Abit heeft een nieuw BIOS voor de BX6-II. Je kunt 'm hier halen.

Riva128 heeft nog info over de Leadtek TNT2 kaart die zij hebben weten te bemachtigen:

I also have been looking at Guillemot's Xentor 32 meg TNT2 and notice they list the core in theirs as running 125MHz compared to the 150MHz that LeadTek's WinFast S320II 32 meg will be shipping at.  Pretty interesting reading there.  Especially how this pre-production card has been stable for several days at the boosted 175MHz core speed.  They do list there memory in the Xentor running at 183MHz of SDRAM compared to LeadTek's 160MHz SGRAM but you have to wonder how much that will help.  The 16 meg Xentor memory speeds are set to run at 166MHz on SDRAM as compared to Leadtek's WinFast S320II 16 meg which is default at 170MHz using SDRAM.

After reading that the so called Ultra TNT2 cards may be a while in arriving in the markets due to the availability of higher memory and cleaner core's, it looks like LeadTek will have the kickass RIVA TNT2 card right out of the gate.

Aureality heeft een interview met Ben Davis van Xitel op z'n site geparkeerd. Xitel heeft met de Storm Platinum een mooi alternatiev voor de Diamond MX300 (beide Vortex 2), maar wat maakt de Xitel beter?

en: The Storm Platinum offers a broader range of high-end features than any other soundcard currently on the market. Powered by Aureal's potent Vortex 2 processor, we provide the necessary API support and hardware power demanded by the latest generation of positional audio games. The inclusion of a TOSLINK optical S/PDIF also sets us apart from the competition. This output provides a huge amount of flexibility for digital connect to MiniDisc recorders, amplifiers, and DVD players. The benefits of this link are only now being realized as people begin to experiment with its functionality and I believe the potential of the TOSLINK will only continue to grow as vendors release software taking advantage of it.

Check het interview voor meer info.

Riva 3D heeft een review gepost waarin de 3D performance van de K6-3 en K6-3 met TNT2 en Voodoo3 met elkaar vergeleken worden. Hier een stuk over de QII benchmarks:

Unfortunately, I was unable to test the 3D NOW! enhanced 3DFX mini GL as it appears that it breaks when running under the V3, so I had to resort to running the normal 3DFX mini GL. Consequently, I also ran the regular OpenGL driver for the TNT-2, as opposed to the 3D NOW! OpenGL provided by AMD. What these scores show is that the K6-3 runs 20-25% faster than a K6-2. A very nice speed increase indeed. I'm very anxious to see what the numbers will be with 3D NOW! enhanced drivers.

Mozilla Milestone 4 is uit. Je kunt 'm hier van de mozilla.org ftp site neerhalen. Ik heb 'm ff geprobeerd en hij is zeer snel en veel stabieler dan vorige alphas.

Rambus Inc. heeft vandaag bekend gemaakt dat er voor 1999 geen winststijging te verwachten is. Uiteraard is dat allemaal te danken aan de gedelayde Camino chipset:

The company had hoped 1999 would prove to be a banner year. Having worked with Intel since late 1996 promoting Direct Rambus DRAM -- a high-speed memory technology for use in next-generation Pentium-based Pcs -- Rambus was about to see its ship come in. Several of its licensees in the DRAM market were expected to bring Direct RDRAM to volume production, and many industry analysts were forecasting Rambus chips to account for a significant percentage of all DRAM shipments this year.

However, the delay of Intel's Camino chip set, which allows the Direct RDRAM memory chips to communicate with the processor, has frozen Rambus' short-term market opportunity.

[...]With the Camino launch date now pushed back to September, Rambus said it expects volume shipments of Direct RDRAM to begin in earnest in December, with royalties from licensees to follow by March.

AnandTech heeft een review van de Enlight EN-7308 MicroATX mini tower. Niet interessant voor power users & overclockers:

With the advent of microATX, a form factor with inherent expansion capabilities, a slightly different set of design goals arose. As the name implies, the microATX form factor is designed for low cost and with small sized systems in mind. Expansion is definitely not a top concern on the motherboard and this is reflected in case designs as well. But it certainly is nice to have a tiny computer when space is limited.

Following Enlight tradition, there are cases to fit just about any OEM's or user's needs, including those looking to put together either a low cost or compact system by using the microATX form factor. Providing a compromise between minuscule size and some expansion options is the Enlight EN-7305 series. The EN-7308 is the first available in that series, with others in the series varying only in terms of the front bezel design.

Jeremy van AGN Hardware heeft een review van de Viewsonic P815-3 op z'n site gekickt:

The P815-3 has what is the best looking display that I have ever seen on a monitor. Ok, I admit I have not seen very many 21" monitors, but from what I have seen it looks good. With resolution support of up to 1800X1440 at 75Hz, this monitor should even keep the pickiest graphics professional happy while truly thrilling gamers such as ourselves. I run the monitor at 1600x1200, and it is rock stable with every card I have tested it with. Even cards such as the TNT, which looked muddy at higher resolutions on other monitors look much better with the P815-3. With a little bit of coaxing I was able to raise the ante to 1800x1440, but everything got smaller then what I prefer. Image quality was still great, but little text is something that I do not like to look at. Needless to say the fact that you can support that resolution at a respectable rate is a definite plus for those of you looking for the best monitor for CAD or 3D design. Web design even gives you plenty of extra room to play with on the monitor, a definite plus.

Avault heeft reviews van de 52x en 40x TrueX CD-ROM drives. Hier een stuk over de performance van beide drives:

If I were to describe the 52x TrueX in one word, it would be "faster." The 52x TrueX seems to do everything that the 40x TrueX drive did, only faster. In appearance, the two drives are identical, save for the "Powered by ZEN" graphic being printed on the front panel, versus a decal. Once again, careful system planning is a must if you want to get the most performance out of the EIDE drive.

The same overclocked Celeron system was used for the 52x TrueX testing. Real-world file copies were even faster than the 40x TrueX, with the 553,008 KB Brood War file copying over in a minute and 17 seconds. This comes out to 7 MB/sec, or the equivalent of a 48x speed. I also performed the same test with a CD-R copy of the same disc which matched the time within a second or two.

Diamond heeft de MX25 upgrade card voor de Monster Sound MX300 als pre-order op z'n site staan. Hier wat blablah van de Diamond site:

Monster Sound MX25 is an exclusive upgrade to the popular Monster Sound MX300. It is designed for entertainment enthusiasts who want superior and exceptional digital audio from their PC at an affordable price. An advanced member of Diamond's award-winning Monster Sound family, the Monster Sound MX25 offers S/PDIF output for the ultimate in home theater experience from the PC. Combined with Software DVD support and an AC3 capable external audio decoder with a surround sound speaker system, it gives full 6 speaker (5.1 Channel) audio support. Monster Sound MX25 is the superior solution to complement a home theater entertainment system.

- Experience the quality of Dolby Digital home theater systems for a fraction of the cost

- Full Digital Output

- Output to 6 output speakers (5.1 Channel) for a fully immersive theater quality experience

- Exceeds PC+98 advanced audio performance requirements

- Software DVD Included

- Maintain a high quality digital data stream with gold-plated connectors

- Record to any SPDIF (coaxial) compatible device for true digital clarity

Bij Sharky Extreme hebben ze een review van de Gigabyte GA-BX2000 moederplank. Het ding heeft 2 BIOS chips, voor het geval er eentje uitvalt, wat soooo vaak gebeurd:

ow excuse us if we can't see the logic here, but frankly we were having a tough time understanding the need for this "technical innovation".

The staff at Sharky Extreme has tested over 75 mainboards during the past two years. We've done everything from overclock them to nearly double their intended speeds, to soldering and removing limiting components on the boards, to applying temperature reducing devices that reach near a negative 50 degrees C. Also, during the course of testing and whatnot, we've also downloaded or flashed various mainbord BIOSes hundreds of times over that period, at least twice a week on average.

