January 20th

Update on Dave's Condition: If you've read our news the last few days you know that reader Dave Beutel was in a terrible auto accident. I just received an update from Frank, a mail from Dave's friend on his status - great news!

" [Frank: Can you tell me if Dave has a voodoo II card already ?
(I was going to send him a card as a get-well gift-Mike)]

Yes. He just got a MicroConversions not even a week before the accident.

[Frank: How is he today ?]

Much improved. The Neurosurgeon got there to check on him, and the nurses weren't too happy that the doc hadn't seen any improvement. So, they stopped the sedatives he's on, and GUESS WHAT? Dave promptly took his own breathing tube out, and tried to roll out of bed. So, the brain doc had to admit, "Gee, he is doing better!". So, he's off a respirator, sedated to stop motion, and has a couple straps holding him in bed. Guess he shouldn't run off just yet.

So, he ordered Physical Therapy to get started, Occupational Therapy (fingers, toes, arms, etc.), the whole deal. This is a great sign!

He still hasn't talked, just some guttural pain moans, and he's not using his right arm or leg really well, but get this- When I got there tonight, his dad asked, "When he plays that game, is he tapping his fingers on his left hand a lot?". I said yes, of course, that's how you move around! His dad had no clue that while Dave's all doped up with moriphine and on a sedative, he's still playing Unreal!!!

So. I then handed out the TWENTY FIVE pages of get well notes. We all really appreciate the good wishes. I went into Dave's room and told him about all the notes. I didn't even have to get past the word "Unreal" before his pulse went up (we're not supposed to agitate him too much, too much movement can be bad for a head trauma). His pulse was at about 70 when I got into the room, 85 when I said "Unreal" and then I told him about one of the guys wishing he could send him a "real super health pack" and he started to move his leg and arm. My Wife came into the room then, and saw him open one eye and she then went to get his Wife. We calmed him down and I decided enough was enough for the night. By the time I left, his pulse was at 102. This is a great sign! The only thing that has gotten him so worked up other than this is saying his Wife's name, Susan or his 1yr old's name, Alec! So, I guess this mean's he's a true Unreal "addict"!

So, PLEASE tell everybody how thankful we are to have so many well wishers! I was just floored when I saw all the notes, and I can't thank you enough!

I'll email you status tomorrow evening, when I return from the hospital again.
Jamie "

Thanks again to all of you that signed the Get Well Guestbook (we overran the limits there I think :-) and said a prayer for Dave.

[I wanted to post the follow new game announcement in case someone missed it from yesterday's main site news post-Mike]
Parsec Game News: Andreas Varga (creator of the freeware 3Dfx Tweaker) sent a note that he has updated the http://www.parsec.org webpage with a trailer and three audio tracks from their forthcoming multiplatform Internet space combat game called "PARSEC - there is no safe distance". Here's what he has to say about the upcoming game:

"PARSEC features fast-paced space fights on the Internet running under MacOS, Linux, Win32 and DOS, and supports hardware accelerators via 3dfx's Glide and OpenGL. Its flexible networking architecture allows it to be played over the Internet via a dedicated server, running on virtually any platform, or in peer-to-peer mode on a LAN.

An oustanding aspect of PARSEC is that it will be available free of charge, but still rival commercial games in nearly every respect. We like to call this 'commercial-quality freeware'.

We think that PARSEC is of major interest to the online gaming community.
Cheers,
Andreas Varga "

Last year Andreas developed what I (and tens of thousands of others) consider THE game utility of the year - 3Dfx Tweaker. I can't wait to see Parsec, the web site screenshots look awesome! -Mike.

More feedback on the latest Unreal beta (1.02b3)

Some readers comments on the Rave version (In ATI Rage cards (VR, PRO):

• Mip-mapping doesn't seem to work on my Rage Pro (G3 mb), even though it's on in the Advanced Options.
• Distant walls look grainy, and try as I might I can't see mip-map divisions on very long walls. May be a Rage128 thing...
• As they said, TextureComposite still looks icky. Every time it quits abnormally, it displays an error dialog and then puts up a second dialog that says "General protection fault!" [Although an ATI programmer told me multitexturing worked on the RagePro - I suspect it only works well on the Rage128. TextureComposite was added for the Rage128 primarily I think-Mike]
• Freezes and crashes on quit seem to have increased. [I noticed some pausing in the pre-released beta version during gameplay-Mike]

Randyt Geurts of the Collective comments on the 3DFX version:

I have found it imperative that you change detailbias from 1.5 to 1.0. In the readme you discover that for RAVE at least, the scale should only go from -1 to 1. I have found that at the defualt setting of 1.5, everything further than about 5 feet is blurred out. This may be a feature, and not a bug, nevertheless, it ain't no good.

