Ik lees op BXB dat er een nieuwe versie van Motherboard Monitor is, waarin de problemen met BX6-II planken zouden zijn gefixed:

am the author of MBM, you might know it. It was the 1st program to support the diode in the new intel cpu's. This worked fine on about 75% of the Abit BX6 rev2 boards. Today I got a mail on how to fix the remaining 25%. I hope you can use this news for your page since I get many mails about this and it's a hot subject for the owners of those boards.

Je kunt MBM hier neerhalen.

3D Soundsurge heeft framerates lopen benchen onder Half-Life om te zien wat het performance verschil is tussen de (oude) Monster Sound, Monster Sound MX300 en SBLive. De resultaten zijn nogal dramatisch...

f we compare the scores without wavetracing we can see that the Live outperforms the MX300 with 18% and even the Monstersound outperform the MX300 with 7%. We can also see that $20 Trident card performs amazingly well. This is a surprising low score for the MX300. If we look at AudioBenchmark scores with 16 3D streams the difference between the Live and the MX300 is only 1% (3% CPU hit for the Live and 4% for the MX300).

Gamer's Alliance heeft een review gebakken van Actua Soccer 3. Belangrijkste vraag is uiteraard: hoe doet-ie het in vergelijking met EA's Fifa99?

n the venerable PC soccer tradition, there have been the EA SPORTS' FIFA series - and then, far behind, all the other software miscreants. With Actua Soccer 3, Gremlin Interactive's title has deservedly gained a release from the realm of gaming mediocrity. While unpolished edges in the game keep it a few votes shy of "technical excellence," AS3 is quite good, challenging and -- perhaps equally important - now the only genuine alternative to Fifa 99. Clearly, the weight of the evidence still favors FIFA 99, but those of the PC footie persuasion - particularly those with fast systems -- may do well to pencil-in Gremlin's team into their gaming calendar

Gefixed :)

Mark Reind heeft info over Unreal patch 224 gepost op de Unreal Tech Page:

ut we're not quite there with 224 yet.  The guys have been beating on internal test versions for the past few days, and we've been polishing the code.  It's both a blessing and a curse that the Unreal code is evolving by leaps and bounds, gaining major new features all the time.  This approach makes testing each new patch a major effort.  Though, 224 will be especially worth the effort because of the in-game server browser and level-of-detail optimizations.

224 will probably happen late this week.

Weer leuk nieuws bij The Register, waar ze nog ff doorzeuren over dat Mindcraft report van vorige week woensdag:

t's quiz time - why does Hotmail use Apache? Hotmail is the free email service owned by Microsoft, so why isn't it using IIS?

It's a good question, and there's an easy answer: Microsoft would desperately like to run Hotmail with NT/IIS but when it tried to switch over, it failed. And if Microsoft cannot get NT to scale, nobody can. Hotmail runs off FreeBSD, is on version 1.2.1 of Apache - and runs on - Solaris servers. Another factoid is that Microsoft is a web site management customer of Exodus Communications (CEO Ellen Hancock, late of IBM and Apple - where she was CTO until Gil Amelio, er, left).

All this rather undermines the arguments that Microsoft's research collaborator Mindcraft has been using about the superiority of NT over free software, and Microsoft's own claims that NT is ready for the enterprise.

Oja, nog meer leuk nieuws: volgens Netcraft is het marktaandeel van Apache in maart geklommen naar 55%, terwijl WinNT zakte naar 23%. (BDW: Tweakers.net is Apache powered).

Home of Lost Circuits heeft de Asus P2B-F moederplank gereviewed. Hoe zit 't met de grote concurrent van de BX6-II?

There is nothing about the Asus P2B F (PCB Rev1.10) that is glorious. It only has 4 PCI slots and the layout is solid but not great. Does that sound like a bad start? That exactly is the problem in trying to capture the real spirit of the P2B, since it is nothing short of ordinary.

Still, if we now look under the covers, the situation changes, in that without any doubt, the P2B is the most stable mainboard that money can buy if one allows for the exception of the MSI6163. No matter what system configuration was tried, e.g, moving the memory into different slots, even using lower grade memory, there has not been one hint of a problem. All of this is accomplished without raising the voltage above the 2.0V standard or changing the V I/O. The best indication may be that, out of approximately one hundred Celerons tested, all reached their maximum stable clock speed at stock settings without modification or pin taping on the P2B, whereas the same CPUs required 2.2 or 2.3v on the BH6 or BX6 and, even then, often failed to reach the clock speed expected from their performance on the P2B.

Hardware Upgrade heeft een CD-ROM comparison in elkaar gezet waarin 3 EIDE drives (AOpen CD-948E/AUK, Asus CD-S500/A en Pioneer DR-944) vergeleken worden:

Pioneer player is far better than other two players, with an average speed of 11x; in general these aren’t high levels as other players can achieve higher extraction speed; the quality of tracks is always good.

All three players are good to correct reading errors; only Asus CD-S500/A had some problems in reading the external tracks of some supports which made the speed to slow down and consequently a decrease in performance; in some cases it was necessary to eject the support and insert it again to complete the reading.

Review Zone heeft een RAM guide in elkaar gefixed. Het is best wel goede info voor het geval je niet helemaal up-to-date bent op RAM gebied. Hier wat soep over latency timing:

It’s easy to visualise DRAM in terms of a spreadsheet: cells, rows, columns, the works. Bits of information are stored in rows and columns. The speed at which you access a single row of RAM is called Row Access Strobe Latency (RAS Latency) while the speed at which you access a single column of RAM is similarly called Column Access Strobe Latency (CAS Latency). Obviously, the lower the rating, the better. CAS Latency ratings differ between chips, but that doesn’t mean it’s a hardwired feature. It varies depending on the bus speed you’re using: that is, a chip with a CAS-2 rating at a 66MHz bus speed may have to go at CAS-3 if used at a 100MHz bus speed lest you experience instability.

Extreme Hardware heeft een zooitje TNT2 kaarten bij elkaar gezet. Er staat weinig info bij, gewoon een overzicht van de kaarten die we kunnen verwachten (Diamond, Guillemot, Elsa, Asus, Leadtek en Hercules). Hier een stukkie over de Asus V3800, die onze comrades van Comptech World binnenkort in de prijslijst hebben:

Now I don't want to get too excited over a new product, but the ASUSTek AGP-V3800 seems to have it all. 32 MB of SGRAM, TV-in/out and a nifty cooling fan for the overclockers in the crowd. If ASUSTek can get some serious distribution on this card, the other companies had better watch out.

- Memory: 32 MB SGRAM

- Price: Unknown

- Included Software: Video Capture and Playback Software

- Game Bundle: TBA

- Extra Features: Option for Virtual Reality (VR) -

- Stereoscope, TV-in/out

AVault heeft info over Duke Nukem Forever. Persoonlijk lijkt me die nog veel koeler dan Half-Life (waar ik inmiddels semi-verslaafd aan ben - vandaag weer 8 uur zitten mp-en ). Hier de woorden van George Broussard, ventje van 3DRealms:

Recently, we got in our main menu interface and the inventory interface,” he said. “We can now program and drop in inventory items and guns at will and have a system for selecting and using them. This directly affects gameplay.”

When questioned about the status of the overall design, Broussard commented, “The design has been decided upon since last year. All we have been doing lately is fleshing things out. Each of the map designers operates from a level script that details the flow and what will happen. There is always room for new ideas, but we stay within the basic scripts. We understand, level for level, where our hero will be and what he will be doing. Essentially, we have a near completed blueprint of the game. We are now in the process of constructing it."

Broussard also said the technology is 90 percent complete. “The remaining technology falls into two classes. Technical things to fix in the way the engine operates and implementing new technologies. We recently completed our bones-based animation system, and it's in the game using our motion captured data. We do have one more piece of significant technology we have created to implement in the game, and no, I'm not discussing it,” Broussard finished with a grin.

Als alles een beetje meezit wordt Duke4ever dit jaar nog gereleased.

Riva3D heeft een paar screenshots waarin de image quality in Kingpin vergeleken wordt op de Voodoo3 en TNT2. Het is duidelijk te zien dat de TNT2 een betere kwaliteit heeft. Check 't hier.

WickedPC heeft een review van de 3Dfx V3-3000 gepost. Ze hebben ook een plak info over 32-bit vs 16-bit (lijkt me wel handige info, ook ivm de reacties op deze newsposting):

The Voodoo2 was plagued by great performance, yet lower visuals than its competitor, the TNT. The TNT had better visual quality in games, but lacked the high framerates. This is where the TNT gets put to shame by the Voodoo3. Although the Voodoo3 does not do 32bpp rendering, its 16bpp rendering was great. Personally, I don't think 16bpp makes much of a difference over 32bpp visually, however there is a great number of people out there who will disagree. My theory on this is that the games are to be played. If you take a screenshot in 16bpp and 32bpp and blow it up 500% there will be differences as with anything. Using that perspective, who actually stops in the middle of playing a game to blow up a wall texture 500%? Nobody that is serious about playing games. I've also seen other reviews on the net that showed the Voodoo3 screenshots from games like Quake II that were quite obvious that it wasn't even a Voodoo3. One review showed the Voodoo3 in 32bpp in 1600x1200. I'd love to know how that guy figured out how to do that, as it's impossible with the Voodoo3 to render at 32bpp. 32bpp rendering also takes a big performance hit, usually about 30-40%. In the case of the Rage 128, the performance hit was about 25% for 32bpp compared to 16bpp. I guess you can come to your own conclusion of if 32bpp rendering is important to you or not. Most games don't make a difference though, and the performance hit is enough to warrant staying far away for the current time. If you absolutely must have 32bpp rendering, don't buy the Voodoo3 as it's not something you'll enjoy. One thing to note is that although the Voodoo3 is AGP, it doesn't support large textures. 3D Mark 99 showed the Voodoo3 really being washed away in 1600x1200 by the Rage 128 simply because of its texture performance.

Eindelijk sneller internet?

Internet via de satelliet komt naar Nederland. Al volgende maand kan er via diverse internetaanbieders en kabelbedrijven een abonnement genomen worden op de dienst van Europe Online en SES-Astra. De bedrijven uit Luxemburg bieden via de Astra-satelliet een supersnelle verbinding met het net. Een videobestand waar een gewoon 33k6 modem twee uur over doet is via de satelliet volgens SES-Astra binnen een minuut binnen. Het is niet noodzakelijk om een satellietschotel op het dak te monteren om aangesloten te kunnen worden. Via de televisiekabel kan ook gebruik worden gemaakt van de dienst. De satelliet van de kabelexploitant pikt de straal van de Luxemburgse bron op en geeft deze in DVB-formaat (Digital Video Broadcasting) door op de kabel. De consument kan dat signaal ontvangen met een PC-insteekkaart of een in ontwikkeling zijnde set-top box op de televisie. Volgens Europe Online president Candace Johnson zijn er al afspraken met ‘aardig wat internetproviders en een handje vol kabelbedrijven’. “Kabelbedrijven in Nederland zijn slim. Ze weten dat als ze niet doorgeven wat de consument wil de consument satellietschotels gaat kopen en zij dus handel mislopen.” Johnson wil niet zeggen met welke bedrijven zij zaken doet. “Op 15 mei komen we met een lijst van aanbieders voor heel Europa, dus ook voor Nederland.” De prijs voor de dienst blijft ook geheim. “Wij laten dat over aan de afzonderlijke providers, die kunnen hun eigen prijs en pakketvorm bepalen.” Na enig aandringen laat Johnson wel doorschemeren dat op basis van de prijs die haar bedrijf rekent aan de internetaanbieders een concurrerende prijs mogelijk is. Een precies bedrag wil ze niet noemen maar rond de honderd gulden in de maand spreekt haar wel aan. SES-Astra, eigenaar van de Astra-satellieten, biedt al breedband internetdiensten aan bedrijven onder de naam Astra-NET. Bedrijven kunnen tegen hoge kosten doorvoersnelheden halen tot 38 mpbs. Europe Online exploiteert nu enkel een pan-Europese website.

Binnenkort een schoteltje op het dak plaatsen?
Kijk ook hier voor een FAQ

Nu we het toch over videoplank overclocking hebben: HardOCP zit nog steeds met die Leadtek Winfast S320 TNT2 kaart die ze ff mochten lenen en die doet 188MHz (150MHz standaard). Is ook niet slecht (voor een pre-production board):

I finally got time to actually play around with the Leadtek card tonight. I have to send it back Monday. :( But I wanted to share some hardcore stuff with the peeps before it went back to the owners.

I have run some benchmarks with OverClocking the card. Keep in mind that this OC job was done with NO extra cooling applied to the card. And let me tell you, the chipset was getting hotter than a prom queen's panties! WOoHOo! Remember this is NOT a production card, so dont take this as the gospel or whatever.....

Benchmarks vind je op www.hardocp.com.

Ik kom op Anand's BBS een thread tegen waarin iemand zegt dat-ie z'n V3-2000 (die standaard op 143MHz loopt) op 200MHz heeft gekregen:

Believe it or not, 200 MHz was OUT OF THE BOX. I still think that it'll go higher stable. I ran Unreal for >1 hour at 1280x1024 without a hiccup. I also set the AGP port to 1/1 on my 504 (112 Busspeed), because I haven't figured out how to go over 200 on the V3 overclocking utility from voodooextreme yet.

I also have tried a V3 3000 (Siemens memory) on the same machine, and it'll only do 175 MHz stable.

Check de thread voor meer info.

JC heeft geruchten over een mogelijke 1/3 L2 cache speed divider op de K7:

Ooh! Many thanks to Bud Grise for letting me know of this press release. I don't remember if I've seen it or put it up before, but according to it, Motorola has "greater than 333MHz" SRAM out in general availability. This leads to the possibility that we might see our friend, the K7, out with a 1/2x MHz L2 multiplier. As you should recall, the K7 was originally conceived to have 1/3x MHz L2, mostly due to the uncertainty of SRAM availability in 1999. With faster SRAMs becoming more available in recent times, there has been some speculation that there may be different "versions" of the K7 with different L2 clock rates at the same CPU clock rate (and, well, lower prices for the lower MHz L2 versions of the processor). But, anyway, the nitty-gritty here is that Motorola's new 333MHz+ SRAM makes 1/2x MHz L2 in the K7 quite a bit more likely.

Andy van BXB heeft een review gepost van de V3-2000. Bij THG heb je er al meer over kunnen lezen, en daar werd compleet gehakt gemaakt van de V3 (in vergelijking met de TNT2). Dit is wat Andy er van zegt:

The Voodoo3 is FAST. 3dfx have traditionally always had the fastest 3d part, with other manufacturers playing catch up. And for now, the Voodoo3 is King of the Hill on pure polygon pumping power. Nowadays however, with framerates regularly passing 100fps, speed isn't such an issue, and image quality is becoming more important. And this is where the Voodoo3 starts to fall down. Fundamentally, 3dfx are still using the same engine introduced with their original Voodoo Graphics part. OK, two iterations down the line, and things are now seriously fast, but Voodoo3 still over-filters textures, and some games, particularly Quake2 look "washed out", especially compared to the TNT, G200 or even the i740 (gulp!).

The lack of 32-bit rendering also hurts as well. 3dfx talks about 22-bit internal pipelines, but they aren't fooling anyone here. This is something all their rivals are doing right now, and both ATI and nVidia are doing it without much of a performance hit. The 32-bit issue is real and as games become more complex and start using more advanced graphics engines, dithering on Voodoo technology will become apparent.

iXBT heeft een review van de IDT Winchip 266 op z'n site gepleurd. Zo'n beetje alles is slecht aan deze CPU, zelfs z'n prijs:

Summing up, we'll get the following picture. To be objective, all tests showed that IDT Winchip 2 failed to surpass AMD K6-2, which is not much more expensive. In other words, if you aim at finding the best Socket-7 processor it is definitely AMD K6-2 or K6-3.

