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Saturday, July 18

More Sweeney [7:58]
Tim Sweeney is gettin buck wild with the posts to the message board answering questions. Here is a quote from his latest blurb

People have been asking about performance on other cards such as the ATI Rage Pro, Permedia, and some high-end OpenGL accelerators. I don't have any numbers on these cards, but the OpenGL alpha will be out soon enough, so people will be able to check them out and compare numbers.

Keith Leonard @ DreamForge (one of the two programmers working on the Unreal OpenGL support) reports that the Rendition v2200 is now up and running slightly faster than Voodoo 1, thanks to a heroic programming effort by Rendition on their OpenGL driver. He also feels that Intel i740 performance is mainly being held back by their driver: the i740 hardware supports 8-bit textures but the OpenGL driver does not -- so there is a possibility of much better performance if Intel enhances their driver. It looks like driver optimization is going to be crucial

More Views [7:58]

Tech [5:34]

Screenshots.net [5:34]
Yet another page has been added to our ever increasing kingdom of great websites. Check out the only source for screenshots you'll ever need that is *constantly* updated. www.screenshots.net

Unreal! [6:14]
A bit of Unreal stuff getting posted lately. First check out this hellafied post made by Tim Sweeney to the Unreal Technology Page.

The DreamForge guys have been working closely with Rendition, Intel, ATI, and nVidia to get the Unreal OpenGL driver working on a variety of 3d cards.  It's now working quite stably, thanks to everyone's efforts -- there was quite a bit of bug-chasing in the Unreal code and in several IHV OpenGL drivers.
<snip>
At the heart of the issue is texture usage.  Unreal levels use a huge quantity of textures.  Our typical levels use 10-15 megabytes of 8-bit texture maps created by the Digital Extremes artists.   In addition, there are 10-40 megabytes of light map textures, which are created on-the-fly as you run around the levels. We try to design our most complex scenes so that just under 2 megs of textures are visible, keeping visible detail to a maximum.  In addition, Unreal's rendering approach calls for switching among textures many times during rendering.

How radical is Unreal's texture usage? I'll estimate that the average Unreal scene uses 3-6 times more textures than the average Quake 2, Turrok, or Forsaken scene. Unreal is the first 3D game to go to this extreme, but nearly all of the upcoming next-generation games like Duke Nukem Forever, Wheel of Time, and Deus Ex will go the same route.

Next, check out what Mark Rein has to say about realizing that the Unreal net code has a strange odor coming from it.

You're guys are totally right, I was WRONG to say that Unreal would have Quakeworld quality internet play out of the box. When I said it I certainly didn't think it was a false statement, it just turned out that way. I apologize and assure everyone that we're doing everything we can to rectify the situation. I've said this before, BTW. Lesson learned.

The post was a lot longer than this, he also mentions the new unreal.com web page in the works and a few other things of note.

Carmack & Cash @ CPL [6:14]
The Cyberathlete Professional League has announced that id Software programmers John Cash and John Carmack will be giving a talk at their upcoming event which is scheduled for next week. There are a lot of other speakers and presentations listed on the CPL page.

We are pleased to announce that John Carmack and John Cash from id Software will be discussing Quake III Arena and related issues, at the CPL Event on Friday, July 24th at 3:00 PM.

The CPL Event Schedule page located at: http://cpl.cyberathlete.com/schedule.shtml

Unreal Multitexture [6:14]
Cyrellis has put together some benchmarks using that new Unreal Multitexture patch for the Voodoo2 ).  Here's a big spicy bit from this mofo (good stuff guys): Here's the more interesting stats. Check out Cyrellis for the big list:

P2-300 Results Without Patch With Patch
1024x768 Voodoo2 SLI 34.2 37.3
800x600 Single Voodoo2 26.1 35.2
P2-400 Results Without Patch With Patch
1024x768 Voodoo2 SLI 38.0 42.2
800x600 Single Voodoo2 30.3 39.2

Views [6:14]

Gore Shot [6:14]
The screenshot posted yesterday on www.processed.net is in fact a couple of months old. Here's the email:

Looks like my bro Rick got excited and sent one of the shots we sent to PCGAMER uk, to processed.net http://www.processed.net/ The screenshot is 2 months old, showing a beta version of colored lighting in software mode. It has been confirmed by slam (our engine developer) that colored lighting will only appear in the hardware accellerated version.

Sites [6:14]

werd
Tagging the updates with times now ala oldschool. (Did the same about uh.. 2years ago?) Blue has the right idea, dunno why I ever dropped it.

Go see There is Something About Mary you punks. great movie, and a NIPPLE FEST.

Please don't shoot me freaky Jason! I said please don't shoot me freaky Jason!

 

Friday, July 17 6:44pm

New Q2 Movie
Team Spleen teamspleen@planetquake.com is proud to anounce that their short quake2 movie entitled 4Portals has been released, featuring new maps, textures and voice.Check it out at http://www.planetquake.com/teamspleen/

Gore Shot
Processed News has posted a new screenshot of 4DRuler's Gore project at www.processed.net

Messiah Weapons
Saw this on VE: "While checking out Team Ego's Messiah site I spotted the following post:"

Shawn has typed all the ideas for weapons for you to see (except the really cool secret ones), and now is the time to act if you have a secret weapon fetish and want to push for a certain type in the game. Check out the weapons ideas here, and email us if you have any cool ideas.

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9. Now, one of the most demanded things in 3D shooter games is map builders, but will DNF still be included with one?

Sure. We released our Build editor with Duke 3D freely and on the CD when you bought the game. We will continue that tradition. You can expect us to release our version of Duke-ed (a modified version of UnrealEd) on the DNF CD when you buy the game. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Unreal V2 Drivers
Some new glide drivers for Unreal have been released from Epic that should seriously improve performance for Unreal on Voodoo2 cards:

VERY IMPORTANT: For this new GlideDrv.dll to work properly with Unreal, you must be using the latest 3DFX Glide 3.0 Voodoo II Reference drivers or the below drivers from Creative Labs. The below are preferred as they don't have the V Sync SLI bug that the 3DFX 7/15/98 drivers have. Either of the mentioned Voodoo II drivers will disable TV Out if your Voodoo II has that feature. If you wait, your Voodoo II manufacturer will eventually release Voodoo II drivers that are updated with Glide 3.0

Saw that of course on VE

P2-600?
Thanks to Redwood for pointing out this interesting News.com article, The Intel Xeon CPU will be going all the way up to 700MHZ, and the Pentium2's will be hitting 600MHZ in 1999.

Intel will boost the speed of its Xeon chips to 700 MHz, desktop Pentium IIs to 600 MHz, and mobile chips to 366 MHz in 1999, according to sources, while the company's first integrated chips will appear in the Pentium II line in the first half.

3DFX Speaks
The CEO of 3dfx, Greg Ballard, has posted a bit of a "state of the union" addressing the success of 3dfx recently and how coolbeans they think their company is. (I posted the full deal on 3DN)

During the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about how tremendously proud I am of what we've achieved at 3Dfx during the past three years. We have made the best chips in the 3D graphic accelerator market.

You're thinking, of course what else would the CEO of the company say. So I thought I'd like to outline our internal criteria for what makes a chip the best and let you judge for yourself. I have three points I'd like to bring up during the next three weeks one per week and at the end, I want to know if you agree with my assessment. Send me e-mail at CEO@3dfx.com When it comes down to it, yours is actually the only opinion that matters.

<snip>

Check out this blurb on their page about hiring a bigass ad agency while you are at it.

QuakeCon CPL 98
A new press release was just sent out stating that the official tournament machines will be P2 - 266's with 64megs of RAM and equiped with Voodoo2's from Canopus. (Yea, fast) Not to mention 17" monitors to boot. Looks like Cyberathletes score themselves some good sponsors. If you havent signed up for the tournament yet, there is a waiting list to join up still at http://cpl.cyberathlete.com.

Unreal Whiners
FGNOnline has an interesting quote from Mark Rein talking abou the whiners out there complaining about Unreal's poor multiplayer internet support

Epic VP Mark Rein says he’s had enough of the same old whiners complaining about Unreal’s multiplayer problems. The firm says it’s attempting to fix problems which weren’t solved with the first patch’s release. But he says constant complaining is no help whatsoever. I've resisted the urge to hit the Ban button more times than I care to recall, he writes on the Unreal online noticeboard, because every now and then someone posts some valuable solution to a problem. But because of the mountain of requests I've been getting lately I will, in the future, start removing people who just come here time after time to complain about the same problem that we already know about, have acknowledged about a hundred times before, and are working hard to solve."

Q2 Control Sampling
Been over this one a few times, but in case everyone hasnt figured out what the whole reason some players feel that Quake2 doesnt "feel" as accurate, Blue has done a nice rundown of what exactly the difference is.

"Kenn (Gamers Extreme Quake II Bible) sent along a comment on the comment I commented on (yeah baby!) from Redwood earlier about the accuracy of observations about a 10 Hz mouse sampling rate in Quake II."

I believe what Thresh was talking about wasn't the sampling rate of the *mouse* (which is, according to JohnC, sampled by Windows 25 times a second in WQ/Q2 no matter what you tell it to do), but rather the *server*. This does in fact make for easier animation of single-player models, but hurts control and timing while playing online, especially at a high framerate and connection where absolute precision is necessary. Carmack himself said that it was a good thing for single player, but ended up being bad for multiplayer, which is why it's going to be removed for Quake Arena.

He also dug up a bit from Carmack's old .plan when he mentions the 10hz server interpolation.

I have also concluded that the networking architecture for Quake 2 was just not the right thing. The interpolating 10 hz server made a lot of animation easier, which fit with the single player focus, but it just wasn't a good thing for internet play.

Quake 3 will have an all new entity communication mechanism that should be solidly better than any previous system. I have some new ideas that go well beyond the previous work that I did on QuakeWorld....

I figure making all this noise, if we are incorrect about this stuff Zoid or John Carmack will comment.

QWCL/SV On One Box
Timme Stoke has posted a couple of utilities for running QWCL and QWSV on the same machine over at the Metropolis which is cool, he also mentions playing the FrogBot on QW as well.

Dear Mynx
The woman we all look to for guidance has updated her page with more life tips.

DeathRow vs [9]
Speaking of Thresh and the gang, there are a couple of previews posted for the upcoming international match between the USA's DeathRow squad and Sweden's Clan [9] over at CGN as well as Challenge-AU If you are looking for a peak at Clan [9] I have a few demos of R3V playing them in my weekly demos section.

Quake Dead?
Thresh's Frontline page has a followup article due to all the email he has gotten concerning "Is Quake dead?"

The longevity of Quake is largely accredited to its fantastic and "as-of-right-now" unequaled gameplay. It is, in my opinion, the only game (aside from Doom/Doom II) that has successfully mixed an intensely fast-paced, arcade-like game with an arena that allowed players to alter the game's outcome by out-strategizing their opponents. Yet, even with that withstanding, I feel that the Quake competitive era would not have lasted this long if a few things did not occur as they did. But, before I begin, I'd like to clear up something. This "Quake competitive era" I speak of is in reference to the _deathmatch_ portion of the U.S. Quake community. I refer to it as the deciding factor because it is generally the portion of the community the receives the most limelight, and is featured in most of the professional leagues and tournaments. This by no means is taking anything away from the other popular mods, such as Team Fortress and Capture the Flag, but is simply a way for me to judge the popularity of Quake at this moment

Blood2 Update
fficial Blood2 web page has a new development update for week12 that should be read for those who are following this game.

Hi there. Well, in the wake of Shogo's awesome "bootleg" movie release, I am scheduled to do a weekly update for Blood 2. Rather than trying to wow you with some cool screenshots or video trailers, I'm just going to keep it low-key this time and go over something which aspiring LithTech designers might find interesting... brushes! (applause, cheers)

Views

Tech

werd
They got the beat, they got the beat, they got beat! YEAH! You got it!

Na na na nana na nanan nan ananan She's got the look!

Crappy couple of days for updating, please don't beat me! I'll make it up to you knobs, honest.

 

Thursday, July 16 5:45pm

The New Lady
Saw on Redwood's page that Barret Alexander's replacement has been found over at id, Katherine Anna Kang . Here is the bio that was posted on id Software's page:

Rank: Director of Business Development
Mission: Business... what else?
Active Duty: 1998-present
Special Training: UCLA Drop out. Served time in companies with strange names.
Background: Yep, I have a back. I'm not sure about the ground... I'll get back to you on that.
Off-Duty: There is NO off-duty!
Quote: Why can't we all just get along!? Anyone got an extra rocket or two?

Intel's Next CPU
I generally keep this stuff to my other page (3Dnews.net) but what the hell, its interesting to see what we all will be playing Quake Arena, Sin2, and Unreal2 on eh? Check out the CNN article talking about Intel's Merced:

What we do know is this: The IA-64 chips will incorporate a joint Intel/HP design called EPIC, or Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing. First there was CISC, then RISC, now EPIC, the vendors are fond of saying.

EPIC chips perform tasks in parallel, instead of sequentially, which will make them at least twice as fast as today's CISC and RISC chips, analysts say. The minute distance between traces will also speed processing. (By contrast, HP's PA-RISC traces are 0.5 microns.)

