Always Press + first, it could be that you accidently pressed the - button in-game, this causes the HUD to dissappear partially. + changes the HUD back to previous state. If this is not the solution, take a comfortable seat, pour yourself a nice cold or hot drink(depending on the weather there) and read and try out the rest of the instructions down below.
This might take a while if you are not familiar with Networking and internet troubleshooting, but ill try to explain it as clearly as possible.
Since + did not work, we are probably dealing with a connection issue called
Packet loss, it is the result of an unstable connection to the server due to various possible reasons.
This is a very common problem, which can be solved in a few ways:
- You might have an old router or outdated router software, causing data to get lost along the way. Log in to your router and check if the firmware is up to date. Also note that if you have a router that is either a low-fi standard model that was provided by your ISP when setting up your home network , or a model older than 5 years, you will most likely have to buy a new one, preferably with dual band and QoS or similar features (in my case the Cisko Linksys EA-6500 dual band). This makes sure that your current games will run like a tornado online, in addition, it can also handle any advancement in technology and speed for the upcomming 5-10 years.
- The in-game settings for netspeed are set wrong. Open console and type:
Stat net. Speed should be set to 5000 or 10.000(optimal for my setup) and for people with way too awesome internet and hardware to 15.000, however, how your pc manages over 10.000 speed depends on the map. You can change speed by opening console and typing:
Netspeed 10.000 Just make sure that your FPS does not go too far over 90, as this can make things unstable if you're running the game on Ultra, or OMGWFTBBQ-Ultra when running the graphics straight from your Graphic card drivers.
Naturally, the higher you set the graphics, the more data needs to be sent by the server, if this does not cooperate well with the netspeed, it results in bits of data getting lost in the deep abyss of the internet.
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Antivirus Firewall: I do not have instructions for this one, as there are too many diffrent scanners on the "market" (I'm sorry, I spelled piratebay wrong). Just make sure you have the proper firewall rules set up. In most cases, this rule states that the application has full access. In some cases, you can even choose an option to ignore the application completely, so it does not get monitored or scanned, however it is also unprotected. Not the safest thing to do perhaps if you have configured your port-forwarding, But since there are close to no servers or players left to exploid this weakness, there is little to worry about.
- The worst, but also the least common thing that can cause it is that your
zone's general connection might be bad. another possibility is that you
live very far from the Chicago server (not known to cause packet loss, but rather high ping issues) or your
internet/router connection options are not set right. (DNS, Static IP, Port forwarding)
setting up static IP: All you have to do is follow this guide:
http://portforward.com/networking/static-win7.htm about 10 minutes work.
Setting up Proper DNS servers: So I assume that you are now done setting up your static IP adress, now we need the best possible DNS servers to rout your connection. Go to
https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm and click on the image, it should download a small program which requires no installation. Open it, go to
nameservers tab and click on the
add/remove button, you will see a lot of buttons. Click on the button on the bottom called:
rebuild custom list. This will search for the best DNS servers available to you and makes a new list.
When it is done making the list (takes about 10 mins) go back to the
Nameservers tab and click on:
Run Benchmark. After the benchmark, the 2 top adresses listed are the adresses you need. copy these and go back to your internet options (where you set static IP) and replace your current DNS adresses with the best 2. IMPORTANT: Make sure that the adresses you choose have a green dot in front of them, these are
reliable DNS servers unlike the orange(tends to fail at some moments) or Red (dead).
Port forwarding is a bit more advanced. You need access to your router to open these ports.
When you have accessed your router menu, open a new tab and go to:
http://portforward.com/english/routers/ ... rindex.htm
Choose your router
brand from the list, then select your
model on the next page. On the page after that, search for the
Unreal Tournament 2004 application and it will open a page with instructions and port numbers for UT2004. If you want to know if they are open, the site offers a
tool which checks the status of the portnumber you entered.
Hope this helps! If you get stuck on something, just send a PM and i will lead you through the steps.