Over bij SysOp is een review te vinden van Asus' P3B-F moederbord. Dit plankje heeft maar liefst 6 PCI sloten, 4 DIMM sloten en is jumperfree.

Some of the new features include ASUS's JumperFree settings which allow Vcore Voltage and System Frequency Adjustable without using traditional Jumpers. Specifically Vcore can be adjusted from 2.0VDC to 2.4V DC with stepping in increments of 0.05V DC. The FSB can now be adjusted to a variety of settings including an upper limit of 150MHz. In addition the BIOS supports multipliers from 2 to 8.5 covering all CPUs on the market today. These features may seem useless to "Joe User" but for the overclockers of the world who have little time or patience for the old jumper type adjustments this is a wonderful and necessary addition to any motherboard. A great feature that we stumbled across was that the motherboard would boot up to the BIOS screen regardless of the settings that are chosen. For example if you choose a FSB that is too high for your processor to support, the POST screen still comes up on reboot as opposed to the blank screen most of us are accustomed to. You then get the default speed of the CPU which allows you to re-enter the BIOS without having to clear it by shorting out a jumper on the board.

Ik lees op AGN Hardware dat Aureal nieuwe A3D drivers heeft. Je kunt ze hier downloaden. Helaas is dit de enige info die erbij stond:

These drivers will work on any A3D sound card or PC. These are the latest A3D Drivers available anywhere. If you are experiencing problems related to A3D it is recommended that you download these drivers. If you are experiencing general sound card problems, these drivers will not be of use. Contact your sound card manufacturer.

Gamespot UK heeft een grote preview van het 4e deel van Tomb Raider, "The Last Revelation" gepost. De game zal volledig afspelen in Egypte, en ook best leuk, je begint de game met een jonge 16-jarige Lara. Gih, kan achteraf toch best een spannende game worden

Anyway, hier heb je een stuk uit de preview, en wat plaatjes. De game staat gepland voor een release in november.

The game will also be graphically improved, which should inspire PC gamers, as the previous game was a bit behind the times for what the technology had to offer. Besides focusing on an environment Core does well with the series - tombs and such - a new technology is being used to ensure that seams won't appear 99.9 percent of the time, roughly. Lara will also have various sources of light such as flares, torches, and lanterns that she'll be able to pick up from her environment (such as off the walls), use, and then store away in her backpack. Enhancements to the graphics engine will make these changes more than cosmetic, according to Core, as Lara's torches and lights will let her interact with her world instead of just seeing it light up as she goes by.

Lara's moves will be improved upon as well. "We've reworked all of the moves and we've introduced the use of ropes, which is something we've wanted to do for a long time," said Smith. "We're giving Lara the ability to run, jump, and catch a rope. And then to traverse up and down a rope and then get momentum to swing on a rope opens up massive possibilities to us as to where we can go and how we can change the gameplay, if you can imagine." Core is also ditching the push/pull blocks. You won't see one. What you will find are skill-based puzzles and no frustration for the geographically challenged. "We don't [want] to confuse people by not letting them know where they've got to go, which happened sometimes in Tomb Raider III. The frustration was, 'I'm wandering around, where the hell do I go?' We don't want that. So then the skill is in the controlling of Lara to get her over there," said Smith. You'll also find pieces of maps along the way. These will help you solve puzzles as well as lead you to hidden or not-so-easy-to-find areas.

TNT2 reviews zijn er al zat geweest, maar op Tweakers is dit de eerste van de Gainward TNT2. Gainward is een Taiwanese moederbord en videokaart producent, niet echt bekend hier in de polder. Anyway, Sharky Extreme heeft de TNT2 kaart met 32MB van dit merk eens grondig onderzocht, check de review hier.

As depicted by the lovely charts on the preceding page the Gainward TNT 2 offers similar performance to other TNT 2's at the same clock which will hardly surprise anyone, as the difference between any two TNT 2's apart from Memory and Core clock is very small, if any.

Even though we have become quite accustomed to the high performance levels of the TNT 2, we are surprised to see that a regular TNT 2 actually isn't that much slower than a TNT 2 Ultra. The higher the memory and core clock of any given TNT 2, the higher the benchmark numbers. But the gaming experience remains pretty much the same regardless, especially if you settle for the "lower" resolutions available.

