UT doesn't seem to be caching correctly.

[Helevitia]

I formatted my HD recently and put UT back on, but it crunches the hard drive constantly(ie; slide show). It's like it's not caching properly. Before I continue, just remember that it worked fine before I re-formatted.

I've made a permanent swap file(2.5 times my RAM), I changed nothing in BIOS, I had to reinstall my AGP drivers(v1.60e), and my Busmaster drivers(v3.40), I've made sure that my DMA box is checked, I changed my computer role to network server, DirectX7.0a(which worked fine before), latest BIOS(1007a), Latest Matrox Drivers(5.52, which is what I had before). I did notice that my G400 is sharing IRQ 11 w/ 2 other devices, but UT is the only game I have problems with. I play Half-Life no problem. That's all I can think of for now. Hmmm...I just thought of one other thing, I remember someone mentioning the latest patch of UT as being problemetic, maybe I'll downgrade. Here are my system specs:

nothing overclocked

Asus P5A w/ AMD K6-2 500
192MB PC100
G400 Vanilla
SBLive(not sharing IRQ w/ G400)
13.7GB Quantum Fireball UDMA/66 running @ 33

Let me know if you need to know anything else. Oh yeah, I am using UT D3D NOT OpenGL.

[HedsSpaz]

Two things, the latest AGP drivers for the ALi chipset are version 1.65, and the latest IDE drivers are version 3.55. If you can't get them off of ALi's site then I have them mirrored on my web site. http://w3.one.net/~dlee/ian/mp3
They are called agp165e.wav and v355.wav cause my ISP won't let me make zip and exe files available for download from my web site. Just do a right click "save as" and after they've downloaded rename them with a .exe extension.

Good luck
Ian

[Helevitia]

Thanks dude. I'll give em a go and see what happens. I might have been running like 1.63 or something, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Dave

[Helevitia]

I installed the new divers but no change in UT. This is driving me insane as I know this works on my computer. I guess I'm gonna have to keep trying. The funny thing is, if I go around the whole level before the game starts, the harddrive crunches away until I've seen every bit of the map and it appears to be cached at that point, but the only problem with that is the bots are forever moving so when they come on screen the game comes to a halt and I usually die a quick painless death because I can't fight back.
On related news, AGP2X comes up with no registry hacks, tweaks, etc...

What version of UT is everyone running?

Dave

[HedsSpaz]

Well, I'm using UT v413, but I've also got a G200, which definately makes a difference. It's on of the few cards so far as I have read that actually gets a perfomance boost from 413.
Anyway, have you increased the cache size for UT? Hit ~, and type "preferences" and hit enter. If I remember correctly(I'm not at home right now)it's under engine or game settings or something like that. It's one of the options towards the top of the list. One of the options somewhere should be cachesize. the default value is 4(mb). The recomended settings are 4,8,16,32, or half of your RAM.I have mine set to half RAM and everything runs relatively smoothly, no horrendous load times or anything.

Ian

[Maggi]

HI Dave,

I run UT 4.13 and found out that if you use 'precaching' it will eat all of your available RAM, then starts swapping and then let's you enter the game ...

I suggest to increase the game engine cache in adv. props. to 64 MB and disable precaching.

Cheers,
Maggi

[Helevitia]

Thanks guys for the new info. I'll check it out when I get hom later tonight. I'll let you know how it goes.

Dave

[DRED]

I was have a problem similar to yours and decided to let windows manage my swap file. This took care of my problems.

[Helevitia]

Dred,

Thanks but I already tried that.

Dave

[Maggi]

Better now, Dave ?

[Alec]

Helevitia, you can´t use the d3d dll that comes in 4.13, cause it´s problematic. Gotta use the 405b dll.
Try it.

------------------
Remember folks:
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers"
Pablo Picasso

[DarkSyd]

Any chance one of you could email that 405b dll?

Thxs
James

[Maggi]

Hi Darksyd,

don't you have the 405 patch lying around anymore ?

You could extract it with winzip for example and copy that dll manually by yourself.

I don't have it here at work ...

Cheers,
Maggi

[Alec]

Same situation and suggestion here.

P.S. U can find that dll in a Unreal Tournament site, but I can´t remember now. Someone?

[jackzod]

To darksyd

it's on his way, check your mail.

Enjoy