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Games Entertainment

Unreal Tournament 2003, Now With More Ogg 188

Posted by michael from the camping-out dept.
Alizarin Erythrosin writes "Unreality is running an article today about a hands on preview of Unreal Tournament 2003. An interesting bit was on page 2, saying that Ogg Vorbis is being used to compress the audio for the game." A nice screenshot demonstrates some of the eye-candy.
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Unreal Tournament 2003, Now With More Ogg More

Unreal Tournament 2003, Now With More Ogg

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  • wow that ogg looks great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by vipw ( 228 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @07:58PM (#3362367)
    that's the best looking ogg player to date if you ask me. :)

  • Serious Sam: Second Edition (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Soul-Burn666 ( 574119 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @08:00PM (#3362371) Journal
    Serious Sam: Second Edition (SSSE) has used Ogg Vorbis for music. Seems like it's catching on!
    • Seems like it's catching on!

      It makes a lot of business sense to use Ogg in video games. It sounds just a good and it's totally embedded so the specific technology used makes no difference to your users. Why screw around with licensing proprietary technology? Line your own pockets.
      • It does make some difference to some users. I recall reading one "Serious Sam: Second Edition" review where reviwer "complained" that he had to install ogg plugin for WinAmp to able to play soundtracks from game outside of "Serious Sam".

        So I guess usage of Ogg may help popularity of this format between users. If many different products will start using Ogg this format may became really popular like mp3.

    • It's The Second Encounter, not Second Edition.

      </asshole>

  • lame graphics? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Am I the only one who thinks these graphics are well kinda lame. Maybe it's a semester of taking computer graphics, and recently being exposed to real time radiosity engines that is spoiling me. :)
    • Those are some rather lame screenshots, I must admit. Other than HUD changes and weather effects which arent exactly jaw-dropping it looks like it could be a standard UT mod/map. However, after having seen some other screenshots and in-game movies earlier I think UT2003 actually looks quite good..Not Doom3 good, but better than these screenshots here show.
    • Fair enough, but is that really the point anyway? UT is a great game, and it's getting kind of long in the tooth now, but it's still a blast. UT 2003 is going to be a kickass game if it follows the model of its predecessor.

      The thing that caught my eye more than the graphics and the new HUD look was the message at the bottom of the shot saying "You have the ball, deliver it to the enemy base!" I don't know if this is a mod that's already out there, but it seems like it's based on sports like football, soccer (the other white football), and games like it. More modes of play means more fun which means a better game, graphics aside. If my computer can run it when it comes out, it'll be in my hands ASAP.
      • The thing that caught my eye more than the graphics and the new HUD look was the message at the bottom of the shot saying "You have the ball, deliver it to the enemy base!" I don't know if this is a mod that's already out there, but it seems like it's based on sports like football, soccer (the other white football), and games like it.

        Team Fortress Classic (for Half-Life) had a map called 'Push'. Instead of having two flags, you had one soccer ball, and the point was to take it to the goal in the other team's base.
        • Team Fortress Really Classic (for Quake 1) had a map called spazball. It was absolutely great. You've got one ball, 4 teams. Grab it, run down one of the opposing teams heavily defended corridors, shove it in their goal. They get a point. After a certain number of points, that team is eliminated, and locked in the spectator rooms. Last man standing wins.

          Great fun, and I have no idea how they accomplished it purely in-map without modifying the team fortress codebase, but they did.

  • Image Mirror (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Screenshot mirrored here [geocities.com] if it gets 'dotted.
  • Looks quite a bit like Tribes 2, which has been out since ~May of last year.
    • " Looks quite a bit like Tribes 2, which has been out since ~May of last year."

      That was my first thought as well. I wonder if an indoor shot or a closer view of one of the other players would have given a better sense of the new graphics engine. The snow effects look nice, though.
  • of a better use for this [slashdot.org].

  • Operation Flashpoint... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @08:06PM (#3362410)
    Also uses Ogg Vorbis - except you never saw that as a headline on slashdot.org
    • Operation Flashpoint... Also uses Ogg Vorbis - except you never saw that as a headline on slashdot.org

      Ya, funny how one of the most popular games, based on the most popular FPS game engine, get's mentioned but a far less popular, niche-market targetted game doesn't get mentioned.
    • Except I've also never heard of Operation Flashpoint. The squirrel running across my street right now, on the other hand, has heard of Unreal Tournament.
      • The squirrel running across my street right now, on the other hand, has heard of Unreal Tournament.


