October 1999 News

10/31/99

Happy Halloween.

Hakeem Wins FRAG3  
Hakeem just took home first place at the FRAG3 Q3Test tournament by overcoming stx-wombat in a thrilling match 10-9 in sudden-death overtime.  Source: BluesNews

A new version 2.54 of the PowerStrip utility is now available

10/30/99
Q3 Elite Edition
You can now pre-order the Quake III Arena Elite Edition from Electronics Boutique. It comes in a limited edition tin case.  So you can order it here. Source: BluesNews 

10/28/99
I just received my everglide attack mouse pad today, my first impression is wow my mouse is dirty I could feel every little speck of crap in there, after 5 minutes of cleaning I was off to play some q3test. I think I am going to like this pad my rail shot was more on target. I will be doing a review of this pad after I have used it for a few more days.

Voodoo 3 v1.03.00 Reference Drivers   
After a false start earlier tonight, the Voodoo 3 2000/3000 drivers WHQL Win9x Retail Drivers - AGP/PCI Boards Version: 1.03.00 (now there's a mouth full) have been posted. The updated drivers come in separate kits for DirectX 6 and DirectX 7 support, and fix desktop corruption issues and power management and screensaver issues. They are not compatible with the Voodoo 3 3500TV. Thanks again TweakFiles.

Voodoo Banshee v1.03.00 Reference Drivers  3dfxgamers.com has posted new Voodoo Banshee - Version: 1.03.00 reference drivers for AGP/PCI boards running under Windows 9x. This driver kit includes: Glide 2.6, Glide 3.1, DirectX 7.0 (Direct3D and DirectDraw) and the Voodoo Banshee Control Panel. These drivers support Intel, Cyrix and AMD 3DNow! based CPU's.

10/27/99
Its been slow for news lately after all those screen shots last week. So I have been playing with Paintshop 5 notice new pic. of the day. I did find this: 

The Shack of Love has Q3 Bus Real audio clips of Paul Steed, Anna Kain, and even Lowtex of Planet Quake. Click here .

The Official Quake 3 Strategy Guide source cache
Prima Publishing scored the Official Quake 3 Strategy Guide.

Tip to increase frame rates go to Console you know the title key"~" type in,     cg_draw3dicons  0

 next type in  cg_drawattacker  0

if you don't like the results type them  back in but use 1 instead of 0 

10/24/99
I added a search page and a guest book today, also the message boards have been running for a few days now. Archived some of this months news page getting a little long.

Q3Test AMD 3DNow/Voodoo fix

Carmack talks about Quake 3 on Mac 
Over at Mac Gamer's Ledge John Carmack talks about what video card  for Mac and more  Here

10/23/99
Congrates to Robert Duffy new Id. employee the new tool guy I can't wait to dive into Quake III Arena mapping, well here is the whole update for John Carmack
An announcement:

We have hired Robert Duffy as a full time employee, starting in
December.

He has been maintaining the level editor since the release of Q2,
but a number of things have convinced me it is time to have a
full time tool-guy at id.

The original QE4 editor was my very first ever Win32 program, and
while Robert has done a good job of keeping it on life support
through necessary extensions and evolutions, it really is past
its designated lifespan.

I want to take a shot at making the level editor cross platform,
so it can be used on linux and mac systems. I'm not exactly
confident that it will work out, but I want to try.

Many of the content creation tasks seem to be fairly stabilized
over the last several years, and our next product is going to be
pretty content directed, so I can justify more engineering
effort on writing better tools.

It is time for a re-think of the relationships between editor,
utilities, and game. I am still an opponent of in-game editors,
but I want to rearrange a lot of things so that some subsystems
can be shared.

All of that added up to more than I was going to be able to do
in the time left after the various research, graphics, and
networking things I want to pursue.


* added r_speeds timing info to cinematic texture uploads
* fixed loop sounds on movers
* new bfg sound
* "sv_pure 1" as default, requires clients to only get data from
pk3 files the server is using
* fixed fog pass on inside of textured fog surfaces
* properly fog sprites
* graphics for scoreboard headers
* show colored names on attacker display and scoreboard
* made "no such frame" a developer only warning
* count a disconnect while losing in tournement mode as a win
for the other player
* fixed running with jump held down runs slow
* draw "connection problems" in center of screen in addition
to phone jack icon
* cut marks properly on non-convex faces
* fixed bug with command completion partial match and case sensitivity
* fixed console dropping on level start
* fixed frags left feedback after restarts
* fog after dlight
* removed fogged stages from shader, dynamically generate
* removed fogonly shader keyword, infer from surfaceparm
* removed uneeded reinit of shader system on vid_restart

Q3A - Total Control v0.4 released  from Borderfeild
Q3A - Total Control v0.4 has been released! New in this version is the built-in mini server browser (a much requested feature).
For more info about Q3A-TC go here.
The new version is only available as a full installation package. Don't forget to shut down ALL background apps before running the setup program or you might experience problems.

10/22/99
Incite games has a interview with John Carmack you know the main man behind the Great games. Its a good read go here and some new pics that I am adding to my archive

10/21/99
Name: Graeme Devine
Email: zaphod@idsoftware.com
Description: Some Guy
Project:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9/29/99

Ah, grappling hook hoopla – when I read about the hoopla over UT grapple CTF I knew we’d
have a similar impact (BTW, believe it or not, there is room for both games in the universe!).
The grapple code is still going to be in Q3A (through bot reachability and so forth), it’s just
not on the maps we’re shipping with the product. The CTF maps we have in there are designed
for non-grapple use. CTF and grapple are not tied implicitly together.

Mr. Elusive (aka Jan Paul) is over here from The Netherlands helping finalize the game. He is
of course the famed author of the Gladiator bot for Quake II. As some of you have been
guessing he’s been working with John Cash on the bots in Q3A. We’re very pleased to have
Jan’s expertise on Q3A.

New PingTool   
A new version (2.6 beta 1) of the server browser Ping Tool has been released, and is available for download over at its official site. This new version adds support for Unreal Tournament and Kingpin, in addition to other fixes and enhancements.

10/19/99
More q3a screenshots 
Thanks Shuga. New screenshots  There cool ! Click here 

Paul Steed Interview
PlanetQuake had an interview with modeling genius Paul Steed. Worth a read since they also have some pretty cool shots of the new Q3Test ?  They are not real screenshots but camera grabs off of a monitor.

10/18/99
No Q3test1.09 next release is the demo no date as of yet here is the whole plan update.

Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/17/99
--------
The next release will be the full "demo" release for quake 3.
It will include bots and a new, simple level that is suitable for
complete beginners to play, as well as the existing q3test maps.

The timing just didn't work out right for another test before we
complete the game.

We plan on releasing the demo after code freeze, when the entire
game is in final testing, which will give us a few days time to
fix any last minute problems that show up before golden master.

No, I don't have an actual date when that will be.

---

I got an iBook in on friday. It is sort of neat (I need to go
buy an AirPort, then it will definately be neat), but it is
currently way too slow to play Q3 on.

Apple's high end G3 and G4 systems with rage128/rage128pro cards
and latest drivers are just about as fast as equivelant wintel systems,
but the rest of the product line is still suffering a noticable
speed disadvantage.

The new iMac has a rage128, but it is only an 8mb/64bit version. Still,
with agp texturing it is a solid platform with performance that is
certainly good enough to play the game well on.

Existing iMacs have 6mb ragePro video. ATI's windows drivers for
the pro have come a long ways, and Q3 is plenty playbale on
windows with a rage pro (ugly, but playable). On apple systems
(iMacs and beige G3's), the performance is sometimes as low as HALF
the windows platform. The lack of AGP contributes some to this, but
it is mostly just a case of the drivers not being optimzed yet. The
focus has been on the rage128 so far.

The iBook is also ragePro based, but it is an ultra-cheap 32 bit
version. It does texture over AGP, but it is slooooow. I suspect it
is still driver issues, because it is still very slow even at 320x240,
so that leaves hope that it can be improved.

Another issue with the Apple systems is that Apple 16 bit color is
actually 15 bit. I never used to think it made much difference, but
I have been doing a lot of side by side comparying, and it does turn
out to be a noticable loss of quality.



* new lg splash
* added channel number for local sounds so feedbacks
don't override announcers
* remvoed scoreup feedback sound
* expand score tabs as needed for large scores
* fixed bfg obit
* fixed swimming off floors
* fixed swim animation when jumping in shallow water
* fixed first weapopn switch problem
* convert all joystick axis to button events (twist is now bindable)

10/17/99
Q3Tweak Website Moves
The Q3Tweak website has moved from Q3Center  and is at http://www.clarionuk.co.uk/q3tweak now.

God I love the new Unreal tournament patch, the game is getting better.

Check out the new pic I made with sarge in the Unreal Tournament, by the way to take a screenshot hit f9.

I think I fixed the counter so it looks better now, by the way messageboards are open go post something  don't make me beg.

10/16/99
New Game Name Builder
The Game Name Builder has a new version make those cool multi-colored names in Q3Test and now Unreal Tournament.

10/15/99
The message boards are working now so go post.

10/13/99
John Carmack Slashdot Interview
The John Carmack Slashdot.org interview is now posted. This is the one mentioned the other day with reader submitted questions.

I word from the CEO of id. I can't wait to hear the music.

Name: Todd Hollenshead
Email: toddh@idsoftware.com
Description: CEO
Project:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10-15-1999

To put this rumor quickly to rest, we don't have any tracks from Nine Inch
Nails in the current Q3A soundtrack. Trent spent most of his time this
year completing his latest album (you can still call them that, right?),
and is now preparing for touring, if he's not already doing it.

As far as what is really in the soundtrack, I'm going to wait until it's
finalized to go into details, but we have some great music from names
many people will recognize.

10/14/99
John makes yet another update. does this guy sleep?

Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/14/99
--------
* make sure video is shutfown for errors on startup
* automatic fallback to vm if dll load fails
* compressed jump tables for qvm
* removed common qfiles.h and surfaceflags.h from utils and game
* don't load qvm symbols if not running with developer
* "quake3 safe" will run the game without loading q3config.cfg
* ignore network packets when in single player mode
* dedicated server memory optimizations. Tips:
com_hunkMegs 4
sv_maxclients 3
bot_enable 0
* fixed logfile on mac
* new time drifting code
* fixed file handle leak with compressed pk3 files
* q3data changed to remove shader references from player models
* throw a fatal error if drop errors are streaming in
* fixed com_hunkMegs as command line parm
* spawn spectators at intermission point
(info_spectator_start has been removed)
* new sound channel for local sounds
* fixed follow toggle on bots
* don't write to games.log in single player
* fixed improper case sensitivity in S_FindName

I got the message boards working but on a different server, so soon this site will be moved. Don't worry I will leave a link page at this address when it happens. I  hope to have it done by the weekend. So get ready to post, post ,post coming soon!!!!

I received a letter today asking to post a link to the sarge skin. Well for those of you that don't know the sarge skin is in version of quake 3 test 1.08 to use it just hit the title key "~" its next to the one on most keyboards, they type in model sarge that's all there is to it.

Sorry for the lack of updates yesterday. I don't have any yet for today.

I do have a little rant. Its about webdog not tracking my site they said that it is one of these reasons.

1. The content was deemed unsuitable.
2. The content didn't meet our standards.
3. The content was readily available from other tracked sites.

Well the only one that I can think of is maybe number 3. But this is what allot of sites do that are being tracked. I also noticed that there are allot of sites that are being tacked that are not posting a link or add back to webdog.

Don't get me wrong I love webdog its a great site and program. I just wish they would give me a better reason or start tracking me.

Also what happened to oxygentank and mapzone there sites have been down for some time now have they moved or is there host Q3center having trouble getting them back up and running.

10/11/99
John makes yet another update. 

Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11/99
--------
* handle window close events properly
* enable r_displayRefresh selection and feedback on mac
* avoid AGEN_IDENTITY when CGEN_DIFFUSE_LIGHTING
* colorized railgun muzzle flash, impact flash, and mark
* exactly synced animating textures with waveforms and collapsed
all explosion sequences into single shaders
* removed unneeded black pass on hell skies
* fixed grenades sticking to steep slopes
* scan for next highest fullscreen resolution when exact
mode fails (fixes SGI flat panel failing to init)
* all cgame cvars now have a cg_ prefix (crosshair, fov, etc)
* clear clientinfo before parsing configstring
* make all feedback voiceovers share the same channel
* fixed nodraw curves
* fixed obits from shooter entities
* fixed chat char issue
* separate gentity_t fields into sharedEntity_t
* reintegrated q_mathsys with q_math
* cg_forcemodel also forces player sounds
* unknown cmd commands don't chat
* fixed strip order on text quads

Webdog Accepting Submissions
Webdog is once again accepting submissions for sites that people want tracked. If you want your favorite site or your own site considered for tracking. Drop by and let them know. Thanks Stomped

Tom Hardware Does GeForce 256
The Tom's Hardware GeForce 256 review has been posted. He tests both the GeForce 256 SDRAM and the DDR version. Thanks Stomped

Seen at slashdot.net Ask John Carmack About Quake - or Anything Else they are putting together a list of questions. The top 10-15 will be used already 400 + posted.

10/10/99
New Powerstrip seen at the 3d spotlight
PowerStrip 2.52 is now available for downloading, with preliminary support for the GeForce256, improved control over the Permedia3 and Oxygen/VX1, and some other improvements all around with respect to custom CRTC timings, in-game gamma adjustment, etc. Powerstrip is a handy tweaking utility for your video card and monitor.

10/09/99
My Host CTC is running three Q3 servers they are not in Gamespy so not many people show up.

Anyway I will be at one of them at 11.00pm central time looking to play I will have a ping around 200. The I.p. numbers are 206.10.20.6:27960   also 27961 and 27962. My name will be Raptor{Ctc} hope to see ya there.

Check out this page called Quake III Arena it's in South Africa

Hey Cached has moved So update your bookmarks the site has moved .

I am still working on message boards they will be open soon!!!!!

A lot of people are mad at me for having the right mouse disabled on this page so I removed that java script.

10/08/99
Wow!!! 140 hits since lunch thanks to Stomped for pimping my site. If you haven't been to Stomped go now.

John makes yet another update I get tired just reading them.

Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/7/99
-------
* r_primitives 3 path for non-vertex array testing
* specify sex in model animation.cfg file
* proper dropping of failed bot inits
* removed identical pain sounds
* serverTime strictly increasing across levels
* added GL_DECAL multitexture collapse
* windowed mouse on mac
* fixed byte order issue with curve clipping on mac
* made com_defaultextension buffer safe
* fixed levelshot and added antialiasing to image
* don't clear bot names before kick message
* made servercommand sequences strictly increasing across
level changes
* unpause on vid_restart

10/07/99
Seen at Blue News

Don't Shoot While I'm Talking
Forbes has put up this great article about id software.

There are some new GeForce 256 Q3Test screenshots on 3DGPU.com showing off scenes from Q3Test on NVIDIA's upcoming chipset in side-by-side comparisons against the same shots running with the lower level of curve detail on some non-GeForce accelerator or another.

I disabled the second mouse button on this page and I am using the plan update page to test some scripts.

10/06/99
I added the java script for plan updates to this page so I will be deleting the separate page.

John makes yet another update I get tired just reading them.

Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/5/99
-------
* fixed steady snapshot test
* fixed incorrect 0 ping if past client messages
* fixed loser-disconnecting-at-tourney-intermission
sorting problem
* general purpose flood protection, limiting all user
commands to one a second by stalling the client,
so the commands don't actually get dropped, but
are delayed as needed
* replace headnode overflow with lastCluster
* fixed bad extrapolation on unpausing
* fixed player twitch on unpausing
* print client names on loading screen

10/05/99
Busy working on message boards still.

Somebody asked me for the ctc (catch the chicken mod for Quake2) but I lost the icq number so here is the link. Catch the Chicken

If you heard that they isn't going to be a Jailbreak Mod for Q3A they were wrong read more here.

As for Rocket arena that will be real easy just make some maps, then start a server,set frag limit to 1 in tourney mode. So all that will be needed is some kick ass maps with only the weapons (rockets) and you have rocket arena.

There is a FiringSquad article on the Quake 3 Arena road tour stop in Northern California.

10/04/99
Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/4/99
-------
* allow cg_thirdPerson and cg_thirdPersonRange in games
* added execed .cfg files to journal file
* single pass plasma explosion effect to save overdraw
* rescaled and sized gib and mark blood to save a lot
of overdraw
* fixed cg.time < snapshot time on vid_restart
* cl_showSend network debugging tool
* back to requiring a before commands on the console to
distinguish them from chat messages. Tab completion
automatically adds the slash.
* new tab command completion with complete to longest common,
multiple match listing, complete first token, etc
* separate version check for game/cgame in addition to system
* show r_finish in gfxinfo
* never show self as attacker icon
* callvote
vote
Caller automatically votes yes
vote has a 30 second timeout
each client can only call 3 votes a level
vote is displayed on screen with totals
* renamed cg_gun to cg_drawGun
* box cull triangle soup models

10/03/99
I will be opening some message boards soon.

Do you want a Quake III Arena Jersey if so Check out this site

10/01/99
Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/1/99
-------
* 10 crosshairs to select from (cg_drawCrosshair 1 - 10)
* cg_crosshairx / cg_crosshairy adjustment
I'm not convinced these are a good thing, because
the crosshair is accurate in Q3 at the default
position (unlike Q2, which had an offset firing
position)
* more packet encryption
* join as spectator in all team games
* cg_predictItems 0 option to not do local prediction of item
pickup
* rank players counting ties, so the third player when
the lead is tied is third place, not second
* properly stack all status elements in upper right and lower
right corners so they can all be visible
* faced q3map problem giving black corners in vertex light
* fixed +button4 not causing footsteps
* fixed bad groundplane clipping on angled jumppads
* show "snc" on lagometer when g_syncronousClients
* new shader command: rgbgen const ( )
* new shader command: agen const
* snap dropped item positions
* randomized offsets of bubbles
* fixed cgame restarts processing snapshots from 0
* proper setup for external/predictable player events
* fixed q3map vertex lighting bug after alphashadows
* do personal pain sounds on health transitions
so they can never be missed
* timeout clear player events
* fixed hang in UI_ProportionalStringWidth
* quad event implicit on weapon fire
* fixed gamestate not retransmitting bug
* fixed timeout issue when paused
* subdivide command times if <15fps, fixing low
com_maxfps physics exploits
* fixed footsteps playing when walking backwards
* new options at start of animation.cfg file:
footsteps
headoffset

Redwood over at Stomped has posted two new images from Quake III: Arena, showing off Paul Jaquays' Q3DM11 map. The images are available on Stomped's news page, or in Redwood's Q3 Status Article from the other day.