go to www.shugashack.com for up to date news.
| Saturday June 26, 1999 |
Mac Quake II [5:30 pm] - Huntsman
Saw over at Blue's House of Pancakes and News that
Quake II for the Mac has been released. Nate Trost reports that
Activision's Quality Assurance has given the go ahead, and id gave it thier blessing. It
should start hitting store shelves in a couple weeks.
Deus Ex Preview [2:45 pm] - Huntsman
PC Paradox has a preview of the Austin branch
of Ion Storm's upcoming Unreal based game, Deus Ex. This thing looks sweet. Here's a
clip:
ION Storm Austin integrates the best features from the action and role-playing genres to create Deus Ex. Hybridization has been one of the most commonly used features in recent games to attract a wide array of gamers.
This looks like it will be a gem for both action freaks and RPG fanatics. I want.
Hidden & Dangerous 2.0 [2:45 pm] - Huntsman
The Hidden & Dangers
2.0 demo is out. Thanks goes over to the boys at Tactical Planet. They say that while it is an
updated demo, it's like an entirely new game. Go play it!
More Views [12:15 pm]
More Tech [12:15 pm]
Soldier of Fortune [3:00 am]
Some brief weekend reading for you guys who are curious about what the
Raven Software guys are up to with their "too hot for tv" Soldier of Fortune
game. This Next-Gen article mentions the strength of SoF being the character system and
more importantly the target release date being this November. Here are some screenshots to
check out while you're at it: shot1 , shot2 , shot3 , shot4 , shot5.
Vampire: Masquerade [3:00 am]
The PCZone UK blokes (wtf? I said blokes?) have a little interview
shindig (shindig too?) with the Nihilistic development team talking about the baby
Vampire: Masquerade of course. Here's a teeny bite (oh man I'm on a roll) for ya.
The game engine has been built from scratch and has been designed to take advantage of all the major 3D hardware out there, including Glide, OpenGL, and D3D. We're also using some really great techniques to expand upon this; such as weighted vertices, dynamic lighting, and real-time shadows. On the art side we've been using Maya to create all of our animations and models, which has allowed us to build things that look truly spectacular.
Admit it, you liked that "bite" joke. Oh yeah and here are some screenshots to boot: shot1 , shot2 , shot3, shot4
IOTD [3:00
am]
The latest new
IOTD for the weekend can only make one picture impending doom. Got a caption? Enter the the caption contest
and win a big wet sloppy nasty kiss from me!
The winner for the IOTD contest for yesterday goes to DerKap'n with "This outfit has caused an invalid page fault in module 'Dignity' at address 0x00000 ". Here is a list of all the enttries. I'll be putting together a seperate IOTD page next week some time since little feature has grown so damn popular. Will also include all the winning top quotes along with thumbnails for you kids.
Previous IOTD's: parade.jpg (captions) hotcurry.jpg (captions) msteam.jpg & realmsteam.jpg (captions) unfunf.jpg (captions) cat.jpg (captions) paint.jpg (captions) nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
Quickies! [3:00 am]
The 3DGaming.net guys are just going insane with the quickies. I hope Rick is wearing a
raincoat cuz that boy is gettin around! The latest couple of quick looks are Vampire: Masquerade from
Nihilistic, and then more
recently Gothic which I have never heard of but the screenshots look interesting.
MDK2 Diary [3:00 am]
The MDK2.com page has posted the latest issue of Greg Z's (executive producer)
developer diary after missing a week from being especially busy up there at the
company. Greg has word that they have implemented fully a fully dynamic shadowing system
which sounds very cool:
...I can't help but mention a really impressive new addition that the team just put in - likely the slickest shadow in the business. It is modified dynamically by the various lights in the room. It stretches, it spreads and covers stairs and climbs walls, it does everything but slice and dice!
Q3Test Tweaking [3:00 am]
Got a couple of performance tweaking guides for you guys to check out if you're not quite
happy with your framerate (and who is?) when playing Quake3. CBAS has slapped this little
guide together which should help you on your way. Also you can check out the VE hosted Reverend guide on tweaking
Q3Test for visual quality as well.
Views [3:05 am]
Tech [3:05 am]
werd
Ah.. weekends. Actually had a halfway productive week. I got a credit card finally
(secured CC.. meaning I have to guarantee I have a $ amount in my savings account, bleh)
due to my lack of any real credit history. Ordered a supercool laptop computer (which was
a chore, considering I financed it.. could only get approved for a $2,000 loan. bah) so
I'll be able to keep things going smoothly when I take off on my first ever
"mini" vacation for the 4th of July weekend.
The GameKey guys are working hard on my super-duper-cool www.fileshack.com to get 2 new sections open as well as moving more stuff over to my server.
Oh ya, have a look at what Microsoft is up to now. Thanks Josh.
| Friday June 25, 1999 |
Unreal Tournament [6:00 pm]
Some more information on Unreal Tournament and the statistics system is over on PlanetUnreal. They chat with the NetGamesUSA guys
who are handling the statistics about the rules
that players will be using among other questions. PU also has a quick chat with Tim
Sweeney about the player communication stuff that he is building into the Unreal
Tournament client which may resemble IRC.
Sorry for dissapearing for a while, been hard at work making the page 28.8 friendly. Also hoping the database stuff can enter "beta" this weekend.
Misc Stuff [6:15 pm]
NVidia's NV10 [2:00 pm]
The guys at KACHardware have gotten a hold of a few
tentative specs on the next-gen 3D accelerator that NVidia is currently working on.
The card won't be called a TNT3 though, NV10 seems to be the name of choice. You just
wanna know when it's coming out though right? Check it: Thanks [CD]Joombug
Nvidia has always observed their planned release dates so we should expect their next generation of video cards to hit the stores at Christmas 1999.
Keep in mind this is a very "pro-nvidia" article heavy into the speculation and light on actual substance. It's kinda like reading the Enquirer or something. You just gotta.
Rogue Spear [12:30 pm]
More previews of the Rainbow6 sequel? You got it. GameSpot UK
previews the Red Storm sequel in development.
...improvements over the original and its Eagle Watch mission pack, including 16 missions of unbearable tension, vastly improved graphics, new weapons, weather conditions, more realistic AI and a choice of uniforms.
TRIBES2 [12:30 pm]
Datumplane has a couple more Q&As with Dynamix folks. Today Mark Frohnmaver one of the
programmers talks about difference between his work
on the original TRIBES and the currently titled TRIBES2 game he's working on now. Here
is some of the OpenGL stuff:
At the same time, I rolled some of the terrain changes I wrote for Tribes 2 back into Tribes 1, substituting the new detailing algorithm with the Tribes 1 algorithm. The terrain system is now much more frugal with texture allocation - any dynamic texture memory not used on a frame is reclaimed for later use. The upside is that our texture memory footprint is reduced, increasing worst-case performance. The downside is that we end up regenerating textures more frequently, reducing our potential best-case performance.
Oni [12:30
pm]
The guys at MacGamers Ledge have a chat with the director of
marketing over at Bungie Interactive about Oni.
More Tech [12:30 pm]
Unreal Tournament Stuff [3:20 am]
The UnrealUniverse guys grabbed Tim Sweeney
for a couple of quick questions on what we can hope for in the next Unreal patch that he's
working on right now. This stuff of course also relates to Unreal Tournament as well.. or
didnt they split that code? Can't remember...
The next patch will be out before Unreal Tournament ships. It contains the latest majorly improved Direct3D code, some OpenGL improvements, some server improvements, and other minor fixes. We'll be using public feedback from the patch (which shares the same C++ code, hardware driver code, etc with UT) in the very final stage of testing UT before shipping.
You can also check out PlanetUnreal which has a couple of Q&A's talking about the decal system which will be a part of Unreal Tournament. Lastly on the UT tip CliffyB has a .plan update with word that they are tracking the deathmatch stats already and you can check them out online here.
BattleZone2 [3:20 am]
A couple of pieces of BattleZone2 news for you guys to check out. First off have a look at
the new
AVault preview of the game which is shaping up pretty well from the sounds of it. Then
head over to the BZ2.com page and check out the new
screenshots they have posted. Six of them actually for you to dig on. I grabbed a
couple of my favorites actually. Check out shot1 and shot2
IOTD [3:20
am]
The latest new IOTD makes
you wonder what exactly Bill Gates did to end up in this picture? Got a caption? Enter the the caption contest
and win a big wet sloppy nasty kiss from me!
The winner for the IOTD contest for yesterday goes to BlueHarvest with "Who's your favorite New Kid?...cmon call me Joey....Call me Donny". Here is a list of all the enttries.
Previous IOTD's: hotcurry.jpg (captions) msteam.jpg & realmsteam.jpg (captions) unfunf.jpg (captions) cat.jpg (captions) paint.jpg (captions) nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
Blackmail! [3:20 am]
We all know so many of those level designers at game companies are a talented bunch, but
have they always been? Check out the new
Blackmail section at Gamedesign.net which is making it their job to dig up some of the
oldest maps on the net from our favorite level designers. Thanks raYGunn.
Views [3:20 am]
Tech [3:20 am]
werd
Been playing with this Hercules TNT2 Ultra. It's not very friendly with my overclocked bus
speed. Actually it wont even stay stable past 117mhz bus. Kinda sucks. (The V3-3000 I was
running ran solid at 129mhz bus) Even though, with my entire system clocked down to 528mhz
(As opposed to 581mhz), the Hercules seems to outperform the V3 in Quake3. I've got a
spiffy plan for benchmarking fairly accurately that I'll put together this weekend. I'll
grab some scores on a p2@300 and 450mhz while I'm at it. From what I've heard the V3 has
an edge on the lower mhz machines.
My quick review of TA:Kingdoms... StarCraft has better artwork, but from a night of playing I would say the gameplay in TAK is more fun. At least for a novice RTS player.
Oh yeah, only 159 days left!
| Thursday June 24, 1999 |
TRIBES2 [6:50 pm]
Couple more bits on TRIBES2 for you guys to check out cuz the Dynamix guys are feeling
frisky lately. Datumplane has a short chat with
the lead programmer on the project for you to check out. Also there is
a .plan update from Nels "Nailz" Bruckner announcing they are "taking
the plunge" and doing some heavy work on the OpenGL stuff.
Neon250 [6:50 pm]
It looks like the PowerVR guys are finally
shipping a new 3D card after all this time. Check out the press release that
VideoLogic has sent out announcing the PowerVRSG which will be selling for about $175
or £106 depending on your country. Should be out around August.
Bad Hercules, BAD! [4:30 pm] - Huntsman
My bud Kauffee called up Hercules after his computer blew up when he installed the last
release of their drivers for Win 9X. They pointed him to their driver page. What's this mean? If you have a SB Live, and installed the last
release of their drivers, you're up a creek. Don't reboot :) They have new drivers that
fixes the problem.
Here's what it says:
This release corrects a fatal exception on restart on systems with SoundBlaster Live! cards installed.
SystemShock2 [2:30 pm]
The guys at SShock2.com have posted a bunch of new (and
old) information about SystemShock2 which is just about complete. Most of the info has
been extracted from the TTLG messageboards.
Off the top of my head (I'm at the wrong job currently to look it up in the manual), strength affects hand to hand damage, the number of inventory slots you have, and the ability to wear some armor. Endurance affects hit points and (um, I think) damage from radiation/toxins or psi overload. Agility affects movement speed and damage from falling.
IOTD [2:30
pm]
The latest new IOTD is
proof that everyone wants to be American. Got a caption for this picture? Enter the the caption contest
and win a big wet kiss from me!
The winner for the IOTD contest for yesterday goes to Hoonis with "Microsoft releases Windows2K". Here is a list of all the enttries.
Previous IOTD's: msteam.jpg & realmsteam.jpg (captions) unfunf.jpg (captions) cat.jpg (captions) paint.jpg (captions) nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
More Views [12:45 pm]
Graeme & Q3Test [3:15 am]
Well it looks like Clan Draconic Guild
cornered Graeme Devine of id Software into
answering a few questions about the progress of Quake3. Here are a couple of the answers
that Graeme handed over:
fracas: Is the "tournament" map that you mentioned in your last .plan, the only new map that will be included in the next test, or will there be another? If not, will the tournament map be intended for both 1 on 1's and teamplay?
Graeme: Yes, it's the only update. The other maps have a few revisions for teamplay and fixes.fracas: Are there any new features (that haven't been mentioned in past plans) that will be included in the test ( me begging for some juicy news here :) )
Graeme: Not as far as I know, the weapons are tuned a bit differently, but it's pretty much a straight update
Billy Zelsnack (Ex-RBR) [3:15 am]
3DGamgeek.com has the first ever post-RBR interview with then lead programmer
Billy Zelsnack. They talk about the cancellation of Prax War with EA, and how the
majority of the the former RBR guys have moved on to GearBox Software now working on the
Half-Life expansion pack.
We were always considered a gamble for ea and I guess they felt that more of a gamble was no longer in their best interest. Most of their gamble was based on the acquisition of several future engine licenses. They had some internal projects they wanted to do and the delay of praxwar meant the delay of their internal projects.
Anachronox Diary [3:15 am]
The Ion Storm Daily Informant
has an update from Tom Hall who is of course working on Anachronox over there at Ion
Storm. Tom talks a bit about the gameflow language which is finally being utilized,
codenamed: APE!
We’ve finally named the gameflow language. It’s called APE (Anachronox Programming Environment). I’m getting together shapes so once we release it, people who can program but can’t draw at all at least have SOMEthing to work with. I’ve done some graphics, and the real artists on the team are making them spiffy. Squirrel won’t be improving the language for a little while, so I’m just prototyping stuff now. APE is going to be such a fun thing for folks! Woo hoo!
Joey’s back for two weeks, working on Planet (our camera scriptor) stuff, and other issues. He hasn’t broken any teeth yet, but I’ll keep ya posted.
Shack Demos Return? [3:15 am]
Say it aint so! I've updated the demos page with a new Q3Test demo recorded from my POV and more
importantly give you guys the key bindings I used to make the demos and a couple of nifty
console commands to play with when watching the demo playback.
Views [3:15 am]
Tech [3:15 am]
werd
Well, dunno what was wrong with me yesterday but it seems to have gone away. Appreciate
all the kind emails, I'm just sorry that when I'm out sick so is the page. Everyone feel
free to flog Huntsman for missing the
Shackware update yesterday. Not sure why that didnt happen. I spent some time this evening
smacking around a couple of quick demos since I figured out the nifty trick to making them
and not crashing. (I spoke too soon last week, but this time they are good to go)
| Wednesday June 23, 1999 |
New Half-Life/TFC Server [7:10 pm]
Just got this from Jenni Gant over at Sierra. It looks like the Valve guys have dug up and
fixed all of the problems/exploits that were causing havoc on those TFC servers. Here are
the new files for you to play with if you're a server admin:
Hlserver.exe (~80 MB) -- This is the full download of the latest version of the Win32 server. This includes all the files necessary to run a Team Fortress Classic or Half-Life server.
Hlserver10101012.exe (~500k) -- This is the update to the Primary Server Package that will upgrade you from the previous update from WON
AMD K7 Shipping [5:25 pm]
Yup, check it out. This press
release was just sent out over BusinessWire for those of you who wish to read the full
deal. The first shipment of AMD K7 CPUs are the 500, 550, and 600mhz batch. The CPUs are
based on 0.25micron technology (Same as P3) Here is a bit more: Thanks to GA for the headsup. Check out the K7 FAQ while you're at it. Thanks AMDZone
AMD today announced that it has commenced shipments of its new seventh-generation microprocessor, the AMD Athlon(tm) processor, to computer manufacturers. Formerly code-named the AMD-K7 processor, the AMD Athlon processor is initially available in speed grades of 600, 550, and 500 MHz
<snip>
The AMD Athlon processor is an x86-compatible, seventh-generation design featuring a super-pipelined, nine-issue superscalar microarchitecture optimized for high clock frequency; the industry's first fully pipelined, superscalar floating point unit for x86 platforms; high-performance cache technology, including 128KB of on-chip level-one (L1) cache and a programmable, high-performance backside L2 cache interface; enhanced 3DNow!(tm) technology and multimedia performance; and the AMD Athlon system bus -- a 200-MHz system interface based on the Alpha (tm) EV6 bus protocol with support for scalable multiprocessing. The initial versions of the AMD Athlon processor are manufactured on AMD's 0.25-micron process technology in Fab 25 in Austin, Texas.
