Ik (en ik = Daniel Kegel, a.k.a. Goldstar voor de regelmatige bezoekers) heb een review van Need for Speed: High Stakes in elkaar gedraaid. Hoewel het spel in Nederland wordt verkocht onder de naam Road Challenge zijn er geen verschillen.
Hier heb je een stuk over de auto's:

Elke auto gedraagt zich anders: de meer geciviliseerde auto's zoals de Chevrolet Camaro en de BMW Z3 zijn vrij eenvoudig te rijden, terwijl monsters als de F50 en de McLaren moeilijk in de hand te houden zijn. Mijn persoonlijke favoriet is de BMW M5. Het ding ziet er bijzonder gedistingeerd uit maar je kunt er ongenadig hard mee karren. Wat wil je, met een 5-liter 400 pk V8 onder de kap...

De hele review vind je hier

Mortyr.net meldt dat er hoogstwaarschijnlijk deze week nog een demo van Mortyr uitkomt. Check this:

The news got buried in another story yesterday, but unless some serious bugs show up, there will be a demo of Mortyr later this week. It will have just one level, and weighs in about 20MB. There will be only two official sources to get the demo from, the official site and here. I have checked and double checked the ftp server here, and was able to download the movies and the music from here, so it is allowing anonymous logins again. The mirrors do not have the site listed yet, and I am working to resolve that so Telefragged's FTP server isn't overwhelmed. Again to restate the facts, there will be only two pages to download the demo from officially, the official site and here. Also the demo will be out near the end of the week unless some serious bugs show up. Get ready for a taste of Mortyr yourself. I will be using the messageboard here for unofficial support of the demo.

The messageboard link is subject to change to a Telefragged messageboard if we get one in time. Also the Unofficial FAQ and demo pages have been updated to reflect the current state of the demo.

Absolute PC heeft haar Rant of the Week ditmaal over Windows 98 SE en Windows 2000 gehouden. Die worden dus heerlijk genadeloos afgezeken

Well, it’s that time of year again, and Microsoft is at it again with a second edition of its Windows operating system. For those of you who are newer to the Windows Saga, a little background. Microsoft, back in 95(I think it made it out 95 eventually, it seems like it was so long ago now), came out with its so-called revolutionary product, Windows 95, the OS we all love to hate. This new OS came with many improvements, supporting such things as Plug and Play devices, which at that time meant "Plug it in and Play with it for a week until it decides to work."

Lees hier verder...

Compaq heeft vandaag aangekondigd dat zij de 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 in hun Presario's gaan stoppen. Check de press-release voor meer info.

"We are offering 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 graphics acceleration for customers who want to extract the maximum performance from the latest and most popular game titles and 3D applications,'' said Mark Vena, director of Compaq Consumer Product Marketing. "With Voodoo3 3500, Presario Series systems are among the most powerful entertainment platforms available today."

Hehe, grappenmakers

Penstar Systems heeft haar artikel over de 3D accelerators momenteel op de markt ge-update. Ook kijken ze vast naar de toekomst, zoals de NV-10 van nVidia. Goed artikel en handig om "up to date" te blijven. Check het artikel hier. Hier heb je een stukkie over die NV-10.

The TNT2 was not announced until it was near final silicon and features and performance could be accurately predicted. nVidia is doing the same thing with its next-gen product, the NV-10. Very little is known about this chip other than it will support onboard transform and lighting calculations. Reports have it that it is behind schedule and was originally supposed to be announced by early fall. It now looks like it will be announced sometime in December. Rumors state that it will have many advanced features including S3TC, environmental bump mapping, quad-texturing, and an advanced memory architecture that will support up to 256 MB of memory (OUCH!). It will be produced initially on the .25 micron process with speeds up to 200 Mhz, and will then be produced on the .18 micron process 6 to 8 months later with some optimizations (NV-11). This monster supposedly has over 15 million transistors. With this amount of transistors and the huge die size, it will cost a LOT of money and most likely require a lot of power, perhaps more than most AGP slots can give it.

Hier heb je een klein stukje van een interview met de lead designer van Prince of Percia 3D, Todd Kerpelman. De overige vragen en wat fraaie screens staan hier!

[Q] What was the original intention of Prince of Persia 3D, to recreate the original classic, or to take Prince of Persia 3D to the next level?

[A] Well, a little of both, actually. While we're moving the game in new directions (literally), we're also trying very hard to keep the same feeling as the original Prince of Persia. Since we started this project, I've talked to a lot of Prince fans who are worried that we're going to turn this game into a shooter or something. But we've had Jordan Mechner working with us to make sure we keep the same type of game as the original Prince of Persia, and to that end, I think the game is working quite well.

