go to www.shugashack.com for up to date news.
| Saturday, February 20 |
Permedia 3 info [10:00 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
With all the attention that the Savage4, Voodoo3 and Rage128 are getting, some might have
forgotten about the Permedia 3 (though not if you have been reading Shack lately!)
Here's is something to catch up with -- An overview of the technology courtesy
of Kert!
Breaking from tradition, 3D Lab's Permedia 3 graphics processor is engineered for gaming performance. Originally scheduled to sample during the second half of 1998, the chip has just begun sampling and full production is expected in the second quarter. The nine million transistor die is manufactured using .25 micron process and encased in a 456-pin BGA package. Compared to a .35 micron fabrication process, a .25 micron process creates a denser, more compact chip. A higher density chip runs at a higher clock speed. A compact chip produces less heat for stability at higher clock speeds and costs less.
Video on Super7 [9:45 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Have one of those AMD systems and pretty fed up with all the
video card problems? Check out this good article
from Ace's Hardware. So what's wrong with the Super7...
Well, the number of incompatibilities between super 7 and AGP videocards have been reduced dramatically with the introduction of better AGP drivers by ALI and VIA. Ok, most of us, some after a lot fiddling (a wink to Paul), now have stable systems, but to get there a lot of you had to disable quite a few performance enhancing features in the bios.
On top of that, the super 7 memory bus is not as good as the slot 1/PII bus. The former locks the bus for each I/O activity, the latter is a deeply pipelined, transaction based bus. Hence, the slot 1 bus is better, although not much better.
And don't forget, intel is the creator of AGP, so the intel chipsets have a de facto advantage over the others. The AGP performance of slot 1 VIA chipsets is somewhat lower than the BX-chipset.
So is super 7 doomed to be a cheap but low performance alternative to slot 1? Does super 7 have any chance with all those low cost socket 370 boards out there? Should gamers consider super 7 or not? It is crystal clear that super 7 needs a fast videocard otherwise all gamers out there better buy a slot 1 + TNT combo.
Sweeney on SSE/3DNow! [9:00 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Good ole VE has posted a little bit on what Epic's Tim
Sweeney makes of these new instruction sets, SSE for the P3 and 3DNow! for the newer AMD
CPUs. He then goes onto say that optimizing for these new sets is a bitch.
Growing pains :( Oh, KNI has been renamed to SSE.
KNI will be better in the long run, since it supports 4 simultaneous operations while 3DNow only does 2 simultaneous operations. The KNI's precaching capabilities will also be very useful once developers learn how to exploit it. Neither one is being exploited well by current games/engines -- the 3DNow (released) and KNI (coming later) tweaks to the Unreal engine are only getting a 5-10% performance boost. The real improvement will come when games are designed from the ground up to take advantage of SIMD floating point.
Models in Tribes [7:45 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Speaking of Tribes, Datumplane has posted a short
Q&A regarding the models in Tribes. Here's half of it:
James: How many polys are the average model? Max on which? Least on which?
Griffon: The number of polys depends on which level of detail. At the hightest level they are about 450. This ranges down to about 100 at low detail.
James: What programs do you use to make these?
Griffon: 3D Studio MAX but I use Lightwave 3D
James: Will mod makers be able to make their own models at a later date?
Griffon: Yes, when we release the exporter.
GLTribes? [5:45 am]
Tim Gift of Dynamix has another
update for those of you just dying for that OpenGL port of TRIBES to hit the net. He
also yaps a bit about what else we can expect to see in the next 1.3 patch:
The Starsiege team is definitely intent on shipping with OpenGL to avoid the flak that TRIBES has been getting :) At this point TRIBES/OpenGL is going through final QA, soon as our QA lead thinks it's ready for beta, it's out the door. Should be sometime next week. We are going to have an open beta, as there seems to be a lot of people who want to test it. There are still a number of outstanding issues with OpenGL, we'll have them all documented in the release notes as well as a list of all the cards that we've tested with. We'll be looking for feedback on the driver, compatibility problems, performance issues, etc.
The OpenGL beta patch will include a few other client side fixes as well; no longer linking directly to the OpenGL library (GLU32), a client side badword filter, keyboard break fix, few other items. As this the patch is not a major release, we don't recommend that you download it unless you are having problems with the current release, or want to test the new features.
Speaking of Starsiege, the single player strain has some new shots over at GameWire. Saw that at VE
Heretic2 Expansion Pack Details [5:45 am]
Still not clear about what the heck all the hubbub is about Raven's little expansion pack for Heretic2 is? Here
are a few details sent along by the guys at Ravengames.com
Controllable Spin Attack: The spin attack in the retail version randomly chose between two different types, a clockwise horizontal spin and a counterclockwise overhead downward slash. Some people had requested the ability to control which slash is used. So, in the new system, if a player is running straight forward and attacks, the overhead downward slash is used. If that player is running forward and strafing when they attack, the horizontal spin is used.
Downward Stab: The character will flip his or her staff, and spear it downward. Very hard to hit with, but a sucessful stab will do 250% damage. Can be executed two ways. While standing still, if action is held and attack is pressed, the move will be executed. More a move just for show in this case. Otherwise, if the player is jumping forward with the staff ready (not running and jumping, because the player will polevault), if jump is held and attack is pressed, the attacker will come down with a powerful downward stab.
