Jeremy van AGN 3D heeft een emmer screenshots van Star Trek Armada op z'n site gegooid.

Meer screenshots en info over het spel vind je hier.

Gamespot UK heeft een review gepost van Official Formula 1 Racing, een nieuw formule 1 (ja, echt waar) spel van Eidos. Uit de review begrijp ik dat-ie voor de hardcore f1 simmers minder geschikt is:

Playability is excellent. Seriously hard-core fans may be put off by the fact that even on expert mode it is possible to put the car around the circuit without years of practice. Most, however, will find Official Formula 1 Racing pitched about right ­ it's got far more to keep you occupied than the average arcade game, but everything's within reach. The usual range of driving assists, such as steering and braking hints are available, though with these enabled on novice level you are left with something approaching auto-pilot.

Control setup suffers slightly from a lack of flexibility. There are three fixed sensitivity settings for analogue controllers (ie, steering wheels) but no further adjustment. Given that steering wheels have different ranges of travel and centring, it's a shame there isn't finer control.

Jon van Sharky Extreme heeft een review van Episode 1 Racer in elkaar geschroefd. In tegenstelling tot de meeste reviews die ik tot nu toe gezien hebben, vinden ze het bij Sharky Extreme géén baggerslecht spel: hij krijgt een 9!

The tracks in Episode I Racer are a real treat to the arcade-racing fan. Tracks vary widely in graphics and layout. There are several tracks where, in the same race, you will travel through two or three different environments, which other games would have split into different races. This huge variety in even a single race really makes things interesting. A track made of mostly wide paths with easy turns can change into an underground tunnel killing field, which emerges onto a cliff side filled with sharp turns. And that's not all, there are also many side-paths and alternate routes which can save you time, or get you into serious trouble. Some paths are difficult to get onto but once you're there, let you go full speed and avoid a difficult part of the track. Other parts are easy to get onto, but require you to pilot your pants off in order to shave just a second or two off your lap time. There are even places where there is no savings or loss of time, but you can pass an opponent without them getting in your way. LucasArts outdid themselves and everyone else with the track design!

BXBoards heeft reviews gepost van de Tennmax P3TF en Stealth V3 Fighter coolers. Dankzij de Stealth V3 cooler waren ze bij BXB in staat om een Voodoo3 die met normale koeling niet verder ging dan 175/175 stabiel op 193/193MHz te krijgen. Da's niet slecht. Een fotootje van het ding:

Check BXBoards voor de reviews.

Aureal en Activision hebben aangekondigd dat Battlezone II en Dark Reign II zullen worden voorzien van A3D2.0 ondersteuning. Check de press release:

Activision’s “Battlezone II” and “Dark Reign 2” Support Aureal’s A3D 2.0 Two Powerful New Sequels Use Aureal’s Award-Winning A3D Positional Audio Technology to Bring the Experience of Real-Time Combat to Life

Fremont, CA May 25, 1999 (OTC Bulletin Board: AURL) Aureal Semiconductor Inc., leaders in digital audio imaging, today announced that two of Activision, Inc’s upcoming games, Battlezone II and Dark Reign 2, will include support for Aureal’s award-winning A3DTM standard for high-quality positional audio. Developed by Pandemic Studios for Activision, the two new games bring real-time action and strategy gaming to life with immersive 3D graphics and 3D audio.

“The first Battlezone was a revolution in game design and the original Dark Reign was a major hit," said Skip McIlvaine, Aureal's Developer Relations Manager. "Activision helped start a genre that has now securely found its place. The original Battlezone was ahead of its time and, with Battlezone II, Pandemic Studios has improved upon that foundation to create a game that is equally revolutionary and infinitely more attractive. The technology of Battlezone and the appeal of Dark Reign will serve Pandemic well in these ambitious projects.”

"The A3D 2.0 sound engine is a perfect fit for these two projects," said Josh Resnick, President of Pandemic Studios. "The original Battlezone was one of the first games to utilize A3D, and through Aureal's, and our own, technological enhancements, the experience in Battlezone II and Dark Reign 2 will be nothing short of overwhelming to those who played the originals."

AMD beweerd met de K6-III-P op 380MHz de snelste x86 notebook CPU in huis te hebben. Hier heb je de press release, bruut geript van GA-Source:

AMD today announced the industry's highest performance x86 mobile PC processor available, the Mobile AMD-K6-III-P.

