Unreal Tournament 3 - Tech Interview...

{DvT}Reckless · 06-02-2007, 01:35 AM

...with Tim Sweeny. Pretty interesting read:

PCGH

{DvT}JonahHex · 06-02-2007, 10:31 AM

Quote:

PCGH: How important will main memory be for the overall performance? How much memory would you recommend?

Quote:

Tim Sweeney: We require at least 512MB, and you'll want at least 2 gigabytes for optimal performance and detail. Unreal Engine 3 is very scalable in terms of memory usage, so it runs well on low-memory machines at the low texture-detail setting.

Quote:

PCGH: Can you at this point of development tell our readers what kind of hardware will be required to play the game with all detail in 1024x768 (No FSAA/AF) and 1.600x1.200 (with 4xFSAA - if available - and 8:1 AF)? Will there be any fallback modes for gamers with older hardware like Shader 2.0 cards?

Tim Sweeney: Optimization is still ongoing, so these numbers change on a daily basis. In general, our Unreal Engine 3 games run quite well on DirectX9 class hardware that NVidia and ATI released in 2006 and later, and amazingly well on the high-end cards including DirectX 10 cards. We also support Shader Model 2.0 hardware with minimal visual difference.

Quote:

Tim Sweeney: Also, the 360 work we did resulted in an engine that also runs well on low-end and mid-range PCs. This is very important for games today; the high-end PC gaming market alone is not big enough to support next-generation games with budgets in the $10-20M range. You need to run on ordinary mass-market PCs as well. In reading PC gaming websites, one might get the impression that everyone owns a dual-core PC with a pair of $600 GPUs in SLI configuration, but the reality is very different. More than 80% of PCs sold today are still single-core, and have very low-end DirectX9 graphics capabilities. Unreal Engine 3 supports those configurations well.

I hope I'm not reading into this what I want to read, rather than what is there, but it sounds like UT3 should run decently on a 2+GHz Pentium with 2GB of RAM and the nVidia 7600/7800GS AGP vid cards w/ 256MB or 512MB of vid memory. IOW a decent UT2004 machine upgraded with additional memory and a new vid card should be acceptable even if it is not optimal. After reading this, I expect UT3 run great on my new system so I'm not concerned about that. I'm thinking of those who don't want to do a major mobo/cpu/gpu/ram upgrade.

{DvT}Reckless · 06-04-2007, 12:59 PM

I definitely got the feeling that U3 is being designed to run well on older systems. It sounds like this was thought about from the games inception versus an afterthought when the game is nearly complete.

{DvT}JonahHex · 06-05-2007, 01:34 AM

Epic has always taken this road. The new games play well enough on the older systems to keep the laggards happy and just poorly enough to convince them to upgrade a few months down the road.

Works for me. The upgrades I did in 2003 for UT2K3 did me right for 4 years. I'm betting this is the case for most of us.

Yes, it really has been 4 years.

{OF}Blong · 06-05-2007, 02:43 AM

well I hope my 6800gt card will run this well. Otherwise I may be upgrading.

{DvT}JonahHex · 06-05-2007, 04:46 AM

The trick to determining whether it runs "well" or not is to do the ultimate definitive test: install it; run it; make a decision about "well"; do NOT ask (or pay attention to) others about their frame rates or anything else regarding their perception of how the game plays on their system...unless, of course, they are planning on giving (not lending nor selling) you their rig.

The person that is happiest with the game is the one who can say "I'm having too a good time playing to be bothered to check my framerate and certainly too busy to masterbate over someone else's framerate."

Yup, my SLI 8800GTXs are going to give me higher performance and more eyecandy than your 6800GT - BFD - Not only am I not going to give you my rig, I'm not going to even let you use it ... so you don't care one whit about what I think of how my system runs.

It's very, very much like the time UY picked up a hooker and took her up to his hotel room. When they got there, he undressed and she took one look at his pekker, pointing she said "Who are you gunna please with that little thing?" UY didn't hesitate an instant: "Me!" he replied.