Unreal Tweaker

[Dr.Flay™]

I think we are over-due for a new tweak utility.
Most of us oldies will remember the tweak utilities from 12 years ago, but as we mostly know our way around the INI files, we have not had any need for them for many years.

I think in light of the major changes and extra options we now have, it may be useful to look at creating a config tweaker for Unreal and UT again.
It would be a useful way to provide users with defaults, and if profiles can be saved without certain info, we can regain the old compatibility options flexibility of the old renderers.
Those old profiles are now obviously obsolete

This would offer the flexibility of providing profiles for different needs;
Compatible, High Speed, and High Quality.

It would be an opportunity to include any sections useful for stability, speed or lag issues.
Sections that admin find themselves changing often, or pointing a player at to fix something, should be included.

As the template is already dictated by the INI style, context-help files in various languages could be added later.

I will attach the various aged tweakers I have, and you will see everyone had their own style, but often covered similar territory. One even let you edit the server tabs.
http://files.myopera.com/dr-flay/unreal/UT99/UT-Tweakers.7z

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

Tweaking is relatively pointless for anything but graphics. The things you can change generally end up doing nothing for performance, and really, at the end of the day, the only relevant settings for rendering are AA/AF, FPS limit, vsync, and zrange hack. Most other settings are useless except in certain situations: UsePreCache for example will mask some textures that were not imported masked

Remember, Unreal/UT use almost purely software rendering and then pump it out to the screen with d3d/ogl. If your CPU is fast enough to push the fillrate, then you're good. that's pretty much all there is.

[Dr.Flay™]

Indeed valid points, but I'm afraid you miss the point, and are only looking at it from your own point of view.
You and I are aware of these options etc.
Don't let the term "Tweaker" limit your imagination.
I did point out this is aimed at far more than GFX tweaking (think Configurater).

1 area of administration I see this helping with is;
I regularly see people in forums asking for each-others configs, because something is wrong.
I tell them how to access and use the "Advanced Options" window, and tell them to stop swapping configs as they learn nothing, and mess up the rest of their config.

Unfortunately without feedback from the GUI, inexperienced U-gamers have no idea what the point of any of the settings are.
I point them at the wiki page, and often non-computer literate people give up at that stage.

We now have sound renderers with way more options than ever, and at the moment during beta testing a product, a handy way of understanding the new options and using profiles would be ... well very handy.

The old tweakers I uploaded, do many more things than tweak the graphic settings. The idea is also to inspire admin types to look at the issues they see with players, and make ALL users lives easier.

No matter what, newbies will still go messing with configs, and scream at everyone for breaking their game.
If they do not install the new renderers properly, they also lack the defaults Smirftsch provided, so cannot reset after messing around.

A configurator could make it quick to add server and editor packages, new master-servers, set up key-binds, change your kill and pickup messages, swapping between the UT-SDK and normal renderers...whatever you can think, that you keep going into the INI file for.
House-keeping tasks etc. it could point at your fave cache-ripper, UZ compressor etc.
You could quickly scrape the cache and add the new lines to the INI

How about configuring UEd ? There are a few useful tools out there, but nothing that lets you add or configure the normal buttons.
Extended Toolbar is useful, but you have to keep it running.
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Extended_Toolbar
UT owners do not have the luxury of easily configuring the view-ports in UEd. A config tool could let you easily select which renderer you want for which window.
You can even tell U1 games to use a chosen renderer for all windows (including Player select and UEd).

Several people have found that using UEd with audio enabled eats into the CPU.
Switching off the audio makes all the render times much quicker, but then choosing your sounds and music a pain.

There are many switches and values in the U engine, and many have different benefits to different users.

