Westwood Studios heeft een Kerstcadeautje voor Dune 2000 fans: nieuwe multiplayer maps en units. De gratis add-on kan gedownload worden door verbinding te maken met 'Westwood's online multiplayer service'. Hier wordt het spel automatisch ge-update.

In de add-on zitten tien nieuwe multiplayer maps "which feature new terrain tile sets like bridges, Freman statues and deserted villages"... In de add-on zitten ook 3 nieuwe units: "the grenadier and an anti-infantry unit for the Atreides, The Sardaukar - an elite Harkonenn infantry unit, and an Ordos scouting weapon". De add-on kan ook gedownload worden vanaf http://www.westwood.com.

Even wat info die ik vond op Cool info (die hadden het weer van ene Next Generation) over de 'Nintendo 2000':

In an interview with Japanese news source Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nintendo chief Minoru Arakawa has revealed some details of Nintendo's next move. With Dreamcast out and Sony clearly plotting its next generation, Nintendo has finally begun to make the rumblings of its next generation.

In an interview reported in Japan the other day, Arakawa-san revealed that Nintendo's next generation might not "use cartridge ROM, as with the N64." He elaborated that the N-corp is "currently researching all types of media to determine what is most suitable, including DVD."

The new system "must and will far outperform the N64, so it's going to take some time for us to produce." In fact, Arakawa was clear to state that the system will not be ready until 2000 or 2001. We're guessing 2001 is the more likely of the two.

Yamaha SW1000XG soundcard.
__________________________

Digitally Integrated MIDI tone generator and audio board on a PCI card!

source:Yamaha-XG.com en DTM Magazine,Japan.

Simply speaking, the SW1000XG combines the functionality of XG's compatible tone generator, the MU100R, with digital audio editing functions. In other words, it provides an integrated music production system with MIDI and digital audio on a single PCI card.

It's noteworthy that this is the first XG tone generator to provide digital Output. Until now, if you wanted to make a CD-R of music that you produced, or if you wanted to use an external effect device to process the sound, the pristine sound from your tone generator had to first be converted into analog audio. In other words, the digital audio from the tone generator had to pass through a D/A converter, and then once again trough the A/D converter of your soundbord. This meant that some degradation in audio quality was inevitable. However on the SW1000XG, you can use not only the sounds of the MU100R but even add one of the plug-in boards that are compatible with the new MU128, and output the entire result completely in the digital domain or save it as a wave file.

When using this card to produce music, you can use not only MIDI sounds, but also sampled vocals, guitar, or drum loops, and convert each part into a wave file independently.

And if you use this card in conjunction with Yamaha's "DSP Factory", you can take advantage of the same digital mixing environment as on the Yamaha 02R didital mixing console, used in professional recording studios around the world.

Dan ook nog maar even wat humor. Ik vond een berichtje in nl.humor waarin wat unpublished Windhoos errors stonden. Ik quote het bericht hieronder even neer:

Subject: Winhoos?
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 00:35:59 +0100
From: "M.G.Visser"
Organization: News Service
(http://www.news-service.com/)
Newsgroups: nl.humor


The unpublised errors

WinErr


001 Windows loaded System in danger
002 No error Not yet
003 Dynamic linking error Your mistake is now in every
file
004 Erroneous error Nothing is wrong
005 Multitasking attempted System confused
006 Malicious error Deskview found on drive
007 System price error Inadequate money spent on
hardware
008 Broken window Watch out for glass fragments
009 Horrible bug encountered God knows what has
happened
00A Promotional literature overflow Mailbox full
00B Inadequate disk space Free at least 50MB
00C Memory hog error More RAM needed. More! More!
More!
00D Window closed Do not look outside
00E Window open Do not look inside
00F Reserved for future mistakes by our developers
010 Unexplained error Please tell us how this happened
011 Unexpected error Huh?
012 Keyboard locked Try anything you can think of
013 Unrecoverable error System has been destroyed.
Buy a new one.
Old Windows licence is not valid anymore
014 User error Not our fault. Is Not! Is Not!
015 Operating system overwritten Please reinstall all
your software. We are
terribly sorry
016 Illegal error You are not allowed to get this error.
Next
time you will get a penalty for that
017 Uncertainty error Uncertainty may beinadequate
018 System crash We nare unable to figure out our own
code
019 Timming error Please wait. And wait. And wait. And
Wait
01A Reserved for future mistakes by our
developers
01B Error recording error codes Additional errors will be
lost
01C Virus error A virus has been activated in a dos-box.
The virus, however, requires Windows. All
tasks will automatically be closed and the
virus will be activated again
01D Mouse not found A mouse driver has not been
installed.
Please click the left mouse button to
continue
01E Error buffer overflow Too many errors encountered.
Additional
errors may not be displayed or recorded
01F This will end your Windows session. Do
you want to play another game?
020 Time out error Operator fell asleep while waiting for
the
system to compleet boot procedure
021 Insufficient Memory Only 50,312,583 Bytes availeble

Ik weet niet zeker of ie goed overkomt (vanwege Netscape's vage c&p), maar ik probeer het toch maar...

Even de best verkochte PC spellen op een rijtje:

1. (-) A2 Racer II

2. (7) Need For Speed 3

3. (1) Dune 2000

4. (2) Commandos

5. (-) Knights & Merchants

6. (4) Creatures

7. (3) Competitie Manager 98/99

8. (-) Colin Mc Rae Rally

9. (-) Ceasar 3

10. (-) Monaco Grand Prix

Ik wil hier even in het kort de specs van de nieuwe gameboy color gaan plaatsen. Misschien interreseert het niemand een ruk, toch plaats ik het... :-)

OK, eerst de specs van de oude Gameboy, en daarna van de nieuwe:

De originele Gameboy specs:

Schermkleuren : 4
Palet : 4
CPU snelheid : 1,05 MHz
werkgeheugen : 8k
videogeheugen: 8k
Seriële communicatie snelheid : 8kbit/s
max ROM grootte : 8 Megabit

---

De Gameboy Color specs:

Schermkleuren : 56
Palet : 32.768
CPU snelheid : 2,1 MHz
werkgeheugen : 32k
videogeheugen: 16k
Seriële communicatien snelheid : 512kbit/s
max ROM grootte : 64 Megabit

En nou maar hopen dat mijn broertje dat ding gaat kopen ;-)

Ik heb gisteren de PU weer in de bus gekregen dus nu ga ik even de inhoud (de belangrijke inhoud eigenlijk) hieronder dumpen.

voor de PC:

- Carmageddon 2

- Grim Fandango

- Thief, The Dark Project

- en veel meer natuurlijk

voor de PSX:

- Tomb Raider 3

- S.C.A.R.S.

- en meer

voor de N64:

- Buck Bumble

- NBA Jam 99

verder nog wat stuff over de Gameboy Color (zet ik straks misschien nog even wat specs van neer) en nog wat over de '3d oorlog'. Volgende maand is de PU vast weer dikker. Ook staat er dan een SimCity 3000 review in (als Maxis op tijd klaar is). Ik zal dan proberen een paar screenshots te plaatsen...

Hier een korte samenvatting uit JC's PC News:

Overview
--------
The K7 is the first of the "seventh generation x86 microprocessors", in that it offers features found in no current x86 processor designs and promises to run faster, even at the same MHz speed, than any x86 processors out today. It is designed to compete in performence with other 7th generation processors, such as the Intel Willamette and Foster (due out mid 2000) and the Cyrix Jalapeno (early 2000). The most touted feature of the K7 is its 200 MHz bus, but it has several other features, some possibly more important, that set it above current 6th generation processors.

Extremely large L1 cache:
The K7 doubles the cache once again to 128k. This may not guarantee that the performence of the chip will effectively go up a speed bin, but it could have the effect of removing danger from memory-related bottlenecks.

Awfully variable L2 cache:
The K7 will, like the PII, have L2 cache on a cartridge near the sillicon, but not integrated on top as with the K6-3. The slight difference between the two is that K7's L2 cache will be a bit more changeable. Initially, the L2 cache will be running at a third of the speed of the processor. It is suggested that AMD will have later versions at full, and possibly half speed. The size of the L2 will range from 512 k, in the consumer model, to a whopping 8MB on the hihgest end server model! (I believe the best 6th gen server chip, Xeon, is currently limited to 2MB configurations).

Clockspeed:
At Comdex'98 the latest K6 core offering was at 400MHz, while the latest K7 core offering ran at 500MHz. It is conceivable that they could reach far higher seven months (or so) from now, when the K7 is finally debuted.

Chipsets:
AMD created their own chipset for the K7, but has little problem with the idea of other companies making K7 chipsets. AMD's low-cost chipset consists of the Northbridge "Irongate" and the Southbridge "Cobra". The demo K7 shown at Comdex used this chipset on a motherboard suspiciously named "Gomez".
Acer Labs was also announced by AMD, in the same press release wich announced VIA's similar effort, to be making a K7 chipset.

Motherboards:
A heavy rumour began to circulate that ASUS had committed to making Slot-A mobo's. This has not yet been confirmed. FIC has very close ties to VIA, so will likely be one of the front runners in the race to produce a Slot-A motherboard.

The Plan:
The K7 will debut at 600MHz. The K7 is superpipelined, as the incredibly overused term goes.

The Worries:
The L2 cache speed is a little on the low side. Indeed, the L2 of the PII-450 runs at a higher clockspeed than the K7 at 600MHz will. Ofcourse, the L1 cache may make this a trivial problem.

Potential Futures:
The EV6 bus speed is spec'd to eventually reach 400MHz. So it will not take serious reengineering to produce a 400MHz bus K7 in the future.

The Slot-A platform has an inherent strength in being as proprietary as 3DNow!-that is, as soon as Slot-A is debuted fully, nearly all other cpu makers will be permitted to produce processors for these motherboards.