Unreal sensative to TOO much RAM? Details...

[-TJ]

I started playing the single player Unreal 1 again because back in 1999, I never finished it.

I put together a new PC and got the game going with this hardware:
AMD Athlon 1.5Mhz processor
MSI KT3 Ultra 2 mainboard
MSI/Nvidia G-force 4 Ti video
256K PC2700 DDR RAM
No add on sound, the mainboard has it built in.

Anyway, as I said, I got the game going with the video configured for Direct3d and all was well. The gameplay is smooth, fast, looks great, couldn't ask for more.

I then added another 256K PC2700 DDR RAM and now when launching, the game goes to a black screen after the Unreal logo dissapears during the launch. I verified that the additional 256K RAM is the problem by playing musical RAM:
1. I pulled out one DDR (leaving only 256K) and launched the game - no problem.
2. I swapped the RAM modules (still only 256K, just the other unit) and launched the game - no problem.
3. With both 256K RAM units in place, situated either way in slots 1 & 2, the game goes to black screen.

So, in conclusion, the only way I can play it now is to run only 256K in the PC.

Weird....any insight, ideas, comments? BTW, other games I've got run fine with both 256K units in place - Return to CW and Deus EX...

[TCP_Wolf]

I would expect other games to behave erratic as well... still the first thing I would try is some intense memtest...

here's a google search result for "memtest86 download" which is a linux memory testing tool. But there should be installer files for making a bootdisk with it, so then you just insert that disk, wait a whole day and see if any errors came up... if not, it's not your RAM...

http://www.google.de/search?q=memtest86+download&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[TCP_Wolf]

Hey Smirftsch I'm dead sure you have this too somewhere... why not put up a DL link from oldunreal directly? It's freeware after all :-D

[-TJ]

Thanks guys....I'll try that.

I recently discovered (while reloading my video drivers), that my G-force card came with "no one lives forever" - not a bad game....it seems to be ok with 512K as well as the others I mentioned. I started playing it instead of Unreal while I was patiently waiting for a reply to this topic. Thanks again!

[Kerilkkorn]

I currently have 512MB of ram and unreal just runs fine so ram should not be an issue.
Try to run the game in safe mode and see if it works. If it does (and it should), install the OpenGL patch found on this site and see if it works, it will run even better with the patch......

Between NOLF is a GREAT game

[-TJ]

OK....I really appreciate you guys taking your time to help me out with this remedial Unreal issue.

I didn't have a chance to run the memtest, but I did just try and install the openGL patch and S3TC, which for some reason I could not comprehend a week ago (the reason this post come up in the first place). Apparently this week I'm either a little wiser or the fresh coffee on my desk enabled me to pull it off this time.

The game runs fine with 512K now and looks just as good as it did (judging from the intro screen) when I was running it with the Direct3D driver and 256K. Looks to be a bit faster too.

One last question - is there a guide somewhere to the Advanced Options/Rendering/OpenGL/ system settings? My original game literature is long gone. I just plugged all the values in that the readme file had listed in the OpenGL patch. I'm just curious what some of the settings with numerical values do so I can further tweak the game - mainly the settings that all start with Max and Min...

Thanks again,
-TJ

[Hyper]

Unreal has no problems with much RAM.
I have can run Unreal 200, 220, 224, 225, 226 and Gold on my Windows 2000 machine with 1 GB Dual Channel DDR memory, and a 225 server with 768 MB RDRAM

About the OpenGL advanced options: It seems to be a mystery, nobody seems to know all of those options. There is a special topic for it somewhere, but mo solution yet.