Archived News:
Following up on S3's Savage 2000 chipset (see below) comes Sharky
Extreme's full look at the Savage 2000 and its beefier older brother the
Savage 2000+. They've also got an S3 roadmap that outlines their plans for releasing
the Savage 2K, complete with hints dropped to "Project X" S3's chipset
following the Savage 2K (or a really bad Matthew Broderick movie...your call).
Savage Daily News has posted a press release
from S3 announcing the Savage 2000, as well as news that Diamond Multimedia
will be making the first card to utilize it, which will be priced at under $250.
The next-generation chipset has a fillrate of 700 Mega Texels per second, which
dwarfs the Voodoo 3 3500 (and Voodoo 2 SLI) by over 300. It's not actually going to be
announced until tomorrow here in the US, but SDN is on UK time, where it's already
tomorrow. Here's a list of the chip's features, shamelessly yoinked from
the site:
- 128-bit memory support (up to 200MHz).
- Up to 200MHz engine clock.
- Up to 64MB of memory - allowing resolutions up to 1600x1200 triple buffered
with 32-bit per pixel color depth and a 32 bit Z-buffer, with 32MB left for
textures, and also full-scene anti-aliasing at higher resolutions.
- 350MHz RAMDAC.
- DVI-compliant digital flat panel technology.
- TV-out support.
- AGP 4X technology.
- Sustained fill rate of 700+ MegaTexels/second.
- QuadTexture engine.
- S3TL Transform and lighting engine.
- S3TC.
- DTV/DVD Playback.
- Motion Compensation Engine.
- Fully Compliant VIP 2.0 Bus.
- Priced at $29 (USD) each in quantity of 10,000 units.
There's a new MDK2.com Development Update
giving designer Greg Zeschuk's development diary describing showing MDK2 off to the
European press. MDK2, is, of course, the sequel to the first/third-person single player
action game MDK, which, as everyone should know, stands for Mild Detergent Kleanser.
A couple of programs loads of readers of this site use:
The once-canceled Webdog has returned with
a new version 2.0 that has a whole boatload of changes, including a swanky new
interface, an auto-updating system, a cool new ICQ-like "tiny mode",
and tons more. Swing by the site and grab
it now.
Build 53 of RealCTF, a CTF
mod for Unreal has been released, and is available for download over on its
homepage (thanks Killjoy).
This version fixes a "dim message text" bug, tweaks the charge costs,
and has other changes as well.
Spawn sends word on a way to add 1024x768 resolution to Command & Conquer: Tiberian
Sun. Interested? Just add this to your sun.ini file: [Video]
ScreenWidth=1024
ScreenHeight=768
StretchMovies=no
Fact is 1600x1200 resolution is possible with this method. Thanks Spawn. If you're
curious about the difference, TSNation has posted a
screenshot showing off the difference between 800x600 (the game's max resolution without
this method) and 1024x768.
Desslock's
RPG News has posted an interview with Irrational Games' Ken Levine, talking
about their incredibly addicting (and well-made) first person RPG System Shock
2.
A few things of interest to those who like to get under the hood and tinker with the guts
of the games:
The finals in that $50,000 Descent 3 Tournament took place last night in Las Vegas, NV. Descent3.net has posted the results, which has Fatal,
described as "one of the 1st and long lasting Descent3 pilots from all the way back
to Demo1.1 days" winning the big prize. Thanks LLAMA. There's also lots more coverage
there of everything that led up to the finals. Congrats Fatal, how about a loan?
This article by Jonathan Clark,
formerly of Crack dot Com, goes into how those lucky enough to be on a fast Internet
connection can take advantage of it for gaming, even if stuck behind the dreaded
Firewall.. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński.
- The RIVA Station (that's the
English version of the original German page),
has posted a photo of an ELSA ERAZOR III Pro along with some info they found in a German
magazine they make sound like NDA stuff, describing an upcoming 0.22 Micron 143/166 MHz
"TNT2/Pro" chip.
- Review
Zone's Athlon Vs. Pentium III is a 15 pages article comparing the two CPUs on the
technical side as well as the performance side. Loads of benchmarks on four Athlons,
several Pentium IIIs, going so far as to overclock an engineering sample of a Pentium III
600 to attempt to replicate Pentium III 650 performance to compare to the Athlon 650.
- And last, but not least, Intel
preparing megahertz megablitz is a ZDNN article
(seen on on AnandTech , albeit minus the link)
describing the roadmap for the big I's upcoming CPU announcements, currently (and we know
how these things can change) planned to kick off with the i820 chipset and some
accompanying new P3's on September 27. Here's a chunk from the article:
The 820 chip set will debut, along with two new Pentium III processors, a 533MHz
Pentium III and a 600MHz Pentium III chip, on Sept. 27, sources said. The chips, which
support the 133MHz bus, will be based on the current .25 micron Pentium III design.
Intel is planning to follow those Pentium IIIs quickly with the Oct. 25 launch of six new
desktop Pentium III processors, based on its Coppermine technology. Coppermine is the
code-name for Pentium III chips manufactured on Intel's 0.18 micron process. The new
manufacturing process will help Intel reduce the Coppermine Pentium III's voltage
consumption and heat production, versus current .25 micron Pentium IIIs. It will also lead
to smaller die-size, allowing the integration of 256KB of integrated cache with desktop
Pentium III chips. Mobile Pentium II chips already offer this feature.
Chip confusion coming? Of the six new Coppermine-based desktop Pentium III chips, all are
designed for use with the 820 chip set, and three, including a 500MHz, 550MHz and 600MHz,
will be for use with a 100MHz bus, sources said.
Three more, a 600MHz, a 650MHz and a 667MHz, will support either a 100MHz or 133MHz bus,
sources said. Intel may release a 700MHz in place of the 667MHz, sources said, however
this was unclear at press time.
The Parsec Homepage has been updated with a new OpenGL screenshot showing "an entirely new spacecraft, background nebula, and planet"
from this upcoming action-oriented Internet multiplayer cross-platform space combat game.
They've also added a new "Events" section in the news to cover previous
happenings, staring it off with photos of their booth at LinuxTag and the conference talks
we have given in the past. The "Work in Progress" section (also in the news) has
also been updated with the latest development happenings.
id lead programmer John Carmack has warmed the hearts of a bunch of us looking for some
news to post this morning by updating his .plan with his latest Quake III programming worklog. He
also probably warmed the hearts of many high-ping players since it offers news that he's
cooked up a new option for servers called sv_maxRate that will be able to help level the
playing field across pings when utilized. Here's the full list: * spinning
machinegun barrel
* changed q3data -origin option to -offset, defaulted to 0 0 24 for all player grabs
* removed second parm from -lod in q3data
* fixed 0 ping on last player killed before fraglimit
* better ping calculation right after transitions
* add time back to scoreboard
* sv_maxRate option to force all clients to play with a max rate. This can be used to
limit the advantage of LPB, or to cap bandwidth utilization for a server. Note that rate
is ignored for clients that are on the same LAN.
* fixed bad name vs name in tourney after first player left
* added hitch warning messages to server console
* new time clamping rules for net play
* avoid sending usercmds during connection
* send explicit heartbeats to the master server when a server transitions to or from empty
or full
* shaders that aren't found will return index 0, but still keep the allocated slot to
prevent rescanning if registered again
* use nextSnap for player prediction when available
* removed teleport dest invisible objects
* reduced client to server bandwidth by 35%
* changed logging for chats to guarantee parsing properly with names that conflict with
commands:
from: G_LogPrintf( "%s say: %s
"
to: G_LogPrintf( "say: %s: %s
"
Nihilistic's Rob "Innerloop" Huebner made an update to his .plan talking about his upcoming presentation at next
month's Game Developer's mini-conference, and the portion quoted below giving the latest
on their upcoming game, Vampire: The Masquerade--Redemption, talking, among other things,
about improving upon mother nature (don't stand near Rob when the lightning starts):
We've been pretty much putting our heads down and cranking out a lot of gameplay
elements in the last few week, which is pretty exciting stuff, actually. I've been having
some fun with networking and AI, and we're getting tons of new art, models, and interface
screens in every day. One of these days we need to snap some shots specifically of the UI
-- its gorgeous. And the new skies for the modern day levels will floor you, trust me. We
were driving to go see "The 13th Warrior" tonight, and when I saw the full moon
out, I couldn't help thinking, "Ours looks better than that"...
