I found a couple very helpful tips in terms of demos and think it's time I should share them before they're lost forever.
UT's demos are a really underappreciated feature of the series. For anyone who doesn't know what they are, it's basically Halo's Theater mode minus some functionality and plus some functionality that Halo's Theater never had. A lot of people don't really use it though mostly because they don't even know it's there. It's kinda hidden. Right now we'll just be talking about UT2004's demo mode and RypelCam.
Now, I'm going to be assuming that you're using the latest version of RypelCam (1.9D), an expansion upon UT2004's already nice demo functionality. If you don't have it, you can pick it up here. Installation instructions are in the rar file in the Readme.
Before we get into the real meat of this here, we need to make some small changes that will be very beneficial for you to do or at least know about. Open the UT2004.ini in the System folder of your UT2004 installation. do a Ctrl + F search on "tickrate" without the quotes. The search will find a total of four lines with that word on it. Lines should be:
[IpDrv.TcpNetDriver]
NetServerMaxTickRate=<number>
LanServerMaxTickRate=<number>
[Engine.DemoRecDriver]
NetServerMaxTickRate=<number>
LanServerMaxTickRate=<number>
We want to change that number on all four of those lines to "40" without quotes. This will make much smoother looking demos. These numbers can be higher, but above 40, I don't think you'll notice too much of a difference if at all. This is optional but highly recommended.
The next thing is just optional. This will have the game record and save a demo of every match you start automatically. The default is set to not do this but you can change it in the User.ini
Change this line:
[XGame.xPlayer]
bAutoDemoRec=False
Change that to "True" without quotes. You might also have to do a Ctrl + F search for any other bAutoDemoRec lines in the ini and change them all to True as well. Simply set them all to False again if you want to turn this off.
OK. So, while in a game, open the console (~ key) and type in "demorec <name>" without quotes where <name> is the place where you name the demo that is going to be recorded. If you don't type in a name, the game will autoname it with the date and such. So right when you type that in, the game will start recording everything in the match. Type "stopdemo" without quotes to stop recording the demo and have it saved.
All saved demos can be found in the Community section on the main menu. There will be an upper tab for "Demos". Click on that. UT2004 can now convert any of them to an AVI from the person who recorded the demo's point of view or you can watch it in the game which is the MUCH preferred method of viewing but there you go. The game will also tell you if you're missing certain mods to play the demo and some details about it. Very nice!
You can also manually watch a demo by manually typing into the console "demoplay <demo>" without quotes where <demo> is the name of the demo you want to watch and the game will instantly play it.
Now, while in a demo, since you have RypelCam, hit Esc to activate it. The GUI is pretty self explanatory. Hit 'H' for a helpful guide on how to use all of its functions. The file also has a nice readme that you can look through as well. A couple things to note though. The "Seek" function will only fast-forward to a point in the demo. It will not rewind it. Since there is no way to rewind the demo, if you already passed a certain spot that you want to view again, you have to exit the demo by hitting the big stop button on the GUI and play the demo again.
Also note that if you want to pause the action and fly around the map, simply hit the big pause button on the GUI. If you hit F11 to pause it, it will simply freeze everything and you will be frozen until you unpause it. ALSO note that when properly paused, you cannot move the camera with your mouse unless you are pressing a movement key. I know it's a pain but you'll get used to it. The price you have to pay for having a cool Theater mode in such an old game.
And you, sadly, cannot record clips like in Halo. You either have the full demo you recorded or not at all. You can just make an AVI and edit that if you like though. Also, if you finished a demo and play another right away, the game might not like that and will simply CTD. Another buggy price you must pay for a feature very ahead of its time.
That's about it. Took me a while to round all this information up. Hopefully someone will find this helpful and won't pull their hair out like I did. Well, have fun! I'm signing out.
UT's demos are a really underappreciated feature of the series. For anyone who doesn't know what they are, it's basically Halo's Theater mode minus some functionality and plus some functionality that Halo's Theater never had. A lot of people don't really use it though mostly because they don't even know it's there. It's kinda hidden. Right now we'll just be talking about UT2004's demo mode and RypelCam.
Now, I'm going to be assuming that you're using the latest version of RypelCam (1.9D), an expansion upon UT2004's already nice demo functionality. If you don't have it, you can pick it up here. Installation instructions are in the rar file in the Readme.
Before we get into the real meat of this here, we need to make some small changes that will be very beneficial for you to do or at least know about. Open the UT2004.ini in the System folder of your UT2004 installation. do a Ctrl + F search on "tickrate" without the quotes. The search will find a total of four lines with that word on it. Lines should be:
[IpDrv.TcpNetDriver]
NetServerMaxTickRate=<number>
LanServerMaxTickRate=<number>
[Engine.DemoRecDriver]
NetServerMaxTickRate=<number>
LanServerMaxTickRate=<number>
We want to change that number on all four of those lines to "40" without quotes. This will make much smoother looking demos. These numbers can be higher, but above 40, I don't think you'll notice too much of a difference if at all. This is optional but highly recommended.
The next thing is just optional. This will have the game record and save a demo of every match you start automatically. The default is set to not do this but you can change it in the User.ini
Change this line:
[XGame.xPlayer]
bAutoDemoRec=False
Change that to "True" without quotes. You might also have to do a Ctrl + F search for any other bAutoDemoRec lines in the ini and change them all to True as well. Simply set them all to False again if you want to turn this off.
OK. So, while in a game, open the console (~ key) and type in "demorec <name>" without quotes where <name> is the place where you name the demo that is going to be recorded. If you don't type in a name, the game will autoname it with the date and such. So right when you type that in, the game will start recording everything in the match. Type "stopdemo" without quotes to stop recording the demo and have it saved.
All saved demos can be found in the Community section on the main menu. There will be an upper tab for "Demos". Click on that. UT2004 can now convert any of them to an AVI from the person who recorded the demo's point of view or you can watch it in the game which is the MUCH preferred method of viewing but there you go. The game will also tell you if you're missing certain mods to play the demo and some details about it. Very nice!
You can also manually watch a demo by manually typing into the console "demoplay <demo>" without quotes where <demo> is the name of the demo you want to watch and the game will instantly play it.
Now, while in a demo, since you have RypelCam, hit Esc to activate it. The GUI is pretty self explanatory. Hit 'H' for a helpful guide on how to use all of its functions. The file also has a nice readme that you can look through as well. A couple things to note though. The "Seek" function will only fast-forward to a point in the demo. It will not rewind it. Since there is no way to rewind the demo, if you already passed a certain spot that you want to view again, you have to exit the demo by hitting the big stop button on the GUI and play the demo again.
Also note that if you want to pause the action and fly around the map, simply hit the big pause button on the GUI. If you hit F11 to pause it, it will simply freeze everything and you will be frozen until you unpause it. ALSO note that when properly paused, you cannot move the camera with your mouse unless you are pressing a movement key. I know it's a pain but you'll get used to it. The price you have to pay for having a cool Theater mode in such an old game.
And you, sadly, cannot record clips like in Halo. You either have the full demo you recorded or not at all. You can just make an AVI and edit that if you like though. Also, if you finished a demo and play another right away, the game might not like that and will simply CTD. Another buggy price you must pay for a feature very ahead of its time.
That's about it. Took me a while to round all this information up. Hopefully someone will find this helpful and won't pull their hair out like I did. Well, have fun! I'm signing out.
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