Setting up UT3 to kick some ass!

Here's a step by step list of things to do to fix aim so it feels like ut2004.

You need the lastest patch so go get it first from here:

http://download.beyondunreal.com/fileworks.php/official/ut3/patch1.exe

First of all you won't be able to aim for shit with a crap mouse. Currently almost ALL lazor mice are shit no matter if it has a bajillion DPI, it will have lots of negative acceleration even at highest DPI settings, and when you use a lower sensitivity they will skip around or stop randomly. So ditch your G5/9 razor 1337 ultra deathkiller or whatever the fuck it's called and go get a Logitech MX518. If you don't believe this, go here and read through it all.

http://www.esreality.com/?a=longpost&id=1265679&page=1

Go to the Logitech mouse control panel and set the sensitivity slider to 6 (Slider at middle) and acceleration to OFF.

The reason you want the sensitivity slider at 6 (Dead middle) is that this is the only setting where the mouse driver is not interpolating to make the speed slower or skipping pixels to make speed faster and you realy don't want software to try to guess what you have in mind.

Make sure you are using the PS/2 port and NOT USB, even though you can overclock the USB port it is CPU bound and it will behave erratically when your machine is overloaded. All MX518 comes with a little green adaptor you can use to turn the USB plug into a PS/2 plug.

Now go to the windows control panel, open the mouse control panel from there, click the "hardware" tab, and from there click the "properties" button. Another window opens, click the "advanced settings" tab and set the "sample rate to 200 reports/second" and you are done.

Now load up UT3 and open a map with no bots. Adjust your sensitivity so that you can comfortably flick 180, meaning you can flick it and turn so you are shoting backwards and NO more. Reason for this is that you can run and instantly flick to thow shit at someone behind you, but if you turn the sensitivity up more than this you will be fighting to keep a steady aim.

Once you have your settings, write them down and NEVER EVER change them. Contrary to what you may read, aim has got little to do with whatever sensitivity you are using as long as it's not excessively high, what's important is consistancy, if you keep changing your sensitivity you will never get what is called "muscle memory" You will see this soon enough if you keep playing, after a while you can instantly flick around and nail someone without even aiming, that's muscle memory and you will never build that if you are not consistant with your sensitivity, one of the reasons why using acceleration is the worst thing you can do to your aim.

Get your pink DOT crosshair:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Config\UTWeapon.ini

[UTGame.UTWeapon]
bUseCustomCoordinates=true
CustomCrosshairCoordinates=(U=408,V=26,UL=16,VL=14)
CrosshairColor=(R=255,G=0,B=255,A=255)

Fix your translocator so it doesn't toggle: (Horrible, Make sure you get this fixed)

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Config\

Find:

Bindings=(Name="GBA_ToggleTranslocator",Command="ToggleTranslocator")

Change the line to:

Bindings=(Name="GBA_ToggleTranslocator",Command="switchweapon 0")

Always have a weapon:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\ConfigUTInput.ini

Find the section named:

[Engine.PlayerInput]

Find the bindings for weapons from 3 to 9 and replace them with these:

Bindings=(Name="GBA_SwitchWeapon3",Command="Switchweapon 9 | Switchweapon 5 | Switchweapon 6 | Switchweapon 4 | Switchweapon 8 | Switchweapon 7 | Switchweapon 3")
Bindings=(Name="GBA_SwitchWeapon4",Command="Switchweapon 9 | Switchweapon 5 | Switchweapon 3 | Switchweapon 8 | Switchweapon 7 | Switchweapon 6 | Switchweapon 4")
Bindings=(Name="GBA_SwitchWeapon5",Command="Switchweapon 9 | Switchweapon 3 | Switchweapon 8 | Switchweapon 7 | Switchweapon 4 | Switchweapon 6 | Switchweapon 5")
Bindings=(Name="GBA_SwitchWeapon6",Command="Switchweapon 9 | Switchweapon 3 | Switchweapon 8 | Switchweapon 7 | Switchweapon 4 | Switchweapon 5 | Switchweapon 6")
Bindings=(Name="GBA_SwitchWeapon7",Command="Switchweapon 9 | Switchweapon 5 | Switchweapon 6 | Switchweapon 4 | Switchweapon 3 | Switchweapon 8 | Switchweapon 7")
Bindings=(Name="GBA_SwitchWeapon8",Command="Switchweapon 9 | Switchweapon 5 | Switchweapon 6 | Switchweapon 4 | Switchweapon 3 | Switchweapon 7 | Switchweapon 8")
Bindings=(Name="GBA_SwitchWeapon9",Command="Switchweapon 5 | Switchweapon 3 | Switchweapon 8 | Switchweapon 7 | Switchweapon 6 | Switchweapon 4 | Switchweapon 9")

This works basically like a bestweapon sequence for all your weapon keys, if you don't have the weapon you try to switch to, it will switch to one that's as close to it from best match to worst match, but it will make sure you ALLWAYS get at least something to defend yourself with. Don't dismiss this trick, it works VERY well, especially for fast paced games like CTF.

Uncap your fps:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\UTEngine.ini

[Engine.GameEngine]
bSmoothFrameRate=false

Turn of Bloom and Depth of field crap:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\UTEngine.ini

[SystemSettings]
MotionBlur=false
DepthOfField=false
Bloom=false
QualityBloom=false
Trilinear=false
UseVsync=false

Fix your aim:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\UTInput.ini

Set these 2 lines like so:

bEnableMouseSmoothing=false
bViewAccelerationEnabled=false

Find:

NOTE: These lines are duplicated 2 times, once under the section [Engine.PlayerInput] and once under the section [UTGame.UTPlayerInput] so make sure you replace them BOTH.

LookRightScale=0.000000
LookUpScale=0.000000

Bindings=(Name="MouseX",

Replace whole line with:

Bindings=(Name="MouseX",Command="Count bXAxis | Axis aMouseX Speed=1.2",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

Find:

Bindings=(Name="MouseY"

Replace whole line with:

Bindings=(Name="MouseY",Command="Count bYAxis | Axis aMouseY Speed=1.2",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\UTGame.ini

Search for

bCenteredWeaponFire=

And make sure they are all set like this:

bCenteredWeaponFire=True

Voila, now fire up the game and play for a while, you will probably have gotten used to trying to compensate for the horrible aim that's default so you will probably miss a bit in the first game or so, after that you will notice a huge improvement in aim and things that require presicion like moving combos will improve a lot. Before I implemented all these tweaks I would frequently miss combos even when I was standing still, for no apparent reason even though I was aiming dead on to pop a combo I would miss, it was like my aim was jittery even when holding the mouse steady.

Since these edits takes some time, once you are done make a copy of your "config" folder and store it somewhere safe as the game sometimes resets everything, and you make make a mistake and hit the "defaults" button in the UI and lose everything.

Another reason that you should save your config files NOW, is that UT3 likes to reset all the stuff you can't change from the GUI that you just tweaked if you go into windowed mode by hitting alt+enter, yep that's right, if you do that you will lose half the settings you just fixed, this will also happen if you mess with any graphics settings in the game so leave the ingame settings alone from now on.