Joyport USB   Kernal has released an Input Sprocket interface for its Joyport, the crazy item that allows the use of everything from an N64 controller to your old Atari joysticks. If I hear about this thing again, I'm going to have to get one out of curiosity. If you've got one, drop me a line and tell me how it works!

= end of Noon Update =

Mesa Gamma Tip: Byron Franek sent a note on Gamma control in the Mesa3DfxEngine Beta 4 tweaker affecting the appearance of textures:

"Gamma control seems to dramatically increase the dithering of textures. Disabling it restores the smoothness I was used to.

r_gamma console command does not cause the dithering."

Wanted: Quake 2 Modem Play Feedback: A Beige G3 owner reports that Quake2 internet play is much slower than Quake3test. I'm looking for other readers experiences with Q2 modem play. Please include your system/video card/ram info when you send me your comments. Any tweaks you have done that helped performance online are also appreciated. Thanks!

= end of 10:00 AM Update =

Quake2/RagePro Performance: This just in from a reader:

" Mike,
I just got Quake II today and I took some 640x480 screenshots and screen refresh times on my Beige G3 292 with built-in Rage Pro. The performance in single player missions at 640x480 is almost acceptable- 18 fps average, but the fluctuation between 12 fps and 22 fps annoys me. The multiplayer level that I tried, The Edge, saw excellent performance at around 28 fps consistently. 800x600 was playable, but slowed to about 5 fps in some scenes. Attached are three screenshots with pertinent info already in them. Q2 looks really nice, and I'm glad I bought it legitimately to encourage future PC developers to bring products to the Mac. I especially like the lighting effects. Frame rates are on the images.
- Andy Watters "

If the images are too dark try these - screen1, screen2, screen3.

Beige G3/Quake 3: Rage128 rev A (75mhz) vs Voodoo2: Tim Seufert sent his test results and notes he's getting better Quake3Test performance from the Voodoo2 in his Beige G3 system. There's still a lot of life left in the Voodoo2:

"I have both a Voodoo2 12MB and a Rage 128 (Apple OEM 75 MHz pulled from a B&W G3) in my beige G3 (466/233/1MB, 192MB). So, I just tested Voodoo2 versus Rage 128.

OpenGL: Apple OpenGL 1.0
The Voodoo2 config:
Mesa 3dfxEngine 3.1b4
voodoo2.ini configured for 96 MHz, PCI and memory tweaks [These mem/PCI settings seem to do nothing here as noted in yesterday's news, at least in my B&W G3/400-Mike], 120 Hz refresh, no vertical sync

Quake 3 options: All options in Quake 3 maxxed *except* resolution (640x480), texture detail (1 notch below max), and light flares (off). This is the way I play normally. (It appears that selecting 32-bit textures and rendering will just fall back to 16-bit on the Voodoo2. The game will still store the 32-bit setting, and it uses it on Rage 128.)
[I've asked if the Rage128 was running 32bit mode-Mike]

The results (timedemo 1 followed by demo q3test1):

Voodoo2 41.9 fps
Rage 128 34.7 fps [On my BW G3/400 - I get 60.1 fps in 32bit mode -Mike]

Reducing texture quality one notch more and using bilinear filtering helped Rage 128 a little (37.4 fps) but did nothing for Voodoo2.

If the 128 is purely fill rate limited in this situation, one would expect about 46 fps from the 100 MHz card versus the 75 MHz card I tested. [It's not a fill rate issue I don't think -since my B&W G3/400 tested at 60 FPS with 32bit mode, same resolution.-Mike]

Another test rather radically in favor of the Voodoo2 is a simple one I devised which should depend mostly on fill rate. I start up a local server on test2, go to one of the shotgun platforms, and look straight down (with the cg_drawfps frame rate counter turned on). This fills the whole screen with a flat texture. On V2 I get between 40 and 70 fps depending on what part of the platform I'm on (the curved surface and light in one corner affect the performance). On Rage 128 I get about half that (and it tracks the locations with V2, i.e. a spot that gets 60 on V2 gets about 30 on R128). It's hard for me to believe that the Rage 128 is *that* much worse at fill rate, so I'm guessing there must be a driver bottleneck somewhere.

Finally, in actual play, Voodoo2 wins easily. It's noticeably smoother than Rage 128. This was true even when my roommate was using this same Rage 128 card in his 400 MHz B&W G3 (and that was before I knew about the voodoo2.ini tweaks).
Tim Seufert"

My Rage128 in the B&W G3/400 runs Q3 very smooth even at 1024x768 (which the Voodoo2 cannot do). The 75mhz card was less smooth at 32bit color/1024x768 mode but backing off the details from max helped a lot. See my Quake3 Tips page for my B&W G3 Rage128 (rev B) vs Banshee tests. The banshee seems really bottlenecked in Opengl - and it's not just the lack of a 2nd TMU (no multtexturing in a single pass) as Quake 2 does not support that currently. Q2 and Q3 scores for the banshee were much lower than a Voodoo2 or Rage128.

7/8/99 Thursday's News

Tim Conley sent a note that Villagetronic has posted a 7/7/99 update to the MP850/750 (Banshee) Quicktime drivers. These drivers should work on the IXMicro Game Rocket as well. Get the update at: www.villagetronic.com/mac/support/download_mp850.html

Macally USB Mouse/Unreal Tip: A reader responds to today's earlier post on problems with the Macally USB mouse in Unreal:

"I had the same problem on my 6500/250. There was an extension conflict. Disable all the sprockets you dont use, like gravis and others, this fixed mine Unreal doesnt like the extras in there and reacts quite nasty. Hope it works for you.
Cheerio! ~minigoat"

After today's earlier comments on multitexturing, I asked ATI if the current OpenGL 1.0 supported it. Chris Bentley, 3D Programmer/Guru for ATI replied that multitexturing is supported:

"Hey Mike,
...multi-texture support is currently in OpenGL 1.0. Quake3 uses it and you can enable/disable it and see the performance difference.

Quake1 doesn't use multi-texture, but applies the lightmaps as a second pass - so it's not "single pass multitexture".

You may have meant QuakeII. In that case multi-texture is not enabled because Logicware ran into some performance problems when they enabled that path. I'm going to be working with them to fix these issues, since multi-texture should give a speed boost not slow things down, and in fact in Quake3 it does provide a boost. Nate Trost of Logicware knows about this and hopefully they will issue a patch when we get it working in QuakeII.
Cheers,
chrisb"

Since the Rage128 supports multitexturing, this may be why my scores for Q3Test were higher with the Rage128 card that the Voodoo2 (which has that capability in hardware, unlike the Banshee chip).

Ruffin Bailey sent an editorial on the State of Mac Gaming.

Quake 1 Programmer on MultiTexturing Support: A reader just sent this interesting Q&A with the original Quake 1 programmer that indicates adding multi-texture to Quake 1 would be easy, but no support for it is in the current OpenGL from Apple. My comments are in brackets []:

"Hi!
Read on the game news page about issues of Quake 2 multitexture support and thought I'd share this exchange of e-mail with you.

I read an article about Quake Technical Evolution and it turned out the guy who wrote it was personally responsible for bringing multitexture support to the PC version. Well, I thought I'd ask him a question or two...

// My original message

Hi Jack!
Thanks for some interesting reading on the evolution of Quake Technology.

I have a question regarding multitexture in Quake1/QuakeWorld:

As I understand it, the Mac-version of Q1/QW doesn't support multitexturing because there was no or very few voodoo2 for the Mac around when Q was released (and when later updated).

Do you know how difficult/time consuming it would be to implement this in the current Mac-versions of Q1/QW?

There are a lot of us still playing these games and this extra feature would be much welcomed, especially as the Mac-version is slower than the Win-version...

OK, I know that Westlake Interactive is in charge of Q1/QW and probably has lots of other things to work on. But you being the guy who implemented multitexture in the Win-version makes me guess that your assessment could potentially mean much. If the implementation is a relatively small task, then maybe...
Well, I can dream can I :)
Best wishes,
Johan Liljeblad //

His reply (same day actually):

It's really easy work, it would only take about an hour or so to put into GLQuake. The big issue is that their opengl driver doesn't support it, and that would take quite a bit longer to throw in. Since 3dfx really doesn't have any mac people, I don't know who'd be responsible for it.
Jack Mathews

// I replied to that, but didn't get any further answer (sent it 29/6)

This is my reply:

Thanks for a very quick reply!

Hmm... I didin't think Quake1 required OpenGL [it doesn't] ...that only Quake 3 and Mac Quake 2 did. To play Q3 I've had to use (MicroConversions') remake of 3Dfx' 3DfxGlideLib2.x (which they later renamed MacGlide) together with MesaQuake instead of OpenGL. It seems that MesaQuake will be the future option for MacQ2 as well [it is for 3dfx cards].

But to play Q1/QW I only needed the 3DfxGlideLib2.x. (Actually the application to run GLQuake is called "Quake 3Dfx".) Do you mean that their GlideLib doesn't support multitexturing? This is also the only 3D library needen to run Unreal, which then successfully takes advantage of my voodoo2 card's multitexture capabilities.

In case you haven't heard Kenneth C. Dyke of 3Dfx is working on releasing both voodoo2 and voodoo3 Glide2.x and Glide3.x drivers for the Mac (not officially supported). He has said that these drivers will be based upon the most recent voodoo2 Glide codebase.

It sounds to me that the hour work your mentioning might be the only thing needed to get it working...at least if what Ken says is true.
Any ideas or clarifications?
[no reply yet] //

This all sounds like something to ask Kenneth C. Dyke of...think I'll post a question in the 3Dfx forum for him!

Hope you found this interesting!
Johan Liljeblad
Department of Entomology
Swedish Museum of Natural History"

Update: A friend at ATI says OpenGL 1.0 does support multitexturing and it is used in Quake3test-Mike

Apparently many people missed yesterday's post on the Voodoo2.incinerator utility that will create Voodoo2.ini text files for you. (Several people wrote last night mentioning it, although it was mentioned here about 2PM yesterday). I downloaded it and noticed it didn't have many of the tweaks noted last Saturday on my Voodoo2 Tweaking page. Tests on a B&W G3/400 with 12MB Voodoo2 showed indentical performance in Quake to my Voodoo2.ini, so it's obvious that the FastMem and FastPCI tweaks (SSTV2_FASTMEM=1 and SSTV2_FASTPCIRD=1) have no effect on the Mac. I suspect this is due to the lack of Write Combining on the PCI bus on Macs (noted by Ken Dyke of 3Dfx here last week). I hate to admit it but Intel seems to build a better PCI chipset, with AGP to boot. I'm eager to see what Apple does with their Sawtooth AGP design. Regardless, with the right hardware (video card and CPU) the Mac does fine for most gamers. [One reader later wrote to say my Voodoo2.ini file was bit faster and I've asked him for game and system specifics since I didnt' see any difference in Quake 1.]

A reader notes he's having problems with a Macally USB mouse in Unreal and asks for reader feedback (update - see reader tip posted above):

"I seem to have stumbled upon an incompatibility between the Macally USB iMouse pro (2 buttons) and the latest version of Unreal on my G3 400: all mouse functions are disabled when playing the game, even after much tweaking of the setup controls. The game plays fine with the Macally extensions disabled, and the standard Apple mouse installed. All my other games play fine, so I don't think it's a Macally problem. Also, if I ask Unreal to display in a window, then the Macally mouse works fine in the surrounding Finder.
-- Nike Vatsal. "

I asked him to verify that he's got the Macally USB inputsprocket extension installed and to prehaps try USB Overdrive (see sidebar software links) but if anyone has used a Macally USB 2-button mouse in Unreal please contact me with specifics.

Speaking of controllers a reader asked if there was an adapter available to use PC or Playstation, etc. controllers on the Mac. This question is one of 401 answered at my Frequently Asked Questions page. The Games and Game Controllers topic area as the answer - Kernel Productions sells the 'Joyport^TM' adapter that allows using PC, Genesis/Atari, Playstation and Nintendo 64 controllers with your Mac. An ADB version has been available for some time and just this morning I received a mail that their long awaited USB version is now available. Current price is $49.95 plus S&H and any applicable taxes. Here's the post on their USB version release:

"July 8,1999:
Kernel Productions is happy to announce the RELEASE of the JoyPort USB. Initial quantities are limited, so get your order in early. This release supports InputSprockets ONLY.

CDs aren't duped yet, so software will be download-only. Price is $49.95 + $5 shipping & handling (within the Continental US). Call (302) 456-3026 M-F 7-7 EST to order.
http://www.kernel.com/
Kernel Productions, Inc."

My order is in. They say the units will ship next Wednesday.

Quake 2 and Virtual Memory: A reader named 'RYB' sent a note from the Quake 2 Readme file that virtual memory was required, but if you have adequate RAM I can attest to the fact that's not true. On both my G3/400 Macs and the 9600/350 (all have more than 128MB RAM) I run with VM off and Quake 2 runs fine (as noted on my Quake2 performance page). RYB sent the following clipping from the Q2 Release notes:

"Quake II Release Notes

This file contains notes on last minute information pertinent to Quake II.

Quake II Mac Version 3.20 Ð June 21, 1999
(...snipped sections...)

Virtual Memory:
- For Quake II to operate properly, virtual memory must be enabled. For OpenGL to operate, your "Total Memory after Restart" must be at least 90 MB. *NOTE: Virtual Memory requires free hard disk space equal to your virtual memory setting. "

Another reminder that the first place to start upgrading your mac is RAM. I consider 128MB Minimum to run most recent Mac 3D games.

Byron Franek sent word that the newsgroups had a post that indicated there might be an updated Quake3Test available soon but later noted that the IP address was traced to Dell workstations in Texas (a hoax):

" Hey Mike,
I just read what appears to be two legitimate posts from ID software on Scary's forum. The new version of Q3test is scheduled for tonite at 9:00pm CST.

FIRST POST:
"We are just finishing up squashing a nasty bug. The updated demo should be up on our server by 9 PM CST. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines" :) STEED
www.idsoftware.com

SECOND POST:
"err, test...been working too hard lately" ;) STEED
www.idsoftware.com

[he later wrote]

that forum post about the new test looks like a hoax. It was traced to several workstations at Dell computer in Austin, TX. The IP very closely matches a known troublemaker on that forum.
Byron Franek "

As of 12:15AM I did not see anything new at the ID Q3Test Mac downloads page or their news page. If anyone spots a new Mac version anytime in the future please let me know.

7/7/99 Wednesday's News

Randall sent the following news update:

Macsoft’s Brian Ness posted on Usenet that there will be an AoE demo posted soon, possibly by the end of the week. The demo would be a fairly large download with the demo being about 36Meg. That is good that we will see a demo for this long awaited game. Hopefully they will make the demo installer smaller than the 36Megs they are talking about.

Quake 2:

Today a question was posted to a Usenet group about Quake 2 not using multitexturing on the Mac as it does on the PC. Correcting this would allow Voodoo 2 cards under Mesa3dfxEngine to see a 30-40% increase in framerates if that could be added to Quake 2. Nate Trost of Logicware responded as follows:

">Apparently Quake 2 does not use Multi-texturing on the MacOS, while it does on PC's. He also said that even if he did his best to optimize the Mesa drivers, we'd only see AT MOST a 20% speedup, while the folks at Logicware can add a 30-40% speedup just by adding multitexture support to Q2 (which is standard on the Q2 PC version).<

I am in discussions with Mikos about what we can do to improve performance under Mesa. The multitexture issue is a little more complicated than it would appear on the surface. Even though it isn't officially supported we are very interested in seeing optimial performance under Voodoo hardware. I can't officially promise anything, but I'm not ignoring this by any stretch of the imagination.

Just a little patience please. :-)
Nate Trost
Logicware"

It is encouraging to see Logicware working with Miklos to get Voodoo 2 card owners a great Quake 2 experience. Lets hope that something comes of this. :-) [Note: the Rage128 also does multi-texturing in a single pass so if Logicware added it to the game code itself, Rage128 owners would also see a boost-Mike]

MacMame:

MacMame arcade emulator has gone final for the 0.35 release. It is now on par with the PC release. I have always enjoyed the nostalgia of playing games from my youth on my Mac.

As always, there will be more news tomorrow. Please keep the tips and hints coming! Randall

Voodoo2 INI file Creator: Derrick Yamaura sent a note that Mac3D has a post on PimpSoft Labs' Voodoo2.inicinerator, a MesaTweaker-like utility to automate creation of Voodoo2 INI files. I had to chuckle at their motto - "Innovation through Imitation". Heed the warnings on overclocking, especially with non-Cooled cards. Even when fan/heatsink cooled with a Stealth V2 cooler some of my Voodoo2 cards (ie Creative labs 12MB) won't even start at 100Mhz settings. The Game Wizard 12MB Card I have locks up after a minute or two at 100Mhz, even in the 9600 with its large fan blowing on the PCI slots. The major speed tweaks are from the PCI/Memory/Buffer settings anyway, as noted on my Voodoo2 Tweaking page.

Quake2/Voodoo2/Beige G3 Feedback: A reader comments on his trials getting the Quake 2 to work on a Beige G3 w/Voodoo2:

"I wanted to let you know that it was not straight forward to get a GW V2 card working with Q2 (at least for me) using the Mesa3DfxEngine. I have a beige G3/466 (was G3/300) with built in Rage Pro and GW V2. To get my Game Wizard to work I had to disable the OpenGLRendererATI Extension (thanks to Peter Wolf for figuring that out for me). Then I had to edit my Q2 config.cfg to enable 16bits:

change: set gl_force16bit "1" from "0".

Quake2 now works great on my GW (the Rage Pro is a dated chipset). I ran the timedemo for my system and got 28.3fps (with and without the voodoo2.ini file and got the same results). This seems very low and is about the same as you reported for a B&W 400 with Banshee; your B&W 400 with V2 was about 47fps. I find it hard to believe that my beige G3/466 with V2 is about the same as a B&W 400 with banshee. Does this sound right to you?
Don Schmude

P.S. Don't know if you are a Rocket Jumper but here are the commands to add to your autoexec.cfg to Rocket Jump (a must):

bind m +rj
alias +rj "rj1;rj2"
alias rj1 "cl_pitchspeed 100000;wait;+lookdown"
alias rj2 "set rj_hand $hand;hand 2;+moveup;+attack"
alias -rj "-lookdown;-attack;-moveup;cl_pitchspeed 150;set hand $rj_hand;centerview;"

I have bound m to be the rocket jump key. Change the m to whatever key you want. Enjoy."

I did not have to change any settings to run my Voodoo2 card with Quake 2 (no force 16bit tweaks). There was a post here in the past from I think on the ATI renderer extension but I don't remember every disabling anyting like that on my B&W G3 with Game Rocket and Voodoo2 card (Apple's openGL was installed, using Mesa3DfxEngine).

Randall also didn't mention having to change any render settings in his just posted first impressions of Quake 2. He includes comments and performance results on two Macs (9600 with G3 upgrade and Voodoo2 card and a beige G3 w/RagePro).

Randall's on a roll - he sent another review, this one of the new Electronic Art's new under $20 Hybrid Mac/PC game Skydive!.

I've added a long list of Amir Caspi's 3Dfx tweaking results in Quake to my Voodoo2 tweaking page. Amir sent a detailed series of Quake 1 tests with many combinations and reports what worked best on his Game Wizard 8MB card. Check it out. I've also moved the table of my Quake 2 Shadows tests posted here Monday to that page to save space on this page. -Mike.

Randall sent a review of the Cyborg 3D USB joystick.

7/6/99 Tuesday's News

Ken Dyke's (3Dfx) Comments on Mac Drivers: Kenneth Dyke of 3Dfx just posted this comment in my 3dfx forum in answer to a reader's question regarding the release dates:

"The release is not up to me, and to be honest they aren't quite in a shippable state right now. The reason for the Voodoo2 drivers being released first is because they are *far* simpler than the Voodoo3 drivers. They don't require a ROM update util & new ROM, 2D accelerator, etc. Also, because we know that there will be compatibility issues, we want developers to have access to the drivers before anyone else gets them. It would not do anyone any good if the V3 drivers were released and nothing worked right with them.

We are in no rush to ship something that doesn't work right.
-Ken "

Need to create a Quake 2 autoexec.cfg file? I saw this at 3 Finger's Quake 2 page - Try Tweak3d's online autoexec.cfg creator. [link fixed 7/7/99] 3 Fingers is also the home of quake 1 and 2 demo files that have been used for years to test PC video cards by people like Tom's Hardware and others. Massive.dm2 and Crusher.dm2 are the two used in most all PC video card reviews but the S3 mon2.dm2 (9MB Of textures!) torture test demo is hard to find on the net.

KingPin Coming to the Mac? A reader post in my forum notes that Gangland.org's FAQ says that a Mac version for controversial (adult language and theme) version of the new Quake 2 engine based Kingpin - life of crime game is due out soon. I've created a page of Kingpin screenshots from a Voodoo3 3000 running 800x600. If the screenshots are too dark on your monitor, use the PC Gamma links to load a 'brigher' image version.-Mike

Ruffin Bailey sent the following news update:

"Any high-end gamer can always add cards and soup up their machine. What we are trying to do is offer the best out-of-the-box experience," said Nancy Underwood, an Apple developer-relations manager.

"I'm [supporting the Mac] because it's the technically right thing to do, and to support people outside the mainstream," said Carmack. "Microsoft dominating everything with what is basically an inferior technology would be a very bad thing."

• Bug fixes in Mesa Tweaker
• Now the gamme slider supports larger values.
• Minor speed enhancements(?) in Quake2, you should use the new setting file. 512x384 resolution is enabled.

Quake 2 Shadows - How much Performance Hit?: Dan Dickinson wrote that he noticed shadows were not enabled in Quake 2 by default (I'm not sure they are on the PC either really). The command to enable them is 'gl_shadows 1' (gl_shadows 0 turns them off). You can add 'set gl_shadows "1"' to your config.cfg file to make it a default option. I did some tests to see what performance effect shadows had with the Voodoo2, Game Rocket (Banshee) and Rage128. To save space on this page I've moved the table of results to the Voodoo2 tweaking page -Mike.

Shannon Murdoch sent a few other FPS boosting tweaks to the config file for Quake [Update - these are improvements for Quake 1 but made no difference in Quake 2 a reader replied]. I've not tried them but here they are:

"These things added a few FPS:

gl_polyblend "0"
gl_subdivide_size "1024"
gl_finish "0"
gl_keeptjunctions "0"
scr_conspeed "9999"

I also set the voodoo2 to 95Mhz instead of 90. My PAKs are VISed also, I have r_wateralpha set to "0.3". Turning off flames might help even more, might even try that :-) "

Often it depends on what you're willing to give up in appearance for speed, but that may be a good tradeoff esp. for internet play. Note that I have one Creative Labs Voodoo2 card that will not run 100Mhz even with a cooler attached.

Men in Mac support volunteer Adam Dluzniewski writes with more tips on Q2 settings:

"Hi Mike,
I read the Mac Quake 2 First Impressions By Ruffin Bailey and I'd like to add something. I haven't tried this on a Mac but I assume it'll work. Instead of config.cfg file (as 'dude.cfg' in the example) it's better to name that file 'autoexec.cfg'. Q2 will execute it by itself without the need to type "exec dude.fg" in the console. You can store all kinds of sound, graphics and misc. settings and key bindings there, just make sure they don't conflict with Quake's own config.cfg, which should not be edited [it often is however-Mike]. [Note- the reason Ruffin may have used a non-autoexec file is to not have the settings be activated at each startup. Separate files are good for enabling a series of commands you only want to use for certain situations/maps, etc. -Mike]

BTW, this is a good place to get the console commands for Q2:
http://www.planetquake.com/console/commands/quake_2.html

There are certain commands that may help to brighten up the game and tons of useful key bindings. My favorite is:

bind F11 "set fov 30"
bind F12 "set fov 90"

This gives you sort of sniper-zoom mode for all weapons. Nice for camping with the rail:-) F11 is zoom and F12 brings ya back to normal field of view (fov).
Adam Dluzniewski (MiM) "

One reader writes that he's disappointed that many Quake 2 settings from the PC seem disabled on the Mac version.

"Hi Mike,
I've bought my copy of Quake 2 on Friday and have been fooling around with it for a while. You'll be surprised about what I found out. Since the Logicware crew thought that the "sensitivity" command will confuse people who use input sprockets so they completely disabled it. Not only that, but also commands like set vid_gamma and other things. I'm quite disappointed by their move for the sensitivity command is much easier and gives more control than moving around the bars in the input sprocket. The other commands, too, are completely necessary for a intermediate or expert Quake 2 player. And one thing, about the Mesa drivers it's the bottleneck in speed. I've noticed on your web page that your G3/400 w/a Voodoo Banshee card only got you around 30fps in 640x480 mode. Compared to the 60+ fps that Pentium 2 300MHz computers with a Banshee card gets, the results are shockingly bad. I only get 23fps on my G3/233 with 128mb ram and 12mb Game Wizard. It's totally unplayable in multiplayer. Hope this helps you, and keep up the good work! Please keep my name anonymous. "

Note that you may have to do a 'vid_restart' after gamma changes at the console to have them take effect. Voodoo2 (Game wizard, etc.) card owners running Quake 1 and 2 should read and use the Voodoo2.ini file I posted on yesterday's page. It made a dramatic difference for me on a G3/400 with Voodoo2 card in Quake 1 and 2. However as I told the reader that sent the above complaint, note the 3dfx comments on PC vs Mac PCI hardware (lack of 'write combining on the PCI bus), years of 3dfx optimizing their PC 'mini-GL' driver (which is not real OpenGL - see yesterday's news below for an article on this) and totally different OS and motherboard designs make comparing framerates hard to do. As noted last week here - 3dfx says they are working on higher performance drivers for the Mac which may help. For quake 1 and 2, the Voo

Proz sent a note about an interview with 3DFx about the 3500 Card. I had heard several months ago there was to be a PCI 3500 (instead of the original plan of AGP only) but recently I had heard there was some other changes (not just the faster clock speed (183/183) and Digital out but other changes).

One reader reported having problems using the Voodoo2.ini file in Unreal 2.24Beta. I ran a previous version fine with it, however the boost was nowhere near that of Quake and Quake 2.

Mesa3DfxEngine Beta 4a Some readers had problems with the first Beta4 update, but there is not a 3.1B4A release at: http://www.mesa3d.org/mac/MesaDownloads.html. The release notes say they improved the gamma range of Tweaker and also the 'advanced' settings are now saved from the tweaker as well. I welcome reports from readers on beta 4's performance. Save a copy of the B3 extension just in case you have problems with beta 4.

According to the Mesa FAQ, VT (and IXMicro GameRocket) Glide v1.1.1 really slows gameplay in Q3Test, the fix they say is to turn light flares off (but no mention how to do this). Glide v1.1.1 is the latest VillageTronic Glide extension for the banshee based MP850/750 and is the same version that ships with the IXMicro Game Rocket card. I still can't get screenshots that are not totally blue tinted from Q3test on the Game Rocket here. Maybe the swap RGB command will work now with the beta4 tweaker and fix the problem. (Removing the OpenGLRenderATI from my extensions folder didn't help).