Thursday, July 6, 2000

IE for Parrots -- 10:40 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Slashdot linked to this loony who is attempting to get his parrot to surf the web. Let me guess, they have a government grant for this. Coming soon, Mozilla for wombats and WS-FTP for gibbons.

Paul Steed Sounds Off -- 9:50 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Stomped managed to corner Paul Steed for an interview. This is the first time he has spoken publicly since being canned by id (story). He lists his goals for his own gaming company, talks about his work on Alice with American McGee, and even mentions his firing at id. It's an interesting read. It's Steed at his verbose best. Thanks Blue's News.

Free Stuff -- 5:42 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Everyone in the world is reporting news of gaming companies giving away free stuff like a bunch of drunken sailors. AvPNews is reporting that Rebellion Studios will be releasing some free multiplayer and co-op levels for download for Alien Vs. Predator Gold. Stomped got word that Raven will be releasing 15-20 multiplayer levels, new multiplayer modes, and a bot for Soldier of Fortune. These additions will be available as a download for people who own SoF and on the SoF Gold CD, tentatively scheduled for an August release.

UPDATE! Raven's Jake Simpson updated his .plan with more information on the bug fixes that will be working their way into SoF Gold.

RIAA: Evolve or Die -- 1:51 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

On ZDNet Jesse Berst comments about What the Recording Industry Must Do to Survive. Killing Napster will not eliminate MP3s. There are ways they can profit from Napster-like services--if only they would be wise enough to do so. Seems to me this sounds vaguely like another, earlier commentary written by a webmaster with cruel yet handsome eyes. Hmmm . . . Thanks Linux Today.

J.t.Qbe comments: . . .cruel yet handsome eyes, hands hanging loosely past his knees, a pale greenish tinge to his skin, and bolts through his neck. . .

Q3 Map Conversions -- 11:46 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This comes straight from the "why didn't I think of this" category. Planet Quake linked to a site called Be Quake which lists, describes, and rates maps converted to Quake 3 from Quake, Quake II, and Doom. If you like the "old stuff," you'll find the best of the old stuff there.

More Detonator Comparisons -- 10:00 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Firing Squad posted a comparison of the latest NVIDIA Detonator drivers. Initially they were comparing 5.22 to 5.30. They have since updated the article to include numbers for the recently leaked 5.32 drivers.

TRG on the Palm 8M Bug -- 12:20 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

TRG, a manufacturer of PalmOS PDAs, posted a very nice FAQ on the 8M DRAM bug that some PalmOS-powered PDAs (Palm, Handspring, TRG, etc.) are experiencing. Here they explain the nature of the problem:

Q: What causes the DRAM problem?
A: The exiting of self-refresh mode on a certain vendor's DRAM was not implemented correctly. This can cause a portion of memory to become corrupted.
Details: The Palm OS goes to sleep and wakes up once every minute to perform some housekeeping functions. This, in turn, causes the DRAM to enter and exit self-refresh mode once per minute. Since self-refresh mode is flawed in certain vendor's DRAMs, there is a chance for data corruption to occur every time self-refresh mode is exited on units which use that vendor's DRAMs.

I have to give TRG a lot of credit for posting such a clear and detailed FAQ. If only all hardware companies would be so forthcoming about problems. I would assume (which is always a dangerous proposition) that this would be the same problem that Palms and Visors are facing. If the fix is as simple as the FAQ makes it out to be, I probably won't bother to return my Visor for replacement.

Wednesday, July 5, 2000

Daikatana Patch News -- 10:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Voodoo Extreme got word from John Romero on the status of the Daikatana patch:

The patch is in testing right now and we've fixed everything that we know about and we've added a lot of cool features as well. We're hoping to release the patch by late Friday, but it might be held until Monday if we find any problems.

No word on whether or not there will be an "unsuck" option or the "make the %$^& frogs go away" option.

More Infogrames and Eidos -- 12:25 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Yahoo News quotes more "sources" saying that Infogrames is looking at buying Eidos. Once again, the sources of the rumors seem to be getting more reliable. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Thanks Evil Avatar.

As an aside, Old Man Murray has an article on their real news page of why Eidos REALLY is in financial trouble. It's not the $30 million sink-hole that is ION Storm (although it looks like Deus Ex should help them get back some of that investment), but an ill-timed $55 million investment in the parent company of the Gamefan Network whose stock value did a violent nose-dive. If it's true, it explains an awful lot.

Past Two Days' News

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