The new Mobile AMD-K6-III-P processor is based on AMD's sixth generation micro-architecture, with AMD's unique TriLevel Cache design, and a 100MHz front-side bus. The processor is available immediately at clock speeds of up to 380MHz.

The Mobile AMD-K6-III-P processor incorporates AMD's innovative TriLevel Cache design. The TriLevel Cache maximizes overall system performance of Mobile AMD-K6-III-P processor-based notebook PCs by delivering the mobile computer industry's largest combined system cache.

The TriLevel Cache architecture includes a full-speed 64KByte Level 1 (L1) cache, an internal full processor-speed backside 256KByte Level 2 (L2) cache, and a 100-MHz frontside bus to an optional external Level 3 (L3) cache of up to 1MByte.

The Mobile AMD-K6-III-P processor also incorporates AMD's 3DNow! technology for enhanced performance on applications such as 3D graphics, soft DVD playback and speech recognition algorithms. The Mobile AMD-K6-III-P processor operates at a core voltage of 2.2 Volts, has an extended case temperature rating of 80(Degree)C, and dissipates approximately 12 Watts of power running typical applications.

Zoals je in de Abit preview van van ons ook kan lezen is er behalve de BE6 ook de opvolger van de BM6. Hier heb je de volledige press release:

ABIT announces the release of the their latest BX chipset ATX based SOCKET 370 motherboard, supporting the Ultra DMA/66 IDE Protocol and Soft Menu™ II technology, the BY6. With all the great features of ABIT’s flagship BX mainboards and UDMA/66, ABIT has once again proved that “Yes it’s possible!”.

What’s different?

The major difference between the BY6 and the other BX mainboards is the addition of Ultra DMA/66 support. The BX chipset was not designed to support UDMA/66. Although the BX chipset was designed to be compatible with this specification, it is only capable of running the bus at a maximum of 33 Mbytes/sec, thus offering no advantage over UDMA/33. With the help of specially designed ABIT hardware, the BY6 can support this specification up to its maximum frequency of 66 Mbytes/sec.

On Now!

With the BY6, ABIT is implementing our OnNow (STR/STD) Initiative which allows you to suspend your computer with out closing you’re desktop applications, allowing you to find everything the way you left it while using a minimum of power. No need to close and reopen all those applications any more. The BY6 also supports up to 256 SDRAM modules, permitting up to 768MB of memory.

PC 99 Compliant

The BY6 is also among the first to proudly meet the coming PC99 specification. Connectors are color coded to be identified and hooked up easily.

What’s the same?

ABIT's new BY6 has One AGP, Five PCI and Two ISA slots to handle all of your expansion needs. It also offers official support for Intel's newest Celeron® processors. Furthermore, it comes with the following features: all the specifications for AGP spec Rev. 1.0 for improved 3D graphics performance at a lower cost, APM/ACPI power management, USB, PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors, CPU auto-detect, AWARD write protect anti-virus, Wake On LAN, Suspend to RAM, and hardware health monitoring. APM is there also which stands for Advanced Power Management. It is a feature rich power management function for a more energy efficient P.C. It includes Soft Power On/Off, Sleep, Suspend and Stand-By mode, Real Time Clock (RTC) Alarm and RTC Power On, and Modem Ring On. The networking standards Wake On Lan (WOL) and Wake on Ring are also supported.

WinBond Hardware Monitoring

Winbond Hardware Doctor is a self-diagnostic system for PCs and must be used with Winbond chipsets. It protects PC hardware by monitoring several critical items including power supply voltages, CPU & system fan speeds, and CPU and system temperatures. Once any item is out of its normal range, a warning window will pop up and remind the user to take proper measures. It will protect PC hardware by monitoring the most critical items. These items are important for the operation of the system, as errors may result in permanent damage of the PC.

Soft MenuTMII

The BY6 implements Soft MenuTMII technology that eliminates all jumpers on the mainboard that set CPU parameters, allowing end-users to easily and correctly install or upgrade their own CPUs. The BY6 BIOS supports a wide range of external clock settings, multipliers from 2 to 8 and special PCI and AGP clock dividers.

For more information on the BY6 check out the ABIT website at: http://www.ABIT.com.tw.