Back Sweep: This move sweeps the back around the character's back. It is not as powerful as a normal hit, but can be useful in a critical situation. This can be used at any time by holding the action key and pressing attack with the staff at the ready.
Views [MISC]
Tech [MISC]
y0 - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Yawn...whoops, got caught up playing some Quake2. Now
for some interesting news...slow weekend though. Updates posted to the tune of Rob
Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe.
werd
Very... tired... thank you for the weekend getting here.
Majesty should hook you guys up with a bit more coverage later today, I've got to pass out
though. I forgot to mention that the reasons
to live went live yesterday afternoon. Well they did. :)
A new version of mIRC is out for those of you who do the IRC thing to organize your clan matches. Thanks SailorScout.
| Friday, February 19 |
Zoid & Q3A [5:35 pm]
Birthday today Zoid, the man behind all those linux / solaris ports of Quake, QuakeWorld,
Quake2, and other stuff in development now is interviewed about just how he does
it over at linuxpower.org. Thanks Magnet
It is looking that the initial version of Q3A for Linux will be Mesa/3DFX specific. This is really the only widely available hardware accelerated 3D method under LInux. This is changing. I will have some support for XI Graphics' Accelerated-X supporting their new hardware OpenGL implementation, and possibly MetroWorks. I also plan on supported any new OpenGL hardware support forthcoming from other vendors and especially the XFree86 people.
New SBLive! Patches [3:15 pm]
BetaNews has word if you own a SBLive! from Creative you are obligated to check out the EAX
patches for these games. 3 new ones have just come out for you kiddies to play with:
Download Descent: FreeSpace 1.06 EAX Patch - 896 KB
Download Blood 2 EAX Patch - 12,424 KB
Download Thief: The Dark Project EAX Patch - 10,392 KB
Visit the SB Live! EAX Patch Website
The Blood2 stuff was included in the point release yesterday. Just a warning so you don't go downloading twice.
Final FSB Overclock Util [3:15 pm]
Not recommended for the newbie, but if you are comfortable with overclocking the bus on
your PC then you should grab
these great utils that let you do just that. But without even going into your BIOS!
Very cool, and successful for most people I've talked to. I forgot to mention earlier that
these tools dont work on Super7 boards and are only meant for Intel boards. Thanks Tony G.
New Demos [4:05 pm]
Ok got 3 new demos for you guys to check
out this week. Some 3on3, some 2on2, and some clan arena. Can't wait to start cranking
out those quake3 demos eh? Wonder if there will be demo support in Q3Test...
Some reasonable reasons to live will be up in about an hour. I'm starving!
3DNow! vs KNI [3:15 pm]
AMD has put together a page
comparing their 3DNow! technology to the upcoming KNI technology that will be included
with the yet to be officially released Pentium3 CPU.
...Additionally, the AMD-K6-2 processor with 3DNow! technology requires no changes to current x86 operating systems, and this architectural design forethought has allowed AMD's instruction set to gain momentum in the marketplace. The installed base of PCs with 3DNow! technology is planned to exceed 30 million systems by the end of 1999. 3DNow! technology's performance and operating system "friendliness" has enabled AMD to garner widespread software support while providing tangible benefits to customers who use AMD-K6-2 processors.
Typical PR crap with not much substance as always, but some people are into that. Saw that on VE.
The Russian Front [4:25 am]
Thanks to Freed for the word that Next-Generation
Online has picked up a story on a great looking TC for a TC. Borderline Productions is
working on "The Russian Front" which will take on the TF2 conversion for
Half-Life and convert it to the Nazi-esque
WW2 Theme. They of course dont have any code done, but have a look at the cool
screenshots of the textures and models they got going.
The main focus of the mod will be planning and team work. Not mindless shooting at anything that moves. "It's still unclear as to how this will work exactly although we have the basic ideas already in place. We will develop a number of communication systems for the mod. A number of preset keyboard commands will allow you to shout out orders to your comrades in the language of your chosen race either German or Russian. Say you hit Alt-H and shouted out 'Halt,' your own team members within 100 yards would hear 'Stop!,' whereas the enemy team within 100 yards would only hear 'Halt!,' and would not know how to react as your own team may. There are two other communication systems at work in the mod but I'm not allowed to talk about them yet (team policy).
Also, Gabe Newell was nice enough to send me this image of several of the TFC characters you can expect to see. (He included it with the release of those 2 maps that came out a couple of days ago)
Sacrifice & Footage [4:25 am]
Based on the Shiny technology that also powers Messiah, John Doe sends word on this little blurb
describing just what the heck Sacrifice is. What is even cooler is there is some video
footage, woo.
Are you ready for a totally new spin on a strategy game? Sacrifice* is a combat-oriented, real-time strategy game, with a twist. Experience an epic fantasy world of magic and mystery through a third-person camera view. You're a wizard, and you must cast spells, summon creatures, and defeat other wizards to gain the favor of the gods. Summon creatures to protect you, or blast your enemies into tomorrow using attack magic. You can even cast spells that alter the landscape or transform the weather system. Lose yourself in fantasy. Let Sacrifice cast its spell on you.
Unreal Tournament & Pentium3 [4:25 am]
Saw at VE that the Unreal web page (Not the tech page) has a post concerning Unreal Tournament
utilizing KNI as well as S3TC from the S3 folks.
At Intel´s Pentium® III Processor Preview Day, Epic participated by showing Unreal Tournament which has been optimized for the Pentium III processor. The Pentium III optimized version of Unreal Tournament was also shown at the S3 stand with high resolution S3TC textures. Both technologies will appear in the final release version of Unreal Tournament and will be incorporated into the Unreal Engine for the use of Epic's licensees
Speaking of Pentium3, check out the GameCenter article.
Heretic2 Expansion Pack [4:25 am]
The free expansion pack for Heretic2 is getting ever closer.
Check out the .plan update from Pat Lipo saying it's just a bug fix
away.
The Heretic II EP is almost there. QA and we are both hammering on one tiny remaining bug. Thanks to all the beta testers for all their assistance, support and patience!
Views [4:25 am]
Tech Jive [4:25 am]
werd
Catching up is a pain in the ass. been up for gettin close to 24hours and I'm just finally
getting started on news. Don't get all pissy if I dont answer email right away. I'm
trying. update: Ok counter fixed, messageboard fixed, misc cgi stuff fixed. Anything else
broken?
Busted my ass to get this news out before sleep. Now I'm gonna get a nap then bust out with a pair of weekly sections for you guys (new demos and some reasons to live!)to catch up for my down time. Deal?
| Thursday, February 18 |
Maps in Daikatana [5:15 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
William Haskins of the IS Daily Informant
has posted an update from lead level designer, Chris Klie.
"We're moving forward to Episode 2 mop-up," Chris answered. "Episode 1 is at beta, and right now we're focusing on bug fixes and polish. The mappers have done an incredible job, giving the first episode a record-fast facelift, and adding a level of interactivity demanding gamers have come to expect."
So what is the main focus of his mappers right now? Chris broke it down for us: "Rich Carlson has been working steadily to improve the aesthetic quality of e1m1. Larry Herring and Bobby have been tightening e1m3 and e1m5, and Iikka has extensively re-worked e1m6 and e1m7, giving the maps a completely dark, "other-worldly" quality. The episode is gorgeous, and, on its own, feels like a complete game. 3 more to go."
We shall see -- I've certainly got a watchful eye-on Ion :P
Another P3 review [5:15 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Andy over at BXBoards has put a P3 through its
paces. With all the recent reviews saying pretty much the same thing, we can all
go on enjoying our lovely overclocked Celerons! Nevertheless, this review is still
packed with good stuff.
Extreme Annihilation [5:15 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Sean Center mailed me this link about EA
going on March 12, 1999 and will take place in Dallas, Texas at the Westin Park Central
Hotel. At the same time, I noticed on VE, some info
about Software Etc and Babbages giving
away 600 free passes to the event. Doh, can't make it :|
Starsiege gold soon [5:05 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Straight from the PR:
The Dynamix development team announced today the completion of a Final Gold Candidate of Starsiege, their highly-anticipated sci-fi sim. The final product is expected to ship this March.
The Gold Candidate of Starsiege will now enter the short but rigorous (24-hours, seven days a week) process known as "finaling," a process in which every detail of the product is scrutinized for possible inconsistencies in the progamming code. Once Starsiege completes this process, a perfect Gold Master of the program will be produced, given final approval by the team, and distributed by parent company Sierra
The Starsiege builds have been amazingly stable for some time now, thanks in part to our many public Tech Releases and our recent Wide Beta," said Rick Overman, director/lead programmer, "So I'm expecting the official Gold Master approval to be swift.
And I have yet to even play Tribes! I still need to finish H-L.
Turok 2 review [4:45 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Amer at SE puts the smack down on Acclame's
Turok 2 for PC. From what I have played, I'd say that this is a dud compared to the
original. With such a flooded FPS market, unfortunately there are going to be a few
that just don't cut it. Other than all the cool weapons, this game is a lot
of hype. Here's a bit on my favorite weapon of the game, the Cerebral Bore (how
appropriate ;)
After locking onto an enemy, the cumbersome gun fires a single pod which makes its way towards the target's head and proceeds to drill into their brain. The amount of blood and gray matter that it funnels is enough to make anyone sick. The pod explodes after 5 seconds of drilling, decapitating its victim.
Also on SE is their review of the Asus 50x CDROM. Damned fast, damned loud.
3Dfx interview [1:15 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Fullon3D Hardware has done a 10 question
interview with developer relations manager (3Dfx evangelist) Brian Bruning. Just
as we have come to expect from the Korny guy, there's an analysis on each of his answers.
Question 6
What can you say about the OpenGL ICD issue?Answer 6 - Click for analysis
We know there is a demand from both the tools market and parts of the gaming segment for a full OpenGL ICD. And we've promised to deliver it for Banshee and Voodoo 3.The work has been more time consuming that we thought and the launch has been delayed until Q1'99.
We're working with developers now (and have just released a new beta to them) to make sure it covers the functionality they need.
Soldier of Fortune interview [1:10 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Eric Turman, senior animator, was interviewed
on S-o-F. Main theme here being motion capture. What's motion capture you
ask?
Turmanator: In the most basic terms, mocap (motion capture) is recording someone's movement into the computer. A stuntperson (Barton Smith for the bulk of our moves for SoF) put on a black lycra suit with reflective silver balls on all of his joints. Surrounding the actor in a circle are seven video cameras, each with red strobing lights that feed info into a computer, controlled by a technician. The computer compares the glowing dots and places them in 3D space. Another technician connects the constellation of dots (the foot dot is connected to the ankle dot, etc.) and makes sure that the move will work.
Starseige shots and Tribes bots [1:00 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Datumplane has a few exclusive shots
of the the upcoming Starsiege, as well as official bot stuff straight from Dynamix.
Here's the deal with bots:
This "bots" mod is meant as an illustration of how simple drones may be set up in multi-player missions. For this to work, the 1.2 (or greater) version of Tribes is required for the SERVER, any version of the client should work (if any problems are encountered, an update would be recommended).
In the version 1.2 Tribes update we set up some simple default drone behavior which will take place if the mission (.MIS) file contains certain marker groups (which can be set up in the mission editor). You can look at AI.CS (in base\scripts within your executable directory) to see how this default behavior is implemented. Anyone interested in extending the drone functionality could use this as a starting point. Section 2. below briefly outlines how this default drone behavior works.
Carmack on advisory boards [4:30 am] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
eps sent a link from
regarding John Carmack being on the Nvidia advisory board.
NVIDIA's advisory board consists of leaders that provide the company with the vision of the future in PC graphics architecture (Pat Hanrahan, Stanford University), production of animation (Ed Catmull, Pixar Animation) and future video games (John Carmack, id Software)...
And then VE asked the man himself about just that:
I am on their technical advisory board (NOT board of directors), but I am also on 3dfx's technical advisory board. I give honest opinions to any chip company that seeks my advice (lately I have been working very closely with ati), but 3dfx and nvidia have formalized the arrangement.
John Carmack
Tom Hall interview [4:00 am] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Also on NGO was an interview
with Tom Hall all about Anachronox, what could possibly be Ion's saving grace.
What is your opinion of the Quake 2 engine? How did you implement it into the game?
"Quake 2 was the best, most stable engine available at the time. It's wonderful, and we've made many enhancements to it including volumetric fog, 24-bit textures with 256 levels of translucency. These features make it an extremely competitive engine. By the time we're done, there may not be a lot of the original rendering engine left, but it was great for the time, and provided an awesome, stable base to start making a game. Few engines look as beautiful in motion as Anachronox does. People that have seen it say our screenshots don't do it justice. That's nice to hear."
Q3A on P3 [4:00 am] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
You guys think Intel is promoting their enhanced revision of the P2 enough? On OGN, I saw this excerpt:
QUAKE III Arena will benefit significantly from Pentium III processor’s optimized open GL drivers, " said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software. "With better technology and improved performance, the gaming world has a lot to look forward to."
And then they go on to mention how how cool playing bots will be on the 30+ maps. So...Q3A will perform better with optimized drivers. Huh, imagine that. Also, Fred has created his own Q3A banner from the screenshots that have been floating around.
Still not enough P3? Saw on NGO that speeds of 650MHz are in the works for the .25 micron process. I don't know how much more they can squeeze out of the .25, or P6 family though.
SGI releases OGL on the WWW [4:00 am] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
From the cool guys at 3D-Drivers: Silicon
Graphics Releases OpenGL Windowing Code to open souce community is the announcement
that's said to "Release Further Extends Proliferation of OpenGL Across All Operating
Systems." I think this is a smart move on their part to expand hardware acceleration,
and I hope we will see all manufactures start to put OpenGL support on all their video
cards. The following clarification was sent in by Spiderus: SGI released GLX,
the source code that interfaces GL with the X windowing system. The source code itself
includes neither OpenGL or X.
OGL Tribes [4:00 am] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Planetstarsiege has 3 screenshots
of Tribes running under OpenGL using a TNT based card at 800x600 resolution.
Permedia 3 on P3 [3:30 am] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Saw on GA that 3DLabs is planning on shipping the
Permedia 3 with support for those KNI/SSE featured in the Pentium 3s. Nothing really
shocking, but it does mean that at least something will start using those new
instructions.
3Dlabs today announced that the Windows drivers for the 3Dlabs PERMEDIA 3 graphics processor will incorporate support for the Streaming SIMD extensions incorporated in the Intel Pentium III processor. These driver enhancements are expected to deliver advanced 3D geometry processing performance for applications utilizing both the DirectX 6.1 and OpenGL application programming interfaces. PERMEDIA 3 and its software drivers are expected to begin shipping in volume in the second quarter of 1999.
Tech Jives [9:09 am]
Stuff [3:00 am] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
y0 [3:00
am]
Heya, still Marcus here. Got a good 3 hours of sleep which should be enough to fuel
the fire for the rest of the day. Remember -- Sleep is the enemy. Steve should
be back within a day or two, depending on what happens in Mexico. So, how was my first day? I'd have a comment
system at the bottom, but...I don't.
