Topic: UT3 Thread

[Quemaqua]

That isn't a bad guess.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more PC devs move to use id Tech 5 if there's actually some gimping going on, but I think that will ultimately depend on just how far the PC gets pushed back comapared to the others with UE4.  More than likely it won't end up being all that much, even if other platforms are the first focus.  But time will tell.

[MysterD]

Here's what is already done for changes, fixes, and whatnot w/ Upcoming Patch 1.3 for UT3, which is being tested to be approved.

From the UT3 server admins mailing list comes news that Epic is testing candidates for the third Unreal Tournament 3 patch (version 1.3). Changes in patch 1.3 so far include:

    Gameplay:
    - Fixed overlay mesh showing up on hidden sniper rifle when un-zoomed.
    - UTGame.bNoCustomCharacters is now globalconfig.
    - Now hear own auto-taunts.
    - Fix for Liandri bots riding high in vehicles.
    - Fixed mutators disappearing between matches.
    - Fixed up PC DLC screenshots and player counts.
    - Vipers can no longer be driven around underwater if entered while underwater - they pop up out of the water, even if deep in it.
    - Fixed announcements not playing properly in WAR-MarketDistrict during the campaign.
    - Fixed manta crouch exploit.
    - Fixed loaded RL switching away before releasing load on net clients.
    - Fixed occasionally getting stuck when getting up from ragdoll.
    - Fixed ending zoom when go into feign death.
    - Fixed giving proper stats credit for translocator telefrags.
    - Fixed giving proper suicide stat credit for certain environmental suicides.
    - Fixed Hoverboard foot placement when watching other client get on.
    - Improved the turret controls on the rail turret with analog controller.
    - Fixed friendly fire mutator showing up as option for Duel.
    - Fixed bug where second enforcer wouldn't show up if picked up while switching to enforcer.
    - Fixed shock/instagib beams which were grabbed from emitter pool sometimes incorrectly having DPG_Foreground set.
    - Fixed "missing required file for demo playback" error message.
    - Fixed redeemer explosion on client when shot down.
    - Fixed big head mutator head scaling popping out at distance.
    - End the match right away in duel if a player leaves.
    - Fixed not getting kismet node destroyed event when node captured by orb.
    - Fixed effect showing up for disabled weapon lockers.
    - Don't modify power core damage caused by kismet.
    - Fixed scavenger legs disappearing in kill volumes.
    - Deployables can no longer be deployed onto hover/flying vehicles.
    - Fixed Hoverboard script warnings and possible crash if hoverboard fails to spawn.
    - Fixed impact hammer impact camera shake for low gore clients.

    Engine/Rendering:
    - Added motion blur menu option for PC (defaults to off).
    - Fixed zero extent collision bug in octree code (finding nodes in Z axis).
    - LOD Hysteresis / LOD Decision making bug fix.
    - Fixed default mesh not having proper LOD settings.
    - Fixed rare darkwalker physics crash.

    User Interface:
    - Added player name list to server browser.
    - Added midgame map voting, with serverside config options in UTGame.ini:
    - bMidGameMapVoting: Enables/Disables midgame map voting
    - MapVotePercentage: The percentage of votes required to initiate a map switch, counts down based upon VoteDuration;
    - NOTE: When VoteDuration=0, votes for a single map must exceed this percentage, but when VoteDuration is not 0, the number of players voting must exceed this percentage
    - MinMapVotes: The minimum number of players that must vote in order to initiate a map switch.
    - InitialVoteDelay: Delays the enabling of map voting for this many seconds
    - Fixed History being saved for servers joined via cmdline and console.
    - Fixed leading vote count indicator when map voting underway.
    - Don?t show muted talking player portraits on HUD.
    - Simple crosshair tweaks.
    - Added the number of files left to download to the package downloading message.
    - Fixed Krall portrait.
    - Fixed clipping vehicle HUD beacon when not visible.
    - Fixed endgame timer so that it isn't affected by changes in game speed (also fixes vote timer)
    - Fixed SPMA deploy icon offset.

