HardOCP heeft heftig nieuws over het nieuwe KK beta BIOS voor Abit BH6. Het ding haalt wonderbaarlijke dingen uit met de beschikbare busspeed opties: er komen er zomaar 30 bij!

Heya FrgMstr. I just flashed my BH6 with the new KK bios and I went to check it out. I was totally awestruck that the FSB selections went from like 8 to like 30!! Just what are those ABIT guys smoking??!! They also include a divider number which most likely is the PCI bus divider. I have no idea what the 'N' and 'S' stand for. I had to see what was up with this, so I did a little testing. Here is a list of the FSB's with their goofy designations. I tested using my trusty Celeron 300A which does 464MHz @ 2.0v. 'Boot speed' is the speed the computer shows during POST and 'Windows Speed' is the speed of the processor as seen by CPUID. All tests done at a core voltage of 2.4v.

Check HardOCP voor een 2km lange rij met de nieuwe BH6 busspeeds (het zijn er meer dan bij de BX6-II!). Op zich wel wazig, want Abit heeft eerder gezegd dat het softwarematig upgraden van het aantal busspeeds niet mogelijk was (daarvoor zou de klokgenerator vervangen moeten worden).

Nog (vanmorgen eentje bij GA-Source) een review van de Elsa Revelator 3D Glasses. Deze is van Tech Junkie. Hier heb je wat info uit de review:

The Revelator will only work in Elsa video cards such as the Erazor II/III, Victory II and Winner II. It works for all Direct 3D applications. I'm still waiting for Elsa to write some drivers for Quake III Arena. The other games look fabulous! Half Life seemed to 'jump' out at me. Suddenly, I could sense that things were farther away....it's hard to describe. It's an entirely new experience. Suddenly, you just don't care about things like 32 bit color, hi-res textures and all that hoopla. All you want to see is DEPTH. When I played without the Revelator, I got withdrawal symptoms. There's no way in hell I'm giving these glasses back after the review!

3DHardware.net heeft de Labtec LCS-2632 speakerset gereviewed. Die dingen zijn ook gewoon in Nederland verkrijgbaar (in tegenstelling tot bijv. de Boston Acoustic en Midiland speakers waar in veel reviews over gesproken wordt), dus laat ik hier maar een stuk over posten:

The specs sure seem to be in order, 3" satellite drivers, and a 5 1/4" subwoofer. Overall, the system is quite powerful considering it's small size, although don't expect any earth-shaking, ear-braking sound. The performance can be compared to Creative Labs' FourPointSurround, except that the system is much more powerful in the Labtec speakers, giving much more sound. Overall soundquality is quite pleasant, giving pleasant highs, and quite ok lows. Stereoimaging is also quite acceptable. The satellite speakers do more than enough for ordinary gaming representing game sounds with good accuracy and feeling, they do remarkably well for action shooters. But for music, they fall a bit behind, giving a not-very-alive sound.

Hieronder een opsomming van game reviews, previews en screenshots die her en der op het net gepost zijn:

Jane's USAF preview (AGN 3D)

Gabriel Knight screenshots (AGN 3D)

X-Wing Alliance review (AVault)

Need for Speed 4: High Stakes review (Sports-gaming.com)

Ik kwam va GA-Strategy bij deze Force Commander preview van Game Revolution. Hier heb je wat info over dit op het Star Wars universum gebaseerde RTS spel:

Force Commander is a mission based RTS (Real Time Strategy) game spanning the original Star Wars trilogy. The story takes you through both the Empire and the Rebellion, allowing you to play as both sides. There isn't any resource management - it's just you and whatever military forces you happen to have. Battles will take place in familiar locations like Hoth and Tatooine, as well as some new locales like the polar cap of Coruscant.

Ze hebben ook een paar (wazige) screenshots:

nVidea heeft deze slag in de OEM markt gemist...

``Gateway clearly understands how to give a broad range of consumers what they want in a desktop PC, and we are excited to see 3dfx technology included in this very successful product line,'' said Michael Howse, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at 3dfx. ``3dfx is pleased to equip Gateway Performance systems with the industry's hottest-selling graphics technology.''

tja.

Jeremy van AGN 3D heeft wat info over HL: Opposing Force gepost op de newspage van AGN 3D. Voor het geval je het verhaaltje achter Op For nog niet kent...

Remember the soldiers who gave you so much trouble in Half-Life? Now you are one of them--and life is not so easy as part of the Opposing Force.

As a soldier sent in to eliminate Gordon Freeman, you are separated from your base unit and discover a new alien race amidst the chaos. It's quickly revealed that these highly advanced alien life forms--known only as Race X--descended upon Earth to pillage the planet from the Black Mesa facility when Gordon Freeman transported to the border world of Xen.

Although you were originally sent into Black Mesa to silence Freeman and his fellow scientists in the facility, you now find yourself stranded and confused--battling Race X and a variety of other foes in an effort to save your own life.

But as a military specialist, you are not unarmed. You'll gather a custom arsenal of new military firearms, experimental weapons and deadly alien devices. And, as you explore further areas of Black Mesa, you will encounter a new variety of human characters to interact with--on both friendly and unfriendly terms.

Meer info + 3 screenshots vind je hier.

GA-Source heeft 6 screenshots gepost van Dark Reign II. Hier heb je de bijbehorende info:

Dark Reign II is a prequel to the real time strategy game Dark Reign. The game chronicles the uprising of futuristic Tribes against an iron-fisted ruling elite and places gamers inside an epic battle for freedom that marks the beginning of the Freedom Guard-Imperium War. A fully 3D real-time strategy game, Dark Reign II promises to bring players closer to the battlefield than any other RTS. While maintaining the key gameplay elements of real time strategy games, base building, resource management, and hard hitting combat, Dark Reign II will also give players the freedom to smoothly transition from a top-down view to an infantry-level view and everything in between.

Voor de screenshots moet je ff naar deze page fietsen.

BXBoards heeft een review gepost van een Asus slotket:

There is not really a hell of a lot to say about a convertor board, so I will keep this brief. The units are very well manufactured and are a cut above anything I have seen to date. Five jumper combinations control voltage, and on the rear of the board Asus have printed a voltage chart. Up to 2.6v is documented but experimentation revealed that voltages up to 3.5v are supported. The VID lines of a processor report voltages to the mainboards voltage regulator and covering a pin gives a different voltage. 5 lines allows for 32 combinations.

Het door BXB geteste board is van de oude revisie 1.01, nieuwe revisies (1.5) hebben een dual jumper wat erg handig is als je een dual Celeron systeem wilt bouwen.

Ik leest bij Voodoo Extreme dat er een nieuwe versie van Fastcard (videokaart overclock proggie) gereleased is. Wat is nieuw in versie 1.1.3:

This is version 1.1.3. Fast Card is a 3Dfx/Riva TNT overclocking utility that provides a graphical interface in Windows 95/98 to overclock your board. It's small, efficient, and free! New in v1.1.3 is V3 support and various other stuff I can't remember!!

Download locaties vind je bij 3DFiles.

Als onze videokaarten-poll representatief zou zijn voor de videobakkers-markt, dan zou S3 wéér de boot gaan missen met de Savage4. GA-Source heeft een review. Hier heb je hun conclusies wat betreft de performance:

It is somewhat odd to see that the card that is fastest at 640x480 is also the slowest at 1024x768 (out of this group). It just goes to show that you can never tell. This would tend to tell me that there is still a lot of optimizing room left in the drivers. It is interesting as well to note that the Savage4 has only a small loss in fps when going from 16 to 32 bits, similar to the G400.

Lijkt me dan waarschijnlijker dat de drivers wél goed geoptimized zijn, maar dat het ding op hogere resoluties gewoon aan z'n fill rate limit zit.

Uiteraard heeft de Savage4 één groot voordeel, en dat is S3TC. GA-Source heeft een paar screenshots met hi-res textures:

Ook AGN 3D heeft een review van the Need for Speed 4 gepost. Zoals uit de GA-Sports preview al bleek zijn de veranderingen ten op zichte van NFS3 niet al te dramatisch. Wel nieuw is damage, het is nu eindelijk mogelijk om jouw(/andermans?) kar te slopen:

Another new feature fans were clamoring for was realistic car damage, and EA finally listened. Now you really need to be careful with your ride, as scraping it on the side of walls and bumping into on-coming traffic will deform your car, not to mention that it will affect it’s overall performance. Get into bigger accidents and you may blow off bumpers and other important parts of the car’s anatomy. Also new in this version is an improved physics engine. What this means is that cars won’t catch air as easily as in Hot Pursuit, the engine will start straining when you try to climb steep inclines, and rain and snow will make the driving surfaces slippery. The weather effects in particular where given special attention, as now the rain and snow look even more life-like, not to mention that fog makes high-speed driving quite a challenge.

