Unreal Ii: The Awakening

[Babel-17]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/previews/previews_story_main.php?id=84831

Some interesting synchronicity here, I was just moaning about wanting some developer to consider using this games engine for an Adventure game. Lol, I was searching Beyond3D for some good links and I chose to check out http://www.bjorn3d.com/ in hopes of expanding my knowledge of hardware a bit. Lol, it was not to be and their blurb about the article along with the link whisked me away. ;) :)

Pre-edit: Bastards, it's the old come-on where you click on the pics and they try to get you to register. I switched to Mozilla in semi-stealth mode and scored a few anyways. I did no additional compression.

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/stephenperrone/vortal_pic_81309.jpg

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/stephenperrone/vortal_pic_81310.jpg

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/stephenperrone/vortal_pic_81311.jpg

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/stephenperrone/vortal_pic_81313.jpg

Edit: Lol, I pasted in the wrong links initially. Apologies to those whoe were "treated" to some UT2k3 shots. :)

[Emig5m]

Is this going to be a real game like the original Unreal or just run around and pointlessly shoot people in deathmatch?

[Mike1_2001]

Originally posted by Emig5m
Is this going to be a real game like the original Unreal or just run around and pointlessly shoot people in deathmatch?

AFAIK Unreal II will be a game. I doubt if Epic is gonna release another UT2K3 clone.

:D :D :D

[sonik]

The game is gonna be a very in-depth single player experience. As a matter of fact there is no multi player in the game even.

[BloodyL]

Is it me or do those screenshots look like ass?

[Emig5m]

Originally posted by sonik
The game is gonna be a very in-depth single player experience. As a matter of fact there is no multi player in the game even.

Awesume! How many more years until it's released? ;)

[Apoch003]

Originally posted by BloodyL
Is it me or do those screenshots look like ass?
It isn't just you. Although the Skaarj look pretty kick-ass, this looks really dumbed down from the images that pcgamer supplied us with last year.

Why are the dead guys legs so fat? Where's the coronas? why do the hills look so blocky? Why so MUCH colour? there is such a thing as too much.

[Ailuros]

LOL the last shot has really that ackward Giants feel to it.

I promised myself to not get exited over screenshots anymore, especially with the (relative) letdowns in more than just one recent games.

[Babel-17]

Well, if you note their size thay are incredibly compressed. The outdoor environment is another factor, those shots were probably from an actual setup tuned for realistic framerates.

Lol, but yeah not the best quality. :)

Actually though, that's one area I'm not that worried about, I seriously doubt the textures packed with the game will be inferior to those with UT2k3, many if not most will be identical I suspect.

Good single player gaming will require some additions to the engine we now see in UT2k3, that's what I'm waiting on. I want to see how well the AI and scripted sequences and event triggers work, that part is not rocket science and the developers will deserve zero slack if that has big performance issues and/or major bugs.

Just like UT2k3 though there's an element of it also being a technology demo. Some developers will have huge plans for building on this. Deus Ex 2 is an example of what one outfit has done with an earlier build.

[Ailuros]

Babel,

Hate to ask you again (since you prolly missed it in the other thread):

Could you please repost your mouse specific ini tweaks for UT2003?

[Babel-17]

Sorry, this is the first time I saw this question (I think). Good thing I checked the second page here or I would have missed this too.

Ok, mouse smoothing and reduce lag off/disabled. Mouse speed depends a LOT on resolution. For 1152x864 with a refresh rate of 100Hz here's where I'm at.

From my User.ini

[Engine.PlayerInput]
bInvertMouse=false
MouseSensitivity=7.250000
MouseSmoothingMode=0
MouseSmoothingStrength=0.300000
MouseSamplingTime=0.005
bEnableDodging=true
MouseAccelThreshold=5.000000
DoubleClickTime=0.250000

VERY IMPORTANT!

Don't use MouseSamplingTime=0.005 unless your mouse is hooked up to the PS2 port. I use the adapter for my MS optical Intelimouse Explorer. For USB leave that setting at its slower and afaik untweakable default.

MouseAccelThreshold is a new setting from the newer patches. Basically it reduces acceleration when you're trying to line up your sights on a target, it's useful for maps with long distances and you're trying to line up on a small amount of pixels. Default is 10 but that's too slow imo.

Ok, using Control Panel or the desktop icon I go to the MS mouse's Hardware Tab. I then click on Properties and then Advanced Settings. I've set the sample rate to 200 (the max) and the Input Buffer Length to 300 packets (the max).

Hmmm, one more thing about my MS mouse. UT2k3 has the setting "capture mouse" and I suspect that means the game could be overriding another mouse setting I have enabled.
As I said I'm doing OK so I haven't explored this but I have my "Motion" set to max speed and "Enhance Pointer Precision" enabled.

I suspect both settings correspond to the games acceleration seting and the MouseAccelThreshold setting and are ignored/overidden by the "capture mouse" property.

For non MS mice there's a third party utility or a very simple reg tweak that will bump the PS2 rate. I don't remember if Logitech lets you do it in their Control Panel so I figured I should mention that.

Huh, there's another mouse tweak I just remembered the existence of, I just upgraded and forgot to apply it. Everythings good so I either don't need it or the new mouseware I'm using already has it, it optomizes both the axes of the mouse.

Oh yes, very important .... If you have v-synch off lower your frame pre-render limit to less than 3. I find 2, 1 and zero to all work well but zero might be the best. It won't really hurt your framerates unless you're not stressing your card. You will notice a drop in benchmarks if you have the load on cpu and gpu set low.

That's for nVidia cards with cool bits .... I've yet to see mention of the option anywheres for ATI cards and I'll be asking about that in my next "I have some questions" thread. :)

Here's a link to the Infogrames thread by Lily.

http://ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=225912

[Ailuros]

Thanks a million Babel.

Don't worry I have the IExplorer too and I've plugged it into PS/2 too, just because my 4 USB hubs are *ahem* already full.

[Ailuros]

Oh yes, very important .... If you have v-synch off lower your frame pre-render limit to less than 3. I find 2, 1 and zero to all work well but zero might be the best. It won't really hurt your framerates unless you're not stressing your card. You will notice a drop in benchmarks if you have the load on cpu and gpu set low.

I have it constantly at "2" for both API's. Works best with the all the applications I've tried.

[Babel-17]

Sounds like you're just about set.

MouseAccelThreshold=5.000000 and set the sample rate to 200 along with the pre-render limit which you already have are really all there is to it with reduce mouse lag disabled. Then it's merely a matter of setting the mouse speed to taste within the game.

This is one area the patches have helped with.

[rhink]

heh, is this going to be like the original Unreal.... ie, all eye candy, mind numbingly boring gameplay?

[Rainbow]

Originally posted by rhink
heh, is this going to be like the original Unreal.... ie, all eye candy, mind numbingly boring gameplay?

What? I can't agree with that

[Emig5m]

Hhmm... I'd rather play the original Unreal then any of the other versions so far. I thought it was very adventurous. If anything is boring gameplay, running around randomly shooting people in deathmatch for no reason is mind numbingly boring gameplay. And I know everyone here deep down inside will agree with that. ;)

BTW guys... WTF is up with UT2003? One of my top-two favorite game modes seems to be missing? Where the hell is Assault The Base? :rolleyes: I think the new Bombing Run sucks dick! :mad: