A few days ago, Nick pointed out that Microsoft had released DirectX 9.0c, the next generation of DirectX. The end-user runtime is not installed via the normal Windows Update interface; you have to download it yourself, and run the installer. You’ll be warned that it cannot be uninstalled, and that if you’re using Windows ME or Windows XP you should set up a System Restore point before beginning. (This was enough for me to pass on it when Nick first mentioned it.) However, a number of folks on the Gearbox forums have installed this, with no noticeable ill effects, and there’s a significant framerate boost for Halo PC/CE. (Folks noticed a 10 fps increase in the HaloPC timedemo… and I noticed a similar (but less quantifiable) increase in normal gameplay under Halo CE.) I’m not going to tell you to install this, because I have NO CLUE what the side effects might be – but the short-term data, at least with respect to Halo, look pretty promising. Check out the page, and decide for yourself!

Last Friday’s unusual Weekly Bungie Update has now been archived in our database. I think all you can say about the usefulness of this is that our db is complete.

Stuntmutt shows where the new Halo 2 Elite troops come from in today’s One One Se7en. Personally, I’m starting to wonder about that boy – where DOES he get his inside info?

NuclearWinter discovered some pretty interesting info – Microsoft is getting ready to distribute a new style of Xbox Live headset, to be packaged with a game being released later this year. Evidence (read the post) points to Halo 2. If this turns out to be accurate, I think this is the first the Halo community has heard of it!

Saturday was the day for the Dead Babies LAN, visited by a passel of HBO regulars. Writeups and pics in this thread, and more pics from Juggler (the host) in this one. I couldn’t tell if his Furhman fetish was bigger than his Spiderman one… (You gotta love the ‘HBO’ spelled out in Bawls bottles, though.)

Ducain whipped up a vid showing some fun stunts on the level Halo – jumping through walls, launching marines, generally going places you’re not supposed to be. It comes in two flavors – 640×480, weighing in at 35 mb, and 320×240, weighing in at 15 mb. If you’re allergic to WMP9 versions, there are a pair of QuickTimes in this post. Always fun to see this stuff!

The CPL is in full swing, with the finals underway RIGHT NOW. cooked Gamers, a team often seen around the HBO-Coerce HaloCE server, has come back from a first-round loss to face Wat in the Final Championship round. Keep an eye on Gotfrag for details… and good luck, cooked Gamers! Thanks to rapture, a cG team member, for popping in to our forum last night with an update.

ShOrtBusKid points out a Halo tourney he’s organizing in Arkansas (Ft. Smith area). If you’re nearby, visit the site and check out the details!

Do you love Misterchief? A tribute, from BOLL.

Tina Leyk pointed out another pair of new Fur-Lo panels posted today (‘Priceless’ and ‘He’s Got A Point…’); we’ve added them to our Fur-Lo page. Go read ’em!

The Halo-based Grand Theft Auto conversion has been renamed to GTA :: Sin City. This information, and a few other tidbits about the past week, are available in the Weekly Update posted on their forum.

The final winning run in our Going Nowhere Fast contest, Trefitch’s Maw sprint, is now available via Direct Download from the GNF Status page. If you’re not one of the 900 people who have already grabbed this 82 mb file via BitTorrent – now’s your chance to get an HTTP download. It’s a gorgeous run… check it out! (Again – announcement of the Grand Prize winner should be sometime in the coming week.)

Back in May, Kris Kristensen, director/producer of an upcoming film called ‘Inheritance’, stopped by various Halo-related forums (ours included) to ask folks to sign a petition showing interest in the film. (He appealed to the Halo fanbase because one of the stars of the show is Jen Taylor, the voice of Cortana.) Apparently, the push was successful; a couple of days ago, he posted a note on the HaloPlanet forum stating that the movie will be distributed between November 2004 and February 2005. (The responses he got were split between indifference and titillation about the mention of ‘graphic sex’ in the Director’s Cut version – it’s a little disappointing to see no real support for the film itself.) Thanks to TankRamp for the heads-up.

Shacknews pointed out Halo 2 wallpapers at TeamXbox and IGN Xbox, all based on the recently released super-hi-res Halo ad. (The same sorts of wallpaper has been created by HBO visitors, currently in the woefully backlogged Wallpaper queue – for example, Ducain whipped up a batch a week ago (and another batch a couple of days later)… we’ll do our best to get these up and posted soon.) Thanks, Ash.

Seven new stories in the Fan Fiction section today (updates take more work now, because of the new comments section, so it’s easier if I do them when the batch size is smaller). Go read!

Jake ‘Evergreen98’ Billo has written an article over at the Junkyard looking at the changes in gameplay, from the release version of Halo through the current prereleases of Halo 2. If you read this, and choose to comment on it, remember that 1) the Halo 2 builds we’ve seen/heard of so far aren’t finished, and 2) Halo has been out (and playable) for almost 3 years, while the longest anyone has ever been able to play Halo 2 without signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement is about 3 hours.

Some moron is selling the domain name ‘ilovepees.com’ on eBay, claiming it is guaranteed to generate 1 million hits in the first week, due to the popularity of the ilovebees.com site. Starting bid is $1,000 and the Buy It Now price is $50,000. Personally, I have to say… if this actually sells, I hold out little hope for the human race as a whole. Thanks to Starman343 for the heads-up.

This week, the Bungie Update is not a normal update – it’s a special Bungie.net feature that covers the ins and outs of getting a game going in the European market. Typically fun Frankie read. So go read, already.

vector40 has written a series of articles on Banshee control – he’s now added a fourth segment, but this one is narrated video instead of text. It’s rather long (ten and a half minutes), but it covers several key strategy points in a way that simply cannot be duplicated with written words. If you’re looking for an edge in your online Banshee battles, this is worth watching. It’s 55 mb large, in MPEG-4 format; looks like the encoding is unfriendly to WMP9 on a PC, but QuickTime handles it on both Macs and Windows boxes. Turns out my analysis of our bandwidth situation took into account only files.bungie.org and files2.bungie.org – mythica.org still has a goodly chunk for the rest of the month, so that’s where it’s being hosted. Grab it today!

It’s Friday – I guess it must be Movie day again. Merecatfish has made another PSA for Halo CE – you can snag it off his Halocity site. (WMP9 format, 320×240, 3:51, 5.6 mb) 45 Sion has made a pretty foul-mouthed vid called ‘SouthPark MC Class‘ – WMP9 format, 640×480, 57 seconds, 5.6 mb… thanks, c0ld vengeance. Legend has made a teaser for an upcoming ‘Halo Revolutions’ film; you can find it on Halo Orbit (thanks, Oliver Sopienski). I’m not sure what it has to do with Revolutions at this point… but the sniping’s pretty good. (MPEG1 format, 320×240, 1:10, 18.8 mb) Team EP has put together a teaser for a new map they’re building (still in Alpha) – Ndugu has snowboards (with all the grinding and tricks that suggests), plus snowball launchers, pickaxes, and more. WMP9 format, 640×480, 2:29, 9.8 mb. A thread about the release can be found on the Gearbox forums. And [CHP] member Vinx has put together a long (9:25) video of gameplay on the Halo CE map New Mombasa. (It’s in WMP9 format, 640×480, and weighs in at 56 mb downloadable.) Thanks to HaloPlanet for these last two. And to people who’ve submitted movies to US for hosting – please be patient. The Going Nowhere Fast contest releases have hit us pretty hard, bandwidth-wise. We’ll be in better shape come August 1. Update: oops, one more from our own forum – scabbronumber1 posted Game Over, a 9.6 mb WMP9 that’s 4:01 worth of mostly Blood Gulch tricks and gameplay.