CommandLine Parameters

Last updated by Michiel Hendriks. Previously updated by Chris Linder (DemiurgeStudios^?). Original author was Martin Actor (UdnStaff^?).

Usage

The command line for the launcher (UT2004.exe) consists out of 2 parts. The URL part and the switches part. Right after the executable comes the URL, the URL is optional but has to be the first argument if it's present. The URL is usually a map name or server ip. After the map or ip additional URL options can be included, devided with a '?'. The switch part contains additional engines switches, these are either plain switches (these start with a '-') or are setting switches (a "key=value" combination). The setting switches do not have to start with a '-', but the engine might confuse it for the URL when it's the first argument.

Example:

ut2004.exe mymap?game=Engine.Gameinfo?class=Engine.Pawn -nosound INI=other.ini  

URLs

The URL consist out of two parts, the destination (map or server ip) and additional options.

Map Names, Server IP

Map names can be any map in the Maps directory. Including the .ut2 is optional. You can also specify absolute paths to maps or relative paths from the Maps directory such as:

ut2004.exe c:\MyGame\MyOtherMaps\FunMap.ut2
ut2004.exe ..\MyOtherMaps\FunMap.ut2

but in this case you must include the .ut2 .

The server ip address is a standard 4 part ip address such as:

ut2004.exe 192.168.1.108
ut2004.exe 127.0.0.1

You can not use hostnames, because these will be confused with map names.

URL Options

URL options are how the engine tells itself to load a level or particular settings across levels. Each part is separated by a '?', and a URL can be supplied on the commandline to run the engine with a specific level, gametype, player class, etc. Note that a URL parameter must start with the name of the map or ip. The following are valid URL parts:

• GAME= - tells the engine what gameinfo class to use (overriding default)
• CLASS= - tells the engine what player class to use (overriding default)
• NAME= - player name to use
• TEAM= - the team the player is on (or prefers)
• Character= - the player character to use
• Password= - password required to join a server

There are a lot more options you can use, most of them are gametype specific. They can be used as follows:

ut2004.exe mymap?game=Engine.Gameinfo?class=Engine.Pawn

Switches

These are normal user usable flags that tell the engine to load or behave differently

• NOHOMEDIR - don't use the user's homedir to store the configuration (Linux\MacOSC only).
• NOMUSIC - this will display the music playback
• NOSOUND - tells the engine to not use any sound
• SAFE - tells the engine to run in safe mode
• SERVER - Runs a dedicated server

These are developer related / automatically used flags that tell the engine to load or behave differently

• AUTO - assume yes on all questions (for example during compile)
• BENCHMARK - tells the engine to do benchmark stuff.
• CONFLICTS - tells the engine to perform a Name conflict check on objects (to avoid different Objects having the same 'unique' name)
• DEBUG - tells the engine to send debug info to the debugger, or build debug packages during script compile.
• DEBUGGING - tells the engine to delete "running.ini" if it exists.
• EXITAFTERDEMO - at the end of a demo write the benchmark log and exit.
• FIRSTRUN - tells the engine to ignore the FirstRun value in the game ini (sets it to 0)
• LANPLAY - tells the engine to not cap client bandwidth when connecting to servers
• LAZY - Lazy load on the server.
• LINEINFO - tells the engine to insert line numbers into the bytecode stream when compiling
• LOG - tells the engine to show a log window instead of the normal splash screen on startup
• MAKENAMES - the engine no longer creates unique object names for each object in-game, this tells the engine to do so (to aide debugging). This is also required for using savegames in 3323.
• MEMSTAT - tells the engine to dump to log memory usage (allocation/deallocation) stats
• NOBIND - lets you ignore some DLL linking errors.
• NOCONFORM - tells the engine not to conform packages as they are compiled
• NOGC - tells the engine not to garbage collect anything
• NOH - don't generate headers when they need to be updated (for UnrealScript compiling)
• NOINI - don't save the settings to an ini file (used for benchmarking).
• NOMMX - tells the engine not to use MMX
• NORUNAWAY - tells the engine not to care about runaway (infinite) loops or recursions in script
• NOSSE - tells the engine not to use SSE
• ONLYLOGLOWFPS - count the number of frames that take more than 100ms. (during benchmark only)
• PRIMARYNET - affects how the engine handles network binding
• PROFILE - tells the engine to dump to the log file function profile code (time spent per tick, cycles per call, calls per tick) This only works when DO_GUARD_SLOW, which effects performance, is true.
• PROFILESTATS - is not used for anything
• RECORDMOVIE - tells the engine to record a demo - writes out numbered images in the system dir.
• SHOWDEP - tells the engine to show dependencies when recompiling UnrealScript files
• SHOWLANGERROR - show the localization error in game (instead of just the log file).
• SILENTBUILD - tells the engine to not output to log UnrealScript compilation info
• STRICT - tells the engine to treat all UnrealScript execution warnings to be fatal errors
• TIMELOAD - quits when the engine has been initialized (only usefull for debugging the launcher, MS Windows only)
• UPT - Output average for benchmark launcher (saved to dummy.ben)
• WARNRESOLVE - (2107 ONLY) tells the engine to log if an object package file can't be found (used exclusively with UCC)

These are internally used to open up the engine in different states

• CHANGEVIDEO - flags the engine to open with the change video device dialogue box
• NEWWINDOW - opens up the engine in a new window
• TESTRENDEV - haven't a clue, but don't manually use this anyways
• WINDOWED - start in windowed mode

Display and rendering related switches

• D3D - force Direct3D
• D3D8 - same as -D3D
• D3D9 - force DirectX9 Direct3D (in v3323 the D3D9 is just an outdated copy of D3D8).
• NODETECT - (2107 ONLY) tells the engine not to detect available renderers
• NODEVICEID - tells the engine to skip identifying D3D device
• NOGAMMA - don't update gamma (usefull for UnrealEd^?)
• NULLRENDER - force no renderer.
• OPENGL - force OpenGL^?.
• SOFTWARE - force software renderer

These tell the engine to use a specific window/screen resolution - often this doesn't do much because it is overridden by the game's ini file.

• DEFAULTRES - tells the engine to use a default resolution (640x480)
• 320x240
• 512x384
• 640x480
• 800x600
• 1024x768
• 1280x960
• 1280x1024
• 1600x1200

Setting Switches

These are parameters the engine can take in order to affect certain things.

Normal user switches.

• INI= - tells the engine to load it's game ini file from the string which immediately follows (example "ut2004.exe -ini=MyINI.ini")
• USERINI= - tells the engine to load it's user ini file from the string which immediately follows
• LOG= - tells the engine to use the log filename of the string which immediately follows
• MOD= - UT2004 mod architecture.

Additional server related switches.

• MULTIHOME= - tells the engine to use a multihome address for networking
• PORT= - tells the engine to use a specific port number

Other setting switches.

• ABSLOG= - same as LOG= but without a filename length check
• COMMAND= - file containing additional command line switches (overwrites the current commandline)
• CONSOLECOMMAND= - tells the engine to execute the command (for MPlayer/Heat) - seems to be defunct.
• CPUSPEED= - tells the engine to work off a specific CPU speed. If you set this lower than your CPU speed this will cause the game to run fast because it things the instructions are executing more slowly than they really are. If you set it higher, the game will run more slowly.
• EXEC= - tells the engine to execute an exec file
• FIXEDFPS= - fixed fps, used for movie recording
• HWND= - tells the engine to use an internal window handle of the launcher if no parent window is provided
• -MAINMENU= - specify alternate main menu class (leading '-' required)
• MAXFPS= - cap FPS
• PATH= - tells the engine's setup where to install/uninstall
• PKTDUP= - tells the engine to simulate duplicate packets (value is a percentage, up to 100)
• PKTLAG= - tells the engine to simulate lag in netplay (value is in milliseconds)
• PKTLOSS= - tells the engine to simulate packet loss in netplay for testing (value is a percentage, up to 100)
• PKTORDER= - tells the engine to simulate packets out of order (value treated as a bool, 1 or 0)
• PROFILINGSTACKDEPTH= - max script profiling depth
• SECONDS= - maximum benchmark time.
• TESTRENDEV= - test render device
• -USERLOGO= - specify an alternate splashscreen (leading '-' required)