Unreal Tournament III has consistently not performed well in terms of frame-rate on my machine:
Pentium D 830 @ 3.0Ghz
3GB RAM
1.2TB HD
Asus P5LP-LE main-board
Ati Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3
Onboard Realtek HD Audio
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Every Windows Update applied including Service Pack 1. NO non-applied updates exist, all updates have been installed. No core operating system component is beta so no pre-release software such as the Service Pack 2 release candidates.
Many maps such as Deck and Diesel had areas where frame-rate would consistently drop regardless of many tests of different graphical game settings. Non-performing areas tended to be in poor-to-mid 20's for frame-rate. After the setting described next these problem area frame-rates jumped to low-to-mid 30's consistently across maps with higher resolutions and settings enabled.
What I did was:
(with): Create or modify a short-cut to UT3.exe
-> Right click on that shortcut and choose "Properties" from the context-menu
-> Click on the "Compatibility" tab
-> Only check the "Disable desktop composition" mode
-> Apply and click Ok, use this shortcut to start UT3
This disables the Windows Vista Aero composition system and gives you a basic resource mode graphically-wise. The startup behavior is also changed. Previous to this setting I would get the splash-screen followed by a black screen for about 15 seconds and then the Copyright and acknowledgment (C & A) text page before the logos. After this setting the splash-screen remains visible and the game only becomes full-screen with the immediate start of the C & A screen. The loading time is still consistent its just the 15 seconds of black is now 15 seconds of splash-screen immediately followed by C & A.
Disable Aero, people in similar situations please report the effect of this setting in replies. Perhaps the root cause of this situation is worthwhile to address if there turns out to be some commonality across systems.
Thank you Epic, Unreal Tournament III completely rocks with 2.0 and Titans!
Edit
Software configuration:
Ati Catalyst 9.2
Realtek HD Audio 2.17
Appropriate Intel chipset drivers
WindowBlinds 6.4 for Vista
ObjectDock Plus 1.9
All drivers and every-single application on my rig is patched to its latest version at all times. I didn't mention it before because I've discounted the software environment because this situation has existed prior to all these installations and across many different versions of these drivers. The situation has encountered a breakthrough in my particular case: the single setting has a dramatic result after many, many, tweaking iterations.
More edit
The new UI is so much better than having to fool around and restarting much more because editing settings used to be outside of UT3. It really helped in testing various configurations. The 2.0 Patch is the Black Edition? Maybe I'll go buy it just because the patch and Titan pack has increased UT3's worth to me a great deal. So, THANK YOU again Epic! You've demonstrated through your actions that you actually care about your franchise where others would have released maybe one patch and let it go to the dogs. You've restored in me faith in your business model - no left high-and-dry. This quantified means I'm much more likely to purchase your successive products because I now know that you will provide superior customer service by patching your products so that the quality will eventually always reflect my real dollars invested in what you promised me. Kudos Epic, thank you, a satisfied customer.
Pentium D 830 @ 3.0Ghz
3GB RAM
1.2TB HD
Asus P5LP-LE main-board
Ati Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3
Onboard Realtek HD Audio
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Every Windows Update applied including Service Pack 1. NO non-applied updates exist, all updates have been installed. No core operating system component is beta so no pre-release software such as the Service Pack 2 release candidates.
Many maps such as Deck and Diesel had areas where frame-rate would consistently drop regardless of many tests of different graphical game settings. Non-performing areas tended to be in poor-to-mid 20's for frame-rate. After the setting described next these problem area frame-rates jumped to low-to-mid 30's consistently across maps with higher resolutions and settings enabled.
What I did was:
(with): Create or modify a short-cut to UT3.exe
-> Right click on that shortcut and choose "Properties" from the context-menu
-> Click on the "Compatibility" tab
-> Only check the "Disable desktop composition" mode
-> Apply and click Ok, use this shortcut to start UT3
This disables the Windows Vista Aero composition system and gives you a basic resource mode graphically-wise. The startup behavior is also changed. Previous to this setting I would get the splash-screen followed by a black screen for about 15 seconds and then the Copyright and acknowledgment (C & A) text page before the logos. After this setting the splash-screen remains visible and the game only becomes full-screen with the immediate start of the C & A screen. The loading time is still consistent its just the 15 seconds of black is now 15 seconds of splash-screen immediately followed by C & A.
Disable Aero, people in similar situations please report the effect of this setting in replies. Perhaps the root cause of this situation is worthwhile to address if there turns out to be some commonality across systems.
Thank you Epic, Unreal Tournament III completely rocks with 2.0 and Titans!
Edit
Software configuration:
Ati Catalyst 9.2
Realtek HD Audio 2.17
Appropriate Intel chipset drivers
WindowBlinds 6.4 for Vista
ObjectDock Plus 1.9
All drivers and every-single application on my rig is patched to its latest version at all times. I didn't mention it before because I've discounted the software environment because this situation has existed prior to all these installations and across many different versions of these drivers. The situation has encountered a breakthrough in my particular case: the single setting has a dramatic result after many, many, tweaking iterations.
More edit
The new UI is so much better than having to fool around and restarting much more because editing settings used to be outside of UT3. It really helped in testing various configurations. The 2.0 Patch is the Black Edition? Maybe I'll go buy it just because the patch and Titan pack has increased UT3's worth to me a great deal. So, THANK YOU again Epic! You've demonstrated through your actions that you actually care about your franchise where others would have released maybe one patch and let it go to the dogs. You've restored in me faith in your business model - no left high-and-dry. This quantified means I'm much more likely to purchase your successive products because I now know that you will provide superior customer service by patching your products so that the quality will eventually always reflect my real dollars invested in what you promised me. Kudos Epic, thank you, a satisfied customer.
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