Unreal 2 performance

[Zao]

Does anyone here have any performance tips for the UT2k3/U2 engine?

Those games run real crappy on my computer. We are talking about 10-20 fps here.

I've got a P4 2.0GHz w/ 512MB and WinXP Pro.
Matrox Parhelia 128MB and 200GB HD.

[KeiFront]

At which resolution do you get 10-20 FPS?

[Wombat]

Yeah, that's pretty bad. I was running 1024x768 and 1280x960 and getting 30-60fps on the demo.

Also, maybe you should not run zero-day warez? I know of no place to get U2 before next week.

[Zao]

Strange thing is that it doesn't barely matter what res or details I run it at. I can get at most 2-3 FPS more when going from 16x12 w/ full detail to 8x6 at lowest.

FPS bounces around 10-20 outdoors, 15-25 indoors.

And Wombat, I'm talking about UT2k3, sorry if my post misled you. I haven't bought U2 yet, that seems like a sweet game.

I'm worried that since UT2k3 has low framerates then U2 will stutter as much.

[K6-III]

What mobo are you running???

Is aniso or FAA enabled???

[Zao]

It's an Intel 845. Not sure what submodel, it's a Compaq, probably as modified as they could make it.

FAA doesn't matter much, just a few fps down.
Aniso is off.

I'm leaning towards that the game is either CPU or RAM limited.
How much RAM do you guys think the game uses?

[Zao]

Update: I've got a memory leaking program running on my comp, it has allocated over 200MB by now.

My comp is at 675MB RAM used right now... I do only have 512.

Games do not like being run from the swap file.

[Beezer]

With your setup I would imagine the game would run very well indeed. I have a lesser system and get approx 50 fps. My system is AMD 1700 (~1.5G), 512MB ram, and a lowly GF3 T200 card.
Try setting your Audio to 'Software 3D' as some systems have trouble running the hardware and EAX settings.
My game settings are:
1024X768 / 32 bit color
Texture detail = high
World detail = high
Character detail = high
Physics detail = normal
All check boxes selected except Detail Textures and Trilinear Filtering.

I would think with a Parhelia you could run my settings with double the fps easily.

[Zao]

Killed the offending program, filed a bug report to the coder of it.

UT has much higher FPS now and does not slow to a crawl in fights.
I haven't recorded any mean framerate yet but looking at the game's counter it bounces between 25-40.
Outdoors is of course slower.

I have a SBLive with the kX drivers who do not support EAX and fancy 3d sound stuff in hardware so that might me a contributing factor.

[Wombat]

You want to turn OFF EAX anyway. Last time I checked, hardware-assisted audio ran slower in UT2003 than the software audio.

[Zao]

UseEAX=False
Use3DSound=False

Any more hints?

[Beezer]

Are you running the game in D3D? If not, you probably should be.

[Nowhere]

btw, does ut 2003 and ut2 supports a3d 2.0?

[K6-III]

No A3D 2.0.

Is that the 845D or the original 845???

[Zao]

I have not the slightest idea.
It's so unlike all the i845 on Intel's site I can't identify it.
It does even have a Compaq-ish PCI extender card.