Difference between revisions of "Oldunreal 227 FAQ"

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'''As any other patch before, 227 resets all settings, so if you want to keep your custom setup, be sure to backup your User.ini (in your Unreal/System/ directory) before installing!!'''  
'''As any other patch before, 227 resets all settings, so if you want to keep your custom setup, be sure to backup your Unreal and User.ini (in your Unreal/System/ directory) before installing!!'''  


Using your old Unreal.ini is not recommended, as it does not contain all necessary settings for 227.
<FONT color=red>IF YOU WANT TO TRANSFER YOUR SETTINGS TO YOUR NEW INSTALLATION YOU HAVE TO COPY SPECIFIC LINES MANUALLY.
DO NOT TAKE OVER OLD UNREAL.INI AND USER.INI FILES FROM PREVIOUS INSTALLATIONS.
SOME SETTINGS HAVE BEEN CHANGED AND SOME SETTINGS ARE JUST MISSING THEN, THIS CAN CAUSE WEIRD SIDE EFFECTS AND EVEN CRASHES!
</FONT>




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== Your patch is shit. I tried it and my sound was messed and/or it crashed, or whatever! ==
== Your patch is shit. I tried it and my sound was messed and/or it crashed, or whatever! ==


Although not really a question- 227 is not final yet. The available patches may still contain bugs and the purpose of these releases is to find and fix these. Even original patches contained more than one bug in the past. The 227 project tries to work with the community to make the best possible patch. So don't complain but help and report such problems.
Although this is not really a question, 227 was developed for a long time and we tried to fix
 
any bug reported. Still the available patches may still contain bugs and the purpose of these  
releases is to find and fix these. Remember, even the original patches contained more than  
only a few bugs in the past.
The 227 project tries to work with the community to make the best possible patch. So instead
of complaining, help and report any problems you encounter.


== But I don't trust you because your patch was not made by Epic ==
== But I don't trust you because your patch was not made by Epic ==
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== What Unreal version is 227 compatible with? (Server) ==
== What Unreal version is 227 compatible with? (Server) ==


Basically, a 227 Server can be used for all versions of Unreal except 226f. This limitation is because of an old compatibility issue caused by Legend with UnrealGold and Unreal 226 - it can't be fixed because this problem was created years ago and requires a client update to be fixed - which leads again to 227. Its not possible to fix it server-side only.
Basically, a 227 Server can be used for all versions of Unreal. A special case is 226f because of an old compatibility issue caused by Legend with UnrealGold and Unreal 226 - this problem was created years ago and requires a client update to be fixed - which leads again to 227. Its not possible to fix it server-side only.
Still in 227i a hack was added which creates a workaround for this problem and it seems to work without problems so far in all tests, but clients are still encouraged to update because it can't be guaranteed to work in any situation or with any mod.


But if you want to use a 227 Server for the older versions 224,225 and UnrealGold you have to know that there are some restrictions:
But if you want to use a 227 Server for the older versions 224,225 and UnrealGold you have to know that there are some restrictions:
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* You must use maps and mods which DO NOT CONTAIN any of the 227 features. This means mods made with 227, maps with 227 content (like ParticleEmitter) are proscribed. Any mod or map made with 226 or earlier will run.
* You must use maps and mods which DO NOT CONTAIN any of the 227 features. This means mods made with 227, maps with 227 content (like ParticleEmitter) are proscribed. Any mod or map made with 226 or earlier will run.


* 227's anticheat system works only with 227 clients, and so does the banning feature. If you want to use 227 with older clients and you need some kind of antibot you need to use 3rd party tools, so if you are planning to run a 227 deathmatch server, it's probably better to restrict your server to 227 only. To run a coop server without the anticheat system is not a problem, but that's a decision the admin must take himself.
* 227's anticheat system works only fully with 227 clients, and so does the banning feature. If you want to use 227 with older clients the anticheat is limited to scripted bots and hacks, so if you are planning to run a 227 deathmatch server, it's probably better to restrict your server to 227 only. To run a coop server without the anticheat system is not a problem, but that's a decision the admin must take himself.


== Why is 226f (Unreal Classic version without RTNP) crashing on 227 servers - details about conforming ==
* 227i has a new option called OldClientCompatMode. This enables a hack which fixes the connection issues with 226f clients, meaning that every old version (224,225,226b,226f) can connect to 227 servers now. Epic and Legend broke the compatibility between classic Unreal 226f and UnrealGold, where both versions were conformed against 225, which made 225 the only server version for both these two and the following versions. 227 suffered all the time from this, but since the mistake happened long in the past there was no suitable fix for it yet.
 
== Why is 226f (Unreal Classic version without RTNP) crashing on 227 servers without OldClientCompatMode - details about conforming ==
To understand why this problem exists a small explanation:
To understand why this problem exists a small explanation:
Any new version has to be "conformed" with the previous version to make it compatible. That's what Epic did from any version to the next. The procedure to do so is called conforming. It is necessary to align the so called "nametable", so that any entry is on the "same place" as it was in the previous version.
Any new version has to be "conformed" with the previous version to make it compatible. That's what Epic did from any version to the next. The procedure to do so is called conforming. It is necessary to align the so called "nametable", so that any entry is on the "same place" as it was in the previous version.
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The decision to take 226b for conforming was a pure logical one. 226b has a lot of less bugs compared to 226f, AND it is nowadays more often in use than classical Unreal.
The decision to take 226b for conforming was a pure logical one. 226b has a lot of less bugs compared to 226f, AND it is nowadays more often in use than classical Unreal.
As a first hour Unreal player, I'd have chosen 226f, but this would have been a purely emotional decision then, and my logic refused to do so.
As a first hour Unreal player, I'd have chosen 226f, but this would have been a purely emotional decision then, and my logic refused to do so.
So 227 servers are compatible with: 224,225,226b.
So 227 servers are compatible with: 224,225,226b and 227i provides a workaround for 226f (see OldClientCompatMode).
 


== What version of Unreal can 227 be applied to? ==
== What version of Unreal can 227 be applied to? ==


227 (from a to f) is a patch for Unreal and can also be applied to UnrealGold and UnrealAnthology, but you will lose the ability to use the Return to NaPali extension. It will also fallback to the old classic menu, but the new UGold/UT style menu can be set again. See [[Oldunreal_227_FAQ#I_want_to_use_the_Unreal_Gold.2FUnreal_Tournament_menu_interface_instead_of_this_old_one.21|this chapter.]]
227 (from a to f) is a patch for Unreal and can also be applied to UnrealGold and UnrealAnthology, but you will lose the ability to use the Return to NaPali extension. It will also fallback to the old classic menu, but the new UGold/UT style menu can be set again. See [[Oldunreal_227_FAQ#I_want_to_use_the_Unreal_Gold.2FUnreal_Tournament_menu_interface_instead_of_this_old_one (or vice versa)|this chapter.]]


As for 227g/227h, there are 2 versions of each. One for Unreal and one for the UnrealGold/UnrealAnthology.  
As for 227g or higher, there are 2 versions of each. One for Unreal and one for the UnrealGold/UnrealAnthology.  
The Unreal version does behave like 227f. The UnrealGold version fully supports the Return to Napali extension and can be applied to UnrealGold and Anthology only.
The Unreal version does behave like 227f. The UnrealGold version fully supports the Return to Napali extension and can be applied to UnrealGold and Anthology only.
Users who have the RTNP expansion set can use this UnrealGold patch, but should update to 226b before (latest official Patch from Legend).  
Users who have the RTNP expansion set can use this UnrealGold patch, but should update to 226b before (latest official Patch from Legend).  
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'''DO NOT USE INI FILES FROM OLDER INSTALLATIONS IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING! IT CAN CAUSE UNPREDICTABLE RESULTS.'''
'''DO NOT USE INI FILES FROM OLDER INSTALLATIONS IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING! IT CAN CAUSE UNPREDICTABLE RESULTS.'''


== I want to use the Unreal Gold/Unreal Tournament menu interface instead of this old one! ==
== I want to use the Unreal Gold/Unreal Tournament menu interface instead of this old one (or vice versa) ==


- To enable Unreal Gold/UT menu interface, just follow these simple steps:
- To enable Unreal Gold/UT menu interface, just follow these simple steps:
* first go to Advanced Options.
* first go to Advanced Options.
* expand 'Drivers' group and change 'Console' to 'UMenu Browser Console'. The third console available there, 'Standard Unreal Console' is deprecated and NOT recommended to be used!
* expand 'Drivers' group and change 'Console' from 'Unreal Browser Console' to 'UMenu Browser Console'. If you want to use the classic console instead of the Unreal Gold console you have to change it of course from 'UMenu Console' to 'Unreal Browser Console'. The third console available there, 'Standard Unreal Console' is deprecated and NOT recommended to be used!
After restarting the game the console is changed.
After restarting the game the console is changed.


