The later Versions are not optimized for glide anymore. I use an older one because of the better glide-optimization and the better color-sheme.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-07-27, 06:10:

The later Versions are not optimized for glide anymore.

Is there any concrete evidence for this? Back in the day, UT '99 always ran better and looked nicer on a Voodoo3 (Glide) than on a TNT2 (Direct3D). This is also reflected in contemporary benchmarks.

I think it's more likely that the UT engine (which Unreal Gold is based on) is more demanding than the original Unreal engine due to the plethora of new features that ware added.

Is the V-Sync behavior identical in both cases?

Check this thread for more info on how this could be the reason for this difference: How I Got Over 100 FPS on Unreal Gold

I suspect config differences. Notice your gold result is 30/60

There isn't any rendering changes between Unreal Gold and Unreal. There's some front end additions to keep it in parity with UT (which brings ease to switching to the other renderers), but other than that, nothing.

(Unreal itself however has had many, many rendering changes throughout the history of patches, including GlideDrv. I believe it was around 226 that they synced the renderers with UT 420)

Revolter wrote on 2021-07-27, 16:59:

Is the V-Sync behavior identical in both cases?

Check this thread for more info on how this could be the reason for this difference: How I Got Over 100 FPS on Unreal Gold

Pretty sure it isn't V-sync but I will double check.

I run the first Unreal Version with DX5 and I think it does not support multitexturing. I love the original one.

I will have to run some follow up tests to confirm a few things, I haven't had much of a chance as I'm waiting on a VGA to HDMI adapter so that I can move this PC to my main desk and connect via KVM.
Should make it easier to test so I'm not back and forth all the time.

I really thought there were some engine changes between Unreal and UT, but I might be wrong. It could very well just be a config change or even a Direct X version, as the system was identical in both tests but the Windows install was not.
Originally I ran Unreal Gold tests and ended up swapping the hard drive and re-installing Windows for some reason that I can't remember, and I installed Unreal fresh from a CD. So the Direct X version is likely 6.1.

Pretty sure that Unreal Gold installs with 7, but I might be wrong about that.

You know, before my family moved to a smaller house and got rid of a lot of things I wish they didn't get rid. (and also wished we didn't move to this house in the first place)

I did have Unreal, straight off the CD, running completely unpatched on a old Windows 98 with SLI'd Voodoo 2 cards. Which is funny because most people I see try to get the retail unpatched game to work just run into mysterious crashes, even LGR couldn't run Unreal 1 without patching it up to atleast 224 or something.

It ran pretty well except for the bugs in everything that had nothing to do with graphics.

I tried OG unpatched Unreal on my WIn95 Pentium MMX machine and while it worked, there was an issue where the music would only play out of one of the speakers when you got to the part where you first go outside.

Years ago, Epic said that they want to open-source Unreal Engine 1.0 and Unreal, but it requires a lot of time on their part to organize and clean-up the code, which is why they haven't done it. The successor releases can't be open-sourced because they use middleware that is commercial and requires licensing agreements.

DracoNihil wrote on 2021-07-28, 21:30:

I did have Unreal, straight off the CD, running completely unpatched on a old Windows 98 with SLI'd Voodoo 2 cards. Which is funny because most people I see try to get the retail unpatched game to work just run into mysterious crashes, even LGR couldn't run Unreal 1 without patching it up to atleast 224 or something.

There's some strange non-Pentium issues in the earliest versions affecting mainly earlier Cyrix6x86s/AMD K5s/486s, and Voodoo3 didn't work until v222 (the V3 pack-in version)

In 3dfx-mode, even on a voodoo1, the game (also very old versions) runs into issues if you use later (multitexture) drivers and later dx-versions. (2.43 is fine though, don't know if 2.46/2.48 is stoll ok, probably not.)

Well I did some checking and indeed my PC did have Direct X 6.1

I re-ran the benchmark and other than some fighting with sound card driver issues the results with OG Unreal patched to 226f got me basically the same results as before, Avg of about 45fps.

So I installed Unreal Gold but did not install Direct X 7, this was straight from a ISO and version 226b.

I had issues.
The game would launch but throw general protection fault errors at random. I had problems getting it to make a solid three run pass. I suspect again this is sound card driver related as I have two sound cards in this PC and it isn't playing nice.

I was however finally able to get it to work mostly reliably and found it was about 4-5fps slower than OG Unreal patched to 226f. This was re-producible.

So I broke down and installed Direct X7. Re-ran both games and found that OG Unreal was identical.
Unreal Gold was more stable and I had less issues with it crashing. Still some though.
However after the Direct X 7 upgrade the game did have slightly different performance in the flyby demo. The game had a higher maximum framerate, hitting about 92fps on every run. But the minimums slightly dropped to about 17fps.

Nothing life changing as both games were doing about 88 max before and minimum of about 19-20

Just strange.
One thing of note however is that Unreal Gold had issues launching with transparency and reflective surfaces about half the time. Re-launching the game seemed to fix this. It happend with both DX6.1 and DX7. I didn't notice this in OG Unreal.

I need to sort my sound drivers out before running more tests. And if anyone is interested I might fire up the P3/V3 AGP box for some more in depth stuff.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2021-07-29, 01:36:

Years ago, Epic said that they want to open-source Unreal Engine 1.0 and Unreal, but it requires a lot of time on their part to organize and clean-up the code, which is why they haven't done it. The successor releases can't be open-sourced because they use middleware that is commercial and requires licensing agreements.

I think they said that just to "quell" certain people with false hope while they continue to focus on all the money they're getting from Fortnite.

It's 2021, and Epic still hasn't cared. I don't even know what this "organize and clean-up the code" argument is even for, I'm pretty sure that's not the case with Doom and Quake, let alone Wolf3D. The only "middleware" I'm aware of UE 1 using was the Galaxy 3D Audio subsystem and that's not even a hard requirement considering there's a generic audio subsystem code that will allow anyone to just, write their own subsystem for Unreal to use. (Which is exactly what people had to do for Doom anyways!)

leileilol wrote on 2021-07-29, 03:25:

There's some strange non-Pentium issues in the earliest versions affecting mainly earlier Cyrix6x86s/AMD K5s/486s, and Voodoo3 didn't work until v222 (the V3 pack-in version)

Ah, yeah the PC I was running this on was a Pentium 3. I guess that explains my luck.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-07-29, 15:22:

One thing of note however is that Unreal Gold had issues launching with transparency and reflective surfaces about half the time. Re-launching the game seemed to fix this. It happend with both DX6.1 and DX7. I didn't notice this in OG Unreal.

Because it would sometimes start with the expansion's boring flyby level, which is NOT the Nali Castle. Double-check that you're not comparing benchmark results of a completely different level.

leileilol wrote on 2021-07-29, 17:54:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-07-29, 15:22:

One thing of note however is that Unreal Gold had issues launching with transparency and reflective surfaces about half the time. Re-launching the game seemed to fix this. It happend with both DX6.1 and DX7. I didn't notice this in OG Unreal.

Because it would sometimes start with the expansion's boring flyby level, which is NOT the Nali Castle. Double-check that you're not comparing benchmark results of a completely different level.

Interesting.

I've never noticed this before. But now that you mention it I do remember that the flyby starts at a different spot on the map, I never connected that it isn't the same benchmark run. I don't think I benched anything different because whenever this happened I just exited, restarted and manually keyed in the timedemo 1 command.

But that is still good to know. I wasn't aware that the game had a expansion flyby demo.

I can't comment on the technical aspects, but I just wanted to say that Unreal and Unreal Tournament are two really great games. Even after more than two decades, the original Unreal Tournament (from 1999) is still my favourite PC based arena FPS. Both games have some amazing mods, including hundreds of new levels, new weapons, new gameplay modes, etc.

And when I next play through Unreal, I'm going to be giving this mod/re-balancer a try:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/unreal-evolution

I've not played it yet, but it's written by the bloke who wrote the fantastic Deus Ex mod GMDX, so my h opes are high.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-07-29, 07:15:

In 3dfx-mode, even on a voodoo1, the game (also very old versions) runs into issues if you use later (multitexture) drivers and later dx-versions. (2.43 is fine though, don't know if 2.46/2.48 is stoll ok, probably not.)

I somehow missed your comment.

I've been using this version of the driver kit
Voodoo3(tm) Driver kit: 1.07.00-WHQL

I think this uses
Glide(tm) 2.X Driver: 2.61.00.0658, and Glide 3.X Driver: 3.10.00.0658 versions.

No idea if these would cause any issues. I can try some other drivers if you think it would be advantageous to do so?

Kerr Avon wrote on 2021-07-29, 18:55:

I can't comment on the technical aspects, but I just wanted to say that Unreal and Unreal Tournament are two really great games. […]
Show full quote

I can't comment on the technical aspects, but I just wanted to say that Unreal and Unreal Tournament are two really great games. Even after more than two decades, the original Unreal Tournament (from 1999) is still my favourite PC based arena FPS. Both games have some amazing mods, including hundreds of new levels, new weapons, new gameplay modes, etc.

And when I next play through Unreal, I'm going to be giving this mod/re-balancer a try:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/unreal-evolution

I've not played it yet, but it's written by the bloke who wrote the fantastic Deus Ex mod GMDX, so my h opes are high.

It really is a great set of games. UT was (imho) sooooooooo much better than Quake 3 could ever dream of being. Again Q3 is fun but not in the same class, no one flame me!

Unreal just set a whole new expectation of what a FPS could be, and what a 3d game could look and sound like on proper hardware. It was a literal gamechanger, along with Half Life.

Really a great time to be a computer gamer, and consoles of the time were laughably behind.

That mod looks interesting and I might have to try it out.