QuakeWorld Draft League! [1:45pm]
Bishop has set up the QuakeWorld Draft League. This is the premise is that everybody signs up and then Captains are randomly chosen, and the a draft of the remaining players begins. I expect that I'll be in the 18th round :\
Check it out, looks real cool.

New Graphic Utils[1:45pm]
OMG. People are actually sending ME news. Last time I had to just rip off people. Anyway: Direct Control 2.0.8a. I'm sure this does something cool. And, doing something else equally cool, the Matrox Overclock 2.0.8b. Thanks, SailorScout

Unreal Tournament Editing![1:45pm]
Excited as I am about Unreal Tournament? Hmm. Probably more :\ - Check out what what the Unreal Tech Announce Page has to say about screwing with Unreal Tourny!

I've had several inquiries from mod makers about how hard it will be to "port maps and mods from Unreal 1 to Unreal Tournament". The answer is, port? What's this talk of porting? This stuff just works. Steve Polge put a lot of effort into updating the Unreal 220+ game code so that it integrates seamlessly with Unreal Tournament. Both products install into the \Unreal directory, and are mutually compatible. So, you can install one, the other, or both -- and existing maps and mods which are compatible with the latest version of Unreal, will be fully compatible. For convenience, Unreal Tournament ships with all of the script packages from Unreal 1 (including UnrealShare.u and UnrealI.u), all of the .utx files, and all of the .uax files. Unreal Tournament is a superset of the Unreal 1 with the exception of the Unreal 1 maps and music. All new UT content (lots of scripts, textures, sounds, game types, and new actors) are designed to interoperate with the existing ones in Unreal 1.

You know, it may just be me, but Unreal Tournament sounds a good deal like QuakeWorld. :|

EEK! Not Again! [1:45pm]
Hide your children, its me Huntsman. sCary's off doing something somewhere, but he guaranteed me it wasn't at all interesting. So I get to do the news *cough*ZITH*cough*. Anyhow, send me a mail if you need anything.

Team Fortress II Preview! [1:45pm]
3Dfx's best friend, Gamecenter has a nice preview of Half Life's Team Fortress II. Read it. Be informed.

Ket-meye [1:45pm]
Hardware Extreme has some cool info on the upcoming Katmai processor. Even some pictures. I heard from a reliable source that you could run Quake 2 in software OpenGL at 20+ fps on a Katmai (with KNI). Considering the approximate 2fps you get now, thats quite a jump.

Matrox Drivers [1:45pm]
Matrox has whipped up new drivers for all you guys who couldn't wait for a TNT (heh). Check it out. If you don't have a Matrox, go away, they don't run on your S3!

Ho Ho Ho, its a Heretic's Christmas [1:45pm]
Assuming that its because the guys at Raven are just swell fellows, they've hooked you guys up with a new map pak. These are DM maps, so don't get mad if you don't get cut scenes or something. I dig this game. If you haven't bought it, fooie on you!

stuff you should probably ignore [1:45pm]
Yah, its me. Oh, by the way, on the message forum front, the other day I had to delete serveral messages. From the same person. You know who you are. Stop it. You are being a turd. In most social circles, being a turd is a big no-no. I'm about to go into auto kill mode. Also, BigImp, you always see those whack posts before me, send me an email, lemme know, thanks. Oh yeah, SACREDMONKEY WHERE ARE YOU?? Your posts ruled dood, come back!

Celeron 400 in January [1:45pm]
Who knows if you will be able to overclock this thing or not with Intels big plans. At any rate an article on TechWeb is calling for the rollout of the Celeron 400 cpu as early as January 4th. Dig it (mooched form VE):

The 400-MHz Celeron will join the previously planned launch of the 366-MHz Celeron, sources said. Both CPUs are expected to be formally introduced on Jan. 4. Intel declined to comment.

The 400-MHz Celeron had been scheduled for introduction as late as April, according to an Intel road map. The early introduction could mean Intel is ahead of the production curve, or that it is concerned rival chip makers AMD and Cyrix are getting a longer lead at the low end.

Jay Stelly [12:35pm]
VE has posted a new interview with Jay Stelly, a programmer over at Valve Software who worked on that one game Half-Life? Some of the questions tossed his way are from another manly programmer, Michael Perrson from the Shiny team.

Saxs) What new features in the next generation of 3d hardware do you think are going to mean the most for gameplay and visual impact?

Jay) The big changes in image quality I see coming are a set of features and improvements that get us closer and closer to a robust per-pixel material lighting model.   Did I mention that texture memories are way too small right now?  We need more memory and compression for textures. Further down the line, I think procedural texturing and shading features will find their way into hardware as well.  I'd love it if 3d hardware was so easy to use that users didn't need to download drivers or even know what chipset was on their 3d board.

More Q3 (Updated) [12:35pm]
Ok guys, since you are smacking me with so much email about those Quake3 shots and if there are more. Here are some links to the other screenshots of Quake3 which surfaced a little while ago originally in the big PCGamer article. Since you can't find this issue on stands anymore I imagine PCG wont have much problem with these being linked. I fixed these images to link to the high res release versions instead of the magazine scans.Thanks BigImp

(VERY hi-res images) q31.jpg q26.jpg q38.jpg b2.jpg ph1.jpg px3.jpg px4.jpg q18.jpg
(PCGM low-res scans) shot1 shot2 shot3 shot4 shot5 shot6 shot7 shot8

Akolyte [12:35pm]
The Revenant Team page has been updated with news on the progress towards a milestone and apparently programming not holding them back for once. :)

To round off our achievements, gouraud lighting and dynamic lighting were added as well. Additional  improvements to our engine should come shortly in the next few weeks. In the meantime, the main characters are getting worked on progressively. The artists are currently adjusting the main character physiques and meshes to take advantage of the new bone technology.

Web Watch [12:35pm]
Got a couple of pages you guys should really be interested. First off I dont believe I've ever linked Stayne's House of Demos. Talk about a booboo. Looks like the most well organized Quake/Quake2 demo resource page to date. You guys should also head back on over to FastGraphics which is now back online after a week of server troubles.

More Unreal Arena [7:43am]
A new article on Next-Gen shines a bit more light on the recently official announcement of Unreal Tournament. Check out the chit-chat with Mark Rein of Epic.

Rein revealed that Unreal Tournament has in fact four distinct game types "that make up the Unreal Tournament" and in the screenshots, one of the game types appears to be capture the flag. Rein says that the "simulated human opponents" (Puh-leeze. Are Epic's new bots too good to be called 'Bots' now?) can play all the distinct game types both on your team and against your team. For good measure Rein says they're much better deathmatchers now too. Apparently the Bots can also fill out your team or opposing teams when you go to play Unreal Tournament online.

S3 & Intel [7:43am]
I failed to mention this one yesterday. Guess I'm a bastard. S3 and Intel have signed a 10year "cross license" contract which has some interesting implications. S3 made that SCREAMING Virge chipset a while ago that we all still love. I finally got a hold of a vintage Virge chipset card yesterday so I could ditch my TNT.

As an Intel AGP 4X validation partner, S3 is well positioned to be first-to-market with AGP 4X-compliant products in an industry that is rapidly transitioning from AGP 2X to AGP 4X. Based on data from Mercury Research, a leading research firm located in Scottsdale, Ariz., AGP 4X is expected to capture more than 40 percent of the entire PC market in the second half of 1999.

Unreal Shadows [7:43am]
Thanks to Unreality for the word that the much talked about "shadows patch" for Unreal that everyone first saw at the COMDEX (thx Hexagon) show a couple of months ago has finally been released. Here are some details. Too bad it only works on the Creative TNT card though..

1. This is a release candidate and NOT the final version.
2. It will only work on Unreal 219. There will be a patch based on 220 shortly.
3. This release is for Creative Labs RIVA TNT only!
It won't work on other vendors' RIVA TNT cards, and it won't work on the Voodoo2, Banshee, etc.
Thats it, get the patch here. (2.4MB)  

Q3 Shots [7:43am]
Figured I would carry these shots over from yesterday since 500,000,000,000,000,000 people are looking at them and killing my server. Bill Williams was feeling frisky and posted the 3 screenshots of Quake3 on the Quake3 msgboard that come with the Quake2 Extremeties pack. Since it is an mpinet account Bill will get smacked with some bandwidth costs so I've taken the liberty of posting them here as well. Have a look see:

A BIG NASTY THANKS to [R2]Hoonis and [R2]Huntsman for their work in getting this nifty new CGI action working for screenshots to work with the incredibly not fun to deal with UGO codes.

hehahe! [2:53am] -Zith
This update brought to you by Zith.  Why am I here?  My mom was generous enough to have me, I guess.  Now I have a story to tell all my friends at home!

Quakeworld v2.33-0001 [2:53am] -Zith
Hey, another new test version of QW is out, fixing some problems found in the original QW 2.33 release.  Grab it here. Here's the scoop, straight from Quakeworld.net:    

Test release 2.33-0001 is now available. Changes are:

- Bug where 2.33 players would get 'stuck' after about fifteen minutes of play corrected.
- New version system in that interim test releases now have build numbers. This release is 2.33-0001, the next test release will probably be 2.33-0002 or higher (for your info, the second number is days since Dec 17th, 1998).

Speaking of QuakeWorld, a new "Draft League" which sounds like a great idea is opening the doors. If you are an experienced clan Q1 clan player looking for change of atmosphere check it out.

Tribes Gold! [2:53am] -Zith
Chris Zeeb sends along word that as of early tonight, StarSiege:Tribes has gone gold:

It is confirmed, Starsiege:Tribes has gone gold as of early tonight, and will be going into replication tomorrow. This was confirmed by a post by two of the development members on the feedback forum for Tribes, as well as over ICQ.

"Touched up" Quake3 Screenshots [2:53am] -Zith
Brian Napier has taken the Quake3 screenshots that were posted yesterday, and touched them up a little bit.  Click on the links below to see the full size images:

shot1.jpg shot2.jpg shot3.jpg

Unreal: Tournament info [2:53am] -Zith
Preacher sends along word he has received some unofficial information about Unreal: Tournament that is rather interesting:

- GT will soon release a handfull of screenshots from UT.
- UT will feature: ships, trains, castles, air things, nekkid chicks, big guns, etc.
- It will have the biggest gun ever seen in a game. (takes up like 1/4th of your screen)
- System requirements will be the same as Unreal1, if not less, as it will be a faster version of the engine.
- The models are more detailed than Unreal1 6. They aim for an early Spring release

Nekkid chicks?  They can't go wrong there.

Views [2:53am] -Zith

• FPS Roundup
  Gameslog has posted a roundup of the recent FPS games to hit the market: Half-Life, Shogo, Sin, and Heretic II.
  
  
• Shawn Berryhill - Monolith
  Sean Berryhill has put up an "Ego Roundup" of Shawn Berryhill over at Messiah Press.  Another roundup should appear every week.

werd
Had the homeboy Zith try his hand at updating a bit today just to get his feet wet. I'll be gone on a trip through the weekend so he and Huntsman (Your friendly msgboard admin) will be making sure you guys arent wandering around aimlessly without information.

Those Quake3 shots are um, BADASS. It looks like the level designers over at id have really gotten a grasp of how to use curves, and I'm betting the editor interface has improved quite a bit to allow cool stuff like that. I already knew Quake3 was looking cool but those shots just blew me away all over again. WOW.

Worried about the war? This should help you out.

Unreal Tournament Screenshots [4:15pm]
Aint it just screenshot day today? Saw on Redwood's that Gamesmania has posted 5 new screenshots of Unreal Tournament which look pretty cool. Have a look see.

Max Payne! [3:11pm]
You better be excited about Max Payne you puds. Check out the new preview over at GameSpot UK which features a few new screenshots for you to take a gander at while you are there. Very cool stuff and highly recommended.

You want an interactive Pulp Fiction? You might just be in luck. Max Payne is a story-driven third-person action game cum pulp thriller for grown-ups

QuakeWorld v2.33 Test Release [1:31pm]
Hey, a new version of QuakeWorld! The biggest fix being protection from a few clever hax0rs out there who thought they were cool by nuking players. Grab it.

QuakeWorld 2.33 is a test release to address several issues that have come to light in the QuakeWorld community. Several different DoS (Denial Of Service) attacks have surfaced that need addressed.

- Bug where client would crash during a level change if a skin name longer than 16 characters on the server has been fixed.
- The client now ignores foreign connection requests while connected to a server.
- A foreign message packet with C-style format strings no longer cause a client crash.
- Large packets sent to the client could cause it to exit with a fatal error
- Timing issues with later versions of Windows 95 and Windows 98 that would cause clients to mistime their frame times and result in a player that could run faster/slower on a server has been changed and fixed.
- When the client is running in a window, going to the menu or the console automatically frees up the mouse cursor.

Messiah Screenshots [9:31am]
Billy over at VE has scored a couple new screenshots of Messiah that are worth checking out. shot1 and shot2

Unreal Tournament PR [10:15am]
Thanks to Dave over at PlanetUnreal for forwarding me some GT/Epic PR stuff that you guys might wanna read. I'll just post a smidgen of it here, check out PlanetUnreal for the real deal:

Unreal Tournament – All-New, Easy to Learn Game Play One of the most highly anticipated games of 1998, the award-winning Unreal has performed among the industry’s top 10 best-selling PC games since GT Interactive released it in May of this year.  Unreal Tournament pits players against the hardest criminals in the galaxy in multiple new kinds of contests and settings.  The goal is to become the Unreal Grand Master, testing your skills against, or fighting alongside, teams of the best simulated human opponents ('bots') ever seen in a 3D action game.  Players can also take the challenge online, playing with combinations of 'bots' and human opponents.

More 3DFX & STB [7:15am]
Ah, gotta love this one. Just interesting to see all this cool speculation about the motivations for 3dfx buying out STB. Keep in mind STB was the manufacturer carrying 50% of the OEM sales for nVidia. So nVidia might be just a tad bitter. Maybe? :) Here is the article link on Next-Gen.

The critics wonder if 3dfx hasn't picked up STB to rob nVidia of a major customer and market a forthcoming line of Voodoo 3 cards like gangbusters, knowing that all sales will come to its pockets instead of its myriad partners. "Ah…they're just jealous," Howse responds. "They've got to say something. This was not an act of desperation."

After you check that one out, take a look at this GamersDepot interview with the Wicked3D guys talking about the merger as well.

Unreal Future [7:15am]
Another update to the Unreal Technology page from Mr. Sweeney. It's pretty lengthy and interesting, check it out. There is some talk about the "Unreal Tournament" project even.

So, where do we go from here? The majority of the network-related improvements coming in the Unreal Tournament timeframe (still unannounced) are high-level, in areas like gameplay rules, client-side prediction, ease of use, and user interface

Mailing Lists [7:15am]
Got word via email about the Duke3D mailing list is open for business (Which will more than likely just gravitate towards discussion of Duke Forever) and then I see on the Blue monkey page that there is a new Half-Life level editing mailing list. Here's some instructions on how to get on the Duke mailing list:

To subscribe to this list, send email to imailsrv@speckz.com and include in
the body of the message:
subscribe dukenukem3d <your email address in place of this>

New GLDoom [7:15am]
Yup, for those of you who had some problems with the previous version of GLDoom maybe this one is for you. Saw the link on Billy's page and here's a quote even:

Another release of glDoom is ready. I have attempted to address the most egregious problems. Including the mouse context switching, mouse sensitivity, no video mode list, no 16 bit color desktop available, menu lockup problems, lack of sound card detection, ability to run with no sound (for those who don't need it or don't want it), level switching problems in Ultimate Doom Ep 4, "exposing" the mvert key and its function and the key not working if keylink was turned on (keylink is now ignored - better one than none...).

Views [7:45am]

• Turok2 Shots
  SharkyExtreme has gotten a hold of a few new shots of Turok2 as well as a "first look" preview thing going on.
  
  
• Thief
  Check out the GamersCentral review of Thief: Dark Project.
  
  

Tech Etc [7:45am]

• SBLive! vs MX300
  Mr. Interview himself, Dave Ring , felt the urge to write a little article about SBLive vs. MX300. He's telling you which of the two he thinks is better, and why. His article was written from a gamer's perspective - no specs, no benchmarks, just which one sounds better.
  
  

Quake2 Extremeties [7:15am]
In case you have the urge to go out and buy the Quake2: Extremeties add-on pack Todd Hollenshead of id Software updated the old .plan file with word that Babbages is the best place to check, and you can buy it with the 1-800-idgames phone number now. I also got email from Kevin Furphy with word that you can pick up the pack for $8 from www.buycomp.com You can pick up games like Half-Life for $29 there too actually.

I'm Going To IHOP [4:51am]
Mmmm.. pancakes.

werd
Yup, I went to IHOP at 5am.

Also, everyone say goodboy to Crash's Single Player Quake2 page which will no longer be updated. Crash has been at it for a couple of years now and will be missed.

You guys looking at that discussion on the Quake3 messageboard? Some funny stuff about satanic references. Sorry to hear about Sam's wife and kids. :(

STB & 3DFX [12:25pm]
If you're looking for a pretty good / informed opinion article on the recent STB & 3DFX deal check out what Lorien over at Gamers Alliance has to say, it's pretty good stuff.

``Our strong relationships with the industry's leading OEM and retail customers were earned by consistently being first to market with new technology and by providing outstanding customer service through our field support engineering and sales organizations, we believe that the combined strengths of STB and 3Dfx will enable us to deliver a more powerful and focused brand strategy and singular vision for our products and customers.

Tom on Overclocking [10:15am]
The end is near guys, at least according to Tom's Hardware page. Better go grab that Celery 300a and crank it before it's too late! RUN! The article actually focuses a lot on the SL2W8 p2-300/450 chips.

By now we are pretty much at the end of the sweet days of overclocking. The upcoming Intel chips Katmai and the socketed Celeron will not allow any form of overclocking anymore and it would be no surprise if even the well known Pentium II and Celeron chips we know now, will soon also be equipped with Intel's new overclocking protection. AMD seems to consider the same, so that there will be hardly any new chip available that will allow us to tweak its performance by running it faster than it is supposed to.

Anachronox [7:15am]
One of the more interesting things that shows up on the Ion Storm page every so often are development updates from several members of a team working on one of the projects there. Anachronox is given a status update which should give you a good idea of what those guys are up to.

"I just recently finished putting in Anachronox's scripting language system, which is really nifty and allows you to control just about every aspect of the game - cinematics, dialogues, camera scripts, battles, you name it - and can even allow programming-style flow control (complex algebraic expressions, loops, recursion, you name it).

Tribes Players [10:15am]
Got some mail forwarded to me from the Dynamix guys who are looking for about 1,000 servers to run their multiplayer action game for the upcoming release. (In Half-Life fashion) so if you have access to a machine on a nice piece of fiber go for it. Dunno if they have a linux server just yet though.

New ICQ99a [10:15am]
The ICQ monkeys have posted another new version of the 99a beta that so many people love, and of course so many people hate as well. It seems to be even more of a pig than the 98 one but there are some nifty features in there. Have fun. Thanks Mark

Tribes *NOT* Gold [7:15am]
Guess there was a bit of confusion concerning what Billy over at VE was told about StarSiege Tribes from Dynamix going gold. It hasnt. Here is a correction that was sent to Blue:

Just wanted to shed some light on the status of Tribes. We haven't actually gone gold yet... we are currently in the finaling process, trying to get the last few issues with the install fixed. Once that is out of the way, then we will have gone gold. QA is still pounding on the game while we fix the install issues and submit a new 'gold candidate'... if they find significant problems that need to be addressed we will stop the product certification (at sierra) and do a new build

SHOGO Demo  [7:15am]
GameSpot has gotten a hold of the big release of the multiplayer demo for SHOGO from Monolith.  There are a pair of new multiplayer levels in the demo however the single player portion of the game remains the same.

EDITOR'S NOTE (12/15/98): A new multiplayer version of the Shogo demo has been made available. While the single player levels in the demo remain the same as the original demo, two new multiplayer levels made specifically for the demo are included.

Also, SHOGO is now available on the MSN Gaming Zone, with three standard rooms (for rookies through experts), a tournament room, and a worldwide room.

Ass Links [7:15am]
There is a little bit of wack in there too. Check out a fresh crop of freaked out links that makes the internet just so great and me proud to be a human being.

New GameSpy [2:45am]
GameSpy v2.06 has been released for all you guys who just have to have the latest version.

PlanetQuake gamespyinstaller206.exe
CGK.com gamespyinstaller206.exe

Views [7:45am]

• 3dfx & STB
  VN's new Opinionated article concerns, of course, 3Dfx and STB. They discuss what they see as two potential outcomes of the deal.
  
  

werd
With the advent of the search engine here I've made the switch to Frontpage98 to better handle the searchable tags. You can search back to October 1st now btw. Wish I grabbed Frontpage2000 back when MS had it for download, maybe they'll have it up there again soon. I hope none of you guys were under the assumption that I knew HTML though. :)

So... If you see anything that has changed and looks goofy let me know.

StarSiege Tribes GOLD [3:35pm]
Billy over at VE has gotten word from a reliable source at Dynamix that the StarSiege Tribes multiplayer online 3D action game has gone gold and we may possibly even be able to find it on shelves before the end of the year.

Rainbow 6 MP [12:35pm]
The Rainbow Six Retreat has posted news that the Red Storm's webpage is now offering info on the mission pack including screenshots and detailed info. You can view the information here: r6missionpack/

Quake3 Details [9:55am]
It's like retro-day or something. Disruptor and Brian Hook both made an appearance on IRC EFNET #quake3arena and answered all kinds of questions giving out several details on Quake3 and how the game is played. I'll paraphrase most of the more interesting Q&A's here. Thanks to Izno for hooking me up with the log I created this from:

Character classes are still light/medium/heavy
-----
The differences between character will be based on speed & damage.
Hook: "...variable character classes aren't necessarily a great idea. Balancing them can become very VERY difficult."

Weapons still can not be disclosed.
-----
A lightning gun however is still being considered. If it is put in Q3
The RailGun has some added splash damage as a "concession to lagged internet play"
Rockets will probably be somewhere between Q1 and Q2 in terms of speed and damage

Hook: "weapon switch times are far faster, and we also have a better weapon cycle interface so that going from weapon 2 to weapon 8 via cycle doesn't take a million years"

Hook: "the weapon will be right handed only, and much closer to the centerline than it was in Q2. The option to turn off the gun will be available for slightly better performance, however your weapon will give you important visual clues (quad, invis status, how much in shadow you are, etc.)"

Prediction Code will be used.
-----
"there will be prediction. Prediction is absolutely necessary for net play."

Curves will not hurt gameplay/framerate much, especially considering you can turn them down/off for FPS concerns.
-----

Disruptor: "Curves aren't that expensive believe it or not. The front face of a 128x128x128 bevel is only like 16 triangles or something"

Hook: "performance is VERY important to us, which is why we took out some stuff like bump mapping, so maps with curved surfaces are going to be fast. But instead of approximating curves with brushes a la Q2, the designers can just spec curves and users will be able to control the amount of tessellation. And given that the whole game is oriented around deathmatch, we'd better not have anything unplayable for deathmatch"

Misc Stuff
-----

Skins will be used for player models ala Quake2.
There is no set release date or timeframe still.
Target system is a P200 with 32mb RAM & Voodoo1
No modem-modem direct play just TCP/IP for now. IPX has not yet been decided on.

Sampling rate issues have not yet been addressed or decided on. (ps2rate type stuff)
Hook: "Physics will be somewhat like Q1"

Q: do you think it's in the best interests of the 'competetive gamer' to allow such customization of how the game is played? won't that really split the quake gaming?

A: that's one thing that makes customization a bitch. We will have several (3-4) sets of standardized settings/rules so that people can simply agree to those values. Probably a Quake1, Quake2, Q3A, and "HyperViolent" or something like that.

Cheating Etc
-----
Hook: "we're going to attempt to address the cheating situation in various ways, but we can't disclose specifics at this time"

Hook: "piracy is of great concern to us, since this will be geared heavily towards the online community."

Extras
-----

No decision has been disclosed on supporting online tournaments.
Level scale will remain about the same, however you will "feel" slightly taller.

Please dont go emailing the id Software guys with questions from this stuff. The reason they showed up on irc was to try and answer questions to cut down on the huge email count they have right now.

Shack Search [6:25am]
Yup, as promised and with a big thanks to Marc Molinaro of Prey Portal, the search engine here at my humble Shack is going live for testing. It searches back only 2 weeks right now, but should be searching back as far as 6 months by weeks end.

If you run into any problems, or have suggestions drop me some mail at smiles@shugashack.com and I'll filter through the known issues and forward them over to Marc and we'll see what can be done.

Ken Birdwell [6:25am]
VoodooExtreme plays host to an interview with Ken Birdwell of Valve Software who of course worked on the Half-Life project. The interview guest features Tim Sweeney on the other side of the mic asking questions as well.

KB) I'd like to see manufacturers put tiny explosives in their cards so that after 12 months the cards would self-destruct and everyone would be required to get the latest generation.  Seriously though, the main problem with 3D hardware is that the performance difference between Software rendering on a P300 and something like a Voodoo1 is much less than the difference between a Voodoo1 and a Voodoo3.  We had to constantly redesign portions of Half-Life that would run fine in Software, great on a high end 3D card, but totally choke the older 3D cards.

Half-Life PowerVR [6:25am]
Vik Long has sent out a new driver for Half-Life that helps get those of you using a PowerVR card running a bit more smoothly than the driver that is included with the retail version. You can also snag the file from Blues page.

What Card for Quake3? [1:51am]
Brian Hook went nutty updating his .plan, here is the first part of it. He goes over each card with reactions to the benchmarks as well as some talk about future cards like ATI's 128 and the Voodoo3.

NOTE: this particular benchmark is on a noway-are-we-gonna-ship-it-level that has about 50 to 60K VISIBLE triangles in a scene. We're aiming for 10K tris/scene average in our final maps, which means you'll see performance hopefully about 5-6x of what I show below.

I finally got to run my benchmarks again with a newer build of our code that restructured quite a bit of the rendering internals. Running on a high polygon throughput map, I've broken down the scores noting fastest scores only for each and the manner in which they attained and other notes pertinent to the hardware and/or driver. Tests were run on a PII/300 w/ 96MB of RAM and AGP hardware when possible. All tests were run at 640x480.

CHIP FPS RENDERING METHOD/NOTES

RivaTNT (current ICD) 14.3 glArrayElement,cva/mt, 16bpp
RivaTNT (current ICD) 14.2 glArrayElement,cva/mt, 32bpp
Savage3D (current ICD) 13.4 glDrawElements,cva, 16bpp/S3TC
Savage3D (current ICD) 12.7 glDrawElements,cva, 32bpp/S3TC
VOODOO2 (beta ICD) 12.4 glDrawElements,cva/mt
Intel i740 (Intel ICD) 12.2 glDrawElements,cva, 16bpp
Riva128ZX (current ICD) 9.4 glDrawElements,cva, 16bpp
BANSHEE (beta ICD) 8.6 glArrayElement,cva
VOODOO2 (current ICD) 8.3 glArrayElement

cva = GL_ext_compiled_vertex_array extension enabled
mt = GL_ARB_multitexture extension enabled
glArrayElement = we use GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP and glArrayElement and search for
strips when possible
glDrawElements = we use GL_TRIANGLES w/ glDrawElements and let the driver
optimize as much as possible

Reactions to 3dfx/STB Deal [1:51am]
SharkyExtreme has gotten a hold of a couple of guys from Diamond as well as NVIDIA asking some questions and looking for reactions from the pair of hardware vendors on what they think of the 3dfx buyout of STB.

SE: What are 3Dfx's motives behind the merger?

NV: 3Dfx wants to get into the OEM market. We can only speculate that they believe that purchasing STB will help them. As we said, OEM's choose technology first, then supplier, so we don't understand this move. Abandoning their two biggest customers seems like a harsh way to start the process, given that they haven't yet created any significant OEM design win base.

After you check those out, Gamecenter's got an article up on the $141 million stock-for-stock transaction that everyone's talking about today

werd
Today was a moral victory.

Am I hungry, who's hungry?

Can you believe it? it only took a bit over 3 years to finally get a search engine on this page. I'm damn happy to finally offer a capability beyond that CTRL-F search engine I've had for so long. Make sure and lemme know what you think.

Dig The Art [3:11pm]
(This is Jack) Since all the other webmasters seem to have Christmas logos done, I thought I'd throw up something here for Steve's page. So I went to the ol' Christmas.Com coloring book and whipped up what's at the top. Eat that, |2|! :-)

BTW, the rest of today's update was actually done by Steve today, can you believe it?

3dfx Buys STB [8:23am]
3Dfx Interactive(R) Inc., today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire STB Systems(R), Inc., a leading manufacturer and distributor of award-winning multimedia products, in a transaction that will extend 3Dfx's leadership and enable it to deliver direct-to-customer graphics solutions. There are a few more releases you can find here. Also a good quote from AVault:

The deal is expected to close in March 1999 subject to various conditions, including customary regulatory approvals and approval by the shareholders of both 3Dfx and STB. At the completion of the acquisition, STB's operations will remain based in Richardson, TX, although the combined companies' headquarters will be at the 3Dfx site in San Jose.

3Dfx claims the transaction will provide PC-OEM and retail customers with a single source for 3Dfx branded add-in-boards, allow for a more tightly integrated chip, software and board-level layout, and drive a more controlled and focused brand investment.

Thanks to Wayne for the heads up.

Unreal Roadmap [7:00am]
Can't say I have any clue where a copy of Unreal is around here. At any rate I figure a number of you guys might be interested in seeing a little "roadmap" for planned Unreal patches by Tim Sweeney:

Unreal 220 is a public beta patch. We've done a significant amount of internal testing, but we'll be doing more wide-scale testing before the upcoming official, non-beta patch. To summarize the Unreal 1 roadmap:

• Unreal 220 (Beta): Internet improvements, core game improvements, bug fixes.
• Unreal 221 (Beta): Incremental fixes.
• Unreal 222 (Official): Non-beta patch; shareware version will be released.
• Additional patches as necessary.

New GLDoom [7:00am]
From MeccaWire: GlDoom from Bruce Lewis has been updated to version 0.94c and fixes the Matrox MGA-200 Open GL ICD Support. You can grab it from frag.com here.

Persia In 3D [7:00am]
Gamers Alliance posted a preview of Mindscape's upcoming 'Prince of Persia 3D'. The game looks very promising, and includes a ton of features - including:

- More personality than any other previous computer graphic protagonist.
- 15 exotic, expansive Persian environments to explore featuring highly original and challenging level designs.

HL Configs [7:00am]
A quote from the author: "After hours on end of frustrating JavaScript, Tweak3D turned the Half-Life Autoexec into a huge, complete tweak program. A ton of screenshots and commands were added, others were updated. If you're going to tweak Half-Life, there is no alternative (as far as simplicity and thoroughness) to Tweak3D's Half-Life Autoexec Creator "

Views [7:45am]

• LoonyGames
  The always entertaining LoonyGames posted their latest issue. There is an editorial with Paul Steed that should be online tomorrow as well.
  
  
• Zanshin Stuff
  Zanshin over at the GLDojo posted something about SBLive, Voodoo3 and the ATI Rage 128
  
  

Tech Etc [7:15am]

• Overclocking, Yes/No?
  Since everyone has their panties in a wad once again about the future of overclocking Intel CPU's, Ars-Technica has posted a nifty article attempting to dispelll some of the myths.
  
  This is not to say panties in a wad is bad. Waded panties when in the correct context can be quite a good thing.
  
  
• Heretic2 Joystick Support
  In case for some reason you feel the urge to use a joystick with Heretic2, you might wanna check out www.hexen2.com and grab the patch.
  