[break]...en overklokken moet je al helemaal niet proberen:[/break]

And now a few words about overclocking. When we found out that IDT Winchip 2 wasn't getting any warmer while working, a hope crept in that it should perform beautifully at higher frequencies. Ha! Tell us more! We suffered a great fiasco trying to apply the widely spread overclocking method to this stubborn CPU. Even the slightest frequency increase over the nominal one led to unstable performance. So, unfortunately, we have to grieve the overclockers: there is no way to make their hopes come true.

Bij Sysopt.com hebben ze een review van de Elitegroup P6BXT-A+ moederplaat. Het leuke aan dit bord is dat-ie zowel plaats biedt voor een slot1 als socket370 proc, da's handig als je later wilt overstappen. Hier een stuk over stabiliteit en overklokbaarheid:

At the normal FSB speed, I didn't experience a single problem running benchmarks with either the two Celeron CPUs nor the Pentium II 266.  All of the FSB speeds were operational and stable except for the 133Mhz which I could not get to post (This test was done using the Pentium II 266 at a setting of 2.5x133 and the LGS 64MB RAM module from our RAM Comparison that supported up to 138 at a CAS latency timing of 3).  I thought it might have been the I740 video card which is terrible to run on out of spec FSB speeds, so I decided to use my old, trusty 2MB ATI RAGE II and was still unsuccessful.

Then I decided to test to see if there was a performance difference between the Slot 1 and Socket 370 using the Socket 370 to Slot 1 converter on the Celeron 400Mhz PPGA CPU.  I ran the entire suite of benchmarks in Ziff Davis' Winbench 99 and then ran the famous Quake 2 demo1.  The differences in Winbench 99 went either way (sometimes the Slot 1 scored higher or sometimes the Socket 370) within a .5%+- margin of error while the I740 video card consistently scored 26.1fps at 800x600 in Quake 2 demo1.  

Firingsquad heeft een review van de IWill LE370 socket 370 moederplank klaar gezet. Uiteraard zit er ook info over overclockin bij:

Being an LX chipset motherboard, you can already tell that the LE370 is a bit less than an overclocking phenomenon. There is a twist on the LE370, though, as it offers 60, 66, 68, 75, and 83 MHz bus speeds. For any of you who are interested in underclocking your CPU, here's your way to do it! The other less common bus speed is 68 MHz, which is the 3% increase commonly used by manufacturers and system integrators to test the tolerances of their products. This is almost definitely included as a CPU speed/stability test. Either way, it is not very useful for overclocking, as the performance gain is nominal.

Het ding heeft ook nog "Jumper inside technology" = Softmenu maar dan minder.

AMD Zone heeft een review gepost van de Gigabyte GA-5AX super7 plank:

I used the Gigabyte in my main system for several days.   I experienced no noticeable stability problems.  Performance seemed no different from the Asus P5A.  My only gripe would have to be the features.  Only 4 PCI slots, just 3 dimm slots, and no bus speeds over 100 MHz.  I would also like to see more than 512kb of onboard cache to pair with a K6-III.  If these features weren't lacking, it would rank right up there with the P5A.  Luckily Gigabyte has released a newer GA-5AX, revision 4.0. 

Rev. 4.0 adds a PCI slot, and bus speeds of 105,110,115,120,125,130,135 and 140MHz.  Even though there is still the tired old 512kb onboard cache, those bus speeds are impressive.  One of my main problems with the 5AX was that I couldn't try the K6-2 266 at 3X105, or 3X110, which were the sweet spot for the same chip on the P5A.  This new revision adds even higher bus speeds than the P5A, which topped out at 133 MHz.  Make sure if you order a GA-5AX that you are getting Rev 4, and not Rev 3.