    Networking:
    - Always sort relevant actors by priority. Should fix the weird actors/properties never getting replicated issues.
    - Fixed gibs not showing for clients of listen server if the gibbed player wasn't visible to the server player.
    - Fixed gibs not showing for clients of low-gore listen server.
    - New dynamic netspeed adjustment system for listen servers. Improves network performance for listen servers which typically have limited upstream bandwidth by dividing available bandwidth between clients. Configurable through new properties in UTGame.ini:
    - TotalNetBandwidth=32000 (total upstream bandwidth to be apportioned)
    - MaxDynamicBandwidth=7000
    - MinDynamicBandwidth=4000
    - Fixed "you have lost the match" messages to spectators at end of duel match.
    - Fixed cases where GameSettings cache in the GameInfo wasn't properly getting NULL'd out on DestroyOnlineGame().
    - HTTP redirect with compression now falls back to the uncompressed case if the compressed file could not be found.
    - Fixed erroneous "connection failed" error when performing non-seamless travelling.
    - Fixed hoverboard link failure sound playing in the world and being replicated.
    - Fixed low gore clients seeing gibbed players as headless if playing on full gore server.
    - Increased tracked turret net priority.
    - Fixed Hoverboard networking replication issues (hoverboard now smoother in net games).

    Server administration:
    - UWeb fixes for WebAdmin.
    - Fixed downloaded cooked maps not being loaded correctly in some cases when requested by the server at initial connect time.
    - Fixed net object count problem when using the conformed/cooked audio packages in PS3ModTools. Fixes some networking issues for custom maps.
    - Final fix for packagemap problem with going from DLC -> RTM maps.
    - Fixed properly showing number of players needed for match to start when minplayers is set and bots are enabled on the server.
    - Fixed bug with PlayerID being reused for bots after a seamless travel.

    Mod support:
    - Added support for Interactions to have a PostRender call (to render to canvas).
    - Added support for Interactions to have exec functions be called on them.
    - Added cut/copy/paste support to the console.
    - Added Deproject() to canvas.
    - Fixed base InventoryManager implementation of GetWeaponRatingFor().
    - Fixed crash when placing a new UINumericEditBox in UI editor.
    - Fix for custom factions in the UI.
    - Added optional flag for ScriptedTextures to skip next clear so that a ScriptedTexture client doesn't need to draw every texel of the ST every update.
    - Added support for -mod commandline option so that a TC mod can have a .ini file "sandbox" - where they can have new content paths, new startup maps, etc..
    - Improved system for getting camera death effect.
    - Implemented fix from Aegia for an NxFluid crash.
    - Fixed beams not rendering in Cascade.
    - Fixed crash when updating a UIPrefab.

    Map specific:
    - Fixed CTF-Searchlight black boxes before match starts.
    - Fixed CTF-Searchlight search lights.
    - Fixed CTF-Hydrosis collision issues.
    - Fixed DM-Morbias collision issues.
    - Fixed collision issue in DM-Deck.

    AI improvements:
    - Fixed bots not using link gun beam on enemies.
    - Better bot celebration management.
    - Fixed bots doing multiple end of match celebration taunts.
    - Improved impact hammer AI.
    - Improved darkwalker AI support for crouching under obstacles.
    - Improved bot hoverboard AI.
    - Fixed bots sometimes not picking up flags/orbs they dropped.
    - Fixed bots never spawning in if initially not enough playerstarts.

Posted from Planet Unreal

 

[MysterD]

My UT3: Collector's Ed arrived today.
So, who the heck else has this game?
And if so, who wants to play?

My UT3 User Name -- MysterD.

[Quemaqua]

Idol and I were playing for a while, but it's a pretty hardcore group out there.  I'm really not in their skill level at all.  Most of my time spent on any server is spent getting my ass smeared into a bloody pulp on the pavement.  Good times.

[MysterD]

Most of my time spent on any server is spent getting my ass smeared into a bloody pulp on the pavement.  Good times.

That's what it felt like tonight w/ this game. Sheesh, I'd get like 1 kill to someone's 10 in DeathMatch.

[gpw11]

Idol and I were playing for a while, but it's a pretty hardcore group out there.  I'm really not in their skill level at all.  Most of my time spent on any server is spent getting my ass smeared into a bloody pulp on the pavement.  Good times.

I was seriously considering picking this up. You just un-sold me on it.

[Quemaqua]

The problem is that the game didn't do as well as some of the past ones, so the community isn't quite as huge.  Which is fine, because you still have an active, dedicated player base, but the problem is that it's a very dedicated player base, so it's pretty hard to get an edge.  There are times when I do okay and hold my own, but then somebody good will come on the server and I just get decimated.  It's pretty demoralizing.

