[Maflynn]

This game is amazing, the graphics are better then UT2003 and the game play is awesome. How can the graphics look better yet only fit on one cd where as the prior verson came on two cds?

Now that I'm on broadband, I've tried the network play, but I keep getting crushed. Fighting aganst people sure is different then the bots


Mike

[Lateralus]

2004 comes on a DVD.

[Caesar2099]

Originally posted by Maflynn:
Now that I'm on broadband, I've tried the network play, but I keep getting crushed. Fighting aganst people sure is different then the bots

I remember when i used to play UT99 and owned all the bots. At almost any setting I could win a CTF game by myself with no team. Then I played online, I was completely screwed. Every corner I turned I died another gruesome death.

With UT2004 however I decided to start playing online the day I bought the game, and it payed off. I quickly learned all the rules to onslaught and all the abilities of the guns and vehicles.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Caesar2099:
I remember when i used to play UT99 and owned all the bots. At almost any setting I could win a CTF game by myself with no team. Then I played online, I was completely screwed. Every corner I turned I died another gruesome death.

Probably 'cuz a lot of people used aim bots.

There was a time when Quake 3 and UT was unplayable online because of all the cheating.

[Ozzpot]

I am relatively new to Mac gaming, having always used consoles for that purpose. The last "computer" game I played to any extent was Unreal Tournament back when I had a PC (1997/1998). All my colleagues at work are avid PC gamers (I work in a PC & console game shop) and they rib me all the time about "Not being able to play games on a Mac, blah blah". You know how it is. So I decided to get Unreal Tournament 2004 for my iBook, seeing as it only came out a coupla weeks after the PC version (in the UK anyway).

When I had installed and played with it for a few days, I took it to work, with my G4 iBook 933 running 10.3.3. My colleagues were shocked to see that it clearly whupped our test machines ass. (A pentium 4 2.6 with 256mb RAM and a 9800XT). I haven't played it for ages but am fully into it now.

Anyway, my question is:

Sorry to be naive, but I've noticed there are loads of extra mods / maps / skins / mutators available for UT2004, but all the sites they're on seem to be PC orientated. Am I right in thinking that they are perfectly compatible with the Mac version too? If so, which ones would people recommend or even consider essential? I'm thinking Maps, Skins and Mutators specifically.

Thanks a lot guys!

[DBvader]

your iBook beat the 2GHz+ P4? I really doubt that. Especially running on a Radeon 9800. My Dual 867/1 GB RAM/Radeon 9600 doesn't run the game remotely as well as my roomate's P4 2.4/Ti4200.

Don't mean to sound sceptic, hopefully I just read that wrong.

[Ozzpot]

No, seriously it did. To get the same kind of framerate performance from the PC they had to set it to 800x600, 16 bit. Mine had all the same checkboxes checked, the same detail level settings, the same audio settings, etc, but at 1024x768, 16 bit. I know it sounds a little strange, but that's how it is.

Three explanations I can think of:

� The PC at work is boned (which it usually is - it needs reformatting about every 2 weeks).

� My iBook is great (which it is)

� The 10.3.3 update was particularly generous to my graphics card (which it was).

I am running 10.3.4 now, which seems to be even faster!

[Ozzpot]

Woohoo!

I've been up all night downloading mods and they all seem to work. It seems not all of them like being in the Application Support/Unreal Tournament 2004 folder though. Some of the mutators and voices must be inside the app package to work.

Now all I need is to find an app to convert mp3s into ogg so I can have Metallica play as I frag. "Sound Converter" seems to hang when I try doing that unfortunately.

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
2004 comes on a DVD.

Holy crap your right. What a n00b

I can't beleive I missed that.

Mike

[emark]

Ozz:

2 things: I'm also kinda new to UT gaming in the last feew months, and haven't explored the downloads you talk of...any thing notably different? any specifics or guidelines about what goes in the app location?

second, I'm psyched you're getting great performance on the ibook, but either something is wrong or outdated on the PC, or you need to remember to only eat the mushrooms in restraunts and grocery stores, picking your own can be dangerous.... seriously though, the direct X is faster than Open GL due to optimizations of software and hardware acceleration functions on the card that go hand-in-hand....so, the hardware is faster clock speed, it just doesn't "compute"...unless something's gimped-up on the PC.

thanks,

-mark

[Ozzpot]

Yeah, the PC at work is definitely f**ked. We are actually a PC repair centre as well as a game store, so two of my colleagues are PC technicians - pretty good ones too. Neither of them can figure out the shop PC or "The Master" as they call it. It blue-screens several times every day for no reason and frequently needs to be wiped and reinstalled. Some games run really well, like Far Cry. Runs like a dream. For some reason UT2004 runs like a sack of s**t. Don't underestimate my iBook though - it rocks!

Regarding the mods and all that -

They aren't very hard to install, and definitely worth it. Most of them can be installed in one of two places:

� Unreal Tournament 2004.app/ (Control-click it, and then "show package contents").
It has loads of folders inside called things like System, Maps, Sounds, Music, etc. Usually mods comprise no more than 3 files which need to go in their relevant folders. They usually come with simple instructions as to where each file goes. After a few times you get used to what goes where anyway. It's pretty staright forward.

� Users/(Your user name)/Library/Application Support/Unreal Tournament 2004/
This is an alternative location that the game looks in when looking for game files. If you make folders to go in here with the right names, such as "Maps", and then put map files in there for example, they will get loaded into the game like any other. I like to do this because it keeps all the third party stuff away from the .app. Just keeps stuff tidy. Unfortunatley, not all mods seem to load when put in the Application support folders. Some Mutators and Voices for example, don't seem to get loaded from there. They need to go into the equivalent folders inside the .app.

I definitely recommend checking these mods out. If nothing else, get the "Community bonus pack 2 volume 1" It is about 200mb or something, but contains loads of new maps - really, really good ones - like, commercial quality, plus new character skins and stuff.

There are plenty more available too. I have about 50 third party maps installed now. They are rarely more than 3mb in size surprisingly, so don't worry about that. Mutators are cool too. One of my favourites is called "Keg of Whupass". Instead of the Keg thing giving you just 100 additional health points, you get that, plus 50 or 100 armour (can't remember), 1 minute of ultra damage purple thing and full adrenaline, I think. (I should research this stuff more, huh?).

There are several sites where you can get this stuff. This one is quite good:

http://www.levels4you.com/sections/u...ournament2004/

Happy hunting.

[emark]

Thanks for walking me through that stuff....the only mods that I've got so far are ones that download at the start of the game/level....it sounds cool.


And lastly, I think it's the patch, and not that I'm getting that much better, but that last patch has really helped me out...it is faster, and my scores are up noticeably for it with my old daul 800 G4, (which, since it really doesn't use the second processor is awesome!!!!)....WAY TO GO RYAN!!!

[SitHHtiS�]

I just bought this at CompUSA and can't for the life of me get it to install........ After I enter the serial setup.carbon crashes. That's it.

Mac OS 10.3.4
Dual 1.42 (MDD) 1 GB RAM (Super Drive)

Running: Shapeshifter, XSounds, Mighty Mouse, Fruit Menu, WindowShadeX, Konfabulator and DragThing.

Any Suggestions?

[Ozzpot]

Originally posted by SitHHtiS�:
I just bought this at CompUSA and can't for the life of me get it to install........ After I enter the serial setup.carbon crashes. That's it.
Running: Shapeshifter, XSounds, Mighty Mouse, Fruit Menu, WindowShadeX, Konfabulator and DragThing.

Try downloading the most recent retail patch for it first. Meybe there is a problem with 10.3.4 that was fixed in that or something. The only apps you have running that I don't are Xounds, Fruit Menu and Dragthing. I normally quit most unneccessary applications before I load UT anyway. (Like Konfabulator and Backllight). I leave my haxies on though.

