Sharky Extreme heeft een artikel gepost met de AMD CPU Roadmap. Hier wat info:

The following information was accurate as of January 15th, 1999. As per the usual, any information contained within the roadmap is subject to change, particularly towards the latter part of the roadmap (more than 6 months away).

Since some of the months in the AMD 1H/99 roadmap show miniscule changes from the month preceding them, we're displaying the two most important months in the roadmap: March and June along with the first month of 1999, January.

In March of 99 we see the arrival of the first bulk quantity of K6-3 CPUs, and in June (according to AMD's optimistic map) the K7 500 debuts. All of the other AMD CPUs are accounted for within the three months including Intel's comparative offerings.

Interestingly enough, AMD's roadmap accurately predicts the arrival of the Intel Celeron 433 in March, before Intel officially announced it (on 2/3/99). Makes you wonder eh?

Tennmax heeft een Xeon koelertje gebouwd. Handig als je nog ergens zo'n systeempje hebt staan en 'm wat hoger wilt klokken:

The Lasagna XEON Cooler, only 15 mm (0.59 inch) in height, is an active thermal solution for Intel's powerful processor. TennMax extends its patented integrated fan/sink technology to create this new unique cooler for the Pentium II XEON processors by Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC - news). The patented slim multileaf layer design with an embedded fan produces an active cooling solution with an extraordinary large surface area for heat dissipation, while keeping the cooler size to a fraction of conventional fan plus heatsink combination.

This Lasagna XEON Cooler is so compact that it fits perfectly for dual or qua XEON processor configurations in a business server. Lasagna Cooler is a much quieter cooler as compared to the conventional fan and heatsink solutions.

Picture and basic specifications of this new TennMax Lasagna XEON Cooler can be found here.

Ook AGN 3D heeft review van Turok 2 in elkaar gedraaid. Hier heb je er een stukje van:

Although Turok 2 has the capability to run at a fairly respectable resolution of 1024x768, I found the quality of the textures to be severely lacking. The textures are very low resolution even in comparison to older games like Quake. Combine these bland textures with Turok 2’s strange scale and you have a very disorienting game experience.

Another feature highly touted about this game was the supposed quality of the monster models. They claim to have such features as “bulging muscles and wrinkling skin”. I personally never saw such attributes; instead they look like low detail models with decent skins. The models are so low detailed that the various body parts such as arms and legs are visible as separate segments instead of a smoothly connected body. As well, the models of the players in Multiplayer deathmatch were shockingly bad. Faces were painted on to square heads and the detailed skins of the monsters were nowhere to be found on these shoddy models. Instead, there were a dozen or so models to choose from with such names as Turok and Campaigner and the choice of color (to denote teams if any) tinted the skins accordingly. What this resulted in, was junky looking, low detail models that look like pink bunnies and blue Smurfs. Gimme a break.

In nederland dus.... tuurlijk, via paralel import kon je hem al wel krijgen, maar nu tenminste ook met de nederlandse importeur garantie van Hastec. (het beste puntje van een Diamond...)

Vanaf deze week leverbaar: De Diamond Monster Sound MX300

Een absolute topper op het gebied van geluidskaarten met een perfecte 3D ondersteuning door het gebruik van de A3D techniek in combinatie met 4 speaker support. Daarnaast biedt deze kaart ook Dolby Digital (AC3) ondersteuning voor DVD playback!!

Voor alle zwaar gedesillusioneerde SBLive gebruikers: zie www.hastec.nl voor de specificaties

ik denk wel leuk, maar ja: Diamond heeft altijd problemen met drivers gehad in mijn ervaring... wie hier iets over wil zeggen zie ons forum
Nou vraag ik me alleen af: hoe is dit te rijmen met eerdere geruchten dat de MX300 al weer uit productie is??

Tijdens de hoorzittingen van gisteren kwamen nog meer problemen naar voren met de video die volgens MS moest bewijzen dat een het verwijderen van IE4 niet mogelijk is zonder schade aan het besturingssysteem.

WASHINGTON -- Microsoft Corp. promised to redo a controversial videotape demonstration after government lawyers exposed five more errors in the tape during Wednesday's proceedings in the landmark antitrust case.

The presentation purportedly showed problems in a concept program government witnesses said would separate Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser from Windows 98. But by the time the day's session was up, the tape suggested something else, too: the problems, in fact, were in the presentation. Department of Justice officials will be present when the demonstration is re-shot Wednesday night.

Lijkt erop alsof M$ in de rechtszaal dezelfde truukjes probeert toe te passen als in het zakenleven

GoodNoise heeft een licentie gekregen van de National Music Publishers' Association om mp3 songs aan te bieden op het internet. Dat gebeurt nu natuurlijk ook al, maar dan illegaal.

Under the licence, the number of songs downloaded from GoodNoise and affiliated sites will be regularly totalled and, on the basis of that figure, a so-called 'mechanical licence' fee will be paid to the HFA a large proportion of which will then be passed on to publisher of those songs.

A mechanical licence specifically permits the duplication of music onto a physical medium (the current legislation counts digital delivery as physical duplication), as opposed to granting a public playback licence.

Essentially, the agreement between the HFA and GoodNoise establishes that fact the MP3 is as valid a music delivery mechanism as CD, LP and cassette. GoodNoise says it was already paying mechanical licence fees to its 15,000-odd music publishers on an individual basis -- what's important about the new deal is that it plugs GoodNoise, and thus MP3, into a major part of the mainstream music industry.

De staking bij LG Semicon duurt nog steeds voort, maar er is hoop dat deze binnenkort beëindigd wordt. De stakingen kunnen een negatieve invloed hebben op de DRAM prijzen, dus ook voor ons is het van groter belang dan je wellicht zou denken. Hier wat info uit een nieuwsbericht van The Register:

Hopes are rising that LG Semicon workers in Korea, who have been on strike since the 24th of January, will shortly return to work.

The trade unions walked out as a result of uncertainty over their future following a decision to merge LG Semicon with Hyundai Electronics.

Asian reports said today that a resumption of work may happen as soon as the 6th of February.

LG Semicon has decided to award its workers a "special bonus" in the hope that will bring them back to make DRAMs.

PC.IGN heeft een interview gepost met Brian Reynolds van Firaxis, het nieuwe bedrijf van Sid Meier waar ze nu aan het knutselen zijn met Alpha Centauri. Hier een vraag uit het interview (met een vet lang antwoord):

IGN-PC: So how did you go about creating the future in Alpha Centauri? What did you guys do? Describe the process. Where was it done ...?

Brian Reynolds: First of all, up until now every game we’ve ever done before now has been about history or some kind of historical topic, so we were the history game guys. We feel like we know a lot about history and we’re good at doing history games, but we thought it would be fun to try a different kind of game, a science fiction game.

But rather than just kind of doing Star Trek or Star Wars science fiction, let’s try to do a future history, where we take things we’ve learned about doing history games and things that are cool about history and try to project them into the future. So that’s the core idea.

Another important idea was that we wanted to do it in kind of a broad based way, we don’t want to just get stuck on physics and lasers and you know, the biggest weapon, but we wanted to have a kind of broad picture of future society, future economics, future values and future philosophy. Pretty much all areas of the spectrum. We’ve got our technology tree and it's true to the style we’ve been known for. It’s kind of an interwoven holistic ... You can’t just study one area and get all the way up to the biggest gun without learning about anything else. So you can kind of push harder in one area and in another area, you can kind of choose your priorities.

Our motto for the game, I guess, is “explore, discover, build and conquer,” and the governments in the game, the automation in the game and the tutorials in the game kind of emphasized those choices. The exploring aspect revolves around finding new territory and expanding into it and learning about the planet and learning about the alien biology of the planet. We don’t have like little green men walking around, but we do have not only an alien ecology but a little bit of mystery to the planet and some things to learn about it as you learn about the neural network and so forth.

