Graig van Sharky Extreme heeft als een van de eersten een review van Hercules' TNT plank.

Hier wat handy info over de performance en overklokbaarheid van het ding:

The meat of any video card review, and the reason you've been patiently reading the superfluous text until now, it's time to finally get around to the Dynamite TNT's performance level.

Much like the other TNT cards we've tested this year (all of which had a default core clock speed of 90MHz) the Dynamite TNT fell squarely in the 1 to 2% range of variance that the others previously have. We never fault consistency, and the Riva TNT continues to show a level of performance parity that only the Intel 440BX-based mainboards on the market duplicate. It literally turns in benchmarks that are dead nuts even from board to board, regardless of the vendor.

Where the Dynamite TNT really stood out from the crowd during our testing though was in the sacred land of extreme overclocking.

By using Powerstrip (a fine utility that can be downloaded from SE's fantastic files section) we manipulated and tested the Dynamite TNT at various settings and gauged its effectiveness at those settings. With a nicely placed cooling fan mounted on it by Hercules as a stock feature, we felt that the Dynamite's TNT chip might be a little better at handling the brutality that makes overclocking anything so much fun. Hercules' own Dynamite specific press release hints at this by mentioning the high-TNT yields in a roundabout way:

Differing from existing RIVA TNT products, Hercules Dynamite TNT is based upon NVIDIA's most recent design specifications with proprietary design enhancements for additional stability and compatibility.

The proof is in the pudding, and after running the Dynamite TNT for extended periods at a very overclocked 115MHz core speed and a 125MHz memory clock speed, we can report that amazingly we saw no failures, no artifacts, no strange occurrences, nothing in fact but higher frame rates.

AGN Hardware heeft een review gepost van de 8,5Gig grote Western Digital Caviar.

Hier wat plakwerk uit die review:

The Western Digital Ultra DMA 8.4GB drive suits a particular purpose.  It is big, cheap, and relatively fast.  No, it's not going to run circles around SCSI drives, and there are even other IDE drives that have faster spindle speeds and lower seek times, but you will pay almost twice as much for such a product.  The Western Digital drive did exactly what I needed it to do: sit there and hold my games while not making me miserable with slow load times and transfer rates.  It installed like a charm and has been running beautifully every since.  The load times for my games may be just a little bit slower than the SCSI drive it replaced, but I now have an additional 4 GB of storage...which means my older games can hang around a bit longer as I get new ones installed.

Hardware Central heeft een artikel over S3TC in elkaar gewipt. Hier wat stuff:

It's one thing to see screen shots of Unreal utilizing S3TC, but it's a completely different story actually seeing S3TC in action. When I first heard about S3TC and saw the screen shots, it didn't seem that impressive, I took it as just another marketing ploy. However, after the guys at S3 showed me S3TC in action at Comdex, I have to say, I was truly impressed. The textures of the Unreal demo levels that they had constructed were extremely clean and crisp. On the level where photographs were placed on the walls, the photographs did not look like the fuzzy textures that we are used to seeing in 3D games. Instead, the textures looked like actual photographs. Even moving right up to the wall did not show any signs of fuzziness.

After seeing the Unreal level demos, it's easy to see why Microsoft included S3TC in DirectX 6.0 and why Id's Quake Arena will natively support it. S3TC is a great technology that is a definite next step in the 3D gaming.

Beetje vage titel, ik vertaal het ook maar gewoon uit het engels...

Gagames heeft wat info uit een onderzoek waarin met tot de wonderbaarlijke conclusie komt dat video games een gespleten persoonlijkheid hebben: enerzijds educatief en vermakend, anderzijds wreed en extreem geweldadig.

Poepoe, hier wat stuff:

The video game industry has a split personality, selling some genuinely entertaining and educational games to children but also marketing some that are based on murder, sex and gruesome violence, according to a new study.

The fourth annual ``Video Game Report Card,'' conducted by the Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family, was released by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, both Democrats, who held hearings into video game violence in 1993-94.

``The video game industry has developed a split personality, ''Lieberman said. There are family-friendly games, that are not only genuinely entertaining but can also encourage children's ''inductive reasoning and problem solving skills and sharpen their sense of spatial relations.''

But the industry also has a more sinister face, a ``small but significant core of ultra-violent games that are far more realistic and gruesome than the shooting games that first caught our eye six years ago,'' he said.

He quoted some advertising slogans from the games themselves, like ``More fun than shooting your neighbor's cat,'' for ``Point Blank'', or ``Happiness is a warm cranium'' for ''Cardinal Syn''.

Kohl noted that a ratings system, implemented voluntarily by the industry, is available to help parents choose appropriate games but a few manufacturers still ``don't get it'' and are using violent ads to reach kids as young as six.

David Walsh, the author of the report and the president of the center, said his research found that many parents do not know what the games contain, and do not use the ratings system, perhaps because they are less computer-savvy than their children and do not really understand the technology.

``The fact that they are called 'games' probably leads some parents to believe there is no need for supervision,'' Walsh said.

``Although most of the products on the market can legitimately be called 'games,' some of the ultra-violent games might be more accurately called 'kill-for-fun murder simulations' and are inappropriate for children.''

The report, and ratings for individual games, can be found on the center's website.

Tweak it! heeft een artikel over geremarkte PII's. Er zit ook een foto bij van een geremarkte PII met een erg vaag zwart goedje op de PCB dat er wellicht voor zorgt dat de multiplier geunlockt wordt:

he PCB had a modification to it that smacked of foul play, although at this point I was not convinced all was not right. I had seen companies use a similar modification technique before to get the product out the door with out the extra cost of a PCB revision, but I did doubt that Intel would do it.

I compared the specifications of a real Pentium II 450MHz with the one that I held in my hands. Amazingly it had the correct PCB revision, Tag Ram and even the cache chips were rated at 225MHz. Intel's CPU ID program was no help ether, as all of the Deschutes core CPUs report the same family, model and stepping. I started to doubt that it was a remark, but I couldn't get over the little black box attached to the PCB. At this point the only clear path I could think of was to call Intel for confirmation. I didn't cherish this thought as all my previous attempts to gleam information from Intel were like pounding my head against a brick wall.To my surprise though the number provided on their web site for CPU support

was answered promptly by a human who checked the "S-spec" number. Like me she had no luck locating it and escalated my call to a support engineer. After a very brief wait I was talking to someone who should have the answers....not quite so easy. Turned out, he didn't have any more information than I did and would have to foward a request for one of the "Remark Investigators" to contacted me. Four hours later, which is faster then what the tech told me it would take, the Investigator was on the phone. After she asked me some quick questions, she confirmed that it was a remarked CPU. It seems that the "S" number, SL2S8 is the part number of a flash ram chip. The other numbers identify it as a PII 266MHz processor.

Creative Labs heeft nieuwe Winslows NT drivers gereleased voor de Graphics Blaster TNT. Je kunt het spul hier pakken.

Er is een nieuwe versie van Motherboard Monitor, het super handige proggie waarmee je kunt zien hoe heet je CPU het heeft, op welk voltage het ding draait en hoe snel je ventilators hun rondjes maken.
Je kunt het proggie hier downloaden.

High Gear heeft een interview met Alison Hine, betatester voor Grand Prix Legends.

Hier een stukkie over het realisme van 't spelletje:

Keith: With your real life experiences of racing, how close do you think GPL comes to emulating real racing physics?

Alison: I think it’s incredibly realistic. As you know, a racing sim lacks certain cues that are present in real life. After driving GPL for a while, my brain has learned to fill in for the missing kinesthetic and tactile cues. I can actually feel what the car is doing as weight is transferred around under power, during braking, during transitions into corners, and as the car "gets light" over humps or loads up on bankings. I can feel the tires reach their limits of adhesion, going over the limit, and bringing them back.

There are some very clear indications of the attention to detail in the physics model. For example, the mass of the drivetrain is modeled. If you put the car in neutral while it’s sitting still, and blip the throttle, the car rocks back and forth on its suspension due to the torque of the engine accelerating the internal engine parts. If you push in the clutch, and blip the throttle again, the engine revs a little more quickly because it doesn’t have to accelerate the mass of the transmission input shaft.

It’s hard to imagine a more detailed physics model for a racing car.

The Super 7 Hardware Guid heeft wat info over 3 nieuwe Socket 7 moederplaten van Epox: eentje met VIA MPV3 chipset, een andere met MVP4 en nog een met SiS 530.

Hier wat info over de EP-MVP4A met VIA MPV4:

The EP-MVP4A equipped with VIA MVP4 chipset, a chipset offering 100MHz bus frequency for upcoming K6 3D or Cyrix M2 CPUs, is based on ZIF socket 7 CPUs. The Apollo MVP4 features an integrated high performance 2D/3D AGP graphics engine and video accelerator. For audio, the MVP4 integrates AC-97 DirectSound with legacy Soundblaster Pro, FM, MIDI and game support. It supports many advanced ACPI Power Management features that meet the requirements of PC97 specification and Microsoft's Windows 98, saving power usage in the system and peripherals. Moreover, the on-board Ultra DMA-33 Hard Drive interface combines the lower cost IDE form-factor with SCSI-like data transfer speeds - up to a blistering 33MB/sec!

3Com's Palm handheld gaat draadloos:

3Com expects to ship $800 handheld unit in late 1999, stocked with online services and software. 3Com's Palm Computing division on Wednesday unwrapped the Palm VII, a handheld unit that includes wireless capabilities to let users exchange e-mail and download information from selected Internet sites. The device follows the same familiar form factor as existing Palm units, adding a wireless modem and a short folding aerial on the side that also acts as an "on" switch. Company executives at a launch event described the Palm VII as a "revolutionary" leap forward over existing Palm products.

"This is a very important day for us," said Janice Roberts, senior vice president with 3Com. "We are going to change the way people access and use the Internet forever." 3Com expects to release the Palm VII in the United States in late 1999 after field trials, which are scheduled to start early next year. Its $800 price tag makes it twice as expensive as the current Palm III. The company has teamed with the wireless division of telecommunications provider Bell South to offer a bundled Internet access service starting at less than $10 per month, said Joe Sipher, director of wireless products at 3Com. The service will be available in 260 of the most highly populated areas in the United States, he said. One analyst was impressed by a demonstration of the unit's wireless capabilities, and said he would "snap one up in a minute."

EETimes heeft een artikel met stuff van Transmeta's president David Ditzel, die wat ouwehoerd over VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word), RISC, CISC en meer van dat soort lekkernijen:

In his speech, Ditzel told some 300 conference attendees that RISC may be reaching the end of its "learning curve" after 20 years of use. He noted that RISC, which originally began as a rebellion against complexity, has itself become bogged down by massive instruction sets and large die sizes.

"It was really fun in the early days; almost every computer company had a RISC chip," he said. "You did it because you could and you needed only a small design team."

Nowadays, that's no longer the case, Ditzel argued. "Today [in RISC] we have large design teams and long design cycles," he said. "The performance story is also much less clear now. The die sizes are no longer small. It just don't seem to make as much sense."

The result is the current crop of complex RISC chips. "Superscalar and out-of-order execution are the biggest problem areas that have impeded performance [leaps]," Ditzel said. "The MIPS R10,000 and HP PA-8000 seem much more complex to me than today's standard CISC architecture, which is the Pentium II. So where is the advantage of RISC, if the chips aren't as simple anymore?"

Moving forward, though, Ditzel hasn't sounded a death knell for RISC. Indeed, he sees good opportunities for the Sparc and Alpha architectures, particularly if Intel's upcoming Merced CPU takes time to gain widespread support.

Als reactie op de rechtszaak die de RIAA tegen Diamond had aangespannen ivm de Rio MP3 player is Diamond nu z'n eigen rechtszaak begonnen tegen de amerikaanse muziekindustrie. Wie ettert kan iets terug verwachten?

Hier wat stuff van ABC News:

“The lawsuit against Diamond is a product of a conspiracy between the RIAA and others to restrain trade and restrict competition” among makers of devices such as the Rio, said Andrew Bridges, Diamond’s attorney in the matter.

     Diamond, a maker of high-tech products for computers used in homes, businesses and elsewhere, also alleges the RIAA’s suit has “damaged Diamond’s profitability and credibility” in the market for these products. Diamond is seeking treble and punitive damages of an unspecified amount in its suit.

     “Clearly this is a legal maneuver that has no foundation in fact or law,” said an RIAA spokesman. He declined further comment, saying the group has yet to see Diamond’s filing.

Begin 2002 mogen we van Toshiba en Fujitsu de eerste 1 Gigabyte DRAMs verwachten, die gebakken zullen wordne op 0,13micron.

Hier wat info van CNN:

Leading Japanese chipmakers Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. on Thursday announced plans to jointly develop and launch one-gigabyte dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips by the end of March 2002.

The two firms said a joint team of some 100 researchers will be assembled at Toshiba's development center to focus on ultra high-density 0.13-micron process technology, device technologies, product design and prototype fabrication for the next-generation 1-gigabyte chips.

Most memory chips available for PCs today only provide a ceiling of 128 megabytes, about an eighth of a gigabyte. While kits exist that can boost PC memory to the gigabyte level, they are highly specialized and cost $3,000 or more.

Other cash-strapped chipmakers will likely follow suit due to the high costs of the Toshiba-Fujitsu development, analysts said.

The total project budget would exceed 30 billion yen ($254 million), the companies said.

"The Toshiba-Fujitsu collaboration comes amidst fierce competition in the memory market, which has been eroding prices and increasing the importance of cost-competitive development operations," the companies said in a joint statement.

Dit is lullig nieuws voor veel sitebouwers die geen geld voor een eigen domeintje hebben en daarom uit armoede zo'n x.ml.org subdomein nemen: ml.org stop ermee >:(

Zie deze nieuwspagina van ml.org:

Dear Friends, Supporters and Colleagues:

It's been a long, windy road for Monolith. As time passed and we grew in size, we encountered a variety of technical and organizational problems. We have been attempting to re-organize but due to many factors this has not worked out. After many efforts, the Board has decided the only fair solution to us and you is to disband Monolith and end the project. Be assured we have considered all other options before coming to this conclusion.

Before I say anything else, I want to thank all the users involved with Monolith during its existance. Support and enthusiasm has made the project an enjoyable and worthwhile experience for everyone. Whether it be the crowd on the SYStalk mailing list, the tremendous turn out of the Monolith RC5 project, the overwhelming response to porting and creating DYNDNS clients for tons of platforms and tastes - the users have always been great.

This decision has been made and approved by a majority of the board -- and with the recent tremendous server failure it seems even more appropiate. Pair networks has been more than accomodating to us but there is a limit to everyone's patience with a server that simply refuses to work -- quite simply, the hardware can not handle the load.

Ik kwam via Slashdot een artikel van Tim O'Reilly tegen over Opensource zachtwaar en de bedreiging die het heeft voor Mikroschoft.

Hier wat stuff:

Now the Microsoft approach is clearly the best one for building a company; Bill Gates has done that par excellence. But it might not be the best approach for building commodity software.

And here is the crux of the matter: One major way to make money is to lead a market into commodity-hood -- sell something at a value-based premium while your cost structure matches that for a commodity. As other people enter the market, the leader can enjoy high profits while competitors scramble to catch up. But over time the market does turn into a commodity one. For now, the open-source world still has a shortage of enterprise-oriented development tools, infrastructure and support. But as attention and capital flow into the open-source world, that will change.

That's the challenge Microsoft now faces in systems software -- and perhaps what was once known as applications but is now increasingly user tools for manipulating an information-rich environment on the Web.

Er zat een (vrij ernstig) bugje in MacOS 8.5, wat ik me wel kan voorstellen, want ik laat zonder problemen 4 Macs in een minuut crashen op de Chooser (en dan ik niets anders dan proberen om een andere Mac via het netwerk te bereiken). Vergeleken met MacOS is Windoos rock solid.

Anyway, hier wat info over MacOS 8.5.1 uit een artikel van The Register:

pple is preparing an update for MacOS 8.5, due to ship early next year, but possibly in line to appear later this month.

The new release, MacOS 8.5.1 interestingly appears to solve a problem that Apple had previously denied existed, despite numerous complaints from users.

Since the release of 8.5, many Mac owners have informed Mac-oriented Web sites of difficulties getting freshly upgraded machines to boot successfully. In some instances, drive partitions were overwritten, destroying users' data and applications.

Despite a growing body of evidence for the problem, Apple claimed it had been unable to replicate users' symptoms. Indeed, Apple has yet to acknowledge the problem.

However, 8.5.1 is believed to contain a new version of Apple's hard drive formatting utility, Drive Setup 1.6.2, which will install a more robust hard disk driver, according to source close to the company, quoted on Macweek.com.

Bill weet niet wat-ie met z'n geld moet doen en om de publieke opinie om te kopen geeft-ie daarom maar wat weg. Uiteraard altijd beter dan wanneer-ie het gewoon voor zichzelf houdt:

Bill Gates geeft een bedrag van 100 miljoen dollar, zo'n 190 miljoen gulden, weg aan de derde wereld om kinderen te kunnen vaccineren. Ondertussen blijkt uit een video van het verhoor van Gates dat hij zegt niet op de hoogte te zijn geweest van pogingen om computertaal Java de nek om te draaien.

Tegen de Washington Post zei Gates dat hij het een sociale taak acht om 'dit soort ongelijkheden' te bestrijden.

Het is een van de grootste particuliere giften die ooit is gedaan, maar deze was ook direct aanleiding voor criticasters om te wijzen op de rijkdom van Bill Gates, met 46 miljard dollar bezit nu. Gates heeft sinds de beursgang van Microsoft in 1986 gemiddeld zijn bezit met 95 miljoen dollar of 180 miljoen gulden per week vergroot met zijn (nu) 22 procent aandeel in Microsoft.

In hetzelfde nieuwsbericht van Planet Multimedia staat ook nog wat info over de verzwakte positie van Mikroschoft in de anti-trust Rechtszaak.

Ik zag via thread op Anand's BBS dit plaatje op Hardware Zone:

Thank you, Chan Loong for sharing this screenshot with us. Wow.....this is ridiculous! Posting at 668 Mhz on an ASUS P2B Bios Rev 1005. I think this is a 5.0 x

133 Mhz setting. I guess probably can't post. Anyway, here is the screenshot.

Hier wat info uit een nieuwsbericht van Planet Multimedia:

Chello, het zusterbedrijf van de kabelexploitanten A2000 en Telekabel, biedt toegang tot haar geheime ontwerpen voor de nieuwe breedband Internetdienst voor Europese steden.

Zeer binnenkort zal Chello op onder meer de kabelnetten van Wenen, Oslo en Amsterdam van start gaan. Het ontwerp is strategisch belangrijk, wat gezien de capaciteit van de verbindingen kan goed van video en 3D animatie gebruik worden gemaakt. Uit het ontwerp blijkt dat vooral van de nieuwe technologie Flash van Macromedia veel gebruik gemaakt zal worden.

Chello beschikt inmiddels over een aangepaste Internet Explorer 4.0 browser die we vanmorgen als Zip-bestand konden ophalen op de site met 205.205.200.110 als IP-nummer. Dit werkt alleen met Internet Explorer 4.0 goed en niet met Netscape-browser.

Op de Cyclus-website zijn een aantal schermafdrukken op te halen van zowel de website als de Chello-browser.

Wellicht wordt met het ophalen en eventueel verspreiden een auteursrecht geschonden. De makers van de pagina's en software, Zaq in Canada, hebben echter hun auteursrecht niet vermeld, omdat ze niet konden bevroeden dat hun pagina's openbaar zouden worden.

Anand heeft naar de massale kritiek op z'n Winstone 99 benchmarks, waarmee de K6-2 400 CXT zwaar achter bleek te liggen op een qua kloksnelheid vergelijkbare PII, nieuwe benchmarks gedaan met Winstone 98.

De K6-2 400 komt nu een stuk beter uit de test, het ding haalt een score van 26,8 tegenover een PII-400 met een score van 25,6.

Those numbers aren't too bad, not at all, but there are those beloved Winstone 98 scores of yours ;) There is obviously a huge difference between the performance of the K6-2 under Winstone 98 and under Winstone 99, and I'm currently working on investigating exactly what caused that performance difference. There were no major optimizations in this test, simply your basic Windows 98 setup. Like I said before, I'm not going to let this drop, and once I get the final rev. of the chip I'll finalize the review. Until then, it looks like Winstone 98 and 99 will be used in most of my benchmarks from now on, at least until I get to the bottom of this K6-2 issue.

Meer info vind je op AnandTech.com.

C|Net heeft een artikel over Mikroschoft's Chromeeffects, die een zacht dood leek te sterven.

Volgens C|Net blijkt er toch nog leven in te zitten:

Microsoft's problem-plagued Chromeffects multimedia technology is headed to market after all--in bits and pieces, CNET News.com has learned.

As reported last month, Microsoft decided to delay indefinitely the release of Chromeffects 1.0, which is designed to bring to ordinary Web sites the type of high-powered Direct X graphics and animation normally found in gaming environments. The release had been slated for Christmas. A software development kit was announced in July and released the following month.

Microsoft scaled back its plans after developers raised a chorus of protest over the technology's noncompliance with numerous Web standards and its implementation of various technologies. These include the World Wide Web Consortium's Document Object Model, HTML+TIME, and XQL, along with improved support for data visualization technologies and better 3D hardware device drivers.

Microsoft now intends to release various components of Chromeffects piecemeal, according to a source familiar with Redmond's plans. But while developers using the technologies may be pleased to be getting them sooner rather than later, they may find that implementing Chromeffects in parts will be more difficult than it would have been in a complete package.

Microsoft confirmed that it will include DirectAnimation, DXTransform, and HTML+TIME in a technology update to the company's Internet Explorer 5 browser, which is currently in in beta; and in the release of Windows 2000 Professional, which is due out next year.

Amer van Sharky Extreem heeft een preview gepost van Funcom's Steel Rebellion.

Hier wat spul over de graphics en sound van dit Realtime Strategy spel:

Steel rebellion's 3D engine is spectacular. The initial view resembles that of Bungee's Myth and depicts fully modeled terrain complete with hills, valleys and mountains. The textures are very crisp, with the terrain's features having a pseudo bump-mapping effect to them. Players will be able to zoom in and out, rotate and pan left and right while in the Myth style, or strategic, view. This view has no clipping plane, so players will be able to see very far. That doesn't mean that all the units are instantly visible however. Through the use of the 3D terrain engine, field of vision will be handicapped by tree lines, valleys, ridges, crests and other naturally occurring formations. During confrontations, players will be able to either retain this view or switch to a first person tactical perspective of the highlighted vehicle for a more personal touch.

Visuals aside, Steel Rebellion will also use sound to enhance awareness of the environment. The game will have not only positional audio but Funcom's proprietary Doppler effects code. In games, when sound from two separate sources are emitted, they are simply played over two separate audio channels, whereas in reality, the two sound sources would alter each other's wavelengths and produce a slightly different sound (in some cases, if the wavelengths are equal, they'll cancel each other out). Steel Rebellion's sound engine will feature these true Doppler effects.

Avault heeft een Linux Quake guide in elkaar gepleurd met info over hoe je Quake aan het draaien krijg in Linux.

Je kunt het ding hier lezen...

Combatsim heeft een review van Janes WW2 Fighters in elkaar gefrutseld.

Hier wat info over hoe het zit met de kwaliteit van de graphics en audio:

I have never seen any released sim as close to photo-realistic as this one. Painstaking attention to detail was obviously put into both the interior cockpits and exterior texturing of these birds. The colors are clear and vibrant, the propeller whirls realistically, the cultural and theater markings are akin to what I see in my collection of WW2 books. Fire the weapons and bombs whine as they are released, primary and secondary explosions are very believable.

If you haven’t invested in a sub-woofer and PCI sound card, this is a good excuse to do so. The F9 fly by view is one of my favorite in this sim. Each plane screams by you with its own distinctive engine roar with the full Doppler effect. Shell casings can be seen dropping from beneath out of their exit ports, gun/cannon flashes and muzzle smoke puffs as you squeeze out the rounds. So when others say that the special effects realism is the best yet, I have to agree full heartedly.

Bij Gamepower hebben ze een review van Blood 2 in elkaar weten te knutselen.

Hier wat spul over de 3D engine, die dezelfde is als die van Shogo:

Blood 2, like its sister title Shogo: Mobile Armor Division (also from Monolith Productions), features a state-of-the-art graphics engine. Dubbed Lith-Tech, the engine is a little prettier than Quake 2's, but much more forgiving to lower-system specs than the Unreal engine. So we are treated to multiple resolutions, lighting effects, and smooth, relatively bug-free gameplay. The graphics are primarily used to lend the game world its grimy look, which is one of the game's strengths. The levels -- set in such various places as a subway train, a tenement, a meat-packing plant, and the Cabal's headquarters -- are atmospheric and lend themselves to violent action.

The Register heeft de completer tekst van Bill's getuigenis van gisteren online gezet.
Er zitten best wel sappige stukjes tussen, bijvoorbeelde deze:

Boies: Let me show you a document that has been previously marked as Government Exhibit 253. In the middle of the first page there is a message dated May 14, 1997, from Ben Slivka to you and others. Did you receive this email on or about May 14, 1997?

Gates: I'm not sure. But I have no reason to doubt that I did.

Boies: When Mr. Slivka writes as he does in the second paragraph, "This summer we're going to totally divorce Sun," do you know what he's referring to?

Gates: I'm not sure.

Boies: Did you ever ask him what he was referring to?

Gates: No.

Boies: In the next to last, or in the last sentence, actually, in the last sentence of the second paragraph, Mr. Slivka writes that "JDK 1.2 has JFC." And is the JFC there the Java Foundation Classes that you referred to earlier?

Gates: It's one of the many JFCs.

Boies: What is one of the many JFCs?

Gates: The one in JDK 1.2.

Boies: Is the JFC in JDK 1.2 part of what was described as a major threat to Microsoft?

Gates: I have no idea which JFC that sentence written by somebody other than me referred to.

Boies: Well, the sentence written by somebody other than you was written to you; right, sir?

Gates: It was sent to me.

Boies: Yes. And it was sent to you by one of your chief, one of your top executives; correct, sir?

Gates: In an email.

Boies: Yes. And that's a frequent way that your top executives communicate with you; correct, sir?

Gates: Yes.

Boies: Now, Mr. Slivka here says that Microsoft is going to be saying uncomplimentary things about JDK 1.2 at every opportunity. Do you see that?

Gates: Where's that?

Boies: That is, "JDK 1.2 has JFC, which we're going to be pissing on at every opportunity."

Gates: I don't know if he's referring to pissing on JFC or pissing on JDK 1.2 nor do I know is what he specifically means by "pissing on."

Boies: Well, do you know that generally he means by pissing on he's going to be saying and Microsoft is going to be saying uncomplimentary things.

Gates: He might mean that we're going to be clear that we're not involved with it, that we think there's a better approach.

Boies: Well, as you understand it, when Mr. Slivka says he's going to be pissing on JDK 1.2, as you seem to interpret it, at every opportunity, do you interpret that as meaning that Microsoft is going to be saying uncomplimentary things about JDK 1.2?

Gates: I told you I don't know whether pissing applies to JFC or JDK.

Boies: Well, he's going to be pissing on or Microsoft is going to be pissing on either JDK 1.2 or JFC or both according to Mr. Slivka. Is that at least fair?

Gates: That's appears to be what the sentence says.

Boies: Yeah. And as the chief executive officer of Microsoft, when you get these kind of e-mails, would it be fair for me to assume that "pissing on" is not some code word that means saying nice things about you, that has the usual meaning that it would in the vernacular? Gates: I don't know what you mean in this kind of email.

Boies: The kind of email that is sent to you by executives in the course of your business, Mr. Gates.

Gates: So all emails I get? Ben Slivka's not an executive.

Boies: All the emails you get from people telling you that they're going to piss on competitive products, that's what I'm talking about.

Gates: I don't remember mail like that. it looks like I got one. But believe me, it's not a term that's commonly used.

Boies: But you have no reason to think that he means it in any way other than the normal meaning of that term, do you, sir?

Gates: I think it's a term of multiple meanings. In this case I think it means what you've suggested it means.

The Register heeft een posting over Bill G. die denkt dat de pc de ICT industrie gaat overnemen:

Bill Jekyll has been giving halting, forgetful and obfuscating testimony on video, but it seems Bill Hyde is still available for funerals, weddings and bar mitzvahs, if reports of a lunchtime gig yesterday are to be believed.

Speaking at a lunch organised by the Manhattan Institute, which we understand is a libertarian organisation named after the eponymous Project, Gates was on the attack, predicting that the PC will inevitably take over the world. Sun's strategy, which Bill Jekyll had been having trouble wrapping his head around (Transcript), was just a sales slogan, while "the PC model has defeated every other model."

And there's more. The next battleground, said Bill Hyde, was on Sun's home turf. NT-based PCs would be taking on powerful Unix servers, and would prove that the PC could beat them. Gates modestly accepted that Microsoft hadn't yet proved that PCs could do this, "but we will. The PC model will take over the rest of the industry."

BXBoards heeft wat info over het vreemde beleidt van AMD om nog steeds 66Mhz FSB CPU's uit te brengen, terwijl 100Mhz inmiddels al lang standaard is bij Socket7 planken:

Addressing FAQ's on the AMD-K6®-2/300/333 at 66-MHz bus Why is AMD making the 300 and 333-Mhz processor available at 66-Mhz FSB?

AMD has produced the AMD-K6-2/300/333 running at the 66-Mhz bus to address the basic PC market. As the faster speed Super7™ processors such as the AMD-K6-2/350 become the mainstream, the 66-Mhz bus products are well positioned for the upgrade and entry-level market. The availability of these new products gives you an opportunity to address circumstances that are best handled with the older 66-MHz Socket 7 motherboards. As well, it gives upgrading users an opportunity to use their existing 66-Mhz EDO DRAM, and therefore offers overall system level cost savings.

For circumstances that require leading-edge technology and the high-end performance of the Super7 platform, it is recommended to use the AMD-K6-2/350 processor or faster.

What is the impact on performance when using the 66-Mhz bus as opposed to the 100-Mhz or 95-Mhz FSB?

While the performance of the AMD-K6-2/300/333 at 66-MHz will be a few percentage points lower than the standard AMD-K6-2 300/333 at the 100 or 95-MHz bus, much of the entry level market buys on clock speed and price, not purely benchmark performance. For most common business applications, this difference will not be very noticeable. However, if you are using the system for gaming or other applications requiring high performance, then it is highly recommended to use an AMD-K6-2 processor with the 100-MHz or 95-MHz FSB.

How can I tell the difference between the 100-Mhz FSB and 66-Mhz processors?

The unit will be marked as the following on the processor.

Part Processor Marking

300/100-Mhz FSB AMD-K6-2/300AFR

300/66-Mhz FSB AMD-K6-2/300AFR-66

333/95-Mhz FSB AMD-K6-2/333AFR

333/66-Mhz FSB AMD-K6-2/333AFR-66

Currently, the AMD-K6-2/300/333 processors at 66-Mhz FSB are not available in a boxed version, so any boxed 300/333-MHz parts will support the 100/95-Mhz bus speed. If future boxed product is intended for the 66-Mhz bus speed, it will be appropriately marked.

What motherboards support the AMD-K6-2/300/333 at the 66-Mhz bus?

All motherboards tested for AMD-K6 family should work with the 66 MHz parts as long as the bus jumpers are properly set for 66 MHz bus operation.

Andy van BXBoards heeft een review van Soyo's SY-D6IBA dual PII moederplank in elkaar weten te draaien.

Hier wat stuff over overklokken:

Unfortunately as an overclockers board, I found many stability problems while overclocking. While the SL2W8's ran flawlessly at 450, major stability problems were encountered when the P2-333'swere run at anything past 375. These CPU's have been the bedrock in the BXBoards Labs and have always run flawlessly at 4 x 100 - until now. I encountered many lock-ups and failures to boot. Indeed I often found that the BIOS settings would reset while attempting any speeds much past 375, with the board defaulting back to a 2x multiplier. The AGP clock is derived directly from pin b21, therefore a 1/1 setting is used when a 66Mhz CPU is forced to run at 100Mhz. According to a Soyo engineer I contacted about this, there is no hardware support for manually changing this setting - therefore pin b21 taping is necessary if you are planning to use an AGP card that will not run at 1/1 settings, which unfortunately includes TNT cards. I was able to run an i740 card sucessfully without taping.

Er zijn nieuwe drivers voor de STB V4400, die je hier kunt halen...

Gamespot heeft een review van Diamond's Monster Sound MX300 (die moet ik hebben).

Hier wat stuff over de playback kwaliteit:

Digital playback seemed quite clean. Cranking up the volume with nothing playing yielded no audible hissing. MIDI playback using the native Vortex 2 wavetable was surprisingly good. I'd been led to believe that the wavetable would sound essentially the same as the Vortex 1, but the one supplied with the MX300, at least, sounds much better. Acoustic piano sounds quite realistic, and the percussion sounds are tight. If there's a weakness, the horns have a bit of that synth sound to them, and the strings also sound like synthesizer strings rather than a real string section.

Hij wordt trouwens gebundeld met Half-Life, best wel vet!

Gamespot heeft een 3D buying guide in elkaar geknutseld, waarvan hier wat info:

The most common e-mail request I get is: What 3D graphics card should I get? This is closely followed by: Which 3D card is the best?

I wish the answer were simple, but it's not, and it depends on a host of factors. Do you have an older, Pentium-based system or a Pentium II? Are you eyeing a K6-2 upgrade, complete with a socket 7 AGP motherboard? Are you buying a brand-new system? What games do you play? All these issues shape the answer to the question about which card to buy. I'm going to tackle that question here, if only to reduce the amount of e-mail I get. I'm also going to cover how to add a card to your system, once you buy one.

Nog wat stuff van IGN.PC: een review van Heavy Gear II.

Hier een stukkie uit de review:

When Heavy Gear shipped last year, it was met with mixed reviews. While there's no doubt that Activision had done a good job of bringing Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear universe to life, to a lot of gamers it was small potatoes compared to the MechWarrior titles that Activision had released before. The title took players out of the 100 ton shoes of a 'mech and put them into the comparative slippers of a car-sized gear. Once finished, the team at Activision headed right back to the drawing board to help expand their new property and to show their old fan base that bigger isn't necessarily better. We managed to get a quick look at the game recently, and so far, things are looking pretty good.

Next-Gen heeft een review van Fifa 99.

Hiero een plak info:

FIFA 99 features all of the extra touches that you've come to expect from sports games: the capacity to play seasons in every major league around the world, multiple stadiums, the ability to alter and trade players, and enhanced modes of play. Where the game really breaks new ground is in the presentation of the gameplay itself. Simply put, this is as realistic as anything you're going to see for a while. The movement is totally fluid, there are great shadow effects, and the body language of the players is extremely well rendered. When a player is unhappy with a referee's call, it becomes obvious. Making a corner header takes on a much more realistic look as the players are now different heights. As well, the AI has been improved; players break for open areas well, the defense will attempt to cover holes, and the goalie shifts to give shooters the worst possible angle.

Quake II 3.20 final is uit, hier kun je het spul halen:

• q2-3.20-x86.exe   Quake II 3.20 Final. Win32 x86 Binaries 5MB
• q2-3.20-x86-full.exe Quake II 3.20 Final. Win32 x86 Binaries.
  Deathmatch maps included 12.5MB
• q2-3.20-x86-full-ctf.exe Quake II 3.20 Final. Win32 x86 Binaries.
  Deathmatch maps and CTF included 18.7MB
• q2src320.exe Quake II 3.20 Final gamex86.dll source code 455k
• roguesrc320.exe Quake II 3.20 Final Rogue Mission Pack
  gamex86.dll source code 700k
• xatrixsrc320.exe Quake II 3.20 Final Xatrix Mission Pack
  gamex86.dll source code 500k

Operation Sports heeft een review van Test Drive Offroad 2 het net opgekickt. Hier een stukke copy/paste over de graphics:

Even in 3Dfx mode, the graphics are nothing to brag about.  Have you noticed that I have not mentioned any 3D card other than 3Dfx?  That is because no other ones are supported.  The vehicles themselves are done well, but the tracks seem rather bland.  They don't look bad, just not done.  The worst case I can explain is that the clouds on some of the tracks look like they were cut and pasted in without worrying about blending from one picture to the next, almost like a collage you might have made from magazine pictures in school.   Obstacles in the game are a joke.  They don't interact with your vehicle at all, but rather just stop you.  Here is an example: racing on the beach in Hawaii with my Dodge Ram, I see a lifeguard stand.  I hit it head on at full speed and the only thing that happened was that I came to a complete stop.  I would have expected the lifeguard stand to at least budge.  Maybe it was really made of steel and anchored in?

Sharky Extreme heeft een paar screenshots van Unreal op een Voodoo3 bij 1600x1200:

So we've talked at length about the Voodoo3 (see related articles below) and now it's time to give you a quick look at how it displays Unreal at 1024x768 (Thanks Marty!). Feel free to take a look at the scaled down jpeg or if you want to actually view the shot as an original .bmp file then you can also download the 1MB image. In addition, surf over to Blue's News because he's got a shot of Quake II running at 1600x1200 on the same Voodoo3.

GamePen heeft een review van Plane Crazy, een of andere vaag arcade spelletje. Hier wat info:

Your plane is equipped with a Sonic Cannon. Shooter fans may be excited at the initial mention of this item, but in truth it cannot be used directly against the other planes. The cannon and its limited load of ammo are only useful against obstructions on the ground. You can still use it to disrupt the flight of your opponents, however, by knocking over scenery features (for example, you can knock over large rock outcroppings on the first course) and watching the rubble fall into the path of the planes.

Het kan niet op met de flightsims vandaag, nu een review van Fighter Squadron, kamikaze met WOII kisten:

Welcome into the skies a new WWII flight simulation, this time from Activision. There are several high quality flight simulations just released or currently in production. As it stands now, Fighter Squadron is looking to be a high-powered flight sim that will be able to compete with the other flight sims currently on the market. It has one major feature that the other titles don't have, and that is bombers. You are actually able to fly bombers on missions, and man their stations. There are a lot of features that haven't yet been implemented yet I'm sure, but the version I played was lots of fun.

Nog meer flightsims: CGO heeft een review van European Air War:

Earlier on this decade, 1942: Pacific Air War was arguably the most advanced WW II simulation of the time. Boasting a true virtual cockpit (complete with working gauges, no less) with a mouse panning feature, damage modeling that included wings actually breaking off when hit, and one of the first dynamic campaigns ever put into a prop-era sim, MicroProse had really pushed the envelope. For years fans had been clamoring for a sequel, and were in turn promised a return appearance with 1943: European Air War. Alas, for one reason or another, the sequel dragged on in development with no end in sight. It has finally been released, albeit with a slightly truncated name, in a market flooded with similar games. Yet in defiance of heavy competition from its modern counterparts, European Air War manages to uniquely distinguish itself in many important aspects.

PCME heeft een review in elkaar gepleurd van DiD's Total Air War.

Hier wat info:

Earlier in the year DID caused a little ruckus when they announced that Total Air War would now be a full boxed product at a full product price, instead of an add-on for F-22 ADF. Infogrames and DID changed their tune a little not long after by announcing a rebate offer for US F-22 ADF owners. Currently if you're an F-22 ADF owner and you purchase Total Air War from Infogrames here in the US you'll get $15 back plus a coupon for $10 off of Independence War.

So is Total Air War worth a full boxed product price? That depends on what you're looking for in a combat simulation, if you're tired of F-22 simulations by now and if you've already played-out F-22 ADF. The big draw for F-22 ADF pilots is the addition of fully dynamic campaigns, because there's ten of them.

They've also enhanced the mission planning capabilities by incorporating a bunch of new features like the Target Area, Assign Flights, Assign Targets, Weapons, Waypoint and Attack Pattern options. When combined you have a lot of in-depth mission planning capabilities at your fingertips, but it can be as in-depth as you desire or as accessible as you desire, because you can pick and choose the options you want to modify, while leaving the others set for the automatic AI selected

IGN.PC heeft een interview met Alan Patmore van Surreal Software over hun nieuwe spelletje Drakan.

Hier een stukkie gebabbel over de AI:

IGN: You've said the enemies should react with some intelligence, show awareness of each other's presence. Will we see monsters in a group that cooperates, retreat when wounded, or anything like that? How important is AI to create characters that feels real?

Patmore: Making the NPCs feel real and have character is something we are constantly working on. Essentially we have two different types of NPC behavior: air and ground. Air creatures obviously react completely differently to Arokh and Rynn than ground creatures. Additionally, AI behaves differently depending on whether they encounter Rynn or Arokh alone or together. Certain ground creatures will seek cover or flee when they see Arokh, but if Arokh is not around they will charge Rynn and attack.

AMD heeft een reaktie gepost op AnandTech's artikelen over de K7 en 3DNow vs Katmai New Instructions:

Ga'ash: "The second major improvement is that KNI can perform single instructions on multiple DOUBLE PRECISION floating point values. While double precision is not used that much in 3D games, the ability to do double precision SIMD style will virtually eliminate uses of the x86 FPU. (It is almost obsolete, since KNI can do almost everything the regular FPU can do, faster)."

AMD: No public disclosure of KNI has ever described such a thing. For example, KNI has not been reported to implementing a 2x64 bit SIMD mode. So I believe this is incorrect. Besides, if this were true it would probably be the most important improvement since it would totally obsolete the x87 FPU in all cases.

I contend that this is not true.

AMD: "This allows game developers to use the 8 64bit FP registers entirely for MMX, to optimize all their integer coding. This is impossible with 3DNow."

Ga'ash: MMX can always be used with 3DNow! The fact that the registers are shared doesn't seem to have affected any loops that we have come across. One thing that you fail to point out is that MMX instructions can be used to hack the single precision floating point format (for tricky BSR simulations, changing sign, exp/log simulations, masking etc.) Its not clear that KNI will have the same opportunities available to it

Gamecenter heeft een preview van Interstate '82 gepost.

Hier een plak info:

nterstate '82 is also touting more than a few new vehicles. The game's director, Zack Norman, emphasizes the continuity between the original and its sequel. "In terms of gameplay itself, it's not actually going to be very different from Interstate '76," Norman says. "We'll have all of the I-76 functionality and action, with more action-style gameplay, much faster frame rates, Quake-style combat environments, and weapons on par with any action shooter out there."

Norman's team is rebuilding what he calls the "Interstate experience" with new technology. Activision's I-82 and Heavy Gear II both use Activision's new 3D Dark Side engine, which has been heavily modified for each game. Norman downplays the similarities between the two games' use of the engine, explaining that a Mustang and Pinto are both powered by a V6, but there's no confusing them once they're on the open road.

Next-Gen heeft een review van Bethesda's Redguard, hun nieuwste vervolg in de Elder Scrolls serie van RPG's:

The Elder Scrolls series from Bethesda has often contained some of the most intense role-playing the genre has to offer. With Redguard, however, they've added the moniker "Adventure," meaning the stats-based RPG elements have been left behind, and what's left is a thoroughly enjoyable action/adventure of epic proportions.

You control a mercenary character called Cyrus as he returns to his old home of Stross M'kai after he hears his sister is missing. His search leads him through dangerous catacombs, up against evil necromancers, and even into other dimensions. Although the perspective is quite Tomb Raider-esque, the third-person view offers quite a bit of adventuring fun, from your typical "use this item with this object" puzzle to jumping challenges that require precision and skill.

nVidia heeft iets nieuws bedacht om de volgens hun superieure techniek van de TNT te promoten`:

NVIDIA™ Corp. announced today its High I.Q. program to identify, market and sell leading-edge software titles that take advantage of the advanced 3D capabilities of the RIVA TNT™.

The new program, which is co-sponsored by PC Gamer, STB Systems and Diamond Multimedia, is the result of the ``Raise Your I.Q.'' developer program launched in the first half of the year to assist developers with improving the image quality of their latest software titles. The High I.Q. titles are identified and sold via the NVIDIA software store found on NVIDIA's homepage (see separate release).

In addition to providing users with access to the hottest titles, the High I.Q. program rewards and promotes software developers that provide the best examples of the improved image quality now possible with today's RIVA TNT-based platforms.

Each quarter, a new list of the hottest High I.Q. titles will be identified by NVIDIA. All of these titles will use standard API's and will take advantage of NVIDIA's key product features, such as support for AGP Texturing, 32-bit color mode and the ability to achieve screen resolutions up to 1600x1200.

Zie deze press release.

3DGaming.com heeft een artikel gepost met een vergelijking tussen de Savage3D en de Riva TNT.

Hier ff het belangrijkste spul:

As you can see, the Savage 3D is a much faster card than the TNT in 3DMark 99.  Most troubling, is the TNT's relatively low fill rate in non-multitextured mode.  This may change as the TNT shrinks down to 0.25 microns, but we will have to see.  The lack of full AGP features, such as DIME in the TNT shows itself with the low rendering scores with larger textures.  The low scores for the smaller textures which fit into memory, are more difficult to explain.

Verder hebben ze nog 200 kilo aan 3DMark99 benchmarks.

Voodoo Unlimited Power heeft een interview met Bob White van Ion Storm over Deus Ex, die RPG die ze daar momenteel in elkaar aan het knutselen zijn.

Hier een stukkie:

6. Rumour has it that the attention to detail present in Deus Ex is taken to new extremes, with the Hong Kong levels proudly touting rats and litter, all enhancing the 'atmosphere', to what extent will such perfectionism affect the player, and what other delightful little touches will be present?

Once again, the idea is to immerse the player into as real an environment as possible so that things they would expect to happen in the real world, will happen here. If you throw a chair through a window in our game it will probably break the glass and if it falls to the street below, the chair might break and maybe it won't (Better chance of breaking the higher up you are). If you shoot into a crowd, the people will scatter and run, just like they would in the real world. There are many more examples, but that is enough for now.

Nec en Videologic hebben de eerste samples van hun langverwachte PowerVR 250 chippie gebakken. Het ding lijkt maar niet klaar te komen, hoewel er nu dus wat vaart in lijkt te zitten. Er worden inmiddels ook al Sega Dreamcast bakken verkocht met PowerVR gevalletje, dus dat ding zullen we binnenkort wel in de winkels mogen verwachten.

MaximumPC heeft er wat info over. Voor de fun copy/paste ik de hele zooi maar meteen helemaal:

3Dfx has already announced Voodoo3. S3's got its Savage3D. nVidia's current TNT technology is still hot. But with Dreamcast already selling like hot cakes at IHOP, NEC and VideoLogic are once again setting their sights on the PC space. And today, at long last, the companies announced they have started sampling their latest PC progeny--the PowerVR 250.

The PowerVR 250 (aka PowerVR Second Generation) is the latest chip in PowerVR's Series2 family. Although the PC part has been promised for well over a year now, part of the delay--which PowerVR officials deny--can be blamed on Sega's new Dreamcast game console, which uses a PowerVR 2-based chip in its graphics sub-system. But with sales of Dreamcast in Japan nothing short of brisk, PowerVR is once again getting ready to tango on the PC dance floor.

"The launch of of PowerVR 250, the first integrated 2D/3D PowerVR chip, completes the first phase of our cross-platform strategy for the second-generation technology," said Trevor Wing, vice-president of technology marketing at VideoLogic. "The future generation of our PowerVR technology is already at an advanced stage of development."

As stated, the new chip will integrate a 2D/3D core, will accomodate up to 32MB of SD/SGRAM, and will offer optimized support for Pentium II and 3DNow!. Specs include:

2D Engine

Full ROP, text, and line primatives

Multiple video windows

YUV to RGB color space conversion

Integrated 230MHz DAC

3D Engine

Tile-based, reduced bandwidth rendering engine

32-bit floating-point Z-buffer

200M-500M fill rate

Advanced texturing including anisotropic filtering and bump-mapping

Translucency sorting

Per-pixel loadable table fog

Specular highlights with offset colors

If you're looking for that much vaunted dual-graphics pipeline--a prerequisite for multi-texturing--NEC claims multi-texturing will be performed at the back end of the 3D processing pipeline. Whether this will be more advantagous than other designs remains to be seen.

Other specs include Direct3D and OpenGL blend modes, environment mapping, and TV-Video interfaces, including support for flat-panel displays.

"The impressive performance achieved by the PowerVR 250 has exceeded our expectations," said Charles Bellfield, product marketing manager at NEC, in today's press release.

Unfortunately, today's press release did not contain actual performance numbers. Maximum PC contacted PowerVR for more information, but were told "although the official numbers will be released shortly, they are not available at this time."

Volume production is expected in early 1999. No OEMs have yet been announced, but it's widely expected VideoLogic will introduce a retail part for under $100.