======================================================================== Unreal Tournament 2004 DEMO Release notes. ======================================================================== Developed by : Epic Games & Digital Extremes Distributed by : Atari ======================================================================== Please note that due to the pre-release nature of the product the demo can't be supported by Atari technical support. ======================================================================== 0 Special information about the UT2004 Demo 0.1 Reporting bugs and suggestions 0.2 Features of the demo compared to the full version 1 System Requirements 1.1 Minimum System Requirements 1.2 Recommended System Requirements 2 Performance 2.1 Resolution 2.2 CPU speed 2.3 Memory 2.4 Considering upgrading? 2.5 Getting better performance 3 Troubleshooting 3.1 Crashes 3.2 Sound issues 3.3 Network play issues 3.4 Control issues 3.5 Direct3D 3.6 TNT2/ Kyro II/ Voodoo 3 issues 3.7 OpenGL 3.8 DirectX 9,0b 3.9 Game is starting up windowed 3.10 Software rendering 4 Dedicated Network Servers 4.1 Explanation 4.2 Launching 4.3 Multiple server per machine 5 Online Stats Tracking - UT2004stats 5.1 Overview 5.2 Turning on *your* Stats Tracking 6 Useful Web Links 7 Copyright Notice ======================================================================== 0 Special Information about the UT2004 Demo ======================================================================== This is the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo version. As of this release, we're a few weeks away from shipping the final game. Therefore, some features aren't finalized, and some gameplay tweaks remain. 0.1 Reporting bugs and suggestions ---------------------------------- We welcome bug reports and gameplay suggestions for the demo. Please send all feedback to: ut2004bugs@epicgames.com The team can't reply to messages individually, be we do take the feedback into consideration. 0.2 Features of the demo compared to the full version ------------------------------------------------------ The full game differs in the following ways compared to this demo: * Textures in the full game are, on average, 2X higher resolution than in the demo. The textures in the demo were reduced because of download size limitations. * The full game includes over 100 maps, compared to the 5 in the demo. * The full game includes over 80 characters, versus 4 in the demo. * The demo only supports "instant action" mode, Internet and LAN play. The full version also contains the new single-player ladder, enabling you to play through the game while managing a team roster. * The demo doesn't include the Unreal editor and content-creation tools which ship with the final game, enabling you to build new levels, modify existing ones, and create game mods. * The demo doesn't include any mutators, but the full version includes over 20 mutators offering new variations on gameplay. ======================================================================== 1 System Requirements ======================================================================== 1.1 Minimum System Requirements ------------------------------- Operating System: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP Processor: Pentium III or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz processor Memory: 128 MByte RAM Hard Disk Space: 300 MByte free Video: 32 MB Windows compatible video card* Sound: Windows compatible sound card. NVIDIA nForce or other motherboards/soundcards containing the Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder required for Dolby Digital audio.* DirectX: DirectX version 9.0b or higher DirectX is not required for using the software renderer Modem: 33.6K baud (for modem/Internet play) Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported. 1.2 Recommended System Requirements ----------------------------------- Operating System: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP Processor: Pentium III or AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz processor Memory: 256 MByte RAM Hard Disk Space: 500 MByte free (300 MByte for game, 200 MByte swap) Video: NVIDIA GeForce 2 or ATI Radeon Hardware T&L card with 64 MB VRAM recommended Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS DirectX: DirectX version 9.0b or higher Modem: Broadband Internet connection Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported. * Indicates device should be compatible with DirectX, version 9.0b or higher. ======================================================================== 2 Performance ======================================================================== 2.1 Resolution -------------- The resolution in which you run the game will have the greatest impact on performance if you are not in the lucky position of running the latest top of the line graphics cards. Running at 640x480 in 16 bit mode or even 512x384 in 16 bit mode should provide decent performance even on older hardware. 2.2 CPU Speed ------------- The game is also very sensitive to CPU speed, memory bandwidth, and cache performance. Thus, it runs far better on leading-edge processors like those of AMD and Intel. See section 1.2 for a guideline on recommended specs. 2.3 Memory ---------- Unreal Tournament 2004's performance is highly dependent on the amount of RAM you have in your machine, and the amount of memory that is available. Machines with less memory will access their hard disk more frequently to load data, which causes sporadic pauses in gameplay. Thus, if you have a 128 MByte (or less) machine, you should make sure that you don't have other unnecessary programs loaded in memory when playing Unreal Tournament 2004. 