Quake III Arena on a MacBook Pro--v1.3.2c Update

id Software released v1.3.2c patch for the PowerPC version of Quake III Arena for Mac OS X. It's available for download via MacUpdate.com.

Version 1.3.2c fixes two security issues:

• Ludwig Nussel and Thilo Shulz discovered a vulnerability letting a malicious client download files from a server if auto download is enabled (sv_allowDownload 1 ).
• A second issue fixed in this release would let a malicious server exploit a buffer overflow to execute a shellcode on connecting clients.

Also available via MacUpdate.com is a Universal Binary version for Intel-based Macs by Sqonk which we had not tried yet.

How well do they run on our 2.16GHz MacBook Pro? Here is an average of three runs using our test settings:

Quake III Arena 1.3.2a = 128 fps

Quake III Arena 1.3.2c = 84 fps

Quake III Arena 1.3.2UB = 287 fps

As we noted previously, Quake III Arena 1.3.2a runs pretty well in Rosetta emulation. But, the security update slowed it down substantially. The Universal Binary edition, which does not have the security fixes runs more than twice as fast as the PowerPC version on our MacBook Pro. [Bill Fox]