Friday, April 13, 2001

PC Gamer Unreal II Preview -- 6:41 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

PC Gamer put their article previewing Unreal II online. It's a little short on details, but the game is about a year away, so that's understandable. I am a bit concerned that they said the gameplay would be about as long as Elite Force, which many people said was too short. Time will tell. Thanks Stomped.

No pr0n for Yahoo -- 2:32 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

After hearing many concerns on the issue, Yahoo has backed away from its decisions to make more pornography available for sale and to accept porn websites' ads. I thought that the money they would make from pr0n would be negligable compared to the backlash that would result. Looks like I was right.

Half-Life Multicast -- 2:25 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Stomped interviewed Valve's Erik Johnson about their new multicast technology to be added to Half-Life. Basically it lets a virtually limitless number of people watch the action as it's going on. Pretty cool stuff.

Dan White and LithTech3 -- 8:55 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

LithTech's Dan White gives the skinny on their LithTech3 engine on VoodooExtreme. Some new Shogo 2 screenshots are included. One of them looks like it might even be our hero, Sanjuro! The best news of this article is that they totally rewrote the network code. Thank heavens. Now if they would just officially announce Shogo 2 . . .

Thursday, April 12, 2001

New GLSetup -- 10:47 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

A brand spanking new GLSetup has been released. This handy utility automatically detects your 3D video card and installs the best OpenGL driver for it in the various flavors of Windows. Handy if you don't feel like wading through all kinds of drivers on your own. Thanks Planet Quake.

J.t.Qbe comments: GLSetup is cool. I used the other other night and it was extremely easy to get the OpenGL drivers for my setup. Now Sin is actually fast enough to be playable.

101 Stupid eCommerce Tricks -- 12:57 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The eCompany posted its list of the 101 dumbest moments in e-Business history. Some will make you laugh out loud, others will make you cry, others are just plain fraud. It reminds me of the words of two famous philosophers:

• P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."
• Dogbert: "The Latin word for 'close your eyes and open your mouth' is 'prospectus'."

And people wonder why I smile when all these companies go up in smoke . . .

x-bit labs Reviews GeForce2 MX 400 -- 11:22 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

NVIDIA has recently announced two new versions of it's low-end GeForce2 MX, the 400 and the 200. The 400 is the same as the original MX, it's just clocked faster. The 200 is clocked the same as the original MX, but only uses 64bit SDRAM. x-bit reviewed these new cards, comparing them to the original MX, the original GeForce, and ATi's offerings. The MX 400 is faster than the GeForce DDR in 16 bit color, but slightly slower in 32 bit. Still, for an estimated street price of $100, the MX 400 is a steal. Plus it runs a lot cooler than the original GeForces do. Thanks Riva 3D.

WinXP vs. MP3s -- 8:57 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that WindowsXP will not allow users to rip MP3s at higher quality levels. Here's a snip:

Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. (Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)

The new restrictions in Windows XP won't prevent other vendors' software applications from recording MP3 music at a higher fidelity, but early testers of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the most popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete with Microsoft's format -- don't seem to function properly, apparently because of changes Microsoft made to how data are written on CD-ROMs under Windows XP. Microsoft says that while other software vendors' products may not be "optimized" to run with Windows XP, those products should run acceptably with the operating system.

Now whether these limitations can be worked around remains to be seen. It's not surprising that M$ would be teaming up with the music industry to limit our fair use of the music we buy. Practically everything I hear about WinXP makes me want to vomit. I will entirely go over to Linux before I buy XP. Thanks Slashdot.

The Master comments: All Microsoft is going to do is drive the hardcore to Linux-which will cost them the profits they're grasping for. We'll see how long they're willing to push this Big Brother attitude.

J.t.Qbe comments: In a perfect world stuff like this would drive a mass exodus to Linux. However, M$ has an ace up its sleeve: the game developers. Most of the hot new games are going to be released for Windows, eventually for XP only. What are you going to do? Most users will cave in and go to XP so they can have their bread and circuses. M$ knows that.

Past Two Days' News

The Haus is powered by:

All original information on this website is copyright © TheHaus.Net, 1999-2005. The use of original images, text, and/or code from this website without expressed written consent is prohibited. The authors of this site cannot be held responsible for any damage, real or imagined, which comes from the use of information presented on this site. All trademarks used are the properties of their respective owners. This site is not to be used as a floatation device (but if you try, I want a video tape of it).