Uiteraard is er ook vandaag weer een hele puddingzooi aan game reviews, interviews, screenshots e.d. gepubliceerd. Een overzicht:

MDK2 interview (MDK2.com)

Test Drive 6 interview (Next Generation Online)

Moutain Biking review (3DFiles)

Braveheart preview (AVault)

Deep Fighter screenshots (GA-Source)

Vampire: the Masquerade screenshots (GA-Source)

Darkstone preview (GA-Source)

Fierce Harmony screenshots (Screenshots.net)

Gabriel Knight 3 screenshots (Screenshots.net)

Soldier of Fortune screenshots (Voodoo Extreme)

Rune preview (Gamespy)

Een paar week geleden wist 3Dfx nog met overtuiging te vertellen dat z'n Voodoo3 veruit de best verkopende 3D accelerator was, nVidia meent nu hetzelfde te kunnen zeggen:

NVIDIA(TM) Corporation (Nasdaq:NVDA - news) announced today that in the May 1999 edition of VisionQuest 2000's survey of top-selling 3D graphics boards, the Creative Labs Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT, based on NVIDIA's RIVA TNT(TM) 3D processor, was reported as the highest selling product for March 1999.

According to VisionQuest 2000, an industry-leading market tracking service, the RIVA TNT chipset was also the top selling graphic chipset available through retail stores, outselling its nearest competitor by almost 60%.

In addition to racking up the industry's highest number of units sold in March, the Creative Labs Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT was also chosen by PC World magazine in the June 1999 round-up of AGP graphics boards as the industry's ``Best Buy.'' This is the first time that a NVIDIA product has received this designation from PC World and follows an April 16 announcement of six other industry publications selecting the RIVA TNT as the highest rated 3D graphics processor available.

This new designation from PC World brings to a total of 104 worldwide awards that the RIVA TNT has helped NVIDIA customers win since its introduction in August 1998, making it one of the most highly decorated 3D processors ever.

``The results speak for themselves,'' said Michael Hara, vice president of corporate marketing at NVIDIA. ``The RIVA TNT possesses the features and performance that make it a dominant 3D solution for both the industry and the end-user communities.''

Ook in de Inventiv' e-zine las ik dat CorelDRAW 9, het nieuwste vectorpakketje van Corel ligt in de winkel:

Corel beloofde dat de nieuwe CorelDRAW 9 Graphics Suite in mei verkrijgbaar zou zijn, en heeft woord gehouden. Versie 9 kan worden geleverd, maar in Nederland is het pakket volgens onze bronnen nog niet gesignaleerd. De grafische suite omvat de volgende programma's: CorelDRAW 9, Corel PHOTO-PAINT 9, Bitstream Font Navigator, CorelTRACE, Corel Texture, Corel Capture en Canto Cumulus Desktop. De suite is voorlopig alleen in het Engels, Frans en Duits verkrijgbaar. Andere versies, waaronder de Nederlandse, worden deze zomer verwacht. Voor de gebruikers van soortgelijke software (Adobe Illustrator en Macromedia Freehand) heeft Corel een aardig financieel voordeeltje in petto: zij kunnen een upgrade van de grafische suite bemachtigen voor 199 US-dollar. http://www.corel.com/ Voor wie geïnteresseerd is in de nieuwe mogelijkheden van de software heeft Bob van Duuren een kort verslagje op zijn speciale Draw-site geplaatst. http://www.draw.nu/nieuws/0006.htm

Yep, ik had het gelezen in de Intentiv' e-zine, maarja is weinig link bij (hehe kan moeilijk een link maken naar m'n meelbox), OK hier de stuff die erin stond:

Softwarehuis Adobe heeft een Windows-versie gemaakt van GoLive 4.0, het webdesign-programma dat aanvankelijk was voorbehouden aan Macintosh-gebruikers. Adobe nam eerder de rechten van het programma (dat toen CyberStudio heette) over van GoLive Systems. Onderdeel van het programma zijn gereedschappen zoals de QuickTime Movie Editor, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Cascading Style Sheets en een raster waarmee zeer precies (op pixelniveau) kan worden ontworpen. GoLive 4.0 ondersteunt Extensible Markup Language, de Active Server Pages van Microsoft en het Portable Document Format van Adobe zelf. Adobe GoLive 4.0 draait onder Windows 98/NT 4.0 en Macintosh, en kost 299 US-dollar.

3DNews.net heeft een column gepost over innovatie in het FPS genre, of beter gezegd: het totale gebrek aan innovatie:

Innovation in first person shooters is at a standstill. Everybody is concentrating on graphics and visceral gameplay over truly changing the way the games are actually played. Take Wheel of Time as an example. (screenshot) It's a gorgeous game! It looks even better in person than that screenshot. Unbelievably nice graphics. But the gameplay?

Can you say "Doom"? Instead of a rocket launcher, you have a fireballl ter'angreal. Instead of a machinegun, a flamedart ter'agreal. Et cetera. It's the same damn game!

Hmm... het lijkt erop dat de Permedia 3 er nu echt gaat komen. 3DLabs in ieder geval al een press release gepost waarin gezegd wordt dat het ding op pre-order besteld kan worden:

Dlabs, Inc. today announced it is manufacturing and selling the Permedia3 Create! graphics accelerator card developed for web designers and creative professionals. This card is based on the new-generation Permedia3 processor, is now available for pre-purchase online with product shipment commencing in June. With an MSRP of $289, US-based customers may initially purchase Permedia3 Create! exclusively online at www.3dlabs.com/store for an introductory price of $229. Permedia3 Create! will also be available through local distribution in other geographies, including Europe and Asia.

Answering the specific needs of web design and creative professionals, Permedia3 Create! is a 32MB AGP graphics accelerator that delivers advanced OpenGL 1.2 and DirectX 6.1 performance, provides sophisticated Virtual Texturing capabilities and is optimized for crystal- clear 32-bit displays at resolutions up to 2048x1536.

The advanced 3Dlabs control panel allows point-and-click configuration of Permedia3 Create! to achieve high levels of productivity across numerous applications, including popular web and authoring software such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, Caligari trueSpace and Adobe Photoshop.

Permedia3 Create! is bundled with $100 worth of software to provide additional productivity for creative and web professionals, including Sonnetech Colorific for accurate display and printing color calibration and Cyberlink's full-feature PowerDVD player that leverages Permedia3's sophisticated video processing. Additional bundled software includes the CosmoPlayer VRML 2.0 player, other popular web plug-ins and evaluation copies of the Macromedia Product Suite, Caligari trueSpace and Haptek Virtual Friend.

The Permedia3 processor used on Permedia3 Create! delivers true 128-bit 2D and 3D performance and advanced OpenGL 1.2 and DirectX 6.1 rendering, including single pass bump-mapping and triple texture blending in a single cycle. The high-performance OpenGL and Direct3D drivers incorporate Pentium III and 3Dnow! optimizations for maximum graphics throughput. Permedia3 Create! ships with 2D and 3D drivers for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95/98 and is Windows 2000 ready.

The Permedia3 processor contains a full demand-paged virtual texture sub-system in hardware, enabling the use of on-board graphics memory as a cache for up to 256MB of textures stored in main system memory. Virtual Texturing works transparently with all OpenGL and Direct3D applications, and, when coupled with the Permedia3 triple-blend texture core and single-pass bump mapping, provides high levels of realism and interaction for authoring, productivity and game applications.

Permedia3 Create! delivers a fill-rate of 220 Mtexels/sec with dual bilinear mip-mapped textures and 110 Mpixels/sec with full per-pixel tri-linear mip-mapping. Permedia3 Create!'s highly optimized graphics pipeline can accept and setup up to 11 million polygons per second.

EETimes weet te vertellen dat ATI en nVidia strategische allianties hebben gesloten met resp. Reliance en ALI, fabrikanten van core logic chipsets. Hier is de sauce:

Nvidia (Santa Clara, Calif.) has licensed its graphics technology to Taiwan's Acer Labs Inc. The first product to emerge from the companies' partnership will not bear Nvidia's name, but the company does expect to market its own line of integrated graphics-with-core-logic devices beginning in 2000, said Michael Hara, Nvidia's vice president of corporate marketing.

"Integration makes sense in some markets," Hara said. "We recognize that the midrange and low-cost PC market is very important."

ATI (Thornhill, Ontario) is working with Reliance Computer Corp. to develop a similar product, aimed at PCs in the $500 to $800 range and designed for use with Intel Corp.'s Pentium II and Pentium III as well as other processors. ATI said it will sample the part in the second half.

The two graphics-chip vendors have jumped on an increasingly crowded bandwagon. S3 Inc. announced its own partnership last month with Via Technologies Inc.; Trident Microsystems Inc. has been collaborating with Via since last year. Also in April, Intel released its own integrated chip set, the 810, featuring a graphics accelerator in the north bridge. And Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. last year rolled out integrated graphics-with-logic devices that support both Slot 1 and Socket 7 systems.

Extreme Hardware heeft z'n E3 Report gepost. Er zit spul bij over Aureal, Sharedware, Saitek, ACT Labs, nVidia, Intensor, Turtle Beach, Logitech, Matrox en Thrustmaster.

