Questions about POSTAl 2's version of the Unreal Engine

[468528456]

This stuff has been boiling around in my head for awhile so excuse me if I ramble a bit.

What exactly is the version of UE2 that POSTAL 2 uses exactly? The closes thing to an answer I can find is on wikipedia which states:

"Warfare Build 926 with merged much of UT2003 code"

Going with the inital build, is that about right? I ask because I've been bitten by a bug of curiosity about the coding aspect of game design. It's facinating.

Another question, the current version of POSTAL 2 is 5020, from a rendering perspective, would you say it's on par with UE 2.5 ? I know there has been a lot of optimizations and POSTAL 2 specific things done to the engine so I'd like to know where it stands in comparison to UT2004 or Bioshock. They all play well (with the right hardware anyway) but I'd like to hear a programmer's opinion on the matter.

Also, optimization. That semi-stupid word thrown around by people who think any game can run on their toasters with all setting maxed if "the lazy devs would just optimize da game". The roadmap says it's "mostly done" to which I ask: What's left to optimize? The only thing I've heard anyone mention was doing something about the NPC code which is something I suppose. Great work on the fire lag BTW.

About Epic Games, do they offer you guys any kind of support for your UE2 license? This may be an NDA can't say situation but I wonder if you guys ever have to email them for support on anything.

Lastly, Duke Nukem Forever apparently runs on UE1, UT Build 613...Yeah, any thoughts on that?

[Kenshiro3]

Its not Technically UE2. Its a highly modified version of UE1 with some more advanced Features from UE2. It's kind of a chymera/hybrid of both engines. For this reason its often referred to as UE1.5.

[468528456]

That assertion seems unfair. It's an early version of UE2 but if we are to indulge the UE1.5 argument, where would you say actual UE2 begins? I don't think even late UE1 was able to do static meshes but I'm not sure.

And if that is the case, how douchey is Epic's licensing practices? Is it really, "You get this version of the engine and any improvements made are off the table". I don't buy that. Sure a game made on an earlier version would need to be re-coded but I don't see Epic Games being that douchey.

[that's what she said]

Originally posted by 468528456:

That assertion seems unfair. It's an early version of UE2 but if we are to indulge the UE1.5 argument, where would you say actual UE2 begins? I don't think even late UE1 was able to do static meshes but I'm not sure.

And if that is the case, how douchey is Epic's licensing practices? Is it really, "You get this version of the engine and any improvements made are off the table". I don't buy that. Sure a game made on an earlier version would need to be re-coded but I don't see Epic Games being that douchey.

Stock UE2. Pre-UT2k3 UE2.
Also it couldn't be improved much. Sure, you can play with your engine when you are early in development, but it's not much you can do after release. Especially with how game engines were designed back in the day.
Thus saying P2 is coded like crap - have atrocious shooting mechanics, physics, AI and visuals because back in the time of development - RWS couldn't code s**t. It's not like RWS could do much about it right now - they won't be able to switch to newer version even if Epic gave them codebase for free - it'd bring more problems than improvements. So it's stock UE2 with zero improvements and probably ton of setbacks, kek.

It's a fact that Postal 2 was awfuly optimised. It should be working on toaster from 2003 judging by it's visuals and physics. People weren't expecting the game this ugly to work this bad. Right now average PC should force proper framerates with sheer power, but if 2003 game still struggles to keep 60fps in any situation on average PC from 2015 - it's a problem and a big one. For me it works great. But I can understand if people expect more - it's very ugly 12yo game.

Oh man I love postal, but sometimes we all need to accept the bitter truth - Postal 2 production quality is extremely low. At some degree - this is where it's charm at - it's offensive game.
Can't wait to see Postal Redux, I really want to know how much RWS grew as a developer.

[468528456]

Hm, could you elaborate on some of that? How badly coded would you say P2 is? And why is the code so bad? You say "zero improvements" but the current version is capable of some form of multithreading which isn't standard to UE2 or were you just talking about the inital release version? Lastly, should the game be "optimized", what are the minimum specs you say would be necessary to play the game with max settings?