The Wheel of Time page has been updated describing how the single player game is rounding into shape, saying they "can see the light at the end of the Single-Player tunnel," and about how there are builds of the game now being evaluated by select publications. The piece is also accented by a few new screenshots. Saw that on sCary's.

I-Play-Games' Kingpin Mapping Guide - Part 3 is now online with another installment in their ongoing guide to creating levels for Xatrix' Kingpin: Life of Crime. Today's lesson is on how to make the most complex sort of door, the swinging door, saying "If you can learn how to make a swinging door you will find all other doors simple."

Saw on Datumplane::Starsiege that Dynamix' Scott Rudi, TRIBES Extreme lead designer, has broken in his .plan file with his debut update, offering some information about both himself and progress on TRIBES Extreme:

Well, this is my first .plan file - let's see if I can mess it up.

First a little about my self: I started working here at Dynamix in '94 while finishing up my English degree (previously I knew only crude gestures and animalistic grunts - thank goodness the U of Oregon has fairly lenient entrance requirements). Over the years, I've clawed my way to the designer position here on Tribes Extreme.

I started playing Tribes early in Beta and haven't really ever stopped (in fact, I'm playing right now - BOOM! another Sofa King down!). What really drew me in was the teamwork required and the freedom of movement the jetpack allows. Plus, the fact that I can log in quickly and play for a few minutes at a time without a big hassle. It also helps that Tribes is ALT+TAB friendly, thus allowing me unlimited goof-off time. Muahahaha!

Games I play besides Tribes (in order of obsessiveness):
Warbirds (yes, I am a flight-sim junkie and I'm proud of it)
EverQuest (Dwarven Pride! 17th lvl Dwarven warrior "Rubble")
Civilization 2 (the greatest strat game ever created - "By God, we beat penecillin!")
Rainbow 6 (despite the online latency)
MAX
Hidden and Dangerous

I'm working on mission building and scripting on Tribes Extreme (TX) now that the overall design is done. Lincoln is doing some great AI work for the single-player stuff, and it should be a lot of fun for newbies and vets alike.

I'm also going through a lot of Open Call map and skin submissions. Everything's looking great! I'm excited to get our community involved with our product. We're considering implementing some things that will REALLY get the users into making Tribes their own game...

As for ScottY (i.e. Cornboy) leaving, as a co-worker I'm bummed and as a friend I'm really bummed. We'll all miss him around here and I hope he does great. The only thing I'm concerned about is that he'll become a Giants fan instead of a true A's believer...

GeForce 256 Experience Screenshots on GA-Source give one more look at the upcoming DMZG GeForce 256 demo from WXP than the pair we posted earlier (story).

• ATI confirms Dell deal is lost follows-up on the report earlier that this may be the case (story). Thanks Jamie Fullerton.
• This press release from Matrox details their new add-on with digital flat panel support for any G400 card.
• We're getting a lot of reports of GeForce 256 cards showing up on auction houses like eBay. It seems wise to advise against taking a shot at one of those, it just doesn't seem very likely, now, does it?

CNET Gamecenters' Sneak Peeks at Rainbow Six Rogue Spear offers a preview of Red Storm Entertainment's upcoming tactical shooter that's a sequel to Rainbow Six, based on the Tom Clancy book of the same name. The article examines both solo and multiplayer play, and there are also screenshots showing off both modes as well. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.

WXP's Patrick Moynihan sent along a pair of screenshots showing off the GeForce 256 Demo mentioned earlier that they are working on for NVIDIA. Get a load of the eye candy on these:

   

Here's a bit on the project:

It is important to note that, while DMZG runs under the Experience engine, it is NOT Experience. One of the nice side-effects of working with NVIDIA on this project has been that we were able to implement a lot of new features into the Experience engine while creating DMZG, and these features WILL roll over into Experience. Some of the new additions to the engine are:

GPU accelerated geometry transformation GPU accelerated vertex lighting GPU accelerated cubic environment maps GPU accelerated character skinning Fading detail maps

Each of these GPU features offloads work from the CPU to the GPU, which frees up the CPU for better physics, AI, and game code. By implementing these optimizations we have been able to push the DMZG poly counts from 10,000 polys per frame to over 80,000 on the same CPU. The level of detail this affords is astonishing.

