Another good Half-Life thing is Half Quake Amen ( http://farm.strikenet.at/hq2/hq2.shtml ), black and white, lots of cool stuff, tortuously sadistic. More puzzle than combat, though. 

*drool*
*drool*
*hemorrhage*
*drool*


Very nice. My bro showed me the 250 MB promo video, which I liked *very much*... 

Blah. :P 

uwf. :) 

Realism VS Verisimilitude

http://www.3dactionplanet.com/features/editorials/verisimilitude/

intersting and reasonably well written article, i think. 

Yeah, that's exactly the same argument I've made a few times before - although I use the words 'realistic' and 'believeable', not 'verisimilitude' ( and people call me pretentious :P ) - but it amounts to the same thing.
I do disagree with the last section of the editorial though; I'm sure there are developers who are mistakenly convinced of the value of absolute realism. But more developers, I suspect, are well aware of the difference between realistic and believeable, but know that the majority of goobering adolscent fanboys are not - so 'realistic' games are made because they sell more easily. 

You don't work in the video game industry as a career without getting at least half a clue (unless you're in management). But game companies will always produce whatever people will buy most, based on the silly false assumption that the customer is always right.

It's the game companies that produce outside of the market and successfully create a new one that spark my interest most. I'm just waiting for the next ID Software to replace today's old relic. 

the silly false assumption that the customer is always right

When will EA learn to stop being silly with all their obscene profits? 

;) 

I thought it was a bunch of crap -- mainly, another case of someone trying to make an logical argument for their personal preferences. Ridiculous arguments -- he says Half-Life establishes believability and then throws it away, after we've already seen space aliens teleporting in, shooting lightning from their fingers ... guess what they come from somewhere, maybe free floating platforms in space aren't likely but neither is riding the draft of a big fan. Finally, the author has a limited imagination regarding the range of the truly unrealistic. 

Ninety percent of everything is shit. True also in the game industry. 

100% of shit is shit.

(via Too Much Coffee Man) 

or should I just go back to sleep? :) 

i heard that hl2 was supposed to run well on ati cards, but would have trouble on nvidia ones... just wanted to confirm this. 

I'd have to replace mine, though I wouldn't miss it much. Just the money it costs.
;D 

...follow the news, they are ensuring good performance on all cards is the latest reports AFAIK. 

there was a big rumble about NVIDIA insisting they use the latest .50 drivers.

/me admits to following half-life 2 news coverage. 

"/me admits to following half-life 2 news coverage."

whats to admit? The game looks the bollocks...

As for vid card compatibility, yes on the recent benchmarks Nvida was way below Ati on the performance, but Nvidia asure us that the detonator 50 drivers will fix speed problems and the performance will match ati.

Still, (and this is just my opinion - OMG opinion kill Daz now!!!) I will being buying an ati for my next vid card, after all the shite that nvidia have been pulling recently (the 3dmark03 scam being top) I just dont trust them anymore... 

i was planning on picking up an ATI Radeon 9500 Pro anyway, but i wanted to know if this was true or not. 

radeon 9800 pro is on special offer at aria for �208 if anyones interrested, I haven't been keeping up with prices recently so not sure if this is good...

http://www.aria.co.uk 

Here is something that may interest you

http://www.planetdoom.com/

"Since we have been hearing alot of hoopla lately about HalfLife 2, Direct X9 and ATI graphic cards compared with NVIDIA accelerators, BonusWeb.cz fired off an email to The Carmack himself to ask how DOOM 3 will be affected by the difference between the two graphics platforms running DirectX 9. Here's what he had to say"

"Unfortunately, it will probably be representative of most DX9 games. Doom has a custom back end that uses the lower precisions on the GF-FX, but when you run it with standard fragment programs just like ATI, it is a lot slower. The precision doesn't really matter to Doom, but that won't be a reasonable option in future games designed around DX9 level hardware as a minimum spec."

You will also find an interview with Tim Willits 

did you ever get round to writing any Quake related articles for your site? I remember you were planning to a good while back, and i was looking forward to reading them, especially the periods/eras of mapping one... 

i still plan to write some, when time permits. 

especially the periods/eras of mapping

Actually that particular one, i would be happy for someone else to write and submit it to me for posting.

Infact anyone who feels like writing about anything related to Q1SP is welcome to do so and submit it to me. Criteria are just a decent standard of writing and also a decent length. like 1 full screen at least, not just a paragraph, so its reasonably in-depth. 

articles page

http://www.planetquake.com/underworld/oa.html

as a side note, do you think the font used on this page [georgia] should be used on all the other pages?