Tuesday, August 17, 1999

Nuke your home town -- 9:47 pm CST, Update by The Master

I remember playing with this a few months back from a link on User Friendly. Here's a site for mapping out the Nuclear Blast Radius of any location you'd like. I tried it out on my hometown, D.C., New York, etc. Very scary stuff.

On a related note, check out The Abandoned Silo, which is a walkthrough of an abandoned Titan I missile base probably in Arizona/New Mexico. This is the home of the cold war, where many men spent many nights waiting for the end to come. And two of them would have to push the buttons for each missile (the base was made up of 3 missiles per control center).

If you're truly interested in the dark side of man, check it out.

UT Chat on Avault -- 1:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I saw on Avault that they will be hosting a chat with the developers of Unreal Tournament on Thursday at 7:30 P.M. Eastern Time. I hope to ask if D3D and OpenGL performance in Unreal 2.25 is any indication of performance in Unreal Tourney. If it is, I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole.

Lightmaps in Q3Test -- 1:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I had been playing Q3Test with vertex lighting, because in my Q3Test 1.07 timedemos, I found that using vertex lighting gave an 8-14% speed increase. I reran some timedemos in 1.08 and found that the difference was now only 5%. Setting cg_gibs 0 (which eliminates 1.08's new "fountains" of gibs), gives me that 5% back. The Master said that he heard that Carmack had made some lighting improvements since 1.07 and I found that to be very true. Try it for yourself!

q3test2 Hand-Holding -- 11:59 am CST, Update by The Master

Just saw this on Blue's. There's a q3test2 Strategy Guide on BigKid.com. Personally, my strategy is to dominate the quad and launch regular camper-reducing roxs at the railgun platform (yeah, AT, you camper. I'll teach ya to camp that RG :-)

A.T. retorts: I heard there's going to be a QuadHor model in Q3A just for you!

Monday, August 16, 1999

PowerDesk Revisited -- 8:35 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, I bought PowerDesk Utilities 98 today. At long last I've found the file manager I've been looking for. It is SOO much better than IE-as-file-mangler. Anyone who uses IE now will have no problem making the jump and will enjoy how well laid out and robust it is. Download the demo from the Mijenix website and see for yourself. It's the best thing since Xtree, and it's a steal at $29. No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.

Sexy Models -- 7:51 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

OK, so maybe the headline is a bit misleading. I saw on Blue's Q3Test Page how to view the models for the grappling hook, grenade launcher, and BFG10K in-game in Q3Test. Since I am a generous soul, I thought I'd pass along some little screenshots for your amusement:

Grappling Hook	Grenade Launcher
BFG10K

Skout Demo: Don't Bother -- 7:20 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I just download and installed Skout, a new FPS from a German company. All the in-game option screens are in German, but I know enough to figure it out. Don't bother downloading it, unless you like really boxy FPS engines (it looked like Wolfenstein with more colorful textures). The sounds were nothing to write home about either. It is multiplayer-only so you'll have to find a server if you really want to play. On a scale of one to ten, I give it a 1. I hope it gets better when it's out of beta.

Macross TC Update -- 1:20 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I meant to add this to the news two days ago! The Macross Total Conversion for Shogo has updated their page including some sweet new screenshots. I'm glad that Geist and the boys are keeping this going. It's a very ambitious project that will bring the Macross universe to your PC. I can't wait to try it out!

Carmack .plan update -- 8:08 am CST, Update by The Master

John Carmack updated his .plan today with some interesting information about his bytecode dynamic compiler for Q3A. It seems he's worked out the framerate death issues with the new bytecode emitting. Let me say this quick: Carmack is a programming God. I wanna be that cool :-)

Past Two Days' News

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