IGN64.Com previews Daikatana on the
N64, offering this cynical headline: "Kemco Japan does what Ionstorm couldn’t
and delivers a playable version of Daikatana on time." Thanks Oedipus. They had a
chance to sit down with a "50% complete" Nintendo 64 version of
the game earlier this week at Nintendo’s Spaceworld show in Japan, saying they are
"very with what we’ve seen thus far." Looks like a copyediting mistake
omitted an adjective in there, but they do sound positive (I'm guessing they were
"impressed," I guess it's a user-participation preview). There are also three
images, but don't get your hopes up to see what N64 Daikatana looks like, they are just
the rendered backgrounds from the menus in the Daikatana Mplayer demo.
Perhaps particularly interesting reading in light of the recent Ottawa Sun article that
rankled so many, is E! Online - The Hot
Spot - Stars on Violence quoting several Hollywood types on the subject of media and violence, including
James Wood ( on this
page), who understands the silliness of pointing the finger at violent movies like his
most recent "The General's Daughter," when the real problem is "gratuitous
violence, like in those video games that are just training manuals for psychotic
kids." Sigh. Thanks KnyteStorme.
A little pop culture on Friday, quoting Ray Walston as Mr.. Hand from Fast Times at
Ridgemont High. testoclese (a word I actually remember Tony "Heh, he said" Wood
inventing at Camp Trexler in the '70s--that's not you, is it Tony?) sends along the consummate Jeff Spicolli reply:
"That was my skull!" Click here (opens another browser window) for the appropriate sound
effect to read the next portion (thanks Whisp). Wow, yesterday was quite a draggy news
day, and this morning is certainly no better. The last few weekends have been so unusually
busy, I almost forgot what a "normal" Saturday was like. Oh well, it gave me the
chance to do some site housekeeping.
Link of the Day: Global
Monetary. Makers of a subcutaneous e-commerce chip in your hand read by a sensor in
your mouse. Thanks Jim Dosé. If they were serious that $250 might pay to get me to read
about having such a chip implanted in my hand, but that's about it (besides, they don't
say if it supports USB).
Actual News Story of the Day: ZDTV
Virtual Vector reports Scientists target an online chat room as ground zero of an outbreak
of syphilis. Thanks Thunderbutt. I guess that's the 90's version of catching an STD
from the "toilet seat."
We already posted a list of reviews this morning, but since there isn't a lot going on
(cue cricket sound effect), it seems pointless saving these for tomorrow's morning update.
As usual, thanks to Frans at 3D Action Gamers
for a few of these:
Version 2.1 of TriCon tool to
remotely administer public Starsiege TRIBES servers. The new release is intended primarily
as a bug fix, but they also couldn't resist slipping in a few new features in. The new
release only requires the download of a new exe.
The intrepid souls at Ground FreeSpace dug up the
box art for Volition's upcoming FreeSpace 2, as well as the system requirements, which had
been posted on Interplay's website. I saw this on A Talent For War in a game of telephone where
they spotted it on Planet FreeSpace.
The requirements are fairly modest, basically asking for a Pentium II 200 MHz (?), 32MB RAM,
though a 3D accelerator is also going to be required.
ASUS Beta
Testing Enthusiast Graphics Card Driver page (huh?) has new version 2.09 beta 2 V3800
Display Drivers for Win9x. Thanks Billy at Voodoo
Extreme.
All of these were spotted on BetaNews:
Version 3.0 of Name Maker Studio a fun-name and
colored name creation tool, has been released. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński. NMS supports
Q3Test, QuakeWorld (and Mods), Quake II RivCTF, Quake II Viking, Hexen II (and Hexen II
Mods).
BZ2.COM has posted a small file for users of the
just-released BattleZone II Demo ( story) that fixes the stuttery movement you notice when your pilot runs
around on foot after exiting a tank. They've also posted an Easter egg guide for those who
don't consider that a spoiler.
News comes from Randy at I.Am-TFC that when the Half-Life 1.0.1.3 patch broke all
their old demos, "the world's fastest TFC flag-runners were pretty sad"
(apparently they all hang around in a cafe somewhere swapping speed run stories all day
over small cups of rich exotic coffee). This sadness, however, soon gave way to resolve to show the world
that even faster demos were possible. Now having accomplished their daunting task, the
site has posted no less than 28 new 1.0.1.3 demos of speed-runs, combat action, and
special techniques described as "great for learning from the experts, benchmarking,
or just watching for fun." Contented, the speed runners can go back to their coffee and war stories.
