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You might have to boot into recovery mode (not the same as safe mode).  I've only done it once awhile ago, it's somewhat involved, you'll need to do some reading first.  Might also have to go back to an earlier restore point.

Edit:  Oops, yeah, I don't know if you can boot into that with HAL gone, haven't tried it myself, heh.

I was watching the Avatar trailer (again) tonight and was suddenly struck by the similarities between Avatar and the BZ2 storyline.  Anybody else notice them, too?

Yes, as far as the fundamental storyline, there is a similarity between Avatar & BZ2 (not BZ1), as I see it, especially when the main character has to make a "choice".  And besides, the Scions and the Avatar aliens are both blue-ish.  No more hints! Should be a good sci-fi Hollywood action flick, James Cameron is involved (Terminator, Rambo, Aliens, Titanic).  He's also involved in filming "Battle Angel", for you Manga fans.

More info on Mr. Cameron:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron

* Spoiler alert *:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)

I am interested in helping, but I don't know much about the infrastructure of this wiki (although I've done some changes at Wikipedia myself, if they're similar).  I know how to use Joomla & Mambo, but that's about it.  I don't think I even tried to register/login at this wiki, but it didn't work or something, don't remember.

That's a godmode (bunker, editor) bug, if that's what I think you're all seeing.  Basically the tiles on the far side (and left and right sides) of your satellite view are missing, even if you're moving/panning around, the tiles on those sides disappear. Is that correct?   If so, and for the record, I've been meaning to add that to the bug list (if it wasn't already there, before today) prior to release of 5.1 weeks and weeks ago, but were informally told about the "reduction" of bug reports in private beta, heh.

To remedy this situation for now (Nk1 had the right idea), go out of satellite view (logout of bunker/overseer, or out of editor mode), then change your visibilityrange in console (i.e. not in satview).  Go out of console, go back into satellite mode, go back to console, then repeat that visibilityrange.  All terrain should be seen now, no more missing "tiles".  This mostly works when extending visi range. Fogrange isn't affected.  Basically as long as you set visibility outside of godmode, it somehow keeps that in "memory".  If you go into satview and try to set visi range there first, it won't fix the missing terrain.  I think this simple bug may have been overlooked, because there may not be a lot of satellite view bug reports (I could be wrong), or because fogrange is not set greater than visi range (when fiddling around in console, and so the fog obscures the missing tiles on the outer rim of the view.

If the missing tiles reappear, do the same process over.  If this is what you're not seeing, then a picture is worth a thousand (or hundred) words, so that we all know what what the frak we're talking about.

If there is still some small fraction of a conscious conflict about keeping the software mode, why not fix a little bit of its code as best as possible, leave it aside, then make a totally separate exe/compile for the hardware-only, which then becomes the main file(s)?   Perhaps that could be a little better than having a new hardware mode update, and also the original/prior BZ1 release that isn't upgraded?  That would make it 3 separate versions (old, updated & updated h/w mode only), but you get the best of all worlds. If that will cause trouble in networking, then I don't know.  Does BZI have version-checking like in BZII?

We've been fortunate enough to have had Nathan & Ken over the years, but yeah the other credited programmers Brad, Julio, John & George (Beatles?) can always revisit (the BZ2 code) should they somehow decide to.  This includes anyone else on the original team (including BZ1).  I'm sure they'd all be insane coming back to it tho.

Speaking of PBZ (back to topic, heh)...

http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/fullstory.php?id=88108

From the list of names mentioned in the article, you might spot "Ghostfire", which is Adrian Wong, who I mentioned earlier, PBZ's site director, right before Menacer took over.  You might have spotted both of them in the FE credits as well. 

lol, BZ1 pwns the arcade BZ.

Well of course it "pwns", if you mean technologically.  Software game programming has come a long way in ~20 years (1979-1998).  But it will be the same in ~20 years (from 1998), when someone decides to make a sequel (or reimagined) version of Acti BZI, in which case BZI will be "pwned" itself.  But yeah, there are so many sci-fi military genre computer games out there, it would be difficult to say if the new Atari would be able to recreate a Battlezone along the lines of Acti/Pandi.  What could be the next new thing for BZ1/BZ2 series?  Hmm, probably something in MMPORG with VR would be nice, i.e. full immersion.

Think Atari could/would make a decent BZ game?

They already did and it became famous.  It's called 'Battlezone', made around 1979.     
There'd be no Pandi BZ1 or BZ2 without the Atari BZ inspiration, even if it was to be titled something else.  It was so good, it even inspired the U.S. Army to contract Atari to make a version for them for military tank training, as some people here already know.  Remember, it was state of the art back then also. 

Choplifter was fun, played that when it was still in the arcade rooms in the early 80's, but I still have that on a floppy for my C64's.  There were also some nice sidescrollers made for PC during the late 80's-early 90's, once 256-color VGA became fashionable (and multi-color Amiga, etc).  And yes, I have my share of vintage equipment also, like an IBM 8088 terminal box with an FM (not MFM) harddisk, as well as a big NEC harddrive from the 1970's, the size of a desktop and weighs about 150 lb. It's got the huge platters in it.  Powers up, but that's all.  Probably hooks up to a S100/mainframe system. Not to mention 6502's/6811's, other 8088's/V20's, 80286's/386's/486's and earlier Pentiums/Cyrix's on Windows 3.x/9x/Me/NT/2k.  Also have an Atari 2600 and Coleco Telstar game console from 1976/77... Pong!

I'd say ditch the BZ1 S/W renderer also.  I mean do we want Ken to be quick and have fun, or to be slow and have pain, updating BZ1? 

Yeah, the 106 is nice, I don't have one, but I based a C64 synth program (to use the SID) that I made on it in 1984-5, imitating its front panel colors too (the orange, blue, black, etc) and coded the onscreen UI VCO/VCA/ADSF sliders to use Atari paddles and joysticks.  Too bad the 106 doesn't have velocity and/or aftertouch, iirc, but at least it was the first Roland model to have MIDI, I think.

Yeah, I noticed PBZ was gone last night too, but I wasn't really sure if it was gone last night or weeks before.  I'm sure it had something to do with Pandemic Studios closing.   

PBZ was the first BZII site I came upon 9 years ago, before I noticed more people were hanging out at Pandi forum.  At least we can thank Adrian Wong for keeping up PBZ during its heyday, as BZUniverse is a direct descendant (or "clone", more or less) of PlanetBattlezone, through the work of Menacer (and subsequently Wz). 

Sonic Reality studio (makers of samples and VST/VSTi's) gives a video tour of their collection of vintage keyboards (modular synths, clavs, e-piano's, organs, et al), mostly from the 1970's era and thereabouts, as well as some modern ones.  They'll play a few familiar riffs and sequences from famous bands/tunes, to explain their origins.  A Haken Continuum is also discussed a little, something I wanted to get back when it came out ~5 years ago, although they don't power it up.  Anyway, if you're a synth geek like me, then you'll probably want to watch.  Brought to you by Keyboard Mag (a fine magazine I've been reading since the mid 1980's). 

http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/vintage-synth-geekfest/November-2009/103381

What are your framerates with Catalyst?

Of course shortening view distances and lowering settings gives slightly better frames but that's beside the point and it ain't a fix. There's an issue here somewhere, the card will run STALKER fine and I get better frames on Crysis than this... BZ2 should not be expected to chew more resources than that no matter what.

Well, have you sent your mod/files to Nathan?  Dunno if he wants them or not to test with.   He's the only one who can check out DirectX issues "directly."   Catch him now, he's technically unemployed at the moment!