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| Wednesday, May 12, 1999 |
 Hands-on with Q3Test 1.0.5 'Phase III'
I had a chance to spend some time hammering on the new Quake3Test version, Phase III, as well as test out Apple's 1.0 (final) version of OpenGL. The results were interesting, and not all good news, but sometimes the business of testing software is a rocky road to travel...
First off, let me say that on the two systems I used to test Q3Test 1.0.5, it was definitely less stable and more prone to crashing. It took me half a day of tweaking my extensions and setting memory allocations to get the Phase III app to run on my Blue and While G3 for more than a few seconds. Throwing away the q3config.cfg file after every crash seemed to help iron things out a little quicker.
Although this contradicts what I have read on other sites, I also noticed that 1.0.5 was markedly slower for me than the previous version; this is both before and after installing the 1.0 OpenGL drivers. Combat with more than 4 players was especially disappointing; on a 400 Mhz G3 system with a Rage 128 and 256 MB of RAM, I shouldn't have to turn off all the eye candy to play a 5-person deathmatch. Speed really isn't a critical issue at this point; the purpose of the test is to tune networking, so I'm not panicked about the loss of speed, it is just annoying. I found a setting of 640x480, 32-bit, 16-bit textures, trilinear filtering gave me solid 30s and 40s during netplay and 60s and 70s when all alone in a dark room. Firing the plasma cannon brings me down to the teens however; not acceptable for net play. I'll stick with the shotgun.
Now on to the good news: Two new additions are a frame rate counter and demo playback. Currently the demo playback only runs two included demos (of iD employees having it out in grand style). The FPS counter appears in the upper-right of your screen as you play. Note that there is no 'timedemo' command currently, so there is still no reliable way to benchmark the game.
To get the fps counter, bring down the console and type:
cg_drawFPS 1
To see the demo cycle, start a game server (i.e. start your own game, you don't have to be on the net) and type
exec democycle
In the console. Any key exits.
 The maps themselves have seen some revision; map1 has some new features and a few tweaks to improve gameplay and make 'camping' a bit more difficult. The gargoyles close to the quad damage are especially cool (see screenshots). A new high-tech teleporter replaces the previous 'gothic' one. By they way, a tip about the teleporter: setting the sky to "fast" mode makes the 'camera' effect of the teleporter go away, though I have no idea why the two are related to one another. Set the sky to 'high quality' to bring the camera effect back.
'The Longest Yard' has a few tweaks as well, such as new-style transporters (that use the old Quake 1 transporter sound!) and a few changes in the position of armor and weapons.
The sounds have been tweaked as well, much for the worse in my opinion; a new 'reverb' effect has been added that makes everything sound like it takes place in a tiled bathroom. The 'upchuck' sound when you jump is particularly unpleasant. However, the repeating sounds when hitting escape or starting a new map are gone, and sound seems to 'sync' better during netplay.
Netplay itself seemed much the same; I felt competitive with low-ping players (my ping was about 300 the whole time) and there was enough accuracy in the player prediction for me to make some very nice 'lead' shots with the rocket launcher and railgun. There is a bizarre new feature where the face of the last player that killed you appears in the upper right side of the screen for a few seconds; this may be more significant after people can customize their skins, but I hope I can turn it off; it is distracting.
 The final version of Apple's OpenGL doesn't seem to make that much of a difference, although the "beta" version was extremely fast and stable, so there wasn't much room for improvement. Two things I noticed: trilinear texture filtering looks astounding, and the little blue flecks that were in the orange fog (covering the floor of the secret room) are now gone.
Overall, I can tell that progress is being made, and rapidly. With Carmack's recent promise of same-day release on all platforms, we can be sure that we will benefit from the huge testing pool on the PC side, now that the Windows32 version has been released. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a score to settle with a few jokers who blasted me while I was getting screenshots... [Eilers]
Update! More Q3Test Tips and Tricks:
The following tips were posted to the Blue's News web page, but we thought we'd reproduce them here so you didn't have to soil your eyes with all that PC-only stuff (a joke!)
Third-Person Perspective
Paul Baucom sends word of the console command to access a third-person perspective:
cg_thirdPerson 1
Paul points out you can also set the range and angle of the view like so:
cg_thirdPersonRange xxx
cg_thirdPersonAngle xxx
Performance Tweaks
John Carmack posted a couple of performance tweaks in his .plan:
You can bias the level of detail lower than allowed in the menu with "r_lodbias 2", which will force all models to the lowest lod. The view weapon will look very ugly.
Another little speedup option that isn't offered in the menus is:
"cg_simpleitems 1" this removes the extra rings and spheres around some items.
You can also turn off all the gibs with "cg_gibs 0".
TeamPlay
Yarn sends word on how to enable teamplay on a server:
1.Start a Q3 server
2.set teamflags 3
3.set dmflags 1
4.type map <mapname>
Now players can team red/blue and use messagemode2 and say_team for teamtalk.
Hackers bring Starcraft: Broodwars to the Mac
StarCraft: Broodwars out sometime in June or July? Methinks not! A patch that allows you to play the PC version of Starcraft: Broodwars on your Mac has hit the Internet. How is this possible? We asked one of the authors of the patch, "Blackout" and his partner "Xenophanes" how they managed to do it, how long it took them, and why.
"Well to be basic, Xenophanes edited the Starcraft Patch in the starcraftfiles folder that comes with SC; the regular patch is about 582k after xeno is done with it, its 22.7 megs and the archive for broodwar is the install.exe file from the cd for pc. The only thing that doesn't work is b.net; we're working on it though."
"It took Xenophanes about 3 days after finding out what we need to play."
"I think that Blizzard could have converted this faster then us, but they're too money hungry to release it. Us mac users don't like to be left in the dust."
Tough words, but most Mac SC fans would probably agree. Three days isn't that long, and this is from two guys who did this for fun. Look how far it got them. Hopefully, Blizzard will put it in gear and release Brood Wars in a timely fashion. [Lawrence-Richards]
 Logitech Releases Gaming Mouse
Logitech is now shipping its WingMan Gaming Mouse, announced earlier this year at the Computer Game Developers’ Conference in San Jose, California, and on display this week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
The WingMan Gaming Mouse features a 3-button configuration and force-feedback support via Immersion's FeelIt Force Feedback technology, which boast ease of use for game developers that want to implement support for the device.
According to Logitech, "The higher the report rate, the more often and accurately the mouse sends its position and button status to the host computer." The company claims that the USB interface allows their mouse to report more than 120 times per second. When connected via the included PS/2 adapter, the user can select report rates as high as 200 times per second with the included Logitech MouseWare software. the combination is supposedly five times faster than standard PS/2 and serial-interface mice.
System Requirements include:
• Mac OS 8.5 or higher
• Available USB port
• CD-ROM drive
Beta Testers Needed for 'Joy of Hex'
Single Brain Cell, a relatively unknown company in the Mac shareware market, recently put out a call for beta testers on its latest project, Joy of Hex. The author of the program describes Joy of Hex as "a planning/execution tile-and-hex battalion level strategy game," similar in style to V4Victory and World At War. Screenshots are available at the site.
Do bear in mind that as with all developmental software, this is by no means finished; expect rough edges and unfinished areas as you go along. By releasing a beta version early, the developer is hoping to catch bugs in his program before version 1.0. [Daranciang]
 Joy of Hex 0.0.0 (2.2 MB)
Myth II Map Might Freeze Your Dwarf Off
 The amazing mapmaking crew at Badlands have released yet another Myth II map, this one entitled "Thaw Before the Storm." Set in a wintry landscape complete with frozen lakes (deep breaks in the ice are nice for hiding wights and thrall), blowing snow and distant thunder. A gorgeous colormap and an interesting mix of units makes this yet another polished Badlands release worth playing. A great map to play with Summer just around the corner. [Eilers]
iNES 1.01 Released
The developers of iNES, a Nintendo System emulator for the Mac, have released iNES 1.01 which features improved video emulation and smarter mapper handling.
iNES features include a PowerPC assembly core, and compatibility with the NES, Vs. Unisystem and DiskSystem. Thanks to its highly optimized core, iNES is playable at full speed on even the slowest PowerPC-based Macintosh. iNES is also the most compatible Nintendo emulator for Macintosh, and supports almost every known Nintendo game with virtually no errors. [Deniz]
iNES 1.0.1 (318k)
 Burning Monkey Solitaire II Desktop Pictures
In honor of the impending Burning Monkey Solitaire II release, (and perhaps subliminally influenced by too many viewings of the Star Wars Quicktime preview), Freeverse Software has released some pretty funny desktop pictures.
Burning Monkey Solitaire II will be released in June and will feature lots more jokes, 24 bit graphics and all of the most popular solitaire games like Klondike, Strict Klondike, Freecell, Pyramid, Canfield, Golf, and Calculation.
In the meantime, check out these cool desktop pictures. [Deniz]
Burning Monkey Solitaire II Desktop Picture (800 X 600)
Burning Monkey Solitaire II Desktop Picture (1024 X 768)
 Suncom Unveils E3 Lineup
Suncom announced its E3 lineups today. The company will be showing the iSFX Plus, a controller for the iMac and G3 Macintosh featuring USB ports. The controller features 10 programmable action buttons and allows you to create and save your own game templates for specific games. The controller has a suggested retail price of $29.99.
In addition, the iFX 4000 joystick will also be featured and sells for $29.99. Lastly, the SFS Flight Controller for USB Ports will also be on display. The controller will sell for $34.99. [Deniz]
IMG Travels to E3
Tuncer Deniz, Michael Eilers, and Robn Kester of IMG will be on the road today as we make our way to the Mecca of games, the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. The show begins tomorrow and runs through Saturday.
Be sure to stay tuned to our E3 page starting Thursday for our coverage of the show. We plan to make updates throughout the day, so check often! Our regular news, as a result, might suffer a little bit since our senior news editor will be at the show (but we'll try the best we can). [Deniz]
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| In Other News |
Game Violence Redux: GameCenter has yet another editorial on games and violence, this time from a developer's perspective.
Frodo on the Mac?: Stop by and sign the petition to bring massively-multiplayer online RPG Middle Earth to the Mac platform.
Video Game Violence: IMG reviewer and columnist Dan Radmacher rethinks this timely topic.
MacWEEK Speaks: columnist Tony Smith has some interesting thoughts on the signifigance of Quake3Test's debut on the Mac.
Another Unreal Tournament Preview: Next Generation Online has a detailed article about Unreal Tournament, coming to the Mac this Spring.
Virtual PC Update: This minor update doesn't add any new features, just fixes bugs with Powerbooks and some Y2K problems.
New VillageTronic Drivers: VillageTronic has released new drivers for their NextGen MP850 graphics acceleration card.
Railroad Tycoon II Site: if you want an in-depth look at this game, visit the Station.
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