Extreme Hardware heeft een S3 Savage4 Guide in elkaar gedraaid. Geen reviews, maar een opsomming van de specs van alle videokaarten met de Savage4 videochip. Dit zijn de Diamond Stealth III S540, Number Nine SR9, Hercules Terminator BEAST '99, Elsa Winner II, Creative Labs 3D Blaster Savage4, Gainward CARDEXpert SG4, Palit Daytona Savage4 en Sparkle SP394/395/397. Check Extreme Hardware voor de info.

Hardware Upgrade heeft z'n K6-III vs PIII artikel van een update voorzien. Ze komen weer tot de bekende conclusie: integer performance van de K6-III is veel beter dan die PIII, maar de FPU performance van de K6-III blijft zuigen. Naast benchmarks heeft HW Upgrade een stuk over het overklokken van de K6-III:

AMD cpu, whether K6-2 or K6-III, haven’t any kind of frequency multiplier lock, so is possible to operate whether changing it, or increasing bus frequency. In general is better, with Socket 7 cpu, to increase the bus frequency, because the L2 cache works at that frequency, and everyone knows how important is the L2 cache speed for the general performance. With the K6-III the situation changes a lot, because the L2 cache is integrated in cpu Core and so the conversion into L3 cache of the motherboard cache, allows to understand how an increase of bus frequency isn’t important, if not useless, for general performance. So is necessary to obtain the highest clock frequency supported by the cpu, even if, to do this, we have to use a not very high bus frequency. Anyway is important to work at about 100 Mhz bus frequency, to obtain high performance also from L3 cache and system memory in the event of cache miss, that is data that isn’t possible to load on cpu L1 and L2 cache. For example, with a K6-2 cpu we obtain higher performance with 124x3.5 (434 Mhz) instead of 100x4.5 (450 Mhz), because the L2 cache works faster. With the K6-III, instead, is the contrary, because the L2 cache works at 450 Mhz instead of 434 Mhz.

Fresh3D heeft een reviewtje gebouwd rondom de Gravis XTerminator. Je weet wel, zo'n gamepad met de vormgeving van een super gestoomlijnde "V-Wing":

There are 2 direction pads, one "proportional" or analog directional pad, which gives you very precise control. The amount of force applied in a direction determines how fast you move in the game. And of course there is the standard digital D-pad. An analog throttle control is available on the right side, which I could not find a use for. Anything with throttle requires a real joystick or steering wheel to operate correctly, but it's a nice touch. The 6 main buttons (on a Genesis or Saturn, this would be ABC/XYZ) are well shaped and placed perfectly so they are all easily accessible by your right thumb. There is also a shift button and an 8-way POV hat within reach by the right thumb, which gives you a lot of options for games that usually take a lot of key presses, such as MechWarrior or any space-flight sim (this came in handy during Descent Freespace bouts). The shift button allows any buttons to have a second function, which again comes in handy with games that have a lot of keyboard commands.

Wow! Eric van Fastgraphics heeft de Hercules Dynamite TNT2 stabiel draaien op 180/220MHz ! Dat schopt kont!

I don't know how Hercules did this, but they actually managed to make a board that's stable at 180/220 MHz... I've got it benchmarking Quake II at the moment, and it seem like it reaches the ceiling on my old Pentium II 400...

Hercules regeert .

Check de frontpage van Fastgraphics voor Q2 benchmarks van een paar V3 en TNT2 kaarten (waaronder de Hercules).

Hercules is begonnen met de verkoop van z'n Dynamite TNT2. De specs vind je op deze page. Over de kloksnelheid kan ik niets vinden, maar dat zal waarschijnlijk gewoon 150/175 (Ultra TNT2) zijn. Online bestellen kan al, nu is het alleen nog wachten tot de Dynamite TNT2 ook hier in Nederland leverbaar zal zijn.

En de doos is mooi :

Sharky Extreme heeft 4 nieuwe screenshots van Mortyr (nazi's omleggen) op de news page gepakeerd. Bekijk ze hier.

Een zoveelste Leadtek TNT2 review bij AVault. De review is vrij kort, maar wel benchmarks op 161/174MHz en standaard 140/150. Overgeklokt geeft dat 45,5 fps in Quake II Demo1.dm2 op 32-bit kleurdiepte. Not bad:

As you can see, the higher clock rates become more of a factor as the resolution increases. 1280x1024 was not available as a full-screen video option, so those results are not included. Also note that 30 fps is still available at 1152x864x32bpp, even at the 140/150 default clock rates. As games start to take advantage of 32-bit color textures, the WinFast 3D S320 II should be ready and waiting.

Next Generation Online heeft een preview van Q3: Arena gepost, gebaseerd op de Mac Q3 Test (die @#$$@$@$% eerder gereleased werd dan de PC versie):

The Q3 test is certainly a step up the Doom/DoomII/Quake/QuakeII evolutionary ladder. It is gorgeous. The models move fluidly, the lighting effects are striking and the weapons spew death in a spectacular variety of ways. When you cut down your enemy, he may simply bleed and collapse, but if you get him up close and personal with one of the big guns he blows apart, littering the battlefield with a shower of bloody chunks.

Gamepost heeft een Voodoo3 Overclocking Guide in elkaar geknutseld, met info over hoe je maximale framerates uit je V3 kunt trekken:

The first rule to overclocking is cooling. If you are going to push your hardware beyond the factory set limits then you must provided additional cooling. The Voodoo3 3000 comes with a rather large heatsink, however it has trouble keeping the card cool at default clock speeds. You may be asking yourself, "How the hell can I keep my new Voodoo3 cool". The answer is simple and can be accomplished with spare computer parts that may be laying around. With the use of 3 zip ties and 2 old 486 CPU fans you will be able to keep the V3 3000 very cool. What you will need to do is use 2 zip ties to attach the fans together and then use the third zip tie to attach the fans to the heatsink. You can go with one fan and then just screw it into the heatsink. If you are not overclocking it is still a good idea to slap a fan on the heatsink.

Sharky heeft een preview gepost van de nieuwe Number Nine SR9 videokaart. Dit keer geen custom designed videochip, zoals we van #9 gewend zijn, maar een S3 Savage4 op 125/143Mhz. De SR9 heeft een aansluiting voor een daughterboard met digital flatpanel connector. Op dit moment is hier nog geen vaste standaard voor. De oplossing van #9 heeft als voordeel dat je alleen het juiste daughterboard hoeft te kopen om aan de gewenste standaard te voldoen:

Basically here's the feature in a nutshell: Right now there are no less than three competing standards for the display of true digital images on a digital flat panel display. Unfortunately, each standard utilizes a different port connector type to provide the image to the monitor. Number Nine has logically built the ability to switch out or upgrade the digital flat panel display connector into the SR9, thereby never leaving a user out in the cold when they upgrade to one of the sharp looking panels.

Verder vind je in de preview nog wat S3TC screenshots. Met textures van maximaal 2048x2048px worden concurrende videochips wat betreft beeldkwaliteit simpelweg van deze aardkloot geblowt.

Firingsquad heeft de Erazor III, Elsa's nieuwe TNT2 kaart, gepreviewed. Het is vooral een algemeen lulverhaal geworden over de TNT2 met hier en daar wat spul over de Erazor III, bijv. dit stukje over z'n overklokbaarheid:

Well, to make the story a little shorter, the process of trial and error, and "apply changes" and rebooting led us to rest at 140 core/166 memory. We're sure we could've gotten 141/167, but what's the point? We tried to stick to more familiar numbers. For reference, the Voodoo3 family's cores are clocked at 143, 166, and 183 (for 2000, 3000, and 3500). We were a little disappointed that ours didn't overclock higher, but we got a decent gain. From what we've heard, some manufacturers will be selling their TNT2s clocked at 140 core, but we haven't heard about the memory clock.

Verder weer de gebruikelijke benchmarks (helaas zonder vegelijking met de V3) en zooi. Lees verder bij Firingsquad.

TNT2 en Savage4 overklokkers opgelet: Entech heeft een nieuwe versie (2.41.12) van Powerstrip gereleased met ondersteuning voor beide videochips:

The latest PowerStrip 2.41.12 build here adds the TNT2, Vanta and Savage4 to the list of new chips supported and validated, which also includes the Voodoo3 and Rage128. All of these chips ship with a decent set of user controls - some of these borrowed, right down to the icons, straight from the PowerStrip. Still, none of them provide anything like the PowerStrip's in-game gamma controls or include much in the way of NT support, and if you happen to be a graphics professional or work seriously in OpenGL, NT is where you live. Note that only the current beta supports these chips; earlier PowerStrip releases may detect, but do not properly support any of these chips.

Je kunt 'm gaan halen bij 3DFiles.

FullOn3D heeft meer info over de toekomst van de x86 processor divisie van Cyrix.

Cyrix is "splitting" up. The MediaGX and other integrated products are based in Longmount, Colorado. This portion of Cyrix is staying with National Semiconductor. They will continue to develop integrated products and PC on a chip with National.

The rest of Cyrix is focused on making stand alone x86 cores. This group is being sold (in total, marketing, sales, engineering) to an un-named company. Cyrix will remain in the x86 market, and continue our roadmap. ( We will just be part of another company. ) Stay tuned for details on who the buyer is...

Gobi is on schedule, and is looking very good. The MII line will continue to be improved.

Ok, kewl :) Cyrix rulez :) (ik heb hier nog steeds zo'n 6x86 staan en ben/was er altijd erg blij mee :))

Riva Review heeft screenshots van Quake3 gepost. De screenshots vergelijken 16 en 32-bit kleurdiepte op een Graphicsblaster TNT. Om een of andere reden werkte de site niet met mijn Communicator 4.51, wel met Internet Exploiter .

Nog een review bij U-Games.com, dit keer hebben ze TOCA2 besproken en ze geven 'm 92%. Hier een plak:

Before you can really enjoy TOCA 2, of course, you'll need to get a good handle on playing the game. If you're shallow and emotionally vacuous like me then the pretty graphics will be enough to keep you engrossed while you learn the ropes, but there are a whole bunch of other ways to play. An arcade-style element of sorts is introduced through the inclusion of the time trials and single races which have a much more light-hearted feel to them than a full blown championship, particularly the time trials which feel slightly awkward with their lurid '3' '2' '1' sequences flying out at the camera before you start. All of these can provide a healthy learning experience or an entertaining diversion for the more experienced. There's also the option to race in the Ford Fiesta support cars which, with their added stability and slightly slower speed allow you to get a feel for the track without too much frustration.

Ooit wel eens willen podracen ? U-Games.com heeft een review van LucasArts' nieuwe op Star Wars gebaseerde racespel:

Those of you who have scoured the net for all things Star Warsy, will no doubt have seen the trailer already and those neat speedy things that we shall call "pods" is what this game is all about. The actual scene from the movie is around 15 minutes long and is an important part of the story. This Podracing is the Grand Prix of the "long ago, in a galaxy far, far away" universe. Although it's an illegal sport, Podracing has a huge following on the worlds of the outer rim of the galaxy. Each "pod" is a capsule suspended using hovercraft-like anti-gravitics. Stretching out ahead linked to the cockpit by Steelton Control Cables are two massive engines, also hovering above the ground. Each of the engines dwarf the pod and are connected to each other by a beam of magnetic energy. This beam is visible as an arc of energy crackling across the air in between the engines.

Podracing, while incredibly popular with the masses for it's high speed, white-knuckle excitement has until now been only available to alien races who has the reflexes, plus the extra eyes and limbs necessary to pilot these futuristic chariots. Until now, humans have just simply not been able to handle all the controls with enough speed to stay alive, let alone win. Until, that is, a young boy called Anakin Skywalker enters his pod for the first time.

Ik kwam via Hardware-One bij de site van VST waar ze externe FireWire harddisks maken. Waarschijnlijk is het gewoon een SCSI schijf met een SCSI-to-Firewire dingetje erin, maar nieuw is het wel. Hier heb je wat info:

2GB IEEE 1394 Compliant FireWire Drive. Very thin, lightweight, high performance design for portability. FireWire bus powered, no external power supply required. Designed for Macintosh® desktop and mobile solutions. Data transfer rates up to 400 Mbps. Plug & Play ease of use. Hot-plug and unplug supported. Dual 6-pin FireWire ports. No device IDs or termination. [break]En zo ziet-ie eruit:[/break]

Gamer's Alliance heeft een interview gepost met David Gasior van Aureal Semiconductor. David legt uit waarom de Vortex II met A3D2.0 superieur is aan de EMU10k1 / EAX. Hier een stuk over A3D2.0:

A3D 2.0 is a complete audio engine in and of itself. It has three main components: direct path, streamer, and Wavetracing engine. Direct path is similar to what DS3D is, providing 3D positional audio. The streamer is an advanced resource manager which allows the developer to set priorities on sounds so we can best manage 3D and 2D audio buffers. The streamer also provides compatibility for other cards. It will translate the positional audio calls to DS3D so that cards like the SB Live! and Yamaha Waveforce will still get 3D audio. We also provide a host-based 3D algorithm for older sound cards like the SB16 and all other ISA cards, ensuring that no matter what sound card you have, we'll deliver the best possible 3D audio for that platform. The last part of the A3D 2.0 engine is Wavetracing, which is our geometry-based engine; we take the polygons from the graphics engine and use those (or a subset of them) to model audio reflections and occlusions. While reflections will only be rendered on our Vortex 2 hardware, we provide occlusions on all sound cards.

Errug goede info, lees de rest bij GA-Source.

Tweak3D heeft Drew Prairie van AMD geïnterviewd over de K7. Hier heb je een vraag:

Tweak3D:What sets the K7 apart from, say, the upcoming coppermine core PIII's?

Drew: There are a number of technical advances in our 7th generation processor, and the surrounding platform, that differentiate K7. I'm a bit hesitant to compare K7 to other non-shipping CPUs since I'm not sure how those CPUs will perform once they do reach the market. The features we have disclosed publicly (and I can talk about at this time) include: 200MHz system bus with scalable multiprocessing support based on the Digital EV6 bus , 128KB L1 cache (64K instruction, 64K data), support for 3DNow!, deeply pipelined nine-issue superscalar core, and a superscalar 3-way pipelined floating point unit. The K7 was also designed to operate at speeds faster than 500MHz based on our .25-micron process technology, so we plan for the speeds to ramp nicely.

Best wel goeie stof. Check Tweak3D voor het complete artikel.

CPU Site heeft een artikel geschreven over het nieuws dat Cyrix uit de PC processor business stapt. Is Cyrix Doomed?

Well... after a huge loss of money, the end of the agreement with IBM and the exit from NSC, Cyrix is in a nasty position. Further, new companies like IDT WinChip and Rise are both also aiming at the low end PC market, bringing more competition. No, the future does not look bright at all. Though, Cyrix has many, highly capable, professional engineers and a lot of knowlegde and experience. Cayenne and Jalapeno are good ingredients to survive this crisis, but it takes more than that... Maybe there are other companies, like IBM, that would obtain Cyrix and continue their line of (improved!) processors. Cyrix did not deserve the bad name it has nowadays, but it needs to invest in new technologies to maintain their third place on the market. It is time to move on to a new generation of Cyrix processors. And to release new frequencies soon... It Cyrix remains silent, it IS doomed...

Thanx to Harry voor de link naar deze site waar je pics ziet van wat lijkt op een Slot1-to-Slot2 convertor. In principe zou je daarmee een Quad Celeron systeem kunnen bouwen . Moet je alleen nog geld zien te vinden voor quad Xeon (GX) plank (die zijn niet bepaald goedkoop)...

Ik kwam op Anand's BBS deze thread tegen over het gebruik van de TNT2 1.73 drivers op de gewone TNT. Met een PII/Celeron is er een lichte performance stijging te zien:

I just installed the new 1.73 drivers on my STB v4400 and they made a nice improvement. My 3DMark99 Max went from 4050 to 4165, and Quake2 gained about 1.5 fps in the crusher.dm2 demo. My DVD movies seem a little more crisp and detailed (ATI 3.1 player). To sum it up the visual quality has improved, as well as the overall speed in direct 3d / openGL. The drivers support TnT, TnT2, Ultra TnT2, and Vanta. I tried the Ultra TnT2 but they didn't seem to work as well as the TnT ones. [break]Op zicht niet al te schokkend. Maar dan de K6-2:[/break] This is a 16.5 % increase in demo1, and a 26% increase in crusher. These drivers may have 3DNow! optimizations in OpenGL. What could be interesting now would be benchmarks on PIII, to see if any increase related to SSE can be observed.