While we aren't offering any benchmarks from Quake 3 with this review we did indeed have a go at it and even in lengthy one on one sessions over a local LAN the Gainward TNT 2 offered superb performance as long as we didn't up the resolution too much. Other games we tested includes Star Wars: Racer, Star Wars: TPM, Quake I / II, Rollcage and Microsoft's Midtown Madness, and none gave us any grief when played on the Gainward TNT 2.

AGN Hardware heeft een review gescreven van de Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 speakerset van Cambridge. Ze werden er erg vrolijk van, want ze geven hem 10 sterretjes, van de 10. Maar ja, mag ook wel want dit gebeuren kost $350!

One of the most impressive features of the system (and a good indication of their high quality) is the fact that Cambridge has preserved the use of real speaker wires and wire jacks in their Digital speaker line. This not only helps to preserve superior sound quality, but also helps to make the set more versatile. Cambridge and Creative want this system to be thought of as a replacement of your home sound system as well, and the use of real speaker wire means that you can easily extend the distance the speakers can go away from the control unit. The provided 3 and 5 meter wires should be long enough for any PC based installations. All of the included cables have an RCA cap on one end to easily interface with the amplifier.

As far as the speaker stands are concerned, the DTT2500 offers an improved design over the stands that came with the FPS 2000, but still fall a little short on the functionality side of the coin. The new stands do sit a bit higher, so they are better positioned for listening, but still do not stand high enough. The stands are more stable than their predecessors, but still have a fairly large footprint and take up a considerable amount of space. The cap at the top of the stand rotates, which is a vast improvement over the previous design. While you may actually get some use out of these newer stands, we still recommend the use of higher quality 3rd party stands.

The Amplifier Decoder also has additional inputs and outputs so that you can use the DTT2500 with your Dolby Digital sound sources as well as additional output sources. Simply connect your AC-3 or Dolby Digital sound source to the provided RCA S/PDIF connector on the back of the amplifier to enjoy Dolby Digital sound from your DTT2500. Sound not rich enough for you? Perhaps you feel you need more BASS to use the system in your living room instead of your PC. Cambridge has even included a jack for an additional subwoofer. They make incredibly high quality subwoofers (8", 10" and a whopping 15" units are available.

Hardware-One heeft als eerste wat plaatjes van Yamaha's nieuwste soundkaart gepost. Deze kaart zal o.a. 4-channel sound, EAX, 3D Sensaura Sound, XG Voice support en Dolby Digital ondersteunen. Check de press release in PDF formaat (!) voor alle details.

YMF744B (DS-1S) is a high performance audio controller for the PCI Bus. DS-1S consists of two separated functional blocks. One is the PCI Audio block and the other is the Legacy Audio block. PCI Audio block allows Software Driver to handle maximum of 73 concurrent audio streams with the Bus Master DMA engine. The PCI Audio Engine converts the sampling rate of each audio stream and the streams are mixed without utilizing the CPU or causing system latency. By using the Software Driver from YAMAHA, PCI Audio provides 64-voice XG wavetable synthesizer with Reverb and variation. It also supports DirectSound hardware accelerator, Downloadable Sound (DLS) and DirectMusic accelerator.

Legacy Audio block supports FM Synthesizer, Sound Blaster Pro, MPU401 UART mode and Joystick function in order to provide hardware compatibility for numerous PC games on real DOS without any software driver. To achieve legacy DMAC compatibility on the PCI, DS-1S supports PC/PCI and Distributed DMA protocols. DS-1S also supports Serialized IRQ for legacy IRQ compatiblity. DS-1S supports the connection to AC '97 which provides high quality DAC, ADC and analog mixing. In addition, it supports consumer IEC958, Audio Digital Interface (SPDIF), to connect external audio equipment by digital.

Over bij PC Mechanic staat een stukkie info over de i820 Chipset van Intel, ook wel uitgescholden als Camino of i440JX. features zullen o.a. zijn AGP 4x, 133MHz en RDRAM.

Intel’s i820 chipset, also referred to as both Camino and as 440JX, will be making its debut in September of 1999. Or at least that is what Intel last stated. Certain boards have made their way into the hardware review community (though SOME company forgot to send PC Mechanic a review board) for the purpose of being reviewed, tested, etc. Now with that stated, I must give note of the fact that if I present information regarding any test results, they are not tests that I have personally run, they are tests run by others.

