Had an outstanding trip to California (I always enjoy going out there). Left Wednesday to C/NET in San Francisco to film a piece about Quake II, which should be aired on Dec. 20th (still haven't quite figured out where it can be seen, but when I do I'll let everyone know).

Hiya,

I know you must have gotten a lot of mails trying to explain thisbut I'd still like to share my too cents.

* The institution is called BPS (not USK) (Bundespruefstelle fuer jugendgefaerdende Schriften) I can't really translate that, just for those who care...

* ANYONE can submit what's called a 'complaint' to the BPS if this person thinks that a certain publication has a bad influence on the young=under 18

* the BPS then checks into this (=plays the game, reads the bood, watches the movie etc.) and decides if it puts the games on the booboo list

* If that happens the publications
- cannot be advertised
- cannot be desplayed publically (=on shelves etc. that are open to the public)
- cannot be sold or shown to anyone under eighteen

The idea might was obviously ok, but what peaple have made of itreally sucks:

* Magazines are afraid to review those games because they fear that a positive review can be judged as an ad (duh)

* A lot of stores won't sell the game because they don't want the trouble of selling something they can't display and having to check the customers age. (Some just don't get it and think it's forbidden or sumthin or they fear bad publicity)

* Internet sites actually have pulled(!) the whole directory that contained levels etc.

* Asswhipes like certain laywers have decided its their sole duty to file complaints to the BPS (as in most cases of id's games)

If Activision decides not to publish Quake 2 in Germany its their choice.They could (under the restrictions mentioned above).

I personnally think it's time to get people going against this. We needa rating system as it is common everywhere else. You can see whatrestrictive policies lead to.

Karsten Jennissen

BTW: Wolf3D actually was banned (not indexed by the BPS) because of Nazi symbols, Nazi pictures and other things. Selling is forbidden. People had it anyway.

amnet.cfg
bear.cfg
biggun.cfg
boss.cfg
bwh.cfg
city.cfg
factory.cfg
hanger.cfg
jail.cfg
johnc.cfg
killme.cfg
mine.cfg
paulj.cfg
power.cfg
redwood.cfg
steed.cfg
thresh.cfg
tim.cfg
todd.cfg
warehouse.cfg
xian.cfg

impulse 1 has been redesigned, reorganised, and reopened. go check it out at
http://www.impulse1.com/.

over the coming months we're planning lots of cool stuff, including
reviews/previews of hardware and software, as well as interviews with people
in the community and at softco's (check out our interview with Christian
Antkow of id software at:
http://www.impulse1.com/features/interview/christianantkow.html

Some updated issues that I've come accross;

- "Connection Refused" does not necessarily mean that the server is fullas I previously stated. Looks like there is an issue with servers not properlyclearing out clients who have disconnected. I'll get the lowdown on thislater on today (ie: you get a "connection refused" when there are 4/12 people on a server)
- MouseWheel issues. MWHEELUP/DOWN don't seem to work very well. Will bouncethis off Brian
- Servers sending you data even though you've disconnected from the server
- NT Users getting lagged sound. Try setting "s_mixahead" to 0.5 or something.(I use 0.2 on my NT system) This is a known issue with the way NT handles WAVs
- "NET_SendPacket ERROR: WSAEWOULDBLOCK" trying to connect to a server? Fails to connect
- Tweaking TCP/IP packet size in the Windows registry + Quake II == BAD. Will bouncethis off John

December 10, 1997 (early AM)
------------------

I ran the first set of benchmark tests tonight. The test system is an Intel Pentium 2 AGP system w/ 64MB of RAM. The operating systems are Win95 OSR 2.1 and WinNT 4.0 SP3. The boards that I'm testing are:

- 3Dfx Voodoo2 SLI PCI (3Dfx Voodoo2, dual TMU, SLI)
- Quantum3D Obsidian XS-100 4440 (3Dfx Voodoo, dual TMU, SLI)
- 3Dfx Voodoo2 PCI (3Dfx Voodoo2, dual TMU)
- 3Dfx Voodoo PCI (3Dfx Voodoo, dual TMU)
- Diamond Monster3D (3Dfx Voodoo)
- STB Velocity 128 PCI (NVidia RIVA128)
- Diamond Viper 330 AGP (NVidia RIVA128)
- ATI Rage Pro 3D AGP (ATI Rage Pro)
- 3DLabs Permedia 2 AGP (3DLabs Permedia2)
- PowerVR PCX2 PCI (PCX2)
- Rendition V2200 PCI (Rendition V2200)
- Diamond Stealth 3D PCI (Rendition V2100)
- Intergraph Realizm PCI
- Voodoo Rush PCI (Voodoo Rush w/ 6MB)

Boards notably absent, and likely not to be tested because of prior poor performance:

- Pyramid3D-based boards
- Number Nine Imagine128

I'm also going to pass on testing the Canopus, since it likely won't have significantly better measurable performance

Yes, I'm well aware that the test system we have is a little on the high-end side, but I simply don't have time to run all these benchmarks in all these iterations on multiple systems. I'm going to be testing performance at 16bpp resolution, 24bpp when available, in gl_modes 2, 3, and 4 (512, 640, and 800, respectively). When possible I will disable/enable VSYNC, and I run all the tests in fullscreen. The tests are also going to be run using DEMO1 distributed with Quake2.

Right now we're waiting on new drivers from several vendors. Today I managed to test the NVidia PCI & AGP w/ their MCD, a regular 4MB Voodoo, the Quantum3D Obsidian board, the Voodoo Rush, the Permedia2 using their ICD, the PCX2, and the Realizm (in a Pentium Pro 200 w/ 128MB of RAM). Tomorrow I hope to test the NVidia PCI & AGP w/ their ICD, the Voodoo2 SLI, the Voodoo2 non-SLI, and the Rendition stuff. By the end of the week I hope to test the dual-TMU Voodoo.

This should be interesting stuff...I can't give out any REAL big info, but I will say that the slowest so far has been 10.8fps and the fastest is over 30fps -- quite a spread! I'm fairly certain that the slowest board has been tested already, and that the fastest board has not.

Will keep you folks posted.

December 9, 1997

Go into Video Options, and change your resolution from 320x240 (or whatever you have it at) to 640x480or above.

Then try to connect to a server (in the console typeconnect xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) and once your in the game youmay reset the resolution back to normal.

Hope this helps, and happy fragging!

-pSyko

December 9, 1997

There is another Quake2 server running at the offices at:

jukebox.idsoftware.com

16 player limit.
15 minute time limit.
No frag limit.

Woo!

December 9, 1997
------------------

To answer some questions:

- you can't compare GLQuake TIMEDEMO scores with Quake2 TIMEDEMO scores --
they're different demos, different technologies. Yes, in general Quake2 is
going to be slower than Quake1, which makes sense given that Quake2 has more
complex levels, more complex monsters, and performance intensive effects such
as translucency.

- if you see messages like "EXT_multitexture not found" or something like that,
IT'S NOT A BUG. These are information messages, not errors, letting you know
what OpenGL extensions have been found on the current driver.

For you IHVs testing stuff, go to a simple location and do a "cl_testlights 1",
"cl_testparticles 1", or "cl_testentities 1" and use "r_speeds 1" to see
performance analysis. This will allow you to tweak your drivers in a very
focused fashion when trying to increase texture management, pointparameters,
and Alias model rendering (respectively).

SOMEONE (I won't name names) sent me mail complaining that lately my plans
have been less technical and more anecdotal mumblings. Yes, they have. That's
because WE SHIPPED! WOO-HOO! When you're done you don't have nearly as much
to talk about as when you're actually running around fixing bugs and
implementing new stuff.

So just assume that for the next three months or so that there will be a ratio
of at least 5:1 of "irrelevant crap" to "something vaguely technical".

I'm currently tentatively looking at speaking at the University of Florida on
January 21st. I think they're anticipating a turn out of about 35 people, if
there are going to be more people going, PLEASE let me know -- i.e. if you're
going to drive down from a neighboring town or something. The topic is going
to be non-technical stuff having to do with getting into the computer industry,
how to succeed, what makes a good programmer, etc.

Okay, I'm off to fix a multitexture bug and to run some benchmarks.

We're trying to debug an issue with dedicated servers in Quake II. I'm
running a server under the debugger here on my PC at;

underworld.idsoftware.com (192.246.40.169)

If a bunch of you could hop on and play there as well, we'd all
appreciate it. Please note: This is *NOT* a permanant server.

Hi! Here in germany Activision will not distribute Quake2, cause it was indexed, before it was released. Its a law to protect the youth. (Hey, here in Germany you canbuy beer aged 16 yrs. confusing, eh !) If a game (or book....) is indexed, it can be sold, but thedealer is not allowed to display or to offer it. Evenif Q2 is in the stores, it's not in the shelves, okay !

No adds will appear anywhere. Even magazines will not beallowed to test and comment Quake2. So almost nobodygets to know Q2 is out and Activision germany would only sell to the ppl, who read www.quake2.com or other sites.Not that much. Maybe 10% of all QuakeUsers here.So they refused.

My dealer said me to import Q2 himself and so the USversion might be available before the German one inhis shop. But what's the difference? Who cares !

Wolf3d, Doom(][), Quake, ROTT... they are all indexedhere, but they got indexed some weeks or at least daysafter the german release, so ppl knew the games.

Strange story. When Quake was releases here, the Shareware was already indexed, but not the full release, that included the SW. They suck over here sometimes!

-kan-

Well using the timedemo things I read off your page my friend and I ran some fps checks on our systems... I know the standard now is PII 266 with 64 megs EDO RAM and w/o sound but maybe your readers would like a more realistic reading of Q2's speed on normal/average computers with sound.

System 1 is a K9 200 MMX with 64 megs of SD Ram running a Millenium 2MB video card (crap yes I know) and a Sound Blaster 32 pnp
- It recieved 9.1 fps at 640x480 with low quality sound
- It recieved 16.5 fps at 320x480 with low quality sound
- It recieved 9.0 fps at 640x480 with high quality sound

I must point out that although 9 fps may seem low and bad Quake2 is so much smoother than the original that I can play with these frame rates with little or no problems. In fact Q2 looks better and runs much more smoothly than Q1 at the same resolutions. One possible reason for this is that K6 processors love win95 applications and quake2 has no DOS components that would slow the processor down like quake1had.

System 2 is (weird) a Pentium 120 overclocked to 137 mhz with 42 megs of non parity ram running a Millenium 2MB video card (crap again) and a Sound Blaster 64 value
- It recieved 9.7 fps at 320x480 with high quality sound

System 3 is a K6 233 with 64 megs of SD Ram running a MilleniumII 4MB video card (okay card) and a Sound Blaster 64 value
- It recieved 10.1 fps at 640x480 with low quality sound
- It recieved 20.2 fps at 320x480 with low quality sound
- It recieved 9.8 fps at 640x480 with high quality sound
- It recieved 12.5 fps at 512x324 with high quality sound
- It recieved 19.6 fps at 320x240 with high quality sound

We attribute the difference in fps for System 1 and System 3 to be because of the video card and possibly audio card. The K6 200 and K6 233 have the same bus speed (66mhz) so the 233 cannot transfer data to the video card and sound card any faster than the 200 can. (Again this is all unproven but just our ideas)

Again this is using: "timedemo 1" "map demo1.dm2" at the console...