Before you begin be warned that you might experience some lag if you don't have more recent hardware.
This guide will cover clean-installing UT, but it should work just fine for people who already have game installed if they skip some steps.

Important notice - currently I won't cover here anything about UT Retexturing Project, but I or some other person will do so after this guide is complete.
The reason is because those textures are still in development and have some minor issues, but they add huge visual overhaul
See end of post for more details!

So lets begin.

Unreal Tournament comes in two CD-s. First one contains UT game itself, second one contains higher resolution S3TC textures (GOTY version has also ChaosUT and Rocket Arena mods included).

First - install UT game itself from CD1

Right after your UT install is complete, be sure to patch your game. The amount of patches you need to install depends what version of UT you own. If you got original 1999 release, then you need to download and install the following:

- UT patch v436
- UT Bonus Pack 1
- UT Bonus Pack 2
- UT Bonus Pack 3
- UT Bonus Pack 4

If you got UT Game Of The Year Edition then you just need download Bonus Pack 4. Some GOTY versions are v432 so you then still need to download patch 436 too.
Next we're gonna install higher resolution S3TC compressed textures from CD2, but before you do that be sure to back up your current City.utx, ShaneSky.utx and SkyBox.utx files from your UnrealTournament\Texures folder, because they're improperly masked and you get some whacky skyboxes. Put those three files into some temporary folder until you need them.
After you have installed S3TC texures from CD2 go to your UnrealTournament\Texures folder and take out the following files and put them besides other previously backed up files - Female1Skins.utx, Female2Skins.utx, Male1Skins.utx, Male2Skins.utx, Male3Skins.utx and SkTrooperSkins.utx.
The reason you'll do that is because sometimes you get sliding-players effect in some improperly configured servers which is really annoying. Now download attached file (S3TC_Fix.zip), extract it to UnrealTournament\Texures folder and run S3Fix.exe.
After the process is complete, be sure to take all your previously backed up files and move them into Textures folder answering yes to replace existing ones.

Download and install latest DirectX runtime libaries. All Direct3D games do use DirectX and it is critically important that you always are running latest DirectX for best compatibility and performance.
You can get latest from MS download page:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Now it's time to download updated video renderer for Unreal Tournament that has ability to add extra visual detail including S3TC textures support. There are two major enhanced renderers for UT - OpenGL and Direct3D9. Both ones are pretty much identical when it comes to features, but some people might find one renderer to work better on their machine than other so it's really up to you to see which one provides better results.
Go to http://www.cwdohnal.com/utglr/ and download latest enhanced OpenGL or Direct3D9 renderer.

Here's direct links for OpenGL v3.5 - http://www.ut-files.com/index.php?dir=Video_Renders/OpenGL/&file=utglr35.zip
and Direct3D9 v1.1 - http://www.ut-files.com/index.php?dir=Video_Renders/D3D9/&file=utd3d9r11.zip


Download one of those and extract the files into UnrealTournament\System folder.
Now start your game. On First-Time Configuration screen be sure to select show all devices button. Select OpenGL or Direct3D9.
You can always later change your renderer from Options -> Preferences -> Video and then click on Change button.



Go ahead and click Next to start the game. When the UT is running open system console by pressing ~ and type preferences and press [ENTER].

Advanced Options opens from where you can tweak all your settings. You can do all the same things via UnrealTournament.ini file located under UnrealTournament\System folder - if you can't find specific option or setting then you add them manually.
Go to Display options and configure them as follows:

ATTENTION: Text behind "//" are only comments.





Under Advanded --> Game Engine Settings set CacheSizeMegs to 16

After you completed that go under Rendering section --> OpenGL or Direct3D9.



I'll post both OpenGL AND Direct3D9 settings that should give you highest detail. Again - // are comments and don't add them!!








Now you should have all set. One note about OpenGL - if you configure your video settings under Advanced Options and try to return into game, the game itself might exit with error message, but don't worry, your settings are still saved, just restart the game.

A note about Unreal Tournament Retexturing Project
UTRP is a community member initiatived project to recreate UT textures with MUCH higher resolution and they add additional eye candy so it's definitely worth to try those out.
http://www.unrealtexture.com/UT/Website ... ighEnd.htm
Installing: in very short - just after installing S3TC textures, replace them with UTRP ones and then follow instructions as normal.



