The first time you run Unreal II, it will automatically adjust your
Unreal2.ini configuration according to you CPU Speed, System RAM, and
Video RAM. If you want to re-run the auto-config, from the Windows
Command Prompt, in your c:\Unreal2\System directory, type:
unreal2 -firstrun
This will reassess your hardware, and set the INI properties accordingly.
The affected properties include:
[WinDrv.WindowsClient]
WindowedViewportX
WindowedViewportY
FullscreenViewportX
FullscreenViewportY
TextureDetail
SkinDetail
[D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]
DetailTextures
[Engine.TerrainInfo]
DecoLayerDensity
[WinDrv.WindowsClient]
ParticleDensity
[U2.U2GameInfo]
RagdollDetailLevel
[WinDrv.WindowsClient]
BlobShadows
BlurShadows
MaxShadowsStatic
MaxShadowsDynamic
ShadowResolution
ShadowTraceDistance
LightSourceShadows
MasterShadowDetail
ShadowCullDistance
These settings may also be adjusted from the OPTIONS menus within
the game.
These settings are configured based on your CPU speed, RAM, and
Video RAM. They are designed for "typical" systems but may yield
poor performance on systems with unusual combinations of hardware
(e.g., fast CPU, but old graphics card; new graphics card, but
too little RAM; etc). For Unreal II, typical configurations are:
Minimum: 256MB 733MHz, 32MB GeForce2 MX
Recommended: 384MB+ 1.2GHz, 64MB GeForce3
High: 512MB 1.8GHz, 128MB GeForce4
2.2 AGP
-------
AGP support is required to enable Unreal II to transfer texture and
other video information rapidly to your graphics card.
Many Windows 2000 configurations have problems with AGP configuration
which result in severe performance degradation. Without proper AGP
support enabled, it's typical to see the game running at only three or
four frames per second.
If you experience problems with AGP support, please contact customer
service representatives at the company where you purchased your computer.
2.3 EAX Support
---------------
Because Unreal II uses ambient sound effects very heavily, we tax the
audio subsystem in ways that are unusual for Unreal products. Post-release
reports indicate that EAX is sometimes having a dramatic impact on
performance in some systems. Enabling EAX is a tradeoff of sound quality
vs. performance. If you want optimum performance, you may want to consider
leaving EAX disabled. (It is turned off by default.)
2.4 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 will
provide the best performance on older hardware.
2.5 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.
2.6 Memory
----------
Unreal II'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 256 MByte (or less)
machine, you should make sure that you don't have other unnecessary programs
loaded in memory when playing Unreal II.
How the game will perform under different RAM conditions:
* 256 MByte: minimal swapping with default auto-config settings
* 384 MByte: might swap in rare cases with highest texture detail
* 512 MByte or more: shouldn't swap
2.7 Considering upgrading?
--------------------------
For people considering upgrading their machines, here are some tips based
on our experience running Unreal II on a variety of machines:
1 The biggest performance gain in Unreal II comes from
having a state of the art graphics chip.
2 The next upgrade that tends to improve Unreal II
performance is upgrading your CPU.
3 Finally, lots of RAM helps. With memory prices continually falling,
it's now reasonably affordable to upgrade to 384 MByte of system
memory.
2.8 Getting better performance
------------------------------
By default Unreal II 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.
Setting AvoidHitches=true in your unreal2.ini file may result in smoother
performance on some systems.
2.9 - Ragdoll deaths/hits
-------------------------
Note that ragdoll deaths can be very CPU intensive. In order to improve overall performance, the patch defaults to limiting the maximum number of simultaneously active ragdoll deaths to 1 as long as your current frame rate is above your MinDesiredFrameRate.
(You can modify your MinDesiredFrameRate in system\unreal2.ini. For example, a value of 30 tells the game to temporarily scale back ragdoll deaths and other features if your frame rate drops below 30 frames per second. The patch defaults MinDesiredFrameRate to 25 but users who have already installed the game will have this set to 10 unless they modify it manually.)
If desired, you can increase the maximum number of simultaneous ragdoll deaths via the new configuration menu options (or directly in unreal2.ini via the MaxRagdollDeaths setting) although this could cause your frame rate to drop dramatically at times (while ragdoll deaths are occurring). We recommended that users with anything but very high end (2GHz or higher) machines disable ragdoll deaths completely or set MinDesiredFrameRate to 30 or higher.
Note that the player will always ragdoll if he dies as long as MaxRagdollDeaths is 1 or higher.
The ragdoll detail setting now controls ragdoll ôhitsö (Off=None; Low=Ambients; Medium/High=Ambients+Other). It no longer has any effect on ragdoll deaths.
2.10 - Advanced Tips for Improving Performance
----------------------------------------------
The following tips were provided by X PsychoTron X. This information is updated on an ongoing basis in the official Unreal 2 forum and can be found in this forum thread:
The following are tips intended for Advanced gamers and computer users. Making the following changes could have an adverse affect on your gameplay experience. If at any point you feel you have changed your ini file beyond repair and want to reset to the defaults all you have to do is delete the file and start the game and a new one will appear. (You can do this by deleting the file unreal2.in in your \unreal2\system folder).
*Tweak Tools:*
Below are links to tools that will help you tweak your video card settings. With these tools you can apply some of the settings described below such as reducing your prerender limit. Follow the link for the video card you own to download the appropriate tool.
Riva Tuner:
(Will also work for the RADEON 9500 & 9700 as well as the GeForce series cards.)
http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/
GeForce Tweak Utility:
Great tweak program for GeForce based cards.
http://www.guru3d.com/geforcetweakutility/
Detonator Destroyer:
A great tool for getting rid of your old nvidia drivers before you install new ones.
http://www.guru3d.com/detonator-destroyer/
Note: For ATI users, downloading the catalyst 3.1 drivers and upgrading to DirectX 9 may help you achieve the best results.
*Drivers:*
The first thing you want to do is ensure you have the latest drivers for your video and sound card. For Nvidia owners IÆve found that I get the best performance with Direct X 8.1 and the 41.09 nvidia drivers.
Word of advice: Since there are often beta drivers available, you may get better performance with these, but since they are betas you might have problems with them. For this reason we donÆt recommend installing drivers unless they are WHQL certified and available as an official release on the nvidia web site.
*Above normal priority:*
Note - On lower end systems this may cause the machine to become bogged down a bit.
To start Unreal 2 in above normal priority do the following steps:
- Open up notepad and enter the following text without the quotes "start /ABOVENORMAL Unreal2.exe".
- Save this document as Unreal2.bat in your Unreal 2 System folder.
- Create a shortcut to Unreal2.bat in your Unreal 2 start menu folder or on your desktop and use it to launch the game. You can also change the icon by right clicking on the shortcut and choosing properties. Once the properties menu comes up click the "Shortcut" tab and toward the bottom there should be a button that says "Change Icon". Just click on that and browse to your Unreal 2 system folder and select your Unreal 2.exe icon.
*.ini tweaks:*
There are several things that can be changed in your Unreal2.ini file that will help you boost your frame rate.
[ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem]
UseEAX=false (Set this to false if youÆre experiencing sound problems on your EAX capable sound card)
CompatibilityMode=False
UsePrecache=True
ReverseStereo=False
Channels=32 (changing this to 8 or 16 may help with sound issues)
MusicVolume=0.750000
SoundVolume=0.800000
DopplerFactor=1.000000
Rolloff=0.500000
Use3DSound=False
UseDefaultDriver=True
TimeBetweenHWUpdates=15.000000
[D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]
UseHardwareTL=True
UseHardwareVS=True
UsePrecaching=True
UseTrilinear=True (Can be disabled to give better frame rates but will affect the visual quality of the game)
UseVSync=False
UseTripleBuffering=False
UseCubemaps=True (Setting this to false might give a slight performance increase, but you will no longer have reflections)
ReduceMouseLag=True (This may be turned off but you may notice a substantial amount of mouse lag. You may want to try reducing your prerender limit to 2 or even 1 to lower the side effects with this off.)
