What should I pre-download?

Okay guys. I've been playing on your wonderful server for some time now. I've been relying on downloads directly from the server when I connect for all the extras mods including the maps.

Now I did find the downloads page: http://www.disastrousconsequences.com/dc/download.jsp
But I'd like to know which ones I need, as a player, to help elimimnate downloads off the server. Also might there be other files I should download that are not listed on here?

As for the maps, I have been browsing the forums here and found this link to be extremely useful! http://www.disastrousconsequences.com/dc/maps.jsp

One last comment I'd like to note, perhaps some of you can help, is I've noticed that it seems to take longer to LOAD the maps than it does to DOWNLOAD the maps off the game server. Ironic eh? Perhaps there are some tweaks that might help me load maps in quicker?

Any help would be appreceated.

Here's my hardware config:
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
MSI K7N2 Delta-L motherboard (nForce2)
1 GB PC3200 RAM (Dual channel)
ATI Radeon 9600 XT (128m AGP)
WD 120gb HDD, and WD 80gb HDD (EIDE)
SB Live! Value sound card
(considering going back to my onboard sound)

I think thats just how long it takes to load the parts of the map that go into memory, if you are downloading it then they are already there when you see the load screen. or... I could be wrong

I doubt its your system though

Continuum wrote:

I think thats just how long it takes to load the parts of the map that go into memory, if you are downloading it then they are already there when you see the load screen. or... I could be wrong

Yeah I know it's not loading them into memory when I'm downloading, it's just saving it to my hard drive.

I'm sure there must be some ini file tweaks I might be able to change to help them load in faster. Like increasing a cache or buffer size on something.

Your download speed depends on three things, the sending unit, the recieving unit and bandwidth.

What is your transfer rate for dwnloads? I don't see where the sending and recieving units are the problem. Maybe your ISP is the bottleneck.

Chyster wrote:

Your download speed depends on three things, the sending unit, the recieving unit and bandwidth. What is your transfer rate for dwnloads? I don't see where the sending and recieving units are the problem. Maybe your ISP is the bottleneck.

My downloads are fine, and are very fast. It's loading the maps in once I've already downloaded it is what I'm finding slow. Like I said it takes longer to load the files off my hard drive than it took to download them.

I'm looking for some system tweaks in UT2k4 that might help speed this up. like cache size changes, and what not.

If you havent already, turn off preloading of skins. This can be done through one of the screens in the settings menu. Other than that, turning down the detail levels and other settings for visual extras does lower the load time. Although your machine should handle it fine.

replacing the drives with serial ata's may yield some mild improvements. but yah, your machine's pretty fast.

NeedMoreNinjas wrote:

replacing the drives with serial ata's may yield some mild improvements. but yah, your machine's pretty fast.

Acctualy that won't. Hard drives barely go beyond ATA66 speeds, even at peek speeds, so there really isn't a net gain. SATA is just easier to use since there's no master/slave issues to deal with. Besides my rig is old, and dosen't support SATA anyway. I'm using ATA133.