Archived News:
The Qtracker Homepage has a new beta 5 of
version 2.3 of this server browser tweaking the newly-added Quake III Arena support now
that the Q3ATest is available to test it. Also, a new version 0.30 of Bowzer on-line game browser is now available
fixing the Q3ATest launching bug, adding a "true" status bar, and more.
The Starbreeze Homepage has some new screenshots up as they head off to E3. The new shots are the first to show off their curved surfaces technology. Also, there's another new Diablo II screenshot on Diabloii.net, and three new Experience shots on Voodoo Extreme.
Jenni from Valve sends along the following announcement about the release of the Linux
dedicated server for Half-Life, available
here:
We've just released the Half-Life dedicated server for Linux, v. 1.0.0.9., which
includes Team Fortress Classic support. It's approximately 80 MB, and should only be
downloaded by people wanting to run the dedicated server (not the game itself) on Linux.
This release supports x86 Linux machines. The code was compiled on RedHat 5.2 with glibc.
To install the server, download hlds_l.1009.tar.gz from this location: http://www.won.net/gamerooms/action/half-life/.
Untar/unzip the file and read the linuxreadme file for further instructions.
We have a mailing list for people interested in discussion about Half-LIfe/TFC dedicated
server issues, both Win32 and Linux. To join the list, mail majordomo@lists.caitiff.com with
"subscribe hlds" in the body. If you have install questions or problems, email
the mailing list: hlds@lists.caitiff.com.
We've gone and compiled a whole bunch of information together into a quick
little page (that will be constantly updated as new information becomes available)
that we've titled Quake 3 Tips & Resources. Swing by and check it out.
The official Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2
site is up with new info and images from Ritual's upcoming Quake III-engine game, asking
questions like, "Whats two feet tall, wears sneakers, and will suck your soul
from your body with a straw?" (and answering with "Play the game you'll find
out."
John Carmack updated his .plan with word on where to send bug reports:
Do NOT send bug reports and game comments directly to me! If I have to filter
through hundreds of emails a day, I won't get any more work done... Only crashtest related
problems should come to me, everything else should go to q3feedback@idsoftware.com
id's John"Hellrot" Cash updated his
.plan with word on Q3ATest SOCKS support for folks tucked behind firewalls:
Stuck behind a firewall and think you can't play Q3ATEST?
Q3ATEST has support for SOCKS5 (RFC-1928). Well, at least the wintel version does... I'm
not certain it has been picked up for the Mac and Linux code yet; I'll have to check on
that and take care of it. There are three cvars that control it. They are only settable
from the at init time (from the command line).
+set net_sockEnabled 1
+set net_socksServer
+set net_socksPort
Please note that you use the address (name or IP number) of the SOCKS server (firewall
machine), NOT a Q3ATEST server. The port number defaults to 1080, you should not need to
change this.
Currently it does not do any authentication. It would be pretty easy to add the
username/password authentication method (RFC-1929); I will do so if there are people who
need it. The odds of us doing the GSS-API method (RFC-1961), however, are not very good. I
am only supporting IPv4 addresses; I mention this just to satisfy the curiosity of people
who know SOCKS and would have asked.
This piece of code has not been beaten on very much. If you have/need/want to try it out,
please let me know how it works out for you. Thanks!
An update in Brian Hook's .plan says that
timedemo and timerefresh are broken in the Q3ATest release (nonetheless Tom's Hardware has some results
posted, I don't know what's the deal there). Here's Brian's update:
Turns out that TIMEREFRESH and TIMEDEMO do not work in the build that got
released due to a bug on our part. We will have this fixed in the next major release, but
may be a while (please don't bombard us with e-mail about the next release...or at least
if you do, send 'em to Graeme :-) ).
I'll try to have benchmark figures up on Thursday night.
PingTool 2.5 Beta 7 and Kali 1.65 are both now available, each of these programs
adding Quake III Arena to the list of games for which they can find servers.
A couple announcements from the folks at Falcon NW, who have a couple of exclusive
hardware deals coming up: Falcon Northwest
Reveals Details of System Powered by 3Dfx is a press release on the 3dfx site announcing new systems by Falcon NW with Voodoo3
on the motherboard, and the Falcon Mach V Fan Page
has word on an exclusive "Falcon Northwest Special Edition" of Guillemot's Ultra
TNT2 card, which they say will be clocked at a higher speed than any other board maker's
UltraTNT2 part in an effort to create the create "the Ultimate Ultra TNT2 card."
Server seems to be behaving a bit better, the mail is in, and the database is accessible again (for the moment at least), so I'm going to try and get back on track. My apologies for the problems accessing the site today (and for the future if they return).
My apologies for the lack of updates today... the pounding on the server
surrounding the Q3ATest has been unprecedented, and has prevented us from accessing the
database, or even our email... we're on a mad scramble to fix things here, and get the
situation stabilized so this is not a problem as loony and I head off to E3 tomorrow. The
(for the moment, at least) missing .plan tracker above is one of the temporary measures
underway as we work on this.
Another update to John Carmack's .plan gives
word the first bug has been squashed (don't tell Edgar). Here's the poop:
BigImp wins the first prize. It doesn't crash the server, but fmtspec names will
crash all clients that try to log on. Technically that would be an upkeep required DOS
attack, but I'll let this one go.
I even had a "FIXME: make vsprintf safe" comment by the offending line...
I am going to update the server to filter out all % chars that come in over the net to
prevent any other similar things
Our big toe, Sgt. Hulka, sends word that the playable demo of TeamEvolve's Zaero for Quake
II is available. Here's the deal:
Download the Zaero Demo by Team Evolve It's 25Meg, requires Quake II 3.14 or
Higher to play. Zaero Features the first few missions from the full retail package (Which
you can order online if you like it and want to help support Team Evolve) The Zaero Demo
also has two brand new Deathmatch Maps from our upcomming FREE deathmatch pack. Get a
taste of Zaero Deathmatch!!!
From the guys who created PainKeep comes Zaero DM. Be Prepared to DM with a whole new
armory of weapons, powerups and special DM only items like you've never seen before! Like
the Armageddon A2k Bomb Suit, the Sniper Rifle, The IRED's, the Sonic Cannon, Plasma
Shields, Visor and remote cameras in the levels. As many have previously said, "Zaero
kicks Major Ass!"
25 Meg Self Extracting
Install
A couple new shots have been added to the Decay screenshots
page on the Insomnia Software site
showing off the scenery in this upcoming 3D game. Thanks Billy "Decay" Wilson.
John Carmack updated his .plan with the plan (a .plan plan!) for Quake III Arena Test
releases going forward (to culminate in the release of a demo), and word on a bounty for
server crashing bugs(!), kicking off the update with a mention of lag that may be
occurring at this very moment due to the Q3A-related net brownout. Here's the whole deal:
Everyone should realize that many popular net links are going to be clogged up
with q3test downloads for a while, so net play may be a bit patchy to a lot of servers.
-------------
Now that the first win32 test is out, here is The Plan for going forward:
All future releases should be same-day for all architectures.
There may be an exe-only update to the current distributions if there are significant
problems, but it isn't scheduled.
The next major test release will include a new one on one map designed for tournement
play, and new executables with server and game modifications, but will not require
downloading a new pak0.pk3.
The release after that will introduce various teamplay rules on the original two maps.
This version will likely be another full download, because I know that I still have a
couple things to change in the map format. This will probably be the first test running
with the virtual machine.
The final major test release will introduce the single player game with bots and ranks.
After any bugs are shaken out of that, it will be the "Q3 Demo" instead of the
"Q3 Test", and we should be ready to release the full game to stores.
In an ideal world, people that aren't prepared to deal with in-development software would
wait until then to form an opinion of the product.
---------------
I am offering a bounty for server crashing bugs. Q2 had several releases forced out
because of malicious attacks on all the public servers, so I want to try and flush out
what I can during Q3's testing phase.
There is a server running in the debugger here at crashtest.idsoftware.com
(192.246.40.68). Anyone that can repeatably hang or crash this system can have a $100
prize and some misc bit of Q3A paraphenalia that I can dig up.
Operating system level attacks don't count -- only things that I can actually fix or
protect against in my code.
Denial of service attacks don't count if they require upkeep, but if there is a
fire-and-forget DOS attack, it will still count.
Any actions you can perform with the released client are fair game. Crashing the client
isn't good for a bounty, but I would still like to know about it.
Custom attack programs are also fair game. These are actually what I am most concerned
about -- malicious programs that goes through and crash all listed servers.
Ideally, you would practice on a private server under your control and only hit crashtest
when you think you can repeat it.
If you find one, email me the instructions so I can reproduce it. Include
"CRASHTEST" in the subject so I won't miss it.
First come, first served, one bounty per bug. I will update crashtest with our internal
builds, so it will certainly be possible that an attack on the released servers no longer
functions on crashtest.
Unreal
Universe's Unreal Tournament Preview is up with Apache's look at the game along with
eight new screenshots.
Computer Gaming Review has posted a new Soldier of
Fortune shot from Raven's upcoming Quake II-engine combat game.
Monolith's Jason Hall updated his .plan with talk of what he can say about LithTech2 at E3,
with word that a couple of screenshots are up showing it off:
A few items:
I've been getting a LOT of questions regarding the new enhancements to the LithTech Engine
(v.2)...
Unfortunately, until our E3 "backroom" demonstration is over I can not give out
the itemized list of the cool and neato things that have been added thus far.
I will say this though -
The engine is now fully indoor/outdoor. For example, you can walk right out of a super
detailed castle into the scary wilderness, seamlessly. It is quite impressive, and you
don't have to have an "ultra-fog-clip-plane-make-the-engine-
go-faster-by-hiding-geometry- with-lots-of-fog-
oh-did-I-mention-that-we-need-to-put-fog-in-there- to-speed-things-up-already"
Anyway, due to repeated requests I have snagged 3 preliminary screenshots of some LithTech
2 test maps for people to check out.
If you are going to be at E3 and have managed to reserve a timeslot with us for the
backroom demo, we appreciate your interest and look forward to seeing you there.
The shots below show only a very small portion of what the new LithTech stuff can do. I
was under heavy restraint in terms of what the team would like to show prior to E3, so I
just took what I could get (there is a bunch of other cool stuff that I can't show until
E3 - sorry)
If you don't see these images directly in the webpage, please go to the following URL's
for the 3 LT2 screenshots:
http://www.lith.com/lt2/LT2Demo3.jpg
http://www.lith.com/lt2/LT2Demo4.jpg
http://www.lith.com/lt2/LT2Demo2.jpg
Some 3Dfx Chips Not Supported is
a page on the GLSetup site with word on what
chipsets are supported by this utility released with the Win32 Q3ATest that can hook up
your accelerator with the proper drivers automatically (thanks Ant). Here's the poop:
Unfortunately, the initial GLSetup Public Beta v0.99 does not support all 3Dfx
chipsets. Only Voodoo 3
is supported in the GLSetup.exe archive. OpenGL drivers for the other 3Dfx chipsets are
available on the web at the link below.
We are working on this problem with 3Dfx and are planning to integrate OpenGL drivers for
the other chipsets in the very near future. Check this page for updates.
id's Graeme "Zaphod" Devine updated his .plan mentioning high CPU usage in Linux
Q3ATest 1.05, and mentioning that more info on GLSetup is forthcoming.
Here (at long last for most of you) is Q3Test version 1.05. We've worked long
and hard to get this to you and we look forward to your feedback on what's right and
what's wrong with it.
There's one known issue with the Linux dedicated server taking up way too much CPU time.
As other known issues come to light we'll try to keep you all in the loop. Please try and
email q3feedback with a good sensible subject line, mention what sort of system/OS you
have, and remember that humans read all the feedback.
GLSetup will have it's own press release sometime later this evening, but we're very
excited to be part of this venture. But I'll let Chris Hecker tell you all about
it.
id's Brian Hook made another .plan update about NT 3dfx support, following up on his
previous post ( story) with what he's been able to determine of their official
position:
I've had repeated e-mails about the state of 3Dfx's drivers under NT, so I went
ahead and asked what their official stance was. The best I could get from them was along
the lines of "We're gonna support it, but we're not committing to a specific
date". I'm under the impression that the drivers for WinNT aren't that far off. I
don't have any more information on this, so please don't send me questions about their
drivers. I suggest you contact 3Dfx directly if you have more questions about their driver
situation.
It's out. Here's the
Win32 client for Quake III Arena Test, here's GLSetup (sets up your
video card automatically), and GLBug (to report the system configuration of a system if GLSetup fails
to run). Enjoy!
- Win32 Quake III Arena client is out...
- Win32 Quake III Arena client is out...
- Win32 Quake III Arena client is out...
Q3ATest is here, wheee! Look for a page to go up with a list of hints and resources today, feel free to send along anything you come across. Pre-release anticipation got to this site, huge thanks for the guys at Pair for scrambling like Scotty with the Dilithium
crystals getting things running again when the reload mad masses busted things at one point (this update and a couple yesterday were delayed while trying to connect to the overworked database). Also, thanks to all who wrote in with help with the HTML problem, which was caused by Navigator's insistence on drawing boxes around hidden input areas. Several people also wrote in with solutions, the one currently in place is an easy semi-kludge sent along by Antony Espindola.
Link of the Day: The Bunnies
Strike Back a sequel to the famed Bunny Survival Tests. Thanks
Caliban.
|