by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko
11/13/2007 | 09:30 PM
Released by Epic Games on the 26th of November, 1999, the original Unreal Tournament came out just a few days before id Software’s famous Quake 3 Arena. So, it is quite correct to say that Unreal Tournament became the progenitor of a new type of first-person shooters that focused on multiplayer. We should acknowledge that Unreal Tournament did have some kind of a plot. Based on the Unreal universe that was first depicted by Epic in its 1998 sci-fi shooter with the same name, the game described a deadly championship carried out by the powerful Liandri Corporation. The original Unreal offered the option of multiplayer, but it was rudimentary, like in most other FPS games released until that day, compared with what you had in UT.
<%BANNER[article]%>A number of new game modes were added in Unreal Tournament to the classic Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag:
So, Unreal Tournament offered a much broader choice of game modes than Quake 3 Arena and also had a more exciting gameplay although the fans of id Software’s project would criticize it for being less dynamic. Besides the unique game modes, Unreal Tournament allowed using almost any weapon in multiple ways (the so-called alternative fire mode). This idea later became the visiting card of the UT series and was borrowed by other FPS developers.
We should also specifically note the integrated statistics system that would meticulously write down every detail of the player’s progress, and the advanced AI of the bots with flexible setup options. The latter fact was a strong argument of the UT community in the dispute with the fans of Quake 3 Arena which never had clever PC-controlled opponents. Wide modification options constituted another advantage of the game, giving birth to numerous mods and conversions created by the community of the game fans. That was one of the main reasons for the wide popularity of the Unreal Tournament series.
October 1, 2002, Epic Games released a sequel running on Unreal Engine 2. The game featured high-quality visuals and, even though was not such a sensation as its predecessor, won some recognition among people interested in classic multiplayer shooters. Unreal Tournament 2003 offered new and unique game modes such as:
The plot of UT2003 was similar to the original and covered yet another Championship. The game provided a few new types of weapons. For some old weapons the fire mode was modified.
The next new game in the series, Unreal Tournament 2004, was released on the 16th of March, 2004. It was but slightly different from Unreal Tournament 2003 from a technical point of view, and ran on a modified version of Unreal Engine 2 that got a version number of 2.5. The gameplay had undergone more changes. Particularly, the player could now control combat machines, including space fighters, and use special weapons to oppose such machines with. This machinery was mostly called for in the new game mode called Onslaught vast levels had been developed for and in the Assault mode that was identical to the same-name mode of the original Unreal Tournament.
News about the development of a next game in the series appeared quite a long time ago. The project was first known under the traditional name of Unreal Tournament 2007 but it was later changed into Unreal Tournament 3 to indicate the use of the new Unreal Engine 3. Although the full version of the game is yet to be published, we can use the recently released demo version to check out what we can expect from the new game in terms of gameplay as well as graphics subsystem requirements.
When talking about Unreal Tournament 3, we should rather be talking about what old things, but not innovations, you can find in it. Developing the new UT, Epic Games decided to return to the beginnings of the series because Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 had been often criticized by the fans of the original game for the small size of the characters, for huge levels, for being too dynamic, and for defensive gameplay.
This return to the roots can be seen even in the demo version. The characters are larger. Their speed of movement and the ability to jump have been reduced. Some tricks such as dodge-jump have been removed, and the physical model resembles Unreal Tournament rather than UT2003/2004. The veterans of the classic UT should appreciate this, but the new generation of gamers who started their gaming career from UT2003/2004 may be somewhat disappointed.
So far, Unreal Tournament 3 is expected to have the following games modes:
The latter two are the most interesting. Unreal Warfare is a hybrid of the Onslaught and Assault modes with strategic elements, particularly with resources that affect the speed of construction of combat machines and stationary weapon emplacements. Unfortunately, we cannot describe this mode to you because it is not available in the demo version. We’ll have to wait for the release to check it out.
The point of the Vehicle Capture the Flag mode is clear from its name. It differs from the ordinary Capture the Flag mode with its larger, open maps optimized for combat machines. Unfortunately, such an interesting game mode as Bombing Run has been removed from UT3 but may be restored by gamers themselves thanks to the broad modification opportunities.