        If he was carrying a Flak Cannon and running across the street towards you, I would close the window immediately and get under your desk. :)

  • Benchmarks (Score:5, Informative)

    by kilocomp ( 234607 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @08:07PM (#3362413)
    Well it already seems slashdotted just after 2 posts. Anyway Anandtech.com has a sub $200 video card shoot out and one of the benchmark test is using the Unreal 2003 engine. So if you are in the market for a new video card and plan on making Unreal 2003 a major game played on the card check out this site:
    http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html ?i=1608

    Nick
  • Evolve and Name|ess will be respawning soon.

  • wtf? (Score:1)

    by Atrus5 ( 537814 )
    Is this this [unreality.dk] "pizza delivery boy" mode? Or, more correctly "ball delivery killing machine"

    "Red team, this is blue team. We know you have our balls and would like you to return them"
    • It looks like UT will be adding some kind of flag-tag variant; possibly reminiscent of Marathon's "Kill The Man With The Ball" scenario... This looks a bit different though since the wording makes it sound like you actually have to deliver the ball somewhere instead of just being timed on how long you can keep it.

  • I have a silly question (Score:3, Insightful)

    by interstellar_donkey ( 200782 ) <pathighgateNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @08:13PM (#3362445) Homepage Journal
    Why would you want to have any sort of audio compression taking up CPU cycles in a game that is so processesor depedent?

    These sort of games seem to work by pushing computers to their limits, so it just seems odd that they would include something that takes power away from graphics/engine, espically when it's really not needed. (standard CD audio can be read off a disk with next to no CPU usage)

    Am I way off base here? If so, let me know why.
    • Because with a game like this, your graphics card will probably be choked up before your CPU is. And nowadays, everybody has hardware-accelerated sound cards, which helps as well.

      • Re:I have a silly question (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Hardware accelerated 3D positioning has no effect on the decoding time of compressed audio (like Ogg). Very few soundcards support accelerated mp3 decoding, very much ogg.
      • Except that 90% of motherboards come now come with crappy AC97 onboard sound (yes, even "good" motherboards).
        • Anyone who's too cheap to buy real audio for a game like this has no place to complain about performance...
          • The comment was in response to the parent.

            Having worked at a computer store for the past 2 1/2 years, I can attest to the fact that most people feel that onboard sound is adequate, even if it isn't.

            Look at the Soyo Dragon boards for example. Onboard 5.1 surround sound. Except for the fact that it's crap. Most people see the onboard 5.1 and assume that it's good, even though it's like AC97+more outputs!

            -kwishot
        • So? 90 percent of motherboards also come with a PoS ATI chip for video, too. You going to upgrade to a GeForce 4, and not bother getting a sound card? Of course, I'm still using my Vortex 2 card... "Best soundcard EVER!"
    • My first thought: Better to use the CPU than rely on disk I/O.

      Let's face it: if you don't compress the audio file, you're going to be relying on disk I/O to get the file out. That's going to suck in a fast-paced game. If you can minimize the disk I/O, you stand a good chance of speeding up the game.
      • Well there would be a slight I/O delay using uncompressed audio when a map is loaded, but then it's loaded in RAM. It's not like your hard drive is accessed for each sound every time it is played.

        Hard drives are basically unused when it comes to most games of FPS nature, besides the inital loading of a map/sound effects/etc. The only exception I can think of is when you enter a place with high detail or triggered events.
        • Even if you were going to waste 70 megs of ram on uncompressed cd audio, it would still be faster to load a 6 meg file and decompress it in ram.
          But it's better to just play the file normally, since ogg won't slow down a GHz cpu. And the ram is needed to load textures and maps.
      • If you leave the audio on the CD in RedBook format, you can just send a command every now and then to the CD player to change tracks. There's no I/O or CPU bottlneck. Makes it easy to change soundtracks too, without having to fiddle with a mp3 import program (Motor City Online), or fiddle with scripts (Tribes2): just put in a different CD.

        • Re:I have a silly question (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Yes, but unless you have a SCSI CD-ROM drive and a decent controller, your PC _will_ stall for a second as the track is changed. This was one of the gripes I had about CD audio in games from the very beginning.
      • Better not use either! Any FPS-type game using disk I/O is going to slow to a halt. Ever notice how the disk is only used to load maps/change levels? Everything gets loaded into main memory when a map starts up.

        As to the original poster: it is definetely not a silly question, it was actually the first thing that came to me when I saw the article.

        *Perhaps* they're storing vorbis on disk, and decompressing the audio when the map loads? This way you save disk space, plus you don't take a cpu hit decoding vorbis while playing the game. Just a hunch.
        • Maybe they're using ogg to save memory space. Disk space isn't really that important, but memory space is crucial. They may be relying on the ability to use another couple of percent of the CPU in order to save a couple of percent of the RAM. That's what I'd do if I knew enough about the rest of game-making to do something like this.
      • Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought the little wire that ran from the CD-Rom drive to the sound card shot out the raw audio to the sound card, which in turn, if instructed spits it out to your audio out.

        This should compleatly bypass any system/disk I/O, should'nt it? The requests the game is making on the hardware is just a start, stop, or change track instruction.

        I could see it being a problem if all of the audio was stored on the hard drive in wav (or simular format), but if your just looking at music, it just seems a good deal simpler to have that run off the CD.

      • Maybe I would be leaving the music turned on back in the old days before we had footsteps etc in games, but nowadays I want to use headphones, loud sound effects and no music.

        Come to think of it, I always turned the music off in the bad old days too because it was frequently playing off the cd-rom, so it would freeze up the damn computer for a couple of seconds when the track restarted...

        graspee

    • Unreal Tournament 2003 will be a lot less CPU-limited than the original. They've moved a bunch of stuff from CPU instructions to GPU instructions.

    • Re:I have a silly question (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward


      Why would you want to have any sort of audio compression taking up CPU cycles in a game that is so processesor depedent?

      Media archive footprint?

      There's lots of argument over when or if DVD will supplant the CD as a distribution mechanism for games, but regardless, in the near enough future CDs are probably still going to be it.

      But, even 'older' shooters have already started pushing the space-limitations of the CD; for example, jpeg support was hacked into Quake 3 at the last minute because an entire archive of its textures uncompressed wouldn't have fit on a single CD.

      Next year's games? Fatter hardware targets into which many more textures at much larger resolutions can be crammed, with less tolerance for ugly compression artifacts on those sharply-rendered images.

      So, you've got to make some room somewhere, I guess. Given how large uncompressed audio is, it seems like a natural target.



    • The original Unreal Tournament used modules (Scream Tracker III and Impulse Tracker) for music. Playing these consumes roughly the same CPU as decoding Ogg Vorbis. Both are pretty nice to the CPU.
    • Probably for online play. Trying to minimize the size of sound files when connecting to servers.

    • Re:I have a silly question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RelliK ( 4466 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @09:51PM (#3362862)
      Why would you want to have any sort of audio compression taking up CPU cycles in a game that is so processesor depedent?

      1. Any recent FPS is not CPU-limited. It is video card-limited. (Except for really low resolution, color depth, and detail, but nobody plays that any more).

      2. On modern CPUs, MP3s take about 1% - 3% load to play. I expect ogg to be similar.

      In short, CPU usage is a non-issue.

    • Re:I have a silly question (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ryanvm ( 247662 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @10:07PM (#3362908)
      Why would you want to have any sort of audio compression taking up CPU cycles in a game that is so processesor depedent?

      For one reason - on 3D games the video card is usually the bottleneck.

      standard CD audio can be read off a disk with next to no CPU usage

      Right, but at 10MB/min for CD audio it takes up A LOT of space that could be used for textures, models, levels, etc. A half hour of music would waste half the space on a CD.
    • The article mentioned something about voice chat. I imagine that compressing the audio would be pretty important, to conserve bandwidth.
    • I've got about 10 IE windows open, a bunch of buddy chat windows, mIRC, and Winamp cranking, and my CPU is hovering between 2% and 4%, according to Windows Task Manager.

      oh, I'm using a Pentium II 400mhz :)
    • You made an assumption based on Unreal Tournament actually. It is a fairly well known fact that UT was very CPU dependant(Q3 being vid card dependant).

      Well UT2003 is a totally different. The latest version of UT is v436. UT2003 should have a version number in the 600's... then old engine was meant to run great on 3dfx cards... the new one will not(a V3 will not be able to run the new version).

      Now back to the cpu myth. They changed the engine to allow for the latest eye candy and effects... so it will not be CPU dependant... as they designed the engine to run on a certain class of video cards(Radeons and above). It is the video card that is holding back games these days...

