Niet echt belangrijk nieuws, maar wel grappig: AMD probeert Cyrix werknemers te porren voor een baan, wat alleen nog niet echt wil lukken:

Dallas, May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is trying lure employees from rival National Semiconductor Corp.'s Cyrix division with advertisements on Dallas radio stations, the Dallas Morning News reported. The ads don't mention Cyrix by name, though they solicit employees from a company that recently left the microprocessor business to fill positions at its factories in Austin, Texas, and Sunnyvale, California. A Cyrix spokesman said while many of the division's 300 employees find the ads humorous, they have had little effect and morale at the company remains high, the paper said.

Ene Chris Harris meldt het volgende:

This next bit comes from a fairly reliable source of mine which got to lay his hands on a K7 for a brief time.
Final release sample
Speed grade of 550mhz with 1/2 speed cache
Booted at 650, but was not stable with cache enabled
About 25% faster at Lightwave than same speed P3
FSB setting of 100-250mhz
2x-8x multipliers

Jammer dat ie niet stabiel liep, maar een FSB van 250, dat lijkt me wel wat!

Bij Ace's Hardware kun je lezen over de high-end CPU's van 2000, zoals de Merced. Leuk detail:

Window 95 was a 32-bit OS with a lot of 16-bit code, and in Windows 98 you find only slightly less 16-bit code. You can imagine that Windows 2002 will not be fully 64-bit. In fact, it will probably contain some 64-bit optimizations for IA-64 CPUs, but it will take more than a few years to build a 64-bit OS for the desktop market. So, just like the Pentium Pro's performance was hampered by the large amounts of 16-bit code in Windows 95, Deerfield will suffer from all the 32-bit code in Windows 2002.

Denk ik ook!

Novell is al hard bezig met een volledig 64-bits versie van NetWare, maar op een 64-bits versie van NT zullen we nog wel even moeten wachten...

Microsoft...

Voodoo Extreme heeft een dikke nieuwsposting met een opsomming van de nieuwe features in DirectX 7. Het is nogal diep technisch geblaah, niet echt nuttig voor de normale aardkloot-bewoner. Anyway, hier heppie een stukje:

WHAT'S CHANGED

By far the biggest new addition to the SDK is the addition of DirectX for Visual Basic. However, there are other updates, modifications and bug fixes in other areas of the API. These modifications are listed by component below:

Direct3DIM

Direct3D for DirectX 7.0 introduces a new set of interfaces which offer a simplified programming model and higher performance, as well as a number of new features. The programming model is simplified though a consolidation of Direct3D interfaces. Material, viewport, and light information is now part of the device state instead of being separate objects. The need for separate texture objects has been eliminated, and textures are now simply DirectDraw surfaces.

Features enabled through these new interfaces include:
- hardware transform and lighting
- vertex blending
- arbitrary clip planes
- cube environment maps
- texture transforms and projected textures
- enhanced texture management
- state blocks

Tja, wat moet ik ermee?

Gamer's Alliance Source heeft een first look gepost van Heavy Metal: FAKK. Het spel is gebaseerd op de Quake3 engine, de graphics mogen er dan ook zijn. Check deze drie screenshots:

De Q3A engine gaan ze flink verbouwen en zo te lezen gaat dat best leuk worden:

I've saved the best for last, too. The engine will support arbitrary attachment points and dynamic polygon subtraction. What does this mean? Simple -- any object in the game can be attached to any point on any character's body, including NPCs. This feature alone allows for tremendous flexibility in game design, and add-ons as well. But what is "dynamic polygon subtraction"? Tom Mustaine explained it like this: in most games, models are built in groups of polygons. For instance, there'll be a hand group, a forearm group, an upper arm group, and a torso group. HM:F2 will allow the subtraction of individual polygons as needed... so, for instance, you can literally slice an opponent's arm into chunks one polygon at a time, if your aim is good enough. This allows for an interesting variation of "limb loss," don't you think?

Hmm...zeker . Zie GA-Source voor de complete info.