Om de verwarring nog wat completer te maken komt Alpha Processor Inc. met Slot B. Slot B is zo'n beetje te vergelijken met wat Slot2 voor Slot1 is. Dus nu hebben we:
- socket7 (K6, MII, Winchip)
- socket370 (Celeron)
- Slot1 (PII, Celeron)
- Slot2 (Xeon)
- SlotA (Alpha, K7)
- SlotB (Alpha)

EBN heeft een artiel met info:

Like the “Slot 2” connector used by Intel Corp., Alpha Processor Inc. has developed a “Slot B” interface to allow the Alpha chip to further increase its performance.

The Alpha 21264 microprocessor includes a different connector designed to allow the Alpha to move to higher clock speeds, but also includes larger amounts of cache memory, the company announced yesterday. API announced volume quantities of the 21264 in both 500 and 600 MHz versions.

This will allow the Alpha chips to gain additional share in the workstation and server market, said Y.J. Kim, director of product marketing at API, Concord, Mass. However, Kim declined to release technical details of the new connector. “Slot A is similar to the Pentium II and Slot 1,” Kim said. “Slot B is similar to the Pentium II Xeon.”

Both the Slot 2 and the shorter Slot 1 connector were designed to use Intel's P6 bus; likewise, the Slot B interface uses the same EV-6 bus that other Alpha chips use.

Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices has also included the EV-6 bus inside its forthcoming K7 chip, which can plug into the older Slot A connector. A spokeswoman for AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif., declined to comment on whether a version of the K7 will be designed to plug into the “Slot B” connector, although sources close to the company indicated that competing in the higher-performance workstation and server market was not AMD's top priority.

As part of the consent agreement allowing the Intel/DEC deal to be completed, the Federal Trade Commission mandated that Samsung and another supplier manufacture the Alpha chip. AMD owns the rights to use the EV-6 Alpha bus, but its ongoing negotiations to license, and then manufacture, the Alpha chip itself remain in limbo.

Gamepro heeft een klein beetje info over de Sony Playstation 2.

There's been some PlayStation 2 action here in Japan. Most of the large third-party PlayStation developers have received specs for the PlayStation 2. Actually, pretty rock-solid information. More of a rumor is that it *will* come with a DVD drive. Fairly solid is the fact that the developers are more impressed with the PSX2 specs than with the Dreamcast. The best guess I've dredged up that's been somewhat substantiated, is that Sony is waiting for the release of FF8 and Dragon Quest 7 before announcing PlayStation 2 specifics. Square and Enix are both hoping for huge sales with these titles, and an announcement of the PSX2 would cut into sales, both of software, and of the recently price-dropped hardware.

Intel heeft de release van de 433MHz Celeron gepland op 15 Maart, aldus dit nieuwsbericht op ZDNet:

Following closely on the expected late-February release of its 450MHz and 500MHz Pentium III, the Santa Clara, Calif., company plans to ship a new 433MHz Celeron on March 15, according to sources. The processor was originally scheduled for release in the second quarter.

A 466MHz Celeron is expected to follow later in the first half.

Both new chips are expected to utilize 66MHz system bus architectures, sources said. They will join the 366MHz and 400MHz desktop and 266MHz and 300MHz mobile Celerons introduced in January.

Coinciding with the new 433MHz chip, Intel (INTC) will drop prices on existing Celerons by 15 to 20 percent, sources said. A 400MHz Celeron using Intel's 370 pin plastic pin grid array package, for example, would fall in price from $158 to about $120, the sources said.

