Playing Unreal Tournament 2004 On Linux

I've been playing the UT2004 demo for a couple of months now. I was itching to buy the game for a couple of reasons; one to show my Linux support, and two, I like the game. The demo ran perfectly, I was sold. However, after installing and playing the retail version of the game, I encountered some bugs during game play. No lockups, just crashes back to the desktop (more on this later).

Packaging

UT2004 packaging overall is very pretty. The multicolor game box has raised lettering on the front. The box opens up on the side (like a book) to reveal some screen shots. The box contents, sitting in a small cardboard tray, exits from the top.

Box Contents

• Six CD's with plastic/cardboard case (Linux and Windows)
• User's Manual
• Three, two color, glossy, ATARI stickers
• Various advertising inserts

The CD case is very functional. The case folds like a wallet. One side holds CD1 with a plastic insert, while a sliding tray holds the other five CD's. The User's Manual is more of a sales brochure than a manual. My manual still had six pages that were uncut, forcing me to cause tears. The manual is totally usesless, unless you like glossy pictures of game screen shots.

Technological Features

• Voice-over IP support - command and coordinate. Give orders, rally your troops or talk smack with the enemy.
• Voice recognition - give orders to bots; no more typing when you should be fighting!
• Completely redesigned menus, including a new server browser with right-click menus and many brand-new configurable features.
• Improved AI: vehicle control, advanced dodging and wall-dodging, improved aim, better team coordination.
• Deeper single player mode with comprehensive team management options, challenge matches, multiple endings and more.
• Integrated map vote and match set-up for Internet play.
• UnrealTV - a proxy broadcast system allowing a huge number of spectators to watch a match live over the Internet.
• Pixomatic software renderer allowing incredible performance with no 3D card required. Play UT2004 on your laptop!
• A re-designed HUD, improved weapon effects (bullet decals, incredible explosions), improved first person weapon rendering and innumerable improvements for mod authors, new announcer voices, rendering optimizations...the list goes on!

System Requirements

• Operating System: GNU/Linux or 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: 5.5 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™ or other motherboards/soundcards containing the Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder required for Dolby Digital audio
• X Windows: X Hardware Assisted Acceleration - such as the drivers from NVidia or ATI
• Multiplayer: Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP)play supported | 33.6K baud modem or broadband Internet connection recommended

Installation

Installation was uneventful. I did not encounter any install problems and the game started as should from the installation procedure. You will have to mount and umount all six CD's however. To install follow these steps:

• Open up two terminal windows (command prompts)
• su as root in one of the windows and mount CD1:
  • mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom or use your automounter
• In ther other terminal, copy over the installer so that you may unmount the install CD.
  • cp /mnt/cdrom/linux-installer.sh .
• Now start the installer by running the script: ./linux-installer.sh
  • You might also have to type "export SETUP_CDROM=/mnt/cdrom" before starting the installer, especially DVD users.
• Use the root window to unmount /mnt/cdrom and mount the other CD's.
• Look at the install screen shot to see a picture. I also used the KDE automounter instead of having to manually mount and umount.

Here are some various screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Game Play

The retail version plays exactly like the demo version except you have a slew of characters and play maps. The play action in UT2004 seems spongy when compared with Quake III. The game physics' seem to be spongy too. For example, the Link Gun which auto fires small balls of green plasma, has little velocity and is easily dodged (as with most weapons). In single player mode, the physics seem much better. Maybe thats why they have a disclaimer that reads: "Game experience may change during on-line play". With very low pings, say 8, it gets closer to single player mode. Maybe its time I upgrade to a Pentium4 or Opteron? By the way, the voice over IP is so cool!

After heavy playing for an hour I experienced crashes back to the desktop. Certain maps would also cause crashes back to the desktop too. Keep in mind, I'm playing on-line. Single player mode is just not fun anymore to me. No fear, you can download fixes for these problems from bugzilla:

x86: ut2004-kintersect-fix-x86.tar.bz2
AMD64: ut2004-kintersect-fix-amd64.tar.bz2

There are lots more data to be had at the Atari Community Forums on this problem. Other downloads such as the demo and a map limited dedicated server can be had here.

I installed UT2004 on my laptop. Atari claims that the Pixomatic software renderer would allow playable performance. The OpenGL performance on my laptop was horrid, unplayable. My laptop is a Pentium4 2.6GHz with 512MB DDR with an ATI Radeon Mobility 7500. Turning on the Software renderer in "Display Settings" instead of OpenGL, does allow playing of the game, but the graphics detail is very low. Owner's of laptops with NVidia AGP graphic adapters probably can use OpenGL with the NVidia drivers and get the full experience of the game.

Benchmarking

My machine is under powered for UT2004 according to the standard benchmark as shown here:

UT2004 Build UT2004_Build_[2004-03-03_02.42]
x86 Linux
GenuineIntel PentiumPro-class processor @ 1079 MHz
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra/AGP/SSE

dm-rankin?spectatoronly=1?numbots=12?quickstart=1?attractcam=1 -benchmark -seconds=77 -ini=default.ini -exec=../Benchmark/Stuff/botmatchexec.txt

14.891765 / 32.424778 / 74.525101 fps rand[1881639875]
Score = 32.442440

Gee, a lousy score of 32! With Quake III I rack in 155fps. It appears that UT2004 is CPU bound.

Use these instructions to run the benchmark on your hardware:

• Copy this file to your "ut2004/Benchmark/" directory
• Create a subdirectory named "Stuff" in "ut2004/Benchmark/"
• Copy this file into "ut2004/Benchmark/Stuff"
• From a command prompt:
  • change directory to "ut2004/Benchmark/"
  • run the script: ./benchmark.sh
• The results will be placed in /home/yours/.ut2004/Benchmark/Results

Benchmarking: P4 Xeon

My machine was under powered for UT2004 according to the standard benchmark as shown above. An Intel Pentium4 class cpu makes the game very playable as shown here:

UT2004 Build UT2004_Build_[2004-03-03_02.42]
x86 Linux
GenuineIntel Unknown processor @ 2565 MHz
GeForce FX 5900XT/AGP/SSE2

dm-rankin?spectatoronly=1?numbots=12?quickstart=1?attractcam=1 -benchmark -seconds=77 -ini=default.ini -exec=../Benchmark/Stuff/botmatchexec.txt

22.416807 / 68.334816 / 151.204193 fps rand[1881639875]
Score = 65.608589

New Hardware:
Dual P4 Xeon 2.66/667MHz
1 Gigabyte DDR400 Dual Channel
BFG OverClock NVidia GeForce FX 5900XT

Performance Tweaks

It has been reported that one can add some performance to the game play by recompiling a couple of packages and copying the lib's to your "/ut2004/System" subdirectory. The packages are SDL and OpenAL. On Fedora Core, I just symlinked over to my "libSDL-1.2.so.0.0.5". I recompiled OpenAL and just copied the libopenal.so into the UT2004 system directory as openal.so. Make backups of these files before overwriting any files! I personally did not experience any peformance gain, however, others claim increase in scores by 10 points on the benchmark.

Use the forum to ask questions.

Test Setup

OS:
Fedora Core 1 with X.org X Window Software
NVidia Driver Version 5336.

Hardware:
Dual Pentium III 1GHz/133 MHz FSB
1 Gigabyte DDR Memory
NVidia GeForce 5700 FX 128MB DDR
Sound Blaster Live!

HAPPY GAMING!