of unused programs
> strip out unnecessary msconfig startup entries
> Ccleaner cleanout
> Malwarebytes full deepscan
> Defraggler deep defrag

then once you clean out the stuff you didn't know was running you will have much more processor to use. I wouldn't even install an antivirus, just surf safely and use the occasional online scan from Panda (or others). I think you have a mountain of things all calling on the processor and it's affecting your UT play.

[Dr.Flay]

Jack, I can see his confused look from here! I think you lost him 3 words in.
Back to basics time. No tech jargon.

Johnny,
First, right-click on the desktop and choose "Graphics Properties". The intel config panel should open. Here you can see how much RAM is being used for graphics.
Unfortunately you will usually have to set it up in the BIOS (when you first switch on your PC).
Commonly the options are "small" "medium" "large". I doubt you will be able to specify an amount.

There is a link in the Tweaking Windows thread for a utility called "PC Decrapifier" If you have a laptop full of applications pre-loaded by the manufacturer, it will help you clean your system.

[Hanging Johnny]

I did everything Jack said, and I used the decrapifier
If it works ill attach my graphics properties. (Did not work, see txt below)
It would not let me change the bios on loadup; it would just skip over the spot where it says 1024mb memory, and bios version ?1.3 or 1.7?.
The game is running alot better now thanks to all your guy's help, I can also run xonotic and nexuiz somewhat decently.
Last question, since i have an older laptop and 1gb ram, would it be a good idea to install xp? I could care less about anything other than playing a game as smoothly as possible on the lowest settings.
Thanks again everyone, you are gods[like] to me!

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile Report


Report Date: 04/04/2012
Report Time[hr:mm:ss]: 17:21:47
Driver Version: 7.14.10.1437
Operating System: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium* , Service Pack 2 (6.0.6002)
Default Language: English
DirectX* Version: 10.0
Physical Memory: 1013 MB
Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB
Maximum Graphics Memory: 251 MB
Graphics Memory in Use: 66 MB
Processor: x86 family 6 Model 14 Stepping 12
Processor Speed: 1729 MHZ
Vendor ID: 8086
Device ID: 27A2
Device Revision: 03


* Accelerator Information *

Accelerator in Use: Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family
Video BIOS: 1377
Current Graphics Mode: 1280 by 800 High Color (60 Hz)



* Devices Connected to the Graphics Accelerator *


Active Notebook Displays: 1


* Notebook *

Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Display Type: Digital
Gamma Value: 2.20
DDC2 Protocol: Supported
Maximum Image Size: Horizontal: Not Available
Vertical: Not Available
Monitor Supported Modes:
1280 by 800 (60 Hz)
Display Power Management Support:
Standby Mode: Not Supported
Suspend Mode: Not Supported
Active Off Mode: Not Supported
Raw EDID:
00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 4c a3 33 36 00 00 00 00
00 0f 01 03 80 21 15 78 0a 87 f5 94 57 4f 8c 27
27 50 54 00 00 00 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01
01 01 01 01 01 01 ee 1a 00 80 50 20 10 30 10 30
13 00 4b cf 10 00 00 19 00 00 00 0f 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 23 87 02 64 02 00 00 00 fe 00 53
41 4d 53 55 4e 47 0a 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 fe
00 4c 54 4e 31 35 34 58 33 2d 4c 30 36 0a 00 70

* Other names and brands are the property of their respective owners.

[Dr.Flay]

Ouch! Vista
Yes it will run much better on XP.
You will have more resources left for actually running the PC.
To run Vista well, you would need at least 2 or 3 GB RAM.
Windows 7 requires less than Vista, so is also a better option, but XP is best for your spec.
You can add windows 7 theme, and patch it to use DirectX 10 (I have )

[UT99.org]

Can try glide 16 bit
Put 2 .dll and .vxd and to .ovl in C:UnrealTournamentSystem Go to select it as render
http://unrealtournament.99.free.fr/Affi ... 50Beta.zip

You can launch UT at high priority http://unrealtournament.99.free.fr/utfi ... iority.bat