Hmm...ik vind dat het zo onderhand wel weer eens tijd is voor een leuk nieuwsberichtje over de Microsoft rechtzaak. Moet je zien wat Bill nu weer gedaan heeft:

A top IBM executive testified in the Microsoft antitrust case today that Microsoft made threats against PC makers who were considering IBM's OS/2 operating system.

Garry Norris, who was IBM's lead negotiator in securing Windows operating system licensing agreements from Microsoft, also said that IBM saw a sharp increase in the royalties it paid to Microsoft because the software giant viewed IBM as a competitive threat.

Norris, who was deposed in a courtroom here by Microsoft attorney Richard Pepperman, said that in 1995 IBM paid $40 million in royalty agreements for Windows 3.1, but in 1996 it paid $220 million in royalty agreements for Windows 95. Norris is a rebuttal witness in the trial, which has been on a break for several months and is slated to resume June 1.

De schmutzhund. Fiets verder naar GA-Source voor de complete nieuwsposting.

Gamewire neemt een ACT Labs force feedback stuurwiel onder handen en bouwt er een review omheen. Zo te lezen is dit best een lekker stuurtje :

Having been playing NFS with my MS FF Pro, I thought I knew what to expect. But when I watched the starting countdown, and felt the engine rumbling through the wheel, I white-knuckledly realized this wasn’t going to be the same experience at all. Let me say, this is one solid wheel. I had two friends come over on separate days, and the first comment from both of them was how much better built this wheel is compared to the MS wheel. The grip on the wheel is outstanding. It’s a thick, full-hand, faux-leather wheel that is just cushy enough to give you a comfortable, fatigue- and sweat-free grip. The buttons on the wheel are well laid out, with a tactile bump on the middle button of both groups of three so you don’t have to take your eyes of the road. The F1 shifter paddles on the wheel were the Achilles’ tendon though. The paddles are soft and springy with no real resistance to them. It’s not that they’re that bad, but in the shadow of the rest of the brick-like wheel, they are noticeably flimsy. With the upcoming (and much anticipated by this "automatic-be-damned" racer) shifter, I wouldn’t let these detract from the value of the Force RS at all.

Hardware Upgrade heeft een artikel gebakken waarin ze kijken naar de snelheidsvoordelen van hoge busspeeds. Zodoende hopen ze een beeld te krijgen van de mogelijke performance van de i820 Camino chipset, die standaard op 133Mhz zal lopen:

Due to the fact that no processor lacks on L2 cache it is necessary to highlight an important fact: the increase of the bus frequency, and so the working frequency of the system memory, allows to increase the general performance only slightly, almost 1-2% moving from 100 to 133 Mhz of bus; the impact of the cache memory on the performance is so relevant that the performance of the memory are put aside. The official introduction of bus frequency at 133 MHz with Intel Pentium III CPUs, so, will not increase the performance so much, unless higher clock frequencies will be used.

De vergelijking met de Camino chipset loopt natuurlijk wel een beetje mank op het feit dat de AGP clock wordt overgeklokt als je de busspeed bij de BX chipset boven de 100MHz gaat draaien. Dat blijkt ook wel uit de benchmarks in het artikel: bij Winstone99 en Winbench99 blijkt het snelheidsvoordeel nihil te zijn (1-2%), bij Unreal en Quake is het verschil duidelijk groter (2,5-4,5%).

Adobe heeft een tijdje geleden versie 4 van Acrobat gereleased, met de bijbehorende Acrobat Reader. Maar nu is dan ook de Nederlandse Reader uit.
De verbeteringen:

Improved integration with Web browsers
Faster and more reliable printing to both PCL and Adobe PostScript(R) printers
Better support for longer and more complex documents
Support for the latest version of the Acrobat file format - Adobe PDF 1.3
Support for all versions of PostScript, including the new PostScript 3
Better color handling, including support for ICC profiles
Compatible with previous versions of Acrobat Reader

Klinkt allemaal misschien niet zo interessant, maar op internet kom je nogal wat .PDF'jes tegen, dus...

Hoi hoi, enomdat wij allemaal wel ATA/66 willen hebben...

ABIT Introduces the Hot Rod™ 66 Card, the ABIT way to do ATA/66

Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. May 26th, 1999— ABIT Introduces the Hot Rod™ 66 card, the ABIT way to do Ultra ATA/66. If you need to run the latest ATA/66 hard drives at their intended speed or you want to get under the hood of your computer and turn it into a Hot Rod, the you need ABIT’s Hot Rod™ 66 card. With ABIT technology you can get full support for Ultra ATA/66 drives with their 66MB/sec. burst data transfer rates.

The Hot Rod™ 66 card can be used with any FX, LX, EX, ZX, board and although the BX chipset was designed to be compatible with the Ultra ATA/66 specification, it is only capable of running at a maximum of 33 Mbytes/sec, thus offering no advantage over UDMA/33. With the help of the ABIT Hot Rod™ 66, your mainboard can support this specification at its intended 66 Mbytes/sec of data throughput. The result is maximum disc performance using the current PCI local bus environment.

Ultra ATA/66 hard drives are 100 percent backward compatible with both Ultra ATA/33 and DMA and with existing ATA (IDE) hard drives, CD-ROM drives, and host systems and the Ultra ATA/66 protocol and commands are designed to be compatible with existing ATA (IDE) devices and systems. And with ABIT’s Hot Rod™ 66, you get automatic recognition and compatibility for any combination of UDMA/66, UDMA/33, EIDE, or ATAPI devices.

Better, Stronger, Faster

With the Ultra ATA/66 specification not only is your ATA/66 compatible drive running faster but it is also running more safely. The specification calls for a new 80-wire cable (that still uses the 40 pin connector, insuring compatibility with your existing IDE connectors) that decreases a lot of the electronic noise that can cause data errors thus creating a cleaner, stronger signal. The Hot Rod™ 66 card also has full support of CRC error checking of Ultra DMA drives increasing the data integrity even further. And with ABIT’s Hot Rod™ 66 there are 2 80-pin Ultra ATA/66 class cable included!

4 Channels of Power

With the Hot Rod™ 66 card from ABIT, you will be adding 2 more channels to your existing setup giving you 4 IDE channels total on your motherboard. The Hot Rod™ 66 supports 4 additional IDE devices with separate timing thanks to the Hot Rod™ 66 BIOS that will allow you to configure any combination of UDMA/66, UDMA/33, EIDE, or ATAPI devices allowing you to run all IDE devices at their highest rated speeds.

ABIT Quality

With the ABIT Hot Rod™ 66 card you know that you will have the best quality Ultra ATA/66 solution for your motherboard. The ABIT name means quality, speed, and performance. With the Hot Rod™ 66 and two 80-pin cables you will be ready to take full advantage of all of your hardware’s potential!

For more information on the ABIT Hot Rod™ 66 card go to: http://www.abit.com.tw

Er ligt weer een nieuw nummer van de PC Zone Benelux in de winkel, algemeen (door mij ) beschouwd als het beste Nederlandstalige games magazine. Een opsomming van de inhoud:

Coverview
- Star Wars - The Phantom Menace & Racer

Previews
- Midtown Madness
- Theme Park World
- Shadow Man
- Homeworld
- Thrust Twist'N Turn
- Seven Kingdoms 2
- Unreal Tournament
- Flash Point

Feature
- Make my play, verslag van de Game Developers Conference 1999

Reviews
- Machines
- Requiem: Avenging Angel
- X-Wing Alliance
- Co Adriaanse Football World Manager
- WCW Nitro
- Hell Copter
- Roller Coaster Tycoon
- People's General
- TOCA 2
- Mortal Kombat Mythologies
- Survival
- Viva Football
- Lands of Lore III
- UEFA Champions League
- Aliens vs Predator
- Malkari

Harde Waren
- Pentium III
- 3Dfx Voodoo3 - 3000 & 2000
- Cambridge Soundworks FourPointSurround FPS2000 Digital speakers
- Terratec XLerate Pro
- Trust Gamer Network
- Logitech Wingman Gaming Mouse

En, omdat-ie zo mooi is, een plaatje van de cover:

Beetje laat, maar goed: bij Absolute PC hebben ze een review van de Soundblaster Live! gepost:

Ok, so the Sound Blaster Live isn’t really new. But in all the reviews I’ve read on it, none of them seem to cover any of its masses of features. That’s what my goal here is, to give a taste of exactly what it’s like to own the card, so you can decide for yourselves whether or not to buy it. [break]Dat hopen ze dus met de review te bereiken. De review is redelijk compleet, alleen vind ik dat zo nogal onnodig positief doen over de SBLive!:[/break] Features are one thing the Live has no shortage of. This is the most feature packed sound card I have ever seen. The sound processing effects of the Live are simply amazing. That’s the only word that comes close to doing them justice.

Yeah right, wel eens van de Aureal Vortex II gehoord? Wavetracing?

Het volk bij C|Net's Computers.com heeft een review van de Castlewood Orb drive. Het ding geeft je 2,2Gig aan removable storage en is veel goedkoper dan Iomega's Jaz drive:

The EIDE-based internal Orb drive retails for just $199.95, compared with the Iomega 2GB Jaz drive, which sells for $349.95. Castlewood's bargain-basement approach holds for media, as well. Additional 2.2GB disks for the Orb run $29.95 compared with $124.95 for 2GB Jaz disks. And in our tests, the EIDE Orb consistently outperformed Iomega's external Ultra SCSI-based Jaz 2GB drive.

Alleen jammer dat er alleen nog maar interne EIDE en externe parallele drives zijn. Volgens Castlewood zullen deze zomer ook externe USB, SCSI en Firewire drives gereleased worden. Best wel leuk ding, check Computers.com
voor de review.

GA-Source heeft een verzameling screenshots van Novalogic's Maximum Overkill gepost. Volgens de info gaat het om een first-person action game, maar aan de screenshots te zien lijkt het me meer een tank/heli-sim...

Naja, hier heb je er 3:

Peter Olsthoorn weet te vertellen dat er volgens het Algemeen Dagblad al illegale kopieën van de nieuwe Star Wars film op de net verschenen zijn. Peter wordt pissig als ik teveel text van hem copy/paste, dus voor de info zul je zelf ff moeten gaan kijken bij Planet Multimedia.

Rivastation heeft een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid over de TNT2. "What can TNT2 do for ya"? Leuke info voor het geval je een half jaar onder een steen gezeten hebt en nog niet weet wat de TNT2 is...

On a first look you can say that the NVIDIA TNT2 is only a higher clocked TNT chip. But there are some differences. The first is that TNT2 is manufactured in 0.25 micron. The TNT was made in 0.35 micron. This results in a lower voltage power and less heat production. The result is that you can use higher clock rates.

Other internal changes in TNT2 are the support of up to 32MB SDRAM or SGRAM. You can use this amount of RAM for higher game- and desktop resolutions and for more high detail textures in games. The max resolution you can use is 2048x1536. This is made possible by an 300MHz RAMDAC. The TNT2 cards IŽve tested also do have a better image quality. The desktop is sharper than on TNT cards that come with a 250MHz RAMDAC.

In het artikel vind je ook een berg TNT vs TNT2 benchmarks, die zijn wél erg handig.

Bij Riva Review hebben ze exclusieve info over de naam van de opvolger van de Riva TNT2, die momenteel nog wordt aangeduidt onder de codenaam NV10:

With the success of TNT and TNT2, you'd probably think nVidia was planning on naming its newest chip the TNT3. Guess again.

nVidia's code-named NV10 graphics chip is slated to appear sometime this fall. Although final specs of the chip are a closely-guarded secret, the company recently held a contest to determine what the final name of the chip would be. According to nVidia spokesperson Derek Perez, the contest resulted in almost 10,000 entries. "Factoring out the ones with profanity and anti-nVidia themes, we actually had more like 8,000 real contenders," Perez said. Over time, and with much internal debate, the company whittled the 8,000 down to 25, and is now evaluating the short list, which currently contains a dozen or so cool monikers.

So what made the cut and what didn't? Although Perez declined to forward the entire list to Maximum PC, he did provide an inkling as to what the more popular suggestions were. Among the short list are: Tsunami, Slick, Predator, Silk, and TNL, which alludes to the new chip's transform and lighting capabilities. Not surprisingly, nVidia opted not to adopt such entries as "3dfx rulez" or "Voodoo4."

nVidia will announce the chosen name on June 21. The lucky wordsmiths who suggested the winning entry will receive a free next-generation board, along with some other nVidia gear.

GA-Sports heeft een preview gepost van Le Mans 24 Hours. Da's, zoals de titel doet vermoeden, een racespel:

"Le Mans 24 Hours" roars to the virtual race course this fall, delivering a realistic racing sensation of 200 mph heart-stopping action on the PC and Sony PlayStation. Gamers compete on official Le Mans sanctioned courses including locations in the French Alps and landmarks like the famous Dunlop Bridge.

Players choose from 48 cars and 24 racing teams, each with multiple styles, individual engine sounds and set-up routines allowing players to maximize performance. With vintage Le Mans around-the-clock racing, day-to-night-to-day lighting conditions and realistic night time effects, "Le Mans 24 Hours" promises intense racing action.

Of je nu ook daadwerkelijk 24 uur achtereen moet gaan racen kan ik uit de preview niet opmaken ...

Hier nog een paar screenshots, die zijn wel ok denk ik:

In navolging van Mikrosoft en Philips heeft Yamaha nu ook een USB speaker systeem aangekondig. Hier heb je de press release, geript van GA-Source:

Yamaha Corporation of America announced the launch of the YST-MS55D USB three-piece powered multimedia speaker system. This high-output speaker system is the first Yamaha powered speaker product to support the Universal Serial Bus (USB). The YST-MS55D system is packed with high-end performance features, including 80 watts of total power and Yamaha's exclusive new Advanced Active Servo Technology (Advanced YST). The YST-MS55D has an estimated street price of $179.99 and will ship starting in June. An important new feature incorporated into the YST-MS55D, Yamaha's exclusive Advanced YST utilizes an extremely rigid speaker cone to maximize bass performance by effectively channeling internal resonance waves through the speaker's air port. The resulting sound features a deep, smooth, low-frequency response, allowing all Yamaha Advanced-YST speaker models to produce a significantly wider frequency range than other similarly sized and powered systems.

The MS55D's dedicated subwoofer features a 6.5-inch driver powered by a 40-watt amplifier, guaranteeing solid performance and a clear fundamental tone down to a low frequency of 32 Hz. To perfectly complement this outstanding bass performance, Yamaha has provided the MS55D with a pair of two-way satellite speakers, each of which features a 3/4-inch dome-style tweeter mounted above a 3-inch spruce cone mid-range driver. This arrangement delivers a smooth frequency response coupled with an extremely rich and well-defined stereo image, enhanced by an elegant slant-baffle design.

In addition, the MS55D supports audio connections via both USB and traditional analog inputs, making the system fully compatible and easy to set up with almost all computer systems. For improved ergonomics and added convenience, Yamaha has included the power switch and a standard headphone jack to one of the satellite speakers of the MS55D.

Available in both Platinum White (MS55DW) and Calypso Black (MS55DB), the MS55D's satellite and subwoofer enclosures are also magnetically shielded. This allows the system to be placed close to computer monitors and other magnetically sensitive equipment without risk of malfunction.

Sharky Extreme heeft een nieuwe review van de Viper V770 Ultra gepost. In de preview van twee maand geleden werd uitgegaan van een kloksnelheid van 175MHz, maar inmiddels is dat omlaag bijgesteld naar 150. De V770 heeft een 'Turbo Boost' knopje waarmee je 'm kunt overklokken. Overklokken tot 175Mhz bleek mogelijk, maar was niet helemaal stabiel in Crusher.dm2 loopjes:

Why Sharky Extreme was able to run the same looped benchmarks in an identical test machine last week at 193MHz with the Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra card is anyone's guess. Clearly we either got an exemplary card from one vendor and a merely average card from the other, or there are dramatic differences in the quality of the TNT2 Ultra chip yields that Diamond and Hercules are receiving from nVidia.

Whatever the reasons for the disparity two facts are certain: Hercules is setting and shipping their TNT2 Ultra product at 175MHz with the potential to clock it higher while Diamond is setting and shipping their TNT2 Ultra card at 150MHz with the potential to clock it higher.

Na lang wachten en veel geschuif met de releasedatum, lijkt het nu eindelijk zover !
Interplay gaat Descent 3 op 15 juni op de markt brengen. Dat wordt dus een op 14 juni een tentje op zetten bij de Gamez-boer

BDW Als er mensen zijn die er in geslaagd zijn de D3 demo2 helemaal uit te spelen, meldt dat dan ff hier in ons forum !!

Sonique is een "nieuwe" MP3 player die volgens de makers "the highest sound quality to date" heeft.

Hier een paar features:

Full Screen visualizations

Skin Support

Quick Start Utility

Stardust 1.9 Mp3 Decoder

Contextual Help System

Online Update Capability

Access to music.sonique.com

Built in Internet Broadcast Selector

Favorite File/Stream Selector

Oordeel zelf.
Download hier Sonique 1.0 met Microsoft WMA support - 2.4 MB
Download hier Sonique 1.0 zonder WMA support - 1.3 MB

Michael Andrawes van Anandtech heeft een review gemaakt van de Pine TL-IZX3-13 moederplaat.

Hier een stukie tex:

Everyone seems to be jumping on the jumperless bandwagon these days and Pine is no exception. The TL-IZX3-13 is not completely jumperless, but is pretty close with just a single jumper for toggling the state of B21. Bus speeds and multipliers can be selected in the BIOS under "CPU Speed Settings" but only 66, 75, and 83 are available for users of 66MHz CPU's. If the onboard jumper that forces 100MHz operation is used, 100MHz and above settings become available. AnandTech's test CPU, and Intel Celeron 366, would not boot at 5.5x100MHz=550MHz and thus 100MHz and above operation could not be verified.

Kijk hier voor de rest.

Voor diegene die het nog niet wisten: Winamp 2.22 is uit.

Dit zijn de new Features:

SHOUTcast 1.1 support

Improved WMA Support

Audiosoft secure ASFS support

Lots of bug fixes and stability improvements

Je kan hem hier downen.

Storage Review heeft de 10.000rpm Seagate Cheetah 18LP
gereviewed. De performance van het ding kickt ass, voormalig 10.000rpm kampioen IBM Ultrastar 18ZX wordt keihard weggeblowt:

The current reigning StorageReview.com 10k rpm champion in is the IBM Ultrastar 18ZX. Though the IBM drive features a hefty 4 megabyte buffer, the Cheetah 18LP features higher areal density and a resulting higher transfer rate. Even in the absence of concrete figures, I'd put my money on the higher transfer rate. As it turns out, the Cheetah 18LP does indeed oust the Ultrastar 18ZX to earn the title of the "fastest drive ever tested at StorageReview.com." In the Business Disk WinMark test run in Windows 95, the Cheetah outperforms the Ultrastar by a margin of 6%. High-End Disk WinMark tests show the Seagate triumphing over the IBM by a more substantial 11%. Tests under Windows NT 4.0 show the margins narrowing to 5% and 8% on the Business and High-End tests respectively.

PC Paradox heeft een artikel gebakken over de revolutie van 3D graphics op de pc, in de periode 1994-1996. Best wel leuk om eens een keer door te lezen. 1994:

However the real push that got 3D into the limelight came from Sony, with its Playstation console (first known as PS-X by the press and developers). Archer MacLean, veteran programmer of IK+, Jimmy White Whirlwind Snooker once said in an interview with Edge magazine, "..These new machines are going to make the 3DO look about this big: (holds finger and thumb centimeter apart)" he also said of the PS-X (even though he never mentioned it by name, pesky NDA's), "I've been down there and played with it and I just couldn't believe it." The rest is, of course, history but Archer was talking months before the Playstation was launched in Japan late 1994. When Sony showed their bundle of goodies to developers they never believed what they saw. This event woke up the PC industry and began the race to produce to produce specialized 3D cards. In fact it is a testament to the design (by Ken Kutargi) and marketing ingenuity of Sony that the Playstation is still here today 4 and a half years later.

Oja, de next knop in het artikel klopt niet. Ik ga je een handje helpen:
- 1994
- 1995
- 1996

Ik lees op Voodoo Extreme dat Valve een update voor Half-Life heeft gereleased. Hier heb je het lijstje met bug-fixes in versie 1.0.1.0:

- Dedicated server has been optimized and requires less overhead to run a server. This means that latency values for clients will go down since the server is not working as hard.

- The dedicated server is now a console application, which will allow server operators to more easily administer their server remotely.

- Updating your server list through the server browser uses less bandwidth, making it much faster.

- Starting a LAN server will not attempt to connect to the Internet.

- Fixed a bug where latency values were incorrectly reported in the server browser.

- Underwater prediction code optimized.

- Fixed a bug in the mod browser at the request of the mod development community. In the next couple of weeks Half-Life mods will be posted on the mod server for download via the mod browser.

De update vanaf v1.0.0.9 is 2,5Meg, update vanaf versie 1.0.0.5 is 21,5Mb. De download mirrors vind je bij 3DFiles.

GA-Source heeft een lading Tiberian Sun screenshots gepost. De meeste shots ben ik volgens mij al her en der in de magazines tegen gekomen. De screenshots blijven leuk, dus hier heb je er 3 met een plak info:

Tiberian Sun features an all-new game engine and improved controls that will allow players to command their forces with even greater ease. Westwood’s MegaVoxel technology is used to create a more exciting and dangerous battlefield with dynamic 3D terrain, realistic physics and a fully reactive environment. Explosions leave craters. Lakes and rivers freeze. Ion storms cripple high-tech weapons. Forest fires rage out of control, and winds carry poison gas clouds.

AGNHardware heeft een uitgebreide review geplaatst van de TEAC 8x24 CD-Writer, en maakt een vergelijk tussen deze en de 8x20 Plextor.

"Just like the 6x24 model, the 8x24 TEAC CD-R is a bit simpler than the 8/20x Plextor. The drive features the standard headphone jack and volume know and not too much extra. Instead of the multiple indicator lights I have grown to love on the Plextor 8/20, the 8x24 TEAC drive carries a single (and somewhat confusing) LED. The TEAC drive also skips the Fast Forward button found on most drives, although I have to admit that this button is probably not missed very much."

Lees hier alles.

'Goedkoop' je eigen DVD films maken met Canopus' nieuwste MPEG-2 Encoder.

"Canopus Corporation today announced it has begun shipping the Amber MPEG-2 Archiving and Mastering Kit, a real-time MPEG-2 encoding and mastering solution priced at $2499. To provide videographers with a comprehensive solution for capturing DV and analog productions in MPEG-2 format and saving them on DVD-RAM instead of the host computer or tape, Canopus has teamed with Panasonic to include the Panasonic LF-D101 DVD-RAM drive as part of the Amber Kit. In addition, Canopus is giving current users of its DVRex-M1 and DVRaptor non-linear editing systems a $300 rebate on the purchase of the Amber MPEG-2 Archiving and Mastering Kit."

Zoals je ziet kost dit grapje je dik 5 duizend pieken, maar ja, je hebt er wat voor
Lees meer hier.

AGN3D heeft een stapeltje nieuwe screenshots geplaatst van Team Fortress 2. Ik moet zeggen, het ziet er VET uit !

Gamecenter heeft een preview geplaatst van het nog te verschijnen real time strategy spel "BraveHeart"

"Braveheart won't be a simple real-time tactical game, like Bungie's Myth. In many ways, the game feels reminiscent of Sierra On-Line's Lords of the Realm II and MicroProse's Civilization. "

Lees hier de preview.

Firingsquad heeft update gepost van de k7 preview die ze twee dagen geleden publiceerden. Naast wat standaard geblaah over het feit dat je preview benchmarks niet moet vertrouwen hebben ze dit stukje over de 'versheid' van de K7 sample die ze getest hebben:

It has also been brought to our attention that there has been question as to how old the particular K7 that we looked at was, as some people (and websites) have speculated that it is a very old "debug" model. Quite frankly, it's not. While it is an "Engineering Sample" the K7 we have is a very recent build, and according to our sources, is as close to release as AMD will be able to accomplish by June. It is highly unlikely that any architectural changes will be made to the K7 from the one that we were able to see, if the timeline for its release is still being followed. We are talking about a product that is supposed to be released within a month's time!

