Ik krijg hier een mailtje binnen van iemand die zegt de Riva TNT 1.16 drivers te hebben:
Ik ben in het bezit van de aller-aller nieuwste driver de Nvidia 1.16 TNTJe kan hem halen bij mij op http://vgaal.dorm.org.
Ik heb 't ding niet uitgeprobeerd dus ik kan er niets over zeggen.
Hmm...dat hele PSN (Processor Serial Number) ideetje van Intel begint nu toch op een groot fiasco uit te lopen.
Een paar Canadezen zeggen een methode te hebben gevonden waarmee ze het PIII identificatie nummertje via een simpele ActiveX control naar boven kunnen frutselen. Hier wat info uit een nieuwsbericht op News.com:
Zero Knowledge's control essentially exploits the approximate 15-second gap between the time a Pentium III computer is turned on and exposes the processor serial number and when the software repair kicks in and covers it up.The control tricks the computer into crashing. Then, as the machine is rebooted, Zero's software grabs the number before the software utility has a chance to disable it again.
"It simulates a crash and could be attached to a virus, hidden inside an email attachment, shareware--anyway that people get hostile code onto your machine," Zero Knowledge president Austin Hill said. The ActiveX control grabs the serial code upon reboot, Hill said, and places it in a cookie file that can be read by Web sites.
Ondertussen blijkt dat de PSN functie 'per ongeluk' op sommige mobile PII's terecht is gekomen. Intel zegt dat het om een bug gaat, anderen zeggen dat Intel het bewust gedaan heeft:
Readers of The Register have since cried foul, accusing Intel of hastily covering its tracks "Special PSN codes and MSR.FEATURE_FLAGS indicating PSN don't get added by accident," said one reader.
The criticism continued: "If this was an accident then I'm supposed to believe that Intel is blaming this whole mess on a bunch of their own incompetent verification engineers."
Zie The Register voor meer info.
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Nieuwe Celeron zonder PSN serienummer Nieuws van 30 maart 2000
Nieuwe ALi busmaster drivers
ALi heeft nieuwe IDE busmaster drivers gereleased voor z'n socket7 chipsets. Je kunt ze hier pakken.
3Dfx interview
Hothardware heeft Brian Burke, een ventje bij 3Dfx/STB, geinterviewed. Hier een plak:
Davo - We have also seen that there are three core processor speeds, 143, 166, and 183. How much of an impact do the different speed bins have with respect to performance? Does the performance level directly scale with core speed? Is the 183 Mhz. Core 10% faster in most games than the 166, for example? Does the SGRAM on the 3500 correlate to a substantial boost in performance?Brian - Yes, the fill rate scales with the core speed. The -2000 operates at 143 MHz and produces 286 million texels ("megatexels") per second. It uses a relatively inexpensive package and does not require a heat sink in order to operate to spec. The -3000 operates at 166 MHz and produces 333 megatexels per second, while the -3500 operates at 183MHz and produces 366 megatexels per second. The SGRAM gives a little bump in speed, too, maybe 10%.
De rest vind je hier. Veel bijzondere info heb ik er niet in kunnen ontdekken.
ATI Rage Fury review
Thresh's Firingsquad heeft een review van de ATI Rage Fury. Hier een stuk over z'n performance:
he singletexture fill rate of the Rage 128 is about twenty percent higher than the TNT. The vast majority of games out there are singletexture, and it's going to be that way for quite a while, so this is an important number. Unfortunately, the Rage 128 seems to be slightly less efficient at multitexturing than the TNT. According to 3Dmark99, its multitexture fill rate is about twenty percent less across the board. One bright spot is that the Rage drops off somewhat less in speed less than the TNT at 1024x768, but it does not have the raw fill rate to realistically support any resolutions higher than that.
CIH 1.2
Uh-ow..... Coolinfo heeft wat geschreven over de 'new and nasty variant of the original CIH virus'
Lees dit:
CIH 1.2 is a file virus that infects Windows 95/98 EXE files, and infects your PC when the application is run. It's a relatively new and nasty variant of the original CIH virus, which first appeared in May of 1998, and received widespread publicity at the time. The original CIH triggers on the 26th of every month, but never became widespread. The latest variant, however, is considered to be common, and ranks 17 on Joe Wells' respected Wild List of viruses. CIH 1.2 is particularly nasty because it has what virus researchers call a dual payload. When it triggers, it first attempts to overwrite your PC's BIOS setup. This works only with a Flash BIOS that can be upgraded via software, and because there's no industry standard way of programming a Flash BIOS, CIH isn't always successful at doing its dirty work. But if it is successful, your PC won't start until the BIOS is reprogrammed. Whether or not CIH 1.2 is successful at overwriting the BIOS, what it does next is even worse. It overwrites your entire hard disk with random data, erasing all your data and applications.
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Nieuwe malware poogt bios te besmetten Nieuws van 11 september 2011CIH-virus binnenkort weer actief Nieuws van 20 april 2000
Soyo V6BE+ mobo review
Graig van Sharky Extreme heeft de Soyo V6BE+ moederplank aan een review onderworpen. De V6BE+ maakt gebruik van de VIA Apollo Pro chipset, die inmiddels que performance on par is met de 440BX:
We've tested Apollo Pro based mainboards before, and the results of the V6BE+ in our standard benchmarks were very strong. In fact, the V6BE+ ranked in the top five for both ZD-Winbench 99's CPUMark32 score and ZD-Winbench's Winstone99 score out of the last 12 Slot-1 mainboards we've tested.Performance never hurts a product's review, and the V6BE+ scores well in this area.
Verder heeft de Soyo plank Sofset, vergelijkbaar met Softmenu van Abit, alleen dan zonder de mogelijkheid om het voltage en de pci divider te tweaken.
Dungeon Keeper 2 review
Op Coolinfo vond ik wat stuff over de nieuwe Dungeon Keeper.
Once again, you are the evil entity behind the scenes, building the dungeons to lure in the hapless heroes and seeing that your minions finish them off. You have your creatures dig out the dungeons, set up traps, guard areas, torture and convert enemies, and many other fun activities that evil overlords can enjoy. You have to not only outwit and dispatch the heroes, but also deal with the competition of another entity bent on his own success, which is inevitably your defeat--there's only enough room in the world for one evil entity, pal. Your goal will be to collect gems that will finally enable you to leave the underworld for the great outdoors, where it's rumored that Dungeon Keeper 3 might take place.
The graphics are now all 3D-polygon-based, and the player controls a freewheeling camera that can zoom in, pull back, and roam anywhere on the level. As in the first DK, you can jump into and play a creature from the first-person perspective if you get the urge to bash directly.
Koel dus...
Elite P6BXT-A+ mobo info
Overclockers Workbench heeft wat info over een nieuwe plank van Elite waar je zowel een socket370 als een Slot1 CPU op kwijt kunt:
The P6BXT-A+ is designed with Intel 440BX chipset based on both slot 1 and socket 370 architectures. This dual design board is equipped with six expansion slots (4xPCI, 2xISA - 1 shared, 1 AGP slot) which provides users the generous expansion capabilities. The Intel 82371EB PIIX4E chip (South Bridge) provides this board the power management function which can fully support the advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI) specification. The on board chip Elite PCI Audio-CMI8338 can provide your system the outstanding HRTF-based 3D positional audio quality with four channel speakers and a professional digital sound audio interface as 24bits SPDIF IN (0.5V~5V) and OUT. The P6BXT-A+ is designed on an ATX (304.8mm*200mm) board with three DIMM memory modules which supports up to 768MB PC/100 SDRAM memory modulesOverclocker's Workbench heeft een foto van het ding.