The demo version provides four game modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Duel and Vehicle Capture the Flag) and three levels (Heat Ray, Shangri La and Suspense). The first two levels are ordinary maps while Suspense is a special map for the Vehicle Capture the Flag mode. There is one special feature in that mode. It is the so-called hoverboard that may remind you of the Back to the Future movie. The hoverboard allows the player to move faster than on foot, especially if you hitch to some speedy vehicle, which is also possible. But if you get hit with a bullet, you will fall from the hoverboard and remain vulnerable for a few seconds necessary to stand up on your feet.
The weapon arsenal is almost exactly the same as was available in the original Unreal Tournament, except that the classic mini-gun is replaced with a machine-gun that fires Tarydium crystals. Heavy weapons from Unreal Tournament 2004 are also available to fight against machines. New in the game are different types of mines and the generators of protective and slow-down fields.
The weapon models have been redesigned to meet the current graphics standards and can be displayed in two modes, standard and reduced-size. In the latter mode the model takes a smaller place on the screen, providing a better view for the player.
It’s yet too early to speak about combat machines before the final release although the demo offers almost all the transportation and fighting machinery you could see in Unreal Tournament 2004: Hellbender, Manta, Scorpion, Raptor, and Goliath. There are also new machines such as the artillery mount Hellfire SPMA. This arsenal will be complemented with new items in the full version, particularly with machines of the Necris fraction that have unique design and capabilities.
The game will also provide a solo mode with a plot and an option of playing for one of unique teams.
The demo contains only three levels, but Epic Games stays true to its name: the levels are indeed epic and colossal, especially the Shangri La map that shows a Tibetan monastery somewhere high in mountains.
The architecture of the levels is very expressive with lots of smaller details such as waterfalls, mountains, etc, which help you immerse deep into the game. Our only gripe is about the not-very-detailed textures and about the water surface that cannot match the water from BioShock that runs on Unreal Engine 3, too. We know, however, that the graphics quality is reduced in the demo to keep it small. It’s only in the full version of the game that we’ll see all the beauties of the new Unreal Tournament.
The years Epic Games has spent on developing Unreal Tournament 3 have not been wasted for nothing. The new game has taken in all the best from the original as well as from Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004. Even with reduced graphics quality the demo looks better than Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and the final version is going to be a gorgeous gift for every lover of the UT series.
Unreal Tournament 3 runs on Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 and is actually not the first game to use it. Such titles as Gears of War and BioShock are based on this engine, too. Developed with modern technologies and DirectX 10 capabilities in mind, the engine provides the following things:
You can refer to the developer’s website for more information on Unreal Engine 3. But even without delving into details it is clear that Unreal Tournament 3 has a modern technological foundation that meets today’s standards and provides a reserve for the future.
Unfortunately, there are few setup options available in the demo. You can change the display resolution, regulate the level of texture detail, and choose one of four post-processing modes (default, muted, vivid and intense). The latter affect the intensity of the bloom effect and the overall contrast of the image, so the choice depends entirely on your particular preferences. Many people will probably leave this parameter at its default.
When you select the maximum level of detail, 16x anisotropic filtering is enabled automatically if its level is not fixed in the driver. The game doesn’t support FSAA. The developer says FSAA will be available in the full version of the game working in Windows Vista’s DirectX 10 environment. This limitation is due to the deferred rendering technique employed by the game engine – deferred lighting, to be exact – which makes it impossible to enable FSAA with DirectX 9.
The game supports voice commands to control the bots, which is very useful in battle conditions as every second you spend to type in a text command may be deadly to your character. Well, this feature will only be useful if the voice recognition system works right, but the idea looks exciting and adds more realism to the game even if you play with PC-controlled opponents.
As we noted in the Ageia PhysX review, the game supports hardware physics accelerators, but an Ageia card wouldn’t improve the gameplay of the demo in comparison with the software version of the physics effect engine. The developer promises support for destructible environments, so the final version of the game may indeed benefit from a standalone physics-processing card.
