AVault has posted a version 1.03 patch for Sierra's Homeworld. Here's what it does for you:

• A problem with auto-detecting firewalls was fixed. Previously it would always detect that you were behind a firewall.
• Previously, OpenGL was not available for any of the Nvidia TNT cards under Windows9x. This was disabled due to driver problems under Win95. OpenGL is now available for Win98 but not Win95.
• The Intel i740 is now more reliable under Direct 3D.
• To fix problems associated with Voodoo2 SLI configurations, gamers need to visit http://www.glsetup.com/where.htm and download version 1.0.0.107 of GLSetup. Homeworld ships with 1.06 but it does not help with SLI users.. 1.07 does.

Despite the fact that they just posted a new preview of the game...well, yesterday, PC.IGN is reporting that ASC Games' planned Unreal-engine title Werewolf: The Apocalypse has been "put on hold indefinitely, due to delays with game pushing it to next march." Expect more to this story soon.

Xatrix' Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin sent along an e-mail letting us know that he's released the version 1.21 patch and SDK for Kingpin (they're available for download at 3DGamers). Here's what he had to say:

The Kingpin v1.21 patch and SDK is now available.

While this is an official patch, it may not work it's way onto the "official" Kingpin page at Interplay, due to circumstances out of my control. So please spread the good word my friends.

Unfortunately my Linux box is unavailable at this time, so the Linux port will be somewhat delayed.

An update to the Unreal Technology Page explains some of the Direct3D anomalies that people have been running into (thanks Unreal Universe). Here's what it says:

We've been looking at the feedback on Direct3D performance and investigating some strange reports. Recently, we've mainly been testing on 96-meg and 128-meg machines (I have a Celeron 400, Jack Porter has a K6-2 450). On these machines, TNT1 performance is good -- average 28 fps at 648x480, 25 fps at 800x600. The TNT2 performance is significantly better.

However, upon removing some RAM and testing Direct3D on a 64-meg K6-2, the "precache" time increased by about 5X, and performance dropped to a few frames per second. These performance drops don't occur in the software renderer, and don't occur in Glide. Something is going wrong between Unreal, Direct3D, and the TNT's Direct3D driver, and we're investigating.

Overall, the feedback indicates a very wide variance in performance among TNT users, much more so than with any other card. Our internal testing has indicated this too; for example, we've found (and worked around) a lot of driver bugs that only happen on one machine, and not others with otherwise similar configurations.

Don't Try This At Home Dept.: Some TNT users have reported that tweaking their BIOS's "AGP Aperture Size" improves performance on 64-meg machines. We have tried this and couldn't find any differences on our 64-meg test machine. Others report that the Creative Labs unified drivers (with TNT Glide support) outperform Direct3D on their cards. If anybody finds definite improvements or workarounds, or has insight into what's happening, please email utbugs@epicgames.com and let us know.

Frans of 3DGamers sends word that the second Tread Marks demo has been released, and is available for download at the official site. This demo (which the site stresses is not a finished demo, but rather a publicly available test) features two maps, and two tank types. 3DGamers has a mirror up if the main download link is too slow for you.

id's David "Zoid" Kirsch made an appearance on IRC this evening to gauge reactions to the announcement earlier that Quake III: Arena CTF wouldn't be shipping with the grappling hook enabled (although again, the code is in there). A full log is up on Elite Strike, and here's a quick explanation of the decision (which wasn't made lightly):

No instant weapon switching--no grapple. Grapple worked in Quake because you could chase--switch, launch, switch fire. You can't in Q2. I didn't like how the grapple turned out in Q2. You couldn't chase grapple monkeys--they were just gone if you didn't kill them immediately.

The Shadow Company: Left For Dead demo page has a newer version of the playable demo for Shadow Company than the one previously released. There's no word on what's different in the new version, but its possibly substantial, since the new file, at 39 MB is 7 MB larger than the previous release. Thanks again Frans at 3D Action Gamers.

Frans noticed the UT Demo-Known Bugs list has moved to a separate page on the Epic site, and has had a single item added to it about the server browser flicker:

Networking
* People have noticed that the server browser now flashes the screenshot and the server title every 5 seconds. This is the server being repinged every 5 seconds. The 3dfx version did this as well but it did not cause flicker. It only does this while browser is visible. It is NOT repinging servers once the browser is no longer visible.