The point of this diatribe is that never once, not one time, have we fried or wiped a mainboard's BIOS by accident.

Now call us talented or lucky (most likely not in that order) or whatever you want to call us, but don't tell us we need two BIOS chips on our plain jane regular system boards because we'll tell you that we don't.

Afgezien van het nutteloze DualBIOS zitten er geen bijzondere features op de GA-BX2000. Geen speciale busspeeds, geen SoftBIOS, niets.

FullOn3D heeft een overclockers guide bij elkaar geknutseld. Er zit gewoon weer de bekende info in (busspeeds, multipliers etc.). Hier wat info over voltages en gate switching:

The gates in the CPU are based upon transistors which are used as switches (as opposed to amplifiers, as you may have learned in school). When they have less than a certain treshhold voltage applied they are closed and when more than a different, higher voltage treshhold is applied, they are open to let electricity flow. The different treshholds are used to keep a "neutral zone" in between that is a safety margin.

To faciliate the switching, an electric charge has to be driven out of the circuit or a charge has to be built up, quite simply spoken. The effort is the same in each case.

The higher the voltage applied, the faster you drive out the charge/build up the charge and the faster the switch operates. Also, the smaller the charge, meaning the smaller the capacitance in the circuit, the faster it switches, that is why chips based on smaller circuitry can run faster (.25 vs. .18 micron process) and need less voltage to do so, making room for higher clock frequencies to use up the thermal leeway.

FPS 3D heeft een review gepost van de Trident Blade 3D. Nu staat Trident al sinds z'n bestaan bekend om de uiterst trieste performance van hun videokaarten, en de Blade 3D doet het niet anders. Wat dacht je van 6 frames per sec in Quake II op 1024? Woeha!

De beeldkwaliteit schijnt om een of andere vreemde reden wél goed te zijn:

Obviously the first game I popped in for visual testing was Direct 3D Half Life. The deep reds, blacks, golds, and blues were the very first thing my eyes latched onto. With Half Life's 24-bit color support, it really showed off the Blade 3D's True-Color Rendering ability, rivaling or beating the nVidia Riva TNT. Although there was a minor rendering defect when you whipped around fast in which polygons were dropped from the screen for about 100 milliseconds, this is easily something Trident could fix before their impending release.

Ik kwam via AGN 3D bij deze textfile waar uitgelegd wordt hoe je dat irritante Netscape Netcenter uit je Netscape Messenger kunt slopen. Erg handig.

Firingsquad heeft een press release van Sierra over de aankondiging van Half-Life: Opposing Force. Half-Life rouleert, vooral in multiplayer, dus dat post ik ff:

Sierra Studios proudly announces that it will release an official game expansion for the highly celebrated 3D action thriller, Half-Life, this fall. Half-Life: Opposing Force (a.k.a. "Op For") is the official game expansion for Half-Life, the game named the 1998 "Game of the Year" by over 40 publications worldwide. Half-Life: Opposing Force is being developed by Gearbox Software for Sierra Studios.

In Half-Life: Opposing Force, players return to the Black Mesa Research Facility to engage in an entirely new episode of single player action and will be offered an enormous variety of new multiplayer content. Gamers play a soldier this time around, instead of Gordon Freeman. Having the option of playing on the opposing force, the player will experiment with a host of new military, experimental and alien weapons. Also a key feature will be to battle a fierce new alien race as well as interaction with more human characters. Finally, in addition to the extensive new single player experience, gamers will compete in new multiplayer maps designed by industry all-stars.

Volgens dit nieuwsbericht op the Register denkt Intel dat z'n Willamette dubbel zo snel zal worden als de K7:

Following hot on the heels of AMD’s tragic Q1 results, Intel is twisting the knife by showing OEMs performance predictions stretching out until late 2000 featuring a Willamette IA32 processor rated at 1100MHz competing with an AMD K7 at a paltry 666MHz.