My associates informed me that contrary to what seemed evident on test boards, the Camino might be supporting SDRAM. Original test boards had no SDRAM slots, as they would only support RDRAM. My thoughts on this are: "Lets see, 64 MB DIMM for $75, or 64 MB RIMM for $780!" But, despite that, I was not yet biased against it.

It also supports AGP-4x, as if that really matters. We currently have boards that support AGP-2x, and it appears that there is minimal improvement from standard AGP. Aside from this, few video cards take advantage of the AGP acceleration anyway. So, so far we have learned that it uses incredibly expensive memory, and supports the use of an AGP port which probably isn’t going to have that much of a performance increase.

BK Computing heeft een review gebakken van Microsoft's laatste bugfix, Windows 98 Second Edition. Internet Connection Sharing schijnt dus wel handig te zijn, en zelfs goed te werken!

New features in Windows 98 Second edition include: Internet Explorer 5, all the patches and program upgrades available on Windows Update for Windows 98, and Internet Connection Sharing, which I personally think is the only reason to go out and buy Windows 98 SE.

Second Edition also packs in more drivers (most of which I think are in the Drivers directory of the CD), along with even better USB support, and Fireware support.

You also get to tell your friends that you have Windows 98 Second Edition.

Bij Hardware Extreme hebben ze het voor elkaar gekregen om een Celeron 500 op 622MHz te laten draaien, met 83MHz front side bus op een Abit ZM6 moederplank, op 2.3 volt. Klik hier voor benchmarks!

Ook is het hem gelukt om die Celeron op 7.5 x 100MHz te draaien!! Alleen Windows wilde niet volledig booten, helaas.

Totally awasome, I got the Celeron 500 to post at 7.5 X 100 = 750MHz but it hung right before Windows loaded completely. I was using a voltage setting of 2.5v which I obtained via reflashing the BIOS at a higer voltage which gives you 0.3 voltage more to tweak ! I will get a screenshot of the POST screen once I get hold of a digital camera from one of my friends...

For the curious ones, I replaced the lousy Intel cooler with something more real - the legendary Alpha Socket Cooler which needless to say brought me to the 750MHz mark for a few brief moments before it toally hung Instead of mounting a 60mm fan to it, I used a 80mm fan and taped it onto the massive heatsink instead. I am considering using a peltlier cooler or something even more powerful to overclock pass the 700MHz line. I'll keep you posted.

BTW, I have been receiving quite a number of overclocking experiences from users ranging from Celerons to PIIIs to Athlon engineering sample models ! If you have any more to share, please do email me with them !!!

Hard OCP heeft een roadmap online gezet van Intel. Hier kun je de plannen zien tot en met de volgende zomer.
Het ziet er naar uit dat Celerons met 100MHz FSB nog even op zich laten wachten

Door al dat Pentium III 600 geweld was ik deze bijna vergeten, AnandTech heeft echter nu ook zijn review van de snelste desktop Intel processor van dit moment online staan. Check deze uitgebreide review, volgestampt met benchmarks, hier.

As we have come to expect and take for granted (most tweakers feel cheated if their Intel CPUs won't overclock), Intel's high yield on their 0.25 micron parts has given us the ability to overclock to a healthy degree in order to gain a helpful bit of performance free of charge. It was once thought that 550MHz would be the theoretical limit of Intel's 0.25 micron manufacturing process, however the delays in Intel's Camino (820) chipset and the move to a 0.18 micron fabrication process as well as increasing heat from AMD to push the 600MHz limit has forced Intel to release the 600MHz part based on their 0.25 micron core. AnandTech's Pentium III 600 sample was able to make it up to 660MHz by using the 112MHz FSB frequency, anything above 660MHz was either too unstable (even with an increase in the core voltage) for normal operation or would not boot at all.

For the fastest desktop Intel processor available today, the overclocking outlook of the Pentium III 600 is not that great. With a bit of added cooling it may be able to hit the 700MHz mark as we were able to get the system to cold boot at 700MHz however the test bed would hang after a very short period of time, often times not making it past the Power On Self Test. As Intel's yields improve on the Pentium III 600, reaching the 700MHz mark will become more dependent on the quality of the L2 cache and the ability of it to run at 1/2 of 700MHz, or 350MHz.

