New UT2003 Beta Patch released: 2175

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The patch can be found at Beyondunreal.com as well as the change log which has been copied and pasted below.

The change log is:



GamePlay:

now support left handed weapons

fixed hidden weapons appearing occasionally on respawn

spectators don't show up on DM scoreboard at end of match

FPH doesn't change after match ends

shock combos now work after going through static meshes, and at all angles.

Fixed when entering a painzone you take double the damage/second in the first second and the correct amount thereafter.

- added exec function SwitchToLastWeapon (bound to E by default)

fixed megaspeed DMMutator game option.

improved bombing run AI (better AI reset between scores)

fix for CTF flag can't be picked up

fixed showing flag icon on scoreboard even if holder not relevant

fixed throwing out minigun screwing up assault rifle - added server option bBrightSkins to [UnrealGame.DMMutator] (and in the game rules menu). Setting it to true makes player skins brighter.

fixed rocketlauncher can lock onto invasion monsters (bonuspack)

change weapon sound pitch when berserk

added bPreloadAllSkins config option to UT2003.ini, in the [UnrealGame.UnrealMPGameInfo] section. Its false by default. If true, all skins and character models referenced in .upl files are preloaded. Only set this option to true if you have a lot of system RAM (512 MB or more). This option reduces the hitch experienced when new players join a multiplayer game during gameplay.

only allow restartgame() to be called once.

added a GetWeaponStats exec function, which writes weapon info to the log for tracking down weapon problems

Mod support:

GameRules.NetDamage() always called in team games, and GameRules.ScoreKill() not called twice

momentum is passed as an out (by reference) parameter in GameInfo.ReduceDamage() and GameRules.NetDamage()

moved teammate momentum reduction to TeamGame.ReduceDamage()

added ClientReceiveCombo() to xPlayer, to allow replication of mutator combos.

- added support for pushing skins and meshes down from the server, with the PlayerRecordClass



Use PlayerRecordClass to push down player skins and meshes from the server. For example, if the Reaper clan was running a server, and had their own clan skin in ReaperSkin.utx, here's what they'd need to do:



Create a new ReaperMod.u file, with the class Reaper in it. The package name must be the class name with "mod" appended. Reaper is a subclass of PlayerRecordClass, with all the default properties set appropriately to setup up the character. Clan members will need to have a .upl file with the same character definition.



The server will need to have both ReaperSkin and ReaperMod in its serverpackages.



Networking:

single pass through actor list for first pass relevancy determination for all connections. Improves server CPU utilization by 20% to 30% for servers with large numbers of players.

hide passwords in URL

added bAdminCanPause configurable property to GameInfo. It's true by default. To change it to false, add bAdminCanPause=false to the [Engine.GameInfo] section of your UT2003.ini file.

fixed precision problems with ping calculation

fixed adminsay bringing up MOTD on clients

fixed bots not properly losing player enemies when players log out of net games.

Fixed LAN broadcast bug which caused problems in the LAN tab when multiple UT2003 servers were run on the same machine

TcpLink/UdpLink eventReceivedBinary fix.

Fixed Bug in CheckIPPolicy

made bRestartServerOnPortSwap on by default, and added debugging to track the port swapping problem down.



Demo Recording:

Fixed occasional (!Closing) crash on playback

- fixed shock beam on client-side demos

When recording demos on a client, listen server or single player, the demo file only records demo frames at the frame rate specified in NetServerMaxTickRate in the [Engine.DemoRecDriver] section of UT2003.ini. This does not effect the frame rate, only the rate at which frames are written to the demo recording file. This solves the problem of slow demo playback of client-side demos on machines which are not as fast as the recording machine.



Menus/Interface:

LowSoundQuality option is saved properly.

maps listed alphabetically

Added Map name to loading screen

fixed bug where menu mouse resolution was dependent on direction

added "MouseX/YMultiplier" to scale raw mouse input in [WinDrv.WindowsClient] in your UT2003.ini

added support for up to 8 mouse buttons



OpenGL

fixed bug which caused game to reverted to D3DDrv after patching

added code to disable specular if neither ATI_texture_env_combine3 nor NV_texture_env_combine4 are exposed (Linux DRI drivers)

worked around fog related driver bug in older ATI drivers

added code to switch back to desktop resolution at exit (Win98)



D3D

fixed bug related to OverrideDesktopRefreshRate option

- added workaround for HW bug on certain older NVIDIA cards

changed code to handle D3DERR_DEVICELOST on initial device creation



Sound

updated DefOpenAL32.DLL with latest version from Creative



Other:

fixed occasional crash which occurred during garbage collection on level changes, or when joining a server

performance improvement: frame rate based culldistance for player shadows