Thursday, November 11, 1999

RealNetworks Sued -- 9:24 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

A ZDNet article reports that someone claiming to represent RealJukebox users has filed suit against RealNetworks in Federal District Court. I don't like what RealJukebox did (see this previous news item for more information), but I'm certain that a lawsuit is not the answer. We live in a far too litigious society as it is. Symbolic lawsuits like this rarely solve anything, they just exacerbate the problem.

GeForce Overclocking -- 5:25 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The folks at Fast Graphics strapped the mother of all heatsinks on a GeForce card to see just how high they could overclock it. They managed to overclock the core speed of the chip to 165Mhz (default speed is 120Mhz). Vroom! That's worth a 30% speed-up at 1600x1200x16 in Q3Test.

I was impressed that they were able to overclock a CL Annihilator core to 135 and the memory to 200 (default 120/166) without any "super cooling" solutions. Standard disclaimer: don't try this at home! Thanks PlanetRiva for the heads-up.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 4:46 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Just a couple of quick musings on an otherwise tiring day:

• I saw an ad for an online merchant (which shall remain nameless) which was advertising Quake III Arena preorders for "only" $56.99. Ooh. Can I have two?
  
  
• Why do people find it necessary to go to gaming websites' forums and post about how much they dislike that site? Umm, hello? Do you really think that anyone cares?
  
  
• I regret that I posted anything about a potential Shogo 2.3 patch. I'm now relatively certain that we're being jerked around about it. Not that that's a news flash to anyone who has been following the Shogo scene for any amount of time.

Whew! I feel better now.

GameSpy Industries pairs with ZDNet -- 3:02 pm CST, Update by The Master

Some huge news, with ZDNet and GameSpy Industries entering into an exclusive marketing and content alliance. This is rather huge, since the monster ZDNet network and GameSpy together have a lot of throw. FWIW: The folks who run GameSpy also run the 3d Action Planet (PlanetQuake, etc).

Y2K fix is patented? -- 9:08 am CST, Update by The Master

According to this MSNBC Article, the primary, and oldest method of fixing the Y2K bug, has been patented. I hate to tell this (*expletive deleted*) idiot, but the whole windowing trick (dividing a two digit year so that the upper end is the previous millennium) has been around longer than his useless (*expletive deleted*) has been. Get a life, loser.

A.T. adds: Someone should go over to ye olde patent office and wake the folks up over there. That's like when someone tried to patent the concept of "multimedia" too. At least it gives the lawyers something to do other than drilling holes in the heads of small woodland creatures.

Ion Storm Big Gulp? -- 8:59 am CST, Update by The Master

Well, according to GameSpot, Eidos is going to finish putting the kabosh on Ion Storm's independence with the finalized buyout Friday. And then some of the major egos (read: Todd Porter and Jerry O'Flaherty) will be let go then. Heh. Was wondering when this one would finally go through. Course, Eidos is so unhealthy right now, who knows what will happen in the end. I really hope Ion holds together long enough to release Anacronox, which will be an awesome game.

HL: OpFor Gold -- 8:53 am CST, Update by The Master

According to Gone Gold, Half Life: Opposing Forces has gone gold. For those not in the know, "gone gold" refers to the final gold CD-RW CD-ROM that is used to make the first master copy of a program for distribution. Current predictions for the game's market release is the end of the month.

John Carmack .plan update -- 8:48 am CST, Update by The Master

John Carmack made a SMALLER .plan update today :-) These things are getting so full of minutinae that Q3A should go gold any day now.

• teamplay menu comment
• shrank and moved "RECORDING demo:" text
• identified and worked around Apple input queue issue
• properly send configstring resets on map_restart
• don't clip sound buffer on file writes
• don't draw scoreboard during warmup
• auto load added bots in single player
• swapped order of map_restart and warmup configstring
• disable dynamic lights on riva128 due to lack of blend mode
• put frags left warning back in all gametypes
• removed joystick button debug prints

Wednesday, November 10, 1999

More Q3 Models at Stomped -- 2:27 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Redwood has posted shots of two new models that will be included in Quake III Arena. The first is the well-known (from the Test) Visor model, the second is the eyeball-on-stilts Orbb model. I assume that I'm not the only one who can't wait for this game!

Q3Demo Rumors Squashed -- 12:12 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Someone at Activision UK was quoted as saying that the Quake III Arena demo would be out within days. Redwood immediately emailed id's CEO, Todd Hollenshead, who replied thusly:

That person has no idea what they're talking about and that's really all there is to say about it.

Nevertheless, I can't imagine that Q3Demo or the full game are very far off. Only 45 days until Christmas, don'tcha know.

Gamespy and Tim Sweeney -- 8:27 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamespy has posted an interview with Epic's Tim Sweeney about the changes made to the Unreal engine since Unreal 1's release, what's coming up in their next-generation engine, and his vision of the future of 3D computing. Thanks Blue's News.

Blue's Q3A Screens -- 8:25 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Paul Steed sent Blue a couple of screenshots from the cutscenes in the game. One features a Klesk having a little, erm, snack. The other is a group shot of your next five opponents (including Doom Guy and Quake I Marine).

As an aside, I have this feeling I'm going to be using the Doom Guy model a lot in Q3A. Ahh, memories of Doom . . . (on a 386SX-16, no less)

The Master comments: Heh. I remember playing Doom on my old 486SX-33 :-) And Wolf3d. And Scorch! Hehehehe

Past Two Days' News

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