I just don't know which game to get...
Quake II or Unreal? I have a 200MHX MMX, 48MB RAM, Voodoo3 2000 PCI, and 12.0 GB. What game should I get?
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
Though I haven't played Quake2 MP, I think alot more people think it's better. I haven't played Unreal online either.. only botmatches (and they are fun although some of the levels in Unreal blow).
The SP is Unreal, hands down though. (it's also really looong) ; )
Depends on what you're looking for. If it's great SP, (and great graphics) go for Unreal.
Kurgan
Yeah, but can my computer support Unreal?
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
Unreal has a good graphic engine, but it's boring. Better get Q2.
Expect to get somewhere around 35 fps average at 800x600, with frame rate dropping into the low teens when a lot of objects are on the screen. Quake II will run smoother, but Unreal will definitely be playable.
Definitely go for Unreal.
QuakeII is definitely more visceral- lots of machine gunning and that kind of thing. Unreal, though, is just plain cooler- exotic landscapes, varied colors, unusual weapons, and VERY smart enemies. Quake II AI is not particularly impressive.
Unreal should work on your machine OK. Your processor could be a bit faster and another 48MB of RAM would also help, but your Voodoo2 card will make a difference. The nice thing about Unreal is that its technically VERY "tweakable," that is to say, you can adjust every last detail of graphics, sound, etc., to make it work right on your PC.
Just make sure you get your patches right away- it's got some bugs out of the box!
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"Khabtatein fi ras tuga'"- Arabic for "Two hits on the head hurts."
You'll have to get the latest patch to be able to play it with your Voodoo3, anyway. You can get the patch at
http://unreal.epicgames.com) , assuming you do decide to buy Unreal.
Yeah, but is there a demo for Unreal? I want to try it out, but I wasn't able to find one. (The Quake II demo, I'm downloading now.) Oh, and I play all of my games in 680 x 480.
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
[This message has been edited by Qui-Gon Jinn (edited February 22, 2000).]
Don't rule out some of the lesser known First person shooters - StarSeige Universe was worth getting solely because of the addition of Starseige Tribes - an absolutely cracking Team based MP game. However, Tribes is Multiplayer only, whilst Starseige, a mechanoid blaster, is Single and Multiplayer compatible.
A worthy purchase...
http://www.jediknight.net/mboard/smile.gif)
I would point out, that in Unreal, there seems to be less fighting, and more emphases on solving (easy) puzzles, and exploring. You do go up against some nasty monsters, but you'll never be fighting more than two guys at at time (except in some rare instances where you are attacked by swarms of giant spiders). It's a great game, but in a different way than Quake2. Still, there's plenty of entertainment value, and in my opinion, it's more refreshing than Quake2.
The game is also 50+ levels long, and they are meshed together fairly well (not as well as like in Half Life, but there's definate continuity).
The graphics and atmosphere is simply breathtaking, and the weapons are unusual and interesting (and they get the job done). Having secondary fire also rocks.
Kurgan
[This message has been edited by Darth Kurgan (edited February 22, 2000).]
Oh you think so? But I am not sure Unreal will run as well as Quake II does on my computer. Also, I haven't been able to find anywhere to purchase Unreal, while there were a lot of places to purchase Quake II.
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
I don't know of an Unreal demo either, unforunately. However, the full version sells at Electronics Boutique for something incredibly cheap like $10.
It should run on your PC, you'll just have to turn off some of the detail (light coronas, A3D sound, etc.).
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"Khabtatein fi ras tuga'"- Arabic for "Two hits on the head hurts."
There IS a Unreal demo. Go to download.com. Use the serach string [unreal] and it will bring up to version of the Unreal demo.
Ok, after loads of decision, I did get Unreal! the graphics are very good, but it seemed to not detect my Voodoo3. A strange reason. I went to the site that Argath told me, but I could not find the correct patch that fixes the issues with Voodoo based accelerators.
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
[This message has been edited by Qui-Gon Jinn (edited February 23, 2000).]
http://unreal.epicgames.com/Versions.htm)
The latest Unreal patch fixes some problems people with Voodoo3's experience, but I haven't heard of the card not being usable at all. I was able to run in Glide before the patch, but the textures were miscolored. Hopefully, your problem of the card not being detected will also be remedied.
If the latest update doesn't fix your problem, be sure that you're running in full screen mode, as Unreal only supports software rendering in a window. The Advanced Options, accessable from the Options menu, will let you choose what 3D API you want to use, so you may want to be sure that Glide is selected in the Drivers menu.
[This message has been edited by Argath (edited February 23, 2000).]
Quake 2 or Unreal?
A very pertinent question, because I have played both. And I'm not going to recommend either of them. Get Unreal Tournament instead.
Why? Strange as this may sound, Unreal Tournament plays better on my machine than Unreal - and I only have a lowly Pentium 200Mhz MMX with 64 Mb Ram and a Voodoo 1 card!
I've been playing Unreal Tournament a LOT lately (not online, just using the built-in BOTS, you understand), and it rocks. However, I thought I'd have a change, and reinstalled Quake 2 to go on another slaughterfest. I was on about the fifth level when I gave up - I was bored silly, because even on the hardest setting I found myself on a leisurely stroll easily destroying everything in sight. The AI and response times of the enemies is just toooo sloooowww.
The original Unreal is a big, memory hugging beast. It likes 128Mb RAM, it likes 400MB hard disk space, it likes a Pentium II 300Mhz or higher to get the best out of it (on one of the harder settings with more enemies, it started to seriously grind to a halt on my lowly Pentium). Also, I felt there weren't enough enemies to battle (but then again, I remember the heady days of Doom, when you had fifty imps coming at you - ah, those were the days *sigh*
http://www.jediknight.net/mboard/wink.gif) ).
Anyway, give the Unreal Tournament demo a whirl. Incidentally, I think it's a lot better than Quake 3 Arena.
Quake 2 or Unreal?
A very pertinent question, because I have played both. And I'm not going to recommend either of them. Get Unreal Tournament instead.
Why? Strange as this may sound, Unreal Tournament plays better on my machine than Unreal - and I only have a lowly Pentium 200Mhz MMX with 64 Mb Ram and a Voodoo 1 card!
I've been playing Unreal Tournament a LOT lately (not online, just using the built-in BOTS, you understand), and it rocks. However, I thought I'd have a change, and reinstalled Quake 2 to go on another slaughterfest. I was on about the fifth level when I gave up - I was bored silly, because even on the hardest setting I found myself on a leisurely stroll easily destroying everything in sight. The AI and response times of the enemies is just toooo sloooowww.
The original Unreal is a big, memory hugging beast. It likes 128Mb RAM, it likes 400MB hard disk space, it likes a Pentium II 300Mhz or higher to get the best out of it (on one of the harder settings with more enemies, it started to seriously grind to a halt on my lowly Pentium). Also, I felt there weren't enough enemies to battle (but then again, I remember the heady days of Doom, when you had fifty imps coming at you - ah, those were the days *sigh*
http://www.jediknight.net/mboard/wink.gif) ).
Anyway, give the Unreal Tournament demo a whirl. Incidentally, I think it's a lot better than Quake 3 Arena.
Well, only trouble is, UT is basically a MP game (and botmatches being "multiplayer simulators"). Unreal is a single player adventure in the FPS genre. Plus it has its own botmatches (not as good as UT of course in that area).
If you want to just frag, frag, grab the flag, and snag the base, then get UT (Assaul is pretty cool too).
If you would rather go on a traditional shooter adventure (al la Dark Forces, JK, Half Life, etc), then get Unreal.
Unreal runs great (better than UT) on my computer, and that's with *only* 64 megs of ram (of course with all the latest patches... p233 MMX, 8 meg voodoo2).
In actuality, Unreal and UT both run on the same engine (UT's is modified of course) and they have similar system req's. On the highest detail settings of UT, you need some more ram, or a slightly better processors to run at a decent speed, but they're about equal. UT does have some more tweaks in some places for improved speed, but you're dealing with more complex textures and higher quality sounds, so it balances out.
Kurgan
[This message has been edited by Darth Kurgan (edited March 02, 2000).]
Unreal Tournament uses memory more efficiently and has better support for non-3dfx hardware than the original Unreal did. On almost all computers, Unreal Tournament performs better than the original Unreal.
UT has neither "more complex textures" nor higher quality sound, and I honestly don't know what you're talking about. Some of the levels have more complex architecture than Unreal's do, which could cause a performance toll on computers with slower CPU's. Bots also take up more CPU time than enemies in a single player level do, but that won't adversely affect performance unless there are a huge number of them.
I don't know why your results are different, but most people experience better performance with Unreal Tournament. If you're happy with how both games perform, I see no reason to even bother trying to fix something that isn't broken, but if you're getting dismal framerates in UT, you may want to check into this problem a bit more. UT should run faster.
[This message has been edited by Argath (edited February 24, 2000).]
I don't get it... Darth Kurgan said that:
Unreal runs great (better than UT) on my computer, and that's with *only* 64 megs of ram (of course with all the latest patches... p233 MMX, 8 meg voodoo2).
I have P200MMX 16 meg Voodoo3 and 48MB Ram. Unreal runs like crap on my computer~! I did take off all the "extra" lighting and everything else i could, but it just seems to be horrible. The graphics are spactacular (my Voodoo3 is doing that work), but when you first start up the game, (where you see the castle and the camera pans) the game undergos hiccups. On level 2, It takes a minute or two to take a footstep.
Now in oppposition, Quake 2 demo ran like a dream on my computer. So I don't think Unreal is fully utilizing the abilities of my Voodoo3. Why though? I know that it detected my Voodoo3, but it just seems so slow....
*NOTE: My hard drive has 68% free space. Does that affect the game in any way?*
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
[This message has been edited by Qui-Gon Jinn (edited February 25, 2000).]
Kurgan's definition of "great" may be much different from yours, which is why I try to stay away from describing how a game will run with words like that. I know how well Unreal performs on a system like yours, and "great" wouldn't be the word that comes to my mind, but you should at least be getting playable framerates through most of the game.
I think you may just have higher standards than Kurgan for what you consider decent play, but it may be a good idea to make sure you aren't receiving any abnormally low framerates. Hit tab and type "timedemo 1" during the castle flyby and report your average and lowest framerates after it finishes the flyby. I'll be able to tell you if your performance is abnormal or not if you can post some timedemo statistics.
On another note, a processor and memory upgrade would do your computer a world of good if it's in your budget. The Voodoo3 is an excellent video card, but it's not going to offer much better performance over a Voodoo2 or even a Voodoo Graphics card on a P200. If you're able to upgrade your CPU, you'll see a huge increase in performance.
[This message has been edited by Argath (edited February 25, 2000).]
Just a note...
All this talk about Unreal reminded what a cool game it is. So, I bought another copy (I had sold off my original) and booted it up. Wow! I'm running on a Direct3D card now, and it's incredible (the first time was in software mode)!
Make sure you have the absolute newest patch- it really makes a big difference in Unreal.
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"Khabtatein fi ras tuga'"- Arabic for "Two hits on the head hurts."
Well the new computer I'm getting, PIII 800MHz should do the trick! (Heck, I could get any game I want on that thing!)
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
Oh no, sniff, I guess Argath just showed me up! He said I was wrong! : (
Bottom line: When it comes to question of hardware, Argath is the only person you should listen to, because he knows. I just use words like "great" and stuff because I'm only expressing my opinion. Only Argath really knows (at least I think that's what he's trying to say).
Honestly, I only know what I've read, and what I've seen on my own computer.
"great" means playable, which means it isn't jerky, it isn't hanging all the time, etc. It's smooth. Both games take some time to load up on my computer (maybe four times longer than say JK does to load) but then you play fast. I use the "full install" thing of course, and I play without the CD's.
Unreal for me runs better on my machine. Is that because I have a 3dfx card? If that's not the way it's "supposed" to be, I dunno. You tell me why it runs better. ; )
Hey, everybody's machine is different. Don't take my word for it, if it works like crap on your's, and you can't tweak it, then fine, that's how it is.
When I load up Unreal, on all the highest graphical/audio settings, etc, it runs like a dream. I can do the same with UT and it runs more slowly, but I can make it FASTER by cranking down the detail, etc.
The way I see it, if you can run one game decently, you'll be able to run them all (minor differences of course). Then it comes down to a question of gameplay. I can't make that decision for you either. You'll have to play them and see which ones are worth your time and money. ; )
That's just a nice way of saying "Make up your own mind!"
Kurgan
[This message has been edited by Darth Kurgan (edited February 29, 2000).]
How does disagreeing with you equate to "showing you up"? I wasn't aware that correcting false statements and mentioning that "great" is completely subjective is considered offensive.
Your comments on Unreal vs. Unreal Tournmanet were completely false, and my reply doesn't need any more elaboration. If you'd like to try to qualify your statement that UT has "more complex textures" and "higher quality sounds", be my guest, but I'd suggest you just accept the fact that you're wrong. I made no comments that should have been taken personally, so I really don't see why you are offended by my reply.
Likewise, I don't understand what was so inflammatory about telling Qui-Gon that your definition of "great" play may be different than his. Post up some timedemo scores, and I can guarantee that they will be close to the ones Qui-Gon iis receiving, assuming his computer is working correctly. What you consider great play iisn't necessarily adequate for other people, which is why I try to stay away from describing how a game runs with completely subjective descriptions like "great" or "bad". Different people have different expectations for "good" gameplay, and words like "great" are practically meaningless when describing how well a game works.
[This message has been edited by Argath (edited February 29, 2000).]
Unreal runs better on my computer too. I can turn every single thing on Unreal to the highest setting and run it at 1600x1200 and there is never any slowdown unless I take a huge level, fly above it, and look at everything at once.
UT will run perfect on most levels at 1024x768, although I can't really put it higher. If a UT level gets even close to the size that Unreal's were, it gets so jerky it is unplayable (2ndSpaceBeacon comes to mind).
I'm not complaining, they both run fine, but Unreal does run better than UT for me.
Of course, the fact that my version of Unreal came with my Voodoo3 (3000) may be the reason. I have a suspicion my version might be optimized for my card.
Another point: My friend happens to have almost the exact stats (P200MMX, 48 Ram, but with 12 meg Creative labs Voodoo2) as Qui-Gon and Unreal runs absolutely smooth and pretty much perfect on his computer (only a couple things turned off, res 800x600).
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"Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words."
-St. Francis of Assisi
[This message has been edited by Conor (edited February 29, 2000).]
If Qui-Gon would post up a timedemo score, I could tell him whether his computer is performing abnoramlly slow or whether he just has higher standards for what he considers good gameplay. Of course, I just noticed his previous post about his new computer, so I suppose he won't be needing to fix it anymore.
Regarding Unreal's performance, if both run adequately, I see no problem. When UT was first released, a number of surveys were conducted on various message boards in which a good number of gamers, especially those with non-3dfx cards, found UT to run better than Unreal. There's not necessarily something wrong if Unreal runs better, but the majority of people experience better performance in UT.
[This message has been edited by Argath (edited February 29, 2000).]
From what I have experienced what UT needs most is Ram and a lot of it. When I had 64 the game would jerk and crawl every time I got into a heavy firefight. I had the same problem, only magnified many times, with Wheel of Time. After I upgraded to 128 UT ran near flawless and WOT ran much better (although not perfect, mostly because the game is so beautiful I can't stand to lower the detail one iota
http://www.jediknight.net/mboard/smile.gif).
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"Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words."
-St. Francis of Assisi
Ok, I did what Argath told me and here are the results:
Highest: 29.107813 FPS
Lowest: 4.564277 FPS
Average: (At the start) around 13.18
(At the end) around 13.56
I have [no clue how to "read" and know that, but there they are. I hope you can tell me the results, Argath.
NOTE: DON'T be a wise aleck again!
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http://www.JediKnight.8k.com)
"Be Mindful of the Living Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn
Yeah, those are way below normal, but I need to know what resolution you were using to run the timedemo. A previous post of mine included some information on checking to make sure you're running in Glide and not software mode. Did you try those suggestions? Just to be sure, you DID answer yes to the question when it asked if you have a 3dfx card, correct?
I'd also suggest getting the latest drivers from 3dfx.com and the latest Unreal patch if you haven't gotten it yet. Hopefully, you'll be able to get Unreal running soon.
[This message has been edited by Argath (edited February 29, 2000).]
Oh, I didn't say this before, but I have Unreal and UT both running at their highest quality settings (graphics and sound wise) with nothing turned off (except screen flash).
I run them both at 800x600 res and I'm running them in full screen mode. I have my desktop set to 16 bit color (if that matters at all and 800x600 res).
I'm running DirectX 7 and the latest drivers for my Voodoo2 card (Diamond Monster 3D II: 8 meg). I also have 64 megs of SDRAM on my system and am running Windows 98 SE.
I'm also running UT and Unreal both with the latest official updates respectively.
I have UT and Unreal on full installs (and I play them both without the CD's), and Unreal runs faster for me. They are both playable (ie: I'm able to enjoy them, and do well in games, and it isn't perceptably jerky). I also have a decent amount of my harddrive free.
One should note that both Unreal and UT say in their documentation that "32 megs of ram" is "probably unplayable" (which is not accurate), and that 128 megs of ram is basically the "best" way to play them. Apparently however, many are able to enjoy the games with less than 128 megs of ram (even without turning off everything and putting all the detail on the lowest settings).
As I recall, from reading various Unreal websites and UT websites (I never got into Unreal until just a few short weeks before UT came out actually), in which some people were complaining (they had non 3dfx cards) that they were experience trouble (whatever that means). Somehow then, the support for non-3dfx cards must have been less than adequete for these users. The UT sites seem to confirm this by commenting (especially in the update sections) that UT has "better" support for Direct3D cards.
I have never tried to run UT or Unreal with a direct3d card, so perhaps my view is thus limited. I'll take their word for it that a problem existed (the developers, and owners of Direct3d cards). However, I will say that my roommate (who has a ton of ram) was able to run Unreal and UT successfully, indeed better than on my computer. So apparently, with enough ram, this problem goes away on its own.
This does not prove however that Unreal must always run worse than UT. Perhaps this is only the case with Direct3d card owners.
Kurgan
[This message has been edited by Darth Kurgan (edited March 02, 2000).]
Unreal had bad Direct3D support, and the fact that TNT and TNT2 cards don't support palletized textures caused a lot of problems for users of those cards. UT works a lot better with non-3dfx cards than Unreal did, and usually plays smoother on most systems.
So Argath, does that allow for the possibility that on a 3dfx system, Unreal would actually run better than UT?
You were making it sound like no matter what, Unreal SHOULD run worse than UT. That doesn't speak to my situation right there.
If that's the case, then you have no reason to doubt what I said in earlier posts.
I don't have a TNT-based system, so I can't speak to their ability or inability to run Unreal or UT better or worse than one another or 3dfx owners.
I've been hearing all along from the various sites on the 'net that if you have a 3dfx card and you're an Unreal/UT player, you're better off than one who doesn't have a glide-based card. I've also read all the stuff about how the developers have been tweaking the direct3d support for UT, so in theory it should run better than Unreal did for those people.
I don't run in Direct3d mode, I run it in glide, and I have a 3dfx card, and as I said before, Unreal runs better for me than UT does. They both are playable, but Unreal runs a bit better (smoother, even at the highest settings).
Kurgan
I never said it couldn't. I took exception to your false comments about what made Unreal and Unreal Tournament different, not the fact that Unreal runs better on your computer. Based on several surveys I've seen, UT does run faster on most systems, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true for everyone.
I don't understand why you're obsessing over this, anyway. Read the last paragraph of my first post on the topic. As long as both run well, there's no reason to assume something is working incorrectly.