Ik krijg zonet van <iemand waarvan ik de naam niet weet> [UPDATE: iemand waarvan ik de naam nu wel weet: Peter ] een ICQ message dat Matrox Users een MPEG filmpje gepost heeft van Expendable op de G400. Op het filmpje kun je de ultra-wrede bumpmapping effecten van de G400 in actie zien. Hier is de info:

It seems the words G400 and bump mapping are inseparable judging by all the reviews, previews and general chat around at the moment. One of the best G400 bumped pieces of eye candy at the moment is Expendable with it's environment mapped bump mapped water amongst other things. The screenshots are mouthwatering but you've not really seen it until you've seen it in motion, the water is fully animated with waves and ripples with light reflections. I've produced a short MPEG video of a little Expendable action next to a body of water showing off environment mapped bump mapping. The MPEG is 2.9MB in size and is a capture of Expendable running at 1024x768 in 32-bit colour, the slight jerkiness is a result of the capture (the game is running at around 40fps and the capture is at 25fps). This type of bump mapping effect is not supported at all by any other card at the moment, those cards supporting embossed bump mapping cannot produce anything like this type of effect so beware anyone who uses G400 screenshots to illustrate bump mapping when talking about another card, the TNT2 for example.

Filmpje kun je hier neer gaan halen. Ik heb 'm zelf niet geprobeerd (ivm met de trage 56K6 waar ik nu op zit), maar Peter zegt dat het gaaf is.

Ik kreeg zonet van Diederik "ik werd verliefd op een abri" een message dat Mozilla Milestone 6 klaar staat om gedownd te worden. Hier heb je de links van Mozilla.org:

- Win32 Install Zipfile with Fullcircle (allows transmission of crash data back to Netscape for analysis and posting to the mozilla.org crash-data newsgroup)
- Win32 Install Zipfile without Fullcircle
- Linux i686 tar format
- Mac 8.5 Install .bin (available June 1, 1999)
- XP Source Tarball

Netscape regeert, Mozilla heerst!

Stratics Network heeft een review gepost van de Cambridge Soundworks speakers. Stratics vertelt niet om welk model het gaat (er zijn meerdere Creative speakers die de naam CSW mee krijgen). Ze zijn in ieder geval zwart en kosten 99 dollar... Maar goed, de review is erg compleet. Hier heb je een stukje:

In games, the SoundWorks kicked some solid butt. Though the music reproduction sometimes suffered from less detail or slight hazing, gaming effects never suffered the same.

Explosions had nice impact, thanks to the well designed subwoofer, and weapons were crisp and detailed. In-game music was actually enhanced beyond what we expected, and this impressed Peter a lot, who exclaimed “wow” when SHOGO booted up with its “Negai” theme song. Missiles launched with impressive "realism", and explosions had a solid feel to them that is often lacking in sets with even excellent subwoofers (we attribute this quality to the tight bass output from the sub, which was more controlled in games than many other subs we have encountered before).

Het volk bij WickedPC heeft een Harddrive tweaking guide in elkaar geknutseld. Het is vrij simpele info, waarschijnlijk heb je de in deze guide genoemde trucjes zelf al uitgevoerd. Moch je desondanks toch geïnteresseerd zijn, dan vind je hier de info.

John Carmack heeft z'n .plan geupdate met een lange posting waarin hij een eind weglult over Linux. Hier heb je het eerste stuk:

For the past couple of weeks, I have been spending some development time on linux, and for the first time on a non-NEXTSTEP unix platform, I have actually been enjoying it.

While Id has been supporting linux since the Doom days, I have not personally been much of a linux user -- it was always ddt or zoid doing the actual coding and testing. Every year or so I would install a linux distribution and play around with it for a few days, but I would always leave feeling that it was still pretty crude (UI wise) compared to the NEXTSTEP UI I was used to, or even what I had used on other commercial unix workstations and windows.

There have always been a ton of reasons to like linux, but the user interface was enough of an issue that I couldn't buy into it completely.

The gnome user environment in Red Hat 6.0 is finally at a level that I consider it a valid alternative to commercial desktop environments. Overall, its still not as smooth, consistant, or complete as windows or the mac, but is does have its strong points, and things seem to be progressing quite rapidly.

Its still not something you would give to a purely casual computer user, but I won't be surprised if even that changes in a couple years.

Ben het volledig met 'm eens dat de UI van Linux zuigt (heel hard). Gnome heb ik nooit geprobeerd, ben ik niet aan toe gekomen (had geen zin meer in mistig gekut op de command prompt).

Anyway, best wel een interessante .plan update. Lees 'm hier.

