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Jedi Knight Update
The boys at PC Gamer have a few statements from LucasArts representatives talking about the recent rumors of Jedi Knight being in final testing as well as the beta being leaked on the net. -Prophet
"Whatever you're reading on the Internet is untrue," says Tom Sarris, a spokesperson for LucasArts. He says that some new screen shots had leaked out, but that no one has their hands on an illegal copy of the game. And Jedi Knight has not gone into bug-testing, but it is about to, though he declined to say if this was a matter of weeks, days or hours. "We're close, but we can't give you an exact date," he says, though he adds that the title is right on track for a mid-October release.
Hexen2 Strategy
While you are at the PC Gamer pages, check out the new strategy guide they have posted to help all you Hexen2 fans out in finishing the demo. -Prophet.
Fantasy Quake
Yet another version of Fantasy Quake (verson 0.663) is out, if you havent seen it yet you must be living in a cave (or have a 28.8 modem.. heh) It's quite a download but worth the wait.
Dan Bickell Interview
Saw over on Blue's that Dan has done himself an interview talking about the great project they are working on, Apocolypse. Check out the Chop Shop and slobber over all the new screenshots and info.
MageSlayer Preview
A preview of yet another 3d action game nearing release, Mage Slayer, over at PCM&E
Rocket Arena Pack
One of the most entertaining and skill - honing patches to be released in a while, you should check this patch out if you are really into making your melee skills better in Quake. (I'm personally gonna play myself some Doom2 and work on that SSG in preperation for Quake2 though.. heh) It's quite fun though, so check it out.
Gah!
Just noticed that there was a share problem in my stuff directory, wouldnt let me post the reasons to live.. fixed it now.. sorry kids. all better now.
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Worldcraft V1.5
Here it is, version 1.5 of the beloved Worldcraft Quake map editor. Check out the homepage over at www.gamecraft.com while your at it.
Quake2 Shot
Latest Quake2 shot to hit the net, courtesy of PC Gamer as always. Check the botom of todays news and have a look see. -Prestige.
Rush GLQuake
Zanshin's GLQuake Dojo has a letter from a 3dfx employee discussing GLQuake performance on the VooDoo Rush chipset. It's a hella long letter, so I'll quote part of it: (Thanks James)
3Dfx is aware of questions pertaining to the 3D rendering performance of the Voodoo Rush chipset, and would like to take this opportunity to address some of these issues, as well as tell you what efforts we are taking to understand them and develop optimizations for Voodoo Rush
When either z-buffering or alpha-blending is enabled (one or the other), Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo Rush achieve roughly equal pixel fill rates for large triangles. For smaller triangles Voodoo Rush has an advantage over Voodoo Graphics when running on a Pentium Pro or Pentium-II class CPU, but is somewhat slower on Pentium class CPUs. While Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo Rush are derived from the same technology base,Voodoo Rush talks to the system and frame buffer through a different mechanism. This different communication mechanism requires different types of optimizations and has different performance characteristics - some better, some worse.
Hexen2 Ships
Rick Johnson of Raven Software posted to the www.hexen2.com msg board that Hexen2 has "gone gold" this Friday afternoon and it shouldn't be too long before it hits the sehelves, probably mid-september
The Next Qspy
Saw over on Redw00d's some new information on the next Qspy
We are going to be releasing a new version of QSpy "soon" with a radically reworked back-end and a modified user interface to support the multitude of 3D engine games on the horizon.
This means that we intend for QSpy to support Quake, Quake2, Hexen2, Half-Life and just about everything else we can get our hands on. QSpy is going to grow with the community and will be here over the long haul. Updates for new games will be easier and potentially almost painless for the user.
Currently registered users will not be charged for any upgrades - we promise "a lifetime of upgrades" and we mean it.
We have held back our release of the new version due to both the sweeping changes in our software and the very large number of QSpy users that are effected when we release new versions. Our planned release of a quick patch fell far short of what we think is appropriate.
Finally, we are fortunate to have been supported on our recent Hexen2 efforts by Activision, and we want to publicly thank them for their kind support. They rule.
Rocket Arena
That groovin mod that I mentioned a couple of days ago has been released. The idea behind it is kinda like uh.. WWF wrestling or something. 2 guys go in the arena at a time, and the winner stays to take on the next competitor. There are 4 servers already running the mod.
FvF Update
There will be a total of *10* new monsters in the next version of Future vs. Fantasy Quake. This will be version 4.0 of the popular Quake mod. Screenshots and info are at the homepage.
Interviews
Robin Walker, one of the originators of the imensely cool Team Fortress patch did an interview over at www.warzone.com/tfnewswire
3dfx Patch for Shadow Warrior
A lot of people are itching to get their hands on that 3dfx patch for 3D Realms' Shadow Warrior. Word is from Operation 3.D.F.X that it is still a couple of weeks away. (They traded mail with George Broussard)
Worldcraft
Ok, Worldcraft will be released tonight at 8pm EST on 3dnet #worldcraft.
WorldCraft v1.5 Release
As promised by Ben Morris himself, the new version of Worldcraft, probably the most popular Quake Level editing tool has hit the net. Here is a list of added features, make sure and grab your copy from the homepage. Too bad I don't see it there while I'm posting this, but I imagine they will have it there shortly. Check out the full press release over on Game-Wire.
Vertex manipulation Vertex manipulation lets users easily customize and
reshape brushes (the individual building blocks or objects of level design) by clicking and dragging individual vertices.
Face splitting Each brush has multiple faces. This feature splits any single face into two faces, making it easier to introduce more detail to the brush.
Clipping planes This feature makes it easy to cut an object along any plane for quicker customization.
Texture alignment locking Users can now align a texture to an object, then lock it into place so that later changes to the position of the object will not alter the way the texture appears.
Interface improvements Among enhancements to the user interface are a texture browser that lets users filter the library of available textures and a preview mode that makes it easy to anticipate the results of moving grouped objects.
Multiple cameras Users can quickly switch among several points of view or "cameras" will editing.
Stingray 128 VESA Drivers
Saw over on Redw00d's that they have finally come out with some VESA 2.0 drivers for the Stingray 128. This is a good thing. It means you can check out all those groovy resolutions that you know you have missed out on for so long. They will even be faster as well.
Quake2 Preview
Yet another preview in the neverending coverage of Quake2. Lets hope we dont get burnt out on the game before we even play it! Check it out over at Computer Gamer Online.
Why The Frag is Cool
Brutality has posted a somewhat amusing Top 10 reasons why you wont want to miss The Frag.
Hexen2 Walkthrough
Don't think I mentioned this one yet, there is a walkthrough demo of Hexen2 including step by step help. It kinda will spoil the thing though if you want to finish it single player on your own. Check out the Unholy Cathedral though if you think you have found all the secrets.
Jedi Knight News
Looks like Jedi Knight is getting ever close to release, here is a quote from GameCenter:
According to an anonymous source, LucasArts' Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II made it to the Quality Assurance (a.k.a. bugtesting) stage--a sign that it's nearing completion. Gamecenter also learned that a few copies of the game have been pirated, and are available on the Net. No one knows who leaked the game before its completion, but apparently someone managed to swipe the code.
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Unreal Shots
Unreal Nation ( www.unrealnation.com ) has the four new screenshots that were released by GT / Epic to go along witht he ad campaing that is in effect now. If you have the most recent issues of a couple of magazines you have have seen the scaled down icky versions, these are the full size deals.
Quake2 Shot
Latest Quake2 shot to hit the net, courtesy of PC Gamer as always. Check the botom of todays news and have a look see.
Syn Critique
Another new cool page to pop up on Brutality, Tour's Syn of Critique. Guess what the page is about? Critique of different levels, quake movies, you name it. Pretty cool.
New Dude at Ion
Ion Storm has hired Warren Spector. Warren has worked on projects such as Crusader, Ultima Underworld, Cybermage, and most recently Dark Project. He was previously stationed at Looking Glass Technologies. Check out the article on PC Gamer's web page.
.plan Wagon
Paul Steed, model dude / artist over at id Software updated his .plan talking about well, he made too many animations! Doh! Check it:
Bad news again. I forgot about the maximum number of frames per character being only raised to 512 for Quake2. This means that with a standing animation at 40 frames for both two-handed and one-handed weapons I had to lose about eight animations. After you add swimming and a swim idle animation, I lost another five. We're still at 42 unique animations so in the end it will still be a larger range of animations than usual. This number may be altered yet again by the god of 512, though. I'll hold out at 40, regardless.
New Worldcraft
Ben Morris of Valve Software sent out some email to announce the new version of Worldcraft! Dig it:
The time's finally come for Worldcraft 1.5's release (and there was much rejoicing...) We're having a release party on 3dnet #worldcraft at 8pm EDT this Friday, the 5th. There will also be some people from Valve there to answer questions about Half-Life and whatever else comes up. It should be fun!
The new shareware version of Worldcraft as well as a free patch for registered users of version 1.3 will be made available. Valve wants to make sure that Worldcraft users get to take advantage of a bunch of the improvements I've made for Half-Life, without having to wait for Half-Life to ship. Valve will issue a press release detailing some of the new features and Worldcraft's future with Valve -- probably on Friday morning.
Masters of Level Design
Absolute Quake has opened a new section called well, "Masters of Level Design" with inteviews with the following guys:
Thats a lot of dudes.
Trinity Stuff
VooDoo Extreme has posted some info from John Carmack concerning the "target system" for Trinity. Keep in mind this is the preferred system to run Trinity on, not the base system. (It's like Quake is targeted p90, but runs great on a p166+)
Defiance Preview
Online Gaming Review has a preview of Defiance by LogicWare. -Propeht.
Hexen2 Server List
There is a new Hexen2 Server List hosted by Questgate. Hopefully Qspy will come out with support for Hexen2 sometime soon though so we dont have to use those things. ;)
Resolution Stuff
Everyone seems to have gotten their shorts in a wad concerning Brian Hook's earlier update talking about ditching 320x200 resolution for Quake2. Don't worry though, there will still be 320x240 resolution which is just as acceptable. Check out Mr. Hook's .plan if you are still skeptical.
Linux Quest
An editor that was and has been a favorite to a select number of die-hards. (Including the guy who made the Beyond-Belief level pack) has been ported to Linux, another die-hard group. Check out the Linux Quest page.
Zansin Interview
VooDoo Extreme has a pretty good interview with the man behind GLQuake Dojo. He even says hi to me! w00. Oh, he also has some interesint words about a certain John Romero as well.
Countdown
A new page being hosted by Brutality, Countdown is focused on purely deathmatch and the tactics behind it. The grand opening features interviews with the new female Quake champ Kornelia, as well as some goober named Giggler that works here at Ritual. They also have an older interview with me but thats uh.. not very exciting to read.
Qoole Beans
Yet another version of Qoole, Quake Object Oriented Level Editor has been released. WhiteFang is comin correct with this version. 1.999 in the hizouse. Thanks to Dark Monkey for the word.
Yet More Evidence of MS Ruling the World
Scott "Lag" Healey sent me this well, glorious example of why we all know and love Microsoft and the products they bring us:
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Quake2 Shot
Latest Quake2 shot to hit the net, courtesy of PC Gamer as always. Check the botom of todays news and have a look see.
Rendition Hexen2 Port
Just got this from Phoebus of Hexenworld:
Steve Stringer, Activision's Producer on Hexen II, posted to the HexenWorld MessageBoard, concerning Rendition support for Hexen II:
"Rendition is writing the port. Last I heard, it will be ready sometime shortly after the retail release. Check the Rendition site for details http://www.rendition.com/index2.html
.plan Wagon
Paul Steed has updated his .plan talking about the Quake2 storyline among other things, dig it:
Been doing some surfing lately and read quite a bit about the Quake2 plot. I'd like to give some input to that. When I came aboard in October of last year the plot of the story went like this:
"An alien force has been pounding the shit out of earth in an attempt to invade and conquer us. The aliens are a nightmarish and painful hybrid of machine and flesh. They are pure evil incarnate and probably eat raw human flesh as well.
As the game unfolds you are part of an invasion force which has found a way to reach the alien homeworld through their own technology (i.e. worm hole/black hole trans-dimensional transportation 'portals'). As you hit the dirt of the said alien homeworld you quickly realize that most of your buddies are in the process of being wiped out and it is of course up to you to save the day. Your goal? To shut down the defenses of the alien military complex which you've crash landed into and specifically incapacitate the 'Big Gun' which can shoot down any one of the ships in the awaiting fleet overhead.
Once you've accomplished the destruction/shut-down of the Big Gun, the fleet will begin pounding the alien planet into submission as most of their defending fighters are off pounding OUR planet."
Kevin Cloud drafted the first iteration of this plot. I went in and named the aliens the 'Strogg' and explored the social and historical background of these bad guys to better set up the cinematics with a treatment that I wrote up. Several months later, Paul J. came in and added his more dramatic spin to things and the story is the id-amalgam that it presently is. The bottom line is that the three paragraphs I printed above sum up the plot of Quake2. They are the guide by which Kevin directs us all as we make the game, and the premise upon which I build the cinematics. Everything else is what we here at id add to it to make it an interesting read. Hope you all will dig it.
Also thought you'd be interested in knowing a little about what the player character will do in the game (since its what I've been working on 16 hours a day lately). As in the case of the drumming fingers on the weapons, we want to put some touches like that to the player character's animations which seem small yet have impact. I want to keep a lot of the specifics a surprise but let me just say that the player will do 55 different animations consisting of 500 frames. Let's just say that if during death match you get pissed at someone you'll be able to let them know. If you want to let someone know they're cool then you can do that. If you want to taunt someone you'll be able to do that too. Basically during deathmatch we're aiming to give you guys an even deeper connection to the world and an even wider range and ability to communicate through the animations. I know you'll like it.
Shadow Warrior
The new version of Shadow Warrior has been released. v1.2 with several bug fixes etc. You know, the standard new version stuff. Grab your copy from PC Release List. Caution, It is based on the Build engine, so uh.. if you are a technology freak this wont thrill you. The game is fun though.
Intel Article
Billy Wilson over at the supafly VooDoo Extreme (If I wasnt making this page, I would be spending all my time reading his) pointed me to this article talking about the upcoming Intel CPU's, here is a quote straight from homeboy's page. (with his permission of course)
Our web man, Anders pointed me in the direction of this excellent article on Intel (aka Borgtel). It discusses why the new Intel machines will "do to workstations what Windows did to the Mac". They outline Intel's pentagram of success (which will "double" the performance of the Pentium platform) - - MMX, the P2, AGP, the new 440LX and Intel's new graphics coprocessor, the i740. Quite an interesting article, check it out! http://www.jpa.com/editorials/borgtel_090197.html
Rangers News
Coldsun has updated the rangerweb over at www.rangersoft.com with the low down on just exactly what is happening over there and the future of our much anticipated RGB3 Quake movie. At least that is what Heath told me, at the time I am posting this it seems the page is b0rked. (The news section at least)
Hexen2 Info
If you have been playing some Hexen2 deathmatch recently you may be thinking "ok, uh.. how the hell did I become level 6 all of a sudden?" Rick Johnson of Raven answered this deep question over on the Hexenworld page. -Prophet
- You lose a level for getting killed.
- You lose experience for killing someone on you team.
- You get more exp. for killing higher level players.
- You get more exp. for killing someone higher than you in level/exp.
- You get more exp. for killing w/o tome.
- You get more exp. for killing with lower weapons.
- You get a bonus for killing as a sheep.
- You get a bonus for killing the King of the Hill.
- King of the Hill is current exp. leader.
- You get frags and level frags. Level frags keep track of the total number of the levels of the players you've killed.
- Interesting stat.
Impulse 255 and Impulse 254 will display (on the console, for now) the current King of the Hill and the Frag List (lists player's class, level, name, frags, and level frags).
oh, btw.. that song "No tengo dinero"... it sucks. I don't care if you don't have money..
Too Much Quake2?
I saw over on the PC Gamer website that they are asking the reader's opinion on if they should keep on posting the Quake2 shots every day. My 2 cents, it's a good cheesy way to bring traffic into their website, kinda getting old though. If they really wanna be cool though they can just release the rest of the shots in a nice fat .zip file.
Wampey in the Hizouse
Weekly census results for our beloved Quake Community have been posted on Wampey's page. Make sure and check them out. New questions are posted for the week as always as well. The results of some of the questions are surprising at times.
The Arena
Been waiting for this one to come out for a while, Arena style Quake Deathmatch. It's just a big single room where the winner stays and the loser gets cycled through. I've already played a couple of patches like this one but the boys over at the PlanetQuake page are taking this a bit more serious. -Prophet.
Qview
Saw over on Blue's that there is a new version of QView (version 4.5b) There is support for Hexen2 in this version so make sure and grab it if you play Hexen2 online.
Nakedman
I'm not sure how you can pass this one up. Nakedman (I respect this man) did an interview with Crazed Fan, project leader of the upcoming Quake Mission Pack "Abyss of Pandemonium" The project looks pretty good and they are after a publisher.
Malice MP3
Angel over at AVault mentioned this to me yesterday but I uh, forgot to mention it. There is an mp3 of track7 of the CD music to be included with the QA Malice TC.
UnrealNation
Stonage has posted a nice little article talking about what he thinks will happen to the industry with the onslaught of upcoming 3d games. My thoughts, A lot of them will suck. Say out of the 20 major products coming out in the next several months, 3 of them will be top notch.
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Hiya
It's like, 10.40pm, just got back from a movie and thought I should update. Figured now was a good time to tell you guys that briefs suck. I went crazy and tried a pair on today for the first time since I was like 14 or something. (Right around that time I was getting hair in these funny places) Lets just say that I will be wearing boxers once again tomorrow and have a smile on my face. Thank you.
.plan Wagon
Brian Hook is just goin goofy with the .plan updates lately, check out what he has to say on all the other 3D Cards available out there. Here is my favorite part:
- Matrox Mystique, Millenium, and Millenium
Um, no.
- S3 Virge
Um, no.
Ion Update
The monthly newsletter is out over at the Ion page. Check it out. -Prophet
Hexen2 Review
Patrick "Millenium" Curry did a Hexen2 review just for the Shack, of course with my approval. It's well done and has purty pictures to boot.
ECTS News
Some people have been asking just what will be showed off at ECTS (Europe's E3) for SiN. Well, here ya go, quoted right off of SiN CiTY. (The page I get all my SiN news from)
"I just got confirmation that they will be showing two new levels: Giggler's 'Construction Site' and Levelord's 'Mansion'. I'm looking forward to getting some shots and videos of both, but especially Giggler's first publicly viewed map!
Levelord makes reference to the new level he's been working on in his .plan file. That brings the grand total up to four known levels, but plenty more have been referenced. :-)"
I'll just say we look forward to showing what has changed in SiN in the past couple months. Confidence here is growing every day.
3dfx & Sega
Welp, it had to happen. This isnt really Quake related hardly at all, but it is 3d gaming related. The guys over at 3dfx have decided to file suit against Sega as well as NEC. One for breach of contract and the other for interference. Dig on the Yahoo article.
Kornelia Interview
The AVault has an exclusive interview with "The New Queen of Quake" It's a well done interview, now I wonder when the heck we can see those demos from the finals, eh? (note to TEN: wake up, lets see those demos)
Demo Day
Duh.. I have a tendency to forget to mention this, as always the weekly section is updated, it's Tuesday so we got 3 new demos for ya this week.
Malice, The Movie
Here is a QuickTime preview of the Quantum Axcess TC to be released soon, Malice. It's lookin good, can't wait to play it.
Fragapalooza Winners
Check out the Fragapalooza homepage for details, strAtEdgE, the team leader for Canada took home the gold in the 1on1 tournament. I'll try and get the demos to post here locally for those who are interested.
New Skin Technique
I'm not an artists, and uh.. don't do skins etc, but here is an email I got that may be of interest to some of you guys out there who are:
I found a new skin technique increasing base frame size by up to 500%. I rearranged the objects in the base frame of the player model and increased its base frame by 400%. There is an example at ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/graphics/mdl/n-player.zip
Although you need to be a 2d artist to get the most out of it! Astro the Interplanetarian Funk Junkies http://jurassic.mpog.com
SiN City Winners
The winners of the first SiN CiTY contest have been announced. The lucky winner gets a fully autographed Scourge of Armagon (Quake Mission Pack #1) CD by the development team. (Thats us and stuff)
More Movie Stuff
The always entertaining Rangers Clan, working on their next Quake movie have had some changing of the guard. Seems UnkownSoldier has resigned among others. Coldsun sent word though that CraZyBiLL is now working with ArchV to finish the project. They truly want to give the community a chance to see all their hard work, so I'm sure you can count on it being released still.
.plan Wagon
Brian Hook (programmer at id) followed up his large .plan update yesterday with a group of updates including some changes to the benchmarks he posted earlier. Dig on it.
> Dammit all, I hate giving out "buying recommendations", but people INSIST on asking me over and over what board to get, even though I keep telling people to get a Voodoo-based board as the "safe bet". So, let me state this once and for all and hopefully people will get the message:
- the 3Dfx Voodoo currently has very good performance, very good features, and it coexists reasonably well with existing video cards. It supports the portion of OpenGL we need for GLQuake, GLQuakeWorld, and Quake2. It's blazingly fast, even if long in the tooth. It's not that expensive anymore. It works with NT and Win95. Canopus has a 4MB texture version. It's VERY difficult to go wrong with the 3Dfx Voodoo. So unless you meet the following criteria, I'd say go with the Voodoo (Righteous 3D, Obsidian, Flash 3D, Canopus, whatever). And no, I do NOT mean Voodoo Rush -- I haven't tested it yet so I can't offer an opinion on it one way or the other.<snip>
Hexen2 Stuff
The boys over at www.hexen2.com have been quite busy. They have info on some "hidden messages" and the new server listing, a walkthrough demo of the uh, demo, and also a nice little first impressions review of the product.
Fantasy Quake
Thanks to Billy over at VooDoo Extreme for the word that a new version of Fantasy Quake has been released. If you haven't taken a look at this you really should. It is one of the most in depth TC's I've ever looked at with all kinds of crazy stuff and pretty darn good levels to boot.
Parodies
If paradies and Quake are your two favorite things in life, looks like you are in luck. the BQPP is just for you, "Dedicated to archiving Quake-related [song] parodies from around the globs."
QWF Skin Pack
Since so many of you out there are just clamoring for more skins, (I know I just cant get enough, boy do I love joining a QW server and chillin there waiting for all of them to download, no.. really.) The new female skin pack from Quake Women's Forum is out.
GibStats v1.1
New version of this frag log analyzer has been released. They even have a "nifty button" that you can put on your homepage if you are so inclined. -Prophet
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Gah!
Please, PLEASE people, make sure your return address is correct when emailing me. I've had a total of 8 emails return user unknown today. I just woke up or something, got the latest PowerVR drivers, gonna eat and then come back with some sorta update. Keep it real.
Update: Just thought of something, every single one of you guys who do this are complete losers! I hate you, you suck! and guess what, you don't know if I'm talking about you or not because you don't know if I ever mailed you back or not! Ok.. that one is almost as annoying as having my computer lock after I unwisely did an hour of work without saving.
Quake Launch Pad
New version of this Quake Front end util (the util formerly known as QLaunch) is out. I dunno what it does, I don't use these things. But it makes life easier if you are one of those guys who love to try out every single patch available on the net and all that fun stuff. Grab it from the homepage.
Suckage
Yea, it's updated and stuff. and they suck as always. :)
Quake2 Shot
Back at it again, PC Gamer has posted the shot of the day. (ok, well it's Friday's, but I never posted it)I have it posted at the bottom of todays news.
Half-Life Preview
Electric Playground has a preview of Half-Life posted. Although there are no new screenshots or anything, it's still worth checking out if you still havent taken a look at this soon to be released Title. It uses the Quake engine, so you know you will love it.
Malice Preview
The AVault has a preview of Quantum Axcess's upcoming Quake TC Malice. They have some exclusive screenshots so its worth a look. When you get your hands on this TC you wont be dissapointed, although you do have to pay for this one, sorry. :)
Fragapalooza
I popped on to the Fragapalooza QuakeWorld server about an hour ago and made a demo of 15 dudes with a 30 ping and me.. or well, there were one or two other guys with the 250+ pings, but you get the picture. Against some wacky odds, I actually squeaked outa there with a victory. Check out the demo. (I'll post it in the Tuesday section as well, but I thought this one was too cool to wait)
Shane Caudle Interview
One of the level designers for the Unreal project by Epic, Shane Caudle took the time to do an interview with the boys over at UnrealNation. Well done as always from www.unrealnation.com
Hexen2 Review
Fargo's PlanetQuake Hexen2 review has been posted. The man sure loves to write. He went through the thing quite a bit and did a hell of a job. Well worth the read if you havent downloaded the demo yet. If you have downloaded the demo though, you probably know how you feel about Hexen2 and dont need to read what someone else thinks eh?
Paradox TC?
Wow.. didnt realize Tom was working on his own TC here in the office all this time. Well uh.. there is a TC that has just been released (no, not by Tom Mustaine, it was like a joke or something) by the Paradox Effect.
Doom 2600
And you thought that poster I posted a while back about Quake being ported to the Atari was a joke.. check out www.planetquake.com for some actual screenshots and info of a Doom port to the Atari 2600!! Well actually it will only work on an Atari emulator on your pc, but still.. thats gonna rock.
Speaking of Doom
Talked to Jim Dose (programmer here) a bit more about his GLDoom project. Seems quite a few people are very interested in this.. heh. Well he mentioned the cool blending effects and all kinds of other things you can do with the advantage of hardware, and well.. this is gonna rock. I'll make sure and beat Jim with a stick till he gets it done.
AFT Update
Brutality.com has the score as well as a quote from Kornelia talking about the finals between her and KillCreek. Apparently they played double elimination and the final combined score was 22 to 6! Here is what Kornelia had to say:
The finals were very fair, since it was double elimination and 2 maps, combined score. This was a very cool tournament becasue I got to meet all these cool Quake player girls, hang out and have fun, and finally the public will also know that there are other good female players out there.
.plan Wagon
Brian Hook has updated his .plan as promised with the benchmark results from testing all the cards that he has in the office with GLQuake for the curious. Looks like 3dfx is still the king though. Check it:
Chipset P5/200MMX(32MB) P2/266(128MB)
3Dfx Voodoo, GL_ZTRICK=1, nosync 33.8 33.9
3Dfx Voodoo, GL_ZTRICK=0, nosync 30.2 30.3
3Dfx Voodoo, GL_ZTRICK=1 27.2 27.3
3Dfx Voodoo, GL_ZTRICK=0 24.4 (forgot to run test)
NVidia RIVA128, GL_ZTRICK=1 24.0 32.2
NVidia RIVA128, GL_ZTRICK=0 23.9 32.1
NEC PowerVR PCX2 23.1 24.5
Rendition V2200, GL_ZTRICK=1 19.0 19.4
Rendition V2200, GL_ZTRICK=0 18.8 19.2
3DLabs Permedia2, GL_ZTRICK=1 18.6 19.2
3DLabs Permedia2, GL_ZTRICK=0 18.6 19.2
WinQuake (software only) 13.5 12.6
As always, post-game commentary by moi.
- 3Dfx Voodoo -
The undisputed king for longer than I can remember, the Voodoo is still holding its own against the various contenders to the throne. The best indication of performance is with "nosync", since even though the Voodoo syncs to vblank by default, none of the MCD-based accelerators (RIVA128, V2200) do, so it would be unfair to compare the Voodoo w/ sync enabled against any MCD based board.
The main things going against the Voodoo are the typical -- lack of texture memory, a maximum texture size of 256x256, and the fact that it's a 3D-only accelerator. It's also a 16-bit board through and through, meaning we can only get a 16-bit framebuffer and 16-bit Z-buffer and 16-bit textures.
However, it has all the features we think are important, including support for colored lighting in Quake2 and per-pixel MIP mapping.
- 3Dfx Voodoo Rush -
Okay, just to address this once and for all -- we don't have a Voodoo Rush
here, and from what we've heard it isn't something we'll miss. So no numbers
for the Voodoo Rush. Sorry. <snip>- Conclusion -
This is a pretty good batch of boards, and it's obvious that things have improved a WHOLE lot in the past three months. By Christmas there should be at least three boards good enough to run Quake2 that support OpenGL under Win95: 3Dfx Voodoo, 3DLabs Permedia2, and PowerVR PCX2. Under NT we have support from Rendition and NVidia, and I expect both of these companies to release full OpenGL drivers for Win95 in the future (unless Microsoft descends on them like a pack of angry weasels, which I'm fairly certain will happen since Microsoft largely consists of angry weasels).
Correlating these results to Quake2 should be fairly straightforward. The major thing that may affect future performance is our support for 8-bit paletted textures. This will help 3Dfx a bit, and should definitely help Permedia2 and Rendition V2200 a LOT. I believe it's irrelevant for RIVA128 since I've heard they don't support paletted textures (which is fine by me).
Okay, no more performance updates until we have a performance test suite for Quake2 working, which will hopefully be in a couple of weeks. And at that time hopefully we'll have new drivers from everyone. Things should only be getting faster from here on out.
Canopus Pure3D
Zanshin has done a review of the Canopis card that he got a hold of. Check out the GLQuake Dojo and be enlightened.
QName Maker
A new version of QName maker is out (and animator) Maker has hit v0.40 and animator is at v0.80. Check out the homepage at http://qnm.telefragged.com/ and make yourself coolbeans with an animating name today! Name Maker can make up to 90 names at a time
BSP Build v0.12
A new version of BSP Build is also out. I uh.. dont remember what the hell this thing does off hand, but my guess is it might be cool? Tell you what, you are just gonna have to visit the homepage at http://bspbuild.telefragged.com and find out eh? (<-- canadian imitation just for lic_mias)
Update : mail from Tony Brownweller, bspbuild takes care of that amazingly difficult task of using qbsp / light / vis from the command prompt to compile your .map files.
Hexen2 + SpaceOrb
If you are using a SpaceOrb to play Quake and want to use it for the Hexen2 demo, Birdman's QuakeLair has info on just how to make that bad boy work for ya. He actually has quite a bit of help for all the spaceorb players out there.
RocketMount
Yet another blatent plug for the RocketMount pages. This time they are revamped yet again and talking about having a discussion board posted and working soon. Should be fun.
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Lets Preview Them All!
Yea yea, its a weekend. gotta catch up on that sleep that I dont get during the week. As always updates will be furious and constant during the regular weekdays, so don't worry. UK Games, over in well, the UK has some previews of all those neeto Quake engine based 3d games coming out within the next year. Cal Jones, the sweet heart that works there emailed me about all the previews you can find on their website. Oh, and before you email me, yes I know Jedi Knight is not a Quake engine game.
Quake Tactics
Here is a good page that gives some basic tactics on playing all the Quake DM levels. It includes some demos and summaries of what each level is about. Although they dont cover some of the most advanced tactics, it is still a very solid page with good stuff.
Kornelia Interview
The girl who won the AFT (All Female Tourney) has a belated interview over on Game-Wire. -Prophet
Fragapalooza
As you lan party freaks should know, Fragapalooza is going on right now up in Canada. They have posted the ip of their QuakeWorld server as well as other bits of interesting news. Keep your eye on the page to find out who wins the tournaments and all other stuff thats goin down up there. Oh, there are already a few demos posted there. -Prophet.
Qspy RASV Support
The RASV Quake pack that came out yesterday already has a Qspy tab made just for them. Check out hte homepage hosted by Brutality.
Hexen2 Stuff
A few new Hexen2 pages, as well as a wad editor: -Prophet
Moves
Couple of page movements, uh.. here:
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Copyright Steven M. Gibson |
