How about V-Sync + Triple Buffering?
Maybe this is a GPU driver issue? On what system are you playing exactly?

I never paid great attention to triple buffering. It is claimed that Nvidia drivers force it automatically for Direct3D games when enabling VSync in the control panel, but I still had input lag IIRC.

The stuttering described here has occured on a variety of setups for me. Both Nvidia and ATi cards. I used to play the game on a Geforce 6500 though and don't recall having it there, but I had sub-85 FPS on that setup. Do you have the game yourself?

Yes, I do. I've been a UT fan since the first one 😊 . Want me to give it a try? Problem is, my main monitor only supports 60Hz. I've got another PC with a 75Hz monitor and a 8800GTS 512 that I could try though.

Yeah give it a quick shot. You should be able to spot what I've described on both monitors really, more so on the 60 Hz one. You need to play online though of course.

Alright, will do.

Random question of the day:

Are you sure you're getting a constant high frame-rate? If your system is taking longer than ~16ms to draw a specific frame, or group of frames, it will appear as "stutter" even if things like FRAPS show you getting a very high average (remember it's a rate over time that we're sampling instantaneously). Personally I've never noticed any stutter (or whatever word you like) with this game on a reasonably fast machine (GeForce 6800 or higher).

Your ISP or the server you're playing on can also make a lot of difference in terms of performance - if you're running on 56k or trying to play on a very laggy server (e.g. the latency between you and it is very high), it will create stutter/etc that your machine has no ability to correct.

obobskivich wrote:

Random question of the day:

Are you sure you're getting a constant high frame-rate? If your system is taking longer than ~16ms to draw a specific frame, or group of frames, it will appear as "stutter" even if things like FRAPS show you getting a very high average (remember it's a rate over time that we're sampling instantaneously). Personally I've never noticed any stutter (or whatever word you like) with this game on a reasonably fast machine (GeForce 6800 or higher).

Well, I'm not relying on FRAPS to show FPS. I use the stat fps command ingame. The cards I've used with the game in recent times are Geforce 9800 GTX+ and Radeon X1950 Pro, so certainly not underpowered for the game. And, again: the crucial factor is the online limitation to 85 FPS as far as I can tell, since the game never has that stutter offline. I also used a variety of monitors, as indicated in the first post. The only cure for this is running my CRT at 85 Hz; that way I can easily tell no frames are being dropped anymore. As soon as I set it to even 75 Hz the stutter is back.

obobskivich wrote:

ISP or the server you're playing on can also make a lot of difference in terms of performance - if you're running on 56k or trying to play on a very laggy server (e.g. the latency between you and it is very high), it will create stutter/etc that your machine has no ability to correct.

We can safely exclude this. 😉

Okay, I gave this a try on two servers. I first tried Instant Action on a small, 1v1 map, to get accustomed to the "offline" speed and overall performance.
Then, the first server was also using a small map, about 6 people were online, including me. What I did notice was a slower pace to everything. It was instantly noticeable, but I'm pretty sure that's just different server settings. I could notice some form of stuttering when moving in parallel to walls as you suggested, but nothing that truly bothered me.

The 2nd server was on one of my favorite maps, Two Worlds Classic. I was lagging a bit, due to the server location I presume, however I didn't notice anything particularly strange and it wasn't any different than playing Instant Action really...
This was all on my main PC, a Phenom II X6 1055T (@3.5GHz), 8GB DDR3 RAM, a 7850 and Windows 8. My monitor is the Samsung SyncMaster T240HD, it can do 60Hz only AFAIK.

I think you may be blowing this out of proportion here, but if you can't get over it, I believe your best bet would still be Triple Buffering + Vsync, although I haven't tried that on an Nvidia card in a while. The way to do it on AMD cards is to force it using RadeonPro and such.
I'm also assuming you've tried different servers and experienced the same problem!

I started noticing it after upgrading from a Geforce 6500 to a Radeon X1950 Pro believe it or not. That is the card I'm still currently using in my main PC. I played enough shooters and this one does stand out for me as having that stutter. But of course it's all subjective as far as one would care about it. I seem to be the only one noticing a certain mouse lag in the original Unreal so there you go. That being said with having tried the game on different PC configs and monitors I am convinced enough that the issue lies within the game itself.

I can't try the Radeonpro thing since neither my video card nor my OS meet the requirements. Lol. But I did try forcing VSync+triple buffering with D3DOverrider and found it to be identical to regular VSync. Great fluidity but lots of input lag.

The issue is not server based in the sense that it it would only appear on some of them, with having tried numerous ones, all with sub-40ms ping. Though there could be some settings on the server side that would potentially allow for a higher FPS cap on the client side... that might be the only solution to the problem.

It sucks when you catch onto these kinds of things that others fail to notice. My brother has motion sickness from early FPS shooters for example, so he can't stand playing or even watching somebody playing Doom or Quake 1 for more than half an hour or so.
I, on the other hand, can't stand noise or sound from multiple sources at a time. I always go around the house turning off TVs or radios that someone from my family has left on 🤣 .

A shame that you can't give RadeonPro a try though... Maybe an older version could work? How are you coping with the X1950 Pro nowadays btw?

I had a 9800 GTX+ in there prior to this which performed reasonably good for my tastes, but it went unstable eventually. That old solder joint issue perhaps. How to cope with the ancient ATi card? Not really caring for new games I guess... I do play some Zandronum in OpenGL on it once in a while and it does fine in 1080p, actually better than newer cards as far as compatibility with old stuff goes... so having an old card like that in a somewhat modern rig (Phenom II X4 955@4.1 GHz) can be useful at times 😀

Damn, I know how that feels. A friends 8800 GTS 512 died on him and he gave it to me. My Radeon 4850 also died on me... Happy news is that I managed to resurrect both by baking them! The 8800 GTS 512 now sits nicely on my 2nd PC.

Same result with other renderers? (software and opengl)

Can you reproduce problem offline by capping the FPS?

Have you seen these posts with similar or related problems? (http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-2315316.html ; http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33928847 ; suggestion to turn off "mouse smoothing" and "reduce mouse lag", possibly ameliorate the symptoms? ; http://fragzrus.freeforums.org/remove-the-85- … ps-cap-t13.html ; edit netspeed parameter as tried by OP)

truth5678 wrote:

Same result with other renderers? (software and opengl)

Yes, with those renderers offline appears smoother than online as well. It's quite easy to test for me by running in parallel to a wall.

truth5678 wrote:

Can you reproduce problem offline by capping the FPS?

How?

truth5678 wrote:

Have you seen these posts with similar or related problems? (http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-2315316.html ; http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33928847 ; suggestion to turn off "mouse smoothing" and "reduce mouse lag", possibly ameliorate the symptoms? ; http://fragzrus.freeforums.org/remove-the-85- … ps-cap-t13.html ; edit netspeed parameter as tried by OP)

I guess yeah. Though they are talking about using VSync which is a quite different matter. Simply capping the framerate to the same value as the refresh rate won't necessarily have the GPU waiting until a complete frame is drawn, so it produces a different result compared to VSync.

Answer to your question is in the above linked posts. If others read this thread, they will have constructive ways to test and replicate past solutions.

I do not see any reports of actual solutions in the threads you've given. One user claims it's "solved" by VSync, which I don't consider a solution due to the input lag it gives. Another one states that mouse smoothing "off" fixed something, only to add that it's still stuttering online. The verification of the periodic stutter I'm talking about is useful though. To sum those threads up:

- VSync + triple buffering: fine if huge input lag is not an issue.
- Adaptive VSync: can't try due to lack of Nvidia GPU.
- mouse smoothing/mouse lag settings: irrelevant since the issue is present even if not moving the mouse.
- netspeed settings: tried different values, didn't change online FPS cap of 85 for me.
- dynamic netspeed: have it turned off anyways.

There are dedicated forums for UT2004 at;

http://forums.epicgames.com/forum.php

and

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/

covering gameplay/technical/modding, etc, if anyone's interested. Two great sites for UT fans.

d1stortion wrote:

netspeed settings: tried different values, didn't change online FPS cap of 85 for me.

I am not able to verify with my UT2004 installation, but netspeed should effect online FPS (http://wiki.unrealadmin.org/Netspeed_Tutorial_%28UT%29). It would be interesting to test a netspeed value of 2500 and then measure the FPS/cap.

Another test is to compare "dedicated" versus "listening" server setup and then joining that game locally. Here is a thorough guide to the effect of UT2004 network parameters on latency: http://unrealnorth.com/forums/topic/ut2004-ma … settings-guide/.

Did you test on an LCD panel running at higher than 60Hz (refresh rate)? Or CRT only for this case?

Kerr Avon wrote:

covering gameplay/technical/modding, etc, if anyone's interested. Two great sites for UT fans.

Though unfortunately there's only two people remaining at both sites that seem to know what they're talking about. Wormbo and Meowcat come to mind. Most of the others are just there for the Ballistic Weapons and invasion stuffs.