Ik zag op CPU Central wat info over Census Computers die "pre-wired" dual Celeron systemen gaat verkopen. Dan hoef je dus niet zelf te gaan knutselen om de MSI MS-6905 socket370 riser card hier geschikt voor te gaan maken:

Our friend Peter has convinced Census Computers to sell "pre-wired" versions of MSI's MS-6905. They will do all of the necessary modifications to the card to allow dual Celeron operation. This is a great deal for people who are interested in creating a dual Celeron system but are not confident enough to make the modifications themselves. The pre-wired card is not listed on their page, however, you can call them at (626) 839-2838 and ask for Michelle, if you are interested. The price is $20 US.

Wij hollanders hebben hier waarschijnlijk niets aan, maar het idee is uiteraard leuk. Misschien een handige handel hiero in de polder die dit wil gaan doen?

Europress heeft weer een paar nieuwe screenshots van Rally Championship 99 gereleased:

Alle 48 screenshots kun je hier bekijken.

Game Over heeft een review van Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Het is de bedoeling om weer net ze hard dino's af te gaan knallen als in Turok 1, en dat schijnt na een tijdje nogal te gaan vervelen:

Turok 2 is a perfect example of a game that should be great but just isn't. Its full of neat innovations like a sniper bow, cerebral bores, battle-triceratops and other tiny things that greatly add to the gaming experience. Somehow though, the designers forgot to add in one other neat little feature: a fun game. A NOTE TO ALL DEVELOPERS: It is no longer acceptable to make a 3d game where you run around pulling switches, shooting everything that moves, and picking up keys (Unless you happen to be ID Software, those no-goodniks). Every level in Turok is basically the same thing...you run around, pull some switches, get really lost, pull some more switches, free some prisoners or something to that effect, then run around some more until you finally get really mad and use a cheat code to get to the next level. Seriously, I finished the first 3 levels (which are huge in both a good and bad way), and it was one of the less pleasant experiences of my life. After that I did what any rational person would do and resorted to cheat codes. I pride myself on never using cheats or walkthroughs, but there’s a point where a mans gotta draw the line, and Turok 2 draws that line fairly early on.

Gamepower heeft een review gepost van Simcity 3000:

So what's new with this latest version? Well, for starters, there's the graphics. While it still has that same grid-based design, never has SimCity looked so detailed or nicely rendered. There are more than 350 3-D rendered buildings (as opposed to SimCity 2000's 80), and you can now zoom in closer than ever before. You can see individual pedestrians going about their meaningless little lives and driving their cars to their meaningless little jobs. While they aren't quite so involving as, say, the characters in Settlers III, it's still a surprising bit of voyeurism that adds tremendously to the feeling that this is indeed a living, breathing city of your own design. The new interface also is a big improvement over the functional menus of SC2K.

Anand heeft een review van de Shuttle HOT-649A dual PII moederplank uitgepoept. Het ding heeft onboard SCSI en support voor een hele range busspeeds, dus ideaal om een dual PII/Celery systeempje mee over te klokken:

The 649A features Shuttle's latest 150MHz clock generator allowing for FSB speeds of 140/150MHz to be achieved, as well as unique "in-between" settings such as 115MHz and 120MHz for those users that are primarily viewing the 649A as a possible workstation motherboard, with overclocking as a possibility.  The FSB settings and clock multipliers can be controlled entirely on the motherboard itself through the use of a few good ol' jumpers (we all remember what those are), however Shuttle does allow for an automatic configuration of the CPU clock multiplier through a single jumper block as with most of their newer BX boards. 

Een hele berg screenshots vandaag. GA Source heeft er twee van Unreal Tournament. Hier de bijbehorende info:

Alan B. Lewis from GT Interactive Software, sent us the following 2 new screenshots from their upcoming first-person multiplayer action/adventure, Unreal Tournament.

Unreal Tournament offers new styles of multiplayer action, including deathmatch and team-oriented modes of play, as well as an enhanced version of Unreal's critically acclaimed Botmatch, which allows players to compete against lifelike computer-controlled enemies in deathmatch play. In addition, Unreal Tournament's enhanced artificial intelligence allows players to lead a squad of computer-controlled allies against teams of human or computer-controlled opponents, taking the team-oriented game play experience to a new level of immersion.

Unreal Tournament is scheduled for an April 1999 release. Be sure to check out Unreal.com for more information.

Matthew van AGN 3D heeft een editorial gepost over console emulators, piracy en dat soort spul. Hier een stukje over de UltraHLE emulator waar deze week zoveel opwinding over was:

Last Thursday, two programmers going by the handles of Epsilon and RealityMan released what they called a "tech demo". However, what they unleashed was a little bit more than a mere tech demo. What they unveiled last week has revolutionized the field of console emulation and has sprung forth a world of controversy. Their program UltraHLE or Ultra High Level Emulator has done something that the programming world thought impossible. In little over three months these two programmers have produced a technology which in its infancy dwarfs any other N64 emulation ever created. With the minimal system requirements of a Pentium II 233, 32 MB Ram and a Voodoo accelerator card (Glide is required for the emulation to work), N64 games can now be fully played on your PC via ROM files. Although at this point only 30 titles are functional at this point with the emulator, they are 100% working. In fact, it not only looks better than the N64 console, on high-end systems it plays faster than the N64 itself. With the minimal system specs you can play Zelda64 @ 640x480 with a speed of roughly 30 frames per second. Upgrade that Voodoo1 to a Voodoo2 and the resolution jumps to 800x600 with no loss in speed. If you have Voodoo2 SLI you can run at an amazing 1024x768. On a p2-450 with 128mb of ram and Voodoo2 SLI we are talking framerates of 40-50 Fps @1024x768. Not only are the graphics outstanding, UltraHLE also includes full save/load capabilities and full joystick and gamepad support (albeit via your joysticks key-mapping program).

3D Audio Immersion heeft een review van de Labtec APX-4620 speakers in elkaar gedraaid. Erg fijne test hebben ze daaro om te bepalen of de speakers goed zijn...

Forget the technical blah blah and let's get to the point.  I have a test cd I use to determine value in speakers.  I call it the "Make it or break it' CD and I'm happy to say that the 4620s passed with flying colors.  Featured on my "MTBT" cd (make it or break it) are various tracks of varous music by various artists.  Some songs have incredibly loud bass while others have incredibly annoying treble.  I left the 4620s at a high volume level, put in the cd, set it to repeat cd, and left the house for 2 days (went to see relatives for Christmas so I was out of town).  Now, with the volume setting that high up, some speakers would blow up or have been destroyed.  The 4620s were still thumping when I got back and I was happy with that.  So if you want dependable, just look here.  Music sounds great on these speakers by the way.  Bass music thumps nicely, rock will make your ears bleed, and even WinTV sounded great while watching TV.

Van Abit hoeven we geen super seven moederborden meer te verwachten. Het staat keihard in de FAQ op hun site:

oes ABIT® have a Super 7 Board?

Although at the re-launch of the project we felt the Super 7 market was still a viable market for us, as the window for a robust market entry has recently closed we felt the project was in danger on not being able to be supported by the current Super 7 market. So as of Jan. 20th 1999, ABIT® has dropped our SK5 Super 7 project. In addition, ABIT® feels that the future trend for the new Socket 370 market looks good. ABIT® deeply regrets any confusion or disappointment in relation to the project. We will continue to work with all architectures and provide the most innovative and wide selection of boards for the computer industry. For any questions please contact: market@abit.com.tw

Voodoo Extreme heeft 4 hi-res screenshots van Quake2 (1600x1200) en the Need for Speed 3 (1024x768) op een Voodoo3.

AGN 3D heeft 16 screenshots van de S3 Savage4 met een speciale versie van Unreal met ondersteuning voor S3TC texture compression. De screenshots zien er behoorlijk vet uit, vooral die met grote textures op korte afstand zijn erg gedetailleerd. Voorbeeldje:

OGR heeft een review van de Hercules Dynamite TNT in elkaar gegooid. Zoals uit andere reviews (en m'n eigen ervaringen - ik heb er zelf ook eentje) is gebleken behoord de Dynamite tot de top van de TNT kaarten. OGR is ook positief, hoewel ze (zoals met al hun hardware reviews) verder weinig bijzonders te vertellen hebben:

At only $130-$150 the Dynamite TNT is a fantastic TNT-driven product for gamers looking for a true AGP 2X part that's based on the nVidia TNT technology. It's just as fast as the competition's TNT boards, it costs less, because you're not paying for a bundle, and it offers a cooling fan and superb driver support. There's just really not much more to want in a 16MB TNT-driven solution. The only feature this board is missing is TV-Out support, but since most gamers don't always have a TV in close proximity to their PC; it's a feature most gamers won't be missing.

3DRealms heeft een paar nieuwe screenshots van Max Payne op het net geduwd.

Ars Technica heeft een artikel gepost de frequency lock en hoe Intel die op z'n CPU's zou kunnen bouwen. Er staat ook nog wat info in over de werking van de multiplier lock en Tom's #B21 trick. Ook wel interessant is dit stukje over de overclock protectie op de Xeon:

Intel has a pretty sane way of providing the consumer some protection against buying remarked, overclocked Xeons. Each Xeon has a processor information ROM (PIROM) built into the processor substrate. This PIROM is electrically programmed at the factory to hold details about the chip's core type, core stepping, etc. There are 16 bits at offset 16h in the PIROM that store the processors maximum core frequency (in MHz). So if you want to know what the speed your Xeon was rated at, just check that number.

It seems to me that if Intel is as serious about stopping illegal overclocking as they are about robbing every last shred of privacy from their customers, then they'd just do something like this with the PIII, instead of that ridiculous CPU serial number.

Als Intel het remarken van z'n CPUtjes wil voorkomen dan lijkt me de bovenste methode het eenvoudigst. Overklokkers kunnen dan gewoon hun gang blijven gaan, maar vervalsingen komen meteen aan het licht...

Verder nog wat stuff over de bus lock:

I personally don't think "bus locking" will ever really be feasible. By a "bus locked" processor, I mean one that simply won't operate above a certain core frequency. The problem with locking the bus frequency is straightforward: today's CPUs really don't know at what frequency they're operating. They simply have no way of telling. They just operate at some multiplier of whatever frequency they get on their BCLK pin. If you want to bus lock the CPU, you've got to add circuitry to it somehow to detect what the current bus frequency is and stop the presses if that frequency exceeds a certain amount.

Microprose heeft een patch (v1.04) uitgebracht voor Falcon 4. Hier de bijbehorende info:

The Falcon 4.0 version 1.04 patch is available for downloading! The Readme file details the complete list of fixes. We've addressed problems with crashes, AI, ATC and more.

Who should install version 1.04?

If you primarily play in single player mode or multiplayer games over a LAN, we recommend updating to version 1.04.

If you primarily play Internet games, your mileage may vary. Tactical Engagement and Campaign seem to suffer more from network latency. We have found that connections seem more stable if the network host is NOT the game/session host. Match Play scoring can be affected.

Je kunt het 5,4Mb grote ding hier (east-coast site) en daar (west-coast site) van de server trekken.

Gisteren kwam v1.0.4 uit en vandaag zitten we alweer aan versie 1.0.5. Hier de laatste toevoegingen aan dit handige overklok proggie:

- TNT Direct3D Fog Table Emulation Enable/Disable

- Interface clean-up. Some bits were slightly different from others. You'd be hard pressed to even notice!!

- Matrox main selector

- Banshee clocks now go up to 120Mhz

- Fixed TNT DX6 Enable/Disable bug (that no-one noticed!!)

- HUGE code optimisations. You'll notice the file size of the 1.0.5 executable is now 276kb, compared to 364kb with 1.0.4. Not bad considering I have added features and taken none away. Some really clever code runs the sliders now

Je kunt het dingetje hier downen