En een paar pics om deze posting wat op te vrolijken:

Q3Center heeft een artikeltje geschreven over camping in FPS multiplayer games. Is campen lame, of gewoon onderdeel van het spel?

Now why would I say that? Am I a camper? Actually I am not. But campers add to my fun. See, I'll be running around like crazy and I'll get nabbed by a camper. I yell out loud, "f!%3ing camper!". And then I spawn and go after his/her ass! The challenge of breaking down the camping spot drives me to play better and the satisfaction of getting revenge on a camper is reason enough to have them in the game.

But I have other reasons for being pro-camping. Multiplayer quake is a battle; it's war. Killing the enemy is almost always part of the object no matter what mod you are playing. There are many tactics to achieve this goal. If camping is a possible tactic, then people should use it. If it works, then they've played Quake better. If you are getting gibbed by campers, then try doing it yourself. I've done this and realized it's not as easy to do as one might think. Every time I camp, I get get killed from behind or I get bored waiting. So those who camp successfully, are showing skill and patience and are achieving the goal of the game.

Zelf vind ik campers in Half-Life ook zwaar irritant, maar sniperen is aan de andere kant ook erg leuk...

De rest van het verhaaltje gaat over de 'Cheap Kill'. Quake3 heeft een nieuwe feature waarbij spelers die zitten te typen of hun machine aan het configgen zijn een symbool op hun hoofd krijgen. Nu is het natuurlijk de vraag of het ethisch verantwoord is om iemand met zo'n logootje op z'n hoofd overhoop te knallen. Op zich wel een interessante vraag -> check Q3Center.

GA-Sports heeft een preview van NFS4: High Stakes in elkaar gedraaid. Aan de screenshots te zien zijn er geen heftige veranderingen ten opzichte van NFS3. Dit zegt GA-Sports over de graphics:

Not surprisingly, the graphics are pretty darn impressive. Detail is superb in both the cars and the environment, and things move along at a quick pace most of the time (I only noticed a bit of slowdown when coming into a turn packed with AI cars). Reflections look nice, but aren't true reflections of the surrounding environment, and can be a bit strong with the darker colored cars. Little graphical niceties abound. Unlike most games (which tint the windows and barely let you catch a glimpse of the motorist), in replays NFS: High Stakes clearly shows a polygonal driver grasping the wheel, and turning it as the car navigates the track. Great! In sections of tracks covered with trees, you'll often see tiny leaves slowly falling to ground as well. Dust kicked up by cars, flying pieces of glass after collisions, and collision damage are all done quite well. One other thing I like about this game is the fact that the dashboards are not generic – each is specific to the cars. You can choose from a vast assortment of cameras to view the replays from, my favorite being the TV broadcast-style angle.

En hier heb je alvast 3 screenshots:

FiringSquad heeft een "hands-on preview" van de AMD K7 processor. Hier zijn wat plaatjes:

You'll forgive yet another reminder that the scores taken here are not guaranteed to be representative of the final performance of the K7 processor, for a number of reasons. What they do show however, is that there is always a truth behind the hype. While there may be many circumstances affecting the performance and benchmark results of the K7, there is still much room for improvement before the processor is released, including further firmware optimization on the BIOS and motherboard.

The AMD K7 is scheduled for release in June in a variety of flavors, with an estimated street price of roughly $400-$450 for the 550 1/3-speed L2 cache version. As we near the end of May and close in on the release date of the K7, more information will undoubtedly become available, and you can count of FiringSquad to keep you informed on all next-generation processor news!

hier kun je de hele preview lezen.