Oh yeah, some people were asking if I had anything to compare the Tomb Raider 3 and Drakan, and since I posted those Rynn (Drakan) pics...check this page out. It's in Italian, but that's not the point ;)
-- part 2 --
Sup, Huntsman here. I just wanted to say I would give a lot of money if my last name was a
potato :) Oh yeah, I like that Drakan girl. If you
are reading, Miss, email me! I'll uh, let you
watch me update the shugashack! Or something. Also I would personally like to propose that
the Pentium III be renamed to "Pentium II +". They are trying to pull the wool
over your eyes here, people. Fight the man!
| Wednesday, February 17 |
New Half-Life maps and TFC info [9:00 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Saw on Billy's polygon dunking
page that Valve has released some new Half Life treats. Really lengthy post, so I
trimmed it down to the nitty-gritty!
The first map is Dario Casali's follow-up to Crossfire, called DoubleCross.Here are his comments and the BSP.
The principal is the same as in Crossfire. There is a bunker which can be used to call a nuclear strike against anyone outside of it every four minutes. Once the strike has been called, a one minute warning siren activates, giving everyone the chance to get to the bunker. There are far more tactical points in this map than in Crossfire and it also addresses the bug in the Crossfire where people wouldn't get killed by the strike sometimes.
<<doublecross.bsp - 1.49Mb>>
The second map, Rustmill, was a combined effort from Dave Riller and John Guthrie. Here are John's comments:
Rustmill is the most fun when teamwork and strategy are used (rather than freely roaming around with guns blazing.) A team of four can rule the rustmill when playing different roles: A commander, a base defender, and two attackers can coordinate to clean up the enemy very successfully. The commander studies the tracking computer and relays enemy positions to the attackers. The base defender protects the commander and bunker doors so the enemy cannot infiltrate and take over, and the attackers load up on guns and teleport into the rooms of the unsuspecting enemy.
<<Rustmill.bsp - 3.57Mb >>
And, as people remind us on pretty much an hourly basis, there's a lot of interest in Team Fortress Classic. Testing is going well, and Chuck put together this image showing each of the different character classes
<<TFC Classes.jpg>>
Blood 2 point release [9:00 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Planetblood
has the info on the long awaited Blood 2
patch. Highlights of the update include:
Grab it at:
Planetquake
GT
Web Access
Monolith
Drakan Q&A [4:15 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Drakan.Net has a
short Q&A with John McWilliams about their upcoming game about a gymnastically
skilled pony tail on an attractive female. Umm, sounds good.
Q: What types of deathmatch play can we look forward to in Drakan?
A: DM in Drakan will be quite different from anything seen as of yet in multiplayer gaming. Gameplay can take place in one of many modes which include, air only, and ground only, as PCXL stated, but we expect the more popular modes to be Air & Ground, or our fourth play style, which is still in development; Queen of the Dragon. QOTD bases its gameplay on the idea of few dragons, and many guiders. This creates a scene where everyone is racing for control of the dragons, and afterwards, the Frag Count. The very different part comes with the combat style; in the air, you have all the traditional dragon breath weapons, available as Quake style pickup weapons, and physical Dragon attacks, which can be quite deadly.
Oh yeah, and check these (and those ;) pics of the "real" Rynn model out. Shot 1 -- Shot 2. I could handle that.
Quake 2 (and 3?) on BeOS [3:15 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Huntsman told me he found this bit over on Slashdot (Whoa, 666!).
Basically, at the Intel P3 Preview, they had Quake 2 running on a P3 400MHz (yeah,
I know but it doesn't make a difference) on a Voodoo 2 running in a window! There
are also a couple screen shots of the action.
Using a Pentium III based system and hardware acceleration cards using 3Dfx' Voodoo II chips Be was able to show both improved geometry performance using new instructions built into the Pentium III CPU and improved rasterization performance using Voodoo II based products.
This was also the first time Quake II - the application used for the demonstration had been seen on the BeOS platform.
And when Carmack was asked about a Q3A port?
We will probably cooperate with someone to get a Q3 port done
Kingpin demo and movie [2:45 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Slade at Gangland
spotted a post by Greg Goodrich of Xatrix regarding a Kingpin demo and non-interactive
movie. I can't wait!
It looks like we will most likely release the demo prior to the release of the non-interactive movie.
Let me explain why...
The demo is in its final stages now and will be ready for release very shortly. It will include the entire first episode and will most likely be quite large.
Non-interactive movie trailers in gaming serve a few purposes. The first is to generate excitement about the product (in the fan base) before an interactive demo is ready and the second is for retailers to play on the video monitors in selected outlets. Unfortunately for us, the movie trailer we want to show you folks is much different (content wise) then what would be allowed to show in retail outlets. Also, Sony/Columbia will not allow us to "give away" an entire song for free.
The result of all of this is that we have decided to get the demo out first in its "raw" and "un-censored" way and then follow it up with the movie which has been edited for viewing in the retail outlets.