Anand heeft twee mobo-reviews gepost. De Microstar MS-6182, een slot 1 i810 moederbord en de Gainward 6IZB, een i440ZX socket 370 moederbord.

Microstar was one of the first motherboard manufacturers to represent the potential of the highly criticized Socket-370 motherboard standard in AnandTech's labs with their BX based MS-6153 board. The board, albeit submitted for evaluation in an engineering sample status, stood strong and plainly put, put to shame the competition to come. Although the popularity of the company isn't as great as Intel, ASUS or AOpen, the leaders of the industry, the quality of their products obviously doesn't suffer.

A look at the 6IZB provides hope for Gainward in this seemingly impossible battle. A 3/1/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP) configuration is about the best available for a microATX board. The microATX specifications are followed closely, with the Socket-370 in the right position to provide cooling from the power supply. HDD/FDD and ATX power connectors are placed at the front of the board to prevent cable clutter.

De review van de Microstar vind je hier
De review van de Gainward vin je hier

Ik kreeg zonet van Lars / Daikatana Level Heaven een mailtje dat de Daikatana multiplayer LAN crack bij hem gedownt kan worden. Hier heb je de info:

Ik heb op mijn website de Daikatana Mplayer LAN Demo crack gepost. Je kunt hem hier downloaden: http://dlh.dknation.com/files/dk.zip. DIT IS VOLLEDIG LEGAAL !! Dit omdat John Romero & consorten zich willen focussen op het uitbrengen van Daikatana en geen tijd hebben om de beloofde DK LAN demo te coderen.

Groeten,

Lars Smit

Webmaster Daikatana Level Heaven http://dlh.dknation.com

Hmm...ik zie opeens overal reviews van Monaco Grandprix. Blijkbaar is dat spel net gereleased in de VS, want hiero in Europa is het inmiddels al een halve eeuw uit. Anyway, moch je geïnteresseerd zijn: CGO heeft een review gepost.

Ik lees bij AGN 3D dat Entech de final van Powerstrip 2.50 (videocard overklok proggie) gereleased heeft. Hier is de info:

the first "official" release with support for the NVidia Vanta/TNT2, Voodoo3, Savage4 and Rage128, under Windows 95/98 and NT. Although - aside from the new chips supported - there are no fresh features, this release includes quite a few small improvements and bug fixes. Note that 2.5 is likely to be the last major revision of what is now, in fact, a very old and dated program. The next major release will be the first ever to be completely unencumbered by prior OEM demands and restrictions (the source of many legitimate complaints by end-users), and has a completely different architecture and feature set.

...en je kunt het ding hier neer gaan halen.

JC heeft info over 3DNow! optimalisatie in de TNT2 1.76 drivers. De geruchten gingen natuurlijk al langer, maar het is nu overduidelijk dat nVidia een paar 3DNow! ingrediënten door de drivers geroerd heeft:

Was talking to Temp, who originally told us all kinds of neat info on the TNT 1.76 drivers (in relation to 3DNow! optimization), yesterday. I'm in one of those slept-too-much-so-I'll-only-quote moods at the moment (it's a weekend):

"OK. In the 1.76 drivers, there are two blocks of 3Dnow! instructions the first one is 2 KB long, and the second one, 3 KB long - approximately. The driver is a 928 K file. These optimizations account for a large proportion of the 40-50% performance increase observed in Quake II at low resolution (a 3DNow! optimized game) and the TNT 1.76 optimized drivers, to see that in both cases, the part of the code that is optimized for 3DNow! is less than 1 KB in size ... I think that achieving a 40-50% increase in performance by optimizing TWO LOOPS is worth it, and that this was worth mentioning ... only a very small proportion of the code has to be optimized for 3Dnow! to observe large performance increases".

Apologies, I scrambled some of the sentences, but I think the point is well made of the fact that a modification of less than a percent of the driver code is so effective in increasing performance. Congrats to whomever had a hand in doing that, by the way.

AGN 3D heeft een review van Aliens vs Predator gepost. Ze geven 'm 90%, net zoveel als onze Nederlandse vrienden van PC Zone. Gameplay zal dus wel ok zijn:

The fun in Aliens vs Predator falls into 4 areas, each of the three species and multiplayer. I enjoyed the marine side the most as it had the most authentic gameplay and best level design. The predator was ok but I found the levels had no real link to the settings in the movies. Jungle levels are hard to do with the 3D technology these days but the city setting from Predator 2 could have been emulated. Instead the levels take place in some strange pseudo-base location. There are “over 40 levels” as the box says and some of the levels are shared by the species. The last level of the marine campaign for example, appears to be the first level of the alien campaign.