More Views [5:25 pm]
Vampire Multiplayer [2:20 pm]
Ray Gresko of Nihilistic talks
with the Next-Gen guys about the multiplayer capabilities of their Vampire: Masquerade
game being developed over there in California. A couple of interesting quotes for you
monkeys:
... that the third-person horror-RPG is currently 60 percent complete prior to its release for PC this winter. <snip> "Since we are introducing an entirely new way of playing multiplayer RPGs, we spend a lot of time making sure this mode of play has all the functionality and expandability that it needs"
TreadMarks Public Test [2:20 pm]
The LongBow guys have just released a public test of their TreadMarks game which has been
looking pretty cool from the screenshots. Keep in mind this is only a test which puts it
in the same boat as Q3Test right? There will be bugs, there will be stuff that isnt
finished. Here ya go:
You will need up-to-date OpenGL drivers for your 3D accelerator! (These days, almost all 3D accelerating video cards do have good OpenGL drivers available.) The easiest way to get up to date OpenGL drivers for Win9x machines is to download and install GLSetup before running the Tread Marks Test. If you have Windows NT 4.0, GLSetup will not work, and you will have to manually download the latest NT 4.0 OpenGL drivers for your video card (Rage128 and RivaTNT are known to work well under NT).
Click here to view the Readme for the Tread Marks Test.
Click here to download TreadMarksTest1.exe from our web server (5.17 megs).
TRIBES & OpenGL [2:20 pm]
Rick Overman of Dynamix, programmer on the Starsiege game so many of you guys are playing.
Well Rick
talks a bit about the OpenGL implmentation that he's working on for TRIBES and talks
about performance issues: Thanks Blue
As a secondary project we have been working on additional OpenGL engine changes for Starsiege and Tribes. The rendering pipeline is fairly optimal as of Starsiege patch v1.002 but we are still not seeing the FPS we should be because of poorly written drivers.
<snip>
So why all this rambling about drivers all of a sudden? Because I'm thinking of holding onto patch v1.004 for another week or so and rolling in the OpenGL engine changes now rather than doing yet another patch. v1.003 seems very solid and adding the OpenGL changes to v1.004 will make it a nice package for everyone to look forward to.
IOTD [2:30
pm]
The latest new IOTD can
only be described is absolutely amazing. (Warning, it's not exactly tasteful, although
fake...) Got a caption for this picture? Enter the the caption contest
and win a big wet kiss from me!
The winner for the IOTD contest for yesterday goes to (I cant find the damn entry now) with "Must eat TV". Here is a list of all the enttries.
Previous IOTD's: msteam.jpg & realmsteam.jpg (captions) unfunf.jpg (captions) cat.jpg (captions) paint.jpg (captions) nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
Quake3 & TNT2 [2:30 pm]
Nick Triantos of NVidia has a .plan file of his own. Nick talks
quite a bit about the performance people are getting on TNT2 cards when combined with
Quake3. He seems a bit miffed about people bitching actually. Have a look see. Thanks VE
Now, onto a quick math lesson for the smart people who bought TNT or TNT2: In Quake3, the texture quality set- ting allows you to tell Quake3 how large you want the largest textures. Setting it to 0 (max texture size) can yield better quality, especially in higher resolutions. In low resolutions, the geometry is, in general, small enough that Quake wouldn't ever use the high detail texture maps. But, let's understand why there's an issue with always having the texture detail set to highest: If you have your textures set to 32-bpp (you can do that with "r_texturebits 32"), and r_picmip == 1, Quake3 claims that I had 2,303,520 texels not including mipmaps (you can see that with the "imagelist" command).
