UT 3 runs like garbage on my wife's system

[Nophix]

Sorry to make this my first post. I'm frustrated and ready to ditch this game. I love the Unreal series, as does my wife, but this thing just will not run!

Her specs-
3.2gHz Celeron D
1gb RAM
Inno 3D 1GB ddr2 8600GT
XP Media Center SP2

This game should run at least minimum, and doesn't even come close! I've tried patches, and the .ini fixes only got it to get into the game(couldn't even get that far before).

This same machine runs WoW maxed out at 1280x800 Res, and COD4 on similar settings, without missing a beat.

I'm an IT guy by trade, so I've done all the obvious, and even less than obvious work(checking for viri, spy and adware, defrag, and the like).

Someone help me before I go AVGN on this game!

Thank you

 

[Jordan L]

If your playing UT3 by it's minimum specs required, it's going to run like utter crap either way. In some cases, playing games by it's exact recommended requirements won't cut it either.

Keep the 8600GT, get a better CPU and try to get 2 gigs of RAM, you'll see the most performance increase from doing those two things. According to some people, their 8600GT runs UT3 on Med Settings Alright. They have a decent CPU and RAM to go with it though. After all, your trying to run a Next Gen UE3 Engine game optimized for the latest hardware on a pretty low end PC.

UT2004 is a great game, and would probably run a lot better anyways, try that out to.

 

[Sahkolihaa]

3.2gHz Celeron D

Explains everything. Even my X2 4800+ struggles to run UT3 at highest settings at 1440x900 - my HD3850 always has around 40% of it's GPU free because the CPU is always under full load and can't keep up.

 

[Nophix]

Already have UT2K4 loaded on that machine.

This thing runs UT2k4 maxed out at a similar res. Looks great!

As for it being a next gen engine, that's all fine and dandy, but like i said, COD4 runs great! Epic always seemed to do a better job optimizing their code than anyone else, including Infinity Ward, so this is a real shock.

Honestly, I can't even run it on 640x480 and everything low.

 

[Jordan L]

The Epic we knew then, isn't the Epic we know now

 

[Nophix]

Not sure why they did, but I got a killer deal on it through one of my vendors. Less than $100 shipped.

 

[Sahkolihaa]

Thats strange... my brother uses the X2 4200+, and UT3 is very much playable on the highest settings at 1024x768.

It's usually on the eye-candy, large VCTF and WAR maps.

Otherwise it's usually great - but yeah, Celeron D is going to struggle very badly. CoD4 is probably more bound to the GPU than the CPU.

 

[Pheenix]

I am running UT3 on a Intel core duo 2.4ghz,2gigs of ddr2, x1600 512mb ddr3,xfi sb in xp pro sp2 and some sometimes the game freezes up on me randomly. I have dummed the settings down trying to fix the problem,but to no avail. I was wondering if I should look at a Phyx card as a possible fix. Or maybe the game is just flawed. Your thoughts would be balm.

 

[[SAS]Solid Snake]

Unreal Engine 3 is GPU bound this time around, than it is CPU bound. In the past Unreal Engine used to be CPU bound due to its scripting language and its use of slightly older technology (compared to others at the time). However with Unreal Engine 3, every pixel is now pixel shaded, thus you will need a much better GPU to keep up.

In reality, it's just a bit of a balance really. Make sure you pair an equivalent GPU to CPU, or it isn't going to work.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

On this computer it couldn't run because of dll problem, but the demo ran fine on laptop, which has even less specs than the computer you explained, lol.

 

[[VaLkyR]Assassin]

I run UT3 on a single core A64 3800+ with 256Mb 7900GS and 2GB RAM and it runs pretty nicely at 1024x768 with world detail at 5 and textures at 4, with only the occasional (not too often) hitching. I've found UE3 games to be quite well optimised and it's one of the better performers of the newer engines IMO.

 

[Crowze]

The old NetBurst Celerons are terrible to say the least. Depending on the motherboard's chipset you may be able to upgrade to a dual-core Pentium D, which shouldn't cost much these days and UT3 will make full use of it.

Edit: Just out of interest, why the 1GB 8600GT? 1GB is completely wasted on a mid-range card, and as the 256MB version uses DDR3 and is clocked faster it's significantly better.

 

[Noobnugget]

Well it can't hurt I suppose - as long as it cost no more than a standard 8600GT

Actually, it does hurt, and very much so. A DDR2 8600gt is significantly slower than a ddr3 version. My 8600gt with only 256mb of ram, but being the proper ddr3 build, would run around that thing with ease.

To the OP. There's two reasons why it runs badly. The celeron D, as already stated, and the gimped version of the 8600gt.