In het kader van m'n Xitel Storm Platinum review lijkt me dit stukje over Aureal wel interessant:

On Thursday I stopped by Aureal’s booth to further talk about the promised driver updates that we’ve been hearing about recently. As some of you may be aware, Aureal released beta drivers about two weeks ago with support for 32 simultaneous hardware voices (on two-speaker/headphone output, not four-speaker output). However, the real driver update that everyone’s been waiting for is the Vortex 2’s promised EAX support. While I couldn’t get a firm date out of them, Aureal is planning to ship an update to A3D 2.0 in June/July. This update will not change the performance or quality on Vortex 2 boards, rather it will increase the compatibility of lower quality sound cards. Aureal has added a reverb engine that will work on any sound card. What kind of reverb that is generated and how it is processed whether it be in hardware or software, it will depend on the sound card that is being used. In with this new reverb support, there will be full support for EAX on both SoundBlaster and Vortex 2 sound cards.

Onprettig nieuws bij The Register: door de prijsdalingen en toenemende vraag naar DRAM chips zal er volgens Dataquest in de komende 18 maanden een tekort aan DRAM chips ontstaan. De prijzen zullen over een paar maand dus weer omhoog gaan (of stabiliseren):

Expect DRAM to be in short supply in 18 months' time -- that's the warning market researcher Dataquest sounded yesterday.

It's an interesting conclusion, not least because of the semiconductor industry is currently experiencing a DRAM surplus and prices are falling.

Dataquest believes that increased demand for PCs, consumer electronics kit and communications devices, which together account for two-thirds of the semiconductor market, will boost demand for memory, in turn limiting supply and pushing up prices.

Gamers Depot heeft een review gebouwd rond de Diamond Stealth III S540. In tegenstelling tot andere reviews zijn zij duidelijk niet te spreken over de performance van de Savage4:

It was very surprising for us to see a chip that is supposed to be cutting-edge, perform like other chips did last year. In fact, for anything above 1024x768, you might as well be running in software mode, because this card absolutely sucks at those high resolutions. In fact, I'd rather run through hell with gasoline soaked pants on, and have to beat the fire out with a hatchet, then have to be the poor sap who is running this card for multi-player quake2. Can you say "slide-show"? For a MRSP of $129.00 you'd be far better off using that money to get the Voodoo3 2000 which runs circles around the StealthIII.

De Stealth III krijgt een 2,5. Oeps...

Anand heeft een review gepost van de nieuwe Intel 810 chipset. Alle features van de i810 / Whitney chipset worden uitvoering beschreven. Hier heb je een blok info over de Accelerated Hub architechtuur van de i810:

The key to the success of the Accelerated Hub Architecture is the substitution of individual hub interfaces for the PCI bus in connecting the various parts of your system to your memory/CPU on the motherboard end of things. Take a look at the acronym PCI, Peripheral Component Interconnect, it doesn't really scream "all-purpose-bus" now does it? Intel took what was once a two-chip solution (North/South Bridge) and converted it into a two chip, three-hub solution, the first implementation being the i810 chipset. The three individual hubs are the Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH), the I/O Controller Hub (ICH) and the Firmware Hub (FWH). The two main hubs, the GMCH and the ICH are connected via an internal bus that offers double the bandwidth of the PCI bus, 266MB/s. This is a definite improvement over the "old" way of doing things and will shortly become the new standard as far as chipsets go, don't expect Intel to return to the classical way of doing things on the motherboard level anytime soon.

Best wel goede info denk ik, beter dan wat Tom een paar week geleden gebakken heeft. Check 't bij AnandTech.

Zoals je in de Abit preview van Reinder hebt kunnen lezen zal Abit binnenkort een aantal nieuwe moederplanken releasen. Eén daarvan is de BE6, de opvolger van de BX6-II. Hier heb je de volledige press release:

ABIT announces the release of the their latest BX chipset ATX based SLOT 1 motherboard, supporting the Ultra DMA/66 IDE Protocol and Soft Menu™ II technology, the BE6. With all the great features of ABIT’s flagship BX mainboards and UDMA/66, ABIT has once again proved that “Yes it’s possible!”.