The 3Dfx brightness adjustment must be used with more discretion. I had mine jacked up to 3.0 and got really nice color saturation. Don't try a number that high with b3. What happens is whole regions "black out" with a black or gray fill. If a person wearing a shield belt appears more dark colored than gold, or sort of leopard print, its too high. You will also see walls "black out" and lots of little white specks around the seams of polies if the 3Dfx color adjustment is too high. My current value is 1.0 and that seems about right. Later experimentation will follow.Apparently, the 8-ball bug is still in effect also.

LucasArts to bring Star Wars Episode 1 game to Mac ! MacGaming.com has learned from LucasArts that the game publishing company plans to bring a new game to the Macintosh based on Star Wars Episode One, the newest Star Wars motion picture due out this May. LucasArts expects to showcase the product- hopefully running on a Power Mac- at this year's E3 Expo, the annual gathering of the biggest names in electronic entertainment. E3 Expo runs from May 12-15 in Los Angeles, California.

Double Exposure has released the results of the National Mac Gaming Championship at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The winners in the Unreal category are :

• Unreal TEAM : - Chris Priebe & Chris Hillar
• Unreal DM :- Arthur De La Cueva

You might want to be a bit more careful when playing with these guys online ! If you won and are now reading this, I'd love to share your impressions on the contest with the readers. Drop us a line!

Following our post yesterday on how to use camouflage and unusual skins with Unreal , Tim sent us a very cool tip :

An eye for an eye ..:

I read Ariel's comments about players using "camo" skins. that is, skins that make the player hard to see. there is a way to override this. you can change a players camo skin into a bright orange lava skin or even a big bullseye if you had a bullseye texture. if you are interested, here's the theory on how its done. i don't have Unreal Ed so i've never done it myself but i've heard it can be done and the idea sounds simple enough that it should probably work. first you find out what texture the player is using, in this case lets say its the crosshair texture and the name of the texture is "crosshair1". go into Unreal Ed and find the crosshair1 texture. now replace the crosshair bitmap with a solid bright orange bitmap. or delete the original "crosshair1" texture, copy a bright lava texture, paste it in and rename it "crosshair1". now anyone who uses crosshair1 as their skin will look like a big orange practice dummy on your screen.

Keep in mind if you do this though you will not be able to use crosshair1 as your crosshairs unless you want to aim with an orange block. simple enough to use a different crosshair but if someone is using a rock texture and you change that then you may see some unusual rocks and walls in the maps. let me know if anyone tries this and gets it to work. -tim

Although it may not be compatible with the current Mac Version of Unreal, Marks Austin's new (Eightball Express) big hit can be downloaded here

A new deathmatch pack from Epic has just been released recently with 6 new maps as I mentioned in the recent news. The pack contains these fine maps (as always from Epic)

• DM-cybrosis- Skaarj base deathmatch with neato jumping pads.
• DM-twilight- Skycity run and gun with lots of traps by Jeremy War.
• DM-mojo- Sequel to CURSE, tight and fast DM.
• DM-letting- BLOOD LETTING by Myscha, Nowhere to hide on this one.
• DM-shrapnel- Extremely tight industrial DM by.
• DM-loxi- Previously released "free" DM map.

I originally mentioned they were only compatible with Unreal 2.20 but the first 3 according to 2 readers work well with v. 2.19. Download it at http://decyber.solgames.com/unreal/new1/FUSION-map-pack.zip

Myth II 3DFX rendering follow-up A reader comments on his Myth II experience with his MacMagic 3DFX card:

It seems crashy to me with my MacMagic board [particular to the 3DFX version]. I get between 5-25fps, & at least part of the problem is being cpu-bound (150MHz 604)...other folks with Voodoo I & faster cpus get 24fps reliably.[more like 20-22 I think-Frank] I also see weird things w/ fps fluctuating, or not always being their highest, even when looking at empty map.[ see below for an explanation-Frank] Sometimes fps is better when there's 3D models on-screen & no trees! I really don't think at these times the AI, scripting, or physics are eating up much cpu. People also report weird issues re: disk swapping...sometimes people w/ less RAM are hitting the disk LESS than those w/ more RAM!

