Vogens ZDNet zit er een "serious breach" in Beta3 van Win2K:

Amid all the spurious hype about the supposed "NSA Back Door" in Windows NT, a real and very dangerous security breach in some builds of Windows 2000 Beta 3 has gone almost unnoticed. The Windows 2000 security problem stems from an "autologin" feature that Microsoft incorporated into the initial Beta 3 release.

Lees de rest hier...

3DHardware.net heeft een preview gepost van de Creative Labs GeForce Annihilator (zo gaat-ie in de VS heten). Op zit er niet zoveel opzienbarende info in deze preview, wel hebben ze een stukje over de verwachte overklokbaarheid van de GeForce 256:

This time around, nVidia have not supplied manufacturers with the solution on how to overclock the GeForce256 as they did with the TNT2. What's the reason for this? They don't want the same thing to happen with the GeForce256 as with the TNT2, meaning that many companies shipped TNT2 boards at ridiculous clock speeds while just getting a small yield. Creative Labs confirmed that their R&D team have successfully figured out how to overclock the GeForce256 and an overclocking slider will be supplied with the 3D Blaster GeForce256. How much you can overclock depends highly on the game. Dough Hopkins explained that there are roughly 100 - 500 pipeline stages depending on what you do. When overclocking, there is no chance for Creative Labs to know where in those stages things might go wrong. For a game that doesn't utilize T&L you might be able to overclock the GeForce256 by 10MHz (or more?) but in other games using other features you might not be able to overclock at all. One thing is certain though, the GeForce256 runs very hot, and you barely survive with the on-board fan and heatsink. So if you want to try and overclock a GeForce256 card make sure you have efficient and powerful cooling.

Sysop Solutions heeft weer een errug kewl artikeltje over vloeistofkoeling in elkaar geschroefd