which PC should theoretically run this game better?

[Noah Crane]

I have installed UT3 on both my Laptop and my PC.

Neither of them have great specs, so I was never expecting great performance.

My laptop:

Acer Aspire 5103
AMD Turion 1.6ghz 64 x2
ATI Mobility Radeon x1300
1 GB DDR2

My PC:

P4 3.4 ghz
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon x850 256mb

Now, my laptop can at least run the game for the most part on very low settings (despite random FPS drops, crashes etc that other people seem to be experiencing).

on 640 by 480 and all details turned low I can run it at an average of 35 FPS or so, which is playable for me.

However, on my PC, even with the resolution set lower than on my laptop and everything turned down low, I'm getting FPS of around 12-35. The odd thing is that even if I put the resolution up and all the details settings to 5, the difference in FPS hardly changes.

I would have thought my PC would be able to run it better than my laptop, given that it can run games such as Half Life 2, F.E.A.R etc very well (I know they're quite old now but still).

So, does it look like there's something wrong here, or is that the sort of performance I ought to be expecting with such a setup? I've installed the latest Catalyst drivers, followed the tweak thread etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

[DS3]

1st one.
It has better VGA and Dual Core processor.
But, FYI, AMD + ATI is bad for UT3.

[msny]

I have installed UT3 on both my Laptop and my PC.

Neither of them have great specs, so I was never expecting great performance.

My laptop:

Acer Aspire 5103
AMD Turion 1.6ghz 64 x2
ATI Mobility Radeon x1300
1 GB DDR2

My PC:

P4 3.4 ghz
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon x850 256mb

Now, my laptop can at least run the game for the most part on very low settings (despite random FPS drops, crashes etc that other people seem to be experiencing).

on 640 by 480 and all details turned low I can run it at an average of 35 FPS or so, which is playable for me.

However, on my PC, even with the resolution set lower than on my laptop and everything turned down low, I'm getting FPS of around 12-35. The odd thing is that even if I put the resolution up and all the details settings to 5, the difference in FPS hardly changes.

I would have thought my PC would be able to run it better than my laptop, given that it can run games such as Half Life 2, F.E.A.R etc very well (I know they're quite old now but still).

So, does it look like there's something wrong here, or is that the sort of performance I ought to be expecting with such a setup? I've installed the latest Catalyst drivers, followed the tweak thread etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

If you want to be realistic neither of those machines will run this generations
games at good to high quality.

You will need a newer system I'm afraid with at least a core duo processor
and a high end ATI or nVida video card.

You can look here for system and game tweaks, but don't expect much more
http://www.tweakguides.com/UT3_1.html

[Epickiller]

I have a x1300 graphics card right now (8800gt is on it's way) and I'l tell you now... it's a poor card but don't knock it. I've had it for 10 months (just over) and it runs Crysis at an ok framerate - although I don't know how to see framerate in Crysis (all low settings), it'll also run ut3 at a decent avg 40fps with all settings on 2.

Despite the above I reccommend selling both computers and buying one similar to my spec (below).

[Telefrog]

I have a x1300 graphics card right now (8800gt is on it's way) and I'l tell you now... it's a poor card but don't knock it. I've had it for 10 months (just over) and it runs Crysis at an ok framerate - although I don't know how to see framerate in Crysis (all low settings), it'll also run ut3 at a decent avg 40fps with all settings on 2.

Despite the above I reccommend selling both computers and buying one similar to my spec (below).

I have a x1300 as well! This is great news. I honestly didn't think I'd be able to run UT3 at all. Thanks for the info. What resolution do you run UT3 at?

Also have you tried any of the individual tweaks to the .ini file?

[Noah Crane]

If you want to be realistic neither of those machines will run this generations
games at good to high quality.

You will need a newer system I'm afraid with at least a core duo processor
and a high end ATI or nVida video card.

You can look here for system and game tweaks, but don't expect much more
http://www.tweakguides.com/UT3_1.html

Yeah, I'm aware of that.

I pretty much knew that neither would handle it well but I've bought every other UT game and wanted to get in on the action. I just thought my ageing PC would handle it better than my laptop for some reason. Anyway, if there's nothing I can do about it then I guess that's that. I'll just have to buy a new PC (the laptop was never for gaming anyway, so I'll be keeping that) when I get the chance, if this game is still alive by then.

That said, I'm still surprised it runs it *so* badly even with all the settings turned down and at a very low resolution. I can live with the game looking like crap but when even at 640 by 480 (or lower) the FPS is still hovering around the 20 mark, it's simply unplayable. That's why I was wondering if there might be something I was missing. I can live with a 30 FPS at 640 by 480.

Thanks for the responses anyway.

[Inixi]

Let me give you an example,
First graphic cards does not matter, but it should have at least 256MB GDDR3 and PCI express 2.0 compatibility ; ]
most part of good quality gaming has processor and memory.

UT3 is mostly desing for multicore processors (Core 2 duo and better, i haven't tried on p4 dual core to run), high capacity of processors cache and also RAM memory.

My system configuration is now:
Core 2 duo E6750
2048 MB DDR2 Geil Ultra (CL4)
and ASUS Radeon x1950 Pro (not xfire)

the game runs about 30 - 40 fps obviously without dx10 effects aa and af, with all 5 detail levels, 1280x1024 resolution, and the graphics are really nice.
If I turn all details to 1 I have at least 60 fps...
Don't forget to get good mainboard for all this hardware, I recommend Gigabyte X38 DQ6 ; ]