Keep the game running smoothly
Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 12:49 pm
Many players I believe are making a mistake, installing various mods and maps to their unreal files. I am now a firm believer in that you should have standard unreal files and maps in your unreal folders, and download all the maps, mods, edm, uteam, infiltration, ect ect to the cache folder from the server your trying to join. If the server cant handle the bandwidth required for downloads this is a serious unreal problem today when high speed downloads are common place. At sparkyland here, we use a standard unrealgold installation with the only added files being my special skins, ini file and user file. I believe its a big error to install mods and custom maps in your game directly, but suggest you download them from the server your trying to join. When you suffer clashes of version of files when playing from the cache, all you have to do is stop and restart unreal, you don't have to remove or delete anything. This is not true if you have installed server side mods in your unreal files, then you must locate the file in question and delete it. If you run a server or lan game and want mods installed for lan or offline play, I suggest having multiple installs of unreal such as c:\unrealgold and c:\unrealgold2. You should use a clean as a install of gold as possible for on line playing on servers. I know downloading is a chore, when your itching to get in the game. I have provided a super cache that includes 99% of the files running on the Newbies Server and several other servers as well. This cache file will not give you a conflict of file version that cannot be simply fixed by stopping and restarting your game as you move from server to server. Some of the mods running on servers for hack protection, examine your system unreal files for non standard files and may interpret your mods installed as a possible hack and kick you from the game within one minute of joining the server. I see many players download a map, then they get a uteam replication error and the scoreboard doesnt display and your game is really messed up. I then see them rejoin the game and then they are in but, follows complaints of my score board doesnt work and I see ghosts of players past. This is a uteam, and unreal gold combo error. Unreal gold has always had problems with ghosts after you rejoin the map. This will be dumped at the next map change, provided you dont download from the server and start the events all over again. The way to fix this is to download the maps directly from the server, and get them in the cache before you attempt to play. To download the maps into your cache on the Newbies server, running over 2500 maps will take you about 120 hours at 3 min per map. You could go to our super cache, which was made from the Newbies server and get the self extracting zip and install files. It took me months to compile this, and it amazes me how the same people constantly have to download the same maps over and over. You must set your purge cache to 0 days before you install the cache. If you dont know how to set this in advanced options, find out before you install super cache. I believe its covered elsewhere in this forum. The self extracting zips when clicked on after download, will give you the option to unzip or use winzip. If you choose unzip, and your unreal gold is installed in a normal manner on C drive these cache files will be extracted to your unreal gold cache folder and that is all that has to be done. Download and click the files, tell it to unzip. If your installation is non standard, you can redirect the unzip statement and or run winzip itself. I suggest you save the super cache files to a CD or DVD so you dont have to download them again. I save my entire cache, zipped with the user, unreal ini and sparky skins as a back up. I have a file unzipped with all these in it as well. I can install unreal gold, paste these files in and have a fresh install in about 10 minutes and join the game losing nothing I had before. When you uninstall unrealgold, I suggest if you have saved your files as above, that you delete the unrealgold installation with windows explorer after running the un install program. You will find that unrealgold uninstall will leave your custom files in folders in the unrealgold directory even tho you have uninstalled the program. If you suspect that you had corrupted unreal files, you should delete these folders manually to insure your getting a clean install. Get rid of the junk in your unreal game, you dont need it, play on the cache and get rid of clashes and crashes.
It is also my belief that there was a release of unrealgold with corrupted system files included that doesnt handle the cache files correctly. If you have set your cache to 0 days and installed the cache files and still have to download each map, I suggest you try another CD to install unreal gold.
I have done this sucessfully in the past with other players. As far as the open gl and super textures and stuff, your on your own. I have made them work here, but honestly feel that its not worth the grief it causes. Installing these home spun improvements to the game are not suggested to be attempted by beginners. You must know what you doing to make them work. I see posts on forums all over with people trying to install special mods in their game and running into trouble. Why not play from the cache and leave the fancy stuff up the the server admins? If all the servers would offer their special files in cache form, people would find it much easier to move from server to server without file conflicts. In the days of waning player numbers, the server admins should provide whatevers possible to cause the minimum amount of problems for the gaming players as they move around the unreal universe. Offer your skins and custom stuff in cache form for download. If you dont have the download ability, send them to me and I will include it in Newbies super cache. They must be in .uxx form however.
Caution, the size of the cache from the zips is over 6.5 gb and about 2500 maps, make sure you have enough hard drive left. http://newbies.thenerdnetwork.com/np/unreal/SuperCache/
It is also my belief that there was a release of unrealgold with corrupted system files included that doesnt handle the cache files correctly. If you have set your cache to 0 days and installed the cache files and still have to download each map, I suggest you try another CD to install unreal gold.
I have done this sucessfully in the past with other players. As far as the open gl and super textures and stuff, your on your own. I have made them work here, but honestly feel that its not worth the grief it causes. Installing these home spun improvements to the game are not suggested to be attempted by beginners. You must know what you doing to make them work. I see posts on forums all over with people trying to install special mods in their game and running into trouble. Why not play from the cache and leave the fancy stuff up the the server admins? If all the servers would offer their special files in cache form, people would find it much easier to move from server to server without file conflicts. In the days of waning player numbers, the server admins should provide whatevers possible to cause the minimum amount of problems for the gaming players as they move around the unreal universe. Offer your skins and custom stuff in cache form for download. If you dont have the download ability, send them to me and I will include it in Newbies super cache. They must be in .uxx form however.
Caution, the size of the cache from the zips is over 6.5 gb and about 2500 maps, make sure you have enough hard drive left. http://newbies.thenerdnetwork.com/np/unreal/SuperCache/