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**tohoward** · 28 July 1999, 02:46

Unreal does have a larger polygon count than quake2, so the transformation and lighting requirements (a CPU function) will be much higher for Unreal. It shouldn't suprise you that boosting your G200 speed won't help much there, since the card is probably waiting on the CPU to finish the T&L calculations.

I've never been impressed with Unreal; as near as I can tell, the 225 version they release a while ago should have been their original. I've only seen decent performance from that game under glide and my impression of it's rendering engine is that it sucks (not suprising when you support multiple API's). I'm hoping the 3drealms programmers are up to the task of making the engine work well for the next Duke title.

Todd

**SlurpDog** · 28 July 1999, 02:53

You're not impressed with Unreal? It's been out for over a year and still looks better than any other game on the market. Even q3test doesn't look as good (IMO). If Unreal doesn't impress you, what does?

**tohoward** · 28 July 1999, 03:47

Correct, I've never been impressed with Unreal.

The scenery sure looks good, I'll give it that. But it doesn't perform well on anything but the absolute top of the line system (or with glide and a voodoo2). The suck wind rendering engine ruins it for me...I've tried to get into it three times, but the animation doesn't seem very well done; characters seem to do the "moon walk" slide alot, the motion doesn't look very natural, and the gameplay bites (due to the slow rendering).

Heck, all I can really say for the game is it has a very nice environment (images, sounds, etc.) mainly due to large polygon count and large numbers of textures. It's pretty to look at, but it wasn't fun for me to play. I'll give it another shot after I get my TNT2U and Celery 466 and see if that helps.

You can follow their advice with getting the rendering speed up with software rendering and turning off alot of the glitz, but at that point it doesn't even look all that great. Most of the people I know feel the same way (although we're all running 300-400 Mhz systems with G200, Savage3d, or TNT).

Todd

**JonVS31** · 28 July 1999, 07:15

Yeah, I guess I really shouldn't be that surprised with my results. Although I am disappointed and I definitely agree with you their 225 version should have been their FIRST release. No matter how much I try and tweak unreal's frame rate it still is disappointingly low

MM · 28 July 1999, 11:44

Hmm... it was correctly pointed out that Unreal works great only in Glide mode - in other words on Voodoo 2/3... Voodoo 2 is very cheap nowdays and it can work in the same system with G400/Max so if you are into games based on Unreal engine get one 12MB Voodoo card and stop tweaking your system.

At least that's what I'm going to do - Voodoo2 for Glide and G400Max for the rest.

**SlurpDog** · 28 July 1999, 16:02

Well, it's still a bit smoother in Glide, but that's comparing V2-SLI to a G400. Even so, I have both, and I haven't used the SLI since my G400 arrived, even in Unreal. And, while it may seem insignificant, Unreal has one of the best software renderers available. It's hardware support (aside from Glide) has been pretty poor, but it's come a long way and is actually pretty good now. As for gameplay, I like Unreal *much* better than Quake2 or Half-life/TFC, both of which feel really stiff and sticky, while Unreal seems fluid and natural. The only game, IMO, that might have better gameplay than Unreal is Quake1. I guess it's just a matter of opinion, though.

------------------
Celeron 333@416, 192MB, SBLive!, 32MB G400, 12MB Voodoo2, and growing every day.

**armybob** · 28 July 1999, 18:48

Actually Unreal engine displays less polygons then quake2. Its the rendering engine that slows the game down. It sorta SUCKS. The reason it looks good is the texture detail (digital extreme obviously has awesome artists). I friend of mine was contracted for WheelofTime to make levels(legend) and they told him to use about 450 polys max per view in order to keep it playable. Where as quake2 was supposed to be 650 or so.

Now I cannot see how someone can say q3test doesn't look as good. Look at unreal you have one purple wall, one green wall, one red wall etc..no real detail just lots of basic lights with good textures. Q3test has like kick ass world lighting with shadows and it can draw WAY more polygons then the Unreal engine can.

Unreal engine is actually severely limited its sort of pathetic. Another polygon example is quake1 levels were supposed to be 425 per scene.

I think sweeney himself said Unreal was based on rich textures not polygons (prolly because the guy can't code a fast engine worth shit compared to carmack).

I find it funny how in the time sweeney made all these beta unsupported still don't work right patches for Unreal that Carmack made a whole new graphics engine & whole new network engine.