[Smirftsch]

I think it really depends on how its done if such a "tweaker" or "configurator" is making sense. In theory 227 comes out of the box with a preset which should be working for everyone. If those settings should be touched if one doesn't know what he is doing is very questionable in my eyes.
However, problems start if one is taking over old ini's into 227- such a tool could dig up problems and fix them, making it possible to use an old setup without trouble. Definitely a good idea for the lazy folks who don't want to update because of the "work" *cough, won't tell here now what I think about this*. But that's already a lot of work...
If using older versions- and this counts for UT as well it could be very useful.
For example: I have currently no overview about UT masterservers, but older Unreal versions are having trouble if no recent masterserver list is set up.
Then again many options, if using OMP or not, and which version of it, if so. No easy task.

For UED however it could be nice, adding maybe custom brushbuilders etc. easily (which work with UED2.1 as well).

On a side note- I checked this Extended_Toolbar- and I honestly dislike the way it works. It somehow hooks into the process and injects the commands, no way to really see what it does, unlike the brushbuilders mentioned above its a separate exe requiring admin priviliges. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to claim it as malware or something, but I find this rather disturbing.

Btw, anyone ever noticed that the beyondunreal wiki neither mentions 227 nor UED2.1 ? Just the liandri page mentions 227 in on single line on the Unreal page...

[Dr.Flay™]

Many of the settings obviously never needing changes and 227 and the new OMP thankfully come with modern defaults (Thankyou kind Mr Smirfdude).
Unfortunately UT does not.

We are seeing lots of the new players struggling to start with, as they do not have any defaults for the new renderers.
The age-old issue of the S3TC switch being off, is still common, and many of the other settings, such as shiny surfaces and high-detail actors and textures are often also set to False.

Inspired by your config edits, I made something similar for the UT99 crowd, but as you have to copy and paste over the correct sections of your INIs, it is not too popular.
Uneducated users, who would benefit most fall at that hurdle.

Regarding graphics configurating, I imagine a common wider use could be for those users who like it lean and fast online, but for SP switch it all to Glorious-Maximus settings.
I am forever changing 3 renderer switches, as I often use ENB which requires mutitexturing off.
For some GFX cards people will get better anti-aliasing speed, if they use the options in their driver and disable it in Unreal/UT.

Many modern users insist on using a craptop for gaming and are unaware that their funky new (GL disabled) intel graphics chip and shared RAM is so poor.
Intel GFX chip users need all the antialiasing and filtering switched off.


I have been meaning to raise the issue of master-server here, though now it will also be a matter for Hooks new site.
The 333network may be persuaded to add Unreal, or allow their site-model to be used for a sister-site.
http://ubrowser.333networks.com

That Toolbar program, I bet you went through similar stages as me.
1) Cool ! A Toolbar editing thingy I can add more functions to UEd with. Hooray !
2) Oh, it doesn't add them to UEd. Oh well it has potential. The defaults are useful.
3) Where the hell can I put this it doesn't keep getting in the way ?
4) F*** it

I can see it being very useful for people who want to test a new function before putting it in the UEd config.

The Beyond Unreal wiki has a minimal amount of active editors, and I think they've spent most of their effort fixing the existing site, as all the files and hosted sites went down the tubes.
It is now more functional and many links have been changed.
The BuF site itself it full of people who don't play Unreal or UT any-more (hence the high-volume of off-topic). I get treated as a freak by some members there

Well the users at BuF and Unreal Playground, have got to start using the sites they have for the purpose intended soon or face-up to the irrelevance they are creating.
I'm going to try and "up" my postings of useful stuff there, and the 3 Unreal wikis I know of I am going to join and promote more often.
BTW. you may not have seen the 3rd wiki. I only recently found it.
http://unreal.wikia.com/wiki/Unreal_Main_Page

Damnit I've wandered off topic in my own topic

[GreatEmerald]

I saw the third wiki, but I don't see the point of its existence...

[BobIsUnreal]

beyondunreal wiki neither mentions 227 nor UED2.1 ?

Thata because 227 is a myth , it doesn't exist , and is only a figment of your imagination.Its not really mentioned there , you just see it mentioned there because your eyes want to.