That should be all for now. I'll fix typos and add additional stuff if I find any. Feel free to add additional comments and suggestions how these settings worked out for you.

Very nice tutorial!

While my guide has higher-res stuff (along with sky high requirements lol) this is an excellent guide to making UT99 look good and it's pretty much same as what I did before newer S3TC textures got released. If you have an older PC (like 2GHz single-core CPU, and 128MB Graphics, and 512 MB RAM) you may want to use this. Also, you should install the demo version of extension pack as well (demo version isn't a resource hog so don't worry about slowdowns).

Very good tutorial indeed. I don't think it could be outlined any better by anybody. Nice work.

Thanks guys.

Here is some more detailed descriptions about each setting. It's from Chris Dohnal's webpage so credit goes to him.

UseTrilinear - [True/False]
Controls the use of trilinear texture filtering.

AlwaysMipmap - [True/False]
Can make the renderer always generates mipmaps for textures that are not supplied with them. But, it's always set to 0 by the initialization code (has been this was for a long time), so changing the value of this setting should make no difference.

AutoGenerateMipmaps - [True/False]
Enables the use of the GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap extension for automatic mipmap generation. It is recommended that this setting be disabled as there are far too many video drivers that have unstable, slow, and/or broken support for this extension.

NoFiltering - [True/False]
Can disable filtering on all textures. Useful as a debug option.

MaxAnisotropy - [Integer]
Controls the use and level of anisotropic texture filtering. Disabled if set to 0. Should make no difference if set to 1 (isotropic texture filtering). If set to greater than 1, specifies the maximum degree of anisotropy to use for texture filtering.

UseS3TC - [True/False]
Enables the use of high resolution S3TC compressed textures if they are installed.

NoMaskedS3TC - [True/False]
This is a debug option designed to emulate the behavior of older renderers. If set to True, it will prevent masking from working on masked S3TC textures.

Use16BitTextures - [True/False]
Selects lower quality and more compact formats for a number of textures, which will often speed things up. In many cases, there is only minor quality loss. In other cases, like with various skyboxes and coronas, there is often major quality loss.

UseBGRATextures - [True/False]
Allows textures to be uploaded in BGRA format rather than RGBA format if the GL_EXT_bgra extension is supported. This can improve texture upload performance. This option should always be enabled unless it causes problems.

LODBias - [Floating point]
Allows mipmap selection bias to be adjusted. Use negative values to pseudo sharpen textures. Use positive values to blur textures and potentially improve performance at the expense of blurry textures.

UseTNT - [True/False]
A workaround for buggy TNT/TNT2 drivers. Alters texture scaling and mipmap generation behavior. If you really want to know all the details, check the source code.

TexDXT1ToDXT3 - [True/False]
A workaround for poor image quality on NVIDIA GeForce1 - GeForce4 series hardware when using DXT1 format S3TC compressed textures. If enabled, converts all DXT1 textures to DXT3 textures on upload. This improves image quality on the previously mentioned NVIDIA hardware at the expense of twice as much texture memory usage for these textures. The NVIDIA DXT1 image quality problems or most noticeable on certain skybox textures. Keep this in mind when deciding whether or not to trade image quality for speed here. This option should not be enabled on any hardware that draws DXT1 textures with the same quality as DXT3 textures of course.

UseMultiTexture - [True/False]
Controls the use of multitexturing. Should always be enabled as the renderer has a few glitches when it is not. I might try to track these down some day. Due to the way some parts of the renderer are still written, it is likely to fail on any system without support for the GL_ARB_multitexture extension anyway.

UsePrecache - [True/False]
Controls texture precaching. Texture precaching may improve performance by initializing internal data structures for a number of world textures and most likely getting them loaded into video memory at level load time. It will also slow level loading down some.

MaxTMUnits - [Integer]
Used to limit the number of texture units used by the renderer. Useful as a debug option. Disabled if set to 0.

UsePalette - [True/False]
Controls the use of paletted textures. If there is hardware support for paletted textures, using them can significantly improve performance.

UseAlphaPalette - [True/False]
A workaround for very old buggy GeForce drivers. If set to False, will not upload masked textures as paletted. If there is hardware support for paletted textures, this option should be set to True unless it causes any problems.

