LINUXGAMES

Version 2.4c of the action game server browsing utility Qstat has been released. New features and bug fixes for this release include:

• Tribes 2 player type and tribe tag information
• Changed Quake 3 default version to “48″ (1.27g)
• New Tribes 2 master filters. (see documentation)
• Convert newlines into spaces when printing Tribes 2 server info in raw mode.
• Fixed problems with the 22337 build of Tribes 2.
• Tribes 2 raw output is now the same format as most other servers.
  • Note that this reverses the order of current and max players from what they were in 2.4b. And adds ping and # retries values.

Download: qstat24c.tar.gz

Thanks to Alex Burger for pointing this out.

Version 0.61 of the 3D lightcycle game GLtron has been released; changes include:

• Fixed crash on some systems, when two lightcycles collide
• Fixed a few z-buffer problems
• Camera settings are now saved between games

GLtron 0.61 source: gltron-0.61-source.tar.gz

Version 0.98.0 of the graphical adventure RPG Crossfire has been released. Thisversion consists mostly of small bug fixes and is scheduled to be the lastrelease before 1.0 unless more bugs are found.

Crossfire 0.98.0 source: crossfire-client-0.98.0.tar.gz

Version 0.6.0 of the electronic boardgame front-end Q Universal Boardgame has been released.The changelogis rather long, but the highlights include:

• crashes and bugs fixed
• build and Install instructions have changed
• more toggles added to the gcom editor
• save button no longer saves the current object, but the whole MDI desktop
• can now autoload GComs
• you can no drop templates onto each other
• new configuration keys
• added partial save on exit support

QUB 0.6.0 source: qub-0.6.0.tar.gz

Version 0.2.3 of the open-source 3D chess game glChess (screenshot)has been released. A changelogis avilable.

glChess 0.2.3 source: glchess-0.2.3.tar.gz

zakk pointed out that version 0.0.4b3 of q2hack,the utility which allows Quake 2 to use XFree86′sDGA mouse handling to enhance mouselook accuracy, is now available.

q2hack 0.0.4b3 Download:
http://staff.xmms.org/zinx/q2hack/q2hack-0.0.4-BETA3.tar.gz

xmame version 0.37b14.1 has been released;xmame is a multiple arcade machine emulator. Relevant changes in this build:

• Everything from MAME 0.37b14 except for ‘steadykey’ support.
• Major updates to the files in contrib/porting. Added prep-new-mame and prep-new-mess scripts for porting from the MS-DOS sources.
• Fixed the files in src/unix for which Per Wigren reported problems when using the Tru64 compiler.
• Incorporated fixes to the core sources for the Tru64 compilation problems. (Nicola Salmoria)
• Fixed a bug in logerror() that could cause a crash. (PeteFrench)
• Added the German HTML docs. (Robert Hamberger)
• Added a note to the docs and makefile about adding -DGLU_VERSION_1_2 to the GLCFLAGS when using Mesa’s GLU. (Sven Goethel)
• Updates to the ALSA dsp driver: cosmetic changes, suppression of bogus warnings about underruns. (Shyouzou Sugitani)
• Updated the changelog for the ALSA dsp driver. (Shyouzou Sugitani)

xmame 0.37b14.1 Source:
http://x.mame.net/download/xmame-0.37b14.1.tar.bz2

Loki Software president Scott Draeker spoke withLinux Weekly News to address community questions regarding their recent staffdepartures:

“The Linux market is still very small–much smaller than the Mac market,” said Loki co-founder and President Scott Draeker in an email interview with LWN.net. While the community as a whole has been very good to the company, and the press has offered high praise for their products and support, no one is making a fortune at the small California based company. “Some [people] have assumed that all the good news and good work we were doing meant that we had all become instant millionaires. Not a chance.”

In fact, Draeker says they aren’t even making money yet. Then again, that doesn’t mean they’re ready just yet to shut the doors to the business. “We’re in this for the long haul. We want to build a Linux gaming industry. That takes time and plenty of sweat and cash. And no, we are not profitable. But we aren’t going anywhere either.”

Finding cash has been a high priority for Draeker since last year. He says the company knew back in December that funding wasn’t becoming available and that employees were told about the situation. “We told them they were welcome to stay,” noted Draeker, “or start to look for other jobs. A number of people left over a period of 3 months. At that point most had gone about as far they could with the ups and downs associated with being a start up in a down market.” Now the company is running at break even levels. Says Draeker, “We’ve cut back to a size where we can sustain our operations exclusively from sales revenue. That said, we are still looking for funding partners.”

Scott also goes on to say that, with the help of such projects asOpenAL and the Simple DirectMedia Layer,Loki plans to branch out into other markets.

Furthermore, Loki has announced a new bulk discountprogram for Linux Users Groups. If you’re a member of your local LUG, make a point to let them know aboutthis promotion. Thanks to Rob Seace for the news.

id Software’sJim Dosé sent in a screenshot to Voodoo Extreme of his (albeit Win32) desktop in the midst ofdeveloping Doom 3; the source for the script compiler is displayed, as well as a tech demorunning while loading one of Xian “Disruptor” Antkow’s new Doom maps. id’s lead coder, John Carmack,has repeatedly stated that this next id title (still without an official name) will bereleased for Linux.

Version 1.7e2 of the multiplayer 3D tank game BZFlag has been released; changes include:

• bzfs performance fix, wait loop removal
• limbo flag bugfix
• scrollback cleanups
• minimum size now 256×192
• various bug fixes

BZFlag 1.7e2 source: bzflag-1.7e2.tgz

Release 20010418 of Wine, the freeWindows implementation for UNIX systems, has been made available; changesinclude:

• DirectDraw restructuration and improvements
• MSVCRT headers for compiling Winelib apps
• Postscript driver enhancements
• Several multimedia fixes
• Lots of bug fixes

Wine 20010418 source download locations:
www.ibiblio.org
ftp.infomagic.com
ftp.fu-berlin.de
orcus.progsoc.uts.edu.au (FTP)

Following last week’s mention of the new Crystal Space isometric engine plugin, the CS site has posted a pair of screenshots showing offthe new feature. The shots also show a bit of the dynamic lighting available in theengine.

The official Anarchy Online siteupdated today with word that they have implemented a new Actionbar feature intheir upciming MMORPG. You will be able to drag shortcuts to the Actionbarand they will provide easier access to predefined emotes, action buttons,nanoformulas, and shortcuts to scripts. There are some screenshotsavailable so you can see the Actionbar in, um, action.

Indrema may have folded, but the newskeeps on rolling in:

• ConsoleWire has posteda fairly blunt editorial titled Indrema:What went wrong? It gives a recap of the Indrema failure andsome ideas as to why the project never really made it off of the ground.
• NewsForge posted their summary of the Indrema situation: Game over for Indrema’s impossibledream. It, too, gives a recap of Indrema from day one up to their demise, andincludes some editorial comments.

As announced earlier,Loki’s Linux port ofTribes 2 is scheduled tobegin shipping today to resellers witha suggested retail price of $49.95 US (there is also a bundling deal where you can orderboth Tribes 2 and Alpha Centauri for$59.95 US).

Moreover, the developers at Dynamix wereinterviewedby Tribes Center about their work creating T2 andwhat’s planned for the future (including an expansion pack).

Unfortunately, not everyone who worked on T2 will continue to support the game,as both Mike “skeet” Shaw andDave “Diamondback” Meddishwere laid off from Dynamix after the Win32 version shipped; we at LG wish them the best of luckin securing new employment in the industry.

Finally, a fairly informative guide forT2 players in a defensive role is up at PnP (thanksto Tribalwar for these last three news items).

Vincent Rodriguez forwarded a linkto Red Hat’s press releaseannouncingthe launch of their latest distro iteration, version 7.1

Moreover, as this is the first Red Hat Linux release that utilizes the 2.4.xkernel series,StatiC sent in thisadvice:

Anyone who upgrades to kernel 2.4 (RedHat 7.1) and uses a Voodoo1, Voodoo2, or Voodoo3 2000 will need to download andcompile the CVS snapshot that zakk made available in January on linuxgames.com. A search through the news forDevice3Dfx will find the tar.gz snapshot or the files can be obtained from the CVS section athttp://glide.sourceforge.net. Without the CVS snapshot, any attempts to use glide/Mesa will result in an error of”expected Voodoo, none detected”.

I created RPMS and a SRPM for easy installation/upgrading of the older version. It also fixes the problem of theoriginal RPM where during the installation, it assumed the modules configuration file was conf.modules. Newer distroslike RedHat 7.x use modules.conf.

StatiC’s RPM’s can be found at

http://l-i-n-u-x.org/.

Oliver also found this general Linux gaming HOWTOfrom Peter Jay Salzman, which addresses basic questions about Linux 3D drivers andinstallation.

Oliver fired in the following:

If you know the old Amiga 500 Computer from Commodore, thenyou should take a look at xrick, a complete rewrite of”Rick Dangerous” for Linux.

It uses SDL 1.2.

Screenshots can be found here; thesource is available from

http://www.bigorno.net/xrick/xrick-010315.tgz

Version 0.6.3 of Tenes Empanadas Graciela(screenshots), aRisk clone, has been released byriq. Changes include:

• Spanish translations updated
• Updated documentation
• Any player can select the type of game
• Fixed nasty bugs in `show cards’ and server
• Added little support for `pactos’ (deals or treats)
• The robot is executed from full path a not from the path environment
• The `exchange cards’ window appears only then you have a valid exchange
• Fixed some bugs in the ggz support
• Added the –observe command line in the client
• Improved a little bit the GUI

TEG 0.6.3 Source:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/teg/teg-0.6.3.tar.gz

Mike Melansonsent in a release announcement for version 0.75 of TuxNES,a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator. Changes:

• complete sound support
• complete MMC2 support (Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!)
• added MMC4 support
• joystick remapping
• NetBSD and experimental OpenBSD support
• ZIP file support

TuxNES 0.75 Source:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tuxnes/tuxnes-0.75.tar.gz

Furthermore, the GTK+ front-end proggy GTuxNEShas been updated to version 0.75 as well(source).