Did you patch it?

I've never had the game crash on me before. The annoying problems with it are 1) it's not that fun 2) the load times don't get faster on new computers even when they are insanely faster than what I originally played the game on.

Mabye it's a memory/resource issue? Can't remember what memory monitors work on 9x but you may want to load one of them up while playing the game.

swaaye wrote:

Did you patch it?

Yes, I used "u2_retail-031403.exe"

swaaye wrote:

I've never had the game crash on me before. The annoying problems with it are 1) it's not that fun 2) the load times don't get faster on new computers even when they are insanely faster than what I originally played the game on.

The load times are annoying and it also has an annoying tendancy to freeze during either the Standby or Initializing screens. Either that, or it goes off into limbo for so long that I can't tell the difference and end up hitting the reset button.

As for it not being fun; I was actually enjoying it. Other that the fact that the Acheron mission crashed every couple of minutes on the surface, I really liked it. Exploring the inside of the creature was great.

DosFreak wrote:

Mabye it's a memory/resource issue? Can't remember what memory monitors work on 9x but you may want to load one of them up while playing the game.

It might be, but I have double what the system reuirements call for. The minimums are 256MB RAM and a GeForce2 MX card with 32MB. The recommended specs are 384MB RAM and a GeForce3 with 64MB or better, which is what mine has (64MB).

I've noticed that it tends to crash more in the outdoor areas, than when I'm inside. However, some of the indoor areas in the Hell mission were huge with a lot of detail and I think it only crashed once.

On the other hand, I did notice a severe framrate drop in some areas for no apparent reason. I would be exploring an area and the framerate would be fine, then I'd grab a pickup or switch weapons and suddenly the framerate would drop to the single digits. Usually if I quit the game, reboot my system and then reload that same area it will be fine again. I mean, I get slowdown (a LOT of slowdown) if there's too much action on the screen, which I can mostly understand, but there doesn't seem to be any direct cause of these slowdowns. In one fairly small room in the Hell mission, there was a rectangular walkway around a large piece of machinery with a large, circular door on one side leading to a huge central area. I could walk all the way around the room, look up, etc, all at normal speed, but the second I faced the door, the game became a slideshow. The door wasn't even open. I rebooted and loaded that area again and the game was somewhat sluggish when the door opened, but didn't slow down to the ridiculous degree that it had before.

I know my system isn't exactly top of the line, but Halo came out the same year as Unreal II, and other than having to turn off particle effects, I can't recall Halo ever slowing down like that. It also never crashed on me.

When I got to a certain point in the first Unreal, it started to crash with a message (I think) about "actors" or maybe something about the world size. Whatever it was, I found the listed word in the INI file with a number after it, which I increased. I think I had to increase it a couple times, but that fixed the crashing issue.

I was hoping there might be something similar for Unreal II. Maybe some allocation that needs to be increased. I took a quick look, but didn't see anything that stood out.

You don't have an 9x/XP dual-boot on that system do you? Would be interesting to see what the behavior would be with a newer OS/Video drivers on the same machine.

GF4 MX is pretty much a GF2. I seem to remember there being pdf docs that would come with some Nvidia beta drivers which would describe exactly what they updated (similar to a changelog), would be nice to have all of them to see if they ever did any fixes for Unreal engine games in their drivers.

unreal 2 slows down alot on a faster system than what you have too btw, even with 4th gen Radeons on AMD XP 3200 processors.

DosFreak wrote:

You don't have an 9x/XP dual-boot on that system do you? Would be interesting to see what the behavior would be with a newer OS/Video drivers on the same machine.

No, I don't. If I did, I'd have already tried running it under XP, where the readme claims it has no problem at all with DX9.

DosFreak wrote:

GF4 MX is pretty much a GF2.

Yes, I've read that.

DosFreak wrote:

I seem to remember there being pdf docs that would come with some Nvidia beta drivers which would describe exactly what they updated (similar to a changelog), would be nice to have all of them to see if they ever did any fixes for Unreal engine games in their drivers.

On the chance that the video driver was at fault, I downgraded to 56.64, but there was no change. So I changed them back to 82.16, which is the last driver that supports W98.

leileilol wrote:

unreal 2 slows down alot on a faster system than what you have too btw, even with 4th gen Radeons on AMD XP 3200 processors.

I'm always amazed (and a little saddened) at how different games from different companies can have such widely varying performance on the same system. Halo's particle effects made that game slow down to an unacceptable level when there was fire or smoke on the screen, but with them turned off, it ran fine. Serious Sam the First and Second Encounters ran perfectly, even though they had HUGE outdoor areas and ridiculous amounts of enemies on the screen at once. Jedi Academy never once stuttered, even with bunches of jedi students fighting an equal number of bad guys and light sabres flashing all over the place.

Well different game engines have different requirements. The games you listed are either unoptimized console ports or old engines optimized for older versions of OGL & DirectX.

I don't remember anyone complaining about SS performance when it came out in 2001? Whereas people did whine about Quake 3 performance in 1999?.