There have been some DMZG screenshots floating around the web, but we believe that these were actually taken running on a TNT2 card, due to the fact that some of the graphical effects are not visible in the shots (for example, cubic environment mapping is disabled on TNT2 cards).

As a result, we have decided to fire up our NV10 dev system and snap some GENUINE GeForce256 screenshots from the Dagoth Moor Zoological Gardens demo.

GamesMania Sneak Peeks interviews Josh Resnick talking with president of Pandemic Studios about their upcoming 3D RTS Dark Reign 2 (thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers) . The Thandor-Movies page on Krawall offers gameplay from THANDOR - Die Invasion, an upcoming German RTS.

You didn't think we were through yet, did you?

• Patrick Moynihan's Experience Developer's Diary on VE has word on an upcoming GeForce 256-speciific demo WXP has been working on with NVIDIA.
• Riva Extreme sends word that there's a GeForce 256 chat on IRC tonight in efnet #riva at 6:00 PM PDT.
• Thresh's FiringSquads' NVIDIA GeForce 256 at IDF even offers screenshots of the new tech in action.
• Jack Mathews on Megatexels offers a little glossary if all the high tech in these press releases has you a bit confused.

Nihilistic's Ray "MoonGod" Gresko updated his .plan with word that they had found the "special individual needed to fill this role" that they recently advertised (not the Cabana Boy position, that is still open), welcoming one-time member of the Jedi Knight level design team Jacob Stephens aboard as the 12th member of Nihilistic Software. All is not lost for those in the hunt for an industry job, however (even for those unqualified to be a Cabana Boy), as Rogue Entertainment's now-ancient Rich Fleider (he just turned 30) updated his .plan with word that they have extended the deadline in their hunt for a 2D artist, so if you got them paper and pen skillz, hurry up and check out what's required for submission, because they'll be interviewing soon, and need submissions by this Friday. Word is they are also still taking demo tapes and submissions for the 3D animator/modeler position for about another week.

Tall as a tree Redwood sends word that he's posted some new screenshots on Stomped showing off action from Soldier of Fortune, Raven Software's upcoming first-person game of mercenary action. As red describes them: "Screenshot 1 depicts the main character about to fill some baddies full of lead next to some cows and mountains in the background. MoOoO! Screenshot 2 shows the flamethower doing some damage and a nice looking palm tree." He provided no palm tree sound effect, you'll have to work out your own. MoOoO!

The Xyla Screenshots page has some news screenshots showing off acxtion and scenery from their upcoming Disfigured, which looks to be an action fighting game type-dealie. The shots are from a demo that is currently in pre-alpha testing and is entitled "Disfigured Arcade." The pics are all from a TNT2 Ultra at 800x600 16- bit color.

Though their update page hasn't mentioned them yet, there are new Delta Force rev. 5 (formerly rev. D for the US and rev. C for the others) patches now available on NovaLogic's FTP. Frans at 3D Action Gamers sends word of this, and he has mirrored the files here. No word on what's changed yet, when we get it, I'll add it here.

Word on the ION Storm Daily Informant is that this Friday will be the latest edition of the monthly chat with birthday boy Tom Hall and the rest of the developers of Anachronox, ION's upcoming Quake II-engine console-style RPG. The event, descriptively dubbed the AnachroChat (you know you do interesting work when words like that don't trip your spell checker), and will be held at 8:00 PM Central Time (9:00 PM EDT) this Friday, September 3. To join, just enter the ION Chat Lobby by clicking the Online on their website, or connect via IRC to www.ionstorm.com, room #ion.

3D Rage's Nocturne Preview offers a hands-on look at this upcoming 3D Lovecraftian horror adventure based on some face time with a recent beta build of the game.

