Semi-realism mod for Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 OS X

Semi-realism mod for Unreal Tournament OS 9 and OS X

An unparalleled giggle collection, from any semi-realism FPS

(Nov 28): New Mods: The long-awaited Mac distributions (with installer and launcher) from Macologist staffer Petterf for Red Orchestra 3.1 are available here. I'll be mirroring these on Macologist ASAP. The patch weighs in at about 400M, and the full at over 600M. I also finished Alien Swarm 1.2: The Ortega Campaign, with an Apple Packagemaker installer, OS X launcher, and wrapped in a dmg, available here. I'll be showing that off the AlienSwarm team, and hoepfully they'll list it. I also added the BF1942 mod set in WW I, Battlefield 1918, available here (mirrored for partner site mods4mac). I don't think it has a launcher, but it might, I didn't look yet. Also mirrored from m4m is the Call of Duty mod Heat of Battle, available here. You'll need to download three files, v0.31 full, 0.32 patch, and the required mappack. I'll be working on wrapping a few more projects into Packagemaker DMGs, including Air Buccaneers, and of course FragOps should be available later this week, if th3dunadan pulls through for me; otherwise I'll do it next week.

(Nov 24): Apple Store One-Day Sale: For the day-after-Thanksgiving holiday shopping madness, the Apple Stores (both physical and online) are offering one-day special prices on most items. I can only report on US prices, for example: The Airport Express, regularly $129, is $98, iMacs are $100 off, and iPods are at a $20 discount. One-day only, so it has to be that impulse purchase.

Mods: Rogue has just made the newest Strikeforce 2004 .dmg available (v2 MSU) for download at Macologist, read more here. I haven't gotten around to doing FragOps yet, but it is coming; you can always just do the manual installation and use the FO launcher. I'm also looking at other UT2k4 mods, and have recently made a launcher for Alien Swarm.

(Nov 24): Macologist update: First, a few news updates. Of course UT2004's v3339 patch is out. It looks like it fixes compatibility to catch up with Windows versions, and the mods that required 3339 like Red Orchestra. OpenAL audio, is still broken, so if you're using a custom openal.dylib file, make sure to back it up. Download at Macologist or 0day FTP. We were also betaing Duke Nukem (old school 1996), and now it's available for download, read more here. Regarding Postal 2: Share the Pain, dev Running With Scissors' Mike Jaret of marketing has sent me a newsletter stating that the game has indeed shipped for OS X, and may be available soon from the Apple Store, CompUSA, and their own RWS store, although I see nothing at these outlets as of today. They may also institute the purchase of a downloadable version as well. The Mac version will be compliant with Windows P2:STP 1409, and will incorporate all content from the Windows 1337 and STP Patches, as well as included the Snatch map "Red Light District." Snatch? That's their version of CTF, you can read more at my novel-length review. Speaking of reviews, my recent asking of friends to write reviews has borne fruit... we have an Air Buccaneers review, which is a nonFPS mod for UT2004 involving hot air balloons. The review link also includes download information (the Macologist download now includes the launcher for OS X). OH yeah that's what I have to do, check if the community mods menu is still messed up for UT3339. Anyhow, expect some more reviews soon... I think Cocodapuf is going to go over the WoW community options in an upcoming article. IMG had a news item on WoW's European plans here, but a lot of European players I know are just gunning for the US version. Speaking of other hot MMPORPG news at IMG, Linden Lab's Second Life has gone gold, read more here.

(Nov 20): Google news "blackhole" beta screenshot: Is it just me, or does the Google News text title algorithm need work? This is a real screenshot from Nov 20, 10:30PM (-10 GMT). (If you don't believe me, why would anyone want to photoshop text off a solid white background for such a mediocre joke? Photoshop was used only to add the arrow). I had been researching many Postal 2 reviews recently for my own review, so I thought my brain was a little skewed. I took a closer look, and saw that my eyes had not been fooled. *sigh* Still beta after all these years. Could be the original news feed's fault though, because the link to the article is here, and I get a 503 error.

Air Buccaneers Launcher: I've just finished a Mac OS X Launcher for this UT2004 mod. See Nov 16 news regarding Epic's naming this mod it's first "featured mod." You can download the launcher here.

World of Warcraft: Well folks, it's coming out in days. ScvWebFire, my co-owner of Macologist, has come out with a nice review of the public beta, which recently ended. He reports that he's going through withdrawal, but at least he got the review done. In more MMORPG news, IMG reported that Linden Labs has taken Second Life for OS X Gold. This will be a release to watch as well.

(Nov 18): Gaming: Working on getting some good game reviews up at Macologist, including Desert Combat, Air Buccaneers, Postal 2 and even online poker. If you have a game you'd like to review for macologist, please contact me with a short sample. The WoW review should be very soon.

iTunes news: I was reading reading macbytes, and saw a slew of interesting iTunes links. The first is a visualizer that I actually like and now use regularly, called Gaslight, and you can try the new 0.27 version. It runs in different colors, and can either flicker or zoom, but it's not too much, it's just right-- it's in the background, is pretty, and is peacefully mezmerizing if you look at it... it's basically a spectrum analyzer, but a nice one. Just drop the .app bundle into the itunes plugin folder, and when you run the visualizer in windowed mode, you can access its preferences with the big iTunes button (The one you use for importing or burning): be sure to disable the FPS display and the frequency graduations that are on by default. Dual monitors: I read a neat short article at iPodHacks on running the iTunes visualizer across multiple monitors, and some people seem to be very happy at this solution. Home Theatre: and here's a page that purports to show you how to do the iTunes visualizer wirelessly to a Home Theatre. Rumormill: There's an old rumor that the iTunes Music Store may be opening a Canada version, with songs for $.99 Can. It's due to open next week Nov 26, so we'll see soon.

Seagate "Largest": The largest capacity platters, at 133G each has been announced by Seagate in its 400G SATA hard drive. With this tremendous data density, this 7200rpm drive is said to achieve the performance of a 10000 rpm drive-- note that the attention-getting 10000rpm Raptor drive by Western Digital is only 74G, so this is a tremendous piece of news for high-performance types. In general 400G drives (such as this one, or ones by Hitachi) would be *ideal* for putting into iMac G5s, which of course can hold full-sized drives. Random: I knew those Apple Switch ads were making minor celebrities of some of the folks, especially the girls, but I hadn't personally run into their websites until today. Teenager Ellen Fleiss has quite a following with sites such as this one, and is reported to appear in a new set of Errol Morris' "Switch" ads to be released soon.


(Nov 16): UT2004 mods: Preliminary word is the newest Red Orchestra (3.1) won't work until we see the next UT2004 patch for Mac. Also: Epic & Atari announced Nov. 8 that Ludocraft's Air Buccaneers 1.0 is their first "Featured Mod." The description in the forum announcement by Epic's Jeff Morris reads: "AirBuccaneers is a modification for Unreal Tournament 2004. It contains a new multiplayer game type with hot air balloons, cannons, airmines and various other pseudo ancient gadgets. The game is a compelling combination of graceful air ballet, fierce pirate-like action and 3D tactical maneuvering." This official promotion includes Epic's hosting of official gameservers for this mod, as well as front page news on the Unreal Tournament main site and official announcements in forums which include information on downloading updated patches. There is no word on when the next featured mod will be announced, but the Featured Mod program is an extension of Epic's efforts to promote the modding community, centered around their showcase Make Something Unreal (MSU) Contest and their inclusion of 11 community mods in the recently-released UT2004: Editor's Choice Edition. After the MSU Contest's Grand Finale deadline Nov. 15, Air Buccaneers has updated to version 1.5, as have the Epic gameservers. To learn more or to download this mod, visit the Air Buccaneers site. For installation on a Mac, I recommend trying the uMod version and installing it with the Santaduck Toolpak's DropUModOut utility; I think mac users from French clan M4K have gotten it to work in OS X, but I'm not positive yet.

To see a (mostly) updated list of over 70 UT2004 mod releases, see this thread at Atari forums.

MOHAA: I'm currently in talks with the owner of the MacMOHAA (Medal of Honor) site to host his FAQs and custom content at Macologist, including his map, The Falls. He's also the author and maintainer of the OS X Game Server ConfiguLator site, so his expertise will be a nice complement to the staff at Macologist forums. The "Configulators" are tools to set up dedicated gameservers in OS X for MOHAA, Spearhead, Jedi Academy, Call of Duty, and Breakthrough.

(Nov 15): FragOps: The manual zip versions of FO 2.1 are now out, and Macologist staffer th3dunadan is working on a .dmg/.pkg version of it to be available soon. I haven't had time to look at the releases for other mod titles yet, but you can check their sites below, and there's a stickied thread at Atari's official Unreal forums for mod releases, as well as a separate forum for such announcements. (links coming).

nongaming: I've run across two interesting items lately. The first is the rumor that Apple may be getting into premium flash-RAM based iPods... this was a market segment the iPod Mini was supposed to compete with, but can you imagine what you would get with Apple's creativitiy and design team? The software interface alone would be worth the price of admission. I wonder if they even have an ultra-high capacity flash unit in mind? Time will tell if this rumor holds true. The second is that I found a dev site that sports G4- and G5- optimized builds of the Firefox browser. I'll be testing it out soon. Firefox is already faster by leaps & bounds than Safari and Camino, so I'm very excited to try these builds out.

(Nov 14): Make Something Unreal: The Nov. 15 deadline of Epic's MSU contest's grand finale looms, and we can expect a flurry of UT2004 mod updates. Look for a simultaneous release of updated mods for Unreal Tournament 2004 as the mod teams rush to meet the MSU deadline. For example Frag.Ops will be releasing version 2.1 (and recently previewed a changelog, screenshots, and a trailer), and Red Orchestra will be releasing its version 3.1 (and have also previewed a trailer, screenshots, and soundtrack). RO is likely to have a Mac .dmg distribution, and the FO .dmg will be converted by Macologist within a week. Also expect a maintenance patch for NeoTokyo, and possible updates for Domain 2049, Troopers, and Clone Bandits. StrikeForce 2004 is also releasing its Beta 2 on Monday, which may mean they are entering the contest as well. On the non-FPS side, expect Air Buccanneers 1.5, DeathBall 2.3, as well as probable updates for UnWheel, Anomaly, and Alien Swarm. The winners for the previous phase, Phase 4, have not yet been announced.

Feral News: MacWorld has reported that the MacGames.co.uk Games Arcade will again be present at London's MacExpo 2004 (Nov. 18-20), and will include the currently-unreleased Feral titles Bionicle, Chessmaster 9000, and Ford Racing 2. The report also notes that MacGames.co.uk will be providing a 10% discount on titles, but it's not clear if this means that these titles will be released during the show: Bionicle is a possible bet, as yesterday it was announced as Gold at Feral's site, while Ford Racing 2 and the long-awaited Chessmaster 9000 have been available for pre-order since the end of October. At any rate it's been 5 long years since Chessmaster 6000 for Mac, so this is welcome news, coming on the heels of last week's preview of screenshots here. In other Feral news, a new Commandos 3 "Sniper" Trailer has been released, see all of their Commando trailers here. On a side note, if you're in London for MacExpo, don't miss the final day when Apple officially opens its flagship Regent Street Store.

Apple News metabuzz: I was reading an article at apple-x that discussed Apple's adoption of a next-generation AAC (aacplus). What I found to be more interesting than the article was the comments thread at the bottom of the page, which commented on the accurate prognosticating of the article's author, who guessed this outcome based on piecing together key facts. I'll be keeping an eye out for further news from this reporter "neo." NeXTStep to OS X: Another news item which has had a nice buzz including at slashdot is this one by osxviews, that outlined the evolution of OS X. I haven't had time to really read it yet, but upon a short perusal, it does look nice.

(Nov 11): Amazon iPod store: Looks like Amazon is getting in on iPod fever with a dedicated iPod store. I'm still not sure about Apple's strategy with DRM, apparently they've locked out Virgin recently, who wanted their songs to be playable on the iPod... did Apple offer any deal at all, or do they have some other strategy in mind? I'll read around and see what I can dig up. Macologist updates: I just posted an interview with Ryan Gordon, a.k.a Icculus, the coder behind the Mac ports of UT2004, and most recently, Postal 2: Share the Pain. I asked some questions that got hiim on a keyboard roll, and he penned a novel. The interview URL was picked up by macbytes and inside mac gaming, and has gotten over 1400 views in 1 day. Check it out, he has some very interesting viewpoints on how gaming on Macs could be better, as well as opinions on Apple's Tiger Installer app. Also at Macologist is a recent and well-received review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic by long-time #osx acquaintance Mac_Jedi.

(Nov 10): Firefox browser official launch: Mozilla-based browser Firefox has officially launched with a final version 1.0 and a front page NY Times ad. The download sites (try download.com, versiontracker.com, or macupdate.com, as well as the official page above). I hope it's less crash-prone than the 1.0 preview release for OS X; the final 1.0 release still has the download menu bug in OS X (if download window is the only window visible, you can't open new windows, and closing it in this case cancels all downloads)... but for your Windows machines, it is by far my favorite browser. On the Mac side, I still use Firefox despite these small problems because it is so much faster than Safari and Camino. Halo 2 launch hype: This is Xbox news, not mac news, but it's generated so much hype that even nongamers have heard of it. There's a fun article here about the opening day hype at the Toys R Us store in New York. If you're a Halo fan, and you don't already know about redvsblue.com, go there now to watch some fun Halo-engine-based movies, for example Real life vs the internet. Over at Macologist meanwhile, I've finally started filling out our new Downloads system with updated files, see here for a partial list. We're also currently working on getting the Community Bonus Packs for UT2004 worked into a .dmg release with a .pkg installer for OS X. That would be convenient wouldn't it?

(Nov 8): UT2004 update: Icculus has just finished a beta 3336 patch for Linux. This can only mean the Mac version is also coming soon. You can check his progress at his "0day FTP".

(Nov 7): World of Warcraft: WoW is set to launch Nov 23 in November, Austrialia, and new Zealand, as well as a European pre-order campaign beginning Nov 26. Macologist is seeking one reviewer who is either in the N. American open beta or the European closed beta, apply here. There was an absolutely stunning CG cinematic trailer for WoW released, even if you're not interested in the game, you'd have a good time taking a look at the quicktime version, exclusively at Apple. Don't bother going to the WoW site URLs for the trailers, since they are hosting .exe download helpers only. Here's one screenshot.

(Nov 6): Software Update: Go get your 10.3.6 if you haven't already. Large emails: If you want to send a large file (up to 1G) via email, it's usually impractical, but you can use YouSendit.com to send it. Basically yousendit.com stores your file for 7 days, and your recipient gets a notification to download it. The service is free, and is quite convenient if you don't have the online space to spare. Thanks to neuralstatic from #osx for pointing out this useful site. Along these lines of web-based tools is web2mail.com, used to check any POP mail via a web interface (as well as WAP, IMAP, & PDA options), and geektools.com, a browser-based way to use tools such as Whois and Traceroute. For example, use the whois tool to look up "apple.com" (yes, you can just do "whois apple.com" in Terminal too), and you'll see that this domain currently expires Feb 2007, and Apple's registrar is Markmonitor, which if you look, turns out to be a registrar the specializes in management and protection of brands and trademarks.

(Nov 5): IBM supercomputer to take crown: IBM's Blue Gene/L supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore is still being built, but achieved a 70.72 Teraflop/s performance rate in initial tests. The official listing for the current fastest supercomputer is NEC's Earth Simulator in Japan at 35.86 Tflops. Another contender is NASA's SGI system which held 42 Tflops in tests last week. When complete, the IBM system will have cost approximately $100m, and is expected to achieve the official crown with over 300 Tflops, with an architecture that requires only a quarter of the electricity of the NEC system. The computer will be used by the US DOE. Imagine if they dedicated it to play chess... Movie news: The teaser for the Pixar film Cars has been released at Apple's trailer site. Cars will be the final movie in the Disney-Pixar contract, after which Pixar is likely to drop the partnership and go it alone with the cash and clout from its unbroken string of profitable blockbusters, including in all probability, The Incredibles. Rumor has it that you'll be able to see the Star Wars Episode III preview before the Incredibles. Currently online, the SW E3 preview is a pay-download from the members-only area of Starwars.com, but by now you can probably find a friend of a friend of a friend who has it. The highlight is the absolutely classic history in the voiceover by Alec Guinness. Palpatine looks quite scary, and finally we see the sugared-buns hairstyle on Natalie Portman. Will there be an explanation of the 'cold spot' on Degobah? At any rate we hope there will be no podracing over lava.


Tunes: iPodlounge.com has published its comprehensive Buyer's Guide for those of you considering iPod-related purchases this holiday season.

(Nov 4): Game patent lawsuit: The Register reported that graphics company Tektronix is attempting to enforce their 1987 patent on how panning across a 3D scene can be simulated on a 2D representation. Not surprisingly, their suit names as defendants gamemakers including Electronic Arts, Activision, Take Two, Ubisoft, Atari, THQ, Vivendi Universal, Sega, Square Enix, Tecmo, Lucasarts and Namco, as well as several others. However recent technology patent cases have not always been decided in favor of the patent-holder, especially when the patent covers the idea of a process rather than details of its actual implementation. In this case, early CAD applications and some games (e.g. The Colony and Spectre) may also predate the patent's filing. I also remember Pixar's original Luxo (the lamp animation) to be from 1986, but when I watched it at Pixar's site, I noted that it had no panning at all. Thanks to reader Androktasie for finding this news item.

(Nov 3): Doom 3: Aspyr today announced that it will be publishing Doom 3 for OS X with id Software, and is taking preorders for its eventual release. This is arguably one of the most important 3D FPS titles to make the leap to OS X, and it's a wonderful surprise that Aspyr and id has been able to keep the wraps on this huge announcement until now. Although id had indicated that it was planning to develop a Mac version, the announcement of Aspyr as the publisher is the first solid confirmation that it will really happen. The game is slated for a February 2005 release for $49.95 (although Amazon lists December 20), and will be ESRB-rated "M". Of particular interest is the preliminary minimum system requirements, which states a G5 processor. I'm hoping there will not be a CPU check upon the application's launch, so that G4 users can choose for themselves whether or not to ignore the suggested requirements, and so Aspyr can sell more boxes. One of Aspyr's other titles, Battlefield 1942, had a CPU speed requirement that was later rescinded in their "Public Beta Patch 1." If a CPU check mainfests for Doom 3, it will be the first major title to lock out G4s entirely. You can read more and see screenshots at Aspyr and the official Doom3 site.

Unreal 2004 Patch: A changelog for the upcoming v3336 for Windows has been posted. When I have a chance, I'll ask Icculus if this is an interim build, or a major revision that he'll port for Mac and Linux. In other patch news, Ubisoft has released a 1.01 patch for Myst IV. Finally, Icculus announced that Postal 1 is now Gold, and that it will be distributed via download, although it's not yet clear if it will be bundled with Postal 2, or be a separate purchase.


(Nov 2): Election Day: If you're a reader from the US, go vote. But before that, I know you're online already if you're reading this, so go to your state election website to take a look at your ballot so you're not surprised by anything such as referendums, state constitution or county charter amendments, and less news-hyped issues such as your boards of education. Don't vote based on your in-the-booth two-line reading of referendums, good-sounding ideas might be bad if you learn more about them, and vice-versa. I was surprised this year by a couple issues I read up on. There's no excuse in this wired age that you can't look up information such as candidate descriptions and pros & cons for each measure (such as websites from your office of elections, the league of women voters, or your newspaper). And ignore the polls if you're a late voter and just do your thing.

World of Warcraft: As the closed betas wrap up, Blizzard and Fileplanet have announced an open beta period for WoW, which is free to anyone. In conjunction with the open beta is the stress-test period, which began yesterday so get your copy now and begin playing. If you're a Myst fan, be sure to check out IMG's review of Myst IV Revelation. Intel Gamer chip: Intel's Pentium 4 has topped out at 3.8 Ghz with its 570 "Extreme Edition", a single-core chip with 1M L2 cache, and will cost $999 each in lots of 1000, that can ship with the 925XE Express chipset. See Oct 19 & Sep 22 news below for more information on the AMD vs Intel battle, and Intel's retreat from maximizing clockspeed, and toward consumer-friendly dual core chips. Firefox launch: An updated version of the browser Firefox is slated to launch in a week, with a quarter million dollar marketing effort behind it, including a full page ad in the New York Times. See spreadfirefox for marketing & donation news, as well as how to contact the Boston Globe for an article if you are a recent switcher to Firefox. I hope they fix the buggy OS X version, it has odd menu interface bugs and crashes on me once or twice a day which is almost unacceptable-- I say almost because Safari and Camino are so slow, which is a more unacceptable sin IMHO, which is why I stick to Firefox. For me on an XP rig however, there's no question Firefox is the one I prefer.

(Nov 1): iMac G5 Benchmarks: If you've been following, you'll know some of the saga that Rob-ART of benchmarking site barefeats.com has been through, and that I've been trying to add my little contribution. As a quick catchup, Apple used the Santaduck Benchmark for Unreal Tournament 2004 in a graph to introduce and promote the iMac G5, comparing results for Unreal and Halo with those from a previous-gen iMac G4: Apple claimed a 212% benefit for the iMac G5, in other words, over 3 times the performance of the G4 version. Barefeats' original results showed about an 11-12% benefit. After he posted his original article, both Apple and I contacted him to see what was going on. Eventually he got Apple's original settings for the benchmark (botmatch, resolution, detail, map choice), game (version 3236), and hardware (RAM), and he got some better numbers, but nowhere near 212%. I suggested he check the boot ROM version of his older iMac G4 with Apple, who told him that they had used a 17" LCD G4, whereas he was using a 20". Supposedly they are the same speed, but Apple said the 17" is actually much slower. Much much slower. So slow in fact, that the G5 was 212% faster. In personal communication, Rob-ART told me that Apple's Performance Marketing division seemed to be scratching their heads over how they got their original results, and sure enough, when he got his own 17" LCD G4 results, they were much faster than Apple's claim. It seems his results now range from 52% (if using UT3236, which is what Apple used, and the latest at the time), to 93% (using UT3323, the latest version currently available), but nowhere near 212%-- Rob-ART told me, that either he has the fastest LCD iMac G4 on the planet, or Apple Performance Marketing has the slowest one. He wants Apple to retract and change it's claims, although he reiterates that he highly recommends the iMac G5 as a fast & capable machine, especially for the money.

You can read Rob-ART's full iMac G5 gaming results here. He also compares the 1.8 iMac G5 with the four flavors of 1.8 Powermac G5s here. Finally, if you've read about faster performance with matched dimms, it's because the RAM path is 128bits with matched dimms, and 64bit otherwise. Here are his speed tests of the possible benefits of matched dimms in the iMac G5. Basically he sees a clear benefit in specific benchmarkers, but not in real-world applications. I'm not sure he maxed out the cache to force the CPU to go to RAM, for example, in his Photoshop tests, so I'll ask him later.