Older blog entries for crudman (starting at number 2)

Ah, just managed to get UT 428 operational! Daniel Vogel released a small patch to the game, to fix an apparent driver problem with TNT cards and Unreal Tournament. TNT1/2 owners, you'd be wanting this file from the OpenUT site.

Nvidia released another revision of their Linux drivers, now they're up to 0.9-5. Currently available on Nvidia's FTP sites and via a DCC bot on #nvidia (irc.openprojects.net).

It's more of a stability release. The most significant of these is the fixing of the 'console switching' bug, where a simple switch to a Virtual Console would hard-lock the box. There's a mention in the changelog that certain 'palette issues' were fixed, I'd have to see how an Open-GL-enabled xmame fairs with this thing now.

Most people seem to suffer a slight (read 'very slight') performance loss with the new drivers, it varies from system to system and the video card used in each. You'd prefer stability first, and performance second, I'm sure.

Oh, the drivers aren't open-sourced yet either. We could go over the various issues here, but let's not. :) I'm thankful technology like this can be used under 'alternate' (cough) operating systems. ripperda (Linux driver developer) is probably overworked through all of this, /msg him your appreciation sometime if you use these pieces of goodness.

I feel for squiggy, it sounds similiar to my current situation (work hard and make sacrifices to obtain a position, and then discover it's nothing like you expected), though not nearly as severe. I hope that you work out what you'd like to do, and how to go about it. Your entry has made me think about my own priorities, thanks.

Thanks to those for certifying me, much appreciated.

Arg, I just had to listen to chad and trebinor, and try to get Half-Life working through WINE (via the Emulated Half-Life scripts). I've never seen X segfault during a "wine regedit.exe" command, that's for sure. Must try an earlier WINE release (instead of 20000821).

julian really has made a sweet purchase (Logitech Optical mouse). I've ordered myself the more compact model, which only has three buttons. Me likey small mouse very much.

Also ordered a GeForce2 MX card (Asus), more of a stop-gap if anything. This TNT2 simply can't cut it anymore, while the GF2 Ultra cards are going to be a while yet. The 0.9-4 Nvidia drivers currently support the MX, it'll be nice to test.

It's now been about two weeks since I've installed Debian 2.2, everything is still rosy. 'apt-get' is beautiful, instant security fixes are definitely a plus.

Arg, more work tomorrow. At least that Sim City 3000 demo would have completed downloading by now. :)

Ah, advogato! My thanks to ErikLevy for pointing out the site.

A 'things to do' entry would be appropriate here:

- update this article (for the new UT updater)
- complete the article on 'emulation' I'm working on
- test out the 'Emulated Half-Life' scripts (along with WINE)

It seems there's a few problems with the v428 Unreal Tournament (UT) updater from Loki, most involving TNT1/2 video cards. I'm using a TNT2 in my box, everything is quite damn slow (<1 fps) during the fly-by sequence and main menu. Sound jitters, very slow mouse, etc.

Looked through the OpenUT mailing list, the problem could be due to the new gamma code in 428. Those crazy Loki people will have a fix before you know it. :)

In fact, there's already an updated SDL/GL module (to bring the speed of other video cards up to the previous 425 version), but nothing for the TNT issue as yet.

I've been playing around with the various commands/options for a "Counter-Strike Beta 7" server (a modification for Half-Life). Just need to find the option to disable 'free look' and I'm set for the next LAN session. It functions a lot better than the win32 server that's available (the Linux server doesn't lag the entire game when typing in commands, for example).

Anime! Went to the final few movies of a "Japanime" festival in Melbourne over the weekend. Compared to the Sydney festival, the Melbourne offerings are incredibly poor (in terms of the number of films shown), but at least I saw 'Porco Rosso' and 'Vampire Hunter D' on the big screen. 'Spriggan' was also good, despite many unanswered questions (aren't there always?).