S3TC Textures again...

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S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Sat May 21, 2011 12:29 am

There have been several posts lately on other forums about how everybody thinks these special high resolution S3TC textures cause so many problems when playing on the servers. The textures originally came on the 2nd of 2 CDs that came with a new retail version of Unreal Tournament. The 2nd CD had a extra set of textures on it that looked better than the ones that came on CD #1 but they could only be used if you had a specific brand and type of video card by a video card company called S3.

Later, somebody figured out how to make newer/better video cards be able to use these textures and when I say newer and better, I mean video cards from about 8-10 years ago. Any modern day video card has what is needed to use these textures. The problem was the way they were installed. For some resoson when people installed these special S3TC textures, more often then not, when they played online the other players were moving but with no animation. They looked like staues sliding around and this became known as the sliding/frozen player effect. It seems to only happen when these S3TC textures are in use.

Back in 2008 I figured out how to properly install and use these textures. I wrote up and instruction set and made a full download which included all of the files and fixes and instructions needed for a semi capable PC user to install and use them successfully.

Tonight, I found and updated the instruction set. I installed the S3TC textures and joined multiple servers without any problem while enjoying the better eye candy. All of this on my first try just as I claimed it would work 5 years ago. I will be uploading the S3TC Texture Patch Pack soon I hope and will be more than happy to share it with all of you. Peace!
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Sat May 21, 2011 6:58 am

Well, well, well!

It seems I managed to get the whole package to upload on my second try! Ready for this? It is 1.4gb in size and that is zipped up! LOL. Yeah, it is huge! I'm downloading it now so that I can install it as though I was one of you. Yes, I'm testing it one last time. I will install it and make sure that nothing got corrupted. Once I'm done doing that and it test OK, I will post the link to it here! I'd say the first line of the instructions is the most important. It says something like "Do yourself a favor now! Print this!" When I printed it, it was 4 pages long but don't be scared. Most of it is easy reading. I can do the whole set of instructions in less than 10 minutes. Just be focused when you do it please!
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by a nameless entity » Sat May 21, 2011 6:28 pm

Hey Herm, do you have a link for that improved S3TC texture set that was built and posted someplace a couple of years ago?

In some ways I should have stuck with those textures on the cd I guess. That extra huge newer texture set you pointed us to a couple of years ago is really fabulous, but it means that I can't play certain maps. I get a game crash when they are called up onto the server. Not that I mind particularly, as none of the maps that have this issue are anywhere near favourites of mine anyway.

If you're willing to take the risk, download this immensely huge texture set and install it. Just follow the same instruction set as for the texture set on the cd. The instructions work for both. You will lose out on playing a few maps because the game will crash out, but the eye candy is just awesome. It makes the texture set on the cd look dull. The textures are superior to the standard textures in UT2k4 by a long shot, and that is saying something.
For example, there are wood textures that look like real wood, and rust textures that look like real rust on the metal walls and etc etc Sometimes I get killed because I stop to admire a new texture I hadn't noticed before. :lol:
I'm a man........but I can change........if I have to........I guess

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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Sat May 21, 2011 11:03 pm

You know Nameless, over the years DIEHARD had redone many of the textures again due to issues I suspect. Even my pack of his textures had a few sky type textures like around the moon or sun where the stars didn't remain in the same pattern to the point that you could tell.

I imagine he has fixed many of them but still there is all of this talk of the skating bot problem still. I gave out the link to my version of the last testure pack I wrote directions to and the person who installed had the same results as me. They worked just fine. That person didn't mention thinking the appearance was so much better but didn't have any issues or complain about anything either. I suspect I'll get more info about it later. Time was tight for me all day today.

I will PM you the instructions with the files of textures etc. Please don't give it to anyone just yet. I want to get with DIEHARD again soon and review what all has happened since I last messed with these in 2008. Check your PM inbox. By the way, they should not ever make you crash on anything so please write down right then when you notice stuff like that and let me know what you find. I would love to see these issues happen to me too so I can find out how to resolve them.
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Sun May 22, 2011 8:02 am

I have two issues now with the S3TC texture pack of mine. I went out and visited all of my favorite servers for just a sec and had 2 issues.

1. I connected to CG while it was playing the map Coke and I was frozen. Then a General Page Fault occurred and the game crashed. I rebooted and joined the game and had no issues again.

2. I have seen the skating player bug on one of the 10 servers I visited. It was HOOK'S New Redeemer Server. I reconnected and still they remained. The map was an old burned out world war II city.