Slecht nieuws?

Het volk bij Sharky Extreme heeft een review van Alien vs Predator in elkaar geknutseld. Hier heb je wat info uit de review:

The graphics in Aliens vs. Predator are very good, though not groundbreaking. Real-time lighting is in full effect. Smoke and water look good, though not realistic. The physics engine works well with body parts flying every which way. Alien areas have a tremendous H.R. Geiger feel to them, just like the aliens themselves. That is not surprising considering Geiger designed the original dark alien concept. Everywhere else tends to have a dark future feel, just like the Alien films. That's one problem with the graphics, everything is just too darn dark! Because of this, you spend far too much time in the lower fidelity infrared and special vision modes. On a lot of levels, you just can't play otherwise. One good thing about the darkness is that it adds a lot to game atmosphere. You almost always have that 'all alone in the dark with big scary monsters who want to eat your brain' feeling.

Weer een preview van NFS4: High Stakes. Deze is van Operation Sports. Gameplay lijkt weer okay te zijn:

The Need for Speed Series has always been a blast to play, and High Stakes is no exception. Almost anything you could ask for is included in NFS:HS.

The enormously popular Hot Pursuit makes a return visit, this time however, in addition to the usual bag of tricks the cops have, they also bring in a helicopter in their arsenal! I haven’t seen a copter yet, but I’ve heard the cops talk about it on their radio scanners.

In addition to the Hot Pursuit mode there is also a new Career Play mode. In Career Play mode, you start off with a bottom of the barrel car (only a BMW, you poor thing), and work your way through the beginner circuits which consist of 3 or so races. During each race, the more damage you pile on your car, the more it will cost you to get it repaired. During the game itself, the damage affects the handling of the vehicle enormously. My advice is to be extremely careful. In this mode, gone are the days of just hitting the accelerator and having a devil may care attitude.

En de graphics, die zijn ook niet slecht:

Gamerscrypt.com heeft een potje zitten babbelen met onze vriend Mark Rein van Epic. Het resultaat is dit interview. Afgezien van onderstaande vraag staat er niet echt veel info in:

Unreal was quite a resource hog when it came to PC hardware. Is UT going to follow this tradition or has Epic taken measures to ensure that gamers on a [tight] budget will be able to enjoy UT?

If Unreal was a resource hog it didn't stop it from selling over one million (according to GT) units world-wide. Unreal Tournament is probably no more of a resource hog than Unreal was - in ways (with the new Level of Detail code and the fact that it uses less RAM) it might even be a little less of a "resouce hog". But more importantly people generally have more resources now than they did a year ago. Even the cheapest computers people are buying today have TONS of horsepower compared to what they could get when Unreal first shipped. So in my opinion Unreal Tournament is well placed for it's time in terms of resource usage.

Oja, de layout van die site is nogal fucked-up in Netscape (zwarte tekst op een donkerblauwe achtergrond). Met Internet Exploiter en Opera gaat 't wel goed.

Ik krijg zonet een mailtje binnen over een LAN party in Dordrecht komende zaterdag. Hier is de info:

Ey!
Laatste oproep! Er zijn nog plaatsen!

Specs: http://tekwarz.bart.nl/
Datum: Za. 29/5, 10u tot na middernacht
Lokatie: Dordrecht
Toegang: 10,-
Deelname geeft recht op korting bij Free Record Shop en Memo Computers
Compo's: 3d-shooters(Quake3Atest!)/tactical/racing
Te winnen: o.a. Voodoo3-kaart! Software, zak drop...
Videoscherm voor volgen van compo's
Internetverbinding: 1 Mbps
....en nog meer kewl stuff....

Grtz,
Tekwarz crew

P.s.: als je een plaats gereserveerd hebt en je komt niet opdagen, dan achtervolgen we je tot de poorten van de hel! (Wij komen daar niet in, maar jij dan wel... Gheh, dat rijmt) Bovendien vertellen we het aan je moeder!