MaskedTextureHack - [True/False]
Enabling this option can prevent rendering problems with masked textures when the same texture is applied to different polygons that do not have the masked attribute set consistently across all of them. Likely examples of masked texture problems are rendering errors with solid colored boxes around railings and trees that can often times be fixed with the flush command. There is some risk to using this option, which is why it's called a hack option. It's likely to be very safe, but not completely safe. Implementing it the completely safe way is a lot of extra work, so it uses the simple solution. If it does happen to fail, there will be some completely incorrect textures on some objects.

GammaOffset - [Floating point]
Offset for gamma correction. Can be used to adjust gamma correction even more if you hit the end of the Brightness slider in Video options. The default value of 0.0 causes no change. Use negative values for darker or positive values for brighter. If adjusting this setting for the first time, I'd recommend starting with small values such as -0.3 or 0.3.

GammaCorrectScreenshots - [True/False]
If enabled, will apply gamma correction to screen shots.

GammaOffsetRed - [Floating point]
GammaOffsetGreen - [Floating point]
GammaOffsetBlue - [Floating point]
Fine tuning parameters for gamma correction. These allow different offsets to be specified for each color channel. These offsets are never applied when gamma correcting screen shots, even if GammaCorrectScreenshots is enabled.

OneXBlending - [True/False]
If enabled, matches what the D3D renderer does for blending in multitexture mode when applying lightmaps to world geometry. I can't say for sure which way is correct. In single texture mode, the D3D renderer does appear to do blending like the OpenGL renderer in single texture mode or multitexture mode without OneXBlending enabled.

RequestHighResolutionZ - [True/False]
Allows a high resolution Z buffer to be requested when running in a 16-bit color mode. It's a good idea to enable this option if running in 16-bit color because rendering problems can occur if a 16-bit Z buffer is used. Note that not all video cards support Z and color buffers of dissimilar bit depths.

RefreshRate - [Integer]
Can be used to request a specific refresh rate when running full screen. If set to 0, a default refresh rate is used. If this value is set to an invalid or unsupported refresh rate based on video card or monitor capabilities, the renderer will fail to initialize.

SwapInterval - [Integer]
Controls V Sync. If set to the default value of -1, the default buffer swapping method is used. Set to 0 to disable V Sync. Set to 1 to enable V Sync. Set to higher values for one frame every N screen refreshes. Not all video drivers support values higher than 1.

FrameRateLimit - [Integer]
CPU controlled frame rate limiter in frames per second. Set to 0 to disable.

UseAA - [True/False]
Enables multisample antialiasing. Requires the GL_ARB_multisample extension.

NumAASamples - [Integer]
Specifies the number of samples to use per fragment for antialiasing. 2 and 4 are common values that should work on many video cards.

AAFilterHint - [Integer]
Can be used to enable Quincunx AA on NVIDIA video cards that support it. Set to 2 to enable this mode.

UseZTrick - [True/False]
Can avoid some z-buffer clears at the expense of cutting z-buffer precision in half. This may improve performance on some video cards. On video cards with z-buffer optimization hardware, enabling this setting may significantly reduce performance as it interferes with some hardware z-buffer optimization implementations.

ZRangeHack - [True/False]
An experimental option that can make the z-buffer work better for far away objects. Might cause unexpected problems, but doesn't seem to break anything major so far. Will fix problems with decals flickering in the distance with 24-bit z-buffers, which is the most you can get on many video cards. Will also fix the issue with the Redeemer covering up part of the HUD. Partially breaks weapon rendering on the first person view one if using wireframe debug mode (will clip near parts of it). Doesn't help enough to make 16-bit z-buffers work correctly.

MaxLogUOverV - [Integer]
Set to 8.

MaxLogVOverU - [Integer]
Set to 8.

MinLogTextureSize - [Integer]
Set to 0.

MaxLogTextureSize - [Integer]
Set to 8, or 0.

UseCVA - [True/False]
Enables the use of the compiled vertex array (CVA) extension. It may be useful on video cards without HW T&L. It is likely to slow things down a little bit on video cards with HW T&L.

UseMultidrawArrays - [True/False]
Enables the use of the GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays extension.

BufferClippedActorTris - [True/False]
Alters how certain actor polygons are handled, some of which happen to be clipped by higher level code. It's a tradeoff and it is unlikely to make much of a difference either way.

BufferTileQuads - [True/False]
Enables buffering in the DrawTile path. May improve text rendering performance.