Views [2:20 pm]
Tech [2:20 pm]
werd
Well, I was going to head down to the hospital, but the lack of health insurance was a
deciding factor in me staying home. Can't say I've felt this bad in a long while..
Good news for the day? Hercules is finally shipping my TNT2. Joy.
| Tuesday June 22, 1999 |
Return To Wolfenstein? [6:45 pm]
It looks like EvilAvatar has done some serious
digging and come up with a bit of infomation of what Xatrix
Entertainment may be up to. I dropped Graeme over at id Software some email about this
earlier in the morning but havent gotten any response yet. The Evil one talks about recent
Xatrix happenings and most interestingly
this snip:
Drew basically announced that Xatrix was done; he invited most of the employees to go with him to start a new company (no name yet) to work on id's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, using the Quake 3 engine.
Honestly it seems pretty far fetched to me that id Software would hand out a license of the Wolfenstein universe, but hey at least it is something to talk about on the Quake3 board while we wait for Graeme to answer my email right? :)
S3 & Diamond [4:15 pm]
Couple of Q&A sessions for you guys to read if you're interested in getting a bit more
information on the S3 buyout of Diamond Multimedia. The guys at PlanetRiva get the first
crack, talking
to Diamond MM. Then head over to Beyond3D and check out their Q&A with the S3 guys.
Suckage [4:15 pm]
Nice and late! The suckage has been posted for you to peruse and wonder how a silly white boy like
me can be so damn bitter.
Misc Stuff [3:50 pm]
I should have mentioned this morning that yet another new
ICQ has been released. Thanks Ant. Also you might want to check out the latest update
to SharkyExtreme's CPU price
guide which is generally informative. There is also this game
violence article Scott Miller mentions in his .plan file worth reading. Lastly the doors on 3DGamegeek.com have opened. You may
recognize a couple of those guys on the staff list. Make sure and check them out.
Half-Life SE [2:20 pm]
Word from AVault is that Valve Software has
been working on packaging
up the "Game of the Year" edition of Half-Life which will include Half-Life
(of course) with the latest patches, a copy of Team Fortress Classic for Half-Life,
and other goodies for sure.
note: Got all my errands taken care of, trying to figure out why Fileshack.com broke now :)
More Tech [2:20 pm]
More S3 & Diamond [10:50 am]
The excitement of the day it looks like is the announcement that S3 is buying Diamond Multimedia.
GA-Source has a couple of
questions with Paul Crossley of S3. You can also check out the News.com article
taking a look at the impact of the buyout.
At this time last year, S3 appeared to be a has-been in the graphics chip market, posting losses and falling further and further behind ATI Technologies, the market leader. But now it seems to be rebounding somewhat on the back of new deals despite reporting losses in the first quarter.
FAKK2 [9:50 am]
GameSpot UK has a new preview of the
Ritual Entertainment Quake3 engine based FAKK2 game in development right now. Most of
the article is just re-hashed stuff from the older GameSpot US article. However they do
include a couple of new screenshots buried among all the concept art. Check out shot1
and shot2.
SoF @ 3DPallete [9:50 am]
The guys at 3DPallete have an interview
with Eric Turman of Raven Software you may remember linked a bit ago. Something that
you may not have seen though was these 2 new screenshots of Raven's SoF game. Check out shot1 and shot2.
IOTD [9:55
am]
The latest new IOTD
(kinda big) is a pictorial of the cast of Friends a few years down the road proving that
its what is on the inside that counts.. Got a caption for this picture? Enter the increasingly popular
caption contest and win a big wet kiss from me!
The winner for the IOTD contest for yesterday (and this updated pic) goes to klammer with his multiple entires "Got Geek?" being my favorite. Here is a list of all the enttries.
Previous IOTD's: unfunf.jpg (captions) cat.jpg (captions) paint.jpg (captions) nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
Wheel of Time [9:50 am]
The Legened Entertainment guys have fired up the weekly progress report for their Unreal
engine based Wheel of Time game. This week they were kind enough to include a new
screenshot for you guys to check out. Have a look see here.
