My win 98 was a full install not the upgrade. I believe the cutoff for joining any games with the os is a ping of 400. I have tried to join games that had a ping of 401 and have no luck at all but the ping can be 399 and i can get in fairly easily. Sometimes the ping before the host launches will be below 400 but i cannot get, so I immediately try again at least up to 3 times and I can usually make it if its gonna let me in. Also I dont seem to have any problems joining games in progress unless the game has been going on for quite a while.

there has been one instance in which I could join a game. Sleepy suggested that I try joining a game of his with no one but him in it. He has a very excellent ping (probably because he has cable or some equivilant), and I was able to get in. Unfortunately I got disconnected from my isp, and had to re-join, but by that time there were already other people in the game and I couldnt get in. Sleepy tried it one more time, and the first time I tried to join his ping was around 410, and I didnt make it in, got sent back to the main menu. the second time the ping was about 380, and I got in.

1. Don't try to join a game in progress. Join at the very beginning while the players are still in the Outlaws lobby. If possible join before the other players.
2. Look for hosts with low pings.
3. Look for hosts who are also running Windows 98.
4. Avoid joining a game through the Zone's automated interface -- Winsock IP games are much more reliable and you won't crash trying to get in.

If any outlaws out there would like their pics included with those already up in the Madame Beig's 3d interactive Saloon in Active Worlds - they can send their pics to [removed] also.. any funny wave files would be appreciated :)

I play outlaws with a gamepad, but i never touch it. I have the "use"-key on fire. Sounds strange? Not if you have "auto-fire" on. If you get hit by a bullet and have medbags they "refill" your health automaticly. Very handy when in a big rumble...

Double-Bind Yer Mouse Buttons
 
Setting two keyboard functions to th' same key doesn't seem to work -- Outlaws only does one of them. However, you CAN set more than one function to your mouse inputs! Instead of th' "Keys" folder, go into th' one called "MOUSE" an' observe th' available keys (addin' more doesn't work, I tried ;)). You'll see a bunch of string values -- these are the ones that show up in your Outlaws mouse Options screen. Notice that most have a value of "4294967295" for "Sel:" -- the equivalent of a null setting. Yer left mouse is Sel 1, right mouse is Sel 2 an' middle mouse (if ya got one) is Sel 4.
 
Now fer th' fun part. If ya want ya kin set multiple strings to th' same Sel value. Fer instance if ya set Reload, Jump an' Map to Sel 2, when you right-click you'll reload, jump and pop yer map up. Okay that's not a very handy combination but I'm sure there are some control freaks out there who kin come up with useful ones!

I was asked by OGB_Martone to inform you of this as he did me, we have cheater maps out there one example is the map Tunes by COD_Marshall, and I just started to like his maps, but anyway in his .lab file there is a dreaprev.itm,as you know modified weapon, but what is missing is the greaprev.itm and the ireaprev.itm so the only people like COD_Marshall can get the modified weapon as well as who ever he gave the right version too, can get this weapon attached is a fixed version of Tunes with all the files required to acess the modified weapon thanks to OGB_Martone having to threaten to announce it in the Main chat in Outlaws on the zone he willingly gave up the files...same goes for the map Sniper map where only the host can get the one shot rifle, cause you need more files and the map Rampage from what I was informed of...Just thought I would enlighten you a little bit on what we have found so far he said there was one one map but could not remember the name off hand and will let you know. I have taken the levels Sniper and Rampage off my site until they get fixed...

This is from the lawmaker help file:
 
Launching custom levels
To launch the level you created "Publish" the level and put the LAB file in your Outlaws directory (that's where it's created by default) and then start Outlaws as
OLWIN LEVELNAME.LVT
or
OLWIN /LEVEL LEVELNAME
Where LEVELNAME is the name of your level. In case Outlaws can't load the level you created, use this command line:
OLWIN /df outlaws.log LEVELNAME.LVT
This will create a log (file outlaws.log) of Outlaws work that is helpful in finding what's wrong with your level

I was reading some of the stuff on the Banshee. I just god a Monster Fusion and had the same stuff in Outlaws (black dyna., etc...). Just on a whim, I downloaded the BIOS flash, Driver updates, and such from www.diamondmm.com and ALL of the quirks in Outlaws left.
 
