I didn't mean to offend you on the memory part. In all honesty, whatever's good enough for you. As long as I have the option, I will always opt for faster framerates and I don't consider 20-30 fps optimal in any way, playable maybe but it really depends on the game.
The truth of the matter is that UE1 created with mostly software rendering in mind and later on 3Dfx's Glide API. When Unreal (the first UE1 game) was first shipped it didn't offer support for Direct3D or OpenGL. These were added later on with patches and gradually improved upon, but even by mid 2000 with Deus Ex, you could see Voodoo 3 cards perform about as well as GeForce2 cards in UE1 games and Voodoo5 vastly surpassing such cards.
It is thanks to the efforts of gifted individuals that UE1 games can now be properly enjoyed without having to sacrifice IQ or performance, through the likes of UTGLR.
Ignoring the fact the CPU (PII 450) isn't terribly fast for UT to begin with, the TNT is just too slow to provide "butter smooth" performance at 1024x768 and with every details set at maximum. We're talking about a card that performance wise is closely matched with a single Voodoo2. A couple of Voodoo2 cards certainly isn't butter smooth for UT, although they're not half bad at all.
A Voodoo3 is much better overall with much better performance, especially when it comes to stuttering.
Again, I'm not saying you should have the best gear available to enjoy a game.
I just feel that since:
a)this is a game that you can play on your modern PC optimally with UTGLR or
b)you are going out of your way to buy vintage hardware with playing old videogames in mind
should you not strive to achieve the ultimate experience? In the second case, should you not go for the superior hardware, such as a Pentium III 733-1GHz (or even Tualatin if you can) + Voodoo3/5 or GeForce2/3/4/FX ?