Friday, October 1, 1999

I'm not Insane! -- 3:27 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, at least not when it comes to Q3Test. Quite often, when playing on EZ-Net's Q3Test server, I would lag out. This would mainly happen when using a lag-inducing weapon like the machinegun, lightning gun, or plasma gun. However, this never happened on any other server, no matter how bad the connection was (and I've played on some doozies).

Crawl (EZ-Net tech dude) and I tried to get to the bottom of it last night. It seems that I only have problems if I am on a server which is on the same C block as I am on. Crawl, who is assigned an I.P. on a different C block, never has this problem, nor does anyone else connecting from outside EZ-Net.

Eric from id Software responded promptly and said that the information Crawl provided was very helpful and that other users had seen the same problem. It's not just me! Eric passed the information on to The Carmack, who hopefully will be able to nip this one in the bud. I'll pass along more information as soon as we get it!

Extra bonus kudos go out to Crawl and Skippy at EZ-Net for not shooting me while we tried to track this bad-boy down.

The Master comments: We always kinda suspected something like this. Q3A was EXTREMELY lagging in LAN mode, and it seems the code still does something funny if an address is on the same class-C as the server. Interesting.

Surprise, Surprise -- 10:30 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

There's a petition up on a website which shall remain nameless, trying to get id to put the grapple in Quake 3 Arena. Several points bear mentioning: 1) the code for the grapple will be in there, it just won't be used in the CTF levels that ship with the game, 2) their main argument for wanting it is "make Q3 like Q2!" (personally I think that Q3 should be as little like Q2 as humanly possible), and 3) John Carmack said long ago that he cares little about online petitions. How about waiting to try something before you bitch about it, eh?

Update: I just saw on the Shack that there is a petition online to keep the grapple out of Q3. Personally, I think I'm going to start a petition to stop all online petitions. Who's with me?

The Master responds: ME ME ME!

New Hun-Speak! -- 12:08 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I updated my Hun-Speak column with an article entitled Requiem for Shogo: Where Did We Go Wrong? In it I give my perspective on what happened to turn Shogo from a great online game into the ghost town that it is now. Check it out.

Thursday, September 30, 1999

sCary Takes on Q3Test -- 7:17 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Steve "sCary" Gibson visited id Software recently and gives his report on the current Q3Test changes. Lots more will probably change before the next test release. It's a good read, but pack a lunch. The Shack's webserver is flipping out again.

Prepare for Godzilla -- 6:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

OK, this is off topic but interesting nonetheless. I saw on Ars Technica that there was a nuclear accident in Japan, releasing up to 15,000 times the normal level of radiation into the vicinity of the plant. Here's a quote from the ABC News story:

Officials said fission â€" which releases huge amounts of energy and is the principle behind the atomic bomb â€" was occurring.

I love quotes like that which imply rather strongly that this could have been Hiroshima II. While there was no danger of explosion, the radiation threat is very real. Guess we'll get to see Godzilla vs. Mothra in person!

The Master comments: While this seems quite funny from our perspective, this accident is about as close to an unrestrained nuclear accident as you'd like to get. It's close to a LOT of people, and the ocean, and isn't a Chernobyl on an open steppe. And if fission is going on (and I believe it is) it could get very nasty before it's over. The Japanese are very good a ruining their environment tho, almost as efficient as the Russians :-/

NHL 2000 Patch -- 4:27 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

GA Sports posted a blurb about the upcoming patch for EA Sports' NHL 2000. This will take care of some of the nagging little issues with NHL 2K. The patch should be out in mid-October, about the same time as a roster update will be posted. Thanks VE.

Zoid Chat Log -- 4:24 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

VE posted a link to a log from an IRC chat with Zoid. Zoid is the one who came up with the concept of Capture the Flag. He works now at implementing his brainchild into Quake 3 Arena. He mentioned that he is trying to get some form of CTF into the next test. Let's hope he is successful!

UT on the TNT -- 12:12 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

My experiences have been similar to Epic's, namely, that I average about 28 fps on my TNT at 640x480x16 (medium textures all around). The problem is, in a firefight (even a 1v1 firefight, my framerate plummets to the mid-teens, making it very difficult to aim. Add the latency of a modem Net connection and the whole thing spells trouble.

Crawl, one of the EZ-Net techs, reported that he got excellent framerates at 1024x768x32 with his P3 and TNT2 Ultra. Obviously some more fill rate would do wonders for me. But when Epic said that TNT performance would be on par with Voodoo1 performance, they weren't kidding.

To add insult to injury, they are reporting serious framerate problems with TNTs on computers with 64M memory or less (hello, The Master!). Maybe resolving that situation will help the other. Who knows?

Please understand me correctly. There are a lot of things to like about Unreal Tournament. I like the weapons and the level design. If I can't play it online decently (no, it's not just because I suck, which I do, but that's beside the point) it's really pointless to play it. Q3 runs better and looks better (because I can run with all the graphics options cranked up) on my system. I guess I'll have to revisit this when I get a GeForce :)

Past Two Days' News

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