  • W00t! (Score:2)

    by Kaypro ( 35263 )
    This looks like an unbelievable upgrade to the original. Wondering if this will take advantage of Gefore4t technology. Would defintely consider upgrading my GF2 if this was the case.
  • Sites coping.. but kinda slow.. so heres a mirror if you need it -


    http://thought.joint.net.au [joint.net.au]



  • Ok I was set to buy my ps2, after all GT3, made it all worth it, now this, now I have to put aside my years savings to buy a new video card because my dual voodoo2 isn't supported by win2k and it would probable choke. ofcourse my new video card, wont work on my overclocked celron 300a. so now i need a new board cpu memory. WHY !!!! dont people realize it sucks to play on my computer in my basement i want to go upstairs on my 48" TV. but i still want my network play so i can shoot the heads off all my wayward co-workers
  • Maybe I missed it in the article, but I couldn't find any mention of the assult type of gameplay. Everything else seemed to be covered. Personally, that was my favorite style of game in UT 1 mainly because it was like Deathmatch with an actual purpose. Of course, pure free-for-alls are fun, but Assult brought a bit more strategy and (in my opinion) replayability. I truly hope they have something like it, except with more missions than UT 1 had. But, this was still an Alpha, so I'm willing to wait and see.
    • I'm not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be in the game at all. I believe I read that somewhere.. :D

      Anyhow, they're introducing new gameplay modes that seem to be pretty tactical.

    • Re:Assult? (Score:3, Informative)

      by rhakka ( 224319 )
      Nope, you didn't miss it, Assault has officially been canned from the UT2003 release. Interestingly enough, the other gametypes available are all "double objective" gametypes;

      -Capture the Flag,
      -Domination 2 (control point on each end, hold both simultaneously for 5 seconds to score a point for your team),
      -Bombing Run ("bomb" or "ball" in the middle, carry it to the opponent's base to score, kind of like football, and you can throw it to a teammate as well).

      My guess is the multiple objective game of Assault had far too few players to justify the surely formidable task of creating new maps for it. Domination was pretty small too, but I'm sure it's not too hard to make a good DOM map now with the tweaks from the old style.

      It's too bad though, with some work Assault could have been a much better gametype the second time around.

      • Re:Assult? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Pxtl ( 151020 )
        That's a shame... sounds like those gametypes all use the same maps - 2 bases with 1 "point" at each end, with a point int the middle for the ball to spawn. Boomball is a popular UT mod already - I'm a diehard player of that one - nice that a 3rd party mod is being incorporated into the game, although I prefer it in black flag mode, in which the ball is a graphically a more traditional flag - same gameplay though.

        Assault was one of my fave parts of UT - its how I got my brother, who swore he'd never get into mouseaiming into UT. Coop AS was awesome, especially playing sniper on Overlord.

        The problem with AS was a tendancy for overcomplex objectives. If they'd just made the maps have big red numbers saying "shoot me" and you have to shoot each number in order, then it all would be fine. Maybe include TFC style signs on where everything is. Instead you had to have already played the map to know the objectives - not good for newbies. DOM was similar, it was impossible to find the map points, and you never knew which name referred to which point.

  • Fucking wicked (Score:3, Informative)

    by phutureboy ( 70690 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @08:40PM (#3362554)
    Cool. If I'm not mistaken, my friend from Schloss Tegal did the soundtrack for some of the levels. You can check out some of his music here [interzonemusic.com]. He makes some dark, creepy stuff - perfect for Unreal.
  • Perhaps this will be the beginning of a mainstream penetration of the Ogg format. IIRC, before every teen in the western world (yes, generalization/exaggeration I know) had a 5 gig mp3 collection, there were some games using mp3 (although i can't remember specific examples). Perhaps this will encourage the semi-tech crowd (the casual gamer type mostly) to use Ogg, and it may filter down in to the main populous who mainly uses mp3 right now.

    OTOH, mp3 use has become so widespread over the last 2-3 years that getting the millions who use it daily to switch to a format that provides little benefit for them (they simply want to listen to their music) is unrealistic.

  • Linux Version? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JebuZ ( 565392 )
    Does anyone know if there are plans to release a Linux port, now that Loki isn't around?
    • Unfortuneately, I don't think there will be a Linux version of the next UT and Unreal games. I believe they are using a revamped UT engine, which only supports Direct3D(aka, DirectM$Lockin).

      From the Unreal 2 site...

      Q. For what platforms is Unreal II being developed?

      A. At this time, the PC is the only announced platform.

      Now that doesn't mean much, "announced platform"? It's been a while since I've read anything about it, but I am pretty sure I read that it is going to be D3D only ;-( I can't find it right now though...

      • From Linuxgames.com...