Intrigued by the comments earlier on Datumplane::Starsiege about Transform & Lighting support in TRIBES2 (story), PlanetStarSiege fired off another couple of questions to Dynamix Programmer Mark Frohnmayer about T&L support in other cards, and whether such technology might find its way into the more imminent TRIBES Extreme, which prompted the following response:

Since Tribes Extreme uses OpenGL as a rasterization layer only, it will see much less of a performance boost from hardware T&L.

It's in the cards.. the video cards:

• VIDEOLOGIC NEON 250 NOW SHIPPING screams this VideoLogic press release, that the PVRSG technology is finally available for the PC, albeit only in the UK for now.
• 3dfx Announces Support for Apple's New Power Mac G4 is good news for Mac users looking for video card choices.

A patch for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 that fixes the particularly nasty bug that popped up a few days back (story) has been released by Microsoft, and is available for download on their FTP site (thanks Blood, who says it should be available on Windows Update as of September 7th).

There are three Half-Life Op For Screenshots on GA-Source, though only one, the middle shot with the muzzle flash, is new, as both the crowbar pics previously appeared in PC Gamer Online (thanks Dave Johnston). Opposing Force is Gearbox Software's upcoming official add-on for Half-Life where your role in the disaster in the Black Mesa facility is containment, rather than cause, as you play an elite special forces soldier sent in to track down scientists and write graffiti on the walls.

Descent4.net has posted an interview with Scott Blinn, the lead level designer on Descent 4 (and previously a level designer on Irrational Games and Looking Glass' System Shock 2). As it's still fairly early on in Descent 4's production schedule he can't comment on much, but he does drop some hints about the new engine's features.

Datumplane:: Starsiege has posted a Q&A with Dynamix' Mark Frohnmayer, who confirms that the GeForce's transform and lighting features (T&L) will be supported in TRIBES 2. Here's what he had to say:

Yes, T&L will be supported in Tribes 2 (we're using OpenGL's transform pipeline, so it'll just work) Since we don't have a sample board, I can't comment on performance, but I expect it will be very good. Tribes 2 with the details cranked WAY down should play on pretty much any card with a good OpenGL driver... that said, expect play on low end cards to be suboptimal.

PC Zone's Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Preview is online, giving one of their thorough looks ahead, this time focusing on Raven Software's upcoming Quake III-engine shooter, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. In addition to a rundown on what to expect from the game when available, they have also posted some Q&A with the developers, and some exclusive new screenshots.

It would appear that the announcement hinted at for Seybold (story on Yahoo) is in fact the new Apple G4 line of computers (thanks Miguel Gonzalez). The new computers feature a 22-inch (diagonal) flat screen monitor (available exclusively with the G4), a silver look, Air Port compatibility (for wireless networking) and an ATI Rage 128 with 16 meg of RAM using AGP 2x, and even a DVD-RAM drive in some models, with processor speeds ranging from 400 to 500 MHz.

Microsoft sends along this press release announcing their redesigned Microsoft Gaming Zone, which they say makes it, "easier and more exciting for visitors" via their new Quick Join and Quick Host features, which allows gamers to hop into a multiplayer game in seconds.

And hey ! They're not even all NVIDIA related!

• ATI Trade Halted Amid Talk Of Lost Dell Deal is the name of a newswire story on Yahoo that's reporting ATI may be losing an important OEM deal (which it's speculated went to NVIDIA instead). Thanks vitriol.
• USBWorkshop is reporting that Hewlett Packard has announced a new USB CD-RW drive.
• Also at USBWorkshop is the news that the new USB 2.0 speed looks to be 360-480 Mb/s, a full 30 to 40 times faster than USB 1.1.
• PCRave has posted their GeForce 256 preview, based on the author's recent trip to NVIDIA.
• CTNews has posted their GeForce 256 writeup, and they even compare its specs to those of the Glaze3D and Savage 2000. Press release benchmarks are likely forthcoming. :)
• PlanetRiva has posted their GeForce 256 writeup as well.
• ELSA has announced their ERAZOR X, a new board based on the GeForce 256 chipset that features compatibility with their 3D Revelator glasses (thanks GASource).