The Roll Your Own page has news
of a server at 134.164.68.30 running this interesting-sounding new Quake II mod first
announced yesterday ( story) that allows you to "roll your own" Quake II mod
through a checkbox interface. More details on the mod and the new server are up on the website.
As we reported earlier, Prince of Persia 3D isn't gold, and it turns out that neither is Veiled Threat. It was when I saw the report on Gone Gold that our report that Prince of Persia 3D was
gold was incorrect ( story) that I also saw the news about the RTT game, Veiled Threat going
gold ( story). Ironically, it turns out that this report was not
accurate either, as Geoff Howland from Lupine Game's the developer, passes along, though it turns
out another real-time tactical game is gold (at least that's the story at the moment ![=]](/miscimages/smiley4.gif) ): Apparently there was a
misunderstanding, as a different game went gold besides VT. We just finished a game called
Hatfields and McCoys, which is a smaller title in a sort of comedy-RTT-shooter genre which
was what we announced went gold, except that I didnt explicitly say the name since I
havent been able to talk about it until now.
Sorry about any problems here.
To finish this all off, I received the following
from Carson Utz, the designer on Prince of Persia 3D on the cause of his confusion on the
false gold (fool's gold?) report he sent along ( story): Regarding the relative goldness of POP3D--
I'm sorry about the inaccuracy there. I'd like to clarify that I was given permission by
our exec. producer to post that the game was gold. The first I've heard of it not being
gold is reading Blues News this morning. Anyway, I apologize, and would never have
knowingly sent you any news I didn't know to be 100% accurate.
Until then, I hope you enjoy the demo.
Hostile Waters;
Music from Gore on GA-Source is a that looks at (and listens to) the music from 4D
Ruler's upcoming first-person shooter, Gore, providing a track in mp3 format as a sample,
and some Q&A with Erik Lyden the freelance
composer who created the music for the game.
AlchemyZone
has reprinted an article on id Software originally published in EDGE
magazine complete with several Quake 3 screenshots (which look somewhat familiar,
although I believe most of them are new to the web). The article features comments
from id's fabulous receptionist and official team mother Miss Donna, as
well as the rest of the crew. Ordinarily we don't mention reprinted copyrighted
material, but it would appear that they've gotten permission to reprint the
story from the magazine's editor, and if it's cool with them, it's cool with us.
A new version of The Heretic Fortress,
a teamplay mod for Heretic II has been released, and is available for download
on its homepage (thanks Frans).
This version fixes several nasty bugs, and adds two new maps as well.
Quake
Cinema Make It Shake is a well-produced ZDTV feature on the wacky world of Quake
cinema touring through some of the Quake II films on The Planet Quake Cineplex, focusing on Father Frags Best, Quake 2 Late Nite,
and Eschaton-
Nightfall. Thanks Overman at Zarathustra
Studios. Unfortunately it overlooks the Quake movies, some of which are still probably
the all-time best. Three favorites I can recall to particularly single out being Blahbalicious, Scourge done Slick, and Operation Bayshield.
The Quake movies require the registered Quake, the Quake II movies require the registered
Quake II, Scourge done Slick requires both Quake and the Scourge of Armagon mission pack,
and while the ZDNet
article has a text portion, the full effect requires RealPlayer
or NotRealPlayer.
After working all that out, I require a nap .
A new version 2.1 of the NOP Java
stats tool is now available. NOP allows stats from a Q3Test server to be displayed on a
website practically in real-time. The new release clears up several bugs from the previous
version. Also now available is NOPTrans v1.0, a tool that transfers games.log files from
Q3Test servers to a master ranking server.
As promised, right on schedule, GameSpot's
Prince of Persia 3D Demo is now available for download. The file is available as a big
ole installer (described as for "corporate connections"), as well as one of
those resumable Gigex stub dealies, for modem users. Word is a DirectX-compatible 3D card
with 8MB RAM is required to play, as is QuickTime
4.0. This doesn't seem to be an exclusive, so here's a local copy of the
full installer (49.9 MB), along with the customary list of other mirrors.
