Guillemot heeft nieuwe drivers voor hun Phoenix videoplaat met Voodoo Banshee.

Ars Technica heeft een artikel over CPU caching.

Hier de intro:

Caching is one of the most important concepts in computer systems. Understanding how caching works is the key to understanding system performance on all levels. On a PC, caching is everywhere. We'll focus our attention here on CPU-related cache issues; specifically, how code and data are cached for maximum performance. We'll start at the top and work our way down, stopping just before we get to the RAM.

Ik heb hier wat interessant spul van Tweak-it!. Tot nu toe werd verondersteld dat verhoging van de spanning de stabiliteit van een weigerachtige overgeklokte CPU kon verbeteren. Dan Chadwick van Tweak-it heeft tegenovergestelde ervaringen:

I'm currently working on a update to the overclockers guide and a Celeron 300A (Retail) vs a PII 300MHz (SL2W8 w/ Deschutes core) comparison. Here is a little tip as a results of my work. If you are having problems with stability when overclocking your PII or Celeron to 450MHz or above, try reducing the Vcore Voltage. The PII 300 I have runs stable a 300MHz at 1.75v, 450MHz at 1.85v, 464MHz at 1.85v and 504MHz at 1.90v. If I increase the voltage above what I have found when running at 450MHz or above, my system will suffer from lockups. I've had it running at 504MHz continuously now for 36 hours with no crashes. I know this goes against what has been posted before here and around the web, but in my testing it really works.

Sharky Extreme heeft wat info over de EyeScream, Metabyte's nieuwe 3D brillen dingetje:

Later this afternoon, Metabyte will announce EyeScream, their new stereoscopic lens product. EyeScream's innovation doesn't come from the hardware it uses. Even with the demise of H3D, Metabyte will still utilize their H3D lenses until their supply runs out, afterwhich they'll utilize a similar vendor. Instead, EyeScream's innovation is at the driver-level. It will allow the use of Metabyte's currently supported stereoscopic titles with any other Voodoo 2 card, not just their Wicked3D Voodoo 2. Currently, Metabyte offers stereoscopic support for over 100 Direct3D, OpenGL and GLide games. EyeScream will retail for around $119-$129 and should start shipping to certain retail stores immediately. Sharky Extreme was given the opportunity to test out EyeScream before Comdex, and we can safely say that those interested in Metabyte's original WickedVision, but didn't have a Wicked3D Voodoo 2, will be very pleased. More details will be revealed when the press release is issued later on. For more about Metabyte's stereoscopic support, click here.

Coolinfo heeft een review gepost van AOpen's AX6B moederplank.

Het ding is net zoals de holy Abit BX6 en BH6 jumperless:

I saved the best for last, and that is the JUMPERLESS BIOS setup. This should be a standard on all new motherboards. No more having to open your case, plow through the maze of cables, and mess with jumpers to configure your CPU speed, bus speed and CPU internal voltage, whenever you change CPUs (and given Intel's pricing structure, you'll do this more often than not.). Everything is in the BIOS. You have the options to select from a list of predefined speeds from 233 Mhz to 450 Mhz. But this board also lets you manually tweak the bus clock/CPU clock ratio (multiplier) to achieve the same goal. I'm sure Aopen does not officially advocate overclocking, but this gem of a feature is just made for it. Again, very slick, very cool.

In summary, the AX6B Plus reiterates the quality and innovative technology that Aopen exhibits in their products. It is an extremely easy to configure motherboard and a rock-stable performer. I have upgraded many systems in the past (I'm sure a lot of you have done the same) and can't begin to tell you how much time and hassle this board's jumperless design has saved. Kudos to Aopen.

A side note to all you overclockers with Celeron 300As: The AX6B Plus auto-detects CPU voltage so if you got one of those CeleronAs that won't go to 450 without upping the voltage, the only way you can do that with this board is to mess with masking off a few pins on the CPU itself. That's the only thing missing in the BIOS configuration - the internal CPU voltage setting If Aopen were to add this little gem of a feature, the AX6B would undoubtedly be the best BX board on the market today. But then, we can't really ask Aopen to do this … can we ?

...nee, dat vragen we aan Abit.

Gamer's Alliance heeft een erg dikke review gepost van Test Drive 5:

Since this is a driving arcade game/simulation, there really isn’t a story line per se. The player has a series of goals to attain in order to progress through the game, as roughly half the tracks and cars are "locked" at the outset; you can see them, but you can’t use them. The way to unlock items (and discover "secret" ones) is to come in first place in an "official" race. The game defines an official race as one that is played on Normal skill (there are three levels – Easy, Normal, and Hard) with checkpoint timers on, traffic on, and police vehicles present (more on them later). Winning a race with everything off, on Normal skill, appears to "unlock" a reverse version of the track, if such is available. Winning a race with everything on, on Normal, gives the player a car. The only race I was able to ever win was the Sydney track, and for this I received both a reverse version of the track as well as access to the 1998 Shelby car. I never did find an alternate route I could be sure was a branch spoken of in the literature; I did find a number of paths that weren’t the main path in a track, but as these paths were present in the map window, I didn’t see them as branches. One amazingly annoying thing was the presence of visible side streets (in the Moscow and Edinburgh tracks in particular) that were "fenced off" with invisible force fields or something – I could see them, but I couldn’t drive on them.

C|Net heeft wat info over de overeenkomst die VIA en Intel hebben gesloten:

ntel and Via Technologies, a manufacturer of companion chips to the main processor, have signed an agreement that should enable Via to make further inroads into a critical computer chip area now dominated by the Santa Clara giant.

Announced today, the agreement will make it easier for Via to sell chipsets for desktop computers using Pentium II or Celeron chips, said Dean Hays, director of marketing for Via. The Taiwan-based firm is the first company to enter into a cross-licensing agreement with Intel for chipsets used in the Pentium II desktop computer market, Intel confirmed.

Excite News heeft een artikel over de gevolgen van internet voor de muziekindustrie.

In het kort komt het erop neer dat de grote jongens zullen verliezen en de kleine onafhankelijke labels en artiesten er hun voordeel van zullen nemen:

Real-world music stores and the current giants of the music industry will find themselves in the line of fire as the Internet squeezes out the middleman, stated a report from online artist promoter Internet Underground Music Association (IUMA) released on Monday.

While the music industry's Big Five -- Sony, BMG, EMI, Universal/Polygram and Warner-Electra-Atlantic -- will gain advantages from one-to-one marketing, those pluses will be offset by increased competition in the market, said Andrew Atherton, IUMA vice president and principal author of the "Music's Online Future" report. "Major labels will concentrate on volume marketing and promotion of an artist -- their core competency," Atherton said. "Our [the Internet's] role will be discovering the artist."

Atherton interviewed over 45 industry executives for the 70-page report, which was sponsored by communications technology giant Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU). His conclusion: Artists, fans and independent labels have the most to gain from the Internet, while the current incumbents have the most to lose.

AOL gaat door met de Open Source ontwikkelingen voor Mozilla, aldus Techweb:

t may only be an encouraging word to a potential soon-to-be-employee, but AOL chief Steve Case has sent word to Mozilla.org that AOL will continue to support its open source browser efforts.

In an e-mail dated last Wednesday to Mozilla.org technical lead Jamie Zawinski, Case writes: "We're very supportive of Mozilla.org; indeed, we're hopeful that our involvement might rally even more support among developers in the open source community."

Case's e-mail added, "We certainly realize that platform innovation comes from the work of thousands of passionate developers, and we share your view that the agenda of Mozilla is and should be set by those who contribute to it. We will contribute too -- in part, by maintaining the autonomy of Mozilla.org."

Hier wat leuke info SCSI Linux gebruikers:

Adaptec says it has now provided all the tools, product and documentation for the development of Ultra2 Linux drivers. Ultra2 capabilities are now in the main Linux source, and are to be released in Red Hat's Linux 5.2.

According to Red Hat Ultra2 developer Doug Ledford, Linux support of Adaptec is "better than anything previously available to the Linux OS community."

Adaptec says it sees the Linux development model as being a benefit to the PC industry, and that it will continue to provide SCSI chip design and host adapters to key Linux developers, along with product information for quality assurance labs to Linux distributors.

Intel heeft een zwaar tekort aan PII-333-ers en 350-ers. Hier wat spul uit een posting van The Register:

Demand for Pentium II 333MHz and 350MHz has so outstripped supply that there is an acute shortage of parts, a distributor has warned.

Two weeks ago, Intel admitted that there was heavy demand for the PII processors, while yesterday it said that the PII 233, 266MHz and 300MHz were not now generally available.

At the time, Intel said that supplies would begin to catch up with demand in a few weeks, but Mark Davison, processor product manager at UK distributor Datrontech, said today there is still a shortage.

He said: "The shortages are still bad. My order book is strong but there will be a lot of people that can't ship machines before the end of the year."

Intel heeft de specificaties van z'n nieuwe 440ZX en 440ZX66 chipsets op z'n site gepubliceerd.

Hier wat info van the Register:

Intel has posted details of its new 440ZX and 440ZX66 chipsets on its Web site -- even though it has yet to announce them officially.

The two chip-sets have been designed for Pentium II and Celeron-based systems, respectively. Both support a maximum RAM space of just 256MB, and neither is capable of handling multiple processors.

Essentially, both appear to be cut-down versions of the 440BX chipset for OEMs who don't require that set's full range of features, but want more than the 440LX and 440EX provide.

Het zijn dus gewoon gecastreerde BX chips, dus daar heb je niet veel aan.

