Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.
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| Today's Headlines |
| Quake 64 Screenshots .plans Windowed Voodoo Q2 (U) MailBag Eraser Bot Alpha More Q2 Crasher(?) Tourney Maker New LM CTF Q2 Patch Poll 2 JK Mailing Lists Interview etc. |
| Yesterday |
Quake 64
Multiplayer Screenshots
The first screenshots showing Quake64 multiplayer action have been
released, I saw them posted
here on Next-Generation. The release of
Quake64, (Quake for the Nintendo 64), was delayed to add multiplayer, which will be
handled on a single television with an over/under splitscreen (certainly should inhibit
camping as demonstrated below):
Windowed
Quake II on Voodoo (Updated)
Justin Frankel sent along a newer
version of WinGlide (13 KB) a little .dll
replacement he wrote that can allow Windowed operation from a Voodoo Graphics card. The
performance hit is significant enough that perhaps it's no more than a novelty, but it
still is pretty cool. The new version adds support for 320x200 and 400x300 windowed
resolutions. Here's an explanation from the read me:
What is WinGlide? WinGlide allows 3dfx Voodoo Graphics based addon boards to output to a window.
The hardware itself isn't capable of this (as it is an addon board), so the included .dll intercepts a few calls and uses a DIB section to copy the rendered data from the Voodoo board to your 2D card.
Mailbombing
in the MailBag
I posted a couple more pieces of feedback on the issues surrounding the
posts about the Quake II server crashing sourcecode and the identity of the crasher in the
MailBag, along with a response.
Eraser
Bot Alpha
Alpha 0.1 of the Eraser Bot
for Quake II (1.1 MB), described by Ridah as a "very early alpha" has been
released on the Impact website (thanks Sven-Olof Lindström). Here's the deal,
straight from the Ridah's mouth:
OK, here's the first public alpha release. Before you go off and get an ass whooping, I just want to make it clear, that I'm going out on a limb here, and putting out what I consider a VERY early alpha. You're experiences will definately vary, since there are MANY bugs hanging around. I've mentioned most of this stuff in the readme.txt, so without further adeu..
Unzip to your Quake2 directory, restoring pathnames!
And before emailing me with any problems, READ THE README.TXT !!
More on
the (Alleged) Server Crasher
I received the following email from Peedee, after yesterday's reports
implicating him at the one crashing the Quake II servers:
Uhm.. you have several articles and links that implement me as the one that has been crashing Quake II server's all over... You are wrong. I have not crashed any servers other then the one that I had premission to do. I do not appreciate these false accusations. I wrote a peice of code that demonstrates the flaw in the older Quake II servers, and I also stated how to fix the problem long before ID software ever reacted to it, so do not start blaming me for what happened. If you look at the dates as to when my post was published on the security archive BUGTRAQ, you can see that the crash's have been happening for many days before that, and I did not even have core written before the 24th of december! Please take these acusations down, put up a proper apology note, and make it known that IM NOT THE ONE. Geezuz... you people get wind of some rumor and you paste it everywhere you can. GET SOME FACTS FIRST. christ.
-peedee
This mail was cc'ed to the Tech Zone, as well. I have tried to get in touch with Peedee, but my mails to him (perhaps unsurprisingly under the circumstances) bounce. I do stand by my original story, as it was a report that the report had appeared on the Tech Zone (which is a fact).
Nonetheless, I do apologize for an interpretive statement (that I probably was not qualified to make) from my follow-up ("it looks likely to be the original crashing program (or one of them), rather than a recreation") as it certainly does validate his point that he was being accused. It is my intent to present news and facts and that statement was neither.
Tourney
Maker
crt has released a cool program over on the Rocket Arena page, Tourney Maker 1.0 (15 KB) is designed to make it
easier to run a Quake II tournament. here's the deal:
Tourney Maker is a simple program designed to help organizers plan and run tournaments. While aimed towards Quake/Online game tourneys it can be used for just about any competition (Pinewood derby, Basketball tourney, etc).
Some of its features
- Up to 256 players/teams, individually named
- Round Robin and Elimination style tournaments
- Single, Double, Triple, or higher Elimination tournaments supported
- Supports multiple servers/arenas/tracks/courts, automatically assigns matches
- Logging of matches/results
- Source included
New LM CTF
Version 1.21 of Loki's
Minions CTF for Quake II has been posted, fixing some bugs. Thanks Prophet.
Quake II
Patch Poll Redux
As per John Carmack's request, as mentioned yesterday, GameStats News Network is running a poll about the
frequency of Quake II parches. If you are having trouble (as I am) accessing that poll, it
turns out that this question is already part of the current PQ Poll, so if you're looking to share your
opinion on this subject, here's another opportunity.
Jedi
Knight Mailing Lists
The Jedi Projects Group
has opened up some mailing lists to help keep up with the latest in several areas of Jedi
Knight development. Here's the deal:
jkcog - This list is meant to discuss cog programming for Jedi Knight. To subscribe send a mail to Majordomo@stargame.dyn.ml.org with subscribe jkcog as body of the email.
jklev - This list is meant to be used to discuss Jedi Knight level editing. To subscribe send a mail to Majordomo@stargame.dyn.ml.org with subscribe jklev as body of the email.
jkmisc - Everything which is not topic of the two lists mentioned above should use this list. To subscribe send a mail to Majordomo@stargame.dyn.ml.org with subscribe jkmisc as body of the email.
Due to the lack of budget for this I have choosen a free service provider who of course has some restrictions upon the use of the lists:
1. List must be non-commercial in nature
2. On StarGame's free lists, the footers are reserved for advertising.
3. NO SPAM TOLERATED!
4. Each message will have up to a 3 line advertisement appended to the bottom of it.
Interview
There is an interview with Nop
from CO2 up on Braindead's Quake Art Page. Braindead's
has also just passed a remarkable milestone, as they now have over 500 pieces of artwork
on the site.
etc.
The unofficial DM2 format description has
been updated to version 0.0.5, and
are (for now) located on Uwe
Girlich's Games Page ... |2| sent along word of the B.F.D. party game, an adult
pastime that involves alcohol (the name is like B.F.G., only the
"D" is for "D"rink). Have fun, and remember, don't drive after playing
... The WarCouncil has posted a collection of New Year's
resolutions that they polled a bunch of game-industry
types about. ... The European
Quake Contest page has announced it is shutting down,
there are a few wrap-up messages there ... Here's an updated version of Andy Bay's WinDoom port (1.1 MB) that fixes a few bugs ... The TF Clan Yellow Pages is designed to allow TeamFortress clans and players to connect ... The Image of the Day is this sexified tattoo from the pages
of Dear Mynx. Wow! ... Thanks to EviL for sending along word that he was the 8,000,000th visitor last night (neat that it was
on January 1st). Thanks very much to all that visit and contribute to Blue's News, I can
honestly say that you all keep this as fun for me now as it has been since I started this
site. Once again, here's hoping you all have a happy, safe, and healthy New Year ...
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New
QTracker (Improved JK Support) Updated
A bugfixed version
1.41 of QTracker (3.9 MB) has been released on the QTracker Homepage hot on the heels of the
minutes-old version 1.4 (which didn't support anything but Jedi Knight--oops!).
In addition to other improvements, the updated version of this server browser adds the
ability to get Jedi Knight servers from a server list the same way most Quake server
browsers do (up until now, you needed to know the IP address of the game).
Quake II
DM Map Pack
In the short time since Quake II's release, Avatar has already managed to
put together a 10 level map pack (894 KB) for
Quake II deathmatch called Avatar's Quake II Deathmatch Blast Packaramathon (there's a
future on Madison Avenue for this man). Also available on Avatar's page, this is from his
description:
I think we all know what time it is. Yes, its time to have an old school deathmatch Quake2 beat down. No more of that pansy "let's run patterns on a goliath 4000 brush map and see who has da skillz", its time to bust loose in some way way down to earth arena style smack down bakeries. Yes, its time for the Blast-Packaramathon. 10 tightly packed, quickly learned, storage places of mass carnage. 10 frags a minute and no place to hide.
Q2 Server
Crasher? Cont. (Update)
I received more information from Sith
that lead to a listing of the source
for the Quake II denial of service code on the security site rootshell.com. The source has the same author's email
address listed as in the next story, and it looks likely to be the original crashing
program (or one of them), rather than a recreation (as was suggested) as demonstrated by
the "Thanks for using qcrash" message at the end. I doubt there will be much
benefit in tracing or mailbombing (if that ever has a "benefit") this address,
since the author was willing to list it in the code.
Quake II
Server Crasher Revealed?
Well this is interesting. According to the most recent (admittedly
inebriated) post on The Tech Zone, Kraemer
says he has come into possession of the name and email address of the person responsible
for the crashing of Quake II servers, after receiving the code for the denial of service
attacks in the mail. Thanks edo. On a related
note, there was a cracking (as Paul Visscher corrected
my misuse of "hacking" here earlier) incident or two on Quake2.com last night, as well :(. Things over
there seem to be under control now.
H3D Update
There are updated DOS and OpenGL Quake patches for H3D's stereoscopic
glasses on the H3D Entertainment website. I have
also received reports from those who ordered the goggles saying they were now arriving.
Thanks Todd Purcell. There is no word on when the
patch to enable the stereo effect in Quake II will become available, which I am told is
waiting on a new version of Glide (which 3Dfx is working on with H3D).
Quake II
Patchorama
As with most all Quake II patches at this point, none of the following
have been tested by me:
Quake II
Patch Poll
As per John Carmack's recent request (in his .plan), GameStats News Network is conducting a poll on rapid
versus slower patch releases for Quake II (so they tell me, I'm having a tough time
pulling up the site right now).
Hexen II CTF
There are a bunch of new CTF for Hexen II maps on HexDev's HII CTF page, where
there is also information on how to add Hexen II CTF entities to an existing level. Thanks
Phoebus (HexenWorld).
Movement
Quake 2 Deathmatch Map Depo has relocated (probably temporarily) to www.tidalwave.net/%7Eslvrbombr/. This site
is already home to 40 DM level reviews with more to come.
Departments
Added a planning stages LAN Party in Australia; a
firm event this month in Columbia, MB; and the just-announced TFCon '98.
etc.
Ritualistic.com is a new site run by PlanetQuake (I reckon PlanetSin was unavailable?)
to cover all the doings over at Ritual Entertainment
... Here's a new Quake II message board
... As we enter 1998 we'll see a bunch of those year-end
article dealies, here's a Games Domain article on
action gaming in 1997 that Prophet passed
along, GameGirlz has a list of New Year's
resolutions from members of the game community ... it's also interesting to look at Fargo's year-in-review/look
forward posted at the end of last year, that my buddy DaKoTa reminded me about ... .DM2 is a new site where you can upload and download Quake II demos ... Version 2.06 of
WMNED, a fun name editor, has been released
on Page about (W)
mned, featuring Quake II support ... Images of the Day
are on this website, courtesy of Rumble who says they can be freely used on websites
and stuff (he's willing to create more free graphics as time permits) ... Been meaning to
re-institute a "Today's Headlines" section
for a while, and finally am happy with the effect (I didn't want to push the news stories
any lower on the page). I'm interested in feedback, and will probably play around with it
a bit, so you may see changes ... Gotta throw out a big
congrats to Dojomeister Zanshin who mentions in
his .plan that his getting set to walk the plank, err, aisle and join us who have been
institutionalized in the institution of marriage. Here's to much health and happiness for
the happy couple, and, of course, on the occasion of the New Year, the same good wishes to
all ...
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New Turok Demo
Version 1.01 of the
Turok Demo (10.7 MB) has been released here by Acclaim Entertainment. Thanks Frans P. de Vries (3D Action Gamers').
Quake II Skins (Updated)
I have been getting a lot of questions about where to send skins for Quake
II (as well as some skins in the mail). Here's the deal. Send your skins in a standard
graphics format, unzipped to ^Drag0n^. If it's a
Quake II skin, make the subject line "QUAKE 2 SKIN: <skinname>", and if
it's a QuakeWorld skin the subject should read "QW SKIN:<skinname>". On
the skin subject, here's a webpage
that says it's offering to make free Quake II skins for clans, as will Yojimbo's ZonE, and the Hall of Skins is another new site in the
remarkably popular skin-site genre. Finally, Joost wanted me to point out that skins can
also be downloaded from here
on cdrom.com and uploaded to the quake2/incoming section of ftp.cdrom.com as well.
John Carmack on Odd Routers
John Carmack updated
his .plan with news of his discovery of a problem with certain routers that allow
multiple Internet connections on a single IP address. The lengthy post goes on to describe
the problem in detail, and culminates in word on this discoveries impact on patch
progress:
I am probably going to add the extra bytes to every packet. Being automatically robust on more people's systems is probably worth a microscopic loss of bandwidth. Two bytes is under one millisecond of ping on a modem.
If there is some magic range of port values that I can use to make these routers act better, let me know.
These changes will break the connection protocol again, so I am going to hold off on the patch for a while.
New QView
Beta 2 of QView 5.0 has been released on the QView/QHost Homepage. QView is a server
browser, and the new version features Quake II 3.09 support.
Quake II CTF(s)
AI Demo
Ridah has posted a demo on the Impact
Development page demonstrating some of the AI stuff that he's been cooking up lately,
and saying this about his bot project: "we're still looking good for a public alpha
later this week." Thanks Prophet.
Quake II Movies
The DEMentED 2 page is
online, devoted to the upcoming Quake II sequel to the DEMentED Quake demo editor. the
site is also intended as a resource for general information about movies and demos for
Quake II.
TeamFortress II Update
There is a text
transcript up on Liono's TF 101
outlining the current .plans for the Quake II version of TeamFortress Quake, one of
Quake's most popular modifications. Thanks Blackhorse.
Interview
Christian "Disruptor" Antkow is interviewed on Quake Editor's Reference Guide, where there is
also an announcement that QRef will no longer be updated in the future (it will not become
a Quake II site, but will remain as a resource for Quake level authors).
Movements
.plans
etc.
OGR is holding a poll
to vote for the best of 1997, Quake II is up for Game of
the Year, and Action Game of the Year. Thanks Reginald Levy ... Here's a newly opened German language Quake II archive (Deutsches Quake II-Archiv) ... Total Quake is a UK
based Quake/Quake II site that's looking to host other site ... Gamer's Editorium is a new site devoted to editing news and issues ...
Speaking of editing issues, there's an update on the Worldcraft page on the status of Worldcraft version 1.6. Thanks Spyder ... Here's a page that lets you see side
by side what Quake II looks like on a 3Dfx
as opposed to SVGA ... Thanks for the feedback on the new
look, you can't please all of the people all of the time, but a vast
majority of those responding (I'd say 90%) have been in favor. As per a couple of
requests, here's a link to the old logo, and here's a link to the flaming blue Q, which I guess is safe to call public
domain at this point (a moot point as I've already seen it on dozens of other pages) ...
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New
GameSpy (Updated)
Version 1.52
of GameSpy (1.0 MB) has been released on the GameSpy
homepage, rapidly replacing version 1.51 which had a bug.
Well That's
Different!
More or less coinciding with the release of Quake II and the New Year
comes a new look. Thanks to none other than Walter |2| Costinak, Blue's News has its
first graphical overhaul in a long time (Walter was of course, the man responsible for the
old Blue's News logo as well). I hope you like it.
Updating Q2 Modifications for 3.09
John Carmack made an update
to his .plan describing the way to update Quake II patches for version 3.09 (as
outlined here yesterday):
Until we release the new gamex86 source code, if you want to make mods work with 3.09, change GAME_API_VERSION to:
#define GAME_API_VERSION 2
and recompile the mod.
This will let it run with the 3.09 servers. The API didn't actually change, I just had to bump that version number so that we could detect the old q2test dlls still hanging around.
Quake II Patches and Programs (Updated)
Pure3D NT Drivers
Windows NT Drivers for the Canopus
Pure3D (951 KB) have been released on the Pure3D Software page.
Wired Sees g.o.d.
There's an
article on Wired News about ex-id/ION Storm
biz guy Mike Wilson's new company, g.o.d. (Gathering of Developers). Here are a couple of
quotes I snagged that help clarify what this new effort is about:
"In recent years, the game industry has become dominated by a few "big boy" publishers like Electronic Arts, GT Interactive, and CUC, as well as companies like Eidos and Activision, which have deep pockets and great distribution. (These bigger companies have also been busy acquiring plenty of smaller developers.) Many game titles that hit the shelves will have a big-name label on them, but were actually created by a small game developer who is only receiving royalties. Thanks to competition for shelf space and marketing, the small developers have no choice but to partner with or even sell out to a big company."
"Gathering of Developers will launch in early January with a line-up of at least five development companies and four to five games for 1998. Judging by the interest generated from preliminary announcements, Wilson thinks that number will quickly grow. All the founding development companies will not only have a stake in g.o.d., but they'll have control over the creative process of their games and their marketing. The games will contain both the g.o.d. brand and the game creator's brand. Additionally, Wilson plans to keep creators informed, dollar by dollar, about where the profits are going."