To test the performance of graphics cards in Unreal Tournament 3 we assembled the following standard test platform:
We used standard driver settings for ATI Catalyst and Nvidia ForceWare drivers:
ATI Catalyst:
Nvidia ForceWare:
The game was set to maximum possible graphics quality:
Unreal Tournament 3 demo version features built-in testing tools however there is no chance to record a demo that is why we use the one available in flyby game on Shangri La level. These data can be regarded only as an approximate reference especially since the graphics quality in Unreal Tournament 3 demo was forcefully lowered. The obtained results will at least give us an idea what solutions will suit best for UT3 when the full game version is out.
We tested the following graphics cards split in three groups depending on the provided performance level:
High-End:
Mainstream:
Entry Level:
Epic Games is known for their attempts to demonstrate acceptable performance on the solutions available freely at the time of game launch. That is why we decided to test Unreal Tournament 3 demo in all standard resolutions at the time of tests, including the entry-level products.
All the cards from the high-end category and two cards from the top-mainstream class cope with the task, providing an average frame rate of over 60fps.
The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, the most expensive product in this test, is in the lead at resolutions up to 1920x1200, but it is closely followed by the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB. The gap is about 5% at 1280x1024 and about 9% at 1600x1200. The ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB is in its turn only 1.5-2fps behind its elder brother – this difference is negligible considering that the average speeds are as high as 80-88fps. In other words, we can see it once again that the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB is meant for overclockers in the first place (if it is not pre-overclocked by the manufacturer). The same goes for the two versions of Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS that do not differ at all in this test. The final version of the game may have higher requirements to the amount of graphics memory, though, and the 320 megabytes of the junior model may prove not enough. We’ll check this out when Unreal Tournament 3 is released.
The picture is somewhat different for the resolution of 1920x1200: the GeForce 8800 GTX is an obvious leader now, outperforming the Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB by 12-13%. Both the cards easily provide an average frame rate of over 60fps, though. The results of the Radeon HD 2900 Pro are interesting, too. Being limited by the reduced core frequency, it is inferior to the GeForce 8800 GTS in low resolutions, but overtakes the latter at a resolution of 1920x1200 thanks to its advanced memory subsystem with a 512-bit bus.
We’ll keep our recommendations on the best graphics card for this game to ourselves until we see the final version of Unreal Tournament 3, but the demo shows a good tendency. If the final version is just as moderate in its system requirements, every modern graphics card from Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB and ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro to Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra is going to run it fast as is indicated by the results of the flyby tests.
This price category is currently divided into two sectors: the top sector is occupied by products that are cut-down versions of more expensive graphics cards, and the bottom sector includes products with specially developed mainstream GPUs.
As we’ve found out, the Radeon HD 2900 Pro and GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB easily deliver excellent performance in the Unreal Tournament 3 demo at every resolution including 1920x1200. Alas, this is not the same with the less advanced products. However optimized the game may be, there are limitations imposed by the technical characteristics of the mainstream GPUs, ATI RV630 and Nvidia G84.
Anyway, Epic Games should be praised for optimizing the game so that it runs fast enough on the mentioned GPUs at a resolution of 1280x1024. The Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS is 15% ahead of the cheaper ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4, but that’s not critical since their average speeds are as high as 59-67fps. The opponents go neck and neck at the higher resolutions. The Nvidia card is superior to the AMD one in the amount and performance of the texture processors but inferior to it in the computing capacity, especially memory bandwidth.
It may seem that the game is playable, the average speed being about 45fps, but that’s not exactly so. First, we tested the flyby mode in which there were no special effects from using weapons and no complex models of enemies. It also doesn’t depend on the CPU performance which may be an important performance-related factor during heavy battles. Second, Unreal Tournament 3 is a game in which it is necessary to have a reserve of speed, but we cannot be sure that the average speed of 45fps won’t become 25fps during real play. The resolution of 1920x1200 pixels is practically unavailable on the bottom-mainstream graphics cards.