The S3TC textures looked great otherwise as usual. I will get with HOOK and try to see what is different about his server than all of the others so I can resolve the issue hopefully. Nameless is also going to give me a list of servers and maps he has issues with. So there you have it folks. For the first time that I've used my installation process, I have seen a failure on the part of these textures giving some credence to the naysayers about these textures.
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hook » Mon May 23, 2011 1:21 pm

It isn't the server - it was the map - I am 95% sure of this now.
And it is a texture that certain maps use. (BeltFX or something like that - can't recall name)
The map DM-KillingFields will freeze players using hi-res textures also. :|
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Tue May 24, 2011 2:36 am

Muhahaha! Notice the time I posted this. It was worth it to stay up this late. I know which file is the problem that causes the freeze on Killing Fields. The problem isn't on the server end either or it would happen to everyone and not just those using the S3TC textures.

In all of this testing, I think I may have found the ultra easy way to install them too. I may be re-writting my whole ReadMe for the S3TC textures installation and it will be all of about 3 steps only! It will be like this:

Copy these certain files out of your texture folder.
Copy all of the S3TC textures into your txture folder.
Put those files you copied out a second ago back in now.
Switch to the OpenGL renderer and set it to use S3TC rextures.
Play the game and enjoy!

Yes! It could almost be that easy! I went everywhere playing tonight with no issues!
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hook » Tue May 24, 2011 1:06 pm

WOW - You gave this one 110% didn't you.
Yes, I pretty much knew that the servers weren't the problem as I agree with your logic...
"it would happen to everyone and not just those using the S3TC textures"

YES! - I certainly hope what you have done is solid and a good, true fix for the hi-res, S3TC texture freeze / skating player anomaly / problem!
YES! - I also certainly hope that it is that easy! - That would be COOL!
YES! - There certainly is some more testing to do to make sure this is truly the fix.
YES! - Greylox, Kimzter and all the other players with this problem will certainly appreciate all your work on this Hermskii!
YES! - "YOU The Man!"
YES! - Go to bed so you can function at work also! :roll:
YES! - Peace all!
YES! - I did this "YES" thing WAY too much - Sorry! LOL :oops:
YES! - I will stop it now - done! :wink:

Carry on my good man! :D
It will really be nice to Put this one to Bed! :P
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Wed May 25, 2011 9:19 am

Pay attention here. It is about to get hairy possibly:

OK folks, here is my latest deal with the S3TC textures and what I do differently with them:

First, you have to give DIEHARD basically all of the credit for all of the work he has done with these textures over the years. You also have to thank whomever helped him which I'm sure are several folks but I don't know them so I can't give them a shout out here. I take zero credit for anything related to these textures EXCEPT I have spent countless hours in the past and a few more recently to generate a easy to follow readme file for the installation of these files.

DIEHARD has worked and reworked these textures and the instructions to install them for years. I have a different approach than he does but we share the same goal and that is to get folks to enjoy the UT game more by utilizing this free upgrade. His downloads and instructions can be found here at: http://www.uttexture.com/UT/Website/Art ... tionUT.htm

I'm sure he'll disagree with my process but it works well and that is my goal. I used to do a lot of things differently from DIEHARD's previous sets of installation instructions and had great success but he has continued his efforts to make the textures network friendly and now because of all of his work they basically totally work now which makes my variation of his installation of these even easier! Here are a few things we do differently:

When you go to his website as of today to download all of the textures he offers as of (05-24-11) you will find that amoung many other things, he offers 5 packages of what are called the high end version of these files and these are the only ones I have worked with so far. These 5 packages when emptied out into a single pot have a total of 33 S3TC (high resolution) textures. 3 of these files are not original UT CD #2 S3TC testures. They being Langs.utx (I can't tell where this one came from), noxxpack.utx (Bonus Pack file) and SpaceFX.utx (original UT file), as far as I can tell. At that same location where you can get those 5 packages, he also offers a link that is supposed to be 7 more S3TC textures that he says are additional files needed from the UT CD #2. While I have included these in this... my latest attempt to help others use the S3TC textures... none of these are actually on the UT CD #2 and I have not researched to see where they came from. I don't care either. All I hope to have is a single file containing all of the S3TC textures that I can get my hands on that have passed my testing process.

So in total for UT he offers about 40 reworked S3TC textures. What I have done is taken the all of the original UT CD #2 S3TC textures which total up to be 74 S3TC textures and put them in a pot. I then added in the 7 additional textures he says are also on the UT CD #2. Lastly, I take the entire collection of his 33 reworked high end S3TC textures and drop them into the pot too which over-writes 33 of the original UT CD #2 S3TC textures. So let's do the math. I start with 74 textures. I added in 7 more textures from his link saying they are from the UT CD #2 so now there is a total of 81 S3TC textures. of those 7 new textures, 2 of them actually overwrite pre-existing files of the same name and size which came in the 1 or more of the UT Bonus Packs 1,3 and / or 4. Those files are Factory.UTX and SGTech1.utx which since they were already there, I can't count them as additional files. So 81 textures minus 2 textures is 79 S3TC textures. Then, I have to recall that of his original 33 files, 2 of them overwrite files of the same name so I have to deduct them as well leaving 31. All of those 31 overwrite a pre-existing files with the same name so 79 minus 31 is a total of 48 ADDITIONAL S3TC high resoltion textures. I will write up a quick how to install these textures document and provide a link to the files needed.

At some point in our past DIEHARD told me that many of the S3TC texures that came on UT CD #2 weren't actually even S3TC textures. I would not dare to debate this with him but I know they still get used and they are larger than their original counter parts and at worst look exactly the same so I added them in this S3TC texture file collection. I heard a lot folks talking about connecting to servers and being stuck, frozen, unable to move. After multiple hours of testing I was able to determine the problem was one of the S3TC textures named GenEarth.utx which as near as I can tell is a texture of grass and it is one of my favs but since I can't get it to work right on servers playing maps using that file, I have had to replace it with the standard one that comes with UT CD #1. Note that the original UT version of this file is about 6MB in size. The same file on UT CD #2 is about 24MB in size. The one in DIEHARD's download package is about 105MB in size. I tested all of them repeatedly and only the original file allows me to connect to servers playing a map using that file without me getting stuck or frozen. This is the only file I have had to pull out so far out of all of them. I also want to stress that yes, the server I was testing on may have had a corrupt version of that file in the first place and maybe I'm dead wrong about saying I think there is a problem with this file thus I have for now replaced it with it's orignal UT version.

The skating player glitch has been here from the start. I went to the top 10 DM servers over and over again in testing and did not see this occur. DIEHARD has fixed the skin textures I suspect and playing is just fine even with them installed. So there you have it. This is what I've been doing the last couple of evenings and I hope the package I put out will meet with DIEHARD's team's approval. I'm sure I got some of the math messed up above. Sorry for that. I again want to put out my best thank you to DIEHARD for all of this awesome work he and his team have done to help us players enjoy the game more! I hope to slowly continue to learn about these textures and be a hard core tester of them at my own pace. Peace all!
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Wed May 25, 2011 9:58 am

I will post the link here in a second but note a few more things. I need to be aware instantly of the server you are on and the map you are playing if you have any issues while using these textures.

Next I want to mention that I was in a hurry so I re-wrote my installation instruction set last night very late and I'm sure it has some typos and stuff in it. I'll be happy to correct it and update the main download when the time comes but for now, Please do tell me your findings and don't even weaste my time if you have problems after installing these textures while not following the directions exactly.

I'm not going to post this all over the place. I'd like all of the feedback to remain here. If this doesn't work I want to be the one who looks stupid and all of that stuff. It is easier to track success / failure too if I keep it all here. Fell free to like to this if you like but tell your folks to report issues here since I have no idea where there might be if you link to this.

My latest attempt to make the S3TC texture package work for all willing to try it out can be found here:

http://hermskii.com/S3TC/S3TC-Installation-05-25-11.zip
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Wed May 25, 2011 8:11 pm

I wonder if I should post this as from here so I can see how many times it gets downloaded? Isn't that just putting it here as an attachment? I wonder if the attachments have a size limit. 1.6 gigs is pretty big. Who's going to try them first?
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by David » Wed May 25, 2011 11:43 pm

I downloaded it. I am just wondering if I should install it. I have your previous version installed on my computers right now. I am not sure if I should should or not....debating. You know, if it is not broke, don't fix type of thing.
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by Hermskii » Thu May 26, 2011 8:15 am

I had thought that you were one of the very few that had issues with the last release. Here is what you can do! Copy your entire C:\UnrealTournament folder to your desktop. Once it is there delete the entire original C:\UnrealTournament folder.

Now install these textures per the directions after you have installed a new copy of UT and installed the Bonus Packs 1, 3 and 4. This way you will have a brand new clean copy of UT with these texturs. It doesn't get any better than that!

If you have any issues and want to revert, just delete your current C:\UnrealTournament folder entirely and then copy back the back-up you have on the desktop to to your C: drive and that will be a perfect restore like you had never changed a thing in the first place!

Give it a shot and let me know!
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by David » Thu May 26, 2011 8:49 am

I used to have the "skating player" a while back but I do not remember what happened to it. Since you seem so passionate about it Herm, I will give it a shot. I will copy my UT folder (14.9 GB worth) and then delete the original and install a fresh copy. I will let you know..
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Re: S3TC Textures again...

Post by David » Thu May 26, 2011 10:01 am

I did as the instructions stated and I played some games and it did not seem to have any issues. So it worked for me.

But, I will probably go back to my original UT folder just because it has everything already set up, such as voting keys, all the maps/files in, skins, voice packs, and the remaining changes I have done to my UT over the years (which include the S3TC file/install that you helped me before on).

I am a creature of habit, and I really do not want to start off with a blank slate. I am keeping the fresh install of UT with the S3TC changes, but I will rename it and keep it in case I want to go back to it. Thank you Hermskii.
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