The up side is that there's all the single player stuff, and while that isn't like mind-blowing or anything, and it's full of the typical funky Epic stuff, it's still fun as hell to play, and the bots are all awesome and you can make good use of them to play any kind of game you want.  I don't consider it a bad investment, nor am I sorry I bought it.  I think it's a fantastic game and *much* better than most of the reviewers and complainy community members made it out to be.

[MysterD]

Since many thought UT3 was nothing really new or groundbreaking, I think UT3 is one of those games that when it's universally $20, everyone will go out and buy a copy of it b/c it's another edition of UT and b/c $20 is pretty cheap for a game.

How can you really go wrong w/ UT anyways, you know?

Graphics are very good, BTW -- definitely worth mentioning that.

EDIT:
I just have to say, even though I'm over getting crushed, that this game's DeathMatch is pretty bad-ass and just relentless. It reminds me a lot of my old Quake 2 + Quake 3: Arena days.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, this is extremely fast paced stuff.  I think the game is fantastic... well balanced and well paced throughout.  It's a shame the community is so hardcore and I'm not better at it, but I think the game is pretty much the pinnacle of what you could want in an online-focused, competitive FPS, either for DM or team games.

[gpw11]

I'm not a huge death match fan, are the servers for the team maps pretty well populated?

[idolminds]

The Warfare mode seems to be where most players play. You know, if you can find servers with people on them.

[Quemaqua]

I haven't had any troubles finding a populated server any time I've gone on to play.  Doesn't seem like the game is all that sparsely populated to me.

[idolminds]

Perhaps. I have to be a little more selective with my servers, though.

[MysterD]

UT3 Patch 1.3 Released
UT3 Patch 1.3 Released

GeForce 8 Series and above users...
GeForce Driver 177.83 Released w/ PhysX support + UT3 PhysX Mod + Other Stuff
Pick what stuff you want to DL w/ these drivers and whatnot here from NVidia.

[Xessive]

I just tried it out and as funky as it seems the PhysX effects on the two enhanced CTF maps (Lighthouse & Tornado) have a huge performance hit. I have an 8800 GTS, which is supposed to have some level of PhysX processing (at least according to Nvidia). While I'm glad I can see the physics effects and destructible environments the loss of frames is not worth it.. To give you an idea it can go from 80 fps to less than 10 fps.

I also suspect there's some kind of memory leak because the longer I stay in either map the worse the performance gets until UT3 inevitably crashes.

On a good note the new Nvidia drivers seem to have significantly improved performance in all my other currently installed titles!

[scottws]

The degrading performance you describe could actually be the GPU overheating.

[Xessive]

The degrading performance you describe could actually be the GPU overheating.

That's true. It could be the additional physics processing is taking a toll on it. I checked the GPU temperature and it was at 62C, it spikes up to 72C and above when I load up a PhysX map.

Anyway, I prefer the idea of having the PhysX on my GPU rather than buying a whole other card just for it. I anticipate Nvidia's newer cards will handle it better overall.

Scott, do you think AMD will develop something to challenge Nvidia's PhysX?

[scottws]

Anyway, I prefer the idea of having the PhysX on my GPU rather than buying a whole other card just for it.

Definitely.  The main problem with a separate physics card was even if you had a monster physics card and a monster video card, using the physics card actually slowed things down because all the data on where things should have to be had to be processed externally and then sent to the video card for rendering.

[Xessive]

Definitely.  The main problem with a separate physics card was even if you had a monster physics card and a monster video card, using the physics card actually slowed things down because all the data on where things should have to be had to be processed externally and then sent to the video card for rendering.

Yeah, I remember reading about that. I think that pretty much brought on the downfall of Ageia before Nvidia bought them out.

I've tried lowering the resolution to 1280x800 in an effort to decrease the strain on the GPU and it seems to have increased performance slightly on the PhysX maps.

By the way, I also updated DirectX 9 with the most recent release and that seems to have updated the shaders. The normal maps on textures look crisper. I noticed them in UT3 and R6 Vegas 2.

[MysterD]

Hmmm...seems like there are more players and servers up for UT3, since I've last played. I guess Steam sales and the game probably dropping in price has helped.

Anyways, yeah -- this is a fun shooter.

Whoelse got UT3? Anyone lookin' to play anytime soon?

[idolminds]

Ive been meaning to reinstall and see what kind of mods are out there. The Ball looks cool.

[MysterD]

Ive been meaning to reinstall and see what kind of mods are out there. The Ball looks cool.

Ummm...what's The Ball?

[idolminds]

The Ball

[Quemaqua]

That actually looks really awesome.

[MysterD]

That does look quite cool, actually.