[Q] How many different traps will there be in the game? How many traps will there be from the original, and how many new traps will there be in the game? What are some of the specific new traps in the game?

[A] We've got a bucketload of traps -- our trap system is pretty flexible and it allows us to make as many traps as we've got time to model and animate. All the old ones are there -- spikes, wall blades, choppers, collapsing floors, darts, etc. Plus we've got a bunch of new ones in the game, such as a giant block that shoots up out of the ground, and squashes the Prince on spikes in the ceiling, or a rotating blade that works akin to a giant food processor if the Prince isn't careful.

Ondanks dat deze kaartjes niet aan te slepen zijn, aan reviews geen gebrek. GA-Source test de non-Max versie, lees de review hier.

The G400 is not exactly what I would recommend for the hardcore gamer. It is not the fastest, and the only game so far that it really excels in is Expendable. I would however strongly recommend this card for the person who is a part-time gamer who uses their PC for other professional grade tasks. Given Matrox's commitment to visual quality, their cards are the best at really high resolutions, which is great for artwork and other professional tasks.

[...]

Overall, it really is a solid card. If Matrox can raise the performance of the OpenGL drivers, then the other graphics cards will hardly be competitive as none can do the environmental bump mapping, and none can drive 2 monitors from a single card. If either of those are important to you, then a member of the G400 family is the choice for you.

Op AGN Hardware kwam ik dit artikeltje tegen over het verschil tussen het hebben van 64MB geheugen, of 128MB geheugen. AGN heeft getest wat het verschil is tijdens het opstarten van de PC, het draaien van games en een memory benchmark.

The last test I performed was 3D game performance in Unreal and QuakeII. Without showing benchmarks, all I have to say is that there is no benefit to having 128MB of memory for running 3D games. Spending the extra money on a faster 3D graphics card or faster processor will do you many times more good than having 128MB of memory.

Hm, zij vinden 64MB dus genoeg. Nou ja, ik ga er toch 64MB erbij halen hoor...

Ben je niet zo thuis in de fascinerende wereld van de moederplanken? Wees niet gevreesd, Sharky heeft een guide op zijn site gedropt, speciaal voor jou! (ok, voor ons allemaal )

For many people, the motherboard is a somewhat mysterious system component. All too often, people choose a motherboard based primarily upon price in the belief that all motherboards are essentially alike. This perception is understandable, given the fact that the motherboard appears to provide no real functionality - it doesn't store data, it doesn't do calculations and it doesn't display or print. In fact, all the motherboard appears to do is provide the communication channels between all of the various devices that actually do the real work. The motherboard is actually a very important part of your system, and has a great impact on the overall system performance. Every device in your system needs to communicate with a controller that transfers data to and from system memory where the processor can access it. This includes hard drives, floppy drives, CD-ROMs, printers, mice, keyboards, monitors… the list is long. There is also a controller that coordinates the transfer of data between the processor, cache and main memory. These controllers determine to a large degree the reliability, compatibility and performance of your entire system, with the majority of them residing on the motherboard itself.

Voodoo Extreme meldt dat er eindelijk een nieuwe beta uit is van Bleem! (versie 1.3 beta 1), de PSX emulator voor de PC. Nieuw in deze release:

Significant Direct3D Speed Optimizations
Significant Direct3D Texture Improvements
Improved Direct3D support for Background Graphics
Improved Direct3D Clipping (FF8's Popup Menus, etc.)
Corrected Minor Software Graphics Errors (Vertical Lines in FF7)
Improved Sound Effects and Music
Improved CDXA Sound
Improved CD-ROM Support for Multi-Disc games
Fixed Xenogears Saving/Loading
Added AutoConfig for Gravis Xterminator
Overall Speed Improvements (Tekken3, Crash3, etc.)
Insert Disc Message doesn't lock out Configuration Menus.

Download de beta hier.
Bleem! website.

FiringSquad heeft een review gebakken van deze zwaar mooie race game, Driver. Het spel komt als het goed is in september uit, dus heb nog even geduld... De preview is goed geschreven en er staan een paar mooie screenshots bij!

Each of the four cities will have over 30 miles worth of roads and 150,000 buildings, along with their respective landmarks. Expect to navigate through your missions using the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building, and South Beach to guide you. Each city went through a ton of pre-production filming, so expect the digital cities to be modeled "block by block down to the back alley of their true life counterparts." I've lived in LA and near SF for many years so you can bet we'll be checking them on that! With the dynamic of the living city and cops on patrol, this has the potential to give Driver a lot of replay value -doing the same mission twice should never be the same!