Psygnosis has released a demo for their 3D update of Lemmings, titled Lemmings Revolution (thanks AVault). In other demo news, Take2 has announced on their browser-intense site that a demo version of Grand Theft Auto 2 will be available on September 22nd, with the game available in stores one month later (thanks Frans).

GamePen has posted an interview with Hal Barwood, project leader on Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, a new third person action/adventure title that's coming soon. Hal discusses the design decisions in working with such a recognizable movie character, as well as some of the game's features, including why they decided on a third person camera, the NPCs in the game, and more.

Since most of you just want to know the features of the GeForce 256, here's a list of its features:

• 15M triangles/sec - sustained DMA, transform/clip/light, setup, rasterize and render rate.
• 4 Pixels per clock (4 pixel pipelines).
• 480M pixels/sec fill rate - 32 texture samples per clock, full speed 8-tap anisotropic filtering.
• 8 hardware lights.
• 350 MHz RAMDAC.
• Most feature complete for DX7 and OGL - Transform & Lighting, Cube environment mapping, projective textures, and texture compression.
• Will utilize 4x AGP performance with Fast Writes , which enables the CPU to send data directly to the GPU (1 GB/sec transfer rate), increasing overall performance and freeing the system memory bus for other functions.
• 256 bit rendering engine.
• Highest quality HDTV (High Definition Television) video playback.
• High Precision HDTV video overlay.
• 5 horizontal, 3 vertical taps.
• 8:1 up/down scaling.
• Independent hue, saturation and brightness controls in hardware.
• High bandwidth HDTV class video I/O.
• 16 bit video port.
• Full host port.
• Dedicated DMA video.
• Powerful HDTV motion compensation.
• Full frame rate DVD to 1080i resolution.
• Full precision subpixel accuracy to 1/16 pixel.

Since NVIDIA's site is totally swamped, and it's not up on newswire sites yet, here's a local copy of the GeForce 256 OEM press release, announcing their OEM partners for the new chipset (thanks James Massa), and here's a local copy of the original GeForce announcement.

Well, it's 7:00 AM Pacific, and here come the GeForce 256 stories. A roundup:

• NVIDIA's page is swamped (good luck getting through), but they've updated with their official GeForce 256 page.
• 3DGpu.com has posted a GeForce FAQ, the chip specs, a list of supported games, as well as some test demo screenshots.
• RivaExtreme has posted an article on the GeForce 256.
• Blake M. sends word that there were apparently some anxious NVIDIA fans holding up "worlds first GPU" signs outside the Today Show on NBC this morning. Strange stuff.
• Riva3D has launched a GeForce 256 site, featuring loads of images and a technical white paper.
• Tweak3D has posted their preview of the GeForce 256 (thanks VE for those last two).

Black & White Wire has posted two new screenshots from Black & White, Lionhead's oddball 3D god-game currently in development. One shot is particularly impressive, showing off a clash between two characters, complete with spattering blood.

Ritual's Robert Atkins sends along these two new screenshots from their Quake III: Engine game Heavy Metal: FAKK 2. Enjoy!

   

Creative to Launch Exciting Fall Product Line Using the New GeForce 256 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) From NVIDIA is a press release from Creative Labs announced it plans to support NVIDIA's GeForce 256 technology in products this fall. Thanks MajestY at the Shugashack. The press release says "Creative will be the leading supplier for boards based on the GeForce 256 chipset," and also refers to Creative's "patent-pending real-time volumetric shadows" (first time I saw anything about a patent there). Here's a bit more on the GeForce 256 technology:

The GeForce 256 is an innovative new graphics processor that moves the entire 3D rendering pipeline to the graphics card, creating a whole new category: the Graphics Processing Unit, or GPU. By offloading these computationally intense tasks from the CPU, the GeForce 256 enables game developers to create games with significantly more detailed geometry, enhanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and higher fidelity physics, resulting in more exciting, more immersive gameplay.

The GeForce 256 is actually a yet-unannounced product, but it's a pretty safe bet that this will only be for another half-hour. The release is stamped 7:00 AM EDT, and the NDA is up today at 10:00 AM EDT (7:00 AM PDT), so it's possible there was some confusion about that. We already experienced this here earlier, having gotten a story about the NVIDIA announcement that said it was to be posted at 7:00 AM EDT, which it turns out was not the case. Anyway, there's much more on this to come, so hold on to your pocket-protector...

Ingava's System Shock 2 Psionic Abilities Guide is now online offering a complete how-to on using your mental powers in Irrational Games' new science fiction first-person RPG. Of course if they were really masters of psionic powers they wouldn't write this up, they'd just mentally beam it out to you, but maybe it's just that you aren't receptive enough (and then there are those psychic phone lines)... um, where was I? Oh yeah, you can check out Ingava's System Shock 2 Psi Guide here.

The Official Hunters Website has a new version 1.2 of Dynamix' Tinman's server-only modification for Starsiege TRIBES, based on the classic HeadHunters Quake. The new release offers a significant bug-fix (prior to the fix each time the mission was changed by vote, hunters would stop working), and several new modes, including GREED mode and HORDE mode.

A Rogue Spear Preview on Well Rounded Entertainment is online, offering a lengthy look ahead at the sequel to Red Storm Entertainment's tactical shooter based on the Tom Clancy book. The piece includes 16 exclusive screenshots, and will conclude tomorrow with a second installment.

The OnTheWay Quake 2 server utility page has posted a beta version of this server control utility to allow the same easy setup of a Q3Test server as the original version allows for Quake II. The first release is not feature complete, but already should be useful in helping simplify server setup. Thanks Redwood.

There's an Unreal Multiplayer Tweak Guide on Unreal Universe.

Sharky Extreme has posted a follow-up on the recent stories of Hercules shutting down with some commentary from the former CEO of Hercules Graphics, Peggy Fong, who resigned from the company on August 16.

Billy has posted some screenshots Voodoo Extreme showing off gameplay in 10six, the upcoming massive persistant online action/strategy game that ambitiously looks to support a million players. There's also word there that the 10six registration page is starting to "really" accept applications to beta test the game, the catch being you must be a HEAT.net Perimeter (free) member to join (I'm guessing they won't really be able to test the million player part that way).

3DApp Home has a new release of a utility called Q3A Setup that offers control over loads of obscure console commands to allow easy tweaking and customization of Q3Test. Thanks Billy.

• The Adrenaline Vault previews Silver, looking at this console-style RPG...
• Computer Games Online's Orcs: Revenge of the Ancient interview (Part I) talks with Designer John Race about Sierra's upcoming RPG/strategy hybrid...

The official Iron Strategy website has launched, the homepage for a newly announced game that offers combat in giant mechanized robots. Here's word on the game from the site (there's also word there that a "Playable demo is available by special request," but I bet that's for ECTS, and not a general invitation):

Iron Strategy gives players control - as either pilots or generals - of huge fighting robots (called Warbots). The game is the perfect mix of a warbot simulator and a real time strategy game. Reality is the key word. Differing terrain, alterations of day and night, fog, rain, snow and even thunder will challenge the player's mind and reflexes. A gamer can play in a pure action mode or direct a platoon of warbots in battle, while a strategist can issue precise orders to his army from his well-protected bunker. There are tons of gameplays, a complete campaign of 12 missions on 4 different planets, two instant action missions and several multiplayer missions - everything a gamer or strategist could hope for.

Speaking of official sites, UBI Soft's Shadow Company Site is online offering an official home-base for info about this game of real-time squad-based tactical operations. Thanks to the tactfully tactical folks over at TacticalPlanet.

Computer Games Online's Battlezone II: Combat Commander Designer Diary #2 is up, gives an update on progress on the upcoming sequel to the action/RTS hybrid game. The diary is written by George Collins, director of Pandemic Studios.

Huckleberry Finn sends word of a post by Epic's Mark Rein to the Epic GT NVIDIA Forum that gives a feel for NVIDIA's announcement later today (as well as the fact that Mark probably hasn't signed an NDA). Here's a portion:

Nvidia is definitely going to change the world of graphics.

Nvidia is going to announce the GeForce256 which is the product name for the NV10 their new "GPU" chip which supports hardware accelerated transform and lighting. Tim Sweeney and I saw it running behind closed doors at Siggraph and we were totally blown away. We saw some incredible demos with previously unimaginable numbers of polygons in real time, fully-lit, game-quality framerates and resolutions.

Nvidia is going to ship it this September and from a practical standpoint it's approaching the power of Sony's next generation Playstation's graphics hardware.

What's really interesting is that this is just the start of some pretty amazing hardware to come from them. They released TNT2 only 5 months ago and here they are today with GeForce256 less than a month away. Just think what kind of chip they'll be shipping when Sony's next generation Playstation actually does arrive.

Here's the cool part. Looking forward to Fall 2000 you'll probably be able to buy a Celeron 600 or AMD Athlon 600, 128Mb of RAM, a DVD-ROM, a 15+ Gb hard drive, a monitor and a GeForce256 in the $1,200 range from name-brand companies like Dell. Wow!

You can read the whole update here. Thanks Huck!

There's a new version 2.0.1014 of Webdog, on the heels of the new version 2.0 released Sunday. The new version of this website monitoring utility can be downloaded from the site, or updated through the program's automated updater.

Word on Drakan.Net is that beta testing has begun on a new patch for Surreal Software's new dragon-riding action game Drakan: Order of the Flame. They also have word that Surreal's Tech Page has a list of what's going to be addressed by the upcoming patch when it is available, including the following multiplayer changes:

Multiplayer Changes
The DirectPlay-based networking code has been replaced with Winsock TCP/IP.
Dedicated server now works under Windows NT 4.0 (SP3).
More reduction of network bandwidth. Removed DirectPlay packet overhead.
Better packet aggregation. This feature reduces bandwidth by combining multiple packets into larger, single packets which have less overhead.
Smarter modem support. The server adaptively avoids bottlenecks by keeping packet flow to a minimum though tight connections like modems.
Dragon (air) Teamplay now sets all the players on one team to have the same dragon skin (defined by the server admin).
Added server commands for viewing in-game chat and talking to the players.
Added server commands for changing the timelimit and kills limit in-game.
Added server commands for changing to a different group of levels (maps) in-game.
Fixed long delay in the join-game screen if your computer's DNS settings were not correct. The system was hung while it was looking up the Drakan master server address.
When joining a team, the scoreboard is now displayed so you can see what players are on each team (and how many). new
More layers of mush to prevent cheating (remaining critical holes moved server-side).
Fixed a few minor gameplay bugs.

GameFan has posted some new Imperium Galatica II screenshots showing off this upcoming space opera from GT Interactive.

PC.IGN. Com previews Tomb Raider 4 looking at the upcoming next installment in Eidos' franchise, talking about what's new, what's the same, and of course, the obligatory academic analysis of Lara's breast size.

Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers for these:

• GameSpot reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• 3Dnow.Net reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• GamePen reviews Shadow Man.
• AGN reviews Shadow Man.
• Gamesmania reviews Braveheart.

• Gamershome.com Server Monitoring page has info on how any website can easily have a server monitoring page via a simple plug-in...
• CNN - Status of Hotmail privacy unclear reports that your free anonymous mail still may not be free of others anonymously reading it. Thanks Bodi Freeman...
• The Pulse on Quake's Smoking Gun interview talks with Andrew Smith about his GameSpy Industries editorial, reprinting it along the way...

Yesterday marks the third anniversary of the appearance in stores of the Quake CD with the full version of the game on it in encrypted form that you could call and unlock after paying the registration fee. Recalling this reminded me that the first release of the registered Quake was actually via mail order! That old-school distribution method makes that seem longer ago than three years, though I guess the changes to this site since then reinforces that impression. In fact it was the flurry of activity at this point at that time that lead to older news being archived in weekly chunks instead of monthly ones to avoid being too large a download (down to two days now). Okay, enough of that, if I wax any more nostalgic, I'll turn into a candle.

Link of the Day: Gobler Toys reminiscing about the fun "we can't remember," taking a look at toys that never were from a bygone era. Thanks MrCoffee.