A new developer release of Wine has been released. This release, version 991031, has some some new changes that might help gaming under Wine including a reimplementation of Winsock support. Complete list of changes below.
- Reimplementation of Winsock support.
- Last part of multimedia reorganization in DLLs.
- Many other multimedia improvements.
- COM interfaces access cleaned up.
- More features in common controls.
- Lots of bug fixes.
James Hills sent in word that Creative Labs is planning to open source their Linux SB Live! drivers. Creative will be setting up a Bugzilla/CVS system to aid driver development, and they will be working with Loki on Linux 3D audio solutions. The full story can be read here.
Epic’s Mark Rein made the following post on the GT Forums regarding the Unreal Tournament demo’s netcode:
Folks,Earlier this week Tim Sweeney sent the following reply to someone who noted that he was finding fewer good servers under the recent 348 version than under the previous 338 version:
Yesterday we found and fixed two things in the netcode that had gotten worse since 338, causing more bandwidth to be used. These are fixed for the [retail] version. A new demo patch will be released around the time it hits the shelves.
Thought you’d like to know.
Stefan Dirsch has released updated Matrox G200/G400 GLX drivers, which allow 3D acceleration in X for owners of these cards. Stefan notes that this is the stable GLX CVS version “last-nowarp” with Mesa 3.0 compiled; the new drivers are available as binary and source RPM’s:
http://www.suse.de/~sndirsch/glxg200-last_nowarp-0.i386.rpm
http://www.suse.de/~sndirsch/glxg200-last_nowarp-0.src.rpm
Version 0.43 of XArchon has been released. This version includes two small changes:
Henningsson wrote in with word that Paul Burkey, developer of the Amiga game Foundation, will likely be porting the sequel Foundation’s Edge to Linux after the PC release… Loki updated their site with news of a German review of Railroad Tycoon 2 by Linux Magazin (if you can’t read Deutsch, there’s always the Babelfish).
Version 0.4.1d of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture driver and library has been released. Changes to the new driver include improved support for the CMI8330, and systems with two or more soundcards. The new library includes PCM cleanup fixes.
Driver: alsa-driver-0.4.1d.tar.gz
Library: alsa-lib-0.4.1d.tar.gz
Lee Anderson has written a review of Linux Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire for Ext2. Anderson has included screenshots of the new card game port from Loki, and examines the customizability, music, graphics (the omnipresent weasel getting considerable mention), and card gameplay. You can still order EUS from Loki here.
Development version 2.3.1 of ZAngband, the Angband variant, has been released. Changes for this version include:
Voodoo Extreme is reporting that multiple sources/developers at Epic Games have confirmed that Unreal Tournament is about to go gold. They have taken care of all of the bugs on their list and will soon be shipping out the gold CD. It looks like UT will be in stores by Christmas.
Version 1.20 of XShipWars has been released. This version includes the following changes:
32BitsOnline has posted a review of Linux Myth 2: Soulblighter. The review of the 3D real-time tactical game, written by Michael Wong, covers installation, single and multi-player gameplay, graphics, sound effects, and how it differs from the Windows release. Wong also includes screenshots with extensive commentary in his review, so be sure to head over and grok it.
Loki has released an updated version of the Civilization: Call to Power demo. The file is around 56 megs and is available from
ftp://ftp.lokigames.com/pub/demos/civctp/civctp-demo-10251999.tar.gz
Miguel Larios of the Linux Gaming Network wrote in with word that he’s conducted an interview with Loki’s President, Scott Draeker. The interview covers all the bases, including the difficulties in porting titles utilizing DirectPlay for networking and a hint at the possibility of a Loki.Net multiplayer service in the future.
A new source snapshot of the PowerPak Game SDK has been released. Changes in version 991023 include a PD_UpdateScreen bug fix in the PowerDraw module.
PowerPak 991023 Source:
http://www.angelfire.com/va/powerpakgsdk/images/PowerPak.tar.gz
The Linux Game Development Center, an excellent resource for game development articles, project listings, tools, and tutorials, has moved. The new URL is http://sunsite.auc.dk/lgdc/, so be sure to update your bookmarks. The old URL (http://sunsite.auc.dk/linuxgames) will redirect to the new one to eliminate any confusion brought on by the move.
John Carmack updated his .plan to announce the hiring of Robert Duffy to maintain id’s various tools for Quake 3 and beyond (which prompted Carmack to note that he aims to make the Q3 level editor cross-platform). His latest worklog was also attached:
An announcement:We have hired Robert Duffy as a full time employee, starting inDecember.
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 afull time tool-guy at id.
The original QE4 editor was my very first ever Win32 program, andwhile Robert has done a good job of keeping it on life supportthrough necessary extensions and evolutions, it really is pastits 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 exactlyconfident that it will work out, but I want to try.
Many of the content creation tasks seem to be fairly stabilizedover the last several years, and our next product is going to bepretty content directed, so I can justify more engineeringeffort 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 subsystemscan be shared.
All of that added up to more than I was going to be able to doin the time left after the various research, graphics, andnetworking 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
Andre Werthmann has released version 1.0.1 of Linux Heretic, a Linux source port of Ravensoft’s Doom-engine shooter (whose sequel is getting porting by Loki). Changes:
- merged the arm and std header-files into a single one
- the __attribute__ ((packed)) statements are now handled by the preprocessor, this way, any future changes shouldn’t break the ARM version
- made some changes that will allow the wadfile and servers to be in the path (or, for the wadfile in ../share/heretic from anything on the path.)
- it is possible now to build a working RPM
Criswell has produced another linux gaming-related edition of his comic Strenua Inertia; today’s deals with Python-based solitaire game PySol.