Following my observations on Myth II 3Dfx rendering , a reader sent me his interpretation of what is happening in the Glide version:

Myth II (and Myth before it) tracks the position, movement, trajectory, ad ifinitum of _every_ object on its virtual battlefield. This includes all enemy troops, every body part, every explosion, every bird flying, deer eating grass, etc, _whether it is on screen or not_. Thus, whether anything is onscreen has no bearing on gamespeed.Easy example: grab Myth and the 3rd party map "VR Pool Party". Click on a dwarf, and then control-click on the "ammo dump" near the trailer. Navigate the game camera towards some trees, and wait for performance to plummet as the huge resultant explosion brings the engine to a crawl. Myth II works the same way.

[If you pan and move the mouse, surprisingly, the frame rate goes up ! Again illogical]-Frank. Actually, although I once thought otherwise, I believe Myth II (and Myth) stop buffering the landscape texture during movement (the old "what you won't notice won't hurt you" idea) since the eye doesn't pick up as much detail during motion -- e.g. freeze-frame a tv show and you'll notice it looks much grainier than during play. Since the landscape texture (the large graphic which overlays the entire map and is stretched over a relief map) is no longer buffered, I'd venture to say that that's one less process needed before the image is displayed, and thus the machine (and/or card) is less taxed, resulting in higher frame rates during movement.[seems logical-Frank] Also, Bungie seems to have improved the software renderer's performance --wish I had specs to give you, but that's just from owning and playing Myth for a year and then experiencing betas and the demo. Hope this helps.Cheers,Michael Duez

I am still puzzled why a voodoo II does not perform any better than a voodoo I in G3 upgraded Macs. [in Unreal it does with faster CPUs - see our 3Dfx Comparison page - the lower graph of tests with a G3 CPU-Mike] Note that the VoodooII does as good as the ATI 128 in Myth II in the Yosemite as indicated here recently. This makes me wander how the ATI 128 will perform in Myth I in G3 upgraded Macs. (slower bus, slower RAM)

Westlake announces the beginning of development of Total Annihilation for Mac, in partnership with Varcon Systems and MacSoft.

We are very excited to work on this great real time strategy game that Mac users have been clamoring for.Total Annihilation was originally developed for Windows by Cavedog Entertainment and has won numerous awards and legions of fans. Check their site for more information about the game.Since the project is just starting up, there isn't a public release date, although currently the project is shooting for a late Spring release.

Isnt'it great?!! I took a look at one of the screenshots and it blew my mind .. 99 is going to be a year to remember for Mac gamers !

January 19th

Sign Dave's Guestbook: Dave, one our readers almost got killed in a car accident recently (see yesterday's news). To show our support and help him at this difficult time, I invite you to take 1 minute of your time (If you did not do it already) and send Dave your best wishes at http://earth.beseen.com/guestbook/k/139837/guestbook.html [Note - IE 4.x users will have to use Option+Refresh to see their entries]

Today I got more news on his situation from Jamie, his brother-in-law:

WOW!! Boy, I can't believe all the messages! This is great! I'll save a copy of the site tomorrow afternoon before I go see him, nobody will believe all the messages! THANK YOU!!!

As for an update: Both Dave's Father & Father In-Law were able to get Dave to wiggle his toes on command. Pretty good considering he's still sedated(to prevent him from hurting himself). They're feeding him, via a tube of course, and that's going well. So, things are a LOT better than they were on Saturday, and he has shown progress this morning. I can't wait to show everybody the get well page!
Update you tomorrow- Thanks, Jamie

Unreal Mac 1.0.2 Beta 3 released
This version of Unreal contains only Mac-specfic bug fixes and optimizations from the previous Beta 2. It is still based on the PC version 219. WestlaeInteractive is planning on updating to 221 as soon as it is available on the PC , because Epic has advised them to wait for 221 since 220 will probably be outdated soon.