Our recommendations are simple here. If you are going to play Unreal Tournament 3 seriously, avoid such graphics cards as GeForce 8600 and Radeon HD 2600. You may want to wait for a while until the arrival of the new generation of mainstream graphics cards from AMD/ATI and Nvidia. If you’ve already got a GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB or Radeon HD 2900 Pro, you shouldn’t worry much as such graphics cards are going to provide enough performance for the full version of Unreal Tournament 3.
Entry-level graphics cards are generally slow in modern games, but that’s not so with the flyby test in the Unreal Tournament 3 demo which doesn’t put a very heavy load on the graphics subsystem. The Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT can provide an average frame rate of 50fps at the maximum graphics quality settings and a display resolution of 1280x1024. The ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT delivers a speed of almost 60fps.
The ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT is in the lead at the higher resolutions as well whereas the HD 2600 Pro model, the market opponent to the Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT, is about as fast as the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT.
It should be noted that the GeForce 8500 GT and the Radeon HD 2400 XT have similar results and cannot render Unreal Tournament 3 at an acceptable speed even in the flyby test. Well, these cards are not actually meant for playing games. They are intended for decoding HD video and supporting such features that integrated graphics solutions lack.
Despite the rather good results of the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro and Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT, we recommend you to get something faster for the full version of Unreal Tournament 3.
Besides the flyby test we also tried to check out the cards’ performance with the Fraps utility that is capable of registering the frame rate during a specific time interval. We used a 60-second interval that should be enough to see the behavior of graphics cards under real gaming conditions in such a dynamic game as Unreal Tournament 3.
We performed this test over two pairs of graphics cards: GeForce 8800 GTX/Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB and GeForce 8600 GTS/Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4. It is impossible to repeat a game situation exactly when playing with human opponents, so the following diagrams should not be regarded as a comparison of graphics cards from ATI and Nvidia. It is only a means to see the behavior of the game under real conditions and how well it is optimized for modern hardware.
These results agree quite well with what we saw in the flyby tests. The speed of high-end graphics cards is always comfortable. The minimum of speed is as high as 40fps even at 1920x1200. You should note the considerable fluctuations of performance and remember that the graphics quality is lower in the demo. Things can be different in the final version of the game.
In the mainstream class the results differ somewhat from those of the flyby tests: the average frame rate of both of the cards is lower, never reaching even 50fps. Anyway, this is not a total failure. The speed is always higher than 30fps at 1280x1024, which is indicative of the optimizations implemented by the developer and the opportunity to play the game in comfortable conditions. Unfortunately, the speed of the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT and Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS fluctuates from 40 to below 25fps at a resolution of 1600x1200, and this resolution is practically unplayable.
So, the game can hardly be played at the maximum visual quality settings on these two graphic cards, let alone less advanced solutions. They may deliver acceptable performance at a resolution of 1280x1024 at best, but you’ll probably have to reduce the level of detail and the overall image quality of the game.
It’s yet too early to make a final conclusion about the game since the demo version of Unreal Tournament 3 demonstrates only a small part of the features that are going to be available in the final version. It is clear, however, that Epic Games has indeed returned to the roots in many respects, and the sequel to the popular series will take the best from UT2003/2004, but will be closer the classic Unreal Tournament. The demo version can already boast high-quality visuals, but its full splendor together with advanced physical effects will only be seen in the published game. As for the spirit of Unreal Tournament, we guess it is present here, but that’s depends on your personal taste, of course.
Our preliminary tests have showed that at this moment the UT3 demo doesn’t have a strong liking or disliking towards products of a particular GPU developer and runs equally fast on ATI Radeon and Nvidia GeForce cards. Compared with some modern games with DirectX 10 support (for details see our article called The Second Encounter: DirectX 10 Games vs. Contemporary Graphics Accelerators), in which even top-end graphics cards can hardly provide a playable speed, Unreal Tournament 3 is a relief. Anyway, we would still recommend purchasing more advanced graphics cards for playing the game if you are going to enable FSAA and other image-enhancing features.
Epic Games has done a good job on the engine and we hope the full version of Unreal Tournament 3 won’t be much hungrier than the demo and won’t require a considerable financial investment into the graphics subsystem.
Since we performed our tests in a demo of the game, we plan to run another round of tests as soon as Unreal Tournament 3 is released officially.