Archived News:
The Bleem site has a new beta posted of their
PlayStation emulator for the PC. Thanks Zach at EmuHQ.
The new release offers "Paletted Texture Improvements," Final Fantasy 8 Support,
Gran Turismo Support, and speed limiter improvements.
Cowboy's Scripting
Page is at it again, this time releasing HUDTris for Starsiege: TRIBES.
What's HUDTris? It's an actual Tetris style game written entirely with the TRIBES
scripting system. A total oddity, and definitely worth a download.
A new beta 3 of the Game Explorer server
browser is now available. Game Explorer is a freeware program that can find Internet
Quake, QuakeWorld, Quake II, TRIBES, Half-Life and Q3ATest servers, and claims the
strongest Q3ATest support of any similar program.
A post to a thread called [g200-dev]G400
specs released gives John Carmack's take on what the newly-released specs mean for
Quake III Arena appearance and performance on Matrox G200 and G400 accelerators under
Linux, talking about the G400's standout performance on hi-resolution testing:
Very little has changed, so it should be easy to have the driver support both
G200 and G400 from the same binary. I want to set a good example for the windows vendors
and not proliferate lots of different driver versions...
Speaking of which, I do worry about all the configuration hassles with the current driver.
I would really like to see an option-free makefile. Even the MTRR issue could be dealt
with by just locally copying the necessary kernel header so any system could compile it
and let it fail at runtime.
What the g400 will give us:
stencil buffer support. This should be straightforward to add and get working.
multitexture support. If glx is extended for it (is there an official ARB spec for
multitexture over glx?) we can use it immediately. We could also do the "fake
multitexture" hack for the g200 as an option.
Anisotropic texture filtering. We need a new OpenGL enum for this, and I think it would be
worthwhile.
More texture filtering levels. Not a big deal until gigantic textures in huge open areas
are used more commonly.
"Bump mapping". This, along with some of the other texture combiner modes, would
need an extension to expose. I would not call it a high priority. Its not as usefull as it
sounds.
Depth buffer in AGP option. AGP 4x transfers. Doesn't help until we get good agp support
in the kernel.
It WON'T give us noticably better Q2/Q3 timedemo scores unless multitexture is supported,
because at reasonable resolutions we are currently not saturating the G200. You will be
able to run at your desktop resolution with all rasterization features turned on, though.
The G400 ran away from the field in our last high-res benchmarking.
There is a Rick
Nailer interview on GameSpot UK talking with the central product manager at Psygnosis
(US) about their upcoming dragon-riding third-person action game, Drakan: Order of the
Flame.
Activision's official Heavy Gear II FAQ is now online, answering all your FAQing questions about this now-available game of giant robot (gear) combat. The FAQ focuses primarily on
technical support issues, offering solutions for problems you may be encountering with your hardware. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
Similarly Sierra's
official Starsiege TRIBES FAQ has been updated with more Q&A to help solve
problems running Dynamix' game of multiplayer first-person action and strategy. Again a
nod to Frans at 3D Action Gamers, who is
clearly feeling sharp this morning.
Westlake Interactive has
posted an Unreal 224 beta 3 patch. The new patch will only work if you already have
version 224 beta 1 or 2 installed. The read me has answers to
many frequently asked questions, and explains what's changed in version 224. The file
download page can be found here.
Thanks Apache.
Drakan.Net has word that there is a new version of the demo for Drakan: Order of the Flame, confirming Rex from the AVault's theory that
something had changed in the archive on The
Adrenaline Vault Downloads Demo page. Here's a bit from Drakan.Net on what's changed:
...some of the fixes/features include, refined AI (Especially the spiders), the
ability to pick up arrows (ultra cool idea, brought up by you wonderful Drakonians),
various design bugs were squashed, as well as programming-related ones. Also,
Arokh's lightning attack is in there, but this time you have to find it yourself!
Violent
Video Games Facing New Scrutiny is another New York Times article (from today's Sunday
edition) that focuses on violence in video games, specifically talking about Quake II
(though obviously mistaking the blaster for the hyperblaster in one segment where they
describe a player's affection for the blaster saying "It can just split people in
half."). The article discusses the effectiveness of software ratings (skeptically), and
discusses the possible impact of violent games on young children. Thanks Luka (speaking of
children and violence).
Tim made a big ole update to the Unreal Technology
page talking about Direct3D performance improvements he's worked on since version 225,
capping the update with an outline of a "Summary of things I learned about
Direct3D."
Datumplane::Starsiege's TRIBES 2
Linux Petition is looking to show Dynamix that there's support for a Linux client for
their upcoming Starsiege TRIBES 2. Often petitions can be a bit obnoxious, but in this
case, Tim Gift recently mentioned he was interested in learning the level of support for a
Linux TRIBES 2 client, leaving the door open for a project like this petition.
Speaking of TRIBES 2, the Glide Underground
interviews Nels Bruckner talking to the Dynamix programmer about progress on the
sequel to Starsiege TRIBES.
There's an
interview with Ken Miller on the Pandemic Studios site talking to the programmer on
BattleZone II talking about progress on the upcoming action/strategy tank game. Thanks Jeff Tom.
This X-Wing Alliance
update 2.02: page has a new patch for LucasArts' game that "includes further
enhancements to 3d sound support and is compatible with all foreign language
versions." Thanks A.T. Hun.
Another texture collection on the heels of yesterday's Unreal texture pack ( story) comes another one, this posted on Buzzsaw, offering over 6 MB of urban textures,
attributed to several different artists.
The Console Stats Web Page has a new version of
this analysis tool that can give statistical output from QuakeWorld and Quake II server
logs or demos.
Three MechWarrior 3 reviews among this morning's festivities:
- With Innovative
Pact, Video Game Makers Became Big Players is an LA Times report on Pandemic Studios'
"newfound clout" discussing their high-stakes deal with Activision. Thanks Natch
by way of BZ2.COM...
- Action
Xtreme Interviews George 'The Fat Man' Sanger who has created game music for a ton of
games, including Master of Orion, The 7th Guest, Wing Commander, Master of Magic, Ultima
Underworld, The 11th Hour, and Loom...
- Reality Team Fortress 2 is dedicated to all
things TeamFortress, and includes a clan listing if you want to add your clan, or track
someone else's down...
- The Tectonic page has the source code for this
Quake II front-end...
- Birdman's Lair has an unofficial Descent 3
SpaceOrb patch until an official one comes along. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers...
Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there (and all you mothers as well). On a sad note, Stephen King In 'Serious Condition' After Accident reports Reuters from out there in the real world. I'm not really a devotee of his work, but about everyone else I know is, and with his enormous popularity, I'm sure there are lots of thoughts and prayers going out to him and
his family, but certainly any more that we add can't hurt.
Link of the Day: All I
ever needed to know about life I learned from Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic
by Amish Assassin.
Bonus Link: Speaking of Amish: American Assassin: The
Amish Conspiracy in 1999. Thanks Twisted_Cowboy.
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