== How do I access Advanced Options? ==
== How do I access Advanced Options? ==
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== After installing 227 I have problems with my mousepointer appearing, especially in windowed mode ==
== After installing 227 I have problems with my mousepointer appearing, especially in windowed mode ==


This is because 227 has DirectInput set to true by default, to enable support for more than 3 mouse buttons. Unfortunately this causes these problems. If you don't need the additional mouse-buttons support, set DirectInput support to false in advanced options.
This can happen if DirectInput is set to True, to enable support for more than 3 mouse buttons. Unfortunately is a known and not currently fixable problem. If you don't need the additional mouse-button support, set DirectInput support to False in the advanced options. 227i provides RawHIDInput as a replacement which doesn't suffer these problems.


== What about Nephthys (server protection mod by Zora), does it work with 227? ==
== What about Nephthys (server protection mod by Zora), does it work with 227? ==
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==Every time i try to start the game, it starts, the screen goes black and then it crashes.  Giving the error UFireTexture::ConstantTick<-UTexture::Tick<-(FireTexture NALIFX.SHANEFX.TORCHES2)==
==Every time i try to start the game, it starts, the screen goes black and then it crashes.  Giving the error UFireTexture::ConstantTick<-UTexture::Tick<-(FireTexture NALIFX.SHANEFX.TORCHES2)==
The fix is simple. Right-click on My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Data Execution Prevention, select "Turn on for essential Windows programs and services only". What exactly is causing this is unclear yet. Maybe because of the high amount of assembly code in fire.dll.
The fix is simple. Right-click on My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Data Execution Prevention, select "Turn on for essential Windows programs and services only" or add a specific exception for Unreal. What exactly is causing this is unclear yet. Maybe because of the high amount of assembly code in fire.dll.


 
== After installing 227 it's all laggy / bad performance ==
== After installing 227g/h it's all laggy / bad performance ==
The new shadows  may eat up a lot of CPU, even on nowadays machines, and get top notch computers to their knees. The related settings to use Projectors instead of Decals also need more power.
The new shadows  may eat up a lot of CPU, even on nowadays machines, and get top notch computers to their knees. The related settings to use Projectors instead of Decals also need more power.


Unreal still handles a lot of things in the Engine, not in the GPU, as modern games do, and this couldn't be easily changed without rewriting major parts of the Engine and Renderer from scratch again. That is why we kept it the way it was and implemented the shadows in the same way (pretty much no choice here).
Unreal still handles a lot of things in the Engine, not in the GPU, as modern games do, and this couldn't be easily changed without rewriting major parts of the Engine and Renderer from scratch again. That is why we kept it the way it was and implemented the shadows in the same way (pretty much no choice here).
This also makes the graphics card almost unimportant, leaving up most things to be purely made by the CPU.  
This also makes the graphics card almost unimportant, leaving up most things to be purely made by the CPU.  
Also: Important for the performance is the speed of one core, Unreal can only make use of one (the core can be selected in the Unreal.ini (227h only) or via the start up parameter -USECPU=X). So you don't really benefit from Quad- or Hexcore CPUs, only the performance per core is vital.
Also: Important for the performance is the speed of one core, Unreal can only make use of one (the core can be selected in the Unreal.ini (227h and newer only) or via the start up parameter -USECPU=X). So you don't really benefit from Quad- or Hexcore CPUs, only the performance per core is vital.


As for the shadows itself, we use a smoothing mechanism which makes the shadows very realistic even at Med-Res, so High or even Ultra is not really needed.  
As for the shadows itself, we use a smoothing mechanism which makes the shadows very realistic even at Med-Res, so High or even Ultra is not really needed.  
Indeed 227g/h performs, in most situations, way better than any previous version, '''up to 2 times faster''' (if you compare the plain performance with older versions without the new 227 features), but due to the shadows people have the impression it would lag the hell out of their PC.
Indeed 227, in most situations, works way better than any previous version, '''up to 2 times faster''' (if you compare the plain performance with older versions without the new 227 features), but due to the shadows, people have the impression it makes their PC lag to a crawl.


'''Shadows are entirely optional and if you turn them off you will lose nothing compared to older versions!!'''
'''Shadows are entirely optional and if you turn them off you will lose nothing compared to older versions!!'''


So if your machine can handle it, try it, but be careful if you want to play mods with massive amount of monsters, like MonsterMash or MonsterHunt. For normal DM or Coop a setting of MedRes should be working flawlessly on most (not high-end) machines.
So if your machine can handle it, try it, but be careful if you want to play mods with massive amount of monsters, like MonsterMash or MonsterHunt. For normal DM or Coop a setting of MedRes should be working flawlessly on most (not high-end) machines.
'''Bad performance with emitters:'''
Maps and mods using the new emitters may cause bad performance when AA is enabled and set to a high value. Try lowering AA or disable it entirely if you encounter bad FPS with these.


== Trying to load old savegames doesn't work or even crashes the game ==
== Trying to load old savegames doesn't work or even crashes the game ==
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The new EntryII map was included to make the players and mappers aware about some of the new 227 features. If you don't like it you only need to change one line in Unreal.ini:
The new EntryII map was included to make the players and mappers aware about some of the new 227 features. If you don't like it you only need to change one line in Unreal.ini:
EntryMap=EntryII.unr to EntryMap=Entry.unr
EntryMap=EntryII.unr to EntryMap=Entry.unr
You can either use the classic patch on Unreal only, or combine your games before patching the result with the UGold Patch. [[How to Make a Compound UGold From Unreal and RTNP|Here is how you do it.]]
== When joining some servers Unreal crashes with an error like: Critical: Bad name index -50/55 ==
This can be caused by a crippled cache file. In 227i you can remove the suppress entry "Suppress=DevLoad" and you can see which file was loaded before the crash (and probably the cause):
DevLoad: Create new linker for ..\Cache\CrippledCacheFile.uxx
Critical: appError called:
Critical: Bad name index -50/55
Critical: Windows GetLastError: The operation completed successfully. (0)
Exit: Executing UObject::StaticShutdownAfterError
Exit: Executing UWindowsClient::ShutdownAfterError
Log: DirectDraw End Mode
Critical: ULinkerLoad<<FName
Critical: (LinkerLoad Transient.LinkerLoad 1683457))
Critical: FObjectImport<<
Critical: LoadImportMap
Critical: ULinkerLoad::ULinkerLoad
Critical: UObject::GetPackageLinker
Critical: VerifyPackages
Critical: UGameEngine::LoadMap
Critical: AttemptLoadPending
Critical: TickPending
Critical: UGameEngine::Tick
Critical: UpdateWorld
Critical: MainLoop
In older versions you only can try to find the file manually.
== How to install 227 Gold patch to Unreal Classic + additional Return to Napali ==
To install the 227 Gold patch you should first install classic, then your RTNP. This makes it basically to Unreal RTNP 224.
Then update this to latest 226b, which makes it equal to UnrealGold, then apply the 227 patch.
Be sure to have the RTNP maps in a subfolder named UPak in the Maps directory to be 100% equally to UnrealGold installation. The installer won't accept it otherwise.
See [[How_to_Make_a_Compound_UGold_From_Unreal_and_RTNP]] for more details.
== Will you include full dynamic shadow/stencil shadows/bump mapping/parallax mapping ? ==
Unreal was created in a time when not all computers featured a 3D chipset. This means the main APIs used today were not a given for the creators - Epic in our case. In order to provide maximum compatibility, the engine could run in software rendering (all calculation done by the main CPU), and most of the rendering code is processed by the processor.
However, this means new techniques and technologies which extensively use the OpenGL or Direct3D APIs cannot be fully used in Unreal, including advanced dynamic shadows, bump mapping and other complex technologies. To do so would require moving large parts of the rendering code from the CPU to the GPU, which would require rewriting large parts of the renderer from scratch. This would require time, efforts and people. The agreement with Epic prevents Smirftsch from sharing the source code with anyone, which pretty much means this cannot be done.
[[Category:FAQs]]
[[Category:FAQs]]

Revision as of 17:06, 8 February 2013

As any other patch before, 227 resets all settings, so if you want to keep your custom setup, be sure to backup your Unreal and User.ini (in your Unreal/System/ directory) before installing!!

IF YOU WANT TO TRANSFER YOUR SETTINGS TO YOUR NEW INSTALLATION YOU HAVE TO COPY SPECIFIC LINES MANUALLY. DO NOT TAKE OVER OLD UNREAL.INI AND USER.INI FILES FROM PREVIOUS INSTALLATIONS. SOME SETTINGS HAVE BEEN CHANGED AND SOME SETTINGS ARE JUST MISSING THEN, THIS CAN CAUSE WEIRD SIDE EFFECTS AND EVEN CRASHES!


Why should I use Unreal 227?

- Unreal 227 comes with a lot of new features like alphablending and static meshes, many bug fixes, security fixes etc (such as built-in IP logging/banning systems). New D3D8/D3D9/OpenGL renderers, new sound and music output with OpenAL and FMod. A heavily fixed and improved UED2.1, just to name a few things. Also a native Linux port has been added (although it has to be installed with wine due to legal reasons).


Details can be found in the forumsand the 227 release notes.

Your patch is shit. I tried it and my sound was messed and/or it crashed, or whatever!

Although this is not really a question, 227 was developed for a long time and we tried to fix any bug reported. Still the available patches may still contain bugs and the purpose of these releases is to find and fix these. Remember, even the original patches contained more than only a few bugs in the past. The 227 project tries to work with the community to make the best possible patch. So instead of complaining, help and report any problems you encounter.

But I don't trust you because your patch was not made by Epic

The Oldunreal 227 patch was made with knowledge and permission of Epic Games.


I've seen over the years that many pages that claimed to make a 227 patch and it was always a fake

Yes, I've seen them too. But this one is different. Worked out over years with the full sources available. No other page or person ever had this chance before. See the UTPG patch for UT, a similar project for UnrealTournament.


I found a bug! Where do I report?

Although in final stage, current version may still contain bugs. We try to make 227 as bugfree as possible and I think we reached already still a pretty stable and clean version. But of course its still possible that we missed something. Please report in our forums (but have a look first if this bug maybe was reported already).
Convience link (Ikuto 17:29, 30 August 2008 (UTC)): Click here to [view the bugs forum] or [report a bug] (if you have OldUnreal account and logged in already)


What Unreal version is 227 compatible with? (Client)

  • In short, it is compatible with every online-compatible Unreal version except 226f (which is highly warned against anyway, as far as servers are concerned).

However, Servers with older Unreal versions may kick you because older anticheat protections don't know 227 and assume it's some kind of cheat. It's not possible to "fix" this because older anticheat tools need to be updated and most of these tools (if not all) are not being maintained anymore by their authors.

What Unreal version is 227 compatible with? (Server)

Basically, a 227 Server can be used for all versions of Unreal. A special case is 226f because of an old compatibility issue caused by Legend with UnrealGold and Unreal 226 - this problem was created years ago and requires a client update to be fixed - which leads again to 227. Its not possible to fix it server-side only. Still in 227i a hack was added which creates a workaround for this problem and it seems to work without problems so far in all tests, but clients are still encouraged to update because it can't be guaranteed to work in any situation or with any mod.

But if you want to use a 227 Server for the older versions 224,225 and UnrealGold you have to know that there are some restrictions:

  • By default a 227 server denies older clients. You have to set in the "Advanced Options" -> "Networking" -> "TCP/IP Network Play" -> "AllowOldClients" to true.
  • You must use maps and mods which DO NOT CONTAIN any of the 227 features. This means mods made with 227, maps with 227 content (like ParticleEmitter) are proscribed. Any mod or map made with 226 or earlier will run.
  • 227's anticheat system works only fully with 227 clients, and so does the banning feature. If you want to use 227 with older clients the anticheat is limited to scripted bots and hacks, so if you are planning to run a 227 deathmatch server, it's probably better to restrict your server to 227 only. To run a coop server without the anticheat system is not a problem, but that's a decision the admin must take himself.
  • 227i has a new option called OldClientCompatMode. This enables a hack which fixes the connection issues with 226f clients, meaning that every old version (224,225,226b,226f) can connect to 227 servers now. Epic and Legend broke the compatibility between classic Unreal 226f and UnrealGold, where both versions were conformed against 225, which made 225 the only server version for both these two and the following versions. 227 suffered all the time from this, but since the mistake happened long in the past there was no suitable fix for it yet.

Why is 226f (Unreal Classic version without RTNP) crashing on 227 servers without OldClientCompatMode - details about conforming

To understand why this problem exists a small explanation: Any new version has to be "conformed" with the previous version to make it compatible. That's what Epic did from any version to the next. The procedure to do so is called conforming. It is necessary to align the so called "nametable", so that any entry is on the "same place" as it was in the previous version. Now, if you have a new version, which adds new things (like 226 did too), they are placed at the end, after the entries which match the previous version. This is a quick summary and it is technically not 100% correct, but you get the point.

What happened is easy to understand: Legend and Epic forked after 226, with 226b(UGold and later Unreal Anthology also) and 226f. I can't remember now exactly which version was first, I think it was 226f. But that doesn't even matter, it would only tell you who to blame if you still wish to blame someone. They both conformed their versions of 226 against 225, thus the new 226 specific entries are out of sync and causing these known problems - 226b servers crashing 226f clients etc. It would have been easy to avoid, if they just had conformed it against the previously existing 226 version. However, they followed the same "We don't care policy" with Anthology, which itself needs to be patched again to make it net compatible at all. With Anthology, they broke it just to add some advertising Logo.

Due to this given situation we can conform 227 only to one version- to 226b or 226f. The decision to take 226b for conforming was a pure logical one. 226b has a lot of less bugs compared to 226f, AND it is nowadays more often in use than classical Unreal. As a first hour Unreal player, I'd have chosen 226f, but this would have been a purely emotional decision then, and my logic refused to do so. So 227 servers are compatible with: 224,225,226b and 227i provides a workaround for 226f (see OldClientCompatMode).

What version of Unreal can 227 be applied to?

227 (from a to f) is a patch for Unreal and can also be applied to UnrealGold and UnrealAnthology, but you will lose the ability to use the Return to NaPali extension. It will also fallback to the old classic menu, but the new UGold/UT style menu can be set again. See this chapter.

As for 227g or higher, there are 2 versions of each. One for Unreal and one for the UnrealGold/UnrealAnthology. The Unreal version does behave like 227f. The UnrealGold version fully supports the Return to Napali extension and can be applied to UnrealGold and Anthology only. Users who have the RTNP expansion set can use this UnrealGold patch, but should update to 226b before (latest official Patch from Legend).

The required base version is 226. If you have an older version install the latest official patch first before installing 227.

DO NOT USE INI FILES FROM OLDER INSTALLATIONS IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING! IT CAN CAUSE UNPREDICTABLE RESULTS.

I want to use the Unreal Gold/Unreal Tournament menu interface instead of this old one (or vice versa)

- To enable Unreal Gold/UT menu interface, just follow these simple steps:

  • first go to Advanced Options.
  • expand 'Drivers' group and change 'Console' from 'Unreal Browser Console' to 'UMenu Browser Console'. If you want to use the classic console instead of the Unreal Gold console you have to change it of course from 'UMenu Console' to 'Unreal Browser Console'. The third console available there, 'Standard Unreal Console' is deprecated and NOT recommended to be used!

After restarting the game the console is changed.

How do I access Advanced Options?

(not available for Linux users. You need to edit the UnrealLinux.ini instead).

- To enter Advanced Options on classic menu:

  • go to main menu.
  • select 'Options', then 'Advanced Options'.

- To enter Advanced Options on Unreal Gold/UT menu:

  • press Escape
  • go to 'Options' tab and select 'Advanced Options'.


My sounds sounds all squeeky and messed up, what should I do?!

First be sure you are using the latest friver for yoru sound system since OpenAL and FMod may often require most recent drivers to work with any soundcard. If this is not working: - Either change sound settings or change audio driver (again, see the Advanced Options as explained above):

  • expand the 'Drivers' group in the "Advanced Options" and change 'AudioDevice'.

Available systems are 'ALAudioSubsystem','FMODAudioDevice' or'Galaxy 3D Audio for Windows'. Galaxy is Windows-Os only. However 'Galaxy 3D Audio for Windows' is NOT recommended to be used as it's no longer maintained!

OpenAL usually works best on Creative (Soundblaster) cards. Try FMod if OpenAL is causing trouble on your system. The new soundsystems try to match the original soundsystem as much as possible and even contain many improvements for it, such as EFX effects. If you still prefer to use the old, original soundsystem, or if the new audiodevices still cause trouble you can always fall back to original Galaxy soundsystem, which is not supported anymore but still works.

  • restart the game to update the changes.

A possible fix for ALAudio if it sounds messed up: enter Advanced Options:

  • be sure to have your soundcard correctly set up - check your speaker settings and the preferred devices in Control Panel. Linux users should check Alsa settings and maybe need to install OpenAL-Soft instead of the pre-installed OpenAL.
  • expand 'Audio' group, then 'ALAudio'.
  • Try with different 'ALDevices'.
  • Some soundcards seem to have problems with doppler effect alone. Try setting 'DopplerFactor' to 0.

How do I play Return to NaPali with Unreal 227?

Patch versions 227a to f do not support RTNP.

227g/227h do have a separate patch version for UnrealGold/UnrealAnthology with full support for it. In this version it can simply be selected and started in the "New Game" menu. For Server Admins there is also some UPakFix included in the help directory which fixes the online UnrealCoop problems.

After installing the patch my Unreal(Gold) needs WAAAAY longer to get a Serverlist!

Recent events showed clearly what happens when the main masterserver goes down - the list is empty. 227 is slower because it queries not only one, but 3 masterservers before displaying the list. This reduces the chance of having no servers at all if one of these is down again. Aside from this, some servers may only appear on one of these masterservers, so they won't be displayed at all in unmodified UnrealGold.

If you don't want to wait and you want to speed it up despite the given explanations above, edit your Unreal.ini and remove the entries ListFactories[1] and [2] or comment them out with by adding ";" at the beginning of the lines:

[UBrowserAll] ListFactories[0]=UBrowser.UBrowserGSpyFact,MasterServerAddress=master0.gamespy.com,MasterServerTCPPort=28900,GameName=unreal ;ListFactories[1]=UBrowser.UBrowserGSpyFact,MasterServerAddress=master.thenerdnetwork.com,MasterServerTCPPort=28900,GameName=unreal ;ListFactories[2]=UBrowser.UBrowserGSpyFact,MasterServerAddress=unreal.epicgames.com,MasterServerTCPPort=28900,GameName=unreal


After installing 227, Unreal freezes for a short time when I join a server!

Many servers running 227 have anticheat enabled. This causes a freeze the moment a server is joined, which may persist for a while. If the anticheat it set to be strict, these freezes may even happen during the game, but most server admins set it to join only to keep gameplay free of any disturbing side-effect.


After installing 227 I have problems with my mousepointer appearing, especially in windowed mode

This can happen if DirectInput is set to True, to enable support for more than 3 mouse buttons. Unfortunately is a known and not currently fixable problem. If you don't need the additional mouse-button support, set DirectInput support to False in the advanced options. 227i provides RawHIDInput as a replacement which doesn't suffer these problems.

What about Nephthys (server protection mod by Zora), does it work with 227?

No, the current versions of Nephthys do not work with Unreal 227. Also 227 doesn't need an additional server protection anymore, all currently known exploits and hacks are fixed.

When switching from fullscreen to windowed mode, all graphics are messed up (OpenGL)

It seems to be some NVIDIA driver problem and happens with some drivers released after the 162.18 ones.

To fix it there are currently 4 different options:

1. Open Advanced Options -> Rendering -> OpenGL Support -> UseVertexProgram True -> Restart Unreal (may crash when setting)

2. Downgrade your drivers

3. Try D3D9 or D3D8 instead

4. Try a different video card, for example an ATI Radeon, if possible.

Is it possible to have multiple versions installed, like UnrealGold or 225 and 227 ?

Its very easy to have 2 parallel installations - such as 225 and 227 together (or maybe UnrealGold and 227, too keep one version with RTNP, doesn't matter, works with any version)

Install Unreal 225 patch

Make a copy of your Unreal/System directory

Name the copied directory something like: System225

Open the folder and edit Unreal.ini within, change in:

[Core.System]

Paths=..\System\*.u

to

Paths=..\System225\*.u

Now install 227:

227 can be started now from Unreal/System/Unreal.exe

225 can be started now from Unreal/System225/Unreal.exe


This method only requires a copy of the System directory and needs maybe ~ 100MB diskspace. For easy access you might want to add a shortcut on your Desktop or Startmenu.

The Find Internet Games button doesn't work! It keeps giving "time out" messages!

This occurs if you have a firewall which prevents you from accessing the Master Server reliably. You need to open port 28900 in your firewall settings. Giving the program full permissions won't help in this case, so it's not necessary.

Opening ports is only a matter of entering those numbers in a place they have to be. The location of port management varies between different firewalls, so you will have to explore your's to find where you need to enter them. Once you find a place where it asks you for a port number, enter 28900 and make sure it is set to Allowed or Privileged.


Every time i try to start the game, it starts, the screen goes black and then it crashes. Giving the error UFireTexture::ConstantTick<-UTexture::Tick<-(FireTexture NALIFX.SHANEFX.TORCHES2)

The fix is simple. Right-click on My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Data Execution Prevention, select "Turn on for essential Windows programs and services only" or add a specific exception for Unreal. What exactly is causing this is unclear yet. Maybe because of the high amount of assembly code in fire.dll.

After installing 227 it's all laggy / bad performance

The new shadows may eat up a lot of CPU, even on nowadays machines, and get top notch computers to their knees. The related settings to use Projectors instead of Decals also need more power.

Unreal still handles a lot of things in the Engine, not in the GPU, as modern games do, and this couldn't be easily changed without rewriting major parts of the Engine and Renderer from scratch again. That is why we kept it the way it was and implemented the shadows in the same way (pretty much no choice here). This also makes the graphics card almost unimportant, leaving up most things to be purely made by the CPU. Also: Important for the performance is the speed of one core, Unreal can only make use of one (the core can be selected in the Unreal.ini (227h and newer only) or via the start up parameter -USECPU=X). So you don't really benefit from Quad- or Hexcore CPUs, only the performance per core is vital.

As for the shadows itself, we use a smoothing mechanism which makes the shadows very realistic even at Med-Res, so High or even Ultra is not really needed. Indeed 227, in most situations, works way better than any previous version, up to 2 times faster (if you compare the plain performance with older versions without the new 227 features), but due to the shadows, people have the impression it makes their PC lag to a crawl.

Shadows are entirely optional and if you turn them off you will lose nothing compared to older versions!!

So if your machine can handle it, try it, but be careful if you want to play mods with massive amount of monsters, like MonsterMash or MonsterHunt. For normal DM or Coop a setting of MedRes should be working flawlessly on most (not high-end) machines.


Bad performance with emitters:

Maps and mods using the new emitters may cause bad performance when AA is enabled and set to a high value. Try lowering AA or disable it entirely if you encounter bad FPS with these.

Trying to load old savegames doesn't work or even crashes the game

Like every other patch to unreal 1 in existence, old versions savegames do not work. Savegames are very sensitive to changes, so there is unfortunately nothing we can do. The easiest way is to start over or to use cheatcodes to get to your previous position and continue from there.

I don't like the new EntryII map / it eats up to much performance on my System

The new EntryII map was included to make the players and mappers aware about some of the new 227 features. If you don't like it you only need to change one line in Unreal.ini: EntryMap=EntryII.unr to EntryMap=Entry.unr


You can either use the classic patch on Unreal only, or combine your games before patching the result with the UGold Patch. Here is how you do it.

When joining some servers Unreal crashes with an error like: Critical: Bad name index -50/55

This can be caused by a crippled cache file. In 227i you can remove the suppress entry "Suppress=DevLoad" and you can see which file was loaded before the crash (and probably the cause):


DevLoad: Create new linker for ..\Cache\CrippledCacheFile.uxx

Critical: appError called:

Critical: Bad name index -50/55

Critical: Windows GetLastError: The operation completed successfully. (0)

Exit: Executing UObject::StaticShutdownAfterError

Exit: Executing UWindowsClient::ShutdownAfterError

Log: DirectDraw End Mode

Critical: ULinkerLoad<<FName

Critical: (LinkerLoad Transient.LinkerLoad 1683457))

Critical: FObjectImport<<

Critical: LoadImportMap

Critical: ULinkerLoad::ULinkerLoad

Critical: UObject::GetPackageLinker

Critical: VerifyPackages

Critical: UGameEngine::LoadMap

Critical: AttemptLoadPending

Critical: TickPending

Critical: UGameEngine::Tick

Critical: UpdateWorld

Critical: MainLoop


In older versions you only can try to find the file manually.

How to install 227 Gold patch to Unreal Classic + additional Return to Napali

To install the 227 Gold patch you should first install classic, then your RTNP. This makes it basically to Unreal RTNP 224. Then update this to latest 226b, which makes it equal to UnrealGold, then apply the 227 patch. Be sure to have the RTNP maps in a subfolder named UPak in the Maps directory to be 100% equally to UnrealGold installation. The installer won't accept it otherwise.


See How_to_Make_a_Compound_UGold_From_Unreal_and_RTNP for more details.

Will you include full dynamic shadow/stencil shadows/bump mapping/parallax mapping ?

Unreal was created in a time when not all computers featured a 3D chipset. This means the main APIs used today were not a given for the creators - Epic in our case. In order to provide maximum compatibility, the engine could run in software rendering (all calculation done by the main CPU), and most of the rendering code is processed by the processor.

However, this means new techniques and technologies which extensively use the OpenGL or Direct3D APIs cannot be fully used in Unreal, including advanced dynamic shadows, bump mapping and other complex technologies. To do so would require moving large parts of the rendering code from the CPU to the GPU, which would require rewriting large parts of the renderer from scratch. This would require time, efforts and people. The agreement with Epic prevents Smirftsch from sharing the source code with anyone, which pretty much means this cannot be done.