Dan "Tweak Monkey" (of hoe die aap zich ook mag noemen ) Kennedy heeft een Videocard overclocking guide in elkaar getimmerd. Het artikel begint met een pagina simpele Q&A'tjes voor beginners, vervolgens komen een paar videocard coolers en overclock proggies aan de beurt. Handig info. Je vind 't bij Tweak3D.com.

Tim Sweeney heeft op de Unreal Tech Page zijn reactie geplaatst over het interview van MSNBC met John Carmack en John Romero. In dat interview maakte John Carmack een opmerking over engine licensing (id Software is erg sterk op dat gebied). Check it:

In this MSNBC interview, I think John Carmack hit the nail on the head on the "build vs. buy" decision that goes into licensing an engine:

"If you want to aim for something that’s 100 percent proprietary and you’re willing to take 18 months longer on the project to develop the technology while running a significant risk of abject failure, you make your own game engine. If you’ve been to a few E3’s, you’ve probably seen a dozen instances of somebody making a really, really cool demo that’s showing off some new technical direction — then the game never comes out."

Though game engine licensing was occuring over two years ago, we're still very much in the early days of this rapidly growing and evolving market: Game developers are learning what an engine can and can't do for them, and engine developers are still learning the ropes of the business models, engine modularity, support, and version management.

I'm happy to see the press treating engines level-headedly: everyone seem to recognize that an engine is a useful tool that can speed development and enable a developer to focus on game development rather than technology; but also that an engine is just a tool and isn't a miracle solution for game development. When an exciting new technology is evolving, there's always a danger of it being massively overhyped and pushed as a cure-all solution (see Java), but engines seem to have received a fair showing, not unrealistically positive or negative.

Bij Firingsquad hebben ze wéér een nieuwe cooling guide bij elkaar geknutseld. Dit deel dealt met harddisk en case cooling. So, hoe houden we die 7200rpm koel?

Most of the hard drive cooling devices that you will see utilize the fact that the hard drive sits in one of the bays of your case. What they will do, instead, is mount some sort of bracket or rack in the bay, which the hard drive then sits in. Hard drive coolers use air only to cool the hard drive, instead of physically attaching anything to the hard drive.

Vervolgens komt er een rijtje HDD coolers langsfietsen. In plaats van 60 piek neer te leggen voor een kant en klare drive cooler kun je die dingen natuurlijk véél beter zelf nabouwen . Dan zien die foto's van Firinsquad ook wel handig. Check de info hier.

Exscape.com gaat terug naar 1992 met een artikel over Wolfenstein 3D. Nostalgie!

The origins of Wolfenstein 3D are interesting, especially in light of the fact that many of the original team members at id Software had worked previously for companies like Softdisk that made software primarily for the Apple II. After all, before the PC really caught on as a home machine, the handful of computer users in the world had Apples. Many of the truly classic computer games actually began on the Apple, including one title called "Castle Wolfenstein," a maze game where you had to evade Nazi guards and stormtroopers in a mazelike castle while searching for items (The truly curious can try the game on one of the several Apple emulators available on the web). id basically took the name, theme, and basic ideas and turned a two dimensional adventure into a virtual reality simulator where you played the role of BJ Blazkowicz, a POW trapped in a Nazi castle. Your goal: to escape by any means possible using only your wits and any ammunition and weapons you could find along the way. The gimmick: you would see everything through BJ's eyes and maneuver through a 3D castle loaded with secrets, treasure, and enemies.

En een screenshot op 320x200:

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dat Epic een nieuwe versie van de Unreal server gereleased heeft. Hier heb je de info van de Unreal Tech Page:

This is a test version incorporating all of the latest server-side stability and performance improvements. It's backwards compatible with Unreal 224 clients. If you're running a 224 server and are experiencing performance or stability problems, please upgrade. If you experience any server problems or server crashes with 225, please email your Unreal.log file to unreal225@epicgames.com so we can investigate the problems. The results on our test server here at Epic indicate that this version is significantly faster (i.e. supports more players) than 224, and is more stable but I don't expect it to be perfect, because I rewrote about a thousand lines of server code to improve performance, and there will probably be some bugs to shake out.

Only download this if you are running an Unreal server: UnrealPatch225e.exe.

The general Unreal 225 patch for everybody including users will be available in a few days.

-Tim

Avualt heeft een review gepost van het nieuwe M$ spel Midtown Madness. Een kruising tussen Carmageddon 2 en GTA
Ff een stukje over de gameplay:

Gameplay: Calling all those who have experienced road rage: We have your vice. Midtown has something for everyone who has ever driven a car, and considering the broad spectrum that covers, it's quite an appealing game. Great free-flowing, non-restrictive racing mixed with the ambience of realism all thrown together with reckless abandon is a recipe for fun, and this title has it all. The gameplay is fresh and invigorating; playing Midtown will get your adrenaline flowing and require you to make heart-pounding, lighting-quick decisions. The entire city of Chicago is a great backdrop for single and multiplayer mayhem, and the real-world vehicles only add to this title's appeal.