Of course I don't remember much whining about Unreal 2 performance but that's likely due to not very many people playing liking the game! It definetly isn't as light weight as a Quake 3 Engine/SS engine game though.

I think there's a program called DX Eradicator which can easily remove DirectX.

You can also try placing DirectX dll's directly in the same directory as the Unreal executable. Possibly putting D3D8.dll from the DX8 install in the Unreal directory may work.

There are new D3D/OGL renders for the UT engine based games but not for the later Unreal engine games.....it may be possible to mix and match the renderers from different games with the same engine in hopes of using a newer version of the renderer.....or perhaps there is a switch or .ini setting to force Unreal 2 into DX8 mode? Wait a sec...according to wikipedia U2 is a DX8 engine game....

You could also try the 9x 82.69 drivers: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=97140

Found this concerning EAX:
http://www.warp2search.net/contentteller/news … m_fix_soon.html

I supposed if your onboard sound card emulates EAX it could have the same issue.

Also try reducing hardware sound acceleration in dxdiag.

from the readme
3.6 GeForce 4 MX/Go issues
--------------------------

With GF4 MX/Go cards you might experience graphic corruption in 32 bit
mode. The problem has been addressed by NVIDIA and upcoming drivers will
contain the fix. A workaround for now is to play the game in 16 bit mode.

ps: install dx8.1 not dx8

3.13

"During launch the game simply crashes back to the Windows desktop with no error message."

-- OR --

"After the game launches it locks up on a black screen."
-------------------------------------------------------

This most often has to do with issues with the style of copy protection used on the Unreal II: The Awakening install discs.

The first thing to do is to ensure that you have the Play Disk in the drive when you are attempting to launch the game, and that your CDROM drive recognizes that it is inserted.

If you have certain CD-burning software installed, such as Nero Burning Rom, or other system tools like Inseektors, Daemon Tools, or others, you may need to disable any processes the software installs, such as the NeroCheck utility installed with Nero.

This problem may also occur if you are running debuggers, decompilers, or CD-ROM Drive emulators on your system, or if you are using Real Mode [DOS] drivers for your CD-ROM drive.

If you are still having the problem after taking these steps, you may need to upgrade the firmware in your CD-ROM drive. Please contact your equipment manufacturer if you need assistance with this.

find a nocd (rules forbid me from posting a link)

Was looking at some old posts at NTCompatible today and found this:

http://www.compatdb.org/support/topics/46675_ … rogrammers.html

4/11/2001 There's only so much crappy hardware can do. […]
Show full quote

4/11/2001
There's only so much crappy hardware can do.

nVidia Riva TNT2 M64 32Mb

The Serious Sam Technology test runs great on my Dual P3-1ghz@1125Mhz with a Geforce 2 GTS 64m.

Spend some money on the GOOD hardware and not on games. Geesh man. The TNT2 M64 is worse than a TNT1!

heh.

I have a TNT2 M64 running in an Ubuntu web browser box. My super dooper hardware junk collection rig. It is a snappy 2D card. The 3D bullet features were just that: useless bullet features to sell the thing.

It is probably superior to the crap i740 IGPs of the day. For both 2D and 3D.

DosFreak wrote:

Well different game engines have different requirements.

Or to put it another way, some game engines are better programmed than others.

DosFreak wrote:

The games you listed are either unoptimized console ports or old engines optimized for older versions of OGL & DirectX.

Huh? I listed those games because they all run great on this system with the latest version of DirectX and the nVidia drivers installed.

DosFreak wrote:

I think there's a program called DX Eradicator which can easily remove DirectX.

I'd consider that, IF someone can tell me where to download a Windows 98SE compatible version of the latest DirectX9 redistributable package. The MS site only offers a web-install for 98, the redistributable package only works on 2K/XP/etc.

Call me quirky, but I don't like the idea of a solution that requires me to rely on Microsoft still offering a web-based installer to put my DirectX back to what it should be when I'm done experimenting.

DosFreak wrote:

You can also try placing DirectX dll's directly in the same directory as the Unreal executable. Possibly putting D3D8.dll from the DX8 install in the Unreal directory may work.

I'll try it, but how can I tell if it's being used? I mean, sure if the crashes stop, it's likely being used, but what if DX9 isn't the issue? How can I tell if it's not being used at all, of if it is being used, but the game is still crashing?

DosFreak wrote:

I supposed if your onboard sound card emulates EAX it could have the same issue.

I've already tried turning off EAX. Didn't change anything.

DosFreak wrote:

Also try reducing hardware sound acceleration in dxdiag.

Ok, but I'm not optimistic.

Davros wrote:

from the readme 3.6 GeForce 4 MX/Go issues -------------------------- […]
Show full quote

from the readme
3.6 GeForce 4 MX/Go issues
--------------------------

With GF4 MX/Go cards you might experience graphic corruption in 32 bit
mode. The problem has been addressed by NVIDIA and upcoming drivers will
contain the fix. A workaround for now is to play the game in 16 bit mode.

I've already tried 16 bit mode. I've tried lowering the resolution, turning off shadows, turning off ragdoll hits, and everything else that's supposed to improve performance, or that might adversely affect the operation of the game. None of it made a bit of difference to the stability.

Davros wrote:

find a nocd (rules forbid me from posting a link)

Already tried that. Didn't help.

Seriously, didn't they betatest this game at all?

I actually like the game, but the crashes are getting so frequent that playing it is becoming a major chore.

directx is available on the unreal 2 cd

3.9 DirectX 9.0 and Win98/WinMe

DirectX 9.0 is known to cause problems with Unreal II on WinMe, Win98SE,
and Win98 configurations. WinMe and Win98 customers should NOT upgrade
their computers to DirectX 9.0.

Unreal II has been tested with DirectX 9.0 on WinXP, and no known
problems exist.

However, DirectX 8.1 is the recommended version of DirectX for Unreal
II, and is included with the game.

ps: do you have Unreal II 2001 Patch

Rekrul wrote:

I'd consider that, IF someone can tell me where to download a Windows 98SE compatible version of the latest DirectX9 redistributable package. The MS site only offers a web-install for 98, the redistributable package only works on 2K/XP/etc.

http://www.oldversion.com/DirectX.html ?

Davros wrote:

3.9 DirectX 9.0 and Win98/WinMe

Didn't we already cover this? The bottom line is that Unreal II wasn't properly beta-tested, or they wouldn't have released a game with know issues on the latest version of DirectX9. Even if most gamers only had DX8 at the time, they had to know that most would be upgrading to DX9 in the very near future, making their game unplayable.

Davros wrote:

ps: do you have Unreal II 2001 Patch

When I search for "Unreal 2001 patch" I get links to the 1403 retail patch, which I already installed. Or is this a different patch?

leileilol wrote:

http://www.oldversion.com/DirectX.html ?

Thanks. Where did you find the compatibility information that tells which ones are compatible with 98SE?

Maybe they also assumed most gamers would leave Win9x ASAP. I think that's pretty much what happened. I can't remember if I was on XP, 2K or 98SE....

I had problems with the game when it came ou, but not with stability exactly. I had problems with some sort of issue between KT266A and Radeon 8500 or SBLive!. Never figured out the problem but it caused the game to run really, really slow and things were rendered wrong. In retrospect, I think it's safe to blame the Radeon 8500.

Most people I knew back then didn't have major problems with the game. Aside from load times.

I actually played Unreal 2 rather recently on my modern PC. It runs extremely well with no problems outside of the always-long load times. I even managed to get it to do 5.1 surround output through OpenAL and my X-Fi card. I had to edit the game INI and tell it to use the system OpenAL32.dll instead of the game's OpenAL wrapper.

I too have unreal 2 installed and it runs fine with dx9 I think the problem is dx9 +win98
did you try dx8.1 ? (you will have to use a dx uninstaller if youve allready installed dx9)

ps: probably the same patch

pps: in the game folder do you have 0warnerr.txt could you post the contents

Davros wrote:

I too have unreal 2 installed and it runs fine with dx9 I think the problem is dx9 +win98
did you try dx8.1 ? (you will have to use a dx uninstaller if youve allready installed dx9)

No, I haven't tried DX8.1 because I'm a little scared that if anything goes wrong, I might not be able to re-install DX9c. While I was searching for information on DX Eradicator, I came across posts from people who've used it and for whatever reason, can't get DX9c properly re-installed. Plus, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence that it doesn't come with any instructions on how this "rollback" feature is supposed to work. Why is it that authors put the intructions online (where they disappear along with the site) instead of just including them with the program?

Davros wrote:

pps: in the game folder do you have 0warnerr.txt could you post the contents

Sorry, between the time I posted my last message and now, I tried to play the game again using 16 bit mode. I replayed the Acheron mission and didn't get any crashes, so I thought it was solved. Then I replayed the mission with the dam and it was crashing just as much as before. I got pissed off and uninstalled it. Unfortunately I deleted everything.

I'll probably wait until I eventually have a newer system (maybe it will cure some of the massive slowdowns too). Maybe some day I'll work up the courage to try uninstalling DX9, but right now I really don't want to chance screwing up my system.

I'm reviving my old thread because I've now got Unreal II installed on a newer system. Dual Core CPU @ 2.6Ghz, 2GB RAM, GT 430 video card and Windows XP, SP3, and Unreal II crashes even more on this system than it did on my old Win98 one!

Often it crashes when reloading a save, although it's just crashes in the middle of playing as well. And this is on the first level!

I've tried the usual fixes like setting it to only use one processor core, lowering the resolution, etc. Nothing helps.

I have to say that I'm getting pretty discouraged with this game. It seems that it isn't stable on ANY system. Others claim that it never gives them problems, but it crashes frequently for me!

I played through it on a Win7 notebook about a year ago.... ran ok. That was my recently-sold Core i7 + Mobility Radeon 5870.

Is this a CD install? Steam? Are you using a crack?