Alternatives to UT1 for LAN games on low spec hardware?

milltown · 22-10-2007 10:05AM #1

As per title.

Unreal tournament has been giving us hours of fun over the LAN during quieter times in work but I'm just wondering what else would work on lower spec PCs and be fun.

By lower spec I mean ~2 year old run of the mill office desktops with bare minimum gfx cards and generally not much more than 512Mb of ram.

Original UT runs smoothly on all our machines but with gfx and RAM limitations I wouldn't expect anything much newer to work. Or would it? This rig has a P4 2.8, 512MB and Intel 82865G graphics, and is probably typical.

Counter strike is the only one that springs to my mind but I was never much into online gaming so there may be many I don't know of.

TIA

Sabre0001 · 22-10-2007 10:07AM

Just going for older games here because I'm not sure of the specs they need but what about Quake 1/2?

-Can download tons of maps and mods at this stage for them!!! Should keep you going a while

Wisesmurf · 22-10-2007 10:23AM

milltown wrote: »

As per title.

Unreal tournament has been giving us hours of fun over the LAN during quieter times in work but I'm just wondering what else would work on lower spec PCs and be fun.

By lower spec I mean ~2 year old run of the mill office desktops with bare minimum gfx cards and generally not much more than 512Mb of ram.

Original UT runs smoothly on all our machines but with gfx and RAM limitations I wouldn't expect anything much newer to work. Or would it? This rig has a P4 2.8, 512MB and Intel 82865G graphics, and is probably typical.

Counter strike is the only one that springs to my mind but I was never much into online gaming so there may be many I don't know of.

TIA

Lucky b*stard getting to play lans in work...some of us actually have to eh...Work!

L31mr0d · 22-10-2007 10:51AM

On fridays we usually play some games across the network during the break or in the evenings.

The hot favourites that will run on our PC's here are:
1. Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
2. Quake III (with mods: Afterwards & Urban Terror)
3. UT1
4. AvP 2
5. CS 1.6
6. Jedi Knight Academy

We usually end up playing quake III though as its the most fun and has the smallest learning curve for people in the office who don't really game on PC's, plus there are a plethora of free mods out there that keep the game fresh.

There's also this free game: http://sauerbraten.org/

It looks pretty good but we haven't gotten around to trying it out yet

ntlbell · 22-10-2007 11:21AM

Tribes should be ok and it's Free.

I think SOF II should be ok and I think that's also free

Retr0gamer · 22-10-2007 12:23PM

Half-Life 1 deathmatch on Bootcamp, doublecross or Crossfire has always been a favourite at lans. Starcraft is another great strategy game to try.

L31mr0d · 22-10-2007 12:44PM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Half-Life 1 deathmatch on Bootcamp, doublecross or Crossfire has always been a favourite at lans. Starcraft is another great strategy game to try.

Oh another good one is the Ricochet mod for HL1. Loads of fun if you want a quick game for 10 or 15 minutes. It works good with 2 people, great with 3 but any more than that and it starts getting crazy. I played it with 8 before on one of the smaller levels and there where discs flying all over the place, you'd respawn and instantly get knocked off your podium.

um7y1h83ge06nx · 22-10-2007 02:31PM

A real oldie but check if you could get Duke Nukem 3D working in multiplayer.

There is hi-res texture packs out there made by fans which up the graphics considerably. I absolutely loved playing that game.

Spunge · 22-10-2007 02:50PM

Quake 3
Vampire Slayer (HL mod)
Starcraft
Warcraft 3
Diablo 2

Naikon · 22-10-2007 10:10PM

Quake is always good.

AnCapaillMor · 22-10-2007 10:32PM

Day of Defeat.

Dont be at yourself · 23-10-2007 01:31AM

Red Alert!

L31mr0d · 23-10-2007 12:23PM

Spunge wrote: »

Vampire Slayer (HL mod)

oh yeah forgot about that one, that more fun than should be legal. Admittedly it mainly only fun when you play as the vampire

mewso · 23-10-2007 08:56PM

Well UT is possibly the best CTF online game I have ever played but for the greatest online game of them all I would have to say Enemy Territory (not Quake Wars - trying to get into it) which should run easily. You would need at least 8 players though.

Call Me Jimmy · 23-10-2007 08:58PM

I'de say quake 3 for some mindless fragging fun. It's deadly and ye don't need many to have a class game.

Spunge · 25-10-2007 09:42AM

L31mr0d wrote: »

oh yeah forgot about that one, that more fun than should be legal. Admittedly it mainly only fun when you play as the vampire

I found it really scary playing as slayer. Really fast vamps trying desperately to blow them away before they get to you, its a lot like the marine and alien in AvP .

L31mr0d · 25-10-2007 09:47AM

Spunge wrote: »

I found it really scary playing as slayer. Really fast vamps trying desperately to blow them away before they get to you, its a lot like the marine and alien in AvP .

not only that but you then have to stab them in the heart with your stake once you shoot them. If you don't do it fast enough the vampire can just revive himself and run away. You usually find the slayers will just back themselves into a corner, and start shooting into space when they hear footsteps. The best vampire to play as is the one who can turn invisible, he's pretty much unstoppable against a bunch of slayers not working in a team.

SirLemonhead · 25-10-2007 09:19PM

Tara Ambitious Apprentice wrote: »

A real oldie but check if you could get Duke Nukem 3D working in multiplayer.

There is hi-res texture packs out there made by fans which up the graphics considerably. I absolutely loved playing that game.

The net code got updated a few years back. Those hi res packs are AWFUL. Big messes of inconsistent textures. Better off without that stuff.

milltown · 30-10-2007 04:37PM

Thanks for all the replies folks, some good stuff to think about there.

Had forgotten about Quake tbh but it's not really much of a change from Unreal tournament.

Enemy Territory is another I'd forgotten about, will definitely give that a go. Although...

The other proviso I probably should have mentioned is we need to be able to dip in and out of games if we get called to a repair for example, so while we could have 10 or 12 in a game, at most times we might only have a random 6 out of that 12.

With that in mind I'm thinking we're probably already playing the best game for our purpose.

Thanks again!

Alternatives to UT1 for LAN games on low spec hardware?

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