What’s different?The major difference between the BE6 and the other BX mainboards is the addition of Ultra DMA/66 support. The BX chipset was not designed to support UDMA/66. Although the BX chipset was designed to be compatible with this specification, it is only capable of running the bus at a maximum of 33 Mbytes/sec, thus offering no advantage over UDMA/33. With the help of specially designed ABIT hardware, the BE6 can support this specification up to its maximum frequency of 66 Mbytes/sec

On Now!With the BE6, ABIT is implementing our OnNow (STR/STD) Initiative which allows you to suspend your computer with out closing you’re desktop applications, allowing you to find everything the way you left it while using a minimum of power. No need to close and reopen all those applications any more. The BE6 also supports up to 256 SDRAM modules, permitting up to 768MB of memory.

PC 99 CompliantThe BE6 is also among the first to proudly meet the coming PC99 specification. Connectors are color coded to be identified and hooked up easily.

What’s the same?

ABIT's new BE6 has One AGP, Five PCI and Two ISA slots to handle all of your expansion needs. It also offers official support for Intel's newest Pentium®III and Celeron® processors and completely supports Pentium®IIs and earlier Celerons® as well. Furthermore, it comes with the following features: all the specifications for AGP spec Rev. 1.0 for improved 3D graphics performance at a lower cost, APM/ACPI power management, USB, PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors, CPU auto-detect, AWARD write protect anti-virus, Wake On LAN, Suspend to RAM, and hardware health monitoring. APM is there also which stands for Advanced Power Management. It is a feature rich power management function for a more energy efficient P.C. It includes Soft Power On/Off, Sleep, Suspend and Stand-By mode, Real Time Clock (RTC) Alarm and RTC Power On, and Modem Ring On. The networking standards Wake On Lan (WOL) and Wake on Ring are also supported.

WindBond Hardware Monitoring

Winbond Hardware Doctor is a self-diagnostic system for PCs and must be used with Winbond chipsets. It protects PC hardware by monitoring several critical items including power supply voltages, CPU & system fan speeds, and CPU and system temperatures. Once any item is out of its normal range, a warning window will pop up and remind the user to take proper measures. It will protect PC hardware by monitoring the most critical items. These items are important for the operation of the system, as errors may result in permanent damage of the PC.

High Quality Thermistor

In order to provide accurate hardware temperature monitoring with the Hardware Doctor, the BE6 is also equipped with an additional 40cm thermal sensor cable equipped with a 10k-ohm thermistor to assure you the most latitude in designing your hardware monitoring. It is the longest cable bundled with a board, (compare other’s with lengths of 27cm and under!), so the user can detect any hardware component’s temperature in the system, such as the CPU. Soft MenuTMII The BE6 implements Soft MenuTMII technology that eliminates all jumpers on the mainboard that set CPU parameters, allowing end-users to easily and correctly install or upgrade their own CPUs. The BE6 BIOS supports a wide range of external clock settings, multipliers from 2 to 8 in increments and special PCI and AGP clock dividers. For more information on the BE6 check out the ABIT website at: http://www.ABIT.com.tw.

Brian Hook heeft z'n .plan weer eens ge-update. Deze gaat over de mailtjes die hij krijgt naar aan leiding van z'n Q3Test benchmarks. De info is niet echt nuttig, maar wel grappig:

I made an amusing observation today. In general, much of my benchmark related e-mail can be summed up into the following template:

"Dear Brian,

[My favorite video card lost] and I noticed that [you were emphasizing things that my favorite video card isn't very good at] and I think to be fair you should [emphasize the things that my favorite video card does really well and that its competitors' do not]. It's obvious that you have a bias otherwise. Please stop [bashing my favorite video card by posting scores that make it look bad] and try to be fair in the future since [some threat I'm supposed to care about].

Thanks,

Rabid Fan of [Favorite Video Card]"

Three (fictitious) examples would be:

"Dude,

I checked out your latest scores, and I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed. The S3 Savage4 completely kicked the crap out of the competition at lower resolutions, but for some reason you put in these completely bogus 1280x1024 numbers, as if anyone cares. In the future try sticking with realistic tests, not this contrived crap that no one cares about. I used to really respect your benchmarks, but it's obvious that you're just trying to sell more video cards and getting sloppy with your coding."

or, on the flip side:

"Hey Brian,

Man, the G400 MAX OWN3Z!!!! YEAH! I'm surprised you didn't emphasize its performance at 1280x1024, since it completely r0x0r3d the TNT (HAHA) at that res. I mean, seriously, who plays at 640x480?! NO ONE DUDE. If you think people still play at 640x480, you are SERIOUSLY out of touch with people. My brother and clan mates ALL play at 1024x768 (on G200, MATROX RUL3Z!), and we can't remember the last person we saw play at 640. You need to ditch those 640 numbers cos they're misleading people into getting some L4M3R board like a TNT2. D3wd, it's almost the new millenium (heh, get it?), isn't it time to get away from 640?!"