Niet erg nieuw, maar wel zeker zo handig is het proggie PS/2 Rate. Altijd al jaloers geweest op de preciezie en snelheid van de USB muizen, terwijl je zelf net een nieuwe PS/2 muis hebt ? Dan is dit de oplossing. Dit programmatje verhoogt de sampling rate van je muis aanzienlijk door de hardware direct aan te sturen...Met als gevolg dat je je cursor heel wat soepeler kan bewegen. Je kunt het hier neerladen.

Bij 3DGaming.net hebben ze een review gepost van de 3M 'Precise Mousing Surface'. In normaal hollands ook wel eens 'muismat' genoemd . Blijft wazig of nie? 3DGaming.com legt uit wat je eraan hebt:

The 3M Precise Mousing Surface is essentially a high tech, high performance mouse pad. It has a funky shape to it, it's less than a half a millimeter thin, and it makes funny sounds if you rub your fingernail across it. 3M claims that the Precise Mousing Surface "Improves Grip and Traction of your Mouse Ball" and that you will "Go precisely where you point!" After working and playing with this pad for about a week, I have to say that it seems to deliver what it promises. I've noticed considerably better control and responsiveness in games, in MS Word, and just about everything I use my coveted Logitech MouseMan 96 in. In comparison, I had a more noticeable increase in accuracy and response speed in Q3Test using the new Precise Mousing Surface while NOT running PS2Rate than I did running PS2Rate with my old foam and cloth Marvin the Martian mouse pad. In Brood War, I found it easier to consistently select the individual unit I was trying for in the midst of a violent battle, and I tended to over or undershoot on the minimap less than usual.

3DGaming.net besteedt in een nieuwe editie van 'Tomorrowland' (korte game previews) aandacht aan drie space strategy games: Conquest: Frontier Wars, Star Wars: Force Commander en Star Trek: Starfleet Command. Over Force Commander preview ga ik ff een stukje copy/pasten:

Force Commander is a new real time strategy game set entirely in the Star Wars universe, beginning shortly before A New Hope and ending after Return of the Jedi, it offers you the chance to play as either the Rebel Alliance or the Empire. Force Commander will be an entirely 3D RTS requiring a 3D accelerator to play and is planned to offer over 100 different Rebel and Imperial units (all rendered fully in 16-bit color 3D). The game engine will sport true line of sight, 3D rendered terrain, colored lighting, environmental effects, and more things that will affect strategy and unit effectiveness. Force Commander will sport about 20 planets from the Star Wars universe for you to explore (and of course, fight for), and you will be able to zoom, pan, and tilt the display to customize your perspective.

Firingsquad heeft z'n CPU Cooling Guide ge-update met info over de Alpha P125 cooler. De Alpha is het absolute toppunt wat betreft PII/Celeron cooling:

Alpha heatsink and fan combinations deserve some special mention. Alpha is a Japanese company which specializes in making heatsinks. They have recently been pretty hard to get a hold of in the U.S. except through a few stores who were willing to order large quantities from them. Now we hear they are getting some resellers. The model P125 is a heatsink and fan combination for the SECC-1 PII and Celeron. It comes with mounting to fit both. Alpha's heatsinks have been considered by overclockers to be among the top, the creme de la creme, if you will. They have a crazy thermal resistance reported to be .245! They are using the normal, anodized aluminum for the base material for their heatsinks. Regardless, their heatsinks perform excellently. This particular unit is topped with two 60 mm fans. Alpha also makes a huge variety of heatsinks, which can be purchased individually, if you just wanted to take advantage of their excellent heatsinks and put your own fans on it. We will post more ordering info as we find out information.

En hier heb je een plaatje van het ding (geript uit het Celeron oc artikel op sysopsolutions.com):

Ik las bij Slashdot dat Seti@Home nu ook aan team doet. Seti@Home is vergelijkbaar met Distributed.net, alleen doe je bij Seti@Home ook nog iets nuttigs met je CPU tikken: zoeken naar marsmannetjes:

Madoc writes "Was just over at Seti@Home's site, and saw that they've introduced teams now! There are 2 Slashdot teams, we should probably standardize on one: Slashdot.org and Team Slashdot " I vote for Team Slashdot. Go seek out new intelligence if this rocks your boat better than cracking DES keys.

Andy heeft op de frontpage van BXB een rijtje info gepost over nieuwe hardware van Abit:

Abit sent me some PR bumpf which caught my eye... I don't know anymore than this, not even the part numbers but I'll try to find out. I'm usually the last to know however...