Sega is bij de introductie van z'n Dreamcast meteen door z'n voorraad heen gegaan (die nogal beperkt was door het gesukkel bij Nec met de PowerVR):

Sega sold 150,000 Dreamcast machines at the WinCE-based, 128-bit next-generation games console's launch in Japan on Friday, the company said yesterday.

That figure represents all the machines Sega had lined up to supply stores' customer pre-orders.

It's telling that the statistic doesn't include sales beyond those early orders -- Sega has had a problem ramping up volume because of difficulties NEC has had supplying it with the PowerVR 2 graphics chip at the heart of Dreamcast.

NEC's problems earlier forced Sega to cut back its sales predictions. It originally hoped to sell one million Dreamcasts by the end of the year, but is now saying only 500,000 will ship. The one million target has been moved back to next March.

Zie the Register.

The Register heeft een supertof artikel over het boek 'The Truth' waarin beweerd wordt dat we de microprocessor revolutie te danken hebben aan buitelandse technologie:

We owe the microchip revolution not to Intel but to aliens, if allegedly official top secret US government documents, released on the Web yesterday, are true.

The documents appear in a book entited The Truth and published on The Word is Truth Web site. The site claims they show that one or more alien vehicles crashed in the US in 1947, from which government scientists were able to recover numerous advanced technologies, including fibre optics and microcircuitry.

The documents suggest these technologies were ultimately seeded into industry for commercial exploitation.

The Truth's editor, Joseph P Firmage, claims the documents have undergone a two-year programme to confirm their authenticity. The study was led by a Dr Robert M Wood, former senior engineering manager fior McDonnell Douglas.

"It is now absolutely clear that one or more crashed vehicles were recovered by the military of the United States government in 1947," gushed Firmage. "It is certain that these vehicles were not manufactured by any contemporaneous government. Scientists and the media who reject this claim, particularly in the face of this most recent evidence, are ignoring the single most important event to confront humanity in perhaps 2000 years."

Andy Grove, on holiday in Tau Ceti, could not be reached for comment.

Om het allemaal wat sappiger te maken hier nog wat stuff van www.thewordistruth.org:

Volgens dit artikel van TR verkopen een aantal leveranciers Celerons als PII's:

End users are being warned that a scam where Pentium II processors are substituted for Celeron Mendocino chips could dent their expectations.

According to the report, unscrupulous Taiwanese manufacturers are inserting 333MHz Mendocino chips into Slot One cartridges and passing them off as PII/333 parts.

A UK source, who declined to be named, said: "The Mendocino is more powerful, speed for speed and spec for spec than the equivalent PII. If it had 256K cache on it, it would outperform the Pentium II."

Once in the case and with some additional circuitry, the processor is practically unidentifiable, he claimed.

The price delta between the 333MHz Celeron part and the PII/333 processor is around $20, giving additional margin, he said.

An Intel representative said: "We recommend that people only buy through approved channels. We frown upon such practices. Re-marking is a bad thing generally."

Vooral newbies moeten dus ff opletten. Hier in Nederland gebeurd het ook (waar Celerons worden aangeduidt als "PII Celeron" of "PII zonder cache" enz.).

The Register heeft een artikel gepost met wat info over wat de overname van Netscape door AOL in de toekomst kan brengen.

Hier wat interessante stuff:

We see the best prospect for the success of the deal as being for AOL to develop its own Internet devices (which Case has dubbed the "AOL Anywhere strategy"), with Raptor as the basis of a new browser. We would not be surprised to see Corel WordPerfect being part of the picture, and of course the servers would be by Sun, with Java playing a significant role. The deal does not have the solid product that the IBM Lotus acquisition had. Even the WordPerfect acquisition by Novell had a real product, although the dynamics were wrong at the time. It is now seen that mega deals must have product and a business model: the Lotus deal had both, but the WordPerfect deal had only product as a result of the failure of the DoJ to bring the right case against Microsoft in 1993. The Netscape deal seems to have products without much market potential and only a vague business model, which does not auger well.

Mikroschoft heeft maar weer eens duidelijk gemaakt dat je je van hun deadlines niets moet aantrekken: ze hebben de derde beta van NT5.0 niet op tijd af kunnen krijgen.

Hier wat stuff hierover van The Register:

Microsoft has missed its promised deadline of shipping NT 5.0 beta three by Thanksgiving Day and has now quietly said the beta will be ready in Q1 1999.

The slippage emerged At Comdex/Fall, two weeks ago, meaning that it is now likely that the gold version will not be available until Q3 1999, at the earliest.

At the Intel Developer Forum in Palm Springs in mid-August, a senior Microsoft architect promised that it would deliver beta three by last weekend.

He told delegates then: “I’ve more confidence than ever about our ship schedule. This is a 1999 product. There will be a beta out around Thanksgiving.” (See IDF coverage)

Microsoft is now engaged in an exercise to time the release of Windows NT 5.0 with the other elements of its vaunted Win2000 marketing package.

The Register heeft een artikel over een of andere vieze worm die het op Linux gemunt heeft:

Red Hat has posted a patch on its Web site after it emerged that the latest version of Linux, release 5, has been found to be susceptible to attack from a Worm virus.

The Worm targets ISPs' Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) servers running Intel-based hardware controlled by Linux. It subverts essential components of the OS from which it can attack other networks while remaining hidden from the system administrator.

The patch fixes the server's security weakness that allows the Worm to enter the system, and is built into the latest release of the OS, version 5.2.

Hackers have been increasing their attempts to spread the Worm ever since details of the problem emerged in June thanks to work conducted by Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).

Most of the current crop of Worm-based attacks appear to come from other major US educational centres, used as relay points.

Andy van BXBoards heeft wat info over een mogelijke overklok beveiliging (die dus ook de FSB snelheid detecteren) op toekomstige Intel processors:

Tom has posted some potentialy shattering news as to Intels plans to kill of overclocking once and for all! These rumours seem to come around once every while and turn out to be a load of steaming bull.

However Tom's probably got the best connections in the business so I take anything he say's seriously. Here's the scoop on the poop...

The news I have to tell is not really from Comdex, but it's most important to many of you. The future Intel chips will put a final end to overclocking. New Intel processors won't only come with the already common multiplier-locking, but making an Intel CPU faster by increasing the bus speed will also not be possible anymore. Some new circuits on the chips will make sure that the system remains dead if you raise the bus speed from e.g. 66 to 75 MHz or from 100 to 112 MHz. It is rumored that AMD will do the same thing.

AFAIK the locking will be implemented via a EEPROM that will kill all power to the CPU if it detects that the CPU is being run over specification. A few of you have asked me whether the new BX6-2 will have some jiggery-pockery that will work around this - my spies tell me its not so however.

Dat zou natuurlijk heel erg kut zijn. May the force be with us en laat AMD niet zo'n clocklock indingessen, anders heb ik weer een hobby minder (natuurlijk kun je altijd nog je videoplank, of een leraar overklokken).

MURC (Matrox Users) heeft wat info over de G200 OpenGL ICD die nooit af lijkt te komen:

Matrox got off to an excellent start earlier this year with the unexpected arrival of the MGA-G200 and the subsequent G200 series of graphics cards. The G200's boasted superb 2D quality and performance but combined with a powerful 3D side again with unmatched image quality and very good if not quite up to Voodoo 2 performance. As with any new product Matrox quite rightly hyped it to the max with promises of software DVD playback, fully hardware accelerated OpenGL for both applications and games, stunning Direct3D performance etc etc. The G200's rapidly caught on and sold in huge numbers but then things started to go wrong for many people. First the OpenGL ICD didn't ship with the boards and we were promised a Windows NT OpenGL ICD by then end of August and a Windows 9x OpenGL ICD by mid to end of September. By the end of September there was no ICD of either flavour but noticeably Matrox weren't talking about it until out of the blue they announced that the ICD would be delayed until the "November timeframe". Ever since Matrox have point blank refused to even discuss the ICD, all my approaches have been met with the parrot like "The OpenGL ICD will be released during the November timeframe" so to me another announced delay was no surprise at all it's been obvious there has been something very wrong.

CGO heeft een review gepost van Quantum3D's Banshee kaart:

The card isn't as fast as the hot-rod Riva TNT and Voodoo2, as one would expect for a card targeted mainly at the OEM market. On our test system (a Pentium II 350 with 64MB of RAM) we achieved very playable frame rates at a resolution of 800x600 in nearly all games, and even 1024x768 was smooth in a few cases. Curiously, Quake II failed to run at any resolution higher than 800x600. The Banshee doesn't support multitexturing in a single pass as the Voodoo2 and Riva TNT do, so those are better choices for the hardcore game fanatic looking for top performance. Power-users looking to achieve the highest possible framerates are better off spending some extra money for a more full-featured, high-powered card.

Beyond Computing heeft een best wel leuk artikeltje in elkaar gezet over overclocking en koeling.

Hier wat info over hoe hun koelsysteempie in elkaar steekt (hoe je moet overklokken weten we inmiddels wel...):

As you can see in the picture below, the word Super is actually put there to mean something. A standard case has one fan, a good case will come with two fans, one in the power supply, the second in the front. The new cooling case is a modification to the case in which three high powered 8cm fans are mounted onto one of the side panels of the case. All three are configured to draw air inside the case. The second modification is converting the ATX power supply to draw air out of the case, rather than blowing air in. In addition to all this, another fan can be mounted in the front of the case blowing air towards the back just to improve the air flow inside the case. With all this, all the heat in the system is removed. The three fans blow directly on the CPU itself, the video card, and any 3D accelerators that may be installed.