Juiced up P3 speed [2:30 pm] - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
Originally thought that the Pentium III would launch at speeds
of 450 and 500MHz, SE has learned that Intel
would be shipping both P3s and Xeons clocked at 550MHz on the official date of Feb 26th.
Pretty damned fast, but considering early 500s can do 560MHz (5x112), this doesn't
seem like much of a stretch.
Official QuakeCon word [2:30 pm] - Marcus
'Majesty' Yam
Firing Squad has the
bit on QC99: QuakeCon '99 details have been announced today. Not only will it be the first
official Quake 3 tournament, but it will also feature workshops on gaming issues like
level design and programming. Also there will be a seminar made specifically for female
Quake fans. QuakeCon '99 is sponsored by AMD, ATI, and Apple(!), and will be held Aug 6-8
in Mesquite, Texas. Attendance is free, but limited to 1000. For more details, check out the QuakeCon website. Also, here's the press release.
Redwood on Quake3 [6:15 am]
Redwood has posted
his 1 paragraph summary of his Quake3 experience. Looks like the lightning gun has made
its way into the game, as well as a chainsaw.
They have some innovative levels that are really cool and fun to play. Weapons included the chainsaw (not quite working right), machine gun, super shotgun (awesome), grenade launcher (iffy if it will stay in), rocket launcher (faster now but not like Q1 thankfully), plasma gun (this rocks), lightning gun (worked but model/effect were temp...deadly in Thresh's hands), rail gun (fires quicker but causes slightly less damage), and the BFG (think instant hit rockets and actually requires aiming now). Weapon change speed is perfect.
Odium [6:15 am]
From AGN3D: Nextgen has put up an interview
with Adrian Chmielarz, co-owner of Polish developer Metropolis and designer about the
upcoming Odium game being published through Monolith.
Have you taken care to bring atmospheric sound-effects to the gamer?
"Of course! You're not necessarily scared by what you see. What you don't see can be more frightening. Imagine you enter a house and you know there's a serial killer waiting for you inside. If you know for certain he's upstairs, then you're not as afraid as if you don't know where he is and expect him behind every corner. So yes, the sound is extremely important. Music, ambient sounds and gameplay sounds: we try our best to scare the player to death."
Drakan.net [6:15 am]
The new Drakan.net
website has opened up for business and it's a damn fine looking page. Make's me wonder
when the facelift will go down here? Soon maybe? I'm praying for before the month is
finished. :)
New GameSpy [6:15 am]
The shareware version of the new GameSpy which features
support for TRIBES and Redline has been posted over at www.gamespy.com.
CliffyB [6:15 am]
The loonygames interview with CliffyB of Epic Games
has been posted. Cliffy worked on both Unreal as well as Jazz2, and is now heading up the
design on Unreal Tournament which we are hoping to see in March. Here is the quote Octane
grabbed:
Unreal was a mix of many different visions, really. James' initial vision of Unreal was a mech game that took place on rolling landscapes and in dingy caverns. Tim didn't care, he just wanted to make cool shit. I wanted to make something fun that scared the hell out of the player.
TombRaider3 Demo [6:15 am]
Havent had a chance to back Lara into a corner yet? Yet
another new demo of Tomb Raider 3 has been released with some tropical island flavors
going on. Check out the
GameSpot page for details and downloads.
Tech
funk dat - Marcus 'Majesty' Yam
[3:00 pm] Greetings all! Yup, that's right, Steve is on
his little outing, so here I am. Unfortunately, I was unable to make it to the V3
showing, but I will contribute to the article with word droppings here and there.
I'm like...tired now. I got about 30 mins of sleep, so see ya in a bit! Feel free to
email me for any reason (or none at all :)
werd
I'm taking off to check out STB and the Voodoo3 cards today
and tomorrow. I'll be home Thursday evening, only after drinking Thresh under the table in
Mexico.
A new guy is coming on board here at da Shack. Marcus Yam aka Majesty. Marcus is going to be heading up the new hardware endeavors here on the page as well as doing a bit of front page along with Huntsman. Many of you guys are probably already familiar with Marcus. If you ever read a hardware review at VoodooExtreme, the majority of the work was Marcus. Between the two of these guys they should keep you covered while I'm gone.
The Voodoo3 article should be live on the 22nd.
| Tuesday, February 16 |
Messiah Shots [5:45 pm]
The guys at MessiahPress
have busted out a half dozen new screenshots of Shiny's Messiah project.
Sound [4:45 pm]
Couple of bits on the sound front for you guys. Got word
that Interplay has posted some sound
samples from Cypress Hill for KingPin
on their website, also saw this on Blues: Frag Fortune interviews' Chia Chin Lee,
sound designer for Raven software about Raven's upcoming Quake II-engine game of mercenary
action, Soldier of Fortune, talking about gameplay as well as sound issues.
