OpenAL:
I want to get MP3 support into OpenAL, since using Apple's decoder is a
convenient way for developers to get around licensing it from Franhaufer
(indeed, this is probably why it's exposed at all). Transgaming sent
me code showing me how to do this through CoreAudio (thanks, Gavriel!), and,
honestly, I'm kinda disgusted by how this works. You have to feed MPEG
frames to CoreAudio. That's right, you need to know enough about MP3 to
chop it up into the appropriate bits for the system to decode, including
how to parse or skip ID3 tags, embedded lyrics and pictures...all I wanted
to do was feed in a memory buffer of MP3 data and read out a waveform.
Apple has a hardon for usability, unless you're a programmer, I swear.
I've been told the Quicktime APIs are equally as nasty for using, and are
built on top of this code anyhow, but I'm inclined to explore it if it'll
handle corrupted MP3 files and weird format extensions at the end of the
day. Plus, not being a lawyer, I'm not sure you're entirely isolated from
Franhaufer if you have to parse MPEG frames in the first place.
In other news, that damned iSight camera works as a microphone, and only
transmits data at 48KHz, which is a format I never expected to see, and
thus crashes ut2004 on startup if it's your primary input device (which, on
most G4 towers, it will be your ONLY input device, so this isn't uncommon).
To add insult to injury, the damned thing won't run a HAL callback if you've
got the System Preferences sound panel open. I'm not sure if this is a bug,
or yet another corner case CoreAudio expects you to handle without
documentation.
Sorry, I'm a bit pissy this morning.
Duke3D:
Apparently jonof and Ken Silverman have an OpenGL renderer for Build...that's
awesome work, guys! We're looking at integrating it with the icculus.org
tree if possible, so the Linux and Mac people can take a looksie at it, too.
UTPG:
We're bringing in Steven Fuller ("relnev") to do some UTPG hacking. Beyond
doing consistently quality work, I expect his mere presence will keep my ass
in gear to get the Mac and Linux ports done.
Unreal Tournament 2003:
Mac patch is out:
http://www.macgamefiles.com/detail.php?item=17882
New patch coming soon to fix some things that broke in the last patch,
mostly.
We're likely going to be putting out a Linux/amd64 dedicated server package
soon to test the waters...our 64-bit builds have been limited to public
demos mostly, so I'm hesistent to just dump this out on the public. With
Unreal, the dedicated server is basically the client without rendering (well,
that's about 95% true), so this gives us a way to get a real beta test of
most of the codebase without attracting a million asshole "benchmarkers"
that'll write articles that come to premature, or downright incorrect
conclusions. You know who you are.
When this stabilizes, publically-available Win64 and Linux clients become
much more sexy to us, but there is no timeframe for this, and emails asking
for one get deleted.
Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo:
Linux/amd64 client is out! http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=1883
Linux client is out! http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=1879
MacOS X client is out! http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=1879
Bug reports for all versions go to https://bugzilla.icculus.org/
Mac users that prefer a live person can email bug reports to James
Robrahn at ut@macsoftgames.com, who will eagerly try to get you working.
If you are a Mac user and your colors are screwed up, fix is coming soon.
If you are a Mac user and the game won't start, unplug your iSight (no,
really)...better fix coming soon.
Call of Duty:
1.2 Patch is out! http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=1861
Postal 2:
Share the Pain demo for Linux now available:
http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=1816
There is likely going to be a retail boxed Linux version of P2:STP...do NOT
buy the Windows version yet. This should be announced soon if it happens.
Mac version will be coming soon...so, so busy right now...
MOHAA:
Non-expiring version is out:
http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=1846
This one was built with gcc3, which fixed some other odd bugs, like some
static meshes being positioned incorrectly. You can see this in the first
mission ("Lighting the Torch"); the building you storm has a room with a
medpack floating in space in the original binaries. In this version, there's
a table under it.
I wonder if gcc3 would fix the falling-through-the-floor,
final-boss-won't-die, or platforms-kill-camera-view bugs in Serious Sam, too.
I'll have to check that someday.
(UPDATE: No, it doesn't. Oh well.)
America's Army:
The 2.0.0a patches for GNU/Linux and MacOSX are now available. Details are
here: http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=1829
Other stuff:
I'm cleaning up MojoPatch and releasing the source to it...it's some
stank-nasty code that's awkward to use, but hey, a free patching tool for the
Mac could be of use to some developer somewhere, I'm sure.
--ryan.