Via AnandTech kwam ik bij deze site waar iemand 2 foto's heeft gedumpt van zijn Dual Celeron systeempie, en hoe hij hem koel houdt. Errug handig tijdens deze hete dagen.

Dit is geen kattepis

Als je het nog niet wist, de Voodoo3 3500 TV is vanaf vandaag wereldwijd leverbaar. Dit stukje heb ik even 'geleend' van Avault:

3dfx Interactive has announced the worldwide availability of its new Voodoo3 3500 TV graphics card, which combines 2D and 3D graphics along with TV tuner and multimedia functionality. Based on the 3dfx Voodoo3 chipset the 3500 supports MPEG-2, DVD via software, FM stereo with dbx, cable television and high resolution displays. These functions allow the 3500 to record a person's favorite television programs and play them back in DVD quality according to 3dfx. The Voodoo3 3500 TV is expected to retail for about $249.

De officiële Delta Force 2 website is ge-update met 8 verse screenshots. Hier heb je er een paar, hier staan er meer.

Voodoo Extreme heeft een link gevonden waarin staat dat de Voodoo4 in oktober zal verschijnen. De Voodoo3 3500 zal vanaf vandaag in Amerika te koop zijn. Anyway, dit stond er in het bericht, afkomstig van CBS.MarketWatch.

3Dfx Interactive (TDSX: news, msgs) will release a new version of its Voodoo 3 graphics card on Friday, Chief Executive L. Gregory Ballard said Thursday. Voodoo products are largely used to speed up the flashy graphics in video games. The next big release for 3Dfx will be the Voodoo 4, which is "on schedule" for an October release, Ballard added. The products should help the San Jose company more than double sales this fiscal year. Analysts expect sales at 3Dfx to hit about $550 million in the current fiscal year, up from $220 million in fiscal 1999. 3Dfx is currently in its quiet period ahead of its fiscal second quarter release, but Ballard said the quarter is going "about as we expected."

Bij FiringSquad hebben ze twee "motion sensing gamepads" getest, de Microsoft "Sidewinder Freestyle Pro" en de nieuwe Logitech "Wingman Gamepad Extreme". Als jij een gamer bent die zijn gamepad heen en weer beweegt tijdens een potje Need for Speeden kan dit wel in je voordeel werken. Check de review hier.

There were couple of design aspects that the Freestyle has over the Wingman. First of all, the Freestyle is heavier and just feels more solid in your hands. The Wingman by comparison feels a touch too light, but not quite flimsy. Secondly, the D-pad on the Wingman is far too squishy. To Logitech's credit, the Freestyle isn't all that much better; I have yet to find a PC d-pad that matches a Nintendo controller for overall feel, save for the old Gravis 4-button pad. Bottom line is that neither of these D-pads are anything to write home about, but the MS does have a slight advantage. It gives better tactile feel, thanks to a longer travel distance when you press it. Thank goodness that neither of them emulated the horrible 4 button separated design of the Playstation controllers.

Links de Logitech, rechts de Microsoft.

Dit berichtje krijg ik net van een kennis via e-mail, derhalve weet ik niet waar het vandaan komt.
Als iemand dit bericht kan verifieren, graag !

MICROSOFT TO SELL AD SPACE IN ERROR MESSAGES Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced that it is selling advertising space in the error messages that appear in Windows. Acknowledging for the first time that the average user of their operating system encounters error messages at least several times a day, Microsoft is trying to take financial advantage of the unavoidable opportunity to make an ad impression. "We estimate that throughout the world at any given moment several million people are getting a 'General Protection Fault' or 'Illegal Operation' warning. We will be able to generate significant revenue by including a short advertising message along with it," said Microsoft marketing director Nathan Mirror. He also mentioned that Microsoft is intended to add banner ads into its Blue Screen of Death in the near future. The Justice Department immediately indicated that they intend to investigate whether Microsoft is gaining an unfair advantage in reaching the public with this advertising by virtue of its semi-monopolistic control over error messages.

Een echt bericht of een hoax ?
Ik weet het niet. Ik HOOP in ieder geval NIET dat het waar is.
"This general protection error was brought to you buy Microsoft... Please reboot AGAIN today..."

Over bij Planet Nukem hebben ze een artikel in elkaar gedraaid over waarom Duke Nukem Forever zo vaak is uitgesteld. De antwoorden vind je hier.