Unreal Net Code
As many people have probably noticed by now, the Unreal net code could use a bit of help. Mark Rein made a lengthy post to the Epic Unreal Versions page with another update on the state of Unreal Internet play. Here is a clip from PlanetUnreal

...Plus Tim also believes that, at some point in the near future, a server-side patch is necessary to get up to the next major level of improvement but such a patch would mean total incompatibility between the current client code and the servers. This is much like the patches QuakeII goes through where a new server version requires everyone who wants to play on the net to download a big patch before they can resume network play. This is something that can't be taken lightly. Tim wants to take his time, explore every client-side avenue first, and then put as much as possible into the server-side patch before he forces every copy of Unreal to be incompatible with netplay requiring netplay users to download a very large patch. QuakeII did their first patch of this type several MONTHS into the release of their game. Unreal is only 7 weeks into its release (less than 4 month in many major International markets) and is still selling very strongly. So, for now, client-side improvements are getting priority over server-side. If we're going to make every copy of Unreal incompatible with network play then we want to make sure that everyone is seeing massive improvement before we do so.

Down Time?
Yea, sucked.. no idea why either.

V2 Drivers Take2
The Voodoo2 Drivers posted yesterday were in fact not new, but now there are "real" new V2 drivers for download. Here is the story from 3Fingers

These new Creative Labs Voodoo II drivers fix the SLI V Sync bug that is in the 3DFX reference drivers released by 3DFX on 7/15/98. But you still must disable V Sync in a batch file, registry or with the new V2 Over Clockering Control Panel which now has a check box to disable V Sync in addition to an overclocking slider that goes from 85Mhx to 105Mhz. Get it here: http://www.voodooextreme.com/files/V2OC1200.zip

QBS2 v1.03
A new version of the web page query and .plan tracker util has been released. The new version also includes some weekly poll stuff that sounds interesting. (Havent played with it yet)

Editorials
Yea, finally indexed those editorials I've been posting. Reload that left frame if you don't see a link to it.

Cat Scan Contest?
Yea, I guess this is cool? Check out Cliffy's (Unreal project leader, level designer) contest. The prize is of course a copy of Unreal autographed.

Cliff Bleszinski announced today that he will be hosting a "Cat Scan" contest! This contest will feature cat-loving owners across the world holding their felines on their flatbed scanners in the name of ART.
<snip>
Entrances will be judged in several categories:
-Style- Does the cat's squashed hair make an interesting pattern?
-Beauty of the cat- Is this an attractive feline, or a fat, dirty old bag of fleas?
-Form- Does the cat's squashed body look like a pear, or a pile of dough?
-Positioning- Can you see the cat's face? What about his paws?
-Consistancy- Did the cat squirm much during the scan? Squirm-free, full-body scans will have a better chance of victory.

More information can be found at www.unrealnation.com/crackhouse/catscan.html

Carmack Speaks
John Carmack made a .plan update talking about portability of Quake Arena and Rhapsody that is kinda interesting.

Right now, I think WindowsNT is the best place to do graphics development work, but if the 3D acceleration issue was properly addressed on rhapsody, I think that I could be happy using it as my primary development platform.

I ported the current Quake codebase to rhapsody to test out conix's beta OpenGL. The game isn't really playable with the software emulated OpenGL, but it functions properly, and it makes a fine dedicated server.

We are going to try to stay on top of the portability a little better for QA. Quake 2 slid a bit because we did the development on NT instead of NEXTSTEP, and that made the irix port a lot more of a hassle than the original glquake port.

I plan on using the rhapsody system as a dedicated server during development, and Brian will be using an Alpha-NT system for a lot of testing, which should give us pretty good coverage of the portability issues.

LMCTF Released
In case you didnt put 2 and 2 together, Loki's Minion CTF TE has been released and is up for download over at their homepage.

Q2 BattleGround
If you are looking to run some Quake2 Clan matches then go grab the big version 1.0 of Q2 Battlegrounds that was just released. The mod attempts to continue what ClanRing mods did for Quake1. (or QWRING for you QW puds)

Wack Links
The weekly links section has been posted. Have fun!

Views

In doing our part for world peace, we'll resolve this debate once and for all. We've compared both games in six areas: story, weapons, AI, graphics, gameplay and sound, and multiplayer. We've tallied the score and figured out which game comes out ahead in the final analysis. Our winner? Read on.

Q: Regarding 3D acceleration; in which ways will Trespasser with a 3D card differ from Trespasser without a 3D card?
 
A: You'll get a speed increase, filtered terrain and sky, and a faster water model.   A 3D card won't affect dinosaurs because we do all our bump-mapping in software.   We've been working on bump-mapping for about two years (long before hardware companies were even thinking of supporting it) and found we get a much better result in software.

Far removed from the Lord-and-Ladydom medieval environment, Anachronox will take us into the future, where wormholes called Senders are the mainstay of trading, commerce and civilization. The Senders are actually artifacts left by a defunct alien population

Tech

werd
How dare you break wind before me!

Uh, I'm workin on it. more soon.

 

Wednesday, July 15 6:55pm

New V2 Drivers
From VE: "3Dfx has slapped up some new reference drivers for their Voodoo2 board (well, at least the date on this page claims they are new, as of today).   Get all 1.36MB of this guy right here (v1.03.00)."

LMCTF
The big release of the new LMCTF is tonight. If you dont know what it is then you havent really experienced Quake2 then have you? The new "tournament edition" is to be included on the next PC Gamer CD even. w00. Check out the IRC part on irc.stomped.com #lmctf at 9PM CST.

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Turok2 Image
Dhabih Eng sent along this crazy cool image you guys should check out. For the curious, Dhabih is the man behind my logo up there too. :)

Recently i did some artwork for the cover of Electronic Gaming Monthly, related to the upcoming 3d game, Turok2; and i've now posted the unaltered original image (without all the text, titles and ubc code) on my web page.

Heretic2 Stuff
The aCtivision Heretic2 web page has been updated with information on how they level designers have control over the AI system. It's like pretty long or something.

How about an AI system determined almost entirely by the level designer? Sounds impossible? A couple of our programmers Josh Weier and Mike Gummelt have made a system whereby the creatures in Heretic II look smarter than any creature we've ever done. The designer of a particular level sets up a path of buoys in his level. Taking into consideration that a creature may get stuck in a certain area, they can be placed so that a creature running around a corner won't get stuck on something jutting out, but will instead move around it.

3dfx Stock
Since I mentioned the 3dfx stock the other day doing so well, may as well link the Quarterly Report that was just released today. It's a bunch of numbers.

Netscape 4.5
Preview 1 of Netscape 4.5 is out on Netscape's FTP site -Redwood

Unreal CTF!
Since I didnt get email on this *sniff* I guess I'll have to quote Blue: "The good news is the first release of Noname CTF for Unreal, version 0.1, is out. The bad news is there's a bug, described as a showstopper. The author says he thinks he has a handle on the problem, and is working on a fix."

Sin & H3D
For those of you who werent sure, SIN will be supporting H3D goggles according to HardCorps News.

Weekly Demo
Didn't get to play much at all the past week but I dug up this demo that is from about 8 days ago. It's using QW2.21 so you need to use the old client to play the demo.

New WinZip
Josh almost "flipped a lid" he was so excited about the new WinZip. Check out the www.winzip.com homepage if this is your thing.

ThunderWalker League
After months of waiting the ThunderWalker Invite Capture Ring is complete! The Gods Unmatched and the Ex-Presidents were named co-champions, despite their ability to actually play a match.

GLDoom
Bruce Lewis has made another update addressing a few more questions he is receiving concerning his work on GLDoom

I've gotten several e-mails recently (why they seem to come in spurts is a mystery) about adding a 3D (OpenGL) renderer to the game Doom versus extracting all the game data to use in a total conversion of the Quake (or Unreal) engine to Doom and why I chose to do the former rather than the latter. I want to put this question to bed for good.

Well, there are several reasons. The biggest one is that adding a 3D renderer is (arguably) easier than doing a total conversion. It mostly only requires one discipline rather than the four it would take to do a TC of [insert your favorite 3D engine here].

Views

Tech

werd
I admire a woman of that caliber

Someone go lie to Joe Seigler over at 3DR and tell him you like my page.

Don't forget to check this out.

 

Tuesday, July 14 5:22pm

SHOGO Movie
Jason Hall over at Monolith updated his .plan file with a "bootleg" SHOGO video that he created last night.

Alrighty then, without further ado, here is the link to the alpha clip:

ftp://ftp.lith.com/pub/shogo/shogonew.avi
Stomped. Process. Blue

NOTE: The team does not yet know I'm putting this up. It is entirely possible that when they read this and look at the video that they will make me take it down. I'm taking a gamble here, so GET IT FAST! (if you are interested)

Alien vs Predator Movies
GameFan Online just put up 4 movie previews for Alien vs. Predator. They can be had at: http://www.gamefan.com/pc/avp/page_2.htm

More More Tech

New Turok2 Stuff
Just got this email:

We are proud to present you with the main plate: the Turok 2 preview + never before seen artworks and screenshots + 4 movies Turok 2 presents Iguana Entertainment and Acclaim with what is perhaps an even greater challenge than Turok was. Create the next evolution in 3D, first-person gaming. It is not nearly enough to give this game the title Turok 2 and expect it to equal the success of the original. Every effort that can be made to further the technology driving the game, as well as the art and design elements that create the look and feel of the game must not only be considered, but must be accomplished. The full preview can be found at Voodoonation

On TNT
Ken F. from GameCenter sent a bit of email to a bunch (Heh, Blue posted this before I even got the email, and it was CC'd to all of us.. !) of us defending their benchmarks posted from the Diamond TNT card which looked like they may have done something silly and left v-sync on. Ken says that isnt the case though.

There is no reason to believe that Gamecenter mistakenly tested Diamond's preproduction RIVA TNT-based Viper board with wait-for-v-sync enabled. For instance, running the Forsaken Biodome demo at 640 by 480, the Viper scored 142.69fps. This could not have been possible with with wait-for-v-sync enabled. With wait-for-v-sync enabled, the card's performance would have been limited to number of screen refreshes per second, which, if I remember correctly, was 85 times per second in this case.

New QBS
QBS2, the news monitoring program, version 1.02 has been released. Download the Full Install (3.7MB) or the upgrade (816K) if you already have QBS2 -Redwoods

Half-Life Shots
Saw on Cyrellis that Valve has authorized the release of two new Half-Life shots linked over at Half-Life.net . They both look good.

Houndeye Attack
Bullsquid Attack

Godzilla & DreamCast
Sega Enterprises put up the first-ever screenshots of the first announced first-party Dreamcast title, tentatively titled Godzilla over at Next-Gen.

More Tech

SIN AVI
If you didnt check out that SIN AVI that was posted late yesterday evening, Tom Mustaine updated his .plan explaining a bit of what was going on in the video:

-Heya, for those of you who haven't checked out the new ACTION PACKED (heh heh) SiN avi head on over to http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,1940,00.html and check it out.

The AVI was recorded in the Sewer level displayed at E3 and shows off some of the complex interaction and destruction that goes on in SiN. Plus, the middle sequence gives a little insight into our creature duck, cover, fallback, and hiding AI. That dude is REALLY into self preservation! Also, if you notice, as I shot at the baddie, when you hit him in the leg, he reacts to being shot in the leg and that portion of his body becomes damaged! Ahhhhh, the joys of SiN.

There is also a little peek at our 3rd person view in the AVI, you can see the weapon attached to Blade, and the damaged parts of his body revealed as he gets shot. Neato stuff!

QuakeWorld v2.29 BETA Release
Recycled from yesterday because it was posted so late.

I've released a public BETA of QuakeWorld 2.29. This release is not compatible with previous versions. Please note that this is a beta only release and not meant for general use.

You may get the BETA from:

ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quakeworld/beta/qw229BETA.zip
ftp://ftp.stomped.com/pub/redwood/quakeworld/beta/qw229BETA.zip
ftp://ftp.gamesnet.net/pub/bluesnews/idstuff/quakeworld/qw229BETA.zip

This 2.29 BETA release contains servers and clients for Windows (Win32) and Linux i386 ONLY.

I'm looking for bug reports and suggestions about this new release. This 2.29 version should address the problems that were present in the 2.21 release. Once the beta test is finished (length depends on what problems are found, etc), I will release a 2.30 public version.

Here is the list of changes:

- 2.1 movement code mostly restored, but sv_friction is still 4 (like NQ) and the gravity application matches NQ. This should fix some bugs on maps people saw in 2.21 and fix some other errors.
- Complete rewrite of the reliable data handling. NO MORE OVERFLOWS.
- Client to Server (from you to the server) data is about 25% less bandwidth using delta compression. This means you can bump up your cl_maxfps by about 20%. This will have a minor impact on lag.
- QuakeWorld now allows one external command packet until server connection. This makes QPlug work again as well as older versions of QuakeSpy/GameSpy.
- In GLQWCL, the size of the eyes.mdl is double sized. In GL, the default eyes model was much, much harder to see than in software. This should help even it out.
- New spectator camera. A 'through the eyes' view of the player you are tracking. To enable this, type "cl_chasecam 1" when in spectator mode and chasing a player.

/// Zoid.
zoid@idsoftware.com

Level Design Job?
Randy over at RBR whispered sweet nothings into my ear so I'm posting this

TeamTNT is working on a complete Quake2 TC, a serious project. They are looking for a couple more level designers. They've already got a complete team of artists, coders as well as a bunch of existing level designers. If you're interested, check them out at: http://www.teamtnt.com/quakedev/

Weekly
The Kingly Statements have been posted.

New Frogbot
A new version of the Frogbot has been released on Metropolis. If you havent checked out this Quake1 bot you betta start recognizin. You may just give up that Omicron and Reaper.

GameSpy & Proxies
Saw this one on Blue's : Gamespy/Proxy server config help give instructions on how to use GameSpy to connect to games through a firewall using a proxy (the author even bravely offers to answer questions on the topic).

Tech

Stay tuned. Only one pre-comment: Banshee looks very good, Savage3D isn't bad, but clearly behind Banshee, Silverhammer will require a bit more work still and RIVA TNT will rock the boat pretty soon. My Quake2 playing con-gamers will have no reason to thrash their Voodoo2 cards until TNT will be there, and SLI freaks like me won't have to fear for their investment unless they fancy Quake2 at 1280x1024 (something I would actually) or maybe even higher (but then you can't read anything in Q2 anymore).

What's Going On With RIVA TNT?
TNT is very much on track for production ramp starting end of July. The wafers are in the cookie factory. Just like we said. Remember that the add-in board companies will need to productize our software release and actually assemble and ship the boards to retailers. By Labor Day, you should see pretty good board availability with a few lucky folks seeing them before then.

Extra Stuff

werd
Who does #2 work for?

 

Monday, July 13

New SIN AVI
Another new SIN AVI has been released over at GameCenter

If you missed our announcement last week, then you're in for a treat. Gamecenter will premiere Ritual and Activision's SiN demo on July 26 (also known as Sinday, Bloody Sinday). For a sinful good time, Gamecenter's Top Downloads will be the place for your first look at the highly anticipated game.

And there's more. We're keeping your taste buds yearning for that first SiN sensation by offering another exclusive AVI. The second installment of our series features more juicy scenes from the game. Just click on the button below to check it out!

Duke4 Interview
3D Portal's Duke4ever.com has a new interview with Duke Nukem Forever level designer Keith Schuler, in which he discusses Duke Nukem Forever level design progress since the switch to the Unreal engine, advice for aspiring level designers, his runner-up entry in the PlanetUnreal design competition, and more. You can find the two page interview here.

9. How do you come up with ideas for your levels?

Keith: It depends. We usually have a list of the places that will be in the game, and the level designers pick the places that interest them the most, fighting over it if necessary. Since we usually try to portray real places in our games, most ideas will come from photographs, movies, or everyday life. I will also often steal ideas from other games. I then adapt these ideas to my own needs, sometimes combining elements from many different sources. At some point during this process, a creative inspiration will hit me, and after that, my creation will evolve into an original level of my own.

PQ Polls
It's Monday, that means it's PlanetQuake Poll day! Answer this week's questions on old gits, transvestites, l33tness and Linux. Then check last week's results to find out why 27.3% of Quakers are still as unobservant as ever, 3.9% of Quakers are color blind, and 35.8% don't accept substitutes...

3dfx Rise
After um "floundering" for quite a while in mid teens, 3dfx stock made a bigass climb today up to by nearly 3 solid points. Just thought such a large jump in value for 3dfx was worth mentioning. :) Dinner is on Gary tonight!

Last Trade
4:00PM · 20		 Change
+2 7/8 (+16.79%)		 Prev Cls
17 1/8		 Volume
976,100		 Div Date
N/A

More Tech

EETimes talks about the new Number Nine Revolution
EETimes talks about the new STB Savage3D based card

Payed to Play
If you werent lucky enough to score that beta tester job over at Ion Storm recently, then give the guys at PC Gamer a ring. Here is the quote from Blue's on the offer:

<YANKED! They found some winners!>

SIN Image
Ritualistic has posted a scanned cover of a Russian gaming magazine with SIN on the cover.

Permidia3
Here you go, the press release from Yahoo's Biz tracker on Permidia 3 from 3DLabs.

3Dlabs(R), Inc. today announced the details of its forthcoming PERMEDIA(R) 3 graphics processor, its next-generation device in the award-winning PERMEDIA family, which integrates 2D, 3D, digital video and VGA processing in a high- performance, single-chip design. Processing up to 250 million texels-per-second while rendering dual-textured polygons in a single pass, the PERMEDIA 3 design is expected to deliver comprehensive acceleration for Microsoft(R) DirectX(R) 6 multimedia API -- providing fast gameplay while boosting 2D, video and 3D Windows application performance. 3Dlabs has completed design of the PERMEDIA 3 and expects to sample and ship the device during the second half of 1998.

Search Engine Fun
Ok, so I'm checking out some web stats and I find out what searches people do on Infoseek that brings them to my page.. You guys gotta see a few of these:
qt=push pedal replicas of antique vehicles <--- what?
qt=intamate dating tips for teens under 18 <--- talk to wieder
qt=naked and hairy <--- they must be looking for giggler
qt=Jennifer Love Hewitt pics <--- grin
qt=Jennifer Love naked <--- if you find that let me know! :)
qt=how to fuck <--- you've come to the right place...
qt=fuck suck bid over pink ass
qt="ideas for the bedroom" spice up your marriage

QBS2v1.01
If I may quote the immortal PlanetQuake's Jaegle: QBS2 is up to v1.01, fixing the subscript out of range error, as well as a few new things sure to make your nipples hard.

Duke4 FAQ
Saw this one on Blue's that there is a FAQ now being updated for Duke4ever up at www.duke4.com

Weekly Section
The suckage is posted.

btw, everyone loves pickup lines.. Some of you may have not seen this list before.

The Views

Cyberstorm 2: Corporate Wars, the sequel to Cyberstorm, Sierra's mech-based strategy game, has arrived on the scene. Featuring enhancements to the original, such as new vehicles, new weapons and a new shift from the battle to save humanity to a more mercenary bent, does Cyberstorm 2's AI have what it takes to keep up? Find out in our review.

What's striking about Rage of Mages is how polished it looks. Admittedly, the game is a finished product in Russia, but the alpha of the US version used for this article is surprisingly complete, despite the Russian-language voiceovers.

Well everybody who has had mathematics at school will agree that the move from 2D to 3D is just an additional axis. Most school courses actually start with the 2D basics and move to 3D later on using the basic 2D principles. So how come that most 2D/3D cards out there have completely separate cores to handle 2D and 3D graphics ?

Tech

The industry is in the midst of a raging debate over DRAM performance. Today, chip makers are fighting it out, but very soon the battle zone will expand to include system manufacturers, all the way down to individual users. The debate is over bandwidth vs. latency and DRAM chip interfaces.

In general, I agree that a 3D card as we know them today, will have no advantage using 64bit PCI vs AGP. However, there are a few points I want to debate.

Sites

werd
I'm workin on it G, why you wasting my flava?

Lame ass MS products locking up on me this morning.. keep a nervous twitch of hitting ctrl-s going and you're fine though.

 

Sunday, July 12

Unreal Multiplay Tweak Guide
Nali Freedom Fighters have released an Unreal Multiplayer Tweaking guide, which is based on Inoxx's original tweaking guide

This tweaking guide is based upon the one made by Inoxx but totally aimed at multiplayer. The game will have less blasting visual effects, but will run very smoothly with multiplayer. If you only want to use these options for multiplayer and not for your single player games, edit the properties, and copy the unreal.ini to multi.ini. You can now make an additional icon for your mutliplayer games with the following parameters:

Half-Life Videos
Twisted Half-Life has posted three Halfi-Life AVIs from the E3 press kit (for those that missed that shindig down in Atlanta).  Here's a quick link to the shots

Half-Life Video1 4.2meg
Half-Life Video2 8.5meg
Half-Life Video3 4.7meg

CAPTURE! Mail List
CAPTURE! now has an official mailing list. Anything CAPTURE! will be discussed including Questions/Answers as well as details on the custom map entities. Join now and be one of the first to get the client side pack when its ready for release! Checkout the site at: www.planetquake.com/kunani/capture

Operation3D & 3DHardware LIVE
As most of you probably know, the "other page" I'm moonlighting on is 3DNews.net. Well, we've added a few more pages to the family as well as our "hub" page of Operation3D which brings it all together. Lemme just quote Sam:

Operation3d.com acts as our "hub" site, integrating content from all of the 3D*net sites. It will also be the home of "Talk Back!", our cool-beans message bases which will go up later this week. You can access them with your favorite news program right now, just point it to news.operation3d.com. Nobody's posting there yet, of course, except the guys from news.3dfx.com, with whom we are linked.

3DHardware.net is fairly self-explanatory... this is where the meaty stuff is, people. All the reviews, previews, and articles you care to eat.

Erotic Webmaster Theatre 2
"Oh Steve.. how did you get such huge bandwidth?"

I quickly port sniffed her and then showed her my immense router.

She giggled and pointed at me, and I cried. I was tempted to tell her how her serial port was was more like a USB cuz everyone gets to fit in there. But alas, I'm too nice.

But then we made up, after I complimented her HUGE TCP/IP stack.

The Views

IN THIS ISSUE: -MOTORACER PATCH, -Q3D DEAL , -V2 PRICES , -V2 DESTINATION , -MTM2 , COMPETITION , -CARMAGEDDON FIXES , -FREESPACE REVIEW

Tech

Sites

werd
A big thanks to illusion for the new image in my left frame. Everyone drop the guy some email (especially if you are a single teenage girl) and tell him how great he is.

Slow ass news day. Weekends are always like this though.

 

3DNews.net Last Weeks News copyright Steve Gibson 1998