Interessant.

Probeer het zelf: de 1.73 drivers kun je downloaden bij FullOn3D.

Ace's Hardware heeft een artikel gepost over FreeBSD, dat je net zoals Linux helemaal voor noppes kunt krijgen.

FreeBSD and not Linux?

They're both free, but why choose FreeBSD over Linux, with it's popularity and support growing everyday, or even Solaris x86, a well-established player? It comes down to heritage. There are essentially two fundamental versions of UNIX, AT&T System V and BSD (Berkely System Design). All the decendants of UNIX available today (Solaris/SunOS, AIX, HP-UX, Digital UNIX, *BSD, etc.) are based roughly on either of these two systems, though many combine elements from both.

Onze mooie servertje bij pair draait bdw ook op FreeBSD.

Operation Sports heeft 22 screenshots van NFS4 gepost. De screenshots werden gemaakt met een Voodoo3 op 1024x768. Helaas zit er nogal een super lossy JPEG compressie over de screenshots waardoor er over de beeldkwaliteit weinig meer te zeggen valt.

Operation Sports heeft ook een press release van Electronic Arts, waarvan hier een stuk:

Need For Speed: High Stakes for the PC ups the ante by introducing a series of new and improved gameplay characteristics specifically designed for the PC version of the game, as well as folding in key features from its PlayStation counterpart. PC racing enthusiasts will find polygonal car damage (which can be turned off/on) that affects the car appearance and performance; a total of 18 licensed sports and supercars (including five pursuit vehicles); 19 unique tracks (including nine tracks from the previous NFS title); and stunning special effects and graphics that capitalizes on the PC technology. Such touches include detailed 3-D dashboards that light up during night time driving and car interiors that can be viewed by toggling from left, right and back; animated drivers in both player and opponent cars; customizable license plates; varying weather conditions; oncoming traffic and day/night time driving with functional reverse, head and tail lights.

Het lijkt erop dat de nieuwste TNT beta drivers 3DNow support hebben. Check deze info van JC:

Interesting. Are 3DNow! drivers already on the TNT in some rudimentary fashion? An anonymous fellow (the same anonymous fellow as last time, don't worry we can trust him) tells me that the newer Detonator drivers are 18% faster in Quake II (demo1, 800x600) on the K6-2-400 compared to the earlier drivers. He hasn't tested it with the P6, you may or may not see a similar boost with those processors, as well. Something caused the 18% leap (which far more than makes up for the original Detonator floppage), and it's either SIMD support or just better driver coding. Hopefully, it's both. :) 1.73 AGP

AVault heeft een review gepost van Beyond the Call of Duty, een stand alone mission pack voor Commandos. Hier heb je een stuk:

On the surface, BtCoD seems nearly identical to the original, but a closer, more critical look reveals significant changes. These changes are often so subtle that many gamers, including veterans of the series, may not notice their impact right away. Graphically, the game has undergone a fabulous facelift, adding in sharper and more detailed textures and, at the same time, improving performance. Colors and textures have an even larger impact this time, and the artwork overall is a masterpiece. Pyro Studios has some of the best artists in the business. The buildings, structures, vehicles and characters are wonderfully animated and meticulously detailed.

Other enhancements include the aforementioned new abilities for each of the commandos. One of the best things about the original game was how each member of the squad worked off the others, requiring the player to use each member in specific circumstances. The negative aspect of this system was that only certain commandos could do basic tasks, such as distract enemies, and it made the game somewhat illogical. Having to maneuver one of your agents halfway across a map just to distract a guard is one of the annoyances that has been fixed in BtCoD. Each commando is now armed with throwing rocks they can use to divert an enemy's attention. They can also pick up cigarettes, a wonderful new addition. Rather than a diversion like the rocks, placing a burning bud on the ground can accomplish a number of things, including slowing an enemy's route and setting him up for ambush.

Dank aan Sander voor deze posting op het forum:

Een nog onbekende groep bedreigt ID Software met het ombrengen van een weerloze koe als de Win 32 versie van Q3 niet onmiddelijk gereleased wordt...

http://users.vnet.net/jeffries/Q3Test.html

Prima, graag een beetje druk op de ketel, of denken ze soms dat we allemaal Macs hebben .

Ga maar eens kijken, is leuk