News

One Million Downloads!
Monday, October 29, 2001

We've hit a big milestone: Tux Racer 0.61 has been downloaded over one million times! All of us here at Sunspire Studios would like to thank everyone who has who has downloaded the game for your support. We also would like to thanks everyone who has sent us feedback, as we do appreciate to hear from you.

Mac OS X Port Available
Thursday, April 26, 2001

Matt Majka has ported Tux Racer 0.61 to Mac OS X. We've placed a link in the Downloads section. Thanks Matt!

New Repository for Tux Racer Courses
Thursday, March 1, 2001

Mark D'voo sent us a note to tell us about his new site, a repository for user-created Tux Racer courses! The site already has nine cool-looking courses, and you can send in a screenshot of your record time to have it posted on the site. Thanks Mark for setting this up!

Tux Racer 0.61a Released for Windows
Wednesday, February 21, 2001

Tux Racer 0.61a has been released for Windows. This is a small patch on the 0.61 package for Windows; the only difference is that a more recent version of SDL.dll (1.1.8 instead of 1.1.7) is used. This fixes problems that many people experienced with version 0.61 on Windows 98SE.

If you already have Tux Racer 0.61 for Windows and are experiencing crashes when the game starts up, you can download SDL 1.1.8 yourself; simply replace the SDL.dll file from Tux Racer 0.61 with the one in that package.

If you aren't experiencing any problems with Tux Racer 0.61, then there is no need to download 0.61a.

Tux Racer 0.61 Released
Wednesday, January 31, 2001

Tux Racer Version 0.61 has been released and is available from the Downloads section. This release mainly patches problems with version 0.60.3, but also adds a few new features. New in this release:

• SDL can be used instead of GLUT for handling OpenGL contexts and mouse/keyboard events (the Windows build no longer uses GLUT). Using SDL gives better fullscreen rendering support under both Linux and Windows.
• Added a fish pickup sound.
• Added a "diagnostic log" feature to help diagnose system problems and pinpoint bugs. To create the log, set "write_diagnostic_log" to true in the options file; the log (diagnostic_log.txt) will be created next time Tux Racer is run. Please include (selected parts) of the log when submitting bug reports.
• Cygwin is no longer used in the Windows build.
• Fog can now be disabled (for buggy Rage 128 drivers) -- set "disable_fog" to true in the options file.
• Added a loading screen (this fixes Debian Bug #75235).
• X libraries now included in LIBS in configure script; this should fix some GLUT detection problems.
• Arbitrary joystick axes can be mapped to Tux controls (thanks to Julie Brandon for suggestion and patch).
• Fixed some 32-bit-isms to allow compiling on 64-bit machines (like Alphas); thanks to Jay Estabrook for the patch.

For those that are wondering, new Tux Racer development has been progressing on a separate branch from this release. We want to get the features that will go into Version 1.0 into a better state before releasing them to the public. We're getting there; please be patient!

Tux Racer Review on LinuxFocus.org
Saturday, January 13, 2001

The January 2001 edition of LinuxFocus.org includes a review of Tux Racer.

Macintosh Port Available
Tuesday, November 21, 2000

Darrell Walisser has ported Tux Racer to the Mac! We've placed a link in the Downloads section. Thanks Darrell!

Tux Racer Preview at Joystick101.org
Friday, October 27, 2000

Joystick101.org has posted an article about Tux Racer.

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