Bugs fixed in this B3:

• - Multitexturing for VooDoo2 cards is fully supported, with a 15% speed increase
• - RAVE screen shots in 32 bit work correctly.
• - Switching RAVE resolutions doesn't reset to 16 bit colors any more.
• - Many RAVE optimizations for Rage 128 and G3 Pro [yosemite] machines (40% faster or more).
• - Several new Advanced Options settings for tweaking RAVE performance/graphic quality.

Download it on from Westlake Interactive web site at: http://www.westlakeinteractive.com/download.html [note if you were using the previous non-public beta you cannot upgrade from it - you need a public release to update to the newest version Westlake tells me-Mike]

Reader comments on the new patch:

" it ups Voodoo2 performance by 15% (I went from 26 to 30 FPS!!!!) [new multitexturing support-Frank], and boosts machines with RAGE 128 by 40%!!!!!! WESTLAKE ROCKS!!!!!!"-Paul Lips

another reader mentioned that he is seing some slow down with his Rage Pro 8 MB after upgrading:

" I found that the game slowed slightly on my Rage Pro w/8MB. With 1.0.2b2 I got 16.2 fps; with the new version I see ~15.8 fps. Not a huge difference but disappointing given that I was hoping for an increase." [ I don't have Rage Pro, but I read that several new settings were added to optimize Rage cards. It might be a good idea to check those new settings and see if turning them on or off can improve your framerate-Frank]

Myth II performance with 3DFX cards followup: A reader sent me a comment about Myth II not using the second TMU of the Voodoo II card [see front page news also]. . the log says : "Scanning for 3Dfx devices...3Dfx card has 2 TMUs Found 1 to use". I asked 5 other readers having Voodoo II cards and they also confirmed this reader's observation. This suggests that Myth II does not use the full power of the Voodoo II yet and that there is hope that rendering may improve in the future version of 3DFX -Myth II (support for multitexturing, about 20% better performance ).
When asked why Myth II in 3dfx Mode is so slow compared to the speed up seen with other games that take advantage of Hardware Acceleration, Doug Zartman from Bungie replied:

"Two reasons:first, because the game runs so well in software. For other companies, 3D acceleration is a crutch - the difference is so obvious because their software renderers are so bad. With Myth, the gap is less significant, and that's a good thing for the majority of gamers that still don't have a 3D card (all gamers, not just the hardcore). The other thing is, the other games you mentioned are strict action games - with a strategy game, there's a limit to how fast you want to make it which is imposed by the genre. The player has a lot of units and a lot of thinking to do to use them strategically. You don't want acceleeration to make the default speed unplayably fast. Even seasoned players slow down to half-speed occasionally when going gets tough."

When asked also if there were some developement underway to address this issue, Bungie replied :

"No way - for the reasons above, the way to address the issue would be to degrade our software renderer, which we aren't going to do."

They seem to have mistunderstood the question. We don't want the time in the game to run faster but simply want the computer to be able to display more Frames per second. In other words it should just smooth out the action. Regardless of the FPS the game can be fast or slow, but the fluidity is expressed in frames per second. We are awaiting their answer on this. I will post their latest reply on the Voodoo II issue tomorrow.

Unreal on Internet Relay Chat #unreal - the "official" Internet Relay Chat channel of the Unreal community, located on irc.gameslink.net. Meet other Unreal players here. Some of Unreal's developers are also known to drop by now and then.

#unrealed - the "official" channel of the Unreal editing community. Almost everybody who is anybody in the editing scene can be found here. If you have any editing related questions and need an answer quickly, or if you want to meet and hang out with the people who're making new games using the Unreal engine, this is the place to be. (Connect to irc.gameslink.net and /join #unrealed)

Camouflage skins trick in Unreal unveiled (see yesterday's news)

You can! Just put your texture name in the "Skin" field, and precede it with the text "Unreali." Here, this should help:

[DefaultPlayer]
blah
blah
blah
Skin=Unreali.[INSERT TEXTURE/HIDDEN SKIN NAME HERE]
blah

"This is your answer to making your default skin a texture/hidden skin, I think. If it's not, or if it doesn't work, tell me" -Chris Hallock (aka Waffle)

You can also use the open command by hand when connecting to a server. For example:

open 194.159.164.3?class=unreali.maleone?skin=unreali.explopurple

Some a list of other textures you can use: [thanks to Golddigger]

jbird11, asplash1, jbody11, jblob1, jboulder1, dot, largeredfont, jflameball1, jgas1, jfish1, jmerce2, explosionpal, explopurple, hudline, jdice1, jescapep1, jpottery11, jwire1, redskull, tinywhitefont, goldskin, jburst1,rocketflare ,weplightpal, explosionpal3, check, ex.

Also you can use the crosshairs as textures: crosshair1/2/3/4/5, which is quitefunky.

Also: crosshair 6/7 logo2 (logo1,3-4?) jfirefly1 iconskull JMoon3 JMoon1 JMonkStatue1 JMerc1 Silver Jparts1 AkevSuit1 JInvisibility1 JSmlSpark1 Jsbarrel1 I_SludgeAmmo, Jsludge1, Jflare, Jgslith1, Skaarjw1, Skaarjw4, SkaarjL, JGSkaarj1, JGSkaarj2, JGSkaarj1, Skaarjw2, Skaarjw5, Abelt1, GoldSkin, Jshells1, Autom1, JShellAmmo, JPickup21, Jseed1, JSeaWeed1, JBigFlash1, Jsconce1, JRocketCan1, JRobot1, Jqueen1, IconSelection, IconHealth, HudGreenAmmo, HudLine, HalfHud, JWoodenBox1, WepLightPal, Jpeace1, Jwarlord1, Jvase1, JUrn1, TSmk1, JTree71, JTree61, JTree51, JTree41, JTree31, JTree121, Jmisc2, AToxSuit, Jtitan1, Jparts1, JTentacle1, Jgtent, Asuit1, Jtitan2, Tarydium1, ExplosionPal3, Jburst1, Jsteelbarrel1, Jgsquid, JSquid1,PalYellow, PalRed, ExplosionPal, Asplash1, aPower. [thanks Randy!]

New MP 850-750 Mpegs drivers available

Satoshi Lizumi wrote that VillageTronic released new version of MPEG and YUV accelerator(version 1.1.2) today. The readme says that the new drivers give movie acceleration on 1600x1200 or higher. I suggest to check their FTP site for the latest drivers . Their website was not updated as of today.

January 18th

Fellow Mac gamer between life and death : I received this sad letter yesterday from one of our readers:

"I know this is going to sound strange, but here goes.

My Brother In-Law and I are getting to be really serious online gamers. I converted him from the dark side a couple months ago, and he and I have been playing any chance we get. I bookmarked your page and he reads it daily. Both of us have a lot of respect for the testing you have done (we have identical systems, and I've benchmarked my setup and submitted it to you) and really think it's a extremely helpful reference to see just how we can boost the performance of our system(s).

Now comes the bad part. He was in a VERY serious car accident yesterday, and we almost lost him. His heart had to be restarted twice before he reached the hospital. He IS improving, but we look for a very long term recovery.

Could you post a short message asking all the mac gamers out there to think good thoughts for a fellow mac gamer? It would really mean a lot to us, we need all the help we can get right now.

Thanks VERY much, Sincerely, Jamie Dresser"

His name is Dave Beutel. Jamie wrote me a few hours ago saying he's still not awake, but is responding to commands like "move your legs" etc. so everyone is hopeful. Mike and I will pray for his quick recovery and I invite you to express your support for him on a special Guestbook I set up today. I also invite you to put [GoDave] beside your nick when you play online as a sign of support. Hang in there Dave.-Frank

Sign Dave's Guestbook: Please take 1 minute of your time and send Dave your best wishes at http://earth.beseen.com/guestbook/k/139837/guestbook.html. [Note - IE 4.x users will have to use Option+Refresh to see their entries. I had to do this in IE 4.5 after signing the guestbook. I've also posted the Guestbook URL on the main site news today.-Mike]

Unreal Coming To Sony PlayStation: GT Interactive will roll out its Unreal mega-hit to Sony PlayStation owners in the autumn. Conversion outfit Aardvark has undertaken the ambitious port for what could be one of the biggest PlayStation hits for 1999. "There is yet to be a first-person game on the PlayStation that has lived up to expectations" said Paul Fox for GT. "The release of Unreal on the PlayStation will be all the more significant, arriving as it does while the memory of the original benchmark title remains fresh."

A new deathmatch pack from Epic has just been released. The Fusion Map Pack (2.7 mb) contains 6 new deathmatch levels all of which are free of charge (wooohooie!) You can download the new maps at www.planetunreal.com/cdrom/epicmaps/FUSION-map-pack.zip.

the bad news is that they are Unreal 2.20 compatible only. They will be compatible with the Mac version in the next Unreal beta soon to be released as Mark Adams indicates:

"The maps are 220 or higher. If they can ever get 221 out on the PC we'll do the next Mac patch, but Epic has told us to hold off of 220 since 221 will break everything again and if they released it right after we got 220 on the Mac we'd have just wasted our time. -- Mark Adams President, Westlake Interactive (http://www.westlakeinteractive.com)"

The Members of the "Vancouver BC Unreal Society" have opened up their server. It is located at 24.113.10.7

Randy Hanso aka Ariel wrote asking how to use "camouflage" skins online. I will let him explain :

"Frank, I don't know if you have seen this or not, but I often play unreal at House of Drengy. There are several players on that site that use special skins--that I don't think are custom jobs. I have read some of the tutorials on planetunreal house of style, and it is easy enough to create skins, but the major drawback is that the skins must be downloaded to all users for them to show up on every screen. A few players (Titus, NEXUS_6) are getting around this with a couple of special skins. Looking at Unreal Finder, I see that they are using a skin in the Female2 class and it is called Crosshair3. Have you seen this? [yes, I was wandering too how they did that]

The skin is almost totally black, with a bit of green on the shins. From what I can tell, they are making reference to the crosshair HUD image, the little green "plus sign" that everyone has built-in to their game. Somehow, they have chosen the crosshair as a skin for female2 and the resulting texture wrap on that mesh is all black with a fleck of green on the legs. Have you seen this? it gives them a tremendous advantage on darker maps, and if they lurk in shadows, they are impossible to see. Granted, you can see them against textured backgrounds, but the continuous black makes it difficult to place a bullet on the head. If you have any clue as to how they are accomplishing this, please let me know. The have played many games with me (Ariel) and I have held my own, but it would be nice to take that color advantage away from them. I don't know exactly how it is done, but I figure they are doing something like this: 1. They must have changed the female2skins.int file or something so that they can select the Crosshair3 skin. 2. The Crosshair3 must be a texture or something contained in one of the .UTX files. Somewhere, they have it setup to reference that texture and wrap it around a female2 mesh. I've tried adding it to the .int file, but I cannot select it from within Unreal. Unreal Finder will see new lines in my female2.int file and allow me to select them, but I don't know where the crosshair3 image is being pulled from. Basically, they are able to use a stealthy skin without acutally forcing the download of a skinpack on the part of other players. i have not downloaded such a setup, nor have I made any skin-accommodating changes to my setup (except in attempts to mimic what they are doing). Do you have any idea how to use a crosshair as a skin? I may be remembering it wrong, but I do believe I saw another similar skin, only this one had red on the shins. That would make sense, since there are also red crosshair options for the HUD. Anyway, I thought you might find this interesting, and perhaps you can help me out on this. --Randy Hanson (Ariel)"

I remember someone saying we could use sky textures with the available skins, but I am clueless on how this can be done. I remember seeing a guy in a blue suit once. He must have been using a sky texture. If you know how to use those "camouflage" skins, let me know and I will post the information tomorrow.

MacDescent 3DFX 1.04 resurfaced: Mac Descent 3Dfx has a new home on xoom.com. Geocities.com thought Duane was distributing pirated software and pulled off his page. The new address is now : http://members.xoom.com/bike2live/ There is also a new version, (1.0.4) that fixes the crash when the CD-ROM was in the drive on some systems. The new sound acoustics are great. All the details are listed at the bottom of the README.

Smacker Video Technology Smacker is a compressor for video, animation and sound data designed especially for games. It is used in all aspects of game design: cinematics, cut-scenes, video-sprites, transparent videos, single-image decompression, scrolling video backgrounds, and more. Smacker is available as a powerful SDK and an Xtra for Macromedia Director.