- BX boards with special addon hardware supporitng full ATA/66!
- Intel 810 Super Board!
- A ZX based Slot 1 mainboard!
- STR technology!
- Dual Socket 370 mainboard!
- PC 99 Compliant mainboards!
- Special ATA/66 Add-on card for BX boards!

The dual Socket 370 board looks really interesting. This will be officially announced at Computex. I hope they manage to get the dual Socket 370 board out the door quicker than the ill fated IT6b. I remember when I first started the Site this board was announced - and its still not seen the light of day..

Dat ATA/66 addon dingetje zal denk ik zoiets zijn als de ATA/66 PCI controllers van Promise. Dat i810 moederbord is waarschijnlijk de WX6, maar die dual socket370 plank?...errug interessant.

Game-over.net heeft een review van Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer in elkaar getimmert. Ze geven het spel 24% en vinden het compleet waardeloos:

All in all, there is absolutely nothing good about this game. If you really want some wicked force effects, don’t get this game – especially not at its suggested retail price of $44.99US. Go to the arcades – you can spend half of this money, but get four times the fun – even from old classics like GT Racer. I didn’t expect much from this game when I originally read the preview in PC Gamer – because even they, with all their enthusiasm and open-mindedness couldn’t mask the screenshots, and couldn’t make this game sound any good at all. Even back then it was entirely obvious that this is a cheap cash-in from a well-respected brand, LucasArts. Again, allow me to reiterate – do not, under any circumstances buy this game. It’s junk. Or, as a good friend of mine puts it, ‘This is jonx’. To use a cliché expression, avoid this like the Plague. Even if you have to own everything related to Star Wars. Buy another Darth Vader figurine instead – at least he had a cool voice. And if you crave a feeling of speed – take a roller coaster. At least it’s real.

Ik zag bij The Register een nieuwsbericht over nieuwe super hoog geklokte Alpha processors. Hier heb je de info:

Sources close to fabrication plants making Alpha processors say that EV67 parts running at 667MHz, 750MHz and 800MHz are now successfully running.

But Alpha fabs are still having yield problems with the 750MHz part, despite the fact that this is the reference point for the EV67 architecture.

Meanwhile, the same sources report that while Compaq charges a whopping $16,000 for a 1Gb memory board for its fast DS20 box, Samsung will send you the DIMMs (dual inline memory modules) for the board for a only $1,600.

Jeremy van AGN 3D heeft nog paar benchmarks gedraaid met de Expendable timedemo en z'n Matrox G400Max, met het doel om de performance hit bij gebruik van bumpmapping te meten:

Armed with a copy of Expendable and the ability to turn on and off Bump-Mapping, I used the timedemo to see what the results were. Now I am not doing a large roundup, just 1024x768x16 with both bump-mapping enabled and disabled. The results are as follows:

1024x768x16 - 36.40
Environmental bump-mapping enabled

1024x768x16 - 46.39
Environmental bump-mapping disabled

This means there is a 16.89% cut in performance to use the environmental bump mapping of the G400. Expendable has a limited use of bump-mapping, including water, vehicles and some walls. Under circumstances with widespread bump-mapping use, I am sure that there will be even up to a 50% hit in performance for using environmental bump-mapping.

Meer info vind je op de news page van AGN 3D.

GA Source heeft een review van de Elsa Revelator 3D glasses gepost. De Revelators zijn vergelijkbaar met de EyeScream 3D brillen van Metabyte. Zo te lezen waren ze bij er bij Gamer's Alliance erg blij met de performance van de bril:

The first game I popped in was SpeedBusters. It was absolutely awesome. Racing through the Mexico track, you just shy of felt the overhanging branches brushing over your head. I then proceeded to throw as many games as I could think of at the Revelators. I really can't remember all the ones I tried, but a few really stood out. Unreal, as you could imagine, was rather unreal. Thief:The Dark Project was absolutely awesome. At the bow and arrow shooting range (in the training mission) you could really feel how far away the targets were.

Het ding werkt helaas _alleen_ met Elsa videokaarten. De prijs valt gelukkig mee: $50 voor de versie met kabel en $80 voor het draadloze infro-rood model.