The Rogue Spear support page has been updated, and now has three more frequently asked questions (thanks Frans). The questions deal with Riva 128 and Permidia 2 cards, as well as other sound and video issues.

EuroGamer has posted an interview with Ritual Entertainment's Robert Atkins and Tom Mustaine, talking to the art director and level designer for Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 about their Quake III: Arena engine title. The interview also contains three new screenshots from the game.

3DFiles has posted the massive Drakan patch. This patch is jam packed with features, including the new winsock based networking (instead of DirectPlay), and tons of gameplay tweaks and fixes. The full list is posted along with the download.

Okay, so it's a little late, but here's this week's Mail Bag! In this week's thrilling installment are comments about the Unreal Tournament demo, more on consoles vs. PCs, that GeForce 256 card that should be out soon, the cancelled Babylon 5 game, and of course, whole bunches more. Swing over and take a read.

Blizzard has released patches for both StarCraft, and StarCraft: Brood War (Brood War owners need only download the second patch, not both). You can snag them from Blizzard's site, through the Battle.net auto-update, or at AVault, where they have local copies of both files. No details are available, but it's a safe assumption that these patches fix bugs n' stuff.

3D GameForce has posted an entertaining interview with the divine Graeme of id Software, talking about (surprise, surprise) Quake III: Arena (you know, that game they're working on over there instead of sleeping). There's a few goofy answers in here, including this one which gave me a headache trying to figure out (and yes, I've seen Twin Peaks):

Mark: Any specific novel features you can now reveal?, any more details on how the single player side of Q3A will work?

Graeme: The owls are not what they seem.

GameSpot UK has posted their preview of Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, offering a look at this fully 3D adventure game from Sierra, complete with a number of new screenshots.

id's Graeme Devine updated his .plan with some thoughts on the grappling hook and its relationship to Quake III: Arena CTF as well as word that Jan Paul, author of the Gladiator bot is helping out with the bot code in Q3A. You'll note that he says the code for the grappling hook is in there, but that the levels shipping with the game don't use it. Here's what he had to say:

Ah, grappling hook hoopla – when I read about the hoopla over UT grapple CTF I knew we’d have a similar impact (BTW, believe it or not, there is room for both games in the universe!). The grapple code is still going to be in Q3A (through bot reachability and so forth), it’s just not on the maps we’re shipping with the product. The CTF maps we have in there are designed for non-grapple use. CTF and grapple are not tied implicitly together.

Mr. Elusive (aka Jan Paul) is over here from The Netherlands helping finalize the game. He is of course the famed author of the Gladiator bot for Quake II. As some of you have been guessing he’s been working with John Cash on the bots in Q3A. We’re very pleased to have Jan’s expertise on Q3A.

id's John Carmack updated his .plan with his response to a question posted to a Mac OpenGL programmer's mailing list dealing with "display lists" and how OpenGL handles them. It's very technical in nature, but here's an excerpt that explains a bit of what he's talking about:

In a busy Q3 battle, the triangle count may be split roughly evenly between character models and world geometry. Going from an empty scene to a pitched battle can result in a 50% performance drop if you are triangle limited. Not great, but livable.

If we kept the same ratios and designed for geometry acceleration with all the static world geometry in display lists, then the empty scene could have 4x the geometry and still be running the same speed. However, current OpenGL display lists can't really accelerate high quality skinned characters, so when an equal number of character polygons was in scene and passed through normal direct rendering, the performance would drop to 20% of the original. Unacceptable.

So, either you would have to use significantly different polygon counts in characters and the world, or some new API features would need to be defined. Nvidia has a skinning extension that gives some benefit, but still requires a character to be broken up into one static list per bone pair, instead of a single list for the entire character.

This HearMe Press Release announces that Mpath has acquired Resounding Technology, the Massachusetts-based developer of Roger Wilco, the software that can add real-time voice chat to any multiplayer game played over the Internet. In recognition of the impact of the acquisition, Mpath is changing its name to HearMe (www.hearme.com), and this quote from the press release makes it clear that they view this as a move not just aimed at the world of gaming:

The acquisition of Resounding and the accompanying name change from Mpath Interactive to HearMe better position the company to capitalize on significant trends in the Internet industry that are opening the door for mass consumer adoption of live voice. First, HearMe will take advantage of an evolving area of Web usage focused on communications, collaboration, and community that is already being driven by the increasing popularity of e-mail, chat and instant messaging.

