[!] [GUIDE] [!] The (un)OFFICIAL Better Performance and Gameplay Guide! - By DDRRE.

[legacy-DDRRE]

Originally posted by vogel
Hehe, thanks for the efforts though I can't endorse it as I don't want to have to test your changes ;-)

MaxTextureUnits should be kept at its default value of 8 and you want to set UseVBO to false as current drivers don't have that codepath optimized yet (accidentaly forgot to change that for the demo). You should probably set VARSize to 64 or 96 if you have a 256 MByte NVIDIA card.

Use16bitTextures should be false and you should also disable speech recognition if you don't plan on using it.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

Well the Use16bitTextures is pretty useful for more FPS, I'll add your tips to the guide, thanks D.V. !! Nice to know the developers give a **** about us

[legacy--=SmileY=-]

Heres a little addition that is very important:

lets assume your refresh rate of the monitor is set to 85.

if your framerate in UT2k3 is higher then that, you might see something that we call as skipping frames.. this will cause instability in your screen and performance. There are several ways to deal with this.

I'm talking about playing online here.

ok, first of all, have you ever tried to play a game of instant action and noticed that the framerate in the "waiting to start" screen was much "smoother" (note: not higher) then when playing online? this is all due to the netspeed.

netspeed 5300 resembles a refresh rate of 85 thus it becomes your maximum amount of FPS. fear not, might seem low for some people, but trust me, its the right setting. try it!

The netspeed decides how much data you want to send to the server each second. A netspeed of 5000 will try to send 5000 bytes of data each second. Your maximum expected framerate online with netspeed 5000 is 5000/64 = 78fps. You should not get more, you will often get less. So why /64 you ask? Well, it's kinda simple. Each time your computer does an update, it sends about 64 bytes of data. So the great doods at epic thought, let's do netspeed/64 and limit framerate that way, so the client does not exceed netspeed bytes sent per second.

[legacy-DDRRE]

Originally posted by -=SmileY=-
Heres a little addition that is very important:

lets assume your refresh rate of the monitor is set to 85.

if your framerate in UT2k3 is higher then that, you might see something that we call as skipping frames.. this will cause instability in your screen and performance. There are several ways to deal with this.

I'm talking about playing online here.

ok, first of all, have you ever tried to play a game of instant action and noticed that the framerate in the "waiting to start" screen was much "smoother" (note: not higher) then when playing online? this is all due to the netspeed.

netspeed 5300 resembles a refresh rate of 85 thus it becomes your maximum amount of FPS. fear not, might seem low for some people, but trust me, its the right setting. try it!

The netspeed decides how much data you want to send to the server each second. A netspeed of 5000 will try to send 5000 bytes of data each second. Your maximum expected framerate online with netspeed 5000 is 5000/64 = 78fps. You should not get more, you will often get less. So why /64 you ask? Well, it's kinda simple. Each time your computer does an update, it sends about 64 bytes of data. So the great doods at epic thought, let's do netspeed/64 and limit framerate that way, so the client does not exceed netspeed bytes sent per second.

Well buddy 10x for the advice but I'll need to make sure that is correct by some facts. How come when I pick ADSL from the menu it adjusts it to the connection and not to the monitor? I'll try this out. I use 100hz at 1024x768

[legacy-: DX :-THeGAME]

Originally posted by vogel
Don't change CacheSizeMegs - this is just a badly named variable and any value > 16-32 MByte is just a waste of memory.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

If thats true, why does the game load faster, the menus load and run through faster, and the game performes better when I change it to 128?

[legacy-DDRRE]

As I said, this thread went again to page no. 2..... Putting it back @ front!

[legacy-DDRRE]

Originally posted by DDRRE
As I said, this thread went again to page no. 2..... Putting it back @ front!

MAKE THIS THREAD A STICKY ONE PLZ :cry: :cry: :cry:

[koopa]

Originally posted by : DX :-THeGAME
If thats true, why does the game load faster, the menus load and run through faster, and the game performes better when I change it to 128?

<guess>Because the second time you ran it everything was already in the Windows disk caches?

[|><|CELLENT]

Originally posted by vogel


Use16bitTextures should be false and you should also disable speech recognition if you don't plan on using it.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

To disable speech use the user.ini:

[Engine.PlayerController]
bNeverSwitchOnPickup=True
bNoVoiceMessages=True
bNoTextToSpeechVoiceMessages=True

^^ Is that correct?

--chaz

[koopa]

Can't you disable from the GUI? Anyway, looks more like UT2004.ini:

UseSpeechRecognition=False

[legacy-.:i:.]

this tweak guide would be for very low performace machines

The only thing I altered is reduce mouse lagg = false and I dont use much hud(i have a 9600 pro)

D3D>open gl
Ive ran both on at least 6 different cards nvidia/ati and d3d allways runs faster max and avg frames.
and know how to tweak both open gl and d3d
I also have had alot of graphical errors using open gl in ut/2k3

open gl is a good thing to have if d3d/direct x is generating errors tho


jewtron,turn everything back to 32 bit

[|><|CELLENT]

Originally posted by koopa
Can't you disable from the GUI? Anyway, looks more like UT2004.ini:

UseSpeechRecognition=False

word. :up:

[legacy-DDRRE]

Well I use these settings for gameplay, I don't care about quality. I don't have such a low end PC, but I use the tweaks for 70+fps @ 1024x768.

[legacy-DDRRE]

Originally posted by DDRRE
MAKE THIS THREAD A STICKY ONE PLZ :cry: :cry: :cry:

Daniel V. I need you now!! make this thread a sticky one, I hate the feel when you put a post to make more people make use of your thread, but hey, all for the Sticky tag!

[legacy--=SmileY=-]

The netspeed shouldnt be higher depending on if your PC can handle it tho... this little trick is pure for getting smooth gameplay (and is mostly handy/noticable when your monitor has 85 Hz or more)

for example, for netspeed 20000 users.. I quote the mighty TNSe:

"let me just inform you that your hardware probably can't hold an even 20000/64 = 312fps average during an entire match anyway. Another bottleneck here, is your internet connection. If you got a state-of-the-art 9600 modem, it can only send and receive 9600/8 = 1200 bytes/second anyway, and what happens if you exceed that limit, is that data must wait before it can be transmitted to/from you. This causes the wellknown "ping spike". So use netspeed to make sure your connection does not get overloaded and "spiked". If the spikes last too long, you might even get packetloss, since the packets get ****** off waiting in queues and kill themselves."

basically EVERYONE with 85Hz monitors should use netspeed 5400 / 5300 / 5500
maybe you are lucky enough and your monitor can handle more then 85Hz.. in that case you can do the calculation thingy I posted before, to see what netspeed matches your computer

I hope this helps you

[legacy-LittleFlower]

Your netspeed advice is bogus

Originally posted by DDRRE
[B]TIP: Adjust your netspeed to your monitor Hz and FPS. Low-End PCs should use 3200, Mid-End PCs should use 5300 and High-End PCs should use 8120. To adjust your netspeed, enter the console by pressing ` and type 'Netspeed ####'. This might help with lags. {Thanks go to -=Smiley=- for this one!}

This is all total bull. Sorry. Netspeed is hardly dependent on the power of your PC. PCs with a CPU of the minimum official specs should have no problem with netspeed 10000 or 20000. (What's the official minimum spec nowadays ? Still 733 MHz ?).

Max netspeed depends on the speed of your connection. To be precise, the type of your connection (which denotes the type of packet encapsulation, which determines the percentage of header overhead), the upstream and downstream speed, the tickrate of the server, and maybe your FPS.

There is indeed a relation between your FPS, the refresh rate of your monitor, and netspeed. However, with all the changes to the netcode, I don't think anyone knows exactly how this should be tweaked. Besides that, the calculation for your optimal netspeed now not only depends on the factors I gave above, but also on the refresh rate of your monitor, and some settings in your UT2004.ini file.

If you want, I can come up with an exact calculation of the maximum netspeed you can use. (After I have seen what the new netcode does. Especially with client->server packets. There should be a 40% improvement in bandwidth usage there). These might not be optimal, as that would also require knowledge of your refresh rate, and the FPS your PC can reach. The numbers you give, you have just pulled them out of your ****. Sorry to be so harsh, but I don't want people to believe this nonsense.

I hope the rest of your advice is a LOT better.