[break]De Demo Recording optie lijkt me ook zeer cool![/break]

The demo recording feature of Driver is arguably its most attractive and innovative aspect. After every mission, you don't just get a replay of your getaway. Driver gives you tools to re-cut, and edit your mission in cinema fashion. Reposition the camera angles, splice scenes together - you'll have ultimate control as the actor, stuntman, and director in Driver. You can even move the camera onto pursuing cars to get just the right look. We can imagine contests where the goal is not to get the most frags or beat the best time, but to film the most artistically pleasing demo! The thought of being able to do all this promises some real innovations and will likely have first person gamers demanding more control over demo recording.

Bij de weg, heeft iemand al de PSX versie via Bleem! gespeeld?

Billy van Voodoo Extreme heeft een nieuw plaatje van Unreal Tournament gepost. Hij is van een CTF level, en als je goed kijkt zie je een menneke met het vlaggetje op zijn rug, in de lucht spingend terwijl hij neergeknald wordt... Plaatje staat hier.

Update: een mede Tweaker stuurde mij ook nog een mooie screenshot gekregen uit een beta versie. Je kan wel zien dat Unreal Tournament veel detail heeft.

Eindelijk is de veel vertraagde Merced van Intel klaar. Ze beginnen binnenkort met de productie, meldt CNET. Het nieuwsbericht staat hier.

Merced is the first in a new line of high-performance microprocessors that Intel hopes will carry it from making chips for mainstream PCs and servers to the lucrative world of providing silicon to manufacturers of huge, heavy-duty servers and minicomputers. Merced and its successors will compete more directly with chips such as the UltraSparc from Sun Microsystems and the Alpha from Compaq Computer.

The crucial design development that Intel announced today is known in the industry as a "tape-out," meaning that a chip's design has been completed and sent to the factory. Next in the development stage is "first silicon," also known as first prototypes. Samples are then sent to customers so they can begin developing products around the new chips.

"It [Merced] has taped out and remains on schedule to sample later this quarter," said Paul Otellini, general manager of Intel architecture business group, in a conference call today. Computer manufacturers will get samples this quarter, he said.

So far Merced has won the support of the biggest computer manufacturers. However, it suffered a six-month delay last year, and analysts have said the chip has again recently slipped past internal Intel schedules.

Ach ja, beter laat dan nooit

Ze blijven maar komen die TNT2 reviews! Live like a Savage heeft de Diamond Viper V770 Ultra getest, de review ervan staat hier.

At the end of the day this is a card I wish to have in my machine. If your budget for a graphic card extends somewhat into the high ground this card will hold it's own for a reasonable amount of time (and is anything more possible in this industry?). The fact that you don't have to junk this when the new Camino chipset motherboards bring us AGP 4x is plus. There will be and are faster cards in the form of higher clock speeds and cards with the extra feature such as 3D glasses or dual monitor support. But you will have to pay for this. If you don't really need these extra's you shouldn't pay for it.

As evident from C|Net’s report recently that Diamonds Viper V770 was the joint best seller on their online store, everyone agrees that this is one of the best buys available for a high performance graphics card. If you don’t already have a new graphics card, and dont want one just to overclock it to the stratosphere ....get one now!

Weer een review van een TNT2 videokaart, nu de Skywell Magic TNT2. Dit 32MB kaartje is al standaard opgefokt naar 150/150MHz, maar na een beetje tweaken kan ie nog door naar 162/175Mhz (core/memory). Niet slecht voor een standaard TNT2 kaart! Check de review hier!

The Skywell Magic TNT2 is so far the best regular TNT2 card we've tested thus far. It it isn't the most feature packed card and doesn't come with any elaborate software bundle, but it is the highest clocked TNT2 card we've ever seen! By default it ships at 150/150MHz core/memory speed and thanks to its very decent heatsink/fan combo we were able to run this card at 160/175MHz for several weeks without any problems at all. It's practically an Ultra TNT2 board for the price of a regular TNT2. Actually, at $159, the price is lower than most TNT2 cards on the market which is another big plus. Overall this card is well worth the money, if you can find one.

Bill's Windows 2000 zit eraan te komen, dus de Review Zone heeft er vast een preview over geschreven. Best wel veel goede info staat erin, het lezen waard!

For the future, Microsoft have (very wisely, I think) decided to base all versions of their OS on Windows NT technology. Even Windows CE uses a well-defined subset of the Win32 API found in NT. Since NT has certain problems (which I pointed out earlier) to overcome before it could gain mass-market acceptance, it has to be fixed as well. Rather than just taking the old code and adding stuff and rewriting bits (which has been the case up to now) Microsoft have opted to take the harder and costlier route of rewriting NT from scratch! While people are worried about bugs which will take time to be uncovered in a brand new code base, this definitely seems to be the "right thing" to do. It also explains the very long beta period of the OS. The only way to find bugs in a whole new code base is to get it up and running and in use in real life conditions, which was what the public beta program of Windows 2000 was about.

This is a look at Windows 2000 Professional from the outside. It is not really a thorough examination of changes made to the kernel and whatnot. I present my experience with it so far and some of the features you get to play with and what it looks like.

Stereovision heeft een uitgebreide review in elkaar gezet van de 3D bril van Elsa. Ze hebben veel games ermee getest, en ze vergelijken de Revelator ook met een eyeSCREAM bril.

While eyeScream got some points due to glide, opengl and resolution override, playing with the Revelator was still the better experience - better image quality, less hassle, we said it before. And as more and more titles use Direct3D and Z-Buffer and ELSAs driver will improve, there will be less reason to play eyeScream games.

Of course this is completely opposite, if you mostly play Quake II and games based on the Quake engine. Then the only choice is eyeScream. Let's hope that ELSA hears us and gives us an OpenGL driver soon. Don't get us wrong, of course you can play your OpenGL games in "flat vision" as you are used to.

PC Benchmarks heeft de Savage 4 kaart van Creative getest. Niet echt een geweldig kaartje zo blijkt; boven 800 x 600 valt de FPS als een plumpudding in elkaar. De texture compression (S3TC) blijft echter zeer mooi. Lees de review hier!

From the previous tests, one might think that the outlook for this card is rather bleak. And you'd be right. However, the CL Savage4 would stand in a much better light when playing games that include full support for S3 Texture Compression. Such games include forthcoming titles from Rage as well as Quake 3 Arena. And there is good reason to think that this card may perform well in Quake 3. For those who may have missed it, here are some benchmarks run by Id software which illustrate that, at least at lower resolutions, the CL Savage4 has the potential to compete well with its competition.

Furthermore, there are situations which don't appear much in benchmark testing where the 32MB on-board memory of the CL Savage4 would give it an advantage over the 16MB cards in its price range. However, given the lack of a game bundle, and the card's lackluster performance overall, I would be hard pressed to recommend this card over a low-end TNT2.

Als je trouwens toch voor een Savage 4 kaart gaat, die van Diamond is dan beter.

Michael van Anandtech heeft de Soyo SY-6BA+III mammaplank gereviewed. Het toffe aan deze plank is voltage tweaking en een zeer indrukwekkende rij FSB's.

With SoftMenu II and its ability to adjust CPU core voltage in the BIOS, the ABIT BH6, BX6, and BX6 Revision 2 are among the most popular motherboards for overclockers. The extra ounce of stability gained by increasing the voltage was often the difference between a successful overclock and an unsuccessful one. Up until recently, ABIT remained the only manufacturer to offer this feature, but now AOpen has brought forth the AX6BC Pro, IWill has the BD100Plus, Microstar the MS-6163, and others just on the horizon.

What happens when the seventh largest motherboard manufacturer in the world, Soyo, takes their SY-6BA, one of the first motherboards with 5 PCI slots, and puts it through two major revisions? The SY-6BA was already a pretty good board, so Soyo was not just fixing problems when they were making those revisions. Nevertheless, they were making some major improvements. So what did they spend all their time on? Well, Soyo has thrown in just about every feature that the AnandTech staff is always harping on other boards for not including. From bus speeds to voltages, it's all there with the SY-6BA+III.

Meer.

GA Sports heeft 10 nieuwe screenshots van Rally Championship geplaatst. Ze laten zien wat er gebeurt als je met alcohol op gaat rally racen.

AMD heeft een 8-Way SMP Chipset voor de AMD Athlon aangekondigd. Hoewel AMD niet te veel wil vertellen heeft CPU Review alvast wat info.

Their claim to fame is a "point-to-point switched fabric architecture"; basically a gigantic crossbar switch for processors, memory and peripherals that they call "Simultaneous Switched Matrix (tm)" abbreviated as SSM.

In case you are not familiar with such technology it is essentially a "router" for signals between processors and memory. Just like Ethernet switches it tries to implement a point-to-point link between the devices.

HotRail's site describes their SSM device as being appropriate for SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processor) systems with up to eight processors; they document their devices as having up to fourteen ports (for processors, memory and peripherals) with each port providing up to 3.2Gb/sec bandwidth.

The idea is:

- CPU#1 could retrieve information from memory port #1 while

- CPU#2 was writing to memory port #3 while

- an I/O controller is writing to memory port #3 from I/O port 1

And all of these devices can communicate over the SSM without excessive delays introduced due to arbitration (and cache coherency checks).

This is an excellent idea; and similar ideas have been used in super-computers to increase performance.

Best wel heavy stuff...