Newer
Version of Quake 3.09 Released
An updated installer for Quake
II 3.09 (1.1 MB) has been released on id's
FTP site. The only change is that the installer will no longer fail if your temp
directory is not properly set up. Here's John Carmack's .plan
update on the subject:
We have rebuilt the 3.09 patch with a new version of the install program. Some people were not able to run the installer because a temp directory wasn't setup correctly. There are NO OTHER CHANGES in this, so if you were able to install the last 3.09, don't bother getting this one.
Quake II Tips
o' the Day
Here are a couple of tips that can help with problems that can be caused
by upgrading to a newer version of Quake II:
- Copy your old gamex86.dll and saved game directories from your baseq2 subdirectory to a new subdirectory of \quake2 (for example "\quake2\oldgame\")
- Copy your old quake2.exe to something like oldquake2.exe (If you have already upgraded, the old .dll and exe are on the CD).
- Start your game with your renamed executable as if the old .dll was a patch ("oldquake2 +set game oldgame").
- Enjoy
Levelord's Doom
Reminiscences
Levelord has an article on OGR called Levelord's Christmas Cheer
describing a nostalgic trip down memory lane with Doom. Thanks QuestNews.
PReviews
Movements
Departments
The Want Ads have been updated
with the level designer positions at Raven mentioned yesterday in Eric
Biessman' .plan.
etc.
Quake II won "Game of the Year"
in AVault's 1997 Year-End Awards. Thanks Prophet ... With the release of the Doom sourcecode, the Extreme Doom Netwide Project
is underway ... Here's the image of the day,
a sweet looking tribute to the Quake Rocket Launcher (281
KB) sent along by Chris Connelly ...
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Emailing Carmack
John Carmack updated
his .plan pointing out that the email thing is getting out of hand:
Please cool it a bit with the email to me unless it is really important. I'll never get trinity done with the email pouring in the way it is right now...
Colored Lighting for Vérité
Owners
Jim, AKA "funny Man" sent
along a workaround for Vérité 2x00 owners to be able to use the Stealth II MiniGL
driver. Here is an edited version of his mail:
Using the 3.09 patch and the verite minigl as defaultgl in video options. (which is labeled opengl32.dll in the quake2 directory). Then create a cfg file or add this to your autoexec.cfg file if you don't know how to create a .cfg.
gl_polyblend 0
gl_flashblend 1
Now start quake. You will still have the corrupted screen but enough should be there to get started. Then either start a new game or load an old game. Remember the old game must be saved from version 3.09 or it won't be recognized.
If you start a new game you should go to the loading plaque. If the plaque is flashing and sound is garbled then quake is trying to load the intro along with the level map. just hit the space bar and the loading plaque should stop flashing and the game should start loading.
Once in a game the flashblend command replaces the normally rendered light that appears around gun shots with the all familiar glquake Lightball.
Also I binded my f key to turn the flashblend on and off. this way you can see some more brighter colors with it off and take a look around. Then release the key to get back to fragging.
alias "+flash" "gl_flashblend 0"
alias "-flash" "gl_flashblend 1"
bind f +flash
John Carmack on Patches
John Carmack made another
lengthy .plan update discussing the ups and downs of rapid patch releases versus
spreading them out more (going so far as to ask for a poll on the subject). He begins his
update describing a new bug in 3.09, the video playback:
The only widely reported problem with 3.09 is that the video playback is choppy. The fix for the modem connections reduced video playback to 10 fps. Its a one line fix, but I'll hold off on another version until a few more things accumulate.
And concluded his update with a good question:
BTW, does anyone know why Quake 2 became a hacker target? I can keep fighting attacks, but spending my time there doesn't help anyones game, and there are a bunch of things that fundamentally can't be stopped if people really set their mind to messing up the servers.
James Bond
Quake
The PC promoting the new James Bond film has been released on the Tomorrow Never Dies Website (it had
promised it in "just a couple of days" for so long, I was beginning to think it
was "Tomorrow Never Comes"). Thanks KillaDawg.
PowerVR Drivers Pulled
Just a note that I pulled the PowerVR OpenGL drivers recently posted here
at NEC's request, as it turns out they were mistakenly issued (they are not fully tested).
New BSP
Version 0.90 of the BSP Quake/Quake II level editor has been released on BSP Headquarters. This is a mainteneace release
that requires you have version 0.88 previously installed. Thanks Sir Rush.
Quake 3.09
Released
As John Carmack mentioned last night, Quake II 3.09 (1.1 MB) has been released on id's FTP site. As mentioned in John's
brief .plan update, the new version has an installer to ensure all the files
end up where they belong.
Tip for Quake II Mod Authors
Aaron Levinson passes
along a tip to help Quake II mod authors convert their projects to work on the newly
released Quake II executables:
All the dlls released won't work with 3.09. But, there's an easy fix. In the file "game.h", change GAME_API_VERSION to 2. Everything will work then.
Quake II Demo Specs
Uwe Girlich, the
finder and keeper of knowledge relating to demo formats has done it again, releasing his
first pass on the specs for Quake II demos (.dm2 files) as the The unofficial DM2
format description, now up to version 0.0.4, and available on Uwe Girlich's Games Page in
SGML, plain and formatted ASCII, and PostScript formats. Also, drop Uwe a line if you are
interested in hosting his pages.
Ridah's Quake II Bots Coming
Ridah made an update to the Impact
Development website describing the progress on his bots, which are based on the AI
system he recently described. An alpha release is possible for this week. Thanks Kenneth Yu.
JK .COG Editor
A .cog editor for Jedi Knight has been released on this barebones webpage as an aid to all
potential JK mod authors. The program was originally shareware, but is now freeware.
Thanks JediKnight.Net.
PReviews
Lan Action
Registration for DC-Con 4 ends
along with 1997, on Wednesday night, so you'll want to get a move on to nab one of the
remaining spots if you plan on attending and haven't registered yet.
etc.
Andy Bay has released his own version of Windoom (189 KB) compiled
from the recently released Doom source ... Voodoo Power is new
site dedicated to the power of 3Dfx ...
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Another New Quake II Version Soon
John Carmack made yet another
.plan update about the 3.08 upgrade with a tip if you're still crashing and the
announcement that yet another Quake II executable will be released shortly. Here is an
excerpt from his lengthier update:
"...We are going to release yet another new version tonight.
The big news is that the modem connection and level changing problems are fixed. They should have been fixed in 3.07, but a timing error kept it from functioning...."
"...We are testing with 3.09 on our servers now, but I want to make an incompatable change before releasing:..."
"...I am going to force clients to send their version number with the connection request, so that bad clients will never take up slots.
That will require everyone to upgrade to 3.09 to play.
I apologize for the flurry of versions, but this was a forced set of releases due to the server attacks, and lots of people are on vacation here. It certainly could have been tested better, but I thought it better to try and get something out ASAP.
Check back in the morning for a new version...
BTW, we will release the new gamex86 source code after we are convinced that we aren't going to be making another patch for a couple weeks."
Vérité Quake II Caveat (Updated)
I've gotten a couple of reports that neither the 3.07 or the 3.08 Quake II
upgrade work properly with Rendition Vérité 1000 and 2x00 video cards. Apparently OpenGL
on those cards at this point causes problems with the water, particles and movies among
other things. Thanks greg. Brian Hook updated
his .plan about some bugs and fixes, shedding some light on this, and paranrml points out that this problem can be
partially worked around with this driver (157 KB):
"I'm also running a V1000 based card, and have encountered the same problems mentioned in your recent update. However, 3.07 and 3.08 both work fine using the Q2 optimized drivers posted on Rendition's site about a week before Christmas (refv1kb3.zip). If you install these drivers according to the Readme, then change the "set vid_ref" line in your cfg to:
set vid_ref "v1k"
both new versions will work fine... though you will...lose all colored lighting effects."
New Dank
& Scud
Issue 5 of Dank & Scud
(A Void at All Costs), the oldest and still coolest Quake comic going, is
online. Thanks Choryoth who actually scooped Michael Houston on this one. If you don't
mind a mini-review, this is the best D&S yet, with the usual mix of great art, plot
and funny gags, all in strong doses. Enjoy.
Quake 3.08 Update
John Carmack updated
his .plan with a bit more on the new Quake II executable:
No crashes on any of the servers!