2.4 Considering upgrading? -------------------------- For people considering upgrading their machines, here are some tips based on our experience running Unreal Tournament 2004 on a variety of machines: 1 The biggest performance gain in Unreal Tournament 2004 comes from having a state of the art graphics chip. 2 The next upgrade that tends to improve Unreal Tournament 2004 performance is upgrading your CPU. 3 Finally, lots of RAM helps. With memory prices continually falling, it's now reasonably affordable to upgrade to 512 MByte of system memory. 2.5 Getting better performance ------------------------------ By default Unreal Tournament 2004 picks hardware specific default values the first time you run the game which should result in decent performance but there is always room left to tweak. Resolution and texture detail levels have the greatest impact on performance, if you have a fast CPU. So you might want to tweak the settings to achieve the visual quality / performance tradeoff you desire. If you have a fast graphics card, but a rather slow CPU you might want to lower the World detail setting in the detail settings menu. Last but not least, if you have both a fast CPU and a fast graphics card you shouldn't have to read this :). ======================================================================== 3 Troubleshooting ======================================================================== 3.1 Crashes ------------ If Unreal Tournament 2004 stops with a "Ran out of virtual memory" message, you need to free up more hard disk space on your primary drive (C:) in order to play. Unreal Tournament 2004's large levels and rich textures take up a lot of virtual memory. We recommend having 500 MByte of free hard disk space for running the demo. 3.2 Sound issues ---------------- If using a 3D sound accelerator such as the Sound Blaster Audigy series sound card, you can go into "Options/Audio" to enable EAX by selecting the "Hardware 3D Sound + EAX" options. You need to upgrade to the latest version of Sound Blaster Audigy drivers in order to get acceptable 3D sound performance. Using Unreal Tournament 2004 in conjunction with earlier versions of the drivers MAY cause severe performance problems (major slowdowns in the order of 30-50% while playing sound) in which case you should change the option back to the default "Software 3D Audio". If your computer is hooked up to a 5.1 speaker system, you should go into "Options" and turn on "Hardware 3D Audio" to take advantage of 360-degree sound panning, which rocks. There also is a safe mode available in case you run into any audio related problems like glitches/ hitches/ static or bad performance if sound is enabled. 3.3 Network play issues ----------------------- The minimum speed connection for acceptable Internet play performance is a 33.3K modem connection to your Internet Service Provider. Known network play issues: * When a new player enters a network game, clients may experience a 1/4-second pause while the mesh, skin, and other data is loaded for that player. This is by design. * Unreal Tournament 2004's Internet play performance is highly dependent on the bandwidth of your connection, the latency (ping time), and the packet loss. The game is designed to be playable up to 300 msec ping times, 5% packet loss, and 33.3K connection speeds. Performance degrades heavily under worse latency, packet loss, and bandwidth connections. 3.4 Control issues ------------------ Some PC keyboards can't recognize certain combinations of 3 or more simultaneously pressed keys. 3.5 Direct3D ----------------- Please ensure that you are running the latest drivers for your graphics card as Unreal Tournament 2004 stresses the hardware and drivers to a greater extent than most available games and we rely on a number of bug fixes hardware vendors incorporated into their latest drivers. To obtain the latest drivers please visit the website of your graphics card manufacturer. 3.6 TNT2 / Kyro II / Voodoo 3 issues ------------------------------------- Due to the lack of certain key functionality like texture compression and cubemap support TNT2, Kyro II, Voodoo 3, G400, ... cards won't be able to run the game at the full visual quality. As uncompressed textures are much larger than the compressed ones we have to drastically scale down both size and color depth of the textures in order to fit them into video memory. This means you will notice banding artifacts - especially in the menus. The lack of cubemap support means that reflections won't look correct though during gameplay you'll most likely be hard pressed to spot the difference. 3.7 OpenGL ----------- The OpenGL renderer is not officially supported on Windows but could be a good choice on certain hardware / driver combinations as it might trigger fewer bugs in drivers. Unless you are experiencing serious visual flaws there is no reason to change to the OpenGL renderer though. Unlike Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004 was designed around D3D and offers the best performance and visual quality with the D3D renderer. Also please keep in mind that the OpenGL renderer has higher system requirements than the D3D renderer. The OpenGL renderer is known to not work correctly with pre-7.76 ATI drivers. 3.8 Obtaining DirectX 9.0b --------------------------- DirectX 9.0b will be included on the retail CD and be downloaded from the below URL if it is not already installed on your system. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx 3.9 Game is starting up windowed --------------------------------- If the game fails to obtain keyboard focus when launching it will start up windowed. In this case you can click on the window and press ALT-ENTER to switch to fullscreen mode. 3.10 Software rendering ------------------------ You can have the game pick sensible default settings for software rendering by launching it with the -software command line argument. This will also pick the software renderer as the render device which is useful if you run into driver issues or don't have a 3D accelerated graphics card. ut2004 -software ======================================================================== 4 Dedicated Network Servers ======================================================================== 4.1 Explanation --------------- For optimal network play performance, you can launch a dedicated copy of the Unreal Tournament 2004 server on a computer. This improves performance compared to using a non-dedicated server but, of course, since it ties up the PC. Anybody may freely run dedicated servers on the Internet; you don't need to get permission or fill out any paperwork. 4.2 Launching ------------- You can launch a dedicated server by going through the regular Unreal Tournament 2004 menu, select "Host Multiplayer Game | Game & Map, setting the appropriate options under the 'Server' tab, being sure to check 'Dedicated Server'. This is what you'll want to do for quick LAN games where you have an extra machine sitting around that can act as a dedicated server. Alternatively, you can launch a dedicated server from the command line by running ut2004.exe directly (which usually resides in the c:\UT2004-Demo\System directory, or the System subdirectory of whatever other directory you installed the game in). For example, to launch the level "DM-Rankin", run: ucc server DM-Rankin.ut2 4.3 Multiple Servers Per Machine -------------------------------- Each copy of the dedicated server can serve one and only one level at a time. However, you can run multiple level servers on one machine. To do this, you must give each server a unique TCP/IP port number. The default port number is 7777. To specify a port, use the following type of command line: ucc server DM-Rankin.ut2 port=7778 ======================================================================== 5 Online Stats Tracking - UT2004stats ======================================================================== 5.1 Overview ------------ Unreal Tournament 2004 has built in support for the freely available service UT2004stats. UT2004stats lets you track and display your scoring and ranking and provides gameplay statistical analysis for your Internet games. For a detailed breakdown of your stats visit UT2004stats at: http://ut2004stats.epicgames.com 5.2 Turning on *your* Stats Tracking ------------------------------------ Go to the in-game Settings > Network > UT2004 Global Stats menu. Turn on UT2004stats tracking by clicking the "Track Stats" button, and choose a unique Stats Username and Stats Password combination. This will assign a unique PlayerID handle to you. Note: Your online UT2004stats are *only* as safe as you are with your password. ======================================================================== 6 Useful Web Links ======================================================================== Visit for the latest updates, patches, and community events: http://www.unrealtournament.com Information about other Epic games: http://www.epicgames.com Information about other Digital Extremes games: http://www.digitalextremes.com Latest news from the Epic development team. Great resources for programmers, mod authors, and enthusiasts: http://unreal.epicgames.com Find out more about Atari Products: http://www.atari.com ======================================================================== 7 Copyright Notice ======================================================================== Karma Physics Library Copyright 2003 Criterion Software Limited. Karma is a trademark of Criterion Software Limited, used under license. Microsoft Speech Software Development Kit, Version 5.1 Copyright 2003 Microsoft. Ogg Vorbis Copyright 2001-2003, Xiph.Org Foundation Speex Copyright 2002-2003, Jean-Marc Valin/ Xiph.Org Foundation Uses Miles Sound System. Copyright C 1991-2003 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. MPEG Layer-3 playback supplied with the Miles Sound System from RAD Game Tools, Inc. MPEG Layer-3 audio compression technology licensed by Fraunhofer IIS and THOMSON multimedia. DivX (R) Video provided by DivXNetworks, Inc. COPYRIGHT (C) 2000-2003. "DivX is a registered trademark of DivXNetworks, Inc. in the USA and other countries. Simple DirectMedia Layer library is used under the terms of the LGPL License. The LGPL License may be found on the CD. Linux and Mac version of OpenAL are used under the terms of the LGPL License. The LGPL License may be found on the CD. BSDish Copyright (c) 2002 Jorge Acereda & Peter O'Gorman ogorman@users.sourceforge.net Unreal® Tournament 2003 ©2004 Epic Games, Inc. Raleigh, N.C. USA. Unreal and the Unreal logo are registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners. Unreal Tournament 2004 was created by Digital Extremes and Epic Games, Inc.. Manufactured and marketed by Infogrames, Inc., New York, New York, a subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment, S.A., under license from Epic Games, Inc.