Friday, September 17, 1999

Glide-Only UT Demo Out! -- 4:59 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

At long last 3dfx got their act together and posted the Glide-only version of the Unreal Tournament demo. A complete list of mirrors can be found at 3dfx Gamers. It's a 50M download, so pack a lunch. I'm downloading it because a) I'm insane, and b) I want to see if I can get it to run with Creative's Unified drivers.

Update (7:02 P.M.): My download is still at 33%. At this rate, it'll be here around 11:30 P.M. Central. We'll see if I still have any neurons firing sufficiently to test it out.

Update #2 (10:30 P.M.): Well, I'm cruising along at 1.9K/sec . . . still have about two hours to go on the download. Here's to hoping that Epic is nice and also posts a ZIP file with just the new executable when the OpenGL/D3D version comes out so I don't need to do all this again.

More GreenMarine .Plan Goodness -- 10:48 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Brandon Reinhart updated his .plan again, expressing his frustration with the fact that 3dfx still hasn't released the UT demo. This is getting a bit silly. How long does it take to send the demo to some mirrors?

Tim Sweeney on UT Requirements -- 10:41 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Planet Unreal posted a message from Epic's Tim Sweeney regarding the system requirements for UT. Most interesting (to me anyway) was the graphics card information:

The best performance by far now is on Voodoo3's with Glide.

Next up are Voodoo2's, TNT2's, Savage4, and the Matrox G400. The Direct3D cards will improve in performance nicely once we update the demo for DirectX7, which has improved performance.

The next tier is the Voodoo1, TNT1, Rage 128, and software renderer. They're all about equal in overall performance.

This tells me one thing: the Unreal engine is, and always will be, a Glide engine. If the TNT, Rage 128, Voodoo1, and software renderers are all on the same level, it also tells me that the engine's OpenGL performance still sucks, otherwise the TNT would blow the Voodoo1 and Rage 128 away. The more I read, the more I think I'm going to stick with Quake 3. But, as I've said before, I will not pass judgment until I can try the full demo on my system next week.

The Master comments: I'll be happy to pass judgement right now. If UT isn't gonna run on a TNT half-decent (and if it's being compared to a Voodoo 1, it isn't) I ain't playing it. No way, no how. I'm aware of some texturing issues that cause the slowdowns in non-Voodoo cards, but there are ways to deal with that and the TNT is very capable of beating out a Voodoo2 in performance. Try again Epic, I'm not impressed.

UT Demo News -- 9:35 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Brandon Reinhart updated his .plan with news about the demo, including the fact that the fixed version of ngStats is now included in the archive. He also notes that the reason the demo isn't out yet is because 3dfx didn't have their act together for handling the potential demand for the demo.

CliffyB updated his .plan with helpful hints and tips on playing the UT demo, assuming it ever comes out.

Thursday, September 16, 1999

New Master .Plan -- 10:03 pm CST, Update by The Master

I've put up a new Master .Plan, which is part one of a three part series. I'm plowing through a couple of topics near and dear and it's going to take more than one .plan to do it :-)

You Can Go to Bed Now -- 9:53 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I just saw on Unreal Files that the UT demo will be delayed until tomorrow. Here's the news:

We have received word from Lee Sherwood with 3DFX that the UT Demo will not be available until tomorrow.. He hinted early AM, but it was only a hint..

Thresh and UT -- 1:03 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Thresh has posted a preview of Unreal Tournament. It's a good read and worth checking out while you wait for the demo to be released.

One interesting thing that no one has really mentioned is testing UT over the Internet. There's been all kinds of reports from LAN parties and such. It remains to be seen how UT will handle the flakiness of the Internet. Q3Test handles bad-ping situations rather nicely. If UT can come close to that, it'll be a keeper. If you need to be a LPB to play, I guess I'll pass. Hopefully we'll have some solid answers soon!

The Master comments: Or need a Cray to generate decent frame rates :-)

Interesting observation -- 12:25 pm CST, Update by The Master

Was checking out Chaos Manor (Jerry Pournelle's personal website), and saw this rather interesting observation on NASA and beaurocracy in general. Here's an excerpt (the whole thing is in his Wednesday 9/15/99 posting):

I gather that Hurricane Floyd didn't de-NASA us. I have mixed emotions on this. Shuttle is hideously inefficient, the George Abbey Full Employment system -- it needs all those 20,000 or so people to make it work, and thus accomplishes its primary mission. The primary mission of any bureaucracy is to hire and pay bureaucrats; after that's done it may do something useful, but it will do that first. NASA and Shuttle have become more interested in the primary mission than any other purpose. God looks after fools, drunks, and the United States, according to Bismark; but apparently He didn't think it in our best interests to shift Floyd a bit left..

I think he has a point.

Bilge pump?!? -- 11:35 am CST, Update by The Master

K-just read on Blue's that the NYC area is starting to have problems from Floyd. Now, if Blue gets knocked out, I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, I LIVE for Blue's News :-)

On a personal note, yes, I lived through the dental torture. I have more coming. Yippy. :-(

More Hurricanes and UT -- 10:25 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, it seems that hurricane Floyd left Raliegh relatively unscathed. All the UT team lost was part of a night's work. They are pounding on the 3dfx demo now and hopefully will soon release it and turn their attention to the D3D and OpenGL version.

Past Two Days' News

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