There is also word on the Roger Wilco page that a program called Rapman for Roger Wilco is now available, offering buddy lists for RW users. Thanks ripsaw.

There are four new Halo screenshots on Halo.Bungie.Org that seem to be scans of shots that appeared in a print version of Computer Gaming World. Saw that on The Shugashack. Halo is Bungie's upcoming third-person multiplayer action game.

Redwood's Quake 3 Arena Status is a hands-on report after a few more hours playtesting a more recent build of Q3Test than the public version during a visit to id software. The article describes what's new and different, including the newly-added music, though he points out that "Q3Test 1.09 hasn't even been built yet in any form so it's not really close to coming out."

nV News' Tweaking Quake 3 Test Graphics has been updated with info on how changes in version 1.08 of Q3Test impact performance compared to 1.07, along with all the latest intelligence on how to improve your Q3Test framerate.

Thresh's FiringSquad's "What's right with UT" is an editorial talking about what's got them so impressed about Unreal Tournament from playing the demo, examining the demo's strengths, and making some comparisons to Q3Test.

• Sharky Extreme's Scott Sellers Interview talks with 3dfx' CTO. This interview took place before the revelations that the next 3dfx product will not make Q4 1999.
• Beyond 3D visits with S3 with an interview and some hands-on impressions of the Savage2000.
• Reverend's Pulpit sends word that a new version of the WickedGL OpenGL driver for 3dfx cards is now available.
• The Reverend's Pulpit also has a new UT demo for benchmarking.
• Ars Technica's The Simple Guide to Online Shopping.
• Sharky Extreme's 3dfx FXT1 Texture Compression Explored has been updated.
• A post on RIVA 3D says you can get full scene antialiasing on any TNT/TNT2 using ASUS drivers.
• HardwareCentral previews the Intel i820 chipset.
• Ars Technica reviews the Global WIN FEP32 Cooler.

Though not reflected on the Netscape Netcenter as of this writing, this Netscape FTP directory has version 4.7 of Netscape Communicator. Also, while the Winamp.com homepage similarly does not mention it, this NullSoft FTP directory has version 2.5d of the now-freeware Winamp mp3 player. Thanks Mike Rutkas.

Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers:

• Diversions of Technology reviews Rogue Spear.
• Games Domain Review reviews Force 21.
• Voodoo Extreme reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• ActionXtreme.com reviews Outcast.
• Game Revolution reviews Outcast.
• Gamecenter reviews Independence War Deluxe Edition.
• GameZilla reviews C&C: Tiberian Sun.
• Gamers Depot re-views Re-Volt.
• The Adrenaline Vault Reviews MechCommander Gold.
• Computer Games Online reviews Sinistar Unleashed.

• Word on the Qtracker Homepage is that this server-browser is no longer shareware, but has reverted to freeware...
• Act Two - No. 84 is the new Diablo II screenshot of the week showing off a Barbarian, Amazon, and Necromancer fighting over a dozen skeletons in a shot that shows off the lighting effect in the new Town Portal animation...
• GameSpot's Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun Game Guide is online to help if you're stuck for S' in this RTS. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers...
• NameMaker offers an on-line resource to create extended ASCII names for games that support them. The website is done up in an amusing news site send-up style...
• There's a new Need for Speed High Stakes car for download. Vroom! Thanks Moondog...

Ooops, another late start, got a little too caught up in playing the new UT demo last night (I should try and cover up, but they have those darn stats online making an alibi difficult to pull off). Fun stuff.

Link of the Day: Nitrous Express 15lb. Bottle Explosion. As John Guajardo, who sent this along, comments: "This guy has Darwin Award written all over him."
Story of the Day: Tobacco giant tells smokers it loves them. Thanks Eric "Rush" Bennett. "The recorded message, while proclaiming its love for B&W consumers, also uses the line to take a swipe at its competitors. 'By the way, the other tobacco companies hate you and think you're ugly,' the voice says. 'They told us so.'"
Bonus Story: (Almost on-topic): Here's Linux for fundamentalists. Yup, Jesux. Thanks AllanOne and marley.