Hope this works!

[proton]

Do people bother going to the manufacturer's support page anymore?

http://www.macsoftgames.com/products...4-Support.html

Oh look:
Installer unexpectedly quits after entering the CD key.
Download and use the updated installer below. NOTE: You only need this installer update if you are having the problem described above.

- proton

[SitHHtiS�]

Originally posted by proton:
Do people bother going to the manufacturer's support page anymore?

http://www.macsoftgames.com/products...4-Support.html

Oh look:
Installer unexpectedly quits after entering the CD key.
Download and use the updated installer below. NOTE: You only need this installer update if you are having the problem described above.

- proton

Funny, I visited "MacSoft" 2-3 weeks ago for support and did not see this download link.

Thanks Proton for the push.

[sideus]

I've downloaded some additional map packs. The file extensions of these map packs are .ut4mod. Where do these go? In the maps directory or system?

[Petter]

Best things are downloaded from the source

http://icculus.org/cgi-bin/finger/fi...l?user=icculus

[sideus]

Originally posted by Petter:
Best things are downloaded from the source

http://icculus.org/cgi-bin/finger/fi...l?user=icculus

Some nice info there, but didn't help me. I downloaded the two community created map packs via the built in community info/news thingy within the UT2k4 app. It downloaded two zip files that contain .ut4mod files. Don't exactly know where to put them.

[Briareus]

I also recommend what Ozzpot stated above: create a folder in ~/Library/Application Support titled "Unreal Tournament 2004". In this folder create empty folders titled Animations, Help, Maps, Music, Sounds, Static Meshes, System, and Textures.

Most downloaded maps are .zip files that will expand to individual files that go in these folders. It's nice to know what goes where.

The Community Bonus Packs can be found at most UT sites as .zips that expand to individual files instead of a ut4mod.

Santaduck's Toolpak for UT2K4 says it can deal with installing ut4mods:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15039

[wuzup101]

It's truly an awesome game and I'm glad to hear that it runs well on your iBook. I currently own it for PC (and it came on 6 CDs...lol) and am planning to buy it for my PowerBook (see sig) when it gets here so that I can play it while on the go. It's definitely one of my favorite all time games (right up there with HalfLife & Counterstrike).

That PC you have at the shop sounds like it has a hardware problem if you have to keep installing every 2 weeks. You could tell them to try installing one HIGH QUALITY (read crucial) stick of ram and try working on just that. Over the years I've spenty many a day servicing/building various PCs. I've found that this sort of problem is usually caused by low quality ram. Contrary to popular belief, windows XP doesn't bluescrean randomly (in most cases) unless there really is something wrong, usually hardware related. I've never personally had a bluescrean on this computer (PC in sig) and I've been using it since last summer. I probably used in in excess of 8hrs a day while at school this past year and it's being used to crunch protein ligands in all it's free time (so it's always running 100% load).

In all honesty, though the iBook is a great computer, there has to be something completely whack with that PC for it to beat it. I'm not expecting any performance increases when I get my PB over my PC for obvious reasons, still it will be a great computer!

[sideus]

Been playing UT2k4 for a few weeks now and I have to say this is the most fun I've had with a FPS game in a long time. Not since Half-Life came out back in '98. I mostly play Invasion and Onslaught. Very fun game.

[GeeYouEye]

There's a CLI app hidden somewhere in the UT24K package that expands those archives.

[Buck_Naked]

Great game. You need to find a machine with a very low ping, you don't want to handicap yourself.

[Randman]

I haven't got the settings perfect yet, but I've used that hack to allow X-Box controllers to be used on the Mac. It's still not Unreal on the XBox but it's pretty dang good. More than enough fun until Halo 2 arrives.

[sideus]

Anyone hear anything about a Mac version of the latest patch?

[sideus]

Originally posted by sideus:
Anyone hear anything about a Mac version of the latest patch?

Nothing, eh?