FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Altor Systems, Inc.

ALTOR SITE RECOVERS FROM G4TIMEDEMO DEMAND, MIRRORS NOW ONLINE

PALO ALTO, CA - September 14th, 1999 - Altor Systems web site is back online, after eight hours of downtime due to massive demand for the new G4TimeDemo application. New mirror sites in Europe and the US are online to spread the load.

"We were clobbered! I think today will be known in the company as '`The Crash of 99'. When we announced the demo, we were hit by more volume in an hour than we usually get in a week." said David Rees, Vice President. "There were so many thousands of hits, every time we put the site on line it fell over due to demand. We've doubled our capacity to cope, and the demand is still rising. Thank you to all the sites that are mirroring the demo."

The Project B page is back up, at ProjectB.

In addition, the following sites are mirroring the demo:
- MacAddict
- MacWarrior
- MacNN
- Mirror only for European users, please. Thanks to MacGadget.
- European mirror. Thanks to Mac in Europe.

As feedback comes in about the demo, one thing seems clear. As far as we are aware, G4TimeDemo is the only publicly available gaming application designed ground up for the Velocity Engine. "I really enjoyed the Seybold keynote, but the unanswered question in my mind was how fast the G4 would be at gaming." said Rees. "The next burning issue was how fast each of the new machines were in comparison with each other and the Mac I have now? By releasing the demo, everyone can now compare machines. It will also help in figuring out which G4 model to buy. If someone has a G4/400 (we already have G4/450 figures at the web site), please post the results, and they will be published."

Releasing the demo was a big risk, as the engine is experimental, and pre-alpha. Rees explained "We were concerned at giving away new technology for free to competitors before we were anywhere near shipping a retail product. In addition, the pre-alpha software means it is not as polished as the close-to-final game demos you normally see. However, by giving it away, we are getting results back that help everyone in figuring out just how good the G4's are, and also how important games designed for the Velocity Engine will be."

G4TimeDemo was designed ground up to use the Velocity Engine in the G4. It shows the massive speed increases possible for games that use this new supercomputer technology, while running on G3's and iMacs so you can compare your machine with the G4. The demo is a real gaming test (as opposed to a CPU benchmark) as it includes 3D drawing, audio, physics, AI, interaction, and leading edge character animation. Some early results we have received are:

G4TimeDemo is free, and may be freely distributed over the net provided there is no financial charge for it. Information on Project B, updated speed comparisons, and links to sites mirroring the demo are at ProjectB.

Altor Systems, founded in 1995, is a software development company located in Palo Alto, California. The company makes and publishes Nightfall, a critically acclaimed non-violent 3D adventure suitable for all ages. Nightfall will be shown at the Apple expo99 in Paris by Computer Technology Products (CTP). Further information and screenshots are available at: Altor Systems Press Info page.

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