hi guys,

can anybody please tell me what i need to install (patch, renderer etc.) to use the s3tc textures with the gog version? i tried different patches and renderer from this site: http://www.oldunreal.com/index.html
nothin really worked :(

thanks for your help!
i'm talking about these textures here:

http://www.oldunreal.com/textures.html

You extract the textures for the appropriate game (Unreal Gold and UT99 use different S3TC textures) into the game's textures folder (or replace it if you don't want to lose the old folder) and then in the .ini for the graphics option you are using you need to turn on the option to use S3TC.

I'm assuming you're talking about Unreal Gold

You need the latest patch 227h this includes the current D3D9 and OpenGL renderers
http://www.unrealtexture.com/Unreal/Downloads/Patches/227Patch/UnrealGoldPatch227h.zip

Here are the HighEnd S3TC textures
http://unrealtexture.com/Unreal/Website/Downloads/Textures/HighEnd/MasterFiles/MasterFilesHighEnd.htm

Simply download all 5 zip files and extract the contents to the UnrealGold textures directory
eg C:\Program Files\GOG.com\UnrealGold\Textures

The textures are for ExtremeEnd are avaiable here
http://unrealtexture.com/Unreal/Website/Downloads/Textures/ExtremeEnd/StockUnreal/UnrealExtremeEnd.htm

You don't need to worry about the patching if you have the GOG versions of Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournamet Game of the Year. This is because GOG have already patched them for you.

While that is true for UT that isn't true for Unreal Gold.

I'm pretty sure GOG uses the latest patch which was released by Epic Games 226b
However 227h is the latest patch that has been released for Unreal/Unreal Gold by OldUnreal this includes lots of fixes and new features as well as the current renderers

You're definately much better off installing 227h to get the best experience

Ah, yes. GOG only provide the latest official patches, and as 227h is unofficial (and also very recent) it isn't part of their installer.

I take it then that the S3TC textures don't work with the latest official patch then? I've only used them with UT99 which didn't need any unofficial patches.

Actually, I'm at present tempted to say don't use 227h. There's an unofficial DX10 renderer which I use (http://kentie.net/article/d3d10drv/) but it only supports up to 226 (the latest official patch).

I've tried installing 227h and it breaks this DX10 renderer, giving a weird error when starting the game and instead of using the DX10 renderer it instead uses software mode which therefore forces me to use one of the standard renderers, but none of these give me the same performance as I had with 226 or with the DX10 renderer, both 227h's DX9 and OpenGL renderers seem to be a bit choppy when the action is fast and movement high.

Also, this DX10 renderer supports S3TC. I imagine my save might be broken if I go back in version, though, so I might have to try some tweaks to see if I can keep 227h installed. :(

S3TC works fine on the official patch as long as you have a renderer that supports S3TC Textures such as OpenGL, Direct3D8/9/10, S3 Metal might work to just for fun Yes I did notice D3D10 breaks with 227h
D3D9 and OpenGL have been fine for me on 227g (h came up half way though my Unreal playthrough, finally finished it :D dont know what took me so long) 227h is only a small fix compared to 227g.

If you have dynamic shadows on max it can get a bit choppy though.

No compatibility between different versions of saves so have to keep same version for save games until you finish it.

I'll try dropping dynamic shadows then as that might be what's causing it.

Saves appear to be forwards compatible fine (as in newer versions can read old version saves) but they probably aren't backwards compatible (saves from newer versions won't like old versions of the game). Ah well.

As for time taken, yeah, Unreal is taking me a very long time. Years in fact. I first started it way back when I got my first PC (so I'm guessing about 12 years ago when the game was relatively new) and I only got through about 25%-35% through. I then got distracted by other games and never returned to it. So, on finding GOG and with it having the Unreal series on here I got them and started it again, and am currently about 60%-70% through and still only play it rarely. No idea why as it's actually a pretty nice game, I just don't feel like I can devote lots of time to it for some reason.

UPDATE: Dropping the shadows quality has improved the frame rate again. I was using the ultra res option and have now dropped it to medium res option. Shadows in the game were never intended that way anyway, so it's not as if I'm missing anything with slightly lower res ones. I'll stick with 227h for now then, being as I've got it running nicely again. I have mentioned to Kentie about it being final and asking whether he'll get his DX10 renderer working with it, but he doesn't have the necessary source code, though has heard from the authors of 227 in the past, so there is a glimmer of hope.