Wednesday, September 15, 1999

Hurricane Floyd and UT -- 10:19 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Epic got unrealtournament.com online just before having to evacuate due to hurricane Floyd. Hopefully, the Glide-only UT demo will still be out tomorrow. However, the OpenGL and D3D version will be pushed off until at least next week, depending on the havoc Floyd wreaks on the area. It really puts everything in perspective. We're worrying about a stupid game demo, while people could be facing losing everything. Our prayers go out for those in Floyd's path.

New Unified Drivers -- 5:06 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Just in time, Creative has released new Unified drivers for their TNT and TNT2-based cards. You will need your serial number to download them. Thanks Blue's. I couldn't have missed them by much, I checked that site right before I made my last update and they weren't up yet.

UT Demo Alert -- 2:17 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Nope, it's not out . . . yet. But, CliffyB updated his .plan to point out that UnrealFiles has set up a mailing list to alert you as soon as it's released. Sign up here!

Q3Test 1.09 Info -- 2:12 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

sCary posted this email from John Carmack regarding the next Q3Test:

1.09 will not have the skeletal system. We are still messing with the single player gameflow, so 1.09 is still a bit off.

NHL 2000 Released Today! -- 2:04 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

EA Sports' NHL 2000 for the PC hits the stores today. NHL 2000 Online points out that EBWorld has it for $34.95 minus a $10 rebate for total of $24.95 plus shipping, handling, and any applicable taxes. Note: I have no financial interest in EB at all, nor have I ordered anything from them. This just looks like a good deal!

Tree Demo -- 12:25 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

NVIDIA has released their tree demo that they used to show off the GeForce 256's processing power. I downloaded it and thought it would be a laugh to see how it would run on my system. The demo comes with two batch files, simple.bat and complex.bat. I used the default settings in each plus adding -640x480 to force it to run in that resolution (it defaults to 1024x768 which my crappy monitor can't handle).

My system specs are the following: Intel Celeron 400, 128M RAM, Creative Labs TNT AGP with the NVIDIA 2.08 reference drivers, all on a QDI BrillianX I motherboard. Here are the results:

simple.bat: 6.19502 fps
complex.bat: 1.44911 fps

Pretty hysterical, eh? I think at one point I actually heard my CPU and TNT chip crying. I'd like to compare these results to those from a GeForce card on my same system, but unless NVIDIA sends me a review board (yeah, right) it's not going to happen.

UT Demo with Unified? -- 11:47 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

If I get the time, I'll download the 3dfx-only version of the UT Demo (when it comes out) and try running it on my system with Creative's Unified driver. My guess is that it probably won't work very well, if at all, but it might be amusing to try. I'm a glutton for punishment.

New SoundBlaster Live! Cards -- 11:34 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Creative has announced two new cards, the SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer and SoundBlaster Live! MP3+. If you already own a SoundBlaster Live!, the new cards only add new software bundles. If you have a SoundBlaster Live! Value (like The Master and I do) you're not missing anything new either. The new cards just have built-in digital output, like the Live!'s daughter card. The new cards are based on the same processor so we Live!/Live! Value owners aren't out of the upgrade loop by any means. Check out this article on AGN Hardware for more information.

We don't need no stinkin' pain -- 11:15 am CST, Update by The Master

Well, it's been a slow news day so far. I think that impending UT release has got everyone bottled up :-) Hopefully A.T. will be able to keep things rolling today, since I'm scheduled for a session in the rack, I mean a dental appointment, and am not entirely too sure I'm going to be coherent enough to post tonight. Here's hoping I am tho...

Umm... maybe I shoulda listened to Blue on that whole toothcare thing :-/

A.T. adds: And I caught a cold from somebody so my coherency will be inversely proportional to the number of decongestants I take. I think I'll take Dave Barry's advice and treat my cold with nature's perfect cold remedy: a homebrewed beer.

Tuesday, September 14, 1999

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force preview -- 9:45 pm CST, Update by The Master

Ummm... Checked out this Gamespot UK preview of STV: EF, and WOW is that pretty. It's amazing what people are doing with the current Q3A engine. I'd SWEAR that was Star Trek. No question. I even recognize the characters! Cool :-)

UT Demo soon? -- 7:46 pm CST, Update by The Master

Saw on Blue's (thank you Blue, the source of all news worthy of the title) that the UT demo is due REAL SOON NOW! Coolness. I wanna see that smiley face on the flak cannon (and I'm SURE A.T. will love to introduce me to it) :-) The direct quote from Blue's:

A member of the UT development team has informed us that, "the demo will most likely hit the net on Thursday with the full version following around Sunday or Monday (the full version being the one that supports Direct3D and OpenGL)."

Windows 98 patches released -- 7:42 pm CST, Update by The Master

Welp, Micro$oft has finally (7 days later than announced on their security bulletins site) released all the stupid bug fix patches for Win98 and IE5 on the Windows Update website. Download, and reboot.

<RANT>And why the h-e-double tooth pick does Windows need to reboot every time you do anything at all? What is that?!? There is the place where UNIX got it right. Your kernel isn't wired into every friggin part of the user interface like it is in Windows.</RANT>

Past Two Days' News

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