Saw on Gone Gold a reference to the report here
recently that Prince of Persia 3D is gold ( story) is not accurate, pointing out that the game is not gold until
Mindscape says so, which is certainly the case. The gone gold folks tactfully refer to the
source of the inaccuracy generically, but it was from here that the report originated
(based on an email from Carson Utz, one of the game's designers). Sorry for causing any
confusion. Remember, by the way, that the Prince of Persia 3D demo on
GameSpot is due in less than a half-hour.
Gone Gold that Lupine's Veiled Threat has gone gold. This game is not a
true RTS, sounds more like real-time tactics (which appeals to me more), offering combat
without the resource management. Thanks SmokingMan. Also, MetalFatigue.net has posted some new screenshots
showing off gameplay from Metal Fatigue.
Diablo 2 Beta Test report
on the DiabloII.Net Network offers an account from
a PCXL contest-winner of a hands-on encounter with a recent beta build of Blizzard's
upcoming sequel to their smash-hit isometric-view action game.
Ingava's System Shock 2
Weapons Guide give a complete rundown on the armament in Looking Glass Studio's
newly-released sequel to the classic science fiction role-playing game. The 20 page guide
is described as "the most complete, comprehensive guide and commentary on all of the
weapons found in System Shock 2, covering all 14 weapons; the ammo, modifications and
firing modes.
Outrage's Jeff Slutter made a post to the
DBB saying "that he forgot to include a DMFC.lib in the new version of the SDK.
According to post, the D3SDK 1.0 is not compatible with MS Visual C++ 4.x and 5.x."
thanks The Descent Chronicles. Here's the deal
on how to get it working:
If you have 4.x or 5.x, the fix is simple. Bring up a dos prompt and change
directory into your d3-sdk's lib directory (where dmfc.lib is located). Then execute the
following: lib /DEF :Dmfc.def /NAME :Dmfc.dll /OUT :Dmfc.lib
After this executes, you'll have a new dmfc.lib that will work with your compiler. If it
can't find lib.exe for some reason, do a find in files for it, it's somewhere on your
harddrive (assuming you have your compiler installed correctly).
GT has updated their official Unreal
Tournament site with this week's UT level of the week. This week's level
is DOM Cinder, a domination map, and there's three new screenshots available
on the site showing it off.
NovaLogic has
announced that when Delta Force 2 and Armored Fist 3 (which both support
voice over net technology) ship, they will be bundled with a hands free microphone
from Labtec.
Volition's home page has been updated
with a new MP3 showing off the music from Freespace 2. Expect another one of
these every week until the game ships. Also posted are new desktop images from
Freespace 2, as well as Summoner, their 3D RPG in development (thanks Billy
" volatile" Wilson).
Kabuto.net has posted a poll featuring
a question from PlanetMoon, the developers of Giants: Citizen Kabuto. The question
deals with what kind of accent people think the Delphi character should speak
with. If you've got an opinion, jump over there and vote.
- A reminder: at 9:00 AM PDT this morning, GameSpot
will release the Prince of Persia 3D demo. Keep an eye out for it. Thanks Ant...
- Winamp 2.50c, an incremental update
to this popular MP3 program is out, and available for download...
- Thresh's FiringSquad
will be posting new screenshots every day from SquareSoft's Final Fantasy
VIII from now until the game's PlayStation release on September 2nd...
Well, I returned from Texas, and what do I find on my doorstep? None other
than Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. Now personally, I refused to believe
that this thing had gone gold until I had it in my hands, and jeez...I guess
it finally did. The game's okay...it's nothing revolutionary, and C&C fans
are probably going to be pleased with it. Personally, I think I'll stick to
StarCraft, or better yet, System Shock 2. :)
Link of the Day: (Update posted by Blue): Star Wars Episode 2: Food Court. Star
Wars meets Pulp Fiction (thanks MAVERICK). Full of foul language, copyright infringement,
and belly laughs. The first link of the day posted here has been removed as a poor
editorial decision. Apologies to any that though it was in bad taste, which would include
myself. We define bad taste very narrowly here (just check out the replacement link to
confirm that), but laughing at the serious misfortune of others does qualify.
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