and finally, the obligatory 3Dfx fanatic:

"Dumbas--I mean, Brian,

When will you get your head out your ass? NO ONE CARES ABOUT 32-BIT!! It's stupid to list the numbers, 16-bit looks the same (and V3 has 22-bit, you should know this), and V3 OWNS TNT2. WHO CARES about 1280x1024?! EVERYONE plays at 1024, and you didn't even test that, what kind of dumb crap is THAT?! Man, I can't believe you're even allowed to type code at id if you think people care about 32-bit or 1280x1024. Do us a favor, and get a 3500 and test it THEN post results, because until you do you're not doing anyone any favors by posting MISLEADING information."

I've got TNT2 Ultra numbers up using pre-production drivers on the Celeron 400. Will have TNT2 Ultra numbers up for the PIII/500 once we get those done:

http://www.idsoftware.com/bwh/benchmarks.html

Screenshots.net heeft een berg screenshots gepost van Navy Seals, een tactisch actie spel gebaseerd op de Unreal engine en in de stijl van Spec Ops. Hier heb je de omschrijving:

A new squad-based 3D tactical simulation game which will allow gamers to take on the role of a Navy SEAL team commander. Players will experience realistic missions that real Navy SEALs might actually face. Action will take place both in the air, on land, and in the sea. Mission locations will take place all over the globe, including in jungle, urban, arctic, and underwater settings.

En hier een selectie van 3 screenshots:

Bij Sharky Extreme hebben ze deel 2 gepost van hun artikel over 3D terminologie. In part II worden allerlei leuke technische termen zoals "tri-linear texture filtering", "Anisotropic texture filtering" en "Mip-mapping" nader besproken. Moch je hier om een of andere reden in geïnteresseerd zijn, fiets dan even langs bij Sharky Extreme.

Sharky Extreme heeft wat toffe info over de Alienware PGC technologie gepost in de Weekly CPU Prices column:

There's been a lot of speculation regarding the actual performance level of the Alienware PGC technology (again, two Voodoo3-2000 PCI cards running in SLI). We've been passed the following benchmark result from the company themselves, as witnessed by many during Alienware's display at E3:

Alienware Dual Voodoo3-2000 PGC (2 x 16MB PCI, 143MHz)
Intel P3-500
Quake2 Timedemo1- 1600x1200x16bpp: 63.5 fps

That's an amazing figure, especially when you consider that the fastest video card that we've tested this year (the Matrox G400 MAX) turned in a score of 38.3 fps in the same test with the same CPU. [break]Wow. Het lijkt er nu trouwens op dat er toch Voodoo3 PGC configuraties gaan komen, hoewel 3Dfx dat liever niet heeft.

Nog leuker dan 2 Voodoo3's wordt het combineren van een G400 met een V3. Yep, zal allemaal mogelijk zijn: [/break] Of course the two products are apples and oranges really since users will still have to put up with the Voodoo3's inherent lack of 32MB of ram or 32bpp color support if they opt for the Alienware kit. We've also been made aware, (as if you sharp tacks didn't know this anyway) that for the truly power possessed it will be possible to run the dual Alienware V3-2000 PGC kit in a PC alongside a Matrox G400 MAX, or any other AGP card you posses….yikes.

De Savage4 lijkt nu toch nog enige voet aan wal te krijgen als (low-budget) video accelerator. Savage Daily News heeft een Savage4 Buyer's Guide, dwz een opsomming van alle Savage4 kaarten die er op de markt zijn, met info over hun kloksnelheid en prijs.

Gamepost heeft een preview van Q3 Arena in elkaar geplakt. Hier heb je een stuk:

When a shot is fired that does damage to an enemy, an unobtrusive, yet very noticeable sound is played to alert you that your shot hit home. Centre your cross - hairs on a player and their name is displayed on your HUD. Very useful to find and prey on the last-placed player, and to avoid the top player. When you frag someone a message appears on your HUD in a large font, notifying you who killed whom. Whenever you switch to a different weapon, a list of icons appears on the lower half of your HUD showing you all the weapons you currently possess. You will also see if you have ammo for that weapon. You will also be able to cycle through the weapons in a similar way to task switching using alt/tab in windows 95/98/NT. When your console is lowered or you are typing a message, a small chat icon appears above the head of your player. This alerts other players that you're typing, and hopefully stops them trying to kill you at that point.