In the art arena, Marc and Julie continue to focus on the outdoor textures, while Robert continues to pump out decorations and effects. Very soon, Robert will arrive to walk through his new house, so it won't be long until he's actually here in the office. Joel finished the high-res Spehraem skins, two for the cut scene assets and one for the in-game model.
S3 Buys Diamond [9:50 am]
A ton of people sent in this one. Just a week after the rumors were floating around about
3dfx buying S3, S3 goes out and buys Diamond instead. Have a look at the press release kids
and ponder what this means for future Diamond products.
"Today's announcement represents a significant strategic shift for S3, which was focused solely on the PC graphics market," said Ken Potashner, president and CEO of S3 Incorporated. "By merging the strengths of both companies, we intend to create a major force in the industry for Internet appliances, broadband communications, home networking and complete graphics solutions."
Added Potashner, "The acquisition is part of our ongoing strategic plan to return S3 to profitability and diversify into related high-growth areas. We are extremely pleased with the execution of our plan, which has included the successful launch of our Savage4 and Savage MX graphics products resulting in design wins with volume OEMs including Compaq, IBM, NEC/Packard Bell and Micron. We also are pleased with the company's financial improvements and expect these to accelerate based on our volume shipments."
I'll see you guys at the Creative Labs party.
Views [9:50 am]
Tech [9:50 am]
werd
Damn gotta quit sleeping in so late.. More stuff this afternoon including Suckage and all
that jive.
Jack gives me gas.
| Monday June 21, 1999 |
Quake3 Tourney Map [3:45 pm]
Graeme Devine of id Software has a .plan update talking a
bit about some Ion Storm employees doing testing over the weekend at id and more
importantly that they were testing the new tournament 1on1 map in hopes of having it ready
for everyone to practice before QuakeCon. Here is part of the update:
The reason we asked them over was to have them check in on the status of our tournament map, which we hope to get out there soon with the next version of the test (to give you all time to practice on it before QuakeCon, you are going to QuakeCon right?). We’re also looking at a /lot/ of bug fixes, changes, and tweaks so we’re gearing up for your feedback. I’ll let Chris Hecker speak for glsetup, but we’re looking to get that updated and support for 3Dfx in there.
Soon can be defined as soon. And that’s probably not this week.
AMD K7 Articles [3:45 pm]
Jeff "Gimpy" Tom of AMDZone spent some time
and dug up several interesting articles talking about the next CPU from AMD. Have a look
see: Here is the main
article also there are a few other part of note: Athlon name of K7
, $500 for
a K7? , and Intel vs. AMD
Graphs
Pentium3 Schedule [1:15 pm]
It looks like those 0.18micron P3 CPUs are indeed delayed as announced a couple of days
ago. The good news though is Intel
is pushing a couple of other CPUs ahead of schedule in hopes to compensate. It looks
like the K7 may just mop the floor though the way things stand now. Thanks Blue/GA
I guess while on the P3 subject I should mention I picked up a p3-450 last week after reading how the SL3CC models were overclocking so well at overclockers.com. Well I've been happily plugging away at 581mhz now for a week with no problems at all. It even worked fine with generic pc100 ram. I have since then traded in my ram for some Corsair pc133 in hopes of reaching 600mhz. Gonna play with that some more later this week when I've got time. The motherboard I've been using is an Abit BX6rev2. (Not the absolute best performer on the market, but easily the most overclocker friendly)
TRIBES2? [12:20 pm]
What, you havent read enough Scott Youngblood interviews? Scott is going head to head with
Graeme Devine and Dave Perry now for the "most damn interviews" award. Check out his latest
foray with TheHive.
Updated IOTD [12:35 pm]
We start off the new week with a new IOTD of course. In honor
of that TNT Steve Jobs/Bill Gates special that was on last night. Got a caption for this
picture? Enter the
increasingly popular caption contest and win a big wet kiss from me!
update: After some digging into the Microsoft photo archives, Ancient1 has revealed the long lost Microsoft employee #12!
Previous IOTD's: unfunf.jpg (captions) cat.jpg (captions) paint.jpg (captions) nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
SamHell's Greatest [11:10 am]
The crazy interview hound here SamHell has put
together a "greatest hits" album looking back after 6 months of interviews
with people from Valve Software, id Software, Ion Storm, Raven Software, CPL,
UserFriendly, VE, BluesNews, and our beloved DearMynx.
Ass Wacky Linkies [12:55 pm]
I'm just buck-wild and switching these sections all around. The latest pack of
wack-ass links is now posted. I'm trying to get a few things done around here so the Suckage was
swapped out till tomorrow. Sucks huh?
EverQuest [11:10 am]
It seems a huge number of Quake players out there also enjoy EverQuest, consequently I
figure you guys would also enjoy reading what Time Magazine
is saying about EverQuest and the 30,000 something people that play online every
night. Thanks EQVault
Smart move. Everquest launched in March and was an instant hit; after only two months, more than 100,000 people have purchased the CD-ROM, and dutifully pay an $8 or $9 monthly subscription rate. Each night 30,000 people fill the cities, deserts and forests that constitute the 19 Everquest zones.
Mech3 Expansion Pack [11:10 am]
The AVault guys have gotten word that an expansion pack for
MechWarrior3 is currently in development. I still havent even gotten to play through
the original damn it! Here's a bit from the bit yo:
Mech fans should be pleased to hear MicroProse has pulled the sheath off a pair of 1999 titles geared to maintain their interest until the next major title in the epic saga. First up will be Mech Commander Compilation in November, followed by the official MechWarrior 3 expansion, timed for a December release. No additional details have been announced
Unreal Progress [11:10 am]
Tim Sweeney has even more updates to the Unreal
Tech page talking about the much improved Direct3D performance he's hammered out for
Unreal. Here is a bit of what Tim talks about, check out the page for the full deal.
Everyone's complaint with Direct3D support in past versions of Unreal, on good cards like the TNT, has been "the average frame rate and benchmark numbers are fine, but there is major hitching and pausing during gameplay". This was due to several factors, which I tracked down and fixed with help and advice from some driver writers. The key improvements are:
- Dramatically less memory usage. My Direct3D code wasted tons of hidden, "behind the scenes" memory while swapping textures into video memory, leading to lots of virtual-memory swapping.
- New texture management code, better optimized for Unreal's texture usage patterns. I had been relying on Direct3D's built-in texture manager, which is slowed down by its generality.
The next patch ("when it's done") will incorporate the new Direct3D code. This will be out before Unreal Tournament ships, and we'll be looking for feedback from players on its performance and stability.
Carmack on Matrox G400 [11:10 am]
The Matrox G200 dev
mailing list guys were in the middle of discussion about the new G400 cards prepping
to hit the streets. The interesting part? Well the guy behing that one game the majority
of us are playing John Carmack put in his 2 cents about Quake3 performance. Thanks Blue
What the g400 will give us:
stencil buffer support. This should be straightforward to add and get working.
multitexture support. If glx is extended for it (is there an official ARB spec for multitexture over glx?) we can use it immediately. We could also do the "fake multitexture" hack for the g200 as an option.
Anisotropic texture filtering. We need a new OpenGL enum for this, and I think it would be worthwhile.
More texture filtering levels. Not a big deal until gigantic textures in huge open areas are used more commonly.
"Bump mapping". This, along with some of the other texture combiner modes, would need an extension to expose. I would not call it a high priority. Its not as usefull as it sounds.
Depth buffer in AGP option. AGP 4x transfers. Doesn't help until we get good agp support in the kernel.
It WON'T give us noticably better Q2/Q3 timedemo scores unless multitexture is supported, because at reasonable resolutions we are currently not saturating the G200. You will be able to run at your desktop resolution with all rasterization features turned on, though. The G400 ran away from the field in our last high-res benchmarking.
Descent3 SDK [11:10 am]
As the headline may have suggested to you, the Descent3 SDK (Software Development Kit for
the acronym impaired) has an official support
page for those of you working on your own modifications to the Parralax code. Thanks
Descent.org/Blue.
Views [11:10 am]
Tech [11:10 am]
Gaming [11:10 am]
werd
Wee! Hope you knobs had a good father's day. Amazingly I was actually interacting with
family this weekend.
Working on a few things today, you might just be surprised!
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