To say you do not use a mouse driver is inaccurate.
If you do not have a driver for a piece of hardware, Windows cannot talk to it.
I believe what you mean to say is, you do not use the manufacturers driver, and rely on the MS compatibility driver.
Big difference.
The main problem with all mouse drivers is the mouse acceleration option. That must be switched off.
I've probably already written it here before but I will explain again so everybody is clear.
OpenGL often gives better performance on nVidia, because if fully uses your card.
On ATI cards it ignores the GFX RAM, so if your system RAM is slower, you will not be running at full speed.
On a laptop, this makes no difference.
intel disabled several HW-GL features, so GL performance is just poor on intel GFX.
So as a rule of thumb; OpenGL for nVidia and DX9 for everyone else.
Also I notice that many people that compare the 2 renderers, never bother to make sure both are set the same.
Both have very different compatibility defaults, so will both perform and look different, until you correct the settings.
Also linking to the out-dated renderers is no help for the current development of UT.
Please update your link to point to the currently developed versions, where you will also find the updated audio renderers, that you are obviously missing.
http://www.oldunreal.com/utpatches.htmlTrying to convince Papa Smirf to continue to support UT with updates is difficult, if the users keep spreading links to obsolete stuff.
Chris no longer develops the renderers, and it has long-since moved back to OldUnreal.
Both Chris and Kentie visit OldUnreal and are aware of the current developments, It would be nice if the UT community would catch-up.
I will also clarify why the multi-core modern PCs may or may not be an issue.
The important stage is during install, not while running.
When you install UT, it makes a note of your clock speed and never changes it.
You can over-ride this during launch, by specifying your full CPU speed like this;
UnrealTournament.exe -CPUSPEED=2800
or adding the speed to the target info in the icon properties.
If your variable speed CPU was busy during installing UT, it will have a more accurate idea of the hardware it has to play with.
Simply setting the Windows power option to max-performance during install time, should then allow you to use balanced mode for normal use.
BTW. The option "NoAATiles" should be set to true. This disables the antialiasing of overlays and text so you can still read stuff.
This only works with the built-in AA option.
If you use the options in your driver, it will over-ride the UT settings.
BTWBTW. I am currently using UT with no problems whatsoever on a 4-core AMD 64bit, Win7 running in balanced power mode.