Unreal 2 - Worst game of 2003?

[Gurm]

No, I honestly wouldn't bother playing it at all. Even when it runs smoothly it's an unsatisfying experience.

- Gurm

[Snake-Eyes]

Thanks. I was planning to buy it ASAP, but since I saw a review on another site, then saw yours, I've changed my plans.

(The other review liked the graphics, but was in 100% agreement with your assessment of gameplay)

[Tomasz]

While Unreal 2 does not seem to be "game of the year material," it's not as bad as has been portrayed here.

The EAX in the game sounds pretty cool but unfortunately it seems to be broken and causes slowdowns and crashing problems (good job Creative and Epic). Other than that the game is quite stable.

The engine is fast enough to let me play @ high detail levels @ 1600x1200x32 with vsync off so I can't complain. This is on an Athlon XP 2000+ and Radeon 8500 128MB 275/275. The game is pretty much cpu bound. I get 25-50 fps most of the time (drops to about 18 in some fights and complex areas. These drops are the same as occur at 800x600 (the only difference at this res is that the max fps is higher: 70-80 vs 50-60).

At normal difficulty, the game is pretty easy so far. I've played through the first level and only died once when I blew myself up with the grenade launcher.

I can't comment much on the gameplay since I have not gotten far in the game. However, I have not experienced any long load times... hell I actually clocked them and most were under 15 seconds... the longest I measured was 37 seconds.

[Gurm]

Originally posted by Tomasz
While Unreal 2 does not seem to be "game of the year material," it's not as bad as has been portrayed here.

No, it isn't. I was being NICE.

The EAX in the game sounds pretty cool but unfortunately it seems to be broken and causes slowdowns and crashing problems (good job Creative and Epic). Other than that the game is quite stable.

Yeah, I haven't had any actual CRASHES per se. Just buggy menus and some graphical glitches.

The engine is fast enough to let me play @ high detail levels @ 1600x1200x32 with vsync off so I can't complain. This is on an Athlon XP 2000+ and Radeon 8500 128MB 275/275. The game is pretty much cpu bound. I get 25-50 fps most of the time (drops to about 18 in some fights and complex areas. These drops are the same as occur at 800x600 (the only difference at this res is that the max fps is higher: 70-80 vs 50-60).

Ok, this is where I lost it. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Please, sir. Tell me your mystical config. I have an 1800+ and a 64MB Radeon 8500 275/275. I get unplayable frame rates at 1024x768 with default settings. I get mostly playable rates (albeit with kicks, stutters, and tearing) at 800x600 with detail settings all at medium. Please clue me in as to how your machine is set up. Mine is pretty damn fast.

At normal difficulty, the game is pretty easy so far. I've played through the first level and only died once when I blew myself up with the grenade launcher.

I imagine it WOULD seem pretty easy if your frame rates were high enough to keep up with those aliens. Actually I was exaggerating. I made it through without dying, so long as I didn't try to use the utterly useless shock lance.

I can't comment much on the gameplay since I have not gotten far in the game. However, I have not experienced any long load times... hell I actually clocked them and most were under 15 seconds... the longest I measured was 37 seconds.

REALLY? I clocked mine. The SHORTEST load time was 30 seconds (between cut scenes). The longest was well over a minute. Saving takes LITERALLY 20-30 seconds.

- Gurm

[Wombat]

Gurm, it may actually be that U2 is using all of that texture space on the video card?

My summary of UT2003: Nice engine. Hopefully somebody will actually use it for a <i>decent</I> game.

[Kooldino]

Gurm, could your speed issues be chalked up to the "randomness" of the UT engine? Let me explain...

When I built the first iteration of my main box a few years back, the first game I got was UT. At the time my sys was about as hot as they came...Athlon 950 (1Ghz was king), Asus A7v, 128MB of RAM, G2mx. At good detail levels @ 8x6 or so, I recall getting around 45fps. Not bad.

However, the game would slow down at random...it would dip really low from time to time...esp w/ more than 3 on screen models, and once every half hour or so, i'd get a 3-5 second freeze.

This was just with a standard config. Every other game ran fine...Q3 ran like a champ. But no matter how i updated UT, whether i ran the OpenGL and the S3TC, it still ran poorly. Over time I completely changed out my hardware. Never seemed to matter. Could never get it to run well...I even had guys who were getting 200fps on similar machines tweak mine...no dice.

[thop]

Originally posted by Wombat
Gurm, it may actually be that U2 is using all of that texture space on the video card?

Hmm i dont think so. Like i already said i dropped the details to absolutely lowest quality (plus set everything on speed in the ati driver tabs) and speed didn't change much.

I surely would like to know how Tomasz is doing it. Before his post i'd have said that NOBODY on the planet can play the game smoothly at 1600x1200.

[agallag]

I was talking to a guy at work today, and he said it plays quite smoothly on his system. He also said he loves the game. He has an XP 1700+, and a GF4 4600 128MB.

[3dfx]

As far as I know Unreal games appear to be optimised for Nvidia so it is no suprise that it runs well on a Geforce. Though I think this is a similiar dilemha as UT 2003 as that also had quite shit performance when it first came out but after a few patches it was smooth. I feel this is likely to be the same for UT 2 though I have been wrong in the past

[Helevitia]

I disagree with some of what Gurm is saying. For instance, the game runs absolutely fantastic on my system with every single god damned detail turned on with 4xFSAA and 16xAF(set to performance). It does slow down with more than 3 creatures in a room but other than that it never really drops below 35fps for me in the most intense scenes.
EAX is definitely broken. You have to disable it to keep the game from crashing. Other than that, I have no graphical or speed issues.
I agree that the creatures are way too fast. And yes, you do move amazingly slow compared to everyone else. Personally, I liek the way the game has started off. I am almost past the first section where you rescue one of the guys on the planet.

Let me tell you though, the graphics are freaking amazing! Definitely the best graphics I have seen to date. The outdoor environments are phenominal.

Specs:
Assus A7V266-E w/ Athlon 2000+
1Gig of RAM
Radeon 9700 Pro - Cat3.0a
DX 8.1

[Novdid]

I got to try out this game before I comment on it. Like Helevitia I have a 9700Pro and we'll see how it runs.

At this point after reading this thread and various reviews, I'm not interested in how the game plays, but rather how it looks

[Gurm]

Could we be looking at a RAM-bound game?

There are four differences between Dave's system and mine.

1. 8500 vs. 9700
2. 512MB vs. 1GB
3. 1800+ vs. 2000+
4. SiS745 vs. VIA 266

Now, is it possible that the game is SO RAM bound that his extra memory and 10% faster memory subsystem make all the difference?

It just might be. Because LOTS of people are bearing out what I'm saying. Maybe there's a threshhold - you hit a certain point and then the game runs perfectly in any resolution but below that it just sucks donkey dong.

- Gurm

[drslump]

Does anyone try to tweak the ini files?
To me it looks like U2 is one more example of a early released game. I guess there are too many FPS coming up this spring to delay even more U2 release.

UT2k3 "runs" on an Athlon @ 500mhz with a 32mb TNT2M64, so the engine itself scales pretty well to very low end hardware.
I have to agree with 3dfx in that with a couple of patches the game will reach optimal performance in most hardware configurations.
After all it's based on a pretty new engine which still have room for improved performance.

@GRUM : thanks for the review, some printed game magazines around here should read your post and re-think about the shit they put on their reviews.

[thop]

The system i tested on (1Ghz/8500) had 1GB, SDRAM though.

[Gurm]

thop,

Yeah, it might be a memory-throughput thing.

Others,

I tend to also agree that it probably just needs tweaking. It will never be a great game, due to the gameplay issues mentioned, plus the other stuff I ranted about - poor cutscene quality, long load times, etc.

But I _do_ think they can fix the graphics. See my FlameThrower post in this forum and/or TSB (if Greebe sees fit to move it due to its only partly ontopic nature).

- Gurm