Card Cooler review
Socket370.com heeft een review van de Card Cooler gepost. Het werkt effectief en is redelijk simpel na te bouwen:
I would have to say that the design is pretty simple, yet very innovative. They attach two 12-volt fans to custom-made metal holders. The metal holders attach to two PCI slots (that can be used by a board at the same time) and holds securely....de rest is hier.
Lees meer
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Streaming MP3 met Realaudio
Digital Bitcasting Corp. heeft een plugin voor de Realaudio player in elkaar geknutseld waarmee MP3'tjes gestreamd kunnen worden:
Bitcasting's server software lets webcasters stream MP3 audio over the Internet, allowing RealPlayer G2 users to play it without downloading or saving. This release brings streaming MP3 to 53 million potential users. In the past three years, that's how many have downloaded RealPlayer software and returned to their favorite Internet music site to catch the latest hits in RealAudio without having to wait for an audio download.The price of real-time gratification used to be less-than-great fidelity, forcing on-line music providers into an "imagine what it's supposed to sound like" business model. To improve fidelity, many sites turned to MP3, a digital audio technology delivering sound quality so true, it's hard to tell it's not coming directly from a CD player. The catch: it couldn't be streamed, so even RealPlayer listeners had to download it first.
Meer info vind je bij Coolinfo.
Need for Speed 4 screenshots
NFS4.com heeft 49 screenshots van the Need for Speed IV: High Stake op z'n site gedropt. De kwaliteit is matig, niet bepaald opwindend...
NFS4.com heeft ook een preview van NFS4, waarvan hier een hap:
Ten Open-Road tracks have been made for this series of Need For Speed which will include a random track event generator, in which the games AI will constantly generate random events on the track during the race, from traffic to neutral objects. With this new feature, no 2 laps will ever be the same. This is just another feature that makes this game so great. Weather conditions will also change during game play, and add for another factor to watch out for while speeding down the road.
IBM Linux servers matching Cray
IBM heeft vorige week op LinuxWorld Expo een "open-source supercomputer" gedemonsteerd die de snelheid van een Cray supercomputer benaderde. Het systeem van IBM was gebaseerd 17 Netfinity servers met 36 Xeon processors:
Using a subset of the Beowulf clustering technology, 17 of IBM's Netfinity servers containing 36 Pentium II chips and running an off-the-shelf copy of Linux matched the scalability and performance of a Cray supercomputer. The IBM system executed a computer graphics-rendering application called the PovRay benchmark.[...]In addition to the 17 servers, IBM used a 100MB Ethernet network and hub to connect the servers, and a piece of parallel computing software to ensure the system's computations all connected. As for the copy of Red Hat's Linux, IBM purchased it at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore the day before the demonstration
Dat klinkt ff stoer! Een Linux systeem van $150.000 laat een Cray supercomputer van 5,5 miljoen dollar in z'n broekie scheiten :)
Zie Infoworld voor het complete artikel.
Lees meer
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Glacier 4500C celery sandwich
Anand heeft een review gepost van de Net-n-Dude Glacier 4500C Arctic Cap Celeron Cooler. Dat klinkt groot, en dat is-ie ook: een dikke 4500rpm tripple fan heatsink op de voorkant en een
'normale' heatsink met enkele fan op de achterkant. Is allemaal errug heftig, maar werkt-ie ook?Was AnandTech's experience with the Glacier 4500C Arctic Cap combo a success? Well, it wasn't as big of a success as it was hyped up to be. The Glacier 4500C Arctic Cap combo did decrease the CPU temperature of AnandTech's 300, 333, 366, and 400MHz Celeron A processors by a noticeable margin, and it did manage to increase stability in those cases where the temperature of the CPUs approached the mid to upper 40's (ºC). Unfortunately, the combo did very little for the overclockability of AnandTech's ABIT BX6 Revision 2.0 test system.
K7 release in juni
AMDZone heeft info die bevestigd dat de release van de K7 in juni zal plaatsvinden. De K7 dus niet gedelayed?
I'm pretty sure the the June release date on the K7 is going to be a reality. I have read that the chip may sell for as much as $2K! Ouch! Well, for those prices, you can count me out. My pockets are only so deep, ya know?...k'weenie hoe betrouwbaar deze info is. Anders van 4Gamers.net suggeert dat de K7 geïntroduceerd zal worden op 650Mhz, met een prijs van rond de 2000 dollar (!).
Banshee reviews
Extreme Hardware en the High Performance PC Guide hebben beide een Banshee review uitgepoept. Bij Extreme Hardware betreft het de Quantum3D Raven en bij THPPG de Gigabyte GA-630. Over de Banshee is inmiddels zo'n beetje alles wel gezegd (V2 core, 1 TMU, trager dan TNT enz.), dus hoe onderscheiden de Banshees zich onderling?
By now, you're probably wondering exactly what the Raven has to offer compared to all the other Banshee boards on the market. From a pure design standpoint, the Raven is a basic 3Dfx reference design with no enhancements beyond what you'd find in any competing vendor's product. The heat sink is exactly the same as the one on the Guillemot Phoenix and Skywell TwinPower cards and offers adequate, if unspectacular cooling. The memory found on the Raven is somewhat of a performance trade-off,especially if you're into overclocking. While most vendors chose to include 8 ns/125 MHz SGRAM, Quantum3D decided to go with 10 ns/100 MHz SDRAM with the Raven. The Banshee's basic clock rate is 100 MHz for the chip and 100+ MHz for the memory speed, so with the Raven your overclocking options will be severely curtailed. Although overclocking the Banshee doesn't really yield that much of a performance edge, those who do want to take the plunge would be better served with one of the Banshee boards equipped with 125 MHz/8ns SGRAM. What the Raven does offer is a great price and an excellent game bundle, along with a company name that is familiar to gamers.De Gigabyte kaart is verder net zo'n droog reference design als alle andere Banshee kaarten. Wil je het fijne weten, dan mot je ff langs gaan bij THPPG en Extreme Hardware.
Monster MX300 review
Een late MX300 review bij Adrenaline Vault. Op de message boards duurt de MX300 vs SBLive battle onverminderd voort en uiteraard kon ook in de review van AVault een vergelijking niet uitblijven:
While A3D 1.0 on earlier Vortex 1 boards worked its magic best on a set of headphones, 3D positional audio is much improved on the Monster Sound MX300 with the A3D 2.0 improvements, especially with a four speaker configuration. The Monster Sound MX300 matched Creative Labs' Sound Blaster Live! game-for-game with a four speaker setup, such as the PCWorks FourPointSurround. In addition, the real-time environmental effects in games such as Half-Life seemed a little less exaggerated with the Monster Sound MX300. The difference is somewhat subtle, similar to over blurring of 3Dfx cards doing bilinear filtering; you don't notice it until you see it done differently on a RIVA TNT board.
Rechtszaak tegen Buy.com
Wie regelmatig langsfietst bij AGN 3D of Anand's BBS kan zich vast nog wel het prijsgestuntel bij Buy.com herinneren. Die maakten een paar week geleden een 'ongelukkige' typo waardoor een 19" Hitachi voor 164,5 dollar (400 dollar onder de juiste prijs) in de prijslijst terecht kwam. In no-time verspreidde het nieuws zich en kreeg Buy.com 1400 orders, waarvan er uiteindelijk maar 150 voldaan werden.
Een aantal kopers die hun order gecancelled zagen worden hebben nu een rechtszaak aangespannen tegen Buy.com. Hier de info van Wired News:
A group of consumers filed a class-action lawsuit against Buy.com alleging that the online superstore failed to fill orders it had already charged to credit cards.The suit was filed in Orange County, California, late last week by a group of customers who organized online to voice their complaints.
"They took the orders and charged the cards, then unilaterally canceled those orders," said Gary Sodikoff, the Santa Ana, California-based attorney behind the suit.
Mechwarrior III preview
CGO heeft een preview gepost van Mechwarrior III: rond stuiteren met dual potige robo's:
In MechWarrior 3 the player is a member of one of the Inner Sphere's Houses, leading a series of commando strikes against Clan Smoke Jaguar. Smoke Jaguar, one of the most ruthless factions, was infamous for initiating the orbital bombardment of cities in the early years of the Clan invasion. The game will feature a linear single player campaign with twenty canned missions, a series of training missions, an instant action mode, and multiplayer matches. The game will ship with eighteen pilotable 'Mechs. As in MechCommander, salvage will give the game a rudimentary form of resource management between missions; you'll collect bits and pieces of destroyed enemy units to upgrade your own vehicles.
Daikatana demo op vrijdag
Gamers.de heeft wat info bij Ion Storm los weten te peuteren over de release date van de Daikatana multiplayer demo. Morgen gaat 't gebeuren:
amers.de wollte es ganz genau wissen, wann das Mplayer Daitakana Demo endlich released werden würde. Und hier ist das Statement von Producer Kelly Hoerner:Should be online at MPlayer by Friday!
Kelly Hoerner
Producer
Dazu passt auch die Meldung, dass John Romero bekanntgab, dass das Daitakana Turnier nun doch auf der Extreme Annihilation stattfindet, da viele "angry E-mails" das Exrtreme Annhilation-Team erreichten! Alle wollten wenigstens mal Daitakana sehen!
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John Romero wil 'mmog-achtige shooter' maken Nieuws van 6 april 2012
Nieuwe VoodooDoctor
BGR Software heeft een nieuwe versie van VoodooDocter gereleased. Hier wat info over dit handige Voodoo tweak proggie:
- TweakIt add-on (TweakIt version 3.0.4 or higher required for this feature). NOTE: VoodooDoctor does not require TweakIt to run, only if you want the add-on capability.
- Supports Voodoo / Voodoo 2 / Voodoo Rush /
- Direct3D / Glide reference drivers
- Add any video card, display, sound, etc. drivers to the VOODOODR.INI file for custom backup and restore
- Supports Windows 95 / 98
- Built-in direct support for Diamond Monster / Monster II
- File version checking for backup and restore
- Selective backup and restoreHet ding kun je hier neer halen.
Savage4 preview
3DGaming.com heeft een preview gepost van de S3 Savage4 video accelerator. De specs (140Mpix/s fillrate, multi-texturing, max 32Mb RAM) en met S3 Texture Compression heeft de Savage4 een unieke feature:
he first thing we were shown was S3TC in action. However, rather than simply using the typical Unreal Demo Levels, we were able to see S3TC being used in a preview build of Unreal Tournament. For those who are unfamiliar with UT, the game will ship with over a gigabyte of textures in uncompressed format and thanks to S3TC. The first performance increase was the high-color textures. The standard Unreal Tournament textures are 8-bit palletized and consequently there is inclusion of unusual green and red pigments found on what are supposed to be metallic walls. With S3TC, however, the color gradients were much finer and naturally sharper due to the larger size. More importantly, though the compressed S3TC textures were larger than the default textures, the Savage4 was running Unreal Tournament faster.
Digital I/O card voor SBLive
Ziet het er voor de Live gebruikers dan toch eindelijk iets beter uit... als ik dit goed begrijp kun je dus straks toch digitaal van je Live! VE genieten.
[..] this week is the arrival (finally!) of the Digital I/O card for the Sound Blaster Live! and Sound Blaster Live! Value. It addsan additional pair of SPDIF inputs and outputs, an optical input and
output, and a Digital DIN connection to multi-speaker systems.
It will be ready for sale within one week from Creative. You can get
all the details on our web site at: