HardOCP heeft 3 foto's gepost van de Abit BP6 (meest besproken moederkoek van dit moment?):

Voor het derde plaatje (en de hi-res versies) zul je je surfplank richting www.hardocp.com moeten pointen...

Het is weer tijd om alle game reviews van vandaag op een rijtje te zetten:

Unreal Tournament interview (The Hive)
Re-Volt demo review
Alien vs Predator review (AVault)
Rogue Spear interview (AVault)
Monaco Grandprix 2 review (IGN.PC)
Rogue Spear screenshots (Rainbowsix.net)
Quake3 interview (Gamedesign.net)
MechWarrior 3 review (Glide Underground)
Blade screenshots & movie (RebelAct Studios)
Soldier of Fortune interview (MGON)
Need for Speed 4: High Stakes preview (Games.net)
Quake3Test review (Game Arena)
Unreal Tournament preview (updated) (AVault)
Freespace 2 sneak peek (Gamecenter)
Christian Antkow / id Software interview (Q3Center)
Rainbow Six Expansion Pack preview (AVault)

Ik kwam via Rivastation bij dit duitse artikel van LCM-Network, waarin een Elsa Erazor III, 3dfx Voodoo3-3000 en AOpen PA3010 worden vergeleken. In het artikel vind je een aantal interessante benchmarks: LCM heeft alle geteste kaarten in een grafiek gegooid, incl. de resultaten op overgeklokte snelheden.

Eén van de kaarten uit de test is de tamelijk onbekende AOpen PA3010. Hier heb je wat info over z'n overklokbaarheid:

Die von AOpen uns zugesandte TNT2 Karte besaß einen Aktiven Lüfter, was eher ungewöhnlich für eine normale TNT2 Karte ist!. Außerdem besaß die PA30ß10 16 MB 7ns Samsung SDRAM. Wir schafften es die Karte mit 170 Chip und mit 190 Mhz Speichertakt zu betreiben, bei diesen Taktraten lief die Karte noch ohne Probleme. Die Leistung steigerte sich bei diesen Taktraten aber nur gering, weil leider der Prozessor zu langsam war. Daran sieht man aber das noch ein enormes Leistungspotential im TNT2 Chip steckt. Was noch sehr positiv an den Treibern der AOpen Karte ist, das man die Möglichkeit hat die Chip und Speichertaktung problemlos bei den Anzeigeneigenschaften zu regeln, außerdem kann man noch verschiedene Settings abspeichern und laden! Die sehen im Anschluss einen Screenshot des Tweak Tools.

Riva3D heeft de Diamond Viper V770 aan een test onderworpen. Afgezien van deze opmerking over Diamond's "Turbo Gauge" overclock proggie...

The Turbo Gauge is an overclocking utility, plain and simple. But instead of providing sliders for memory and clock speed, Diamond has created 5 distinct combinations of memory and clock speeds that allows you to run from the default settings of 150/183, to a max of 175/200. While this may not be enough for some overclocking freaks, it should be more than sufficient for the majority of users. Many will find the ease of use of great benefit over trying to find specific settings that will enhance performance without sacrificing stability.

...zie ik geen bruikbare info over de overklokbaarheid van de V770. Da's jammer, want vooral op dat gebied onderscheiden de TNT2 kaarten zich van elkaar.

Ik zag bij Rivazone een link naar een Japanse TNT2 comparison, waarin een Viper V770, Voodoo3-3000, 3DBlaster TNT2, V3800 TNT2 en Spectra 5400 Premium Edition met elkaar worden vergeleken. Vooral de laatste kaart, de Canopus Spectra 5400 is interessant ivm z'n 183/200MHz core/mem settings. Het artikel is in onbegrijpbaar Japans geschreven, maar de benchmarks zijn wel leesbaar. Check 't hier.

P3D (Pure 3D News) heeft een review gepost van de Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor, met o.a. info over het overklokken van de Xentor TNT2:

The Xentor 16MB is clocked at a default setting of 125 Mhz, easily overclockable to 150 Mhz. SDRAM memory is clocked at 166 Mhz. Guillemot does not provide an overclocking utility, so you'll have to use a third-party utility like Powerstrip. As it is, results are pretty impressive, with a total of 260 million texture-mapped pixels/sec, compared to 283 for the Voodoo 3 2000 (you could barely tell the difference). An advantage over the Voodoo 3 2000 is the 32 bit color and large texture support; overall the TNT2 produces cleaner and brighter images than 3Dfx's chips, and the nVidia bundled demos really show that off.

Byte.com heeft een artikel waarin stap voor stap wordt uitgelegd hoe je een internet verbinding aan de praat krijgt in Linux. Handige info voor sukkels zoals ik die niets van Linux snappen .

Yow, hebben die engelsen het ff relaxed: volgens The Register krijgen ze daar binnen drie maand flat-rate telefoonnummers voor bijv. internet toegang:

The UK will get toll-free access to the Internet within the next three months, The Register can reveal.

Conservative MP Ian Bruce said this afternoon that telcos are working on a service that would give users access to a single toll-free number of their choice.

Although users would have to pay a premium for this service -- a flat-rate fee -- it would mean they could use the number for as long as they liked without incurring additional line charges.

1. KPN sucks.
2. OPTA: doe er wat aan.

Tom heeft z'n Computex99 report online gezet. Tom brengt info over de Intel Camino chipset, de AMD K7, PC133 SDRAM en nog wat stuff over dual Celerons, SiS chipsets en TNT2/ALi problems. De K7 is uiteraard erg interessant. Tom heeft veel goede info:

Once K7 is released you will again have to face the fact that you won't find a whole lot of K7-processors in the retail market, since the majority will ship to OEMs and turn up in your shop inside complete systems. For the few K7-CPUs from retail, you will need a motherboard though, and this is where AMD's second problem kicks in. AMD's new K7-chipset is available in pretty small quantities. This is why AMD chose only a few motherboard makers for the initial K7-platform launch. Asus, Gigabyte, FIC and MSI are the only motherboard makers that are able to supply K7-platforms at K7-launch. All the other board makers will have to wait until a third party chipset maker (e.g. VIA, ALi, SiS) will supply them with a K7-chipset, which is not supposed to be before September 1999. One of the 'left-out' board makers, a very well known one actually, seems to be particularly upset with AMD and told me that " for us K7 is still vaporware ..." [break]Hmm...Abit? Tom is positief over de performance van de K7:[/break] So far, K7 seems to have a slight edge in integer performance, floating point performance seems to be some 20-30 % higher than PIII's though. [break]Oja, wat betreft die dual Celeron systemen: zowel Abit's BP6 als de dual Celeron riser card van QDI komen aan bod:[/break] QDI's solution is called 'TwinMagic' and seems even cooler to me. So far you cannot purchase the dual Socket370 card for Slot1 on its own, you have to get the BX-motherboard with it. This makes sense though, because not every single BX-motherboard supports dual-CPU operations, dual operation requires a special ASIC on the board.

Het klonk zo mooi, maar er blijkt dus een vieze adder onder het gras te zitten. Tom waarschuwt er trouwens voor dat Intel de SMP mogelijkheden (pin AN15) van de Celeron misschien helemaal gaat blokkeren, dan wordt een dual Celeron systeem onmogelijk.

Het SETI@Home project (zoeken naar buitenaards leven) heeft technische problemen. Door problemen die zijn onstaan door de enorme toename van deelnemers blijkt het systeem op hol geslagen te zijn, waardoor meerdere deelnemers dezelfde radio data toegestuurd krijgen:

Opened to the public last month, the SETI@home project uses spare computing cycles on PCs to search for the telltale signs of intelligent life in radio signals beamed to Earth from outer space.

PC users around the globe have loaded screensaver software that scans the data when their computers aren't otherwise in use.

Some volunteers are less than happy.

"Needless to say, a number of participants, myself included, are now scaling down our search for extraterrestrial intelligence until we find some local intelligence to properly manage this project," wrote Tim Keating, a volunteer from Light House Point, Florida, in an email.

Meer info vind je in dit nieuwsbericht van Wired News.

Volgens dit nieuwsbericht van Techweb heeft Microsoft 6 oktober vastgesteld als datum voor de release van Win2000:

Microsoft has pencilled in Oct. 6 as the day it will launch Windows 2000. Although the date is not absolutely definite, Microsoft said it was confident enough with the development of the operating system's Beta 3 that this wouldbe the launch date. This also should be preceded by a release of Windows 2000 Release Candidate 1 in the first week of July.

[...]The Windows 2000 Data Centre version of the server code is due to arrive in 2000, according to Microsoft -- about 120 days after other versions of the operating system.

Mikrosoft is verstandig genoeg om geen jaartal te noemen .

Een aantal screenshots op een rijtje:

SWAT3 (GA-Source)

Threadmarks (Threadmarks.com)

Omikron (GA-Source)

Empire Earth (Screenshots.net)

Geen waanzinnig nieuwtje, maar na alle aandacht die al aan ABIT's nieuwe dual Celeron bord is besteed heb ik al een hoop vragen gehad over wanneer de BP6 beschikbaar komt.

Van ABIT kreeg ik het volgende te horen:

"The BP6 Dual Celeron Board will be Available in Europe Early July."

Nog even de tandjes op elkaar dus jongens (ik zit er ook al met smart op te wachten hoor...)

George Broussard (3DRealms/DNF) heeft op 't 3D Realms Bulletin Board een reactie geplaatst op een paar pissige posts waarin geklaagd wordt dat DNF te lang op zich laat wachten:

Um fellas,

We started DNF approx Jan 1, 1998. That puts us at approx 18 months of development. Where is the big delay guys? Until Jan, we did not even have the Quake 2 engine. We did not have our final team including a coder, 2 modellers and 3 mappers.

We worked 4 1/2 months and made an awesome demo for E3 that blew people away. Then we switched to the Unreal engine for obvious reasons. Since then, we have made steady progress.

I think you guys worked yourselves into a frenzy too early for the game and now you are blaming us. The fact is that we're not massively delayed. Going to Unreal did set us back, but mainly because we refused to be a TC and not advance tech. We added LOD, skeletal animation, motion capture, and tons of other little enhancements to the Unreal engine to make it more interactive. That all takes time.

Exactly what is your problem with us being 18 months into a game of this magnitude and not being done? Games like this take upwards of 2 years to make (read Half Life and Duke 3D).

We do not make clones. We do not make 12 month games. Get used to it, or move on. The die hard fans will be rewarded for their patience. The people that have no idea will be pleased when the game magically appears.

You guys bitching about lack of shots and delays are in the severe minorty here. The bottom line is that you are worrying and bitching for nothing. We are not releasing shots because we don't want to. It's too early. Things might change. We don't want to overhype the game too early or show people what we are doing. What's wrong with that?

Nothing.

George Broussard

Bij Gamespot UK hebben ze een review van de V3-3000 op hun site geplaatst. Er staat weinig schokkende info in, niets dat we nog niet weten:

But there are some pretty key limitations to the Voodoo 3 as far as forthcoming games go that make it look a bit basic. Specifically these are the 16-bit z-buffer (a definite minus), the maximum 256x256 texture size (lessening of visual quality again) and the lack of proper AGP texture management and hardware bump-mapping support.

Bob "Calbear" Colayco van Firingsquad heeft een review van Alien vs Predator bij elkaar getypt. Hij geeft het spel 4/5 stars, dus de gameplay zal wel ok zijn:

When you're in the game itself, the graphics and sound really take over to suck you into the world. Kenn and Dennis got a few laughs from me jumping in my chair as I played the Marine levels, fearful of the Aliens popping out at me. AvP does suffer some from the "find the key, hit the switch" syndrome, but somehow the standup job they did with the environment makes it not so unbearable. Besides that my only complaint is that the levels are confusing to navigate at times. It's not all that fun looking for that one switch you overlooked, but the constant threat of enemies lurking around the next corner (or above your head) keeps your adrenaline level up. The challenge of the single player game, and the varied experiences using each species is AvP's greatest strength.

Hardware Pros heeft de PowerCobe ADA 305 speakers et van Altec Lansing gereviewed. Dit is één van die nieuwe speakers met USB aansluiting:

The most interesting feature is what Altec Lansing calls True Digital Audio. When you use the provided USB connection, the speakers will be completely controlled by the USB bus and Windows 9X. The funny thing is, you don't even need a sound card to use these speakers. That is why its called true digital audio. When digital audio is passed to a sound card, it is always converted to an analog signal using a DAC. This is done so that the card can process the sound, add effects, adjust amplification, etc. The signal is then sent to your speakers and because its in an analog form, it can pick up electronic interference on the way which translates into hissing and static which we've all heard before. With the USB connection, the digital audio signal bypasses the sound card and is sent straight to the speakers, thereby eliminating all noise that can enter the signal.

FullOn3D heeft een review gepost van de Leadtek S320 II TNT2 kaart. FullOn3D heeft de kaart overgeklokt, maar de resultaten zijn niet bepaald geweldig:

As far as driver features go, the WinFast S320II uses a pretty standard rip of the NVIDIA reference set although they do include the "Speed Runner". This is your basic overclocking utility that allows seperate cloacking of the Core and Memory timings. I toyed with it a little bit but had trouble with stability at anything higher than 148/165. I don't even recommend that setting as I didn't really use it for extended periods of time. For the review, I left it at the default 125/150. In the future I will go back to the overclocking to try and give you an idea of the general worth of maxing out this board.

Verder weer de gebruikelijke benchmarks, helaas zonder vergelijking met andere kaarten.

Bij ZDNet hebben ze een artikel in elkaar geknalt waarin de verbeteringen in de Linux 2.2 kernel worden gesproken. Her er der wordt er een vergelijking getrokken met WinNT. Hier krijgt je een stuk over SMP support:

The 2.2 kernel offers a number of improvements over earlier versions. First and foremost, its cross-platform support is far more extensive. The new kernel will run on x86 machines with 386 or higher processors, the Apple PowerPC line, SGI Virtual Workstations, Alpha and SPARC systems, and even Amigas and older (68K) Macs. Windows NT, by comparison, runs on 486 or higher systems, Alpha stations, and SGI Virtual Workstations. In the case of Alpha and SPARC, the Linux 2.2 kernel supports 64 bits, so if Intel ever releases the 64-bit Merced, Linux will be ready with a native 64-bit kernel.

Many of these platforms--Intel (PII and higher), Alpha, SPARC, and SGI--support multiple CPUs, and 2.2 offers improved support for symmetric multiprocessor architectures. Though the same 16-processor limit supported in the 2.0 kernel still holds, 2.2 enhances the feature dramatically.

The earlier version prevented two or more processors from accessing the kernel's services simultaneously, by locking the kernel as soon as one processor requested a service (global lock). By contrast, 2.2 supports multiple locks (they're called spin locks), and this feature allows multiprocessor access to the kernel as long as no two CPUs request precisely the same service. The result is a faster multiprocessing system with less idle time, and this speed pays off with, for example, large-scale Web servers handling simultaneous requests from many users. Win NT allows up to 32-way symmetric multiprocessing but works best with a maximum of four processors.

Even off topic: wat ik me afvraag is hoe goed een dual Celeron systeem presteert als webserver (inc. PHP en MySQL toestanden). Veel L2 cache schijnt nogal belangrijk te zijn bij dit soort werk, maar de lage prijs van een dual Celeron systeem (tov een single of dual PII'tje) is wel erg aantrekkelijk. Iemand een idee?

Bij Firingsquad hebben ze een preview rondom TA: Kingdoms gebouwd. Hier heb je een stuk over de 4 rassen die je kunt spelen in het spel:

The four unique sides represent each of four elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. The Earth side will have units that mainly focus on land defenses, and offenses like cannon, catapults, etc. The Water side has a great number of different ship types. Air has a lot of flying units, while the Fire side is evil and relies a lot of dark magic and evil spells. Joe also noted for me that the builder or factory units of the Zhon (Air race) are completely mobile - they have no static production buildings.

En een paar screenshots:

Michael (binnenkort ook een Z3?) van AnandTech heeft een review van de ActionTec home networking kit. Het ding werkt op standaard telefoon draad:

ActionTec's new ActionLink networking kit uses the latter method and runs over standard copper phone wire that should already be in place in every home. The technology used is based on the HomePNA (Home Phoneline Networking Alliance) standard that allows for interoperability between different manufacturers devices. Copyright 1999 AMD

HomePNA runs on top of existing lines, without interfering with their normal operation, by sending its signals at a much higher frequency that is normally not used. This is similar to xDSL technology, but rest assured that HomePNA uses a different frequency than xDSL and will thus not interfere with its operation. Up to 25 computers can be used in such a network without the use of splitters, hubs, terminators, or any other devices.

Best wel geinig, alleen is de snelheid helaas nogal laag: 1Mbit/sec (=125Kb/s), niet relaxed als je veel grote files over gaat pompen of proggies wilt draaien vanaf een network drive.

Euh..ja, ik geloof dat Anand (ook financieel) succes met z'n site heeft:

Fijn Anand, je werkt er hard voor. Ik werk ook hard, alleen kost me deze site op dit moment alleen nog maar geld ...

CRUS (Computers R Us) heeft een review gepost van de Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore 6x, dat is een 6-speed DVD drive met Creative Dxr4 MPEG-2 decoder kaart:

Dxr stands for Dynamic eXtended Resolution and Creative says that this technique beats the quality of the pictures on a Laser-disc, i wouldn't know I never watched filmes on Laser-disc, I'm sure they are telling the truth cause the picture quality was crystal clear. This new card relieves the CPU of work when the audio and video goes directly to the decoderboard. This card supportes high res and fullscreen in 32-bit color and it does the job very nicely. Creative says that they succeeded almost to eliminate the small error that can occurr when there is objects moving in highspeed, and once again, Creatives claims seem to be true. Me and my friends (had to call in expert help here, cause my friends call me blind, I don't understand why ) watched very closely and we didn't experience any visual artifacts.

AOpen gaat als eerste 8-speed DVD drives produceren. DVD Review heeft de info:

After Creative Labs and other manufacturers only recently introduced their 6x DVD-ROM drives to the market, AOpen will unleashes the first 8x DVD-ROM drive in July. This new 8x DVD-ROM drive offers the fastest sustained data transfer rate of DVD media, thus allowing users to fully enjoy DVD games, movies and other DVD- based applications on their PC. With DVD media, the AOpen DVD-9836 has a sustained data transfer rate of 11.08MB/sec; by comparison, this transfer rate is faster than a 72x CD-ROM drive. Additional enhancements include the integration of AOpen's unique digital servo mechanism technology. This greatly extends the life of the drive and keeps it running at optimal performance.

For maximum PC compatibility, the DVD-9836 is cross compatible with major CD and DVD media, including CD-R and CD-RW. Furthermore, the DVD-9836 conforms to worldwide standards set by the DVD Forum. This means the drive is available in E-IDE/ATAPI and Ultra-DMA bus models. Because of this, the drive also easily installs with the plug-n-play features of Windows 95/98. Those who are migrating their media to DVD will appreciate that the DVD-9836 adopts the UDF bridge format, which gives the drive backward compatibility with various operating systems.

Hilbert Hagedoorn (Nederlander!?) van Guru3D heeft een review van de 3dfx V3-3000 op z'n site geparkeerd. De review heeft helaas geen info over het overklokken van de V3, wel heeft-ie een paar leuke benchmarks met een V2 SLI, Banshee en TNT2 als referentie. De info check je hier.

Hothardware heeft een review gepost van een 13Gig grote Quantum Fireball CR. Deze schijf behoort tot de nieuwe ATA/66 generatie, dus vraagt Hot Hardware zich maar meteen af of ATA/66 überhaupt wel zin heeft (de eerste schijf die de 33Meg/sec van de UDMA/33 interface optimaal kan benutten moet nog uitgevonden worden...):

Unfortunately, the only mainboard available to us that is Ultra DMA 66 capable was the Super 7 Based Leadtek board. Intel based solutions are coming on line shortly and should provide a better comparison. There is one thing for sure... DMA66 seems to be for real! One note of caution however, along with the high performance numbers above, came VERY high CPU utilization numbers as well as access times.

Er is een nieuwe WinAMP uit, de belangrijkste vernieuwing is dat de veel besproken Nitrane MPEG audio decoder erin zit, deze heeft MMX and 3DNow! acceleratie.

Hier zijn de nieuwe features in WinAMP 2.23

Nitrane 1.60 MPEG audio decoder with MMX and 3DNow! acceleration

MikMod module decoder plug-in version 1.3

Self-destructing streaming dialog boxes

Equalizer presets included

Cosmetic fixes

Je kan hem hier downloaden.

Billy van Voodoo Extreme heeft een mailtje gedropt bij Tim Sweeney, met de vraag wat Tim's mening is over de Matrox G400:

BW: If you recall, not too long ago Brian Hook raved about the Matrox G400 Max. I was wondering if you had a chance to play with it? Any particular favorite cards right now??

TS: Good timing. I've been optimizing and tuning Unreal on the G400 using Direct3D for the past 18 hours.

The G400 rocks! Great performance (1024x768 = totally playable), great image quality, extremely high quality Direct3D drivers. This card is faster than anything I've used except for the Voodoo3, but the G400's image quality is better since it supports 32-bit color textures and frame buffer.

Also, Unreal's TNT and Rage 128 performance will be faster with the next Unreal patch. ("When it's done", damn it!) I've optimized the Direct3D code quite a bit, and it's also cleaner now, down to 1850 lines of code, vs over 3000 a few versions ago.