De rest kun je hier lezen.

GA-Source heeft screenshots gepost van Drakan. De engine maakt gebruik van bumpmapping, da's leuk als je een G400 gaat halen:

"In Drakan, we're supporting bump mapping in limited places, like on Arokh and in the water to create reflective effects. The kind of bump- mapping Drakan uses requires true environment-mapped bump mapping hardware, currently only supported by the Matrox G400. To get bump-mapping working, our artists must create base maps and bump maps separately, instead of drawing one texture map with the bumpy-highlights drawn into it. This means it is a lot of extra work, and one of the reasons (besides a minor reduction in performance) why we are only using it in limited places in Drakan."

Kijk bij GA-Source voor meer info en screenshots.

Nu ik daar toch bij i-XBT aan het rondwandelen was: ze hebben ook nog een errug goed interview gepost met een pr gozer van Aureal. Hier heb je één vraag:

Q: A few words about reverb. Aureal promises to add reverb support via EAX and I3DL2. When will we see the new drivers? How will it work? And what about CPU Utilization? What about knobs and preset reverb for games? David Rossum from Creative said that Aureal EAX drivers must be certified by Creative, and he thinks you are most likely to fail the tests. What can you say in this respect?

A: We are currently working on our reverb algorithm and I've heard it on development equipment and it sounds great. How it will translate over to the Vortex 2 is unknown at this time. Our goal is to balance the quality of the effect with the load on the host.

As for knobs and presets, we will be adding reverb to the A3D 2.0 audio engine which will provide developers with extensive control over reverb. This reverb will work not only on our products, but on other sound cards as well. Currently, EAX only works on cards that have EAX support in the drivers. What we will provide to developers is a way to support reverb on all cards, not just our own.

As for Dave Rossum's comment, I find it ironic that Creative must "certify" any EAX drivers, especially considering that they call EAX an open standard. Yet, Creative has no problems with claiming to emulate A3D 1.x - a proprietary standard, for all intents and purposes - without any certification from us. As I've felt since my first negative experience with Creative Labs five years ago, Creative makes up the rules as they go along, with little regard for competitors or customers. When our drivers are released that support DS3D property sets (EAX among them), we'll see what happens. Until then, I think Dave Rossum is just trying to create FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in an already cloudy marketplace.

...en ze hebben nog véél meer goede info (i-XBT = goed). Check 't hier.

i-XBT blijft lekker bezig: twee dagen geleden brachten ze een Asus V3800 naar 150/240MHz, nu herhalen ze het trucje met een V770, die zelfs tot 250Mhz memclock gaat! Errug indrukwekkend. Voodoo3 overklokbaarheid leek in eerste instantie erg goed, maar wat we nu bij de TNT2 zien is nog véél wreder:

Hardly had we calmed down a bit after a great boom with ASUS V3800 graphics card and its cool memory overclocking, as we got a mass piece of Diamond Viper V770 with 32MB 6ns SDRAM from SEC. We were so inspired by our recent success with ASUS that we decided to repeat it with Diamond as well. And we could hardly believe our own eyes: the card proved easily overclockable up to 150/240MHz as in the previous case. But note that this time it was a 6ns memory, not a 7ns one (as by ASUS) and we relished our achievements and couldn't stop. And the card didn't disappoint us: it was working wonders! Riva TNT2 worked at 250MHz memory frequency. No words can describe our shock! The overclocked Diamond Viper V700 seems to be the WORLD'S COOLEST card.

Benchmarks hebben ze ook. Check de info, van de frontpage van i-XBT:

Bij 3DFiles hebben ze een review geschreven over Bleem!, de inmiddels welbekende PSX emulator voor de PC. Hier heb je wat info uit de review:

Bleem! is a great idea with a lot of potential. Most of the games that run properly look a lot better than the PlayStation's pixely graphics. The control is just as good and since you can use any PC joystick with it, one could easily make the argument that it is better. I am starting to see why Sony is scared. The PC has the ability to do it better. Only problem is I don't really see the point. The game can be played on my Playstation with multiple controllers and friends on a 19-27 inch TV. Its a neat program just because it is probably the best emulator seen to date. Its worth it for Playstation owners to at least try out the demo.

Messiah Press heeft 4 screenshots van Messiah op de frontpage geparkeerd. Hier heb je 3 tumbnails: