BZ2 1.3 Public Beta #3 released

[GSH]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to announce the Battlezone 2 1.3 public beta #3. This is a rather extensive patch to Battlezone 2. A short summary of what's changed is at http://www.visi.com/~nathan/bz2/bz2_13.html if you want to read that. This beta is released as a 43MB (42,800 kilobyte, 43827200 byte) .exe download. There is also a 189KB .zip of the MP DLL source. and a 344KB DXTGen utility for modders

Note: this patch is available in English *ONLY*.

This Battlezone II 1.3 patch comes with no warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Except when otherwise stated in writing the copyright holders and/or other parties provide the package "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose and the accuracy of the information contained within it. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the package is with you.

In addition, it is *highly recommended* that you install this patch to a directory with a fresh [re]install from CD to avoid problems from leftover MODs, etc. Please do NOT install over 1.2 if at all possible.

The patch is available to download from the following mirrors:

BZScrap

Verifying archive integrity: should you have access to md5sum (a checksum program), the info is:
3bd9bd9f084f25cd10786846aabbf980  BZ2DXTGen_v3.7z
3911f49d779d92060c3d2cd0ca977450  BZ2_MPDlls_v13pb3.zip
0d6391c99f9e2150d1da34d6c08ebecf  BZ2_v13PublicBeta3_english.exe

Potential mirror sites, please verify these sums before posting.

A few notes I've given to the beta testers already:

- It's best to install this over a clean install from CD. That'll let you install multiple copies of BZ2, each with a different patch and/or set of MOD(s) installed. If you do install 1.3pb3 over an existing install, then your addon folder will be renamed off, effectively uninstalling most MODs. Please check that any MOD(s) are compatible with 1.3pb3 before installing.

- If you you want to whine about infinite hovering, then take it elsewhere. You may find that another BZ2 patch is preferable for you, and nobody is forcing you to play this patch. See above about multiple installs.

- In the folder you run BZ2 from, there's a file 'Battlezone.log' (Windoze will try and hide the extension by default; please fix that). That file is created each time you run BZ2, and last time's file is overwritten. Thus if you run into problems, you may want to copy it off for a minute.

- If you get a crash (== Access Violation), please do your best to copy & paste out the details of the AV. I may ask for your logfile (see above) to help debug it. Please report all crashes to me; we've fixed a lot of them, but there's still probably a few left. Everyone will benefit if crashes are fixed before release.

- Please note some terminology: a crash is an Access Violation or some other dialog box that pops up to note the game's quitting. A freeze is when BZ2 stops responding without any crash message box.

- In the folder you installed BZ2 to, there's a file called "changelog.txt." It is updated every build with what changed, with most recent things at the bottom. Please skim over the last little bit to get an idea of what's changed every build-- and it may be worth it to test the areas noted as changed.

- Suggestions for tweaks/features may be ignored or shot down. We know the code, and what's easy and what's not. Also, we'd like to finish this project up eventually, which means clamping down on tweaks, even if they'd be cool.

- You may want to look at the file addon\config\GamePrefs.ini . There are a number of user- tweakable settings in there I didn't feel like doing a way of editing them ingame.

-- GSH

[DrummaDude]

thanks ken, nathan, and everybody else that contributed to the new patch!!

all of us appreciate the effort you guys put in for this.

[General_Hoohah]

Ditto

Can't wait to start messin with it!

[Raven]

pb3? Whoa! Thanks all the team!

I skim-read the details...Will mods that were made for pb2 work ok with pb3 (as in cfg files etc)

[Commando]

Mods made for public beta 2 should work on public beta 3 without any issues.

[FormulaVenom]

Hey

My name is mat, i downloaded this patch and installed it, but when i started the game, my graphics were distorted, and totaly messed up. can you tell me what i need to do to fix it?

[lucky_foot]

Did you install over a fresh install of Battlezone II?

[trinsic]

Sweeat! Looks great cant wait to try it. Thanks for continuing to work on the best game ever made... Im always getting new people into the game, and they love it.

[Raven]

That graphics prob...it does it to me too...It seems to be mipmaps, but no matter what setting its on (including 0) it won't work right, theyr distorted...I installed over 1.3pb2.

Also my video on the main shell is a white box (missing)

[Commando]

If you are having graphic issues, try adding the following to your battlezone 2 shortcut.  /nodxt.  1.3 Public Beta 2 now uses dxt-based textures first then the old textures.  If you add /nodxt to your commandline, bz2 will behave as public beta 2 and older did by completely ignoring any and all dxtbz2 files.

[.:.FTD.:.squirrel-Gen]

Also my video on the main shell is a white box (missing)

Because the binkw32.dll is highly out dated (1998?)

the program is probably more in date. so the only way you can get those videos to work is if you get a more recent up-to-date binkw32.dll and put that in your root folder.

[GSH]

Also, try turning off EMBM bumpmapping if you have an older card.

-- GSH

[Red Devil]

Also might want to check the settings in render.cfg in your BZ2 root folder.

If you have an SIS630 card, you might want to turn on this setting in there:

// SIS630 Compatability mode. Remove the semicolon to enable
// it. Setting this to 1 when you don't have a SIS630 may be
// problematic. You can also place "/sis630compat" on the commandline
// (without quotes) to achieve the same effect. This disables a check
// that the zbuffer pixel depth is <= the framebuffer pixel depth,
// something that's true on virtually all other cards. If you get a
// "Can't start hardware accelerated DirectX 8" message on startup,
// try removing the semicolon.
;SIS630Compatability = 1

[Raven]

Il check them all out, thanks, ive always had EMBM bumpmapping on, never had any trouble. Its more than likely the dx thing.

And sq that video has always worked for me.

[Commando]

If it was purely a dxt issue, the video would be fine.  The video doesn't use dxt textures at all so it looks like the issue is something else.  The video also doesn't use bump mapping.