Permedia3 [4:45 pm]
More press release action on the
3DLabs Permedia3 chipset that VE spotted:
3Dlabs®, Inc. (Nasdaq: TDDDF - news) today announced immediate sampling of the new 3Dlabs PERMEDIA® 3 graphics processor, with volume shipment expected in second quarter of 1999. PERMEDIA 3, the first 128-bit device in the award-winning PERMEDIA product family, incorporates support for 32-bit true-color displays, a full 32-bit Z-buffer and up to 32 Mbytes of graphics RAM to deliver high-quality picture realism as well as exceptional 3D and 2D performance. With a fill-rate of 125 million multi-textured pixels-per-second, PERMEDIA 3 offers the graphics power desired by game enthusiasts, mainstream PC consumers, and corporate desktop users
Speaking of video card stuff, Canopus has released some new drivers for their Spectra 2500 TNT card. Thanks Riva3D
Quake2 Cinema [4:35 pm]
Got another Quake2 movie for you guys to check out featuring
some kickin music and a pimp model you'll dig on. Head over tp p1mp slap productions and grab the movie.
Screenshots [2:55 pm]
A couple of sets of screenshots for you to check out. www.planetstarsiege.com has gotten a hold of a shot from the Starsiege
beta, and Billy over at VE has gotten a few shots of Heavy Gear II.
Light My Fire [3:55 pm]
Amazing.. Got about 30 emails on the subject of today's
werd. I felt it was time to
share with you guys some of the testimonials I have gotten from around the world.
Ass-Wack Links? [4:15 pm]
So I'm thinking I'll be swapping out Tuesday and Wednesday.
Check out the latest wack-ass links of
the week in my effort to broaden your horizons.
Intel's Roadmap [5:55 am]
So just what do those monkeys over at Intel have planned for
us to play Quake3 on this year? SharkyExtreme gets down and
dirty taking a look at just about every single CPU that Intel will be sending down the
pipe through the end of this year broken down into pricing brackets etc.
The transition from slot 1based SEPP (Single Edge Processor Package) Celerons to the PPGA (Plastic Pin Grid Array) connector will happen mostly in Q1 and see the SEPP Celeron phased out completely in Q2 in favor of PPGA. Intel feels that the packaging transition from SEPP to PPGA Celerons reduces the cost by some $10 per unit.
Half-Life Uplink [5:55 am]
I finally got a chance to play through the recently released
Half-Life demo from Valve Software and once again those guys put out the good stuff. Even
if you have played through the full game I highly recommend you check out the demo which
includes new levels / dialogue. There is a walkthrough
for you wussies that cant make it alone. Also Billy got some mail about a HL-Uplink "Lite" download for those
of you who have the full game. It cuts the 50+ meg download all the way down to 4mb.
As a special treat to all you Half-Life fans who already own the game and don't want to download a 50 meg file to play the new Uplink demo that features new levels - Morpheus has made a scaled down version that includes only the needed files, and it clocks in at just under 4 meg !! To get it just download uplink_lite.exe
New Quake3 Shots! [YESTERDAY]
Carried over from yesterday evening because everyone needs
to look at these screenshots. Woah! Check out these new screenshots that id Software
released. Thanks BigImp for the word:
You might recognize a couple of these shots that originally appeared in the Next-Gen article, but a couple of them are new as well. They all look pretty damn cool though in general yes? Go tell everyone how cool you think they are or how much you think they suck on the Quake3 messageboard.
Blood2 [5:55 am]
The PlanetBlood
guys have a couple of treats for us this morning. A pair of new screenshots as well as
some musical samples from the upcoming Blood2
mission pack. They also have the first chapter of their walkthroughs completed going
up to level 11 of the Monolith title. Saw them mofos on Blues
LithTech [5:55 am]
Stratics has done up an interview with the
LithTech programmers asking questinos about future technology that we can expect to
see from Monolith. Speaking of Monolith there is a review of the LithTech powered Shogo
over at Meccaworld.
Views [5:15 am]
Tech [5:55 am]
werd
Anyone here ever seen a fart lit first hand? There has to be
some online documentation of this. Or might it be one of those myths like cow tipping? I
tried going cow tipping once, and the only entertainment that night was watching my friend
Ted totally freak out when one of the cows started walking towards him. Damn Ted was a
wuss.
| Monday, February 15 |
Xatrix [5:15 pm]
www.gamedesign.net
has just posted a 10 question
interview with level designer dan koppel of xatrix talking about level design,
kingpin, etc.
Are there plans to release the editor with Kingpin?
Yes. The current plan is to ship the editor with the game. We have been working closely with Robert Duffy from the beginning so many of the features we use are already in the public build of QERadiant. The version that should ship with the game will work just like the current version plus we have added some great Kingpin specific features
Suck! [5:15 pm]
What, you can't do enough bitching and moaning yourself? You
need some help? Well I'm here for you man... I got your back. Check out the suck of the week.
Shack Hardware [4:15 pm]
Huntsman has done his weekly net search digging up all the latest and greatest prices
for those of you wishing to assemble a gaming rig, or just the craziest damn PC you can
think of. Low end system should run you about $1,200 and the high end system
is busting out over $25,000. Maybe you want something in between?
Pentium3 Release Date [3:15 pm]
Intel sent out a
little PR number yesterday giving the "official" launch date of the
Pentium3. The original plan suppsedly was to release during the Super Bowl. Don't know
what happened there though. Originally saw that on VE.