Go epic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! btw 226 patch still isnt out.

-armybob

**SlurpDog** · 29 July 1999, 02:53

Unreal looks better than q3test because Unreal uses more than 4 colors. Besides, the lighting in q3test is too harsh -- it's much softer and more natural in Unreal. The sky looks much better in Unreal. Yes, the shadows are better in q3test, and the geometry is more complex. Of course, Unreal runs faster than q3test, so maybe that high polygon count isn't so good afterall.

Unreal may be limited in it's polygon count, but Unreal with 450 polygons/view looks *much* better than Quake2 with 650 (I can't imagine that anyone will dispute this).

As for the quality of the engine, Unreal is far more impressive than any of the Quake engines. It has a full scripting language, can actually support outdoor environments, and supports reflections. Every development team I've heard of that's switched from a Quake engine to Unreal has been amazed at how much nicer it is to work with. Carmack knows OpenGL really well and is great at optimizing code, but Sweeney is the better programmer.

**armybob** · 29 July 1999, 07:23

oh my god you've got to be kidding. When Unreal came out how many systems were capable of running it? How much bitching did we hear from gamers.

When quake came out a friggin p133 was playable on quake. Yes Unreal looks better then Quake2 DUH. Quake2 is using 8bit source art & 64x64 textures. Where Unreal was 16bit source art and up to 256x256 textures. Gee what would look better?

Now I don't know WTF you want when you say q3 is running just a few colors..have you ran around the levels and looked at the detail? Go to the railgun room on q3test1 & look at the floor, it looks awesome. Then go down below where the plasma is and you have that kick ass white shadow and the wall texture has all those cool bones n shit allover it.

I don't know how much more detail you want. You seem to me that you think *RICH* color = better. Unreals color are like super rich. The purple that is used all over the whole game is like the most deepest purple. I don't call 1 red, 1 blue & 1 purple walls that are REALLY red/blue/purple better graphics.

As for you saying sweeney is a better programmer then carmack..gee how long has it taken sweeney to get Unreal patches out? Hmm carmack only wrote a whole new engine with new shit like curved surfaces AND new network code. Hmm hows the netcode in unreal? Servers keep crashing & hes now doing "optimzation" work. WOW Only a year later.

I don't know wtf you know about programming but anyone who does knows carmack is sorta the defining leader in 3d game engines. You obviously don't know how to code or you would understand the complexity & speed carmack can get out of a system.

I remember hearing about Unreal after Doom2. Amazing out it came out after quake2 & its still requiring all these patches, and the funniest thing all these patches that have come out in the last YEAR still don't fix the issues. Yup hes a better programmer.

Seriously dude, go take a programming class and you'll understand things like this a lot more.

Sweeney isnt a "shitty" programmer, so don't take me saying that. He has obviously done some things that not many people can. Even Sweeney said that Carmack was better then him in an interview. Something about how carmack defined the genre & will continue doing so, and that epic wants to make better "games".

on another note: i take it you're friends with 3drealms? they're the only company who has switched from quake engine to Unreal engine, yet you somehow have all this information on how much better the unreal engine is. Well i would assume an engine that came out in 1998 vs 1996 would be BETTER. Just a thought

Related to 3drealms, George B himself said they broke away from the Unreal patches because it was takign to long & they needed to fix the engines themselves in order to get DNF ready in time. Boy another + for epic.

Did you go to e3? I'm assuming not. Trust me you havent seen SHIT from the q3 engine yet. The things that FAKK2 was doing ****in blew my mind. Oh and the other q3 levels make the ones we have in q3test look like shit.

-armybob

Learn the facts before you talk like you know your shit.

**tohoward** · 29 July 1999, 07:45

Geez, I didn't mean to spark so many flames. Unreal is a nice enough game with eye candy textures. That animation may look smoother, but to me it doesn't look nearly as realistic as quake2...characters slide around alot in unreal while you tend to get full body motion in quake2. That and the rendering engine is slow as a dog.

As to quake3, beats me, I haven't played it.

Frankly I don't see how anyone can compare the quality of two coder's work when they haven't seen the CODE either of them wrote. The end results are clear to me: quake2 is better overall (animation, framerate), but let me add that Unreal's SOFTWARE RENDERING (something most games don't have anymore) looks very nice, and produces results that are on par (in terms of framerate) with their non glide hardware acceleration, and look very nice as well.

Todd

**SlurpDog** · 29 July 1999, 10:19

The system I had when Quake came out (486/75, I think) couldn't run it decently. The system I had when Unreal came out (K6-233, no 3D card) could.

Of course q3test uses over 4 colors, but they're all shades of red, brown, and grey. Unreal uses every color available, including blue (ooh) and purple (ahh). This makes for a much more aesthetically pleasing landscape than q3test.

I do know how to program. That why I can make my own judgement instead of just listening to what everyone else on the net says. I haven't worked with the code in either engine, so I can't say for sure, but based on my assessment of the capabilities of the engines, Unreal is a far more impressive project than Carmack has ever attempted. The Quake engines are basically just renderers with networking capabilities. Unreal is practially a whole operating system. Carmack is an amazingly good hacker (he can get the most out of limit resources). Sweeney is a (slightly) better programmer, in that his project is a coherent entity by itself. If you know anything about computer science, you'll understand.

As for all the patches, what do you expect from a product so far ahead of its time? When Unreal was released, the only popular 3D cards were 3dfx-based, so Glide made sense (although there's also PVR SGL support). For people without 3D cards, the software renderer was (and is) much better than Quake2's. The network code was admittedly a problem, but Unreal wasn't designed for network gaming.

Yes, Sweeney takes a lot longer to put out a new engine than Carmack. But his engines are far more complex and full-featured, and have a much longer lifespan (Quake2 is dated a year and a half after its release, while Unreal-engine games will be coming out for quite a while).

Some of the Quake3-engine games look very impressive. Quake3 would too if it had decent artwork. Even so, they don't look *that* much better than Unreal, especially considering that Unreal has been out for over a year.

BTW, you might want to take some of your own advice. But let's not start a pure flame-fest here.

**armybob** · 29 July 1999, 11:53

Ok no offense but 1st off I don't believe you know how to program. Everyone in the industry (and I know people at a lot of companies) know that carmack is in a league of his own. Were just lucky hes doing 3d game engines & not some other shit we would never know about.

If you were a programmer you would understand how amazing it is that he wrote a whole new graphics renderer AND networking code with new features liked curved surfaces in the same amount of time it took sweeney to release broken patches that still don't work properly.

I also know you don't know what your talking about because you said Unreal was never designed for network gaming. That my friend is complete bullshit. If you were following Unreal like anyone else you would know all the false claims epic made about how Unreals netplay ROCKS and how it'll be as good or better then QuakeWorlds. But I guess that doesn't mean anything because you said it doesn't. Once again you don't know what your talking about

I find it amusing that you like to slam the quake2 engine. Have you played heretic2? Its every bit as impressive as Unreal in the graphics department and GASP its using the Quake2 engine! Oh and its not relying on one year late patches either. So I guess once again you don't know what your talking about.

You seem to not understand the difference between RICH colors & subtle colors. Just because Unreal uses richer colors (much like heretic2 does) does NOT mean its a better engine. Displaying 450 polys per scene with a super rich purple texture does not mean the engine is better.

You obviously don't understand the complexity of coding an engine. If you did you would see how it was such a grand different between releasing broken patches & writing a whole new gfx/networking engine. Isn't is amusing how q2test 1.03 months ago was more stable & robust then Unreal has been for the last 1+ years. Neat huh

Another thing is you're so ignorant that you don't even accept the fact that SWEENEY HIMSELF said carmack shapes the industry and no one will overtake him. But damnit you like purple so that means hes better!!!!!!

You don't know what your talking about becuase you're not a programmer. You don't know anyone in the industry, yet you make statements that "all the companies that switched from quake to unreal engine found it far superior" WOW ONE WHOLE COMPANY DID and you don't even know them! Oh and you also forget the fact that 3drealms themselves BROKE OFF FROM EPIC on patches because they were slow to release & didn't even fix all the issues. Yup you're right Sweeney is #1. So the only company that changed from quake2 to Unreal has stopped relying on epic becuase the patches are to slow & not complete and you tried to use that as an exmple of how great Sweeney is. Yup you got it!

Ahh and then their is the networking statement, I guess Epics statements during the development of Unreal on networking means nothing because you say it wasn't designed for it. Again you lose

I think i've proven my point. On a serious basis go buy & go through Heretic2. You will see some amazing things the Quake2 engine can do and gasp its much older then Unreals!

-armybob

**SlurpDog** · 29 July 1999, 13:00

There's a lot more to an engine than just the graphics. Well, at least there's a lot more to Unreal than just the graphics. The Quake engines are only useful for gaming. There are architectural firms using Unreal to do walkthroughs and models. Oh, but Quake is better because there's a bit less lag when you're on a modem.

Of course it takes Carmack less time to develop a new engine than Sweeney -- Quake3 is Carmack's 4th engine (Doom, Quake1, Quake2), while Unreal was Sweeney's first. There's a lot of code Carmack didn't need to write to get q3test out the door, because he could import it from other projects.

Believe me, I can program. And while I can respect the tweaking and hacking abilities of Carmack, Sweeney had a much greater vision with his project than Carmack ever has. Like I said, if you've ever taken a computer science course, you'll understand this. Evidently you haven't.

It isn't *that* hard to write an engine. A reasonably experienced programmer could write a fairly complete engine in a month or two. The difference between this engine and one fo Carmack's is that Carmack's will run *much* faster. The difference between this engine and Sweeney's is that Sweeney's does a whole lot more.

The fact is, Sweeney and Carmack are both excellent programmers. However, Sweeney has taken huge amounts of slack because his engine didn't run as fast as people would like, while Carmack has practically been deified.

There are a few things you don't seem to understand, though. For one, there's a lot more to an engine than polygon count. For two, have you ever seen UnrealEd or read anything about the engine? Evidently not.

I haven't played Heretic II. The best use of the Quake2 engine I've seen is Kingpin, although that's using a very heavily modified Quake2 engine. Anyway, I don't understand why you're defending the Quake2 engine so much, when Carmack himself said that it was basically a hacked up Quake1 engine.

As for the Sweeney interview, what did you expect him to say? Of course he'll say that Carmack is better -- it's called tact. I bet Carmack would say that Sweeney was better in an interview. Nobody is going to come out and claim that they're the best.

Anway, this is a pretty pointless argument since neither one of us has any firsthand knowledge of the code involved. If you want to keep debating anyway (which you probably will since you're obviously pretty stubborn), you could at least have the decency to refrain from personal insults.

**armybob** · 29 July 1999, 13:52

well at least this time you don't make idiotic statements about Unreal was never supposed to be netplay.

Now as for sweeney with his grander view? like what? Wow unrealscript a custom & better version then qc. Amazing

UnrealED is a piece of shit. Any advanced project written in VB will always be a piece of shit.

As for writing an engine in a few months. Yeah right Sweeney himself talked about how he never understood how big of a project it was and thats why they kept missing release dates for Unreal.

If it was easy as you like to believe then people wouldn't be paying 500k dollars for the quake codebase or Unreal codebase would they? They would simply write there own in 2-3months & save 500k. But you're write its very easy.

Whats so funny is you bringing up kingpin. The head coder is a friend of mine I also know people at other companies as well. This is were i'm getting my information regarding the engines.

Do you even know how Unreal engine works? Why don't you tell me its method of "vis" vs the quake engines method? I'd love to hear it. See the cool part is I DO KNOW and I want to see you prove to me how smart you are.

Quake3 uses virtually no code from Quake1/2. Its a 100% new graphics engine & 100% new networking engine.

What I don't understand is you can never prove any of your statements with points.

Fact: Unreal1 is STILL being patched for SERIOUS issues (broken rendering & networking) - yet you say sweeney is a better programmer

Fact: In the same time as Unreal has had buggy patches Carmack wrote new gfx engine with new unseen features like curved surfaces AND 100% new networking code.

Now lets just look at the networking code ok. WHY hasn't your beloved Sweeney fixed it in a year? You originally stated it was never intended for netplay which I proved is completely wrong. Why has carmack written all brand new netcode and sweeney can't?

I don't see why you're so hard up on sweeney. PROVE to me that hes a better programmer with FACTS instead of "he had a grander vision". uhm yeah ok dude

The facts are there dude and you seem to not want to accept them.

I look forward to your analysis on how the Unreal engine renders its scenes vs Quake/2 does.

Could you also enlighten me on the lighting techniques as well? I want to know what exactly envelop lighting is vs precalculated lightmap involving radiosity & sources.

I look forward to your explanation on these subjects.

-armybob

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Unreal CPU limited Quake II not?

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