UT2004 is back!

scorchedbee

scorchedbee

scorchedbee

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Joined
12 Mar 2013
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Grimsby UK
Hopefully a few of you have already seen this floating around — but in case you haven’t… Unreal is genuinely back.And I don’t mean a dodgy workaround, a YouTube tutorial, or spending 3 hours editing ini files — I mean properly playable again.

The OldUnreal team have been quietly working on community patches for years and they’ve basically rescued the original Unreal (1998) and Unreal Tournament from modern PC death. They’ve rebuilt and updated the engine code so it actually works on modern operating systems, hardware and drivers instead of crashing, stuttering or refusing to launch.

You can grab it here:
https://www.oldunreal.com/

This isn’t just a compatibility fix either — they’ve done some seriously impressive work:

• Native support for modern Windows versions and modern CPUs
• Updated renderers (Direct3D9/OpenGL) so it runs on modern GPUs
• Proper widescreen and high-resolution support
• Improved stability and crash fixes
• Online multiplayer fixes and server compatibility
• Modern input handling (no more weird mouse lag or acceleration issues)
• Security fixes so servers actually function again
• native Mac and Linux support

They’ve released ongoing patches (the 227 patch for Unreal and the 469 patch for Unreal Tournament) and are still actively maintaining them. The whole goal is preserving old Unreal Engine 1 games so they remain playable instead of disappearing into abandonware history.

What surprised me most — performance.
I’m playing now at a locked 165fps and it feels exactly how my rose-tinted memory thought it ran back in the late 90s and early 00s… even though my PC at the time definitely did not!

Everything comes packaged with a proper installer. No virtual machines, no fan hacks, no registry edits — install, launch and you’re straight into Na Pali again.

Honestly it’s a bit surreal hearing the intro music and the ambient sound design properly again. The lighting, the scale of the levels and the atmosphere still hold up — and you remember very quickly why Unreal was such a massive technical jump when it released.

If you were a PC gamer back then, you owe yourself at least one evening of it. Load it up, wander out of Vortex Rikers, and I guarantee the nostalgia hits within about 30 seconds.

Fragging skaarj again in 2026 was not on my bingo card… but I’m very glad it happened.
 
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Don't have the energy for the game these days - but fond memories of playing Tokara Forest in invasion mode with a couple of friends with the trippy atmosphere and music (Level 8).
 
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scorchedbee said:
What surprised me most — performance.
I’m playing now at a locked 165fps and it feels exactly how my rose-tinted memory thought it ran back in the late 90s and early 00s… even though my PC at the time definitely did not!
Click to expand...
Tbf this was CRT days, even 30fps felt decent. 60 and a modern screen needs to be running 100+ fps to have a similar performance. My GOAT game series. Instagib my favourite mutator and all i played.
 
Will never forget playing CTF facing worlds over and over for hours. My ping was terrible back then but it was still enjoyable.

Glad to see it back.
 
Nice to see UT2004 is now available, Unreal and UT99 been available for a while now. Played through Unreal a year or two ago. Fun times.

Tried UT99, use to be pretty competent back in the day playing Instagib. This was either hackers or people have only play UT religiously since 99 because I got spanked :p I'm guessing the latter :)
 
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