  

werd
Look at you guys, all web browsing and shit, You guys are SO MONEY.
You're so money and you don't even know it!

I forgot to mention I was off at a LAN party with the MuppetClan guys here over the weekend. Everyone thank Jack Mathews for his incredible webmastering skills. Um, isnt interesting stuff supposed to happen on Monday? Talk about a yawner to start off the week.

SHOGO 2.1 Patch [7:00pm]
Lith has released 2 new patches for Shogo. The first was a 2.1 patch, and the second is to patch the patch. Seems to be a general bugfix release and adds support for the Microsoft Gaming Zone (boooo!). As the shipping Shogo was pretty buggy, as well as the alpha patch, I'd have to suggest getting these (courtesy of PlanetShogo).

Shogo 2.1 Patch
Shogo 2.1 Patch Patch

GameStats Stuff [7:00pm]
Steve got a big honking email about goings-on at GameStats. First, they have reviews for Half-Life, Blood 2, and Sin. They're also having a Get Medieval contest where you can win that. Plus, they're sponsoring a charity event for the Ronald McDonald House called Games Of Encouragement. Check it out.Mad Steering Skillz [7:00pm]
CPR Extreme has done a lil review of the Microsoft Force Feedback Steering wheel. Not that it has anything to do with 3D shooters, it's just fun to hit the buttons on it at Fry's and watch it nearly shake itself off the table.Sound Card Reviews [7:00pm]
Fast Graphics has done a comparison of the SoundBlaster Live!, the Monster Sound MX300, and the "cheapo" (quoting them) Sonic S90. Read here.Pure3D II's QA Dept. [7:00pm]
Seems that the refresh rates in the new Pure3D II Beta Drivers are borked up, and the Control Panel doesn't set them correctly. I'm sure they'll blame this one on 3Dfx too :-). There's two fixes out. The first is a .reg file from Purified 3D. The second is to set all of these environment variables in a batch file somewhere:

SET SSTV2_REFRESH_512x384=75
SET SSTV2_REFRESH_640x400=75
SET SSTV2_REFRESH_640x480=75
SET SSTV2_REFRESH_800x600=75
SET SSTV2_REFRESH_1024x768=75

If you run out of environment space because of your other /<-Rad Voodoo2 settings, just set the refresh rates for the resolutions you'll use, or start up a DOS Box by going Start/Run/command /e:4096 (thanks Thorson)

Black Crypt is back. [7:00pm]
Rick Johnson and folks at Raven have re-released Raven's first game, Black Crypt. Check it out, it's pretty cool looking back, though it froze here on Steve's machine. Here's a link to Rick's .plan on the subject, and here's the Black Crypt website.

That's what you get for trying unreleased stuff. [7:00pm]
The supposed Half-Life 1.0.0.7 "beta patch" is neither a beta nor a patch. It turns out it's a program that'll send your CD-Key over to some very smart person who I'm sure will do very bad things with it. This should teach you not to run betas you get on IRC until you make some kind of confirmation of their validity. Full story on I am Half Life.

Planet Review exists. [7:00pm]
The guys over at Planet Review keep emailing Steve every time they review something, which is really quite often. So I thought I'd mention their existance because I'm a nice guy.

Unreal 220 released [7:00pm]
Thanks VE - Epic's really trying with the Internet play stuff. Haven't tried this one out yet, but anyway, Unreal 220's out. You can get it from Epic right here. There's also been lots of updates by Tim and the gang on the Unreal Tech Page in the past few days. They include updates on the roadmap on Unreal as well as a few misc tidbits of interest. Also, make sure not to use DOS PKZip to unzip the patch, as it has long file names.

Populous: The Beginning Screenshots [7:00pm]
Again, something else not going with 3D Action, but I like Populous, so nyah :) Here's some screenshots of the ever pretty Populous 3.

Reviews [7:00pm]
Heretic2 - Hexen2.com, HereticII.com, GameStats.

Shogo - Crus.com, which gives me a bit of hopeful news:

Now an enemy will shoot you if you shoot him, his teammate will join in too, even if he didn't see you.

Half Life - 3dgaming.net, GameStats.

Populous: The Beginning - 3D Core

Steve and Mike watch Gross Pointe Blank all day every day [7:00pm]
Whee. Charlie's got family in town, so I've got to shack up with Steve and Mike here. Dunno why I like updating this silly page for that lazy Steve, guess it's some self destructive behavior or a complex or something. Oh, and Steve just pointed out I did the reviews section wrong, cry me a river :)

Oh, we saw Star Trek: Insurrection this week. Pretty decent entry in the series, a good watch.

Tip of the Day: After dropping out of college, make sure to keep your student ID so you can get into movies cheaper.