Not a day goes by on any Duke message board or chat room without someone pointing how long DNF is taking. "They better hurry up, or DNF is going to miss the boat!" one poster commented. Others are more like: "I'm sick of waiting. This game is vapourware. I'm going to play Q3Test." Post like these get people thinking. Why is Duke Forever taking this long? What's up with 3D Realms withholding info and screenshots? Was DNF not at this year's E3 because it's in trouble?. Will DNF's technology be outdated by the time it's out?

The answers are simple. So calm down, sit back and read this article. All will be revealed...

Gamers Depot is even langs Westwood gefietst om te kijken hoe het met Command and Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun staat. De game zal één dezer dagen Gold gaan, waarna hij in 3 à 4 weekjes in de schappen zal staan. Hier heb je een stukkie, de review vind je hier!

The gameplay of Tiberium Tiberian Sun is some of the most fun I've had since the early days. The design team has done an excellent job of creating a fast-paced game, while keeping things extremely balanced. You won't have to worry about tank rushes or anything else lame like that.

I didn't get to try every single map, but the ones I did play seemed well thought out. Every player had ample Tiberium to harvest, which was a complaint I used to have about there never being enough stuff to mine. Another nice touch is the ability to que up to 5 units or vehicles to be constructed.

The single player in TS is even more indulging than any of the C&C games before it. From Cut-Scenes that look like their right out of Industrial Light and Magic, and a music score to die for TS delivers the goods. One can't help but notice eight away that Westwood hired the talent of James Earl Jones to take the leading role of Solomon, the fearless who spites Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod. James plays the role very convincingly. Joseph Kucan returns as the Nod hero, Kane. I think he's definitely grown as an actor this time around! The cut scenes do an excellent job of keeping you in all the action between missions.

The Multiplayer action in TS doesn't disappoint either, it allows for up to eight of you and your pals to play on a LAN over TCP/IP or IPX. Westwood Chat will again handle all of the internet play, I didn't get to see Westwood Chat in action, but I sure hope it's a LOT better than what it used to be. (It'd be better if they went w/ an online gaming service like won.net) I got the chance to play a few of the new map textiles too, like the Snow and Ice, which looks really cool, and is a welcomed addition to the rather plain looking desert maps.

Bij MPOG hebben ze een review gepost van de Matrox Millennium G400 met 32MB. Hier heb je een stukkie, voor meer, klik hier.

Comparing the G400 and TNT2 3DMark™99 MAX test results show that the higher resolutions go to the Matrox G400 by a considerable margin over the TNT2. However, the games I tested showed a much different story. I can only surmise from this that Matrox needs to do more work on their drivers. This is especially true of newer games like Quake 3.

These tests show quite clearly that the Matrox G400 falls considerably behind the competition in overall gaming performance.

In conclusion I would like to say that for anyone looking to get the absolute best they can in graphics quality, the Matrox G400 may very well be the card you've been looking for. There's no question in my mind that the G400 beats out its closest competition in both image quality and features. The only real handicaps it has are the lackluster performance and price tag. With an ESP of $199 US it's a bit pricey. However, I have seen the card on-line for well under $200.

Bleem's laatste versie is uitvoerig getest door Firingsquad. De compitibiliteit van deze playstation emulator is iets beter geworden, zo blijkt, maar aan het geluid schort nogal het een en ander.

As a matter of fact, out of the games we playtested, the game that had the best sound was Spice World. Pick your favourite Spice Girl, then jump around on colored blocks in the "mixing room" to create your own personal mix. We think. We couldn't really figure it out without the instruction manual. It did have the only FMV with mildly acceptable sound, though. It was crackly, and out of sync with the picture, but at least we could understand what was being said while the girls talked about how much they liked playing live concerts.

Je kunt hier het hele verhaal lezen.

Na BeZilla (De Gecko engine voor BeOS) is nu ook BeOpera gepoort naar BeOS.

Opera Software has made deals with various development teams for every platform they wanted to port Opera to. The BeOS port was put in the hands of Hern Labs AB, a Swedish BeOS development company who has made amazing progress in the last few weeks - in fact, the BeOS and the Psion handheld ports are the farthest along of six platforms.

Je kunt de Beta gratis downloaden en uitproberen op Opera.com