GA-Sports heeft Sports Car GT gereviewed en beoordeelt het met een vette 91%. Gameplay moet dus wel wreed zijn:

SCGT is about GT racing, one of the most exciting types of racing your eyes will ever feast upon, in cars that range from modified production machines to full-on one-offs. From the 275 HP BMW M3 to the 700+ HP Mercedes CLK, the fun never stops. The tracks are simply a delight, full of texture and details on the road and in the surroundings that equal and exceed some of the best game in release. SCGT accomplishes something else that few sims have mastered yet: space, that feeling of having the room for the car to move about on the track. Not just a little bit here and there, but enough to run 3 wide on some of the wider tracks. This feeling makes for some exciting racing as it allows for serious side-by-side hangin' and bangin' down the straight-aways and a realistic feel in turning. So feel free to slide that 911 through that big sweeping left and not worry about running out of track.

En de graphics, die mag je zelf beoordelen aan de hand van deze 3 screenshots:

FullOn3D heeft een preview gepost van de Elsa Winner II. Dit is een Savage4 Pro kaart wat wil zeggen dat het ding op 125/143Mhz loopt (110/125 standaard). Hier heb je een stuk uit de conclusie:

The Savage 4 looks like it is in fact a winner for S3. It performs better than I had originally anticipated, which confirms my decision to invest into the company.

Aimed at the mass and budget minded market on corporate and non-power gamer desktops, it manages to wedge itself into place between TNT and TNT-2 on AMD machines at the performance level with a feature set that surpasses them: free trilinear filtering, DVD motion compensation, MPEG-2 textures and texture compression.

Offered at a decent price in comparision with the TNT at about the same performance but with better features, a good deal cheaper than the TNT-2 without losing too much on the performance side (and still better features) and finally faster than the Rage 128 (and with some better features unless DVD is your need), the Winner II seems to have a bright future in the budget retail 3Dnow! market where AMD is the leading CPU supplier.

Over overclocking vind ik niets in de preview, verder is het wel goeie info.

CGO heeft een review van de Leadtek S320 TNT2 kaart. De kaart draait op standaard 125/150Mhz, maar kan redelijk overgeklokt worden:

What's worthy of note, however, is the "Speed Runner" menu in the display properties, which allows you to alter the clock rates up to 160MHz core and 175MHz memory. Our card ran perfectly stable at this setting, perhaps due to the heatsink and fan Leadtek added to their card design. While your mileage may vary, it's safe to say that most users will be able to run this card at a speed that falls between the "regular" and "Ultra" designations.

Verder is de review nogal kort, weinig opwindende info.

Diamond heeft een nieuwe USB-based modem, de SupraExpress 56 USB. Er is ook een Mac versie (who cares).

USB is toch altijd handig. Nu heb je geen seriële kabel meer nodig, en ook geen adapter. Plus een USB poort kan tot bijna 100 keer sneller opereren dan een seriële poort.

En daarbij ziet-ie er ook nog best geinig uit ook.

De press release staat hier, en op de Diamond site staan ook nog wat specificaties.

3Dfx weer de performance king ?

The Falcon Northwest Special Edition is designed for hard-core gamers who demand the highest possible performance for white-knuckle game play. The special edition boards are expected to be available in July 1999 in limited quantities.

The Voodoo3 3500 TV card, with Falcon Northwest speed enhancing technology, enables the board to be clocked at 200MHz, part of a line of Falcon Northwest Special Edition projects.

The release goes on to describe performance numbers:

The Falcon Northwest Special Edition: Voodoo3 systems will feature highly optimized Voodoo3 hardware and software. The new systems are expected to generate up to 9 million triangles and 400 Megatexels per second at resolutions of up to 2,046 by 1,536 pixels.

Andy van BXBoards heeft wat info gepost over het wazige BH6 beta BIOS met mysterieuze busspeeds:

I flashed my BH6 (I found it!!) with the KK BIOS (scroll down a bit for todays earlier update!!) and although you now get loads more bus speeds reported in the BIOS, these DONT work. If you select 81Mhz, this gets rounded down to 75Mhz etc. Some bus speeds don't work at all, and a blank screen results.

OK, well its probably not worth flashing, especially if you have an original rev. 1.01 board which will have the original clock generator. You may be able to use these speeds on a later revision of the board however. I do not recommend you use this, but here it is your own risk.

Het lijkt er dus op de extra busspeeds helemaal niets doen.