En dat plaatje waar ze het over hebben staat hier.

Nog wat spul van Riva Station, nl een review van de V3400 TNT plaat van Asus.

Hier wat info over de Asus in vergelijking met andere TNTs:

 

Conclusion

With the AGP-V3400 TNT/TV ASUS has made the big deal. The board easily reaches the 3D-performance of Erazor II and Viper V550. Because ELSA offers no Video I/O for the Erazor II and Diamond sticks to Video-Out only, the V3400 is the card of choice for friends of Video I/O! Using all TNT features i

ncluding active cooling the ASUS AGP-V3400TNT/TV gets the RIVA Station FEATURE AWARD!

If you want to have a TNT board without Video I/O you have several choices. The performance of the boards is rather identical. Only the market price decides here. Because of the cooling fan the version without Video I/O is interesting, too, and as the cooling fan poll of RIVA Station showed, this can influence the buyer's decision.

The software bundle is OK, even if Incoming is not the newest game anymore.

ELSA bundles the retail version of the Erazor II with the games Need for Speed III and Recoil. These newer games give a better impression of the TNT features. A 3D Demo sampler as ELSA offers would be fine too.

In support ELSA offers multilangual Newsgroups for each graphics card and Diamond has its E-Mail service that informs you when new drivers are available for your card. These boards do also have a longer warranty.

ASUS does also have a Newsgroup but it is a multimedia newsgroup at all - no special graphics card group. The price of the V3400 with Video I/O should be in regions of Viper V550 and Erazor II!

The drivers and software are not perfect yet, but the card is fairly new and the performance is on the same level as Erazor II and Viper V550. The installation software is a lot better than ELSAŽs or DiamondŽs. Only the limited resolution of the Video I/O driver is a problem. But newer drivers will surely fix that.

If ASUS takes as much care of his graphics boards as of his mainboards you will not have to worry about new drivers. And one thing is for sure: Owners of a ASUS mainboard will surely not be sent to the mainboard manufacturer by the support if problems should occur. :)

Beyond Computing heeft een review van Diamond's Viper V550. Daar hebben we er inmiddels al tienduizend van gehad. Om het toch een beetje leuk te houden hier wat info over de Viper vs de TNT van Creative:

Very VERY impressive! HalfLife is actually playable in 1280x960 with this card. It beat the Creative Labs card in EVERY benchmark we threw at it. Even though it could not keep up with the Voodoo2 in lower resolutions, games were still very playable, and with better image quality than the Voodoo2. Honestly, in regards to image quality, it's not noticeable until you stop and look closely at the image. Personally, I would prefer higher fps over image quality (ask any racing sim gamer, they'll tell you the same). But being able to play HalfLife (and I really mean playable, not slow motion crap) in 1280x960 for a card of this price just cannot be beat!

3DGaming heeft een review van Carmageddon II:

When it comes to violence in the media, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. Well what the hell, thinks SCi and Stainless Software, if we're going to pollute the minds of a generation let's not go halfway. Their latest incarnation of the controversial Carmageddon title is a veritable plethora of senate-enraging violence, sparking fond memories of heart-warming films like Apocalypse Now. Actually, whether they knew it or not (and I suspect they did) there are more than a couple moral allusions to Coppola's masterpiece present in Carpocalypse Now. Read on, gentle, um... reader, and see what evil can lurk in engines of darkness.

Mossad van Sharky Extreme heeft zichzelf een Vigilance review in elkaar laten knutselen, waarvan hier een stukke ctrl-v:

So is Vigilance all bad? Aren't there any noteworthy features or interesting tidbits? Yes, Vigilance has 8 playable characters to choose from, some of whom even have distinguishing skills like sniper ability. Yes, Vigilance offers free internet play on Heat.net. Yes, Vigilance has a wide range of weapons to choose from. But these factors shouldn't be touted as non-standard features, as other games go above and beyond these requirements on a near-daily basis. What Vigilance does have, it makes poor use of. Control is awkward, level design is bland, gameplay is uninspired and the visuals are weak. There are a host of similar yet better executed titles that are available this holiday season, and you'd do good looking closer at one of them and away from Vigilance.

Gamespot heeft een artikel in elkaar gedraaid dat toegewijdt is aan Peter Molyneux, die nu bij Lionhead bezig is met Black & White (zie ook de PC Gameplay voor info).

Hier wat spul uit dat Gamespot dingetje over B&W (nee, niet Sonja en Paul):

As for Black and White, it promises to be the logical extension of Molyneux's previous work. Combining elements from all of his earlier games, Black and White is part Dungeon Keeper, part Powermonger, and part Populous. "It is absolutely every single game I've done before. And hopefully the best bits." At the same time, Black and White is unlike any game that has come before it.

The land of Black and White promises to be a very lifelike world, with inhabitants that behave realistically and animation and texture systems that give the game an organic look. Whether or not this is the living world Molyneux has envisioned, though, is yet to be seen. Molyneux isn't placing any bets: "Black and White is getting close. I don't know whether it's close enough, but it's pretty close."

Avault heeft een review gepost van Return Fire 2:

Both of the Return Fire games are arcade shooters with a touch of strategy. Hard-core real-time strategy fans who loved Command and Conquer will find this series much too simple and devoid of the kind of resource management, building and vehicle construction that they cherish so much. Even fans of combat action-strategy hybrids, such as Battlezone and Uprising, would find the game to lack the strategic depth to which they have become accustomed. On the other hand, those used to arcade combat shooters like Incoming will find that Return Fire 2 involves more than their usual amount of tactical decision making, where the "blast-everything-to-smithereens" mentality is not always the best

Harvey "Witchboy" Smith, toevallig werkzaam bij ION Storm, heeft een review van Half-Life (van collega Valve) het net op geknikkerd.

Best wel diepgaand, hier wat over user feedback in het spel:

Feedback informs the player as to the results of his actions. This is one of the simplest, most fundamentally critical elements of computer gaming. Yet few games handle it as well as Half-life. Sound effect cues, voice lines and a simple graphical interface help tremendously here, but one of the more sublte ways in which the game provides the user with simple feedback is through behavioral consistency. The individual elements that make up the game are predictable. The player can learn what a particular monster, terrain feature or weapon is capable of doing; the behaviors of these things stay the same.

Some people-developers and gamers alike-are often tempted to think "predictability equals boredom" in games. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think about Tetris-the player, if given time, can always figure out how a particular piece will fit into the blocks below; there are no amorphous shapes or wild, random block behavior. Similarly, one of Half-life's most brilliant features is the consistency of the behavior exhibited by (almost) all the game's elements. This allows the player to a) easily learn how to deal with these elements and b) to work out cool combinations of interaction. The things that prevent this predictability from being boring are numerous-the combined interactions of the elements, the fun of dealing with them and learning to master them, the slight variations created by the player's input and other 'randomizing' simulation elements. Plus, there are lots of these simple, predictable elements, not just a few. The key is that the game as a whole is not predictable-just the individual pieces.

3DGaming.net heeft een review van Trespasser.

Hier wat info over de interface van Trespasser, die nog best wel aardig origineel blijkt te zijn:

rarely use the term revolutionary to describe an aspect of a game, but I am sure that almost every part of Trespasser's interface will be copied by games for a very long time. First off, there is no health or ammo meter on the screen. All you can see is the world in front of you and your gun. Whenever you pick up a gun, or switch guns, Anne (that's you) will say the number of bullets left. As you shoot the gun, she will count down how many bullets there are remaining. If it is an automatic weapon with too many bullets to count, she will estimate how many are left by saying "it feels full" or "it seems about half". If you want to see the other weapon you have (you can only hold two) just look down at your holster.

The controls are well laid out from the start, and you have the ability to switch them around. There are the regular run jump strafe keys that we are all familiar with, but to use the happy arm properly you will need to add two buttons. One for grab and one for extend. There are also two other buttons to make the arm twist and turn, but they are used very rarely. I found I could keep one hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard without doing any sort of weird key stretches.

Trespasser uses all visual and audio cues to inform the player on what is happening. The best of these has to be the heart tattoo on the left boob. When it's totally red, you're dead. This makes it crucial to always look at the heart to see how much life you have left. One time while I was "examining" my health when my mom walked in the room and... errr never mind.

Gamecenter heeft een interview met Gabe Newell van Valve (waar ze Half-Life gebakken hebben).

Hier wat over de toekomst:

He relates this minor epiphany to his days at Microsoft, where he was part of the team that developed Windows. When they shipped the first version, which ran from a floppy disk on a 4.77-MHz 88 series processor, he says they knew they were on the way to displacing character-based interfaces. "I feel pretty much the same way about PC-based entertainment: it's going to explode. As more people get comfortable with PCs, as the quality of the visuals gets better and the sound gets better, and as we fix the usability and approachability issues, PC-based entertainment is really going to start to surpass traditional forms of entertainment."

As for Valve's future, its next release will be Team Fortress II, a multiplayer-oriented team combat game using the Half-Life engine. Will Valve stick to the first-person action genre? "We're still trying to figure out our identity; we're still not entirely sure who we are," Newell says. "What we hope will define Valve is that we ship stuff we're proud of that does something interesting, whether that's an RPG or a strategy game or whatever."

Voodoo Extreme heeft wat info over de 0,25micron TNT:

Although I can't disclose any information on unannounced products, I can say that if you buy a RIVA TNT today, you won't have to worry about obsolence until well through 1999.

David Schmidt

Internet Marketing Manager

NVIDIA Corporation

Ok, so a tad vague... I fired off an email to nVidia to _attempt_ to get a bit more sauce, in particular, if the "obsolesce" was in reference to the 0.25 coming out or the TNT2 making both the 0.35 and 0.25 obsolete.  Here's their reply to my email (and a bit Jason had to say about assuming that nVidia meant late 99):

I am referring to obsoleting the current TNT chip.  Jason is wrong in his conclusion about late 99.  Must be too much turkey. ;) Seriously, we have a record of delivering products to fit into our customers' schedules. In the case of the PC industry, there are Fall and Spring seasons in which there are opportunities to bundle product.  The RIVA TNT was designed to hit the fall season (which it did).  The RIVA 128/128ZX was designed to hit the Spring season, which it did. You can draw your conclusion from that.

AGN3D heeft een paar screenshots van Unreal met een Creative TNT en real-time volumetric shadows:

Creative Labs is in the process of adapting its Graphics Blaster TNT drivers to provide real-time volumetric shadows for Epic MegaGame's Unreal.

By using the TNT's stencil buffer, Creative's adapted drivers take model geometry and lighting information and then uses this data to create a real-time volumetric shadow that reacts realistically to the light source shined on it. It also takes into account light direction, so shadows are rendered appropriately.

Currently, Unreal is the only game that will support this effect (via a patch), but game developers are more than welcome to talk with Creative Labs with regards to taking advantage of this new technology.

Texel heeft een artikel online gezet waarin hij de CPU Load van de Riva TNT vergelijkt met die van de Permedia II en Oxygen GMX. De laatste twee gebruiken een geïntegreerde geometrie setup engine. Het is daarom niet erg verbazend dat de CPU Load van de TNT is:

The results show that the TNT chip set uses about 90%-100% of the CPU when running these tests.

The Permedia2 and GMX chip sets uses less CPU than the TNT on all three of the tests.  The GMX on the CDRS test used about 5% on the 5 poly tests and 20% on the 2 wireframe tests.  The Permedia2 used about 40% on the CDRS.   On the DRV test the the Permedia2 and GMX are at about 80%.  On the Fog City test the Permedia2 and GMX have about the same level of CPU use  ~55% .

Clearly the TNT is a CPU hog but is that bad?   With the current cpu's ( i.e. Pentium II ) running  CAD applications the TNT's CPU load may cause performance problems.  With current games it is not so clear. However the next generation of games will be more poly intensive and thus a little more like CAD apps.

Asus heeft een Q&Atje in elkaar gedraaid over de problemen die kunnen onstaan als je een TNT gaat draaien op een Asus P2L97 bord:

Question:

I have some problems running AGP-V3400TNT on the ASUS P2L97 rev1.05.

Answer:

Along with the release of the Riva 128 TNT chipset based VGA cards, users with ASUS P2L97 rev. 1.05 or earlier M/B may find that they have encountered system hang-up problem with Riva 128 TNT VGA cards when playing 3D games. This problem is NOT caused by broken AGP sideband, and disabling the sideband protocol will not help. The reason that P2L97 rev. 1.05 or earlier M/B cannot support Riva 128 TNT is because Riva 128 TNT chipset requires a much higher power consumption at 3.3V than ordinary AGP chipset does, and the regulator on P2L97 rev. 1.05 or earlier M/B can only supply upto 2.5A of current at 3.3V. As a result, the system may run into problems when playing 3D games.

Generally, there are two types of regulator, linear regulator and switching regulator; linear regulator can supply at most 2.5A of current as switching regulator can provide up to 6A of current at 3.3V. P2L97 rev. 1.05 and earlier revisions use linear regulator and all other later M/Bs use switching regulator; therefore, P2L97 rev. 2.04 or later does not have this compatibility problem with Riva 128 TNT. At the time we had P2L97 M/B, most AGP VGA cards required only about 1.5 amps of current and together with the power required by other components of the M/B, providing 2.5A of current at 3.3V was pretty sufficient for the M/B to operate normally with combination of any AGP VGA cards. The newly released Riva 128 TNT chipset, however, by itself consumes more than 2.5A of current and, therefore, the regulator has to provide at least 4 ~5 amps of current at 3.3V in order to run Riva 128 TNT chipset based VGA cards properly

Rivastation heeft een artikel in elkaar gedraaid die de performance van een Riva TNT op een PII-300 en een PII-450 vergelijkt, om zo te zien hoe het met de schaalbaarheid van de TNT:

So what can we learn from all these values? The TNT does not scale as well as the RIVA128. I estimate that you can reach the limits with a CPU between 350MHz to 400Mhz. After that you wonŽt see a increase anymore because the TNT canŽt handle the higher amount of data that comes from the CPU.

Another interesting thing is 3DNow!. With the limits of the TNT you wonŽt see values that are very much faster because the TNT canŽt handle the larger amount of data.

But what about the BUS-system of the PC? Is the rest of the PC or the AGP Bus the limitating factor that canŽt handle that high amount of data and itŽs not the vault of the TNT that you canŽt increase the values anymore?

Only NVIDIA will know the answer... IŽll run some tests with overclocking the TNT soon to get a answer for that.

At all you must say that the limits of the TNT are in very high regions. Another fact is that modern games like the announced Falcon4 do more than only 3D graphics. Falcon4 simulates a whole virtual Battlefield in realtime, and does a lot 3D Graphics at the same time. So you will need a fast CPU here!

I havenŽt found a benchmark yet that takes cares of that point. Today benchmarks do only test a script based run. CPU power is tested in CPU only tests, like in 3DMARK99.

But to compare results you need the same situation every time.... a vicious circle. Maybe you need some kind of Fuzzy Logic here.

Diamon heeft nieuwe drivers gereleased voor hun Monster Fusion plank:

The following are the latest Windows 95/98 Drivers for the Monster Fusion, version 4.10.01.0211. Please view FSN9X211.TXT for driver installation information.

This driver does not support OpenGL or MiniGL (required for Quake or Quake II). For MiniGL applications, please use the MiniGL driver listed below.

NOTE: This driver REQUIRES that your Monster Fusion BIOS be of 1.20b4803 (AGP) or 1.20b4002 (PCI) or higher. To upgrade your board, see the BIOS section below

FSN9X211.EXE

(3.54 Mb)

GaGames heeft als een van de eersten een review van Sierra's Return to Krondor.

Hier een stukkie over de graphics:

Return to Krondor uses an new engine called True3D. The engine can do real-time lighting which makes for some good looking spell effects. . It’s definitely one of the most impressive engine I’ve seen used for a roleplaying game. The models, on the other hand, have some serious ups and downs. Different weapons and armor change your characters appearance in-game, instead of the models remaining static the entire time. The texturing for the models are perfect. And the many people you meet in the game are all textured to fit their purpose. Commoners wear basic garb, while guards can be seen carrying shields and sporting chain mail. Monsters are textured so they look like, well, like monsters and not some fluffy Disney-esque cartoon. The models themselves, while blocky, are good. Some of the monsters could have used a little work, the sewer monsters for example looked like they were made of Lego blocks. 

Gamelinks heeft een review gepost van Populous: the Beginning.

Hier wat info over de gameplay en de bedoeling van het hele spelletje...

The general concept behind Populous: The Beginning is rather unique. Instead of the primary focuse being resources, it's more based on your people. When you start off (in most scenarios) you begin with a few braves and a Shaman. The Shaman is your extension into the world, allowing you to give orders to braves and other troops. The Shaman also weilds magic powers that charge through mana, and interesting twist that comes in handy throughout the game. Magic can be either constructive or destructive depending on the spell. My personal favorite is the tornado. You can actually see bits of houses flying when cast along with enemies (and sometimes your own people) being sucked into the funnel. The braves purpose in the game is to build structures. They can build a diverse number of structures from preist huts to warrior training huts to huts which help them pro-create. Huts that braves live in will go through various stages, and through these stages the huts will pro-create more braves depending on the size of the structure. After you've got a good foundation of braves, you can build your warrior training hut, which will turn your braves into warriors. Later on in the game you unlock more training huts for your braves including a firewarrior hut, and the spy hut among others. It's an interesting and diverse mix of troops, each are essential to winning the game, no matter how small of a part they play.

Tom heeft het gepresteerd om twee weken na de Comdex nog met een report te komen. Lekker snel hoor.

Beter ooit dan nooit, dus hier maar een stukkie uit Tom's terugkijk op de Comdex. Echt veel was er volgens hem niet te beleven en de AMD K7 en Sharptooth waren verreweg het meest interessant:

There was of course a working K7-system in that room too, which ran a mixture of Winstone98 and 3D games at really high speed. I could not see any benchmark numbers, but the benchmark part ran faster than anything I've seen yet, definitely faster than a Pentium II 504.

The second room showed two systems next to each other. The left one was a system equipped with AMD's Sharptooth, the upcoming K6-3 (if the name won't be changed), at 400 MHz. Sharptooth is nothing but K6-2's new CXT core with an on die L2 cache of 256 kB running at CPU core clock. The system to the right was a Pentium II 450 MHz system, equipped with the same peripherals. Again a mixture of business and high-end Winstone98 was ran, starting both systems at the same time. The Sharptooth finished those benchmarks significantly earlier than the Pentium II 450, proving that Sharptooth or K6-3 will be extremely fast in business applications, even faster than Pentium II at 50 MHz higher clock rate.

Verder nog wat info over de Voodoo3, Cyrix Webpad en een gecombineerd overzicht van Intel's en AMD's roadmap.