No specific figures are quoted, but graphs pitting the rival chips against each other show the Willamette 1110MHz scoring around the 50 mark in Winstone98 against the K7 666MHz at 35. On SpecInt95, Willamette reaches 43 against the AMD part’s 20.

[break]Hoe ze aan die benchmarks komen terwijl de processors nog niet eens bestaan? Check ook de reactie van JC:[/break]

Intel seems to have managed to grab Winstone and Spec scores from the K7. The Winstone score they state for the K7 is far below previous rumoured scores, and the spec scores haven't been published yet (and word has it that if they've been done at all on the final revision models, it'd have to have just completed recently). We're trying to figure out where Intel got the time machine from which they obtained the benchmark scores.... In case you're lost here, the article is bunk -- I just wanted to point out the fact that this is the first time in possibly all of microprocessor history that Intel has included AMD products in their future roadmap comparison graphs.

Logitech heeft Linux drivers aangekondigd voor al z'n digitale game controllers. De info van Coolinfo.com:

Logitech is one of the first companies to have released hardware specifications and given assistance in developing Linux human input device drivers," said Vojtech Pavlik. "I hope that this will set a new trend."

"Logitech's WingMan gaming group is focused on offering products that make computer gaming more fun and that are designed to help gamers play better," said Fred Swan, director of marketing for Logitech WingMan products. "Gamers should be able to take advantage of these products on the operating system of their choice. We're very pleased that, with the excellent work of Vojtech Pavlik, Linux gamers can now do so."

In keeping with the spirit of Linux, the source code and documentation for the drivers is available free from Vojtech Pavlik's web site (http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~vojtech/joystick).

This source code can also be used as a base for independent developers of drivers for other operating systems. The devices which are supported by this driver include: Logitech WingMan Extreme Digital joystick, Logitech WingMan Interceptor joystick, Logitech WingMan Warrior joystick, Logitech CyberMan 2 six-degrees of freedom controller, Logitech WingMan Formula racing wheel with pedals, Logitech WingMan Gamepad, and Logitech Thunderpad Digital gamepad. Logitech's PS/2 and serial mice and trackballs have been supported in Linux for over a year. Current Logitech USB mice are supported in new developer releases.

Dansdata.com heeft een grappig artikel gepost over hoe je je pc zo snel mogelijk kaduk krijgt...

Leaving one fastening screw still done up in the corner and then attempting to wrench off the case may cause significant damage to the metalwork, but this is generally easily bent back into shape and not very expensive to replace. You can do better.

Fortunately, there is a plethora of computer case designs, and a gratifying number are fiendishly difficult to take apart and, especially, reassemble. To maximise the chance of damage, ignore any locking tabs and slots, don't worry about pinching cables in the case, and make sure you push really hard.

When replacing screws, remember to tighten everything as if the computer were a major structural component of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Overtightening screws increases the chance of reaming the heads, and the extra frustration involved in removing super-tight screws increases the chance that someone will give up and turn the machine over to a professional. Use of an electric screwdriver makes screw destruction easy for anyone.

Webmonkey heeft een preview gepost van Gecko, de nieuwe super compacte layout engine van Netscape. Hij's ook nog eens 100% compliant met de W3C CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) en DOM (Document Object Model) standaarden:

Don't just take my word for it - try it yourself: Download the preview version of Gecko (be sure to read all the disclaimers) from Netscape's DevEdge site. Unzip it onto your desktop and then run the apprunner.exe file you'll find hiding a few folders down from the top level. Start your surfing with a test page that our friends at Verso created. It's an especially complicated CSS page that not a single browser we've ever tried could render properly. Navigator 4.5, IE 5, Opera, and others draw the boxes everywhere but where they should be. Gecko, however, renders the page exactly as it should. If Gecko can parse nested CSS parameters like this correctly, it can probably handle any of the simpler page layouts most of us need in order to build our sites. But that doesn't mean it's ready to roll.