UseSSE - [True/False]
Controls the use of SSE instructions. Set to True to auto detect CPU and OS support for SSE instructions and use them if supported. Set to False to disable the use of SSE instructions.

UseVertexProgram - [True/False]
Enables vertex program mode. Consider this an experimental option. It can improve performance in some cases. It can also slow things down a lot if certain other settings are not configured correctly. It is likely to slow things down a lot if detail textures are enabled, but single pass detail texture mode is not enabled. It may not work correctly or may cause crashes with some video drivers.

UseTexIdPool - [True/False]
Should be set to True.

UseTexPool - [True/False]
Should be set to True.

DynamicTexIdRecycleLevel - [Integer]
Should be set to the default value of 100.

DetailTextures - [True/False]
Enables detail textures.

UseDetailAlpha - [True/False]
Must be enabled for proper detail texture support.

DetailClipping - [True/False]
Enables the use of a somewhat experimental detail texture mode. It costs more CPU time, but may improve performance in fill rate limited situations.

DetailMax - [Integer]
Set to 2 to enable a second detail texture layer. Set to 0 or 1 for standard one layer detail texturing if detail textures are enabled. The second detail texture layer will not show up unless SinglePassDetail is disabled.

SinglePassDetail - [True/False]
Enables single pass detail texture mode. This should generally be the highest performance detail texture mode. It requires 4 texture units. It also requires the UseDetailAlpha option to be enabled.

SinglePassFog - [True/False]
Enables single pass fog mode. This should generally be the highest performance fog mode. It requires 3 texture units. It also requires support for either the GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 extension or the GL_NV_texture_env_combine4 extension.

ColorizeDetailTextures - [True/False]
Debug option for detail textures. If enabled, adds a green tint to detail textures.

you can download the unreal tournament configurator
whit that you can go to options in the game menu

I tweaked my settings and the game runs better now - Thanks!!

thx for the guide ^^

Hey all,


Those are cool tweaks

Though i am not sure why not simply bypass the S3TC fix and the 2nd CD textures all together.

If i am corect all problems have been solved already. If all follow this:

Clients:

- Install UT
- Install patch 436
- Install the bonuspacks if you want.
- Install the openGL and/or D3D8/D3D9
- Install the UTRP S3TC textures (do not run the fix !)

Servers:

- Instal the server and what more
- Only use the textures from the 1st CD ! (except for the chaos textures)

If correct that should work perfectly, without the skating player glitch.


The only exception would be the XbpFX package, which does contain an error, which is the reason i left it out of the master files. But can be downloaded at your own risk at this link: XbpFX Non Group


And the more people that confirm this setup, the more we will know for sure it does work. But tests so far this seems to work pretty flawless without errors, both on and offline.


And this is the link that summarizes it: summarize
.
.
.

Yes, that's the way to deal with UTRP textures, but my guide is targeted for mainstream UT players who often don't have time and/or bandwidth to download additional quite large files.

Ah, ic

Yeah, if you take that in account than your solution is valid alright. Though needs to be said, the Low End textures were also created for people having not so much bandwidth available and/or lower end videocards.

Those people could still have a go with the Low End individual downloads at this page: UT Low End which allows download per download for all the individual packages. And the Low End does take a few hundreds Mb off, but i agree its still a big amount to downloads. And the SkyCity package (178Mb) cannot be split up to a smaller one. (similar individual download page is also there for High End btw).



Obviously this first release did cover all packages, which is unlikelly to happen again. Further updates concern individual updates from a packege or several packages, and in such a case the Masterfiles are concidered an "already downloaded before" base.


But again, i agree its alot of downloads alright, and using the default 2nd CD textures would bypass that. Though i am wondering if the fix should be used with those, maybe the 2nd CD textures simply suffer from the same problems (having the 2nd CD textures or dedicated server package textures on the server). For all i know those S3TC texture do just fine online if the server is using the proper textures. If so, that would save alot of work for the people installing them. It might be worth looking into that as well. Cause its pretty retarded to have players go trough all of that to get them installed while it might be the server admins fault......
.
.
.

thankyou, very helpful

Thanks - just what I was looking for. Well done!

Awsm, Very nice Thank you.

I'm glad you like that folks

Feel free to post your result screenshots or sugesst improvements.