A few comments on some reported problems:
You have to press the "attack" button to respawn in deathmatch now. This allows you to chat and go into the menu. I have got several mails from people that are typing "kill" or reconnecting to servers after they die...
Old savegames will NOT work with the patch. Just cheat yourself to aproximately the same place you were before. The game included config files for starting off at each unit. You can exec one of those to get you close, then do "give" commands if you want to be more precise. (bigguun.cfg, boss.cfg city.cfg, command.cfg, factory.cfg, hangar.cfg, jail.cfg, mine.cfg, power.cfg, space.cfg, warehouse.cfg).
I think several people are failing to get the gamex86.dll into the baseq2 directory. if "fov 120" doesn't change your field of view, the server doesn't have the right gamex86.dll
Quake II Patches (Updated)
A couple of new Quake II version of Quake mods (I'm guessing that these
are probably not compatible with Quake II 3.07/3.08 however).
Quake II
3.08 Released
Hot on the heels of yesterday's Quake II 3.07, a version 3.08 patch (469 KB) has been
released on id's FTP site, fixing
some bugs, including timedemo which got broken in 3.07. As John Carmack notes in one of a
pair of .plan updates, 3.07 and 3.08 clients and servers can co-exist. here's the later .plan
update:
Ok, two hours without a crash on four servers.
Here is a new patch:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake2/patch_08.zip
3.07 and 3.08 can interoperate fine. All servers should upgrade to 3.08, but if you gravved the 3.07 earlier today and only play as a client and don't need timedemo, you don't nned to upgrade.
Which was preceded by this update:
There were a few problems with the 1.07 patch:
Bodies stuck under doors caused a repeated explosion effect. Timedemo was broken.
The servers crash about once an hour under full load.I have the first two fixed, and I hope the third. The four servers at Id are running a new executable.
If the servers don't crash in the next hour or two, I'll put another release out.
Sorry for any confusion caused by the headline that said 1.08 instead of 3.08 on this story for a while.
New QTracker
Version 1.07/1.08 of Quake II did not work with QTracker (Quake/Quake II
server browser), so just like that, QTracker 1.3, supporting the new versions, has been
released on the QTracker page.
Art Ads
Braindead's Quake Art
has opened a help wanted
section for artists. If you have a need for art, or skills to offer, this is the place
for you.
Hexen II Editing
The site formerly known as the Quake Place, is now named The Chop Shop, and has some new Hexen II
editing information online.
Interview
Siren of Siren's Pic Page is interviewed on Focus on Quake.
Movements
Competitions
A reminder that registration is open for Toronto's Respawn '98, scheduled for February. If
you are traveling in a large group, you can let them know when you register so you groups
of friends, clans, etc., can be seated together.
Corrections
Following up on a couple of boo-boos yesterday: The OpenGL driver for the
PowerVR ultimately posted yesterday is the Quake II version, and will also work for
GLQuake (or Classic Quake, as Joost would have us say). Also, I made not of a couple of
updates to the LAN Parties page, but had
trouble uploading that page, so if you were looking for an event mentioned yesterday it's
there now. Finally, for the record, it's Purdue University, not Perdue.
etc.
Skins for Quake2 is
shaping up as a huge storehouse of Q2 skins,
with a current inventory of 1044 skins, and over 100 for Quake II (thanks Meanstryk for the clarification) ... Quake2ctf.com is setting up a clan
listing, so if your clan is CTF oriented, you may want to be added ...
|
More on the Quake II 3.07 Patch
A couple of caveats about the patch. James
Smith points out that, as is often the case, saved games from older versions will no
longer load, and Joost Schuur points out that you can't connect to 3.05/6 servers with the
3.07 client (not that the older servers stay running that long to connect to).
John Carmack on Quake II 3.07
John Carmack updated
his .plan about the just released Quake II patch.
Here's the update (clearly the 1.07 in the first line was meant to be 3.07):
The 1.07 patch is out:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake2/patch_07.zip
Please mirror and distribute this.
When submitting bugs, make sure you say that you already have the 3.07 patch.
Christian will go through and update the bug page when he gets back from vacation next week.
This release does not fix all known problems. We intend to have another release in a few weeks.
Quake II Patch
Released
The bugfix patch for Quake
II (469 KB) has been released on id's
FTP site, hopefully fixing the server crashing problem. Thanks Madcow_Tards. Here's the entire sparse read me:
12/27/97 Quake 2 v3.07 patch release notes:
This is an interim release that fixes the most serious problems with the initial release of Quake 2.