If you download the Smacker Player, then you can watch all the Myth 2 cut scenes (the secret levels also!) right off the CD (in the Cutscenes folder). It can also be used with Carmageddon. You can get Smacker here

Fresh ONI news is available at http://www.bungie.org/oni/. Oni is a Full Contact Action game from Bungie in a futuristic anime-inspired 3D world. You can empty your clip into your opponents and then take out the survivors with flying kicks and neck-snapping throws. With its revolutionary engine, Oni will change the way you look at 3rd person action games. It will be avilable apparently in February..I can't wait!

January 17th

Update on 3Dfx Descent Link: Peter Cohen replied as to why the Descent 1.03 3dfx link at Geocities was bad:

The webmasters at geocities.com have inaccurately presumed that Duane Johnson's 3Dfx variation on Descent for Mac is pirate software- in fact, it's built using open source code released by the game's original developer, and has been done with that company's implicit approval. As a result, the geocities.com Web page was taken offline yesterday. Until Johnson can find a new permanent home for the software, he's set up a temporary Web page at http://www.angelfire.com/de/MacDescent3Dfx for folks who are interested in downloading the latest version, v1.03. [Note: The drivers are *not* at the site above (not allowed according to the angelfire page). I'll gladly mirror them here if the author wishes to do so-Mike]

Regarding the news [day before] yesterday :

I wanted to put Apple claims into perspective. Their comparison tests with Pentium processors is most of the time off-track and this last bragging using Myth II needed to be addressed and explained. Apple should rather focus on Windows Vs MacOS comparisons or how easier it is to use a Mac to prove their superiority in my opinion. They did that very well for example in the iMac commercial.

[I have to comment here, although I agree Apple should stress the ease of use benefits of the MacOS, I firmly believe *they did the right thing* by addressing game performance and showing some focus on Mac games (FINALLY). Games are one of the major reasons why we are losing a LOT of mac owners and potential new buyers. I *applaud* Apple for their PC vs Mac game demos. They may have been flawed, not perfect, and showing the best case scenarios but I think their emphasis on games is a major plus for all of us (present and future Mac users). Everyone I know was cheering during and after the Macworld demo - the most upbeat Macworld I can ever remember. To say that Apple should not focus on games is a mistake that has cost us too much in the past - that's why we are where we are today, they didn't focus on game support and hardware gaming performance. -Mike ]

I also meant to say that it looked intentional for Apple to choose Myth II for their benchmarks. I first thought that Myth II could not be used to compare 3D cards in different machines following yesterday's benchmarks. From the scores below, it appears that Myth II greatly benefits of faster RAM and a greater bus speed . Sadly, even a fast G3 upgraded Mac appears not to be enough (same speed with a voodoo I and II at 800x600 and 640x480) with Myth II. (G3 300 upgraded 7300-Voodoo II does only 22-23 fps in the Myth II benchmark). I think this is simply due to how Myth II works.

I tested again Myth II with the voodoo I. I wanted to see again if the frame rate was as slow when looking in an empty area. It did like I mentioned yesterday but to my surprise, the farther I went from my troops, the higher the frame rate got. I once had 47 fps with a Voodoo I this way. I am not a programmer but this suggests that to insure a smoother gameplay, Bungie programmed Myth II in a way that areas near the cursor are loaded into RAM and sent to the 3D accelerator even though we are not looking at this particular area. This seems logical since the frame rate goes higher the farther you go from the action and start to go down when you get closer (even without seeing your troops on the screem). Bottomline: Machines with faster bus and faster RAM like the G3 minitower or the new Yosemite are likely to improve Myth II performance substantially when running with an ATI 128 or voodoo II card.

I put a new page that compares the Unreal Performance: ATI Rage128 vs 3dfx cards (Voodoo I and II). In UNREAL, Voodoo II remains the king of the hill with a 20 % performance superiority over the ATI 128 chipset in the same machine. [But trails in Quake]

[The Yosemite Gaming Performance page was updated with tests of Voodoo2 in a Yosemite 400Mhz with the latest Unreal Beta and Quake. Voodoo2 is faster in Unreal (8fps at both 640x480 and 800x600), but slower in Quake (Rage128 was 7-8 fps faster at both 640x480 and 800x600 and also ran 1024x768 mode at 24.9fps). The Rage128 drives are still being tweaked for release in a week or two. From reader reports it seems the 8MB Voodoo2 card is just as fast as the 12MB version in Unreal and Quake (same framerates). Fog looks similar now in the latest Unreal between the two cards (now that multitexturing is fully enabled on the Voodoo2). Also - TombRaider II looks identical to my eyes on the Rage128 and Voodoo2 and they both run it very fast (higher resolutions possible on the Rage128 however)-Mike]

ATI 128 Vs Voodoo II performance with Myth II in the Yosemite 350 Matt Dwyer sent me his latest Myth II benchmarks using the Voodoo II 12 mb in the Yosemite. For the test, he used the Myth II FPS toolkit I prepared. [Note - these tests were using the shipping drivers, not the faster beta drivers soon to be released (within two weeks I'm told) at Apple's web site-Mike]

Yosemite G3 350/175/1MB
MC GameWizard Voodoo2 12MB
Rage128/16MB (original drivers)
Thousands of colors
128 MB RAM
640x480

3D card	Frames per second
MC GameWizard Voodoo2 12MB	36.5 fps
ATI Rage128 16MB	34.29 fps

[I think our next poll should be - if you own a new Yosemite - will you be buying a Voodoo2 card as well? It's a tough choice, with speeds very close and now that fog seems to look the same in the latest Unreal. The good news is that if you own a fast CPU and Voodoo2 card the Yosemite offers no real gaming advantage right now-Mike]

Mac Descent I 3Dfx version 1.0.3 Duane informed us that a newer Mac Descent I 3Dfx version 1.0.3 is now ready for download.

This version includes More keyboard bug fixes. Lighter ChromaDepth rendering. Starts in fullscreen so that VooDoo2 won't crater! Big update to sounds:
better "acustics", more sound channels, directional wall bashing, speaker setup dialog, audio CD shuffle. The update can be found at:www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Corridor/6412/ [I didn't see the file there today when I checked-Mike]
. Don't forget to "pay" the causeware fee.(you will love it after reading what it is...)

[The other place I posted in last week's xlr8yourmac.com news ( http://www.descent2.com/patches/mac/d1_3dfx/) on the first 3dfx Descent page does not list the 1.03 version. -Mike]

Latest news on Carmageddon II: release date pushed back again A reader sent the latest letter he got on Mac Carmageeddon status:

'Dear Carmageddon II & Macintosh Enthusiast,
SCi recently announced another delay in the release of Carmageddon II for Macintosh. Apparently the beta testers have not been satisfied with the gameplay, and believe that the game will not be ready for release in January.

SCi are scheduling the release for mid-February, but a set date has not yet been reached. As soon as this date is fixed we will inform you, but in the meantime please be patient - contrary to abounding rumours, the game will definitely be released.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.to you.

I wish they would hurry up a bit. This is starting to look like the Starcraft saga which was suppose to be reeased 6 months ago.'

LucasArts begins Mac development again: MGL founder Mike Dixon just received word from his LucasArts rep. confirming that they is currently developing a title for Power Macintosh (including iMac, of course) which is expected to release in the fall of this year. A news release regarding what the title is, etc., will hopefully be available soon. We'll certainly keep you posted, but wanted to at least bring some joy to your weekend.

The files linked in the news yesterday were corrupted. Here they are again.The new Dark metropolis screenshotand the Myth II saved films pack.

MacPicasso 1.5.9 Quickdraw 2D drivers will be available on January 19 at http://www.villagetronic.com/mac/index_support.html. Check there regularly for updates. This is where the 3DFX drivers for the Mp 850 and 750 will eventually be posted (last estimate was Feb 1).

A reader comments on the new MP 850 2D drivers: "My MP850 now beats my old Urez in 2d, which is quite impressive. "- Rugby (see our 3DFX Message Boards)

The Daily Updates:

January 16

Frank's taking a well deserved day off so the only news I have to report is the updates to the Yosemite Gaming Performance page that shows Voodoo2 results in the Yosemite G3/400 in Unreal and Quake. Note that now it seems the fog looks similar in both Rave (Rage128) and Voodoo2, possibly due to multitexturing finally being fully enabled in the latest Beta of Unreal. FPS were higher for the Voodoo2 in Unreal, but the Rage128 was a bit faster in Quake.

Other Site Games/Unreal Info:

• VOrb Review
• Game Wizard Preview pages - framerate comparisons, screenshots and more.
• Site Game Related Articles Index