AdapterNumber=-1
MaxTextures=0
MaxBlendStages=0
DesiredRefreshRate=70
UseStencil=True
DetailTextures=True (Disabling DetailTextures can also improve performance, and can sometimes reduce the amount of mouse lag and texture artifacts as a result of disabling ReduceMouseLag.)
Use16bit=False (If this is set to true you may get better performance, but you might experience some visual problems)
Use16bitTextures=False (If this is set to true you may get better performance, but you might experience some visual problems)
UseCompressedLightmaps=False (By disabling this people have found that they get better performance with little to no degradation in graphic quality)
LevelOfAnisotropy=1 (Setting this to 0 will improve performance but it will affect the visual quality of the game)
DetailTexMipBias=0.800000
DefaultTexMipBias=-0.500000
AvoidHitches=True
DescFlags=0
Description=
HighDetailActors=false
*Miscellaneous tweaks:*
- Owners of audigy series cards may notice some performance drops in Unreal 2. This is because these sound cards also rely upon Direct X and can take resources away from Unreal 2. The following my help performance for owners of these sound cards. Open up the run command and type dxdiag. Now go to the "Sound" tab, you will notice a little slide bar called "Hardware Sound Acceleration Level". The default setting is "Full Acceleration". Changing this to "Standard Acceleration" may give you a slight performance improvement and help with sound problems. Try various settings to determine what works best on your system.
- Leave anti aliasing turned off. Turning on anti aliasing will give you a boost in visual quality but can have a big affect on performance. Only users of very high end machines should run Unreal 2 with anti aliasing turned on.
If Unreal II 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 II's large levels and rich textures take up a lot of virtual memory.
Post-release reports indicate that some ATI Radeon drivers may cause crashes in
the game. Customers with the RADEON 7200 / RADEON ViVo should make sure they
have the latest catalyst (3.01) drivers.
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 3.0 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 II 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.
*Note* Enabling EAX support can cause a major decrease in performance on some machines.
3.3 Control issues
------------------
Some PC keyboards can't recognize certain combinations of 3 or more
simultaneously pressed keys.
3.4 Direct3D
-----------------
Please ensure that you are running the latest drivers for your graphics
card as Unreal II 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.
3.5 NVIDIA 40.xx drivers
------------------------
The NVIDIA 40.xx drivers are known to have visual flaws and performance
problems (hitching) with Unreal II which are not present in the latest
drivers.
If you are currently running the 40.xx drivers please upgrade to the
41.09 (or later) drivers available at NIVIDA's website:
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
The 41.09 drivers have been tested with Unreal II and confirmed to be
fully compatible.
3.6 GeForce 4 MX/Go issues
--------------------------
With GF4 MX/Go cards you might experience graphic corruption in 32 bit
mode. The problem has been addressed by NVIDIA and upcoming drivers will
contain the fix. A workaround for now is to play the game in 16 bit mode.
3.7 Radeon 7x00 issues
----------------------
Radeon 7x00 cards exhibit a minor visual flaws. We recommend downloading
the latest available from ATI's website:
http://mirror.ati.com/support/driver.html
Post-release reports indicate that some Radeon drivers may cause crashes
in the game. ATI has recently released drivers which they have confirmed
resolve those problems. The above recommendation remains true.
3.8 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.
3.9 DirectX 9.0 and Win98/WinMe
----------------------------------
DirectX 9.0 is known to cause problems with Unreal II on WinMe, Win98SE,
and Win98 configurations. WinMe and Win98 customers should NOT upgrade
their computers to DirectX 9.0.
Unreal II has been tested with DirectX 9.0 on WinXP, and no known problems
exist.
However, DirectX 8.1 is the recommended version of DirectX for Unreal II,
and is included with the game.
3.10 Errors while playing the game.
-------------------------------------
During launch or while the game is playing, an error message comes up that mentions a 'History Error', 'Assertion Failed', 'General Protection Fault', 'Fatal Exception' or 'Invalid Page Fault'.
These errors can be the result of a wide variety of problems including low system resources, conflicts between the game and other applications, and hardware problems.
Some errors have definite causes that sometimes we can address directly. Please keep reading or check the online faq to see if your error is one of these. If not, try the following suggestions:
1. Shut down all other applications on your computer before playing.
2. Install DirectX from the Play Disk.
3. Update your video and sound card drivers with the latest versions available from the manufacturer.
3.10 Nothing happens when I insert the CD into the drive.
Unreal 2 was designed to make use of a feature called AutoPlay. If the game does not AutoPlay when you insert the CD, then the AutoPlay feature may be disabled on your system. See the section below labeled "How can I enable AutoPlay on my computer?"
If you wish to bring up the game without enabling AutoPlay, you can start the setup process manually by double-clicking on "My Computer", then on your CD-ROM drive icon, then on "SETUP", "SETUP.exe" or a similar executable.
3.11 How can I enable AutoPlay on my computer?
------------------------------------------------
To enable AutoPlay:
1. Right click on the My Computer icon on your Windows desktop.
2. Click on Properties.
3. Click on Device Manager.
4. Click on the "+" sign next to "CD-ROM"
3.12 Install Problems
-----------------------
The first thing that you should do is ensure that the CD is not dirty or damaged. Check the bottom shiny side of the CD for scratches, and use a soft cloth to wipe from the center of the CD directly out to the edge to take care of any fingerprints or smudging. Then, try installing the game again.
If the CD is clean and undamaged then shut down any other applications that are currently running on your computer. Other programs can interfere with the installation program or use up memory that's needed to copy files.
Next, check your hard drive to see if you have enough space left for installation. Unreal II: The Awakening requires 3 GB of available drive space to install.
If you are still having a problem at that point, you may wish to try installing from another CD-ROM drive, for example one on another computer connected over a local area network, particularly if that one installed the game successfully.
3.13
"During launch the game simply crashes back to the Windows desktop with no error message."
-- OR --
"After the game launches it locks up on a black screen."
This most often has to do with issues with the style of copy protection used on the Unreal II: The Awakening install discs.
The first thing to do is to ensure that you have the Play Disk in the drive when you are attempting to launch the game, and that your CDROM drive recognizes that it is inserted.
If you have certain CD-burning software installed, such as Nero Burning Rom, or other system tools like Inseektors, Daemon Tools, or others, you may need to disable any processes the software installs, such as the NeroCheck utility installed with Nero.
This problem may also occur if you are running debuggers, decompilers, or CD-ROM Drive emulators on your system, or if you are using Real Mode [DOS] drivers for your CD-ROM drive.
If you are still having the problem after taking these steps, you may need to upgrade the firmware in your CD-ROM drive. Please contact your equipment manufacturer if you need assistance with this.
3.14 The game plays fine for a while, then locks up or crashes unexpectedly.
If you have overclocked your 3D card, it may be overheating. Even if you have not overclocked your card, you may want to try reducing your cards clock rate to reduce overheating. Check with your card manufacturer to determine if your 3D card supports this.
Next, turn off "Detail Textures" under Video Options, and disable Shadows under Miscellaneous Options. This may reduce or even eliminate the frequency of lockups
Turn the Actor, Skin and World Texture Detail settings down. Keeping these settings on HIGH on slower machines can overtax your video card and cause lockups on some machines.
3.15 Problems with Autoplay
---------------------------
Some users have reported problems with the gameÆs autorun process remaining active after the game starts and that this is causing performance issues. If you appear to be having performance problems (low framerates) when starting the game via the autorun facility, you should start the game from the desktop shortcut / start program menu (close the autostart process down manually if this pops up due to placing the game CD in the drive).
3.16 Other Problems.
--------------------
If you are experiencing a problem not included in this readme, please try the following tips:
1) REBOOT your computer after installation, especially if you needed to install or update DirectX. Several updated system files are copied to your hard drive during installation, which can't take effect until you reboot.
2) Make sure that your system meets the minimum system requirements as listed on the box and at the top of this document. If your system does not meet or exceed the minimum requirements, it will run poorly, or not at all.
3) Shut down all other programs that you may have running on your system before playing. Other programs can interfere with the operation of the game
4) Make sure you have plenty of room left you your hard drive, or Windows may not have enough room for a swap file. This can cause some very strange problems. (As a general rule, make sure you have at least 100 MB free on your C: drive for your swap file.)
5) Make sure that the CD itself is not dirty or damaged in any way. If the CD is dirty, it can be cleaned. Most computer stores carry inexpensive CD-ROM cleaning kits that will safely restore your CD. If you want to try cleaning the CD without a kit, you can wash the CD using lukewarm water, MILD NON-ABRASIVE dish soap, and a very soft and clean COTTON cloth. Do NOT use any kind of paper product or abrasive soap to clean the CD, as these WILL scratch! Once the CD is clean, be sure to let the CD dry completely before inserting it into your CD-ROM, or damage may result.
6) The online user community can often be a valuable resource for solving problems not documented in this readme file. Please visit them at:
7) Infogrames customer support maintains and online FAQ that can provide up to date solutions for many common problems. If you do not see an answer to your problem here please check the Unreal 2 support FAQ at:
You can bind new keys to controls by clicking on the "Controls" tab of
the Preferences menu inside of Unreal II. There are many controls to bind.
Note that you can delete key bindings in the Controls Options by clicking
on the small x.
4.2 Mouse
---------
Although you can rely solely on your keyboard to move around in and
interact in Unreal II's 3D universe, using both the keyboard and mouse
simultaneously gives you much more fluid and responsive control.
When you use the mouse to control your rotational movement and aiming you
gain a degree of precision and speed that players using keyboard-only
controls can't touch. The keyboard is best used for simple lateral and
forward/backward movement, and for jumping.
To master the default controls in Unreal II, keep your left hand on the
keyboard, using the arrow keys for movement, the 0-5 keys for weapon
selection, and the space bar for jumping. Your right hand operates
the mouse, controlling rotation, aiming, and firing. Of course, you can
customize these controls to suit your preferences via the Options Menu.
4.3 Monitor Refresh Rate
------------------------
When changing the refresh rate via the in-game options menus, note that you will need to restart the game to have the change take effect (i.e. you need to exit the game and start it again).
It is possible that when choosing a refresh rate or screen resolution that your video card / monitor will not be able to support the choice(s) causing the game to start up "scrambled". If this happens you will need to either a) delete your unreal2.ini file so that the default settings are restored (these should work with all cards/monitors) or b) manually edit unreal2.ini; e.g. make sure you have something like the following:
DesiredRefreshRate=60
WindowedViewportX=640
WindowedViewportY=480
FullScreenViewportX=640
FullScreenViewportY=480
(search for those lines in unreal2.ini and edit them with notepad or another text editor)
4.4 Multiple Monitor Support
----------------------------
Users with multiple monitor setups can control the scaling/offset of the HUD/UI via the ScaleX, ScaleY, OffsetX, OffsetY properties. These can be edited in the [UI.UIConsole] section in unreal2.ini. For example, use ScaleX=0.3, OffsetX=0.3 for three screen support. Things that are stretched fullscreen -- like the menu background and sniper rifle scope will still be stretched across the whole screen. I can probably fix this too, but I'm not sure which way is going to look better.
4.4 Field of View (fov)
-----------------------
Note that to permanently change the field of view (fov) setting (e.g. for use with multi-monitor setups) use the "fov" command rather than "setfov". E.g. "fov 150" changes the fov to 150 and this setting will be permanent until you use this command again to change it (even if you quit the game). The "setfov" command only changes the fov for the current level and those settings will be lost if a new level is loaded.