Everything looks like it should and the play is great. I don't know if this helps on the Creative, but it's a go on Diamond's card.

The first person shooter Outlaws received favorable reviews, but didn't come close to the success of Dark Forces or the subsequent Jedi Knight.

Well, better late than never on a responce to the 1.3 dial-up upgradfe thingy. I have tried it out in Outlaws (both IP and Zone) as well as in Rainbow Six (zone only) and in general surfing. I have also used both my ISP connections to test it.(Cybersouth and BellSouth). I have found that it does seem to give a SLIGHT boost to downloads of pages. Zip files of maps etc. DO seem to D/l a bit faster too. As far as in Games.... I found no improvement in the game play. The same pings in the zone, the same lag in certain games, etc. In Rainbow6 and Outlaws I found no improvement. On regular surfing around the net, I found only a slight improvement. So in my opinion, It's not really worth the time or Agrivation to download, dig out the Windows 95 cd, and install it. On systems with only a 33.6k modem there may be a better improvement, but not enough on a 56k modem to bother with. The 1.3 Dial-up update did however seem to increase my game connections, and playing after I reinstalled PPP-Boost on top of it. So if ya want a slight improvement in your game connections on dial-up connections, then you would be better off going with just the PPP-Boost file. Lots less headaches too... Microsoft does mention on the download page for the Dial-up update, that for it to work to it's full potential... Your server also has to update to support the features that it offers and to give it maximum effect.. That could mean that it could be better or worse.. Who Knows..

DUN 1.3 has been out for a few months (I think before Windows '98 came out) and Winsock 2 has been out for almost a year. When I was running Windows '95, I had them installed and did notice things worked better when I had a 33.6 USR modem. With DUN 1.2 and Winsock 2, I was connecting usually at 28.8 and 31.2. With DUN 1.3 and Winsock 2, I was connecting usually at 33.6 and 31.2 occasionally.

     - Gang - Posse : i learned this game thanks to the posse's SyN, OGB, LJP, AR, RR, ... and lots off other like them, friendly, helpfull and always ready to wup my ass. The gangs i refered to in the mail are the one's that flood the zone at this moment. More Try-out games than other in the zone. They are anoying and hop in and out of games, faster than Sanchez can reload his guns. It's this type of gangs that take the fun out off the game, they are the rude ones, and run away from a good fight.

     I just have to say that the #Outlaws_player channel has some of the nicest players I've seen anywhere. I only show up there maybe once every couple of months, and it seems like there is almost always someone there who remembers me, or if there isn't, they still treat me nicely. There are nice people in Kali and the Zone too, but I think I'm gonna need to start taking motion sickness pills so I can handle all that text jumpin' all over the place! And I think Kali is the best because I get to use all those cool annoying fonts...

     A while back, you may remember, I sent a message to one of the newshounds (Sling?) about the whole IRC/Zone thing. I pretty much praised IRC. Shortly after that, while playing in the Zone, I heard a comment not unlike Beig's regarding her visit there.
     Well, I thought, why not test the waters. I signed into IRC using a different name. I did my best to sound like someone who had finally made it in, after frustrating downloads, etc. I played a couple of games with a great variety of players. Open arms, very friendly.
     In order to really give them a test, I made a comment something like, "Geez, I just heard some of the same kind of whining, I hear on the Zone."
     Even this provocation resulted in only a mild reproof from one player. All he said was, "Maybe it's you?" Hehe, very succinct and really quite eloquent. I hesitate to tell who, but leave it be said that he is one of the cool dudes I find on IRC.
     I wonder if people think we are unfriendly because we say nothing? If so, let me warn that unlike Kali, most of us stay hooked up to IRC even when playing. One thing some of us have been doing lately is changing our nick to indicate that we are not really there. I use GoJoAway or GoJoPlay. Kohna uses SIR_KoPla. We are limited to 9 characters. I hope this trend catches on.

• All this fuss about framerates lately got me ta thinkin'.. th' end result is I whipped up a lil' hack designed ta boost framerates fer those in desperate need. This's been added to th' newly-renamed other helpful files page:

  LiteGuns (1.34 MB)
  by Me
  If yer really desperate ta squeeze ev'ry last frame per second out of yer system fer Outlaws ya might jus' love this hack. LiteGuns replaces Outlaws' normal weapon images with a single blank pixel. You won't be able to see your guns in yer hand, or yer hand fer that matter, but you might get a framerate boost of around 10-20% when firing yer weapons. Also because the replacement images are smaller than the regular files Outlaws should load faster and take up slightly less system resources. Personally I like th' guns too much ta play without seein' 'em but some folks, especially those on slower systems, may get enough of a performance boost to make the sacrifice worthwhile. Fer more info check out th' readme or dig this screenshot which reveals the startling true shape of Outlaws' rifle scope, visible when usin' LiteGuns.

  So if ya mus' get that las' ounce of performance outta yer ol' system, give LiteGuns a shot. If ya wanna get yer guns back it's easy to uninstall (see the readme). Muchos thanks to ZZZ-Sleepy, O_Gunslinger, _Dude_ and dr. quickdraw fer helpin' me make sure this didn't cause any compatibility trouble in multiplayer.

• Continuing on the framerate them, Doominator *sigh* came up with a good method for testing rate-of-fire changes with framerates for other weapons besides jus' th' gatling gun, soooo I spent a bunch of time today sittin' here with my stopwatch an' pen, firing off literally tens of thousands of Outlaws rounds. Well it's painfully apparent that I ain't gonna get th' graphs done today so hopefully I'll have 'em done in tomorrow's update. An' this BETTER be th' last of it, doggonit *grumble grumble*... :P

• Always playful (but NOT a partygirl, durnit!) Beignet saw cia_bpi's comments on th' various places you kin play Outlaws online an' jus' hadda let ev'ryone know what she thinks. Kind'a tempting to put this in her trademark fat red italics but I'm gonna restrain myself:

  I was reading the section on the Outlaws playing arena comparisons and thought I'd add my own 2 cents worth (i'd add more.. but hey.. Christmas just passed, you know? :)
   
  Kali
  As you know, I started off in Kali along with the other waws
   
  Kali has a great group of people.. very closeknit.. a fun place to play. As cia_bpi pointed out we do mainly play by ip there and not through kali itself - basically kali ends up being a nice "mirc" type setup where you can send the map levels to each other instantly .. leave away messages and such. I think one of the major drawbacks to kali is the lack of players. You can usually find people to play in the evening hours but even so you end up playing the same people again and again - which is fun - but if you want to improve your skills you need to play with a greater variety of players.
   
  Mirc
  I visited the outlaws channel there several times. I didnt find the atmosphere very friendly and it was very hard to get into a game for me. I think you know I'm a fairly friendly person - but the atmosphere there was hard for me to get used to. I may still give it another try - hate giving up :)
   
  Zone
  When we first went to kali - I tried zone... and didnt like it one bit because of the lag, the amount of people.. the rapidfire of the chat - made it a bit hard to get used to. Besides, we were having so much fun in Kali - I didnt want to leave that safe haven .
   
  Later.. because of some uncomfortable circumstances in Kali (the very closeknit nature makes it rough if there is some infighting :) we went to zone.. and were really welcomed with open arms... The first gang to welcome us were the OGB , a great friendly fun gang and since then we've made zone our home.
   
  What helped was doing ip games while in zone - no need for lag ... if you can play ip games on kali... why not on zone?
   
  There is ALWAYS a game going no matter what time of day or night. My playing has improved tremendously while playing all these different outlaws who have such different styles and techniques. I've found many friendly folks.. and new friends there . Sure they do have many more newbies and some troublemakers as well - but the majority of players there help to monitor any troublemakers and support new players as well by being helpful to them.
   
  On the negative side for zone - one thing I miss is the variety of maps we used to play in Kali. Zone tends to play the same maps - sanctuary, repair, fort, bunkers and mud. We are working at trying to get more new maps through ip games. The thing Kali has over zone is the ability to send files through the chat room , mirc style. Also, if you play ip there.. you cant leave a message giving your ip out. Of course, you may not want to :) as there is so many players there.. ip games get overcrowded very fast!
   
  So, while zone itself can be laggy... there is no reason that cant be overcome by playing ip games there as you do on Kali. And as long as you are friendly and courteous there is no reason you cant make friends while on zone.
   
  Anyhow.. there ya have it .. my two cents worth :)
   
  Waw_Beignet

  That's definitely true, what makes' th' Zone a decent place ta play is all th' friendly folks you'll find there.

  About Kali -- well actually I was in there today an' there was a good deal of traffic. Th' thing with Kali izzat people drop in all th' time, but often ev'ryone'll be in a game so it looks empty an' th' person goes elsewhere. This is beginning to frustrate me... I always leave an "/away" message when I'm hosting a game so people will see something's going on. Back in "the old days" of Kali you would pop into the channel and see two or three "/away" messages with game IP addresses.

  But laggers looking for an easy scapegoat started blaming their lag on people leaving Kali open while they were in a game, an' folks who do leave messages up often get flamed now by misguided anti-lag advocates. Look folks -- Kali's chat takes up just a few bytes per second even when it's busy -- there's NO way leaving Kali chat open can increase your lag!

  I jus' don't see any reason at all to play in Kali if you don't let people know you have a game going -- you might as well be playing on a LAN for all th' good yer doin' other Outlaws. If yer system is somehow so weak that leavin' Kali open is gonna lag you up, you got no damn business hostin' an Outlaws match in th' first place! An' you sure as hell got no business hostin' in Kali if yer not gonna let newcomers know where yer game is --- EVEN IF IT'S FULL! Kali usually ISN'T empty but because people don't leave /away messages and don't launch Outlaws through Kali it LOOKS empty and this drives people away. I am SICK of goin' into Kali, findin' nobody there an' then after a couple minutes of waiting seeing a bunch of people come into the channel, saying "good game!" to each other and talking about the fun match they were just in THAT NOBODY ELSE COULD PLAY IN! That's jus' downright rude people.

  Well I got a lil' worked up there -- hehe been a while since I got this steamed here, but ev'ry time I've seen someone say "Kali is nice but there's never anyone there" I jus' get more an' more pissed off about it. It's not their fault, it's th' damn Kali regulars who live in their own little private world -- perhaps not consciously, but actually, as a result of not leavin' a simple lil' message up. Jus' make that lil' effort folks an' you'll find you'll never lack fer Outlaws in Kali.

• O-kay life goes on aside from my ranting (how insulting!). ;) The always wonderful Darlin' sent a new level my way, Tunes by COD_Marshall. A quite nice lookin' lil' map with a small two-storey house in a rectangular clearing. I might worry that it'd be too easy to blockade th' buildin's lone entry with th' gat on th' second floor, but I hmmm... actually that is a bit of a problem. I dunno, mebbe I'll hafta play a match here an' see. Oh yeah don't fergit th' screenshot.

• Whoops, Beignet had more stuff ta unload! Here 'tis:

  Also.. would you pass on my thanks to Stan Jr. for his apology - it's very nice to have fences mended. We played with him last night on zone and really enjoyed the games we had . Thank you also for printing it :)
   
  ---------------------------------------------------
  another thought on using FRIENDLY FIRE
   
  I've thought that using Friendly Fire sounds all well and good.. and its great for players like doc, sanchez, mary and 2feathers.. but VERY unfair to anyone who uses James. :)
   
  These guys are all in fighting close... Poor James is out there sniping from a distance :) and there are the docs , mary's , sanchez's of his team rabidly popping in and out, up and down in front of his victims at the worst times while he is trying to snipe!!! GRRrrrrrrrrrr! :) hehe So, whenever someone has suggested friendly fire ... I prefer not to.. but if they insist.. let them remember not to jump in the way of James... because I wont be responsible for shooting them :)
   
  Beignet :)

  Gosh I'm such a sucker fer these Cajun girls. Well Beig may have a point, but personally I ALWAYS host with friendly fire on... hehe I hate gettin' sniped an' anythin' ta discourage indiscriminate snipers from shootin' my fanny is okay by me! Ooo I'm gonna get it good if I ever team with Beig again hehee...

• Mad level-maker Gas slapped a shiny new logo on his nifty site. I see he's also lookin' fer a texture-type person to help make him a sign fer his next map, go drop him a line if yer innerested in helpin' out. :)

• Noticed over at Outlaws Gang Busters that Martone mentioned my testin' of th' gatling gun was all well an' good, but th' other weapons are probably affected in differing degrees by changes in framerate. Well that's prob'ly true. I tested jus' th' gatling gun fer a couple reasons:
  1. It's th' fastest firing gun (aside from mebbe Sanchez's pistol) so its rate of fire should be affected more than the others by framerate change. I would guess that at any point where yer firin' th' gat at near full speed (ie 60 fps or more) yer prob'ly gonna be doin' at least as well with th' other weapons.
  2. Th' gat was th' only gun for which I could come up with a semi-reliable test. Since I have to use a handheld stopwatch for the testing, each time I also have to hit a keyboard key during the test I'm opening the test result up to more inaccuracy. With th' gat test all I hadda do was hold down th' fire button an' stop th' watch when th' ammo ran out. Other guns can't fire off anywhere near 100 rounds without running out of ammo and having to manually reload; trying to time reliable rate-of-fire changes, where the changes are in small fractions of a second, on something like th' pistol would be pretty darn near impossible -- well, at least pretty inaccurate. The gat numbers were by far the most reliable I could come up with.

  So there you have it. Based on th' gat test I'm pretty confident that rate-of-fire levels off past 90 frames-per-second with every weapon. Likewise with movement and so forth. I suppose if you need precise numbers fer each individual activity you could be doin' in Outlaws this topic is still gonna worry ya.

• Wildarms has finished up a lil' site, pretty much a dual personal Outlaws site fer him an' fellow Outlaws DirtyGirl:

  Wildarms & DirtyGirl Name sounds kinda sketchy but this is actually a very nice lookin' site. Not much here other than results of th' two players' Outlaws matches, but loads fast an' looks good.

• Darlin' is a real sweetie. Not only does she keep sendin' me new maps, she doesn't even want me ta feel like I hafta thank her. Well I do anyhow. :) This time she's tossed me Cutter's Gila Springs 2.0. Here's all that's changed in this update, accordin' ta th' readme:

  Just one quick fix from version 1 : although the map tested quite well in three games before I released it, a subsequent problem arose with players sniping from the experts sign upon respawning This in itself does not concern me but I found if you're playing "Mary" or Sanchez, you have no real defense with short range weapons and it wasn't much fun having to run up to one of the hotel rooms if you were outside to grab a rifle. So, added added a rifle in the store.

  Heh well I play Sanchez most of th' time an' MAN, ya sure DO get sniped a lot in mos' maps. But it all pays off when ya get in a good throw an' blow up a sniper with a well-flung stick of TNT. ;)

• Kind'a gettin' way less done, Outlaws-wise, than I was hopin' to. Well I guess I went an' did some other Outlaws stuff over th' past couple'a days but I STILL haven't played through all th' recent maps I wanna get through... not ta mention learnin' LawMaker. I guess I know what my New Year's resolution'll be now. ;)

  Sheesh an' spent a good deal of th' day tryin' ta help Big Nose Kate get her shiny new Half-Life game workin'. Seems it isn't takin' a shine to her Canopus TNT fer some reason. What a fine game. Poor girl's tearin' her hair out... she outta jus' try ol' reliable Outlaws fer a bit but she's one'a those that're fascinated by new stuff even if it doesn't work too well yet. Ah well... oh yeah what I meant ta be sayin' was that I'll be hostin' some games in Kali a lil' later tonight, love ta have ya come by an' use my carcass as a target. Keep an eye out fer my "/away" messages in Kali or jus' try me at my same ol' IP address -- as usual it's posted up th' page a lil' below th' lefthand menu.

• Yikes. After about two and a half days I have one MEGA update to get through today. First though let's take time out to remember a player who's suddenly no longer with us. StanJr sent me this:

  Well celebration [after Stan's successful tourney, more on that later] was quickly dampened once TRU_Player told me that a long time zone outlaws player died at the Age of 40 on christmas eve due to a heart attack while driving he swerved into on coming traffic... Barry was always a great guy to play with and alot of fun... Barry will be missed through out the OL community its a time to drop your guns and pray for his family as they go through this hard time. Since i hosted the tourney tonight and just found out afterwards i am going to dedicate this tourney to him and his family and friends we lost a great player... WE WILL MISS U BARRY!!!!

  Amen Stan. I think sometimes folks get so caught up in lil' things that they forget th' important stuff... that life is precious, basically. Let's all take some time to remember that, and try to keep that thought with us as we go about our daily lives. Stan tells me Barry made a level a while back, HiW, so have a game on it in his memory. :\

• Geez... come to think of it I saw "It's a Wonderful Life" all the way through for the FIRST time in my life late in the evening on Christmas. It may be somewhat corny if you think about it too hard, but man that's a powerful film. If you've never actually watched it, do it sometime.

• Okay, back to the daily news grind -- life does go on, that's the amazing thing. Mark Lütkefend made a small update to his "Banshee-Voodoo2 Setup" program which let's you run Outlaws in 800x600 on those cards, bringing it up to Version 1.1a (178k). The only change is to have "standard" as the default for the "3dfx settings" selection since the "all options" setting gives no real visual benefit but makes fer a nasty performance hit.

  Newsgroup stud salmoides tells me that he tried ta use th' utility ta run OL in 800x600 on his Voodoo (1) card with no luck. D-oh well... not that big a loss anyhow since 800x600 doesn't really run that fast on Banshee cards even.

• I braved traffic, th' elements an' tons of rabid shoppers to track down a p2 333. Had a few anxious moments flashing the BIOS on my Asus P2L97 motherboard in order to get it working with the new processor but all went smoothly an' here I am, typin' away at 333 mHz. ;)

  Wuz kind'a disappointed by th' relative lack of improvement in OL framerates. Went up a bit on th' low end in SOME spots but many views I tested showed no improvement whatsoever over my P2 233.

  A few notes on th' 333. First of all it's got a 512k L2 cache. I didn't really know too much about what benefit processor caching gave before but I sure do now; I can see a BIG improvement over th' cache from my 233. For instance I can now be in an Outlaws game, quit out, tweak a few things, start OL back up an' get into th' game with almost literally NO load time because all th' game execution data and commands come right out of th' cache. Very very nice, makes me happy that I didn't get a Celeron since they have a max cache of 128k. Can't overclock this 333 but I didn't plan to anyhow.

• So anyhow not much of a fps improvement in Outlaws. Disappointed, I stayed up waaay too late last night lookin' fer SOME kind of positive to get out of this fer you guys. Well I'm happy to say I found two things to improve yer Outlaws experience if you have a Banshee (one should work on a Voodoo2 also). Most of th' stuff below can be found on my pretty heavily updated Outlaws Video Comparison page, but I'll go through it here so you'll know what's new. Read on...
  • Since I didn't see a whole lotta improvement in fps goin' from a 233 to a 333 I guessed that th' Banshee was pretty much maxed out on a Pentium 2 in Outlaws. Reading through Bill's Workshop I noticed that he says, with no guarantees, that ya SHOULD be able ta overclock yer Banshee ta 110 mHz with no heat or stability problems. So, desperate fer anything positive I gave that a try an' I'm happy ta say I noticed a nice 5-10% increase in framerates with no stability problems YET -- do this AT YOUR OWN RISK. :P Easily done with a lil' beaut' of a utility known as th' "Banshee Control Panel", you'll find th' link fer it on my OL Video Comp page in th' reorganized "Banshee Tweaks" section. It does indeed seem that th' Banshee is topping out on even low-end Pentium 2's... I guess we'll hafta wait fer th' Voodoo3 ta see a big jump in Outlaws framerates.

  • Second, I messed with all th' settings both in th' "Banshee Control Panel" utility and in Outlaws' "Advanced" Glide video configuration window. While I didn't find anything ta further improve framerates without significant loss of image quality, I'm happy ta say I DID stumble upon a lil' tweak that should greatly improve yer OL experience if ya got a Banshee (an' mebbe a Voodoo2, I don't have one to test with).

    Run the config program olcfg.exe that's in yer Outlaws directory. The "Outlaws Driver Configuration" window appears. Make sure "3Dfx Glide 2.3" is highlighted under "Diplay Drivers" -- you DO have th' latest Outlaws patches an' drivers fer yer Banshee installed, right? Then hit the "Advanced" button in th' lower left to pop up the "Configuring 3Dfx Glide 2.3" window. If you haven't messed with yer settings yet, all options should be checked except for "Maintain resolution of large textures," "Maintain resolution of large sprites" and "Maintain all sprite directions."

    The first two don't offer any real improvement in visual quality but they DO hit yer framerate pretty hard so there's no reason to enable them. But here's th' good part. "Maintain all sprite directions" is disabled by default because loading all sprite info would break th' 2 MB texture limitation of Voodoo (1) cards. But hey if ya got a Banshee ya got a ton of texture RAM so that's no longer a problem! So check the box and hit "Accept" to close that window, then "OK" to close the Outlaws Driver Config program.

    Now load up Outlaws an' get into a game. Watch characters move around. Notice anything? How about this -- you can see them in more than 4 facings! See, "Maintain all sprite directions" saves texture RAM by only loading the front, back, and side views of characters -- so you only ever see them from 4 directions. But all th' character sprites actually have 8 views -- the 4 cardinal directions plus 4 in-between facings. So now characters rotate in 45-degree increments rather than 90-degree chunks; it's now twice as easy to tell if someone is aimin' atcha! Pretty darn handy if ya ask me. :) And hey check this out, horses (and probably cows too) have something like 16 facings -- here's a screenshot showing 3 sides of a horse you probably haven't seen before. ;)

• Okay well there's one video issue left that I kin think of ta tackle: this whole issue of hardware vs game performance. I've seen some rather incredible claims lately about how folks with very high framerates kin move much faster than those with lower framerates. Well there was a lot of arguin' about this but nothin' in th' way of actual hard numbers to decide th' issue. So a couple nights ago I sat around with a stopwatch an' my Outlaws cheat codes, testing my rate of fire with a gatling gun at framerates ranging from 1.5 to 220 frames per second.

  What I found will, I hope, put an end to some of these far-out claims of super-speed. The following can be found near the bottom of my Video page in a section called "Why Are Higher Framerates Better?" Basically I took a ton of times, averaged 'em down an' condensed them into this graph which shows how that rate of bullets per second fired from the gatling gun changes as framerates increase.

  Most people will probably be seeing framerates between 10 and 90 fps. If ya look at th' graph you'll see that bullets per second, or bps, stays between about 7.25 and 9.75 through that range; an increase of about 34% in fire rate -- pretty darn impressive.

  However, the percentage increase goes way down as you start comparing higher framerates. For instance, you only get a 5% bps increase between 60 and 100 frames per second. In fact bps pretty much levels out past 90 frames per second; someone with 300 frames per second would see no advantage over someone with 90 fps and only 5% over someone with 60 fps. For this reason I configure my video settings to stay over 60 even in rough firefights on ornate maps. Once you can stay over 60 yer on an equal footing with the fastest computers out there... so then ya got no easy excuse fer gettin' whupped. :P

• Okay back to stuff from StanJr (who is, of course, The Man). Stan hosted his first tourney this past weekend an' it seems it had some interesting moments:

  What a blunder hehehe i had 22 teams most in zone once i got the teams drawn from the hat it was ok then went to play my game and zone crashed so most nobody came back was funny got knocked to 8 teams real quick. they went pretty dern good... but the tourney was a joke good thing was i won my first tourney ever i feel good about that was (BMG)Kodia and (BMG)StanleyJr vs OGB_Martrone and OZ_Supfull was a good battle played at bearcave kinda kewl how that map came up with the brackets maps played were war path abandon indiana then bearcave. so we went in there and game stayed close all the way to the end nobody had more then a 2 kill lead well it came down to business with it tied even up at 21 i through a stick of dyno into a room where other sticks layed and got both of them was really actually ended up 23 to 21 then supfull killed kodia and i killed martrone so it was 24 22 then martrone got me again and kodia nailed supfull and we won really exciting but i will have to define how i do this sucker again hehe..

  Well hey practice makes perfect, I'm sure Stan's next tourney'll go a lot smoother. Ya know mebbe ya kin tell when a tourney works out by when th' organizer DOESN'T win. ;)

  Stan also had a lil' public apology:

  Ok back about 2 months ago in kali there was a fight between me and the WAWS were i was a complete asshole.. I would like to make a public apology to them... There is no real true way to say this so im going to say it since we all know about me bein a trouble maker pickin fights and stuff with other people which has given me a bad boy resemblence around OL... So i would like to say im sorry to all the WAWS for the trouble that i have caused them and would like to make peace with them and would like to continue to play games in zone and kali and try to continue a friendship with them... Well thats it sorry WAWS for being a complete asshole..

  Gotta say that's pretty mature of Stan, I'm pretty impressed... well okay except for the swear words. But then again Stan jus' wouldn't be Stan without that lil' edge he's got. At least he's learnin' not ta hit people with it all th' time. ;)

• Th' varmit known as cia_bpi (and no that's not a posse prefix!) had some things ta get off his chest about his OL multiplayer experience to date, here's th' juicy bits (a chunk about Stan's tourney at th' end):

  Now that i have access to the 3 major gaming zones for OL, i want to have the following off my chest :
   
  The Gaming Zone : Unforntunately, most players are here. The zone is laggy and ruled by the newbee's and the gangs : it's been 30 games or so when i had a descent game here : the best players are divided into different gangs, that mostly play themself in privat games. Lately, if i join one that isn't privat, i'm asked to make room for one of theirs, or they just leave the room, starting up one somewhere else. if i join a non-gang game, im lagged out of the game, the host bailes out after 5 kills or so, i end up in a team play of 3/2 vs me, or i'm faced with a GOD-mode playing newbee. Apparently, the only way i will have a descent game here is if i join one of the gangs, but i'm not inclined to do so ( i rather stop playing ).
   
  mIrc : Probably the best place to play the game : good players and good attidutes, latest levels are send to you, you can join beta-testing etc. etc. The only thing they lack is players. You have to be patient for a game, and there's no a lot of choice.
   
  Kali : They claim to be the major gaming zone site, but even less players seen here than on mIrc. According to you, Pale, people don't announce their games, nor do they use the Kali engine to start it up. So why the hell are the using Kali for, beside the privat games ??? But on the other hand i ran into you and had the best games on the internet yet. Apparently, it's an all American story, or i'm too stupid to find the players and the games here ( prob this must be the case ). To keep it short, i don't understand why people use Kali.
   
  Finaly, i wnat to give tribute to Stanley, who tried to join all the platforms in one tournament. Maybe there is still hope for OL. Too bad it didn't work out this time, but if he needs help the next time, i want to help him in any way i can.

  Boy cia_bpi dishes it out pretty good don't he? ;)