QuickTime Movies, Screenshots and News
High Bandwidth
Medium Bandwidth
Low Bandwidth
QuickTime Demo 2
(q3test2 Network Play)
High Bandwidth (674k)
QuickTime Demo 3
High (3MB)
Medium(1.6MB)
QuickTime Demo 4
High(11MB/zip)
Med(3MB/zip)
Low(650k/mov)
Mac G3 Screenshots
First Glance
Network Play
Win98 Console
System Configuration
B&W G3/350
OpenGL
Beta Drivers
Past News
April 27-28th
April 24-26th
ServerConfigMOD
Source Released (Q2)
Comments?
Extra thanks to Bini at NETMEGS.COM for the hosting and his patience while all you take a look at the latest pics, movies and news from idSoftware's AWESOME Q3 'Test'.
May 19th - Quake 2 MOD Info: ServerConfigMOD Linux Source released. The file is in .tar.gz format at level 9 compression. You can also just get the Makefile and the one object file, stdlog.o and use your Windows source as well, so if you've made any changes you won't have to start over or copy and paste anything. (Watch for filename case sensitivity if you do this.) One note, because the Linux build is dependent on stdlog.o, be careful of your 'make clean' operation wiping that out. You've been warned! I recommend actually using much of the Windows source distribution b/c there was a glitch with the Linux release of the grapple not working properly. Probably just an oversight on my part but I couldn't tell you where that oversight occured on the Linux end. The make process should be rather straightforward, you may opt to inspect the makefile to make sure it is spitting the .so file out where you want it to.
LATEST QUAKE 3 INFO: Using my Diamond Viper 330, (4MB AGP) the demo looks gritty. Installation of my 3Dfx Voodoo card proved to have smoother results, but still no where near the quality of my 16MB video card on the B&W G3 Mac. Now I'm sure Voodoo 2 and Voodoo 3 (2000,2500,whatever they are calling them now) would look better or the same, but just my two cents.
News updated above... Other recent news: DEMO 4 Released on April 30th, please check for files at mirrors first, they should be coming online if not already. Available in three flavors, High (11MB), Medium (3MB) and a Low at scant 650k.
Welcome...
I'm one of the proud owners of a B&W G3/350 Mac w/128MB running the beta OpenGL drivers from Apple along side my Wintel PII computer. (Been using the G3 mostly for miniDV editing, and now Q3TEST, WOW!). For those of you wanting to get into Digital Video Editing, seriously check out Terran Interactive's Media Cleaner, they even have a free demo! This product was key to converting all my footage into web based format. I hear the new version outputs to MPG and AVI and works with Mac and Windows and even does MP3! Now that's cool! Just my two cents. :-)
A bit of background...
This site launched Saturday, April 24th @ approximately 11pm, along with the release of Q3TEST for the Macintosh platform. I run both a PII and a G3 here in my house, and I have to say that idSoftware just continues to kick ass! The installation of the demo went pretty smooth. I must say that the 16-bit screen depth with 32-bit textures packs a great punch. Both fluid gameplay and stunning graphics. It can't get much better than this folks. Hat's off to all at idSoftware and for letting us all drool over it with screenshots and now movies.
May 8, 9PM EDT:
Yay, Q3TEST for Windows is coming out! Because of this DEMO5 probably will never surface, there just isn't any need for it anymore. Stay tuned periodically to the site as you can be assured that when the source is released you'll find a great MOD lurking around here. :-) Any other video requests? No, I'm not Tommy Lee, and I'm not related to him so I don't think I can get any footage of that stuff, so don't ask! ;-p I hope to see you online, maybe I'll frag 'ya once or twice even. heh heh.
May 4, 8AM EDT:
I now have Media Cleaner Pro 4 beta, and will be attempting to put together a movie utilizing the new QuickTime 4 standard. Hopefully we'll see better audio and video along with smoother video playback and increased resolution. DEMO 5 will be a minute long video of q3test2 gameplay on Internet with minimal cuts and transitions. Now everyone will get a chance to see how good or bad I am. :-p Hopefully all will just enjoy the weapon usage and the other eye candy!
May 1, 10PM EDT:
The BIG news from id came and went the other night, and Windows users had really nothing to celebrate. I was real happy to be able to provide DEMO 4 on that same night. Hang in there!!! Nobody at idSoftware has e-mailed me but I am hoping along with the rest of you that the playable Q3TEST will be released for Windows sooner than later. Even though I released Demo 4 the other day, news of Demo 4 just started popping up, probably because the popular news sites have been so overwhelmed with tons of other news pouring in. That's okay, as long as your here we'll move on. ;-p Like with the other demo videos that were shot, they've always been meant to help give users (like you and me) some eye candy and to help hold everyone over for the actual test release and subsequent beta and final versions.
I'd also like to see id release the source for their engine which outputs the demo files. This way someone, maybe even me, could write a program which could encapsulate the demo in an executable format, or even have the ability to easily convert it to a mov, mpg, or avi. That would be a cool utility/idea (in my opinion of course, but then what isn't here), this way in the future it's easy for game companies and users evaluating beta/test software to share movies with everyone very easily. Just my two cents, maybe someone is listening. :-) I see http://www.planetquake.com/demospecs/ looks promising.
Also, id has to support some multi-MOD functionality in Q3, period. (preferably mods are still capable of being written in C... Come on we're all used to that by now, and if not, it's good to get these newbie programmers up to speed with a common and powerful language. Think of how positive that is for the parents and everyone else saying negative things about these games lately!) Now, I know after some time there will be the mods that "do everything", but what if you could "enable/disable" every option in every mod, then use it with some other mod which you could do the same. This way you could run a server (MOD) anyway you want, taking the best features and eliminating those that bug you! Maybe a pipe dream... Sometimes I think John Carmack should let developers just code in something that's worked thus far and not make another language just for kicks. John, if you want to do that, why don't you work at Sun and make JAVA better, or make "JOHN", the official language of the new millenium? ;-) I just don't see some interpreted language or developers kit of any reason for Q3, when C is already there as a means to use. We want power and C gives us that.
Continue to check back here periodically to see what's going on, and thanks for all your interest.
April 30, 2AM EDT:
Q3TEST DEMO 4 BEING RELEASED... 11 megs(High), 3MB(Med), 640k(Low). Currently the files are being uploaded via FTP to two sites, and hopefully they will be mirrored at the various Quake 3 news sites by early to mid-morning. Those of you that grab it first and set up your own mirror let me know your site so I can immediately post the link to spread the distribution around. Demo 4 download links will become active as soon as they can, keep checking back...
April 29, 1999 - 10:15PM EDT
All I can say is go to http://www.quake3arena.com/q3test/mirrors.html for the latest Q3TEST versions for Mac, Linux and Windows. Unfortunately while the release/update of the Linux version and Mac versions are now out, only the update for the Windows Server is out. So for those Windows users still biting their fingernails DEMO 4 is coming your way within the next hour or so.
April 29, 1999 - 7:45 PM EDT
Actually wrote this news from my HP Jornada 820 Win CE machine. Not too shabby. Obviously it's not my main computer but it's a nice "toy" that actually can be used to get work done. A-m-a-z-i-n-g! Well, on to the more important stuff, DEMO 4 will be posted tonight, hopefully sooner than DEMO 3 was able to be relased back the other day/morning. At 4am you really can't think too straight so my apologies, and I am promising here that DEMO 4 will be easier on the eyes. Hopefully the walkthrough will turn out okay, it won't have "everything" in it. I've tried to come up with "different" themes behind each demo, so they spark not only interest but further immerse everyone into the game. I know I wouldn't want to download movies that were all the same. Hey id, I haven't heard from you! I've been holding all these users over, where's the love? ;-) Let's hope that Q3TEST for Linux and Windows users comes out soon! There, I said it. Hope someone is listening. :-)
April 29, 1999 - 7:30 AM EDT
I've gotten word that some G3 users can't get Q3TEST to play, and in fact only see an orange screen but hear the sound. I'll be posting a screenshot (will be very small) of my extension list of my ATI and OpenGL drivers for those owners who still haven't been able to play it for something to compare it against. In fact to hold you over, here's a link which talks about it. Demo 4 will be released late tonight, which will be a walkthrough of q3test1. I'm going to try to bump up the resolution of the movie so it's a bit bigger on your desktop during playback. Quality may suffer a "tad" because I'm trying to keep the file sizes the same as Demo 3. We'll see. Maybe I'll get the beta version of Media Cleaner 4 and be able to output as AVI and MPG too. Stay tuned!