[dreadpirate]

Hi,

Other than quantitative differences like map size, etc, can we expect comparable performance between patched (that 25% boosting 2225 whatever patch) UT2k3 and the upcoming 2004 version? Just asking because I've held out not buying 2003 in anticipation of 2004, but 2003 already pushes my little iBook G4 pretty mightily.

thanks,
dp

[Tom Rudderham]

UT2K4 will have much larger maps, plus the vehicles with their physics etc will mean it'll probably need a faster computer to play. The PC requirements for UT2K4 are...
Operating System: Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP
Processor: Pentium® III or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz processor or faster (1.5 GHz or faster processor recommended)
Memory: 128 MB RAM minimum (256 MB recommended)
Hard Disk Space: 3.5 GB free
Video: Any Windows-compatible video card(NVIDIA GeForce 2 or ATI Radeon with at least 64 megs of video memory recommended.)
Sound: Windows®-compatible sound card. NVIDIA® nForce(tm) or other motherboards/soundcards containing the Dolby® Digital Interactive Content Encoder required for Dolby Digital audio.
DirectX®: DirectX® version 8.1(included)or higher
Multiplayer: Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP)play supported. 33.6K baud modem or broadband Internet connection recommended.
http://www.us.atari.com/games/unreal...004_pc_action/

Much higher than UT2K3, but as for the Mac version we'll have to keep our eyes on the look out!

[mac freak]

2004 will have slightly higher poly counts, larger maps and sharper textures. You'll probably have to turn your settings down, though it depends on how it's coded.

[Judge_Fire]

Ryan Gordon, who works on the Mac version at Epic has had a chance to work with UT2K4 right from the beginning, so that might have some bearing on this. He should be quite intimate with the code by now, so atleast we should expect continued optimization.

Hopefully G5s and Mac OS X impress others at Epic, too, and the engine codebase keeps from sinking to the depths of DirectX.

InsideMacGames met him at MWSF, btw:

http://insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ID=8949

J

[gperks]

The requirements are listed here:

http://www.insidemacgames.com/store/?view=product_256

700MHz, 256MB, 32MB video.

[DBvader]

I recently bought a Radeon 9600 for my Dual 867, and hopefully it boosts framerates a bit in 2K3/4. I know that the game is mostly CPU limited, but we will see what happens.

I would think that ryan gordon would optimize the code as much as he could for the next release (especially considering what the last patch did to performance in 2K3).