U.S. microprocessor group Intel Corp (Nasdaq:INTC - news) will officially launch its new Pentium III product on Feb. 26 following a big Feb. 17 preview event in San Jose, Calif. An Intel spokeswoman said Thursday that after the launch date computer manufacturers would have PCs with Pentium III available for sale. She added that Intel had not yet decided on the pricing of the Pentium III but that it should be the mainstream product of the company by the end of 1999. The Pentium III will be launched with clock rates of 450 to 500 megahertz. Intel aims to boost the clock rates of its products to one gigahertz, but the spokeswoman said it was not sure whether this would be a Pentium III version or another product.
SE 3DShooter Roundup [5:15 am]
Amer over at SharkyExtreme
has done up what is probably the
best 3D shooter roundup for 1998 I've seen. It's not even a fluff piece like most
"year in review" articles and goes through the highs and lows of the top 10
games of the past year. Well done
1998 saw the launch of a host of first person shooters, each powered by a 3D engine (or an incarnation of one) more impressive than the next. All in all, well over 20 titles were accounted for last year; a staggering figure. We separate the grizzle from the meat and serve up ten of 1998's biggest shooters in Sharky Extreme's Shooter Shootout. We start off with the cold and migrate to the hot.
Pentium3 [5:15 am]
PlanetHardware
has gotten a hold of a
Pentium3 CPU and puts it through the paces. Basically if you aint runnin something
that takes advantage of KNI, dont bother at this point.
The Pentium III ships with 32k of L1 cache, and will also run at the standard 100MHz front side bus speed, both of which are no improvement over the Pentium II. Compare this to the AMD K7 chip, which will run at a blistering 200MHz bus speed, and 128k of Level 1 cache, and you've got a losing battle on Intel's part. We'll have to wait and see if the second revisions of the Pentium III can compete with the K7, but it's for sure if they leave the PIII as is, the K7 will smoke it off the road.
You should also check out this ZDNet article.
Rainbow6 Tookit [5:15 am]
Rainbow6
Tookit is now available for public consumption as a beta product. It's a pretty useful
front end utility that helps you setup those multiplayer deals and includes some more
functions that should prove useful.
The toolkit is ready for its first public beta! You can download it from the downloads section or the direct link here. It is important for the development of this program that you guys give me feedback and share any new features you think the R6 Toolkit should have. Already in the works is an address book and a slider to adjust mouse sensitivity. Email me your opinions!
TRIBES [5:15 am]
Tim Gift updated his
.plan with some talk about updating the Dynamix TRIBES servers. Then I've also got a
pair of TRIBES guides for you guys to check out who are still having some problems getting
the hang of things. Check this out from Blue: Regenerated Forces Starsiege TRIBES
guide, promises to teach how to "terrorize" a TRIBES server, and GriBBsY's Beginner's Guide to TRIBES
is online offering a way to get your feet wet before spilling blood on the live
battlefield. Don't forget to check out the TRIBES
Sniping Tips page too. Don't forget to check out this 22player stack of
TRIBES players screenshot which is pretty cool.
Views [5:15 am]
Tech [5:15 am]
werd
Ahhhh gotta love a relaxing weekend.
I played my first 1on1s last night in 7 months. I had dropped 1on1s completely since the last tournament I played in going strictly clan only play. I do indeed have my work cut out for me. (read: I suck horribly) A guy can forget what a map looks like taking that much time off. Was that teleporter always in the middle of DM6? :)
| Sunday, February 14 |
TRIBES [5:15 am]
CGO puts the spotlight
on the lead level designer on that hot little TRIBES game, Scott Youngblood. Scott
talks a bit about the future patches for TRIBES and how come you havent played TRIBES yet
punk?
Scott: Tribes 2 will start development after we have finished addressing issues with Tribes 1. It will not have a 2 1/2 year development cycle (since we don't have to build the engine from scratch again) and will ship sometime in early 2000.
Some of the top things people have been asking for (Most of which we already had on our wish-list):
Ground Vehicles
Water based missions
More weapons to choose from
More Air Vehicles
Also check out yet another TRIBES guide that Billy spotted.
TF2 In Portugese! [5:15 am]
There's a new TF2 preview on Halflife.com.br,
and while it's in Portuguese, the info and pics and still worth it according to SailorScout.
Amen Sound [5:15 am]
Mooched right off of Blue:
CaveNews has posted samples of the music from
CaveDog's upcoming shooter, AMEN: The Awakening, along with word of a AMEN Developer Journal by
Jeremy Soule, the game's music composer. The music sample is available in .mp3 and
RealPlayer formats.
Webmaster Valentine [5:15 am]
From CGN: CGN
has kidnapped 15
webmasters/gamers to tell us their thoughts about Valentine's Day. The Valentine
interview gives you the scoop on their ideal Valentine getaway, their V-Day presents, and
even reveals their thoughts on finding that "special person"
I wussed out and didnt answer.
Wuzup Money? [5:15 am]
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.
werd
Yawn, weekend is it? I got a good amount of work done on
some underlying stuff for you guys Saturday. A fresh install of Windows always makes ya
wanna do something productive I guess. Hopefully I'll get over this problem soon.
I had a dream about Britney Spears last night. I hope the cops dont bust down my door today because I'm pretty sure I broke some sort of law.
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