        UT2003 For Linux? - Wednesday Apr 17 18:53:54 2002 - Updated by AlKini
        foser wrote in to point out a little bit of information regarding the possibility of UT2003 being ported to Linux. The information came from an IRC interview in which Mark Rein from Epic participated:

        [19:35] DE/Epic: Will UT2003 make it to Linux? If so, server, client or both?
        [19:35] Server for sure on Linux
        [19:36] MarkRein[Epic]: any word on a client
        [19:36] Irix--> Don't know yet about a client but it will probably happen eventually
        [19:37] Irix--> We'd definitely like to see it and I know Dan Vogel is talking with some friends of his who would like to do it.

        So, someone who could do it, wants to do it. I sure want him to do it ;-)

        So, I take my previous comment back ;-)

    • Re:Linux Version? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      From linuxgames [linuxgames.com] :

      foser [mailto] wrote in to point out a little bit of information regarding the possibility of UT2003 [unrealtournament.com] being ported to Linux. The information came from an IRC interview [beyondunreal.com] in which Mark Rein from Epic [epicgames.com] participated:


      [19:35] DE/Epic: Will UT2003 make it to Linux? If so, server, client or both?

      [19:35] Server for sure on Linux

      [19:36] MarkRein[Epic]: any word on a client

      [19:36] Irix--> Don't know yet about a client but it will probably happen eventually

      [19:37] Irix--> We'd definitely like to see it and I know Dan Vogel is talking with some friends of his who would like to do it.


      From me:

      It doesn't matter that Loki is out of business.
      Epic did the original port. Not Loki. Loki just maintained it.

  • Divx downloads of UT 2003 LAN game (Score:5, Informative)

    by pcmills ( 83944 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @08:53PM (#3362611)
    Giga.de [www1.giga.de]

  • The moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)

    by jimbolaya ( 526861 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @09:04PM (#3362652) Homepage
    Use Ogg, get free advertising on Slashdot.
  • of the one true FPS: Quake 3 Area. Let's see, the enforcer is replaced with a Q3A-style machine gun, the sniper rifle has been replaced with a rail gun (trail back to shooter)... And you can't "load up on rockets" quite so much anymore - those poor UT players might have to actually learn to aim now ;-)
    • With the major exceptions of Unreal actually understanding how team games should work and what makes them fun.

      Personally I'm very excited that UT2003 seems to be using some of the good ideas that Quake did have, and combining it with both their own new ideas and the best from UT itself. The spam has been cut down, the teamplay enhanced..

      Overall, I think this game promises to offer much better gameplay from newbie to elite levels than anything else out there or anything else coming out any time soon. If you're a hardcore gamer, I don't think quake will even come close whether you're into 1v1 or full scale team CTF.
  • If game companies start seeing the economic benifits of ogg, I would think that in a year or so, after a couple big releases most game soundtracks will use this format.

    And if they were smart they'd let everyone know about it, Look another program that uses OOG.]

    That'd get people using it.

    Also if you could insert your own ogg files as a soundtrack. People would be more likely to use it.

  • some more links (Score:2, Interesting)

    by krs-one ( 470715 )
    Screens
    screens 1 [prounreal.com]
    screens 2 [prounreal.com]
    gamespot article [gamespot.com]
    screens 3 [prounreal.com]
    screens 4 [shacknews.com]
    screens 5 [beyondunreal.com]

    Weapons
    http://www.unrealops.com/ut2-weapons-preview.htm [unrealops.com]

    Hope this makes someone as happy as it did me when I first got it. :)

    -Vic

  • No linux port... (Score:3)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @10:01PM (#3362886) Homepage
    Who cares unless there is a linux port of it. Loki isnt around to give us a port for this one, so I'm betting it will never surface..

    Hey! EPIC! I'll pay $75.00 for a linux version that DOES NOT USE WINE.
    and I'm sure there are others that also would do the same.
  • I don't recall ever playing U/T 2... Who stole my nick??

  • Hoohah. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by bandit450 ( 118835 )
    I live in the town where Unreal Tournament is being made (London, Ontario, Canada)...in fact, my mother works in the same building.

    I rule you all.
  • Ogg? Ok, sure, why not. But UT2003... *slobbers* Id better cook up something good because they are getting thrashed by Unreal as of late.
  • ...To get a headline, you also have to include eye candy. I submitted this yesterday or the day before. It isn't just enough to link to the discussion on the Ogg Vorbis list, with confirmation from an Epic games programmer that Ogg has been in the engine for a while now, due to the sheer cost of an MP3 license. If you still actually want to see it, the thread starts here [xiph.org].

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