Sunday, February 20, 2000

PHP 4.0 beta 4 release -- 5:54 pm CST, Update by The Master

The Zend team has finished up and released PHP 4.0 beta 4. According to the mailing release to the beta team, the new version is to be the last beta in the PHP 4 development. This is quite cool. After I have evaluated the new release myself, I will be updating the Haus to beta 4.

Point Release comments -- 5:51 pm CST, Update by The Master

Robert Duffy updated his .plan with a bunch of comments on the point release for Q3A. Here's the .plan:

Point Release Stuff

There was a lot of new functionality added in the latest point release, primarily centered around mod development support. We are still sifting through all the feedback e-mail but here are some problems and solutions based on what we have found so far.

1. If you are are not seeing the new "Mods" menu, it is likely that you are running something that replaces the UI. ArenaSpy and several other mods have their own UI DLL's or QVM's so you will not be able to see the point release UI. This can be remedied by removing any extra UI mods. This can also cause a problem with auto-download in that if you connect to a server that sends you something, you cannot see the download progress because the UI your using does not support it. The download is working but you just see "Awaiting gamestate" (because your not using the new UI). If you see partial files in baseq3 or an fs_game path this is what happened. Again, using the UI that comes with the point release solves this problem.
2. If you have chosen a 3rd party model or skin, you CAN still connect to and play on pure servers. The caveat being that you will temporarily revert to Sarge. This works just like it always has.
3. If you are using a cracked executable, you will no longer be able to connect to pure servers. "You ruined the game, I cannot cheat anymore!" is not a valid complaint.
   
   A.T. Hun comments: YES! Lamers, be gone!
   
   
4. If you are not able to join a server and you get an "unpure" client message, it is likely that you are loading content from an invalid PK3 file, loading DLL's for gameplay or loading content outside of PK3 files. If you have modified any of the official PK3 files this will also cause you to not be able to connect to pure servers. The other case in which I have seen this is if the server was set to pure and not restarted. I am still looking into this one.
5. I have seen reports of non-pure clients not getting kicked fully and remaining semi-connected. I have be unable to duplicate this problem. If you have details on this please forward them to me.
6. If you cannot see a 3rd party model, I have tracked this down to the method which it was zipped. It appears that some zip programs do not store directory names as individual entries in the zip files. I use Winzip and it works fine.
7. You can use 3rd party UI's to launch games and connect to pure servers. Once you have connected to a pure server, the client will reload the UI based on what the server flags is ok. This will explain running a new UI (like ArenaSpy), playing on a pure server, exiting back to the menu and ArenaSpy is gone.
8. There have been a couple of reports of not being able to load nn number of maps, others have reported no problems. We load around 2500 maps from the development directory here and with that and locally I have not been able to duplicate this issue. And no, there are not 2500 maps we did not release.. these are largely successive numbered versions of the same maps.

If you have any information that could help identify a problem or an exact set of reproduction steps for unpure clients not getting fully kicked or not being able to load maps from baseq3, please forward the information to me at raduffy@idsoftware.com.

And for those of you wanting to try out that new Mod menu, I highly suggest HeadHunters or Fists of Fury those along with many others are Very Cool.

Dell's GeForce+ -- 3:40 pm CST, Update by The Master

According to Sharky Extreme, Dell to sell exclusive NVIDIA GeForce256 with 64mb DDR SDRAM. According to the article, Dell will only have exclusive rights to this board for a month or so.

Now, this could be really cool, but I want to see some real 3rd party benchmarks before I get too excited.

A.T. Hun comments: /me drools

Saturday, February 19, 2000

Preventing Lameness -- 9:46 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

3D Alpha has an interview up with the members of Q3Admin. Their goal is to make a universal database of cheaters, lamers, etc. If one is banned from one server, they are banned from all member servers. Not a bad idea, since I've seen way too much lameness already.

Fix Suspend/Resume Crashes in Win98 -- 3:02 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I got my new PC Magazine in the mail today. Upon perusing it I found a link to this page on Microsoft's tech support pages. When I use the power management features in Win98 to suspend my computer, it generally locks up. The utility on the above page helps find the cause and suggest a solution. I'm going to try it and report back.

Free Borland C++ Compiler -- 2:14 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I don't know how I missed this earlier today. Borland is giving away the 5.5 version of their C++ compiler. Of course, this is great news for anyone wanting to become a mod-maker. Now you can't complain that the tools are too expensive! Now I can finally upgrade my ancient version of Turbo C++. Note, these are command-line tools, so you will need your own text editor / development environment.

J.t.Qbe comments: For several months now, Borland has also been offering free downloads of some of its older products: Turbo C 2, Turbo Pascal 1, 3.x and 5.5 here.. Great for some of you nostalgia freaks. Login required, blah blah blah. I remember going to the store and buying TC1 for $99. . .

The Master comments: And I remember buying TP 6.0, TP 6.0 for Applications, TP 2.0 for Windows, Delphi 1,2 AND 3, AND C++ 4.0 AND 4.5. So I'm a compiler Junkie.

Sweeney Interview -- 1:55 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamefan has posted an interview with Epic's Tim Sweeney. It's pretty short, but it contains the following news for owners of Unreal Tournament:

GameFan: How's the progress on the UT bonus pack coming along and when can we expect its release?

Tim Sweeney: Coming very very soon, and so is Unreal Tournament 406.

No word on what will be in this 406 patch, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. Thanks Blue's News.

Romero Interview -- 9:21 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Check out parts one, two, and three of an interview with ION Storm's John Romero, conducted by ION's very own Stevie "KillCreek" Case. Topics include *gasp* Daikatana, ION Storm in general, and KillCreek's greatest assests.

New Q3A 1.16i Patch -- 9:11 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Robert Duffy updated his .plan with news of a new patch to the beta patch for Quake III Arena.

Q3A 1.16i Beta is now on our ftp site. This is a small executable only patch that enhances security. It is available in three flavors, Win32 ( a .zip file ), Linux ( a .gz ) and Macintosh ( a self extracting archive ).

Here are links to the files (and more mirrors) on Blue's News: Windows patch (401 KB), Linux patch (619 KB), and Mac patch (387 KB). Blue also posts contents of the accompanying readme file:

This update adds an additional layer of CD Key security.

When you type your CD Key in, the letters and numbers will appear as they normally would. If you leave the screen and return at a later time, blank spaces replace all the characters.

Whew! Now my two-year-old can't steal my CD Key! :)

Update! According to PlanetQuake, this patch also fixes a bug in the new autodownloading feature which could compromise your CD Key. Note: I haven't found that same explanation in the readme.

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