" I wanted to send you an invitation to this Saturday's upcoming CapitolMac MacGamesDay Event. This is the second year for the Event; last year it was co-organized/sponsored by Mac Gamer's Ledge and had a showing of about 150-200 people. The Event takes place in Richmod, Virginia at the Capitol Mac pad and will feature the following and more:

Try out the latest game titles, including Heavy Metal FAKK 2, 4X4 EVO, Diablo2 and others!

Game it up on the latest Apple hardware - dual processor G4's, Cubes and more!

Check out the latest 3D gaming video cards, including the ATI Radeon and 3DFXs' Voodoo4 and Voodoo5!

Meet gaming industry personality Jason Whong from MacPlay! Jason will be showing off Sin and Majesty, 2 new titles soon to be released on the Mac!

Participate in our first ever gaming tournament series, featuring fast paced pick-up tourney's of Unreal Tournament, and Jason Whong will throw down a Majesty and Sin tournament with some cool prizes for the victors

.

Snag some cool freebies - posters, t-shirts and other gaming swag!

...We would love for you to come and join us for the day! Bring friends! Jason Whong of MacPLAY is flying in from Dallas, and I just received word today that 3dFX is sending someone as well!!! Very cool! We've gathered a ton of goodies to give away and we're really excited about this! Thanks
--
John K. Hergenrather
Senior Technician - Apple Certified Systems Engineer
Capitol Mac - Certified Apple Specialists http://www.capitolmac.com/"

Saturday I was planning on taking time (finally) to repair my (antique) Jeep, but this sounds like a lot more fun. (I just found out Capitol Mac has moved to a larger location, for directions click here)

" Hi Mike
I lost functional use of my Saitek GM2 game controller after installing the v436 patch. Just thought I'd pass that on...
Mike Miller "

" Hi Mike,
Just wanted to drop you a line with my results: I don't play the stardard levels of UT anymore, but Strikeforce (www.planetunreal.com/strikeforce), a very cool add-on MOD.

Problems: In the first round in a simulation game, I now always spawn in a way that I can't play the round. The next round, everything is fine, but the first round starts without me.
Regards,
-- Lars van Schaik "

" In Unreal Tournament with the new drivers and the new unreal update (436 I think) I get a black box around my orders menu, instead of the regular transparency. I have a new G4 and a 128 card, anyone else have this problem?
Thanks
Chris"

If anyone else has seen this or has a tip, let me know.

" Hey Mike,
Well I tried UT 436 last night and tried to get on my favorite UT server {U81} CTF (I am pretty sure that he is running a PC with version 428)... no go. I get a message saying that the server version is outdated! Luckily I saved my UT system folder and 452a app. I will do more testing with 436 and get back to you...
Juan Leon "

I welcome other comments on UT v436. And if you haven't already, enter your UT results at the FPS database entry page (details on how to test are there). If you can, note in the comments your performance with previous versions of UT compared to the 436 version.

The drive update feedback page has a new reader report noting it solved his Rage128 Pro AGP problems with Lightwave v6. (not sure which is responsible, OpenGL 1.1.5 or the updated drivers)

" I noticed a very nice hidden feature listed in the Radeon update's "read me" file. You can (permanently) turn off the ATI menu by holding down option-C during startup. That's an awfully obscure way to configure the menu, but it does work.
Lindsey Dubb "

I've added this to the Tips section of the Radeon driver update feedback page.

" Hi Mike.
I just tried the 436 patch for UT and its great! I don't know exactly what was changed but I get much better performance now. Sorry no FPS tests :( But I can play on my friends server when he has 3 other humans and 11 bots running and I have zero noticable FPS drops! Before evn if he had just the 2 of us and a few bots I would lose frames badly.

I'm running a B&W G3 350 with Voodoo3 and 256M ram. VM is on and AT was off.
Tom Koons "

Tom later wrote to clarify that he didn't think FPS (framerates) were higher, just that multiplayer peformance was better than before. I welcome other comments on UT v436. And if you haven't already, enter your UT results at the FPS database entry page (details on how to test are there). If you can, note in the comments your performance with previous versions of UT compared to the 436 version.

"Hey Mike, I downloaded the ATI update last night for my G4 450 DP system with a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI card and saw extremely slow frame rates in Diablo 2 and the new Unreal Tournament update. Removing OpenGL 1.1.5 and reinstalling 1.1.4 solved the issue. Things are back to normal and running smoothly. : )
D"

OpenGL 1.1.4 shipped on some new G4 systems, but was never released publicly. Since he realized that not everyone has 1.1.4, he said OpenGL 1.1.3 also restored performance to its previous level. Looks like 3dfx owners should not update to OpenGL 1.1.5 from reports and what I saw with the Voodoo5 with it (at least unless/until there's a driver update made to work with OpenGL 1.1.5) .

CDRW Drives:
• Firewire Que! Fire 12x10x32 w/G4 AGP
  
  Removable Media Drives:
• Zip 250 USB/PCM w/8500 (w/PCI FW/USB card)
  (see this article here for tests of USB vs Firewire adapter performance on this drive)
  
  Hard Drives:
• Maxtor DiamondMax 60GB in iMac
• Quantum IDE 10GB in Dual G4
• Quantum IDE 13GB in 7500 w/PCI IDE card
  (notes drive not bootable? with Turbomax ata/66 card)
• Quantum SCSI Atlas 36GB in G4/AGP
  (original drive in new G4 server, includes test results showing it outperformed a 36GB Cheetah.)

You can find these full reports by searching the database with the drive/brand/mac models listed above selected (the latest reports are shown first in searches).
If you've added a IDE, SCSI, Firewire or USB hard drive, CDRW, tape drive, etc. make sure you add a report to the database.

• Newer Tech G3/500 in PowerTower Pro 200 (rated 10)
• Other World Computing G3/450 in Beige G3/266 (rated 9)
• Powerlogix iForce G3/400 in iMac rev B (rated 10)
• Sonnet G3/220 in 8100/80 AV (rated 10)
• Sonnet G3/300 in Umax C500 (rated 10)
• XLR8 CarrierZIF with G3/300 ZIF in PowerTower Pro 250 (rated 5)
  
  
• B&W G3/300 OC report

You can find these full reports by searching the database selecting the indicated Mac model and upgrade card brand/type. If you've upgraded the CPU on your Mac, please post an entry in the database. Search the database of over 4,700 entries from most every upgradable Mac model *before* you buy. (Searchable by mac model/upgrade brand)

Software Updates:

• Carracho X PR2
• ACTION Menus v1.02
• Eudora2FMP 1.5
• Apple CarbonLib SDK 1.2d2
• FindStuff

Apple TILs:
• PowerBook G3 Series: Wake on Ring not Supported
• Apple DVD Player: Troubleshooting Video Issues
• PowerBook G3 Series: "Apple DVD Player Cannot Open..." Error
• Troubleshooting Handbook: Reinstalling Your Computer's Software
• USB: Troubleshooting Error Messages
• PowerBook (FireWire): Supports Preserve Memory Contents on Sleep
• iBook (FireWire): Kensington TurboRing Trackball Issue