Useful Resources for New players

thanks... and I would hope it Does get stickied, not just for the n00bs, but for me (I keep forgetting all this stuff)
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http://www.unrealadmin.org/
This site has some useful stuff for those of you wishing to set up your own servers...

http://www.i4games.net/download/ut/Mods_Mutators/i4Games_BTTrain_2a.rar

That's a link to a training mutator.. I've never tried it so I don't know how good it is, but on the outside chance that I might forget the url later i'm listing it here...

http://www.unrealadmin.org/modules.php?name=INI_Reference&func=ut2004

This explains the sections of your server's ini file... pay attention to the part about the Redirect to URL... this means that if you have a webserver capable of delivering maps to players, you can put the URL in here and then when they need to download a file, instead of eating up your bandwidth, they download from your webpage.. Of course, if you don't have a paid webserver, this may not be a better option for long...
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Yeah, I find the hit sounds very useful... It was the biggest annoyance when I first moved to UT2004 from Quake 3... The only way I'd know if i hit the guy was if he was up close and I could see it...

Brightskins is for noobs though...
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What to do if my program crashes: Well, take note of the error, copy and paste it if possible... Get a screenshot of the error (hit prnt scrn and then open microsoft paint and ctrl V) if not possible to copy and paste the error... While I'm no programmer I know a little about programming...

The error "FMallocWindows::Free" means that the game is having trouble freeing up memory to use... There are two things you can do to help avoid this problem.

1) Defrag your drive before any major installs... this will avoid having parts of the game located all over the drive, slowing down the drive's response time and increasing the chances of an error.

2) Fix your paging file/virtual memory. If the page file gets fragmented, that will definitely cause problems (for everything, not just UT2004)... it'll also slow your computer down...

So how do you defrag your drive? double click on "My computer" right click on the drive in question, select properties, then tools, then "Defragment now"... This process can take alot of time depending on how big your drive is, how fast your drive is, how fast your computer is, and how much Free drive space you have... You also need at least 15% of the drive's total capacity free so that the drive has room to shuffle files around.... the more space it has to move files, the faster it'll go...

And how do you fix your page file? Right click on "my computer" and select properties, then click the advanced tab, then click performance options, and then next to "Virtual memory" will be a button labelled "Change"... click that button and set the minimum size of the page file to the same as the maximum... at least equal in size to your amount of physical RAM, but more than that if you don't have much RAM

By changing the minimum size to the same as the maximum size, you'll ensure that it won't dynamically resize itself while you play games, and thus, that won't slow your computer down, and it'll help prevent the fragmenting of the page file...

All references on how to do this were done using windows 2000... for Windows XP it may be slightly different... (and if someone with WinXP would explain any differences, that'd be great)...

If this topic doesn't get stickied, I may just compile it into an FAQ (though I know n00bs don't read FAQs)
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I nearly forgot this important file to fix alot of problems everyone seems to have:
http://geeks.beyondunreal.com/ut2004/tools.php#Regcheck
It's UT2kxRegCheck... what does it do?

Well, let's say you have your hard drive properly configured so that there's a windows partition that contains nothing but your essential OS, and you have another partition for games and custom installed programs... Now something really bad happens to your OS... a worm hits it and you are forced to reinstall... normally this would mean you'd have to reinstall your UT2004 game as well... but since they're on separate partitions, all you REALLY have to do is fix the registry after your OS is reinstalled...

That's where this program comes in... it will add the registry entries necessary to have the game working just as good as before.... This also includes fixes to .umod filetypes I believe....

It's a worthwhile program to have even if you only need it once in a blue moon...

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Just a small addition to this thread, but I feel it's a vital one: You do not need any kind of cracks to avoid having to keep the play disc in the drive while you play... pretty much after the first or second patch they released, the CD check was removed...

Also: if you come here asking about the CD Key: most of the time, it's kept behind the Play disc in the little folder with the CD's... if you bought the DVD version it might be on the back of the manual...

In either case, if you lose your CD Key YOU ARE SCREWED and if you ask for a CD key or a Key generator or anything Expect to be made fun of, and/or moderated... Keep your CD Key in a safe place... don't ask someone on these boards if you can borrow theirs, it's against the TOS.... plus the other person would have to be a fool to give you his CD key...

Another reason to not go after no-CD cracks: many of the sites you can easily find are traps, and if you download the file and run it, what you will get instead is a computer full of spyware or viruses.... So do yourself a favor, actually pay for the game, and if you think it's worth saving a few bucks for the hassle, don't expect to come here (gamefaqs) for help...

PS: nobody really believes you "lost" your CD Key, so give up the lame excuses... please...
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From: Lord Shadow 19 | #031
Question, how do you install the game so that you can play it from the hard drive rather than from the disk?

I know this lan place that has the game setup like that so I'm sure it's possible, I'm just wondering how it's done.

How do you install the game so you can play it from the hard drive? uh... You can NOT play it directly from the discs so I don't know where you got that idea... As far as I know you have to install it so it must be played from the hard drive...After the first or second patch (not sure exactly which one) they removed the CD check... No CD needed for anything...


From: segamaster316 | #032
Please pardon the noobish question about this but...

I'm very new to pc gaming. I got a rig only a couple months ago that's able to run the current generation of games. I'm usually over on Xbox Live.

But anyhow. When I download these maps and mods, do they automatically go where they should so that I can use them in offline modes?

thanks

No, they go into the cache, and you either have to look in the cache.ini file to figure out which random named file is which (and then rename them and put them in the proper place)... OR, look at the first message in this post and get UTCache from that link... that will automagically rename the cached files and put them in the proper place...

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A bump....
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From: AtmaDave | #037
Nice thread arleas.

Cassandra's a guy, pass it on!

Thanks
LOL!!


From: Lord Loofiloo | #038
I don't think Levels4you is ever going to send me that email. ;_;

If you have a spam filter, make sure you check the spam folder... If you need to, turn the spam protection off, tell it to send you another email, and then turn it back on afterwards....

I had the same problem... the deal with me was: 1) the spam folder kept catching it and 2) when the spam filter fails I had a special filter to trash any email containing the words "click here" because 99 times out of 100 it's in the phrase "Click here to remove yourself from our mailing list"... and I believe the email they send has a "click here" phrase in it...


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