There are four files that must be replaced to upgrade to 3.07:
in the main quake2 directory:
quake2.exe
ref_soft.dll
ref_gl.dlland in the quake2/baseq2 directory:
gamex86.dll
New Display
Doctor
Version 6.0a of SciTech's Display Doctor
(1.9 MB) has been released with little fanfare on SciTech's site, and on SciTech's FTP site, which also has an unlisted DOS version (805 KB). Thanks Frans P. de Vries of 3D Action Gamers'. This program that
optimizes your video card's performance and enables many features, including VESA 3.0
extensions has added support for the following cards since version 6.0: 3Dlabs Permedia /
Permedia2; Alliance ProMotion AT3D; iX Micro Twin Turbo 128 / Twin Turbo 128+; Matrox
Millennium, Mystique, Millennium II, Mystique 220; Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 1 &
2; nVidia RIVA 128; S3 86c911 / 924 / 80x / 928; Vision 864 / 964 / 868 / 968; Trio32 / 64
/ 64V+ / 64UV+ / 64V2; Aurora64V+; and ViRGE, ViRGE / DX / GX / VX. Here's what else is
new since version 6.0:
General Features
- Provided a method to not load the System Tray Icon or Control Center in Windows 95
Bug Fixes
- Fixed Shrinker/Dispatcher Initialization Error
- Updated SDDSPEED to be compatible with EMM386
- Fixed problem with Canopus Total3D 128 drivers
- Fixed problem with Permedia2 exiting from DOS applications in Windows 95
- Fixed problem with S3 ViRGE and applications that use a 32-bit protected mode interface
Fix for Quake II Server Attacks?
Hentai from Tsunami Quake 2 Extensions sends along word
of a program they've cooked up to protect Quake II servers from malicious attempts to
crash them by running on the default Quake II port and redirecting connecting clients to
the actual port of the server, while preventing denial of service attacks from causing
crashes.
New Unreal Screenshot
Stonage of UnrealNation passes
along the news that there's a new Unreal screenshot up on Myscha's homepage. The shot can also be found on
the Nation, and Unreal.Org.
Rocket Arena 2
There is a large update on the Rocket Arena page giving the status
of the Quake II version of RA, Rocket Arena 2 (I can't describe how much I am looking
forward to RA using the Quake II weapons).
More Coop Quake II
Here's another Coop
patch website sent along by USteppin.
24 Bit versus 16 Bit Color
Brian Hook wrote a
.plan update on the subject of 16 bit color versus 24/32 bit color for future hardware
accelerators, inspired by Kraemer's recent discussion of the topic on The Tech Zone. Thanks to Redwood, my friend in space (have you seen his cool
new logo?), for the Kraemer link.
Quake II Trading Cards
The guys at [CO2] have
created a set of Digital Quake
II Trading Cards inspired by this set of Quake Trading cards.
Although you can't actually trade them, and they don't include gum, they're pretty darn
cool nonetheless.
ION Video Redux
JUDGECAL has put up a high-bandwidth
version of the ION Storm interview. For those with ISDN or better connections, this
greatly improves the visual quality (as always. Real player
required).
PReviews
Movement
The Bot Shop (formerly known as The Scrap Heap), featuring Bot and AI
information, has moved to planetquake.com/botshop/.
Thanks Hanif.
Departments
More LAN Party action: A
follow-up to last years big gathering at Purdue University; and someone gauging interest
in the San Diego area.
etc.
Version 0.20 of DosDoom (Chi's DOS port of the recent source code
release) has been released featuring sound and network support (but no music) ... QBS, the Quake Broadcasting System, plans to be a source of
Quake news, but I don't really understand how it works (there's a FAQ there to try and
figure it out though) ... Ridah has written an interesting
article examining the AI in Quake II and
discussing the interesting possibilities for bots and the like that it offers ... Dear Mynx is back on track with helpful advice to help your game and your life ...
My apologies for leaving the UK and
Australia out of my merry Boxing Day wishes yesterday, happy belated Boxing Day to
everyone ...
| Quake and the
stylized "Q" are trademarks of id Software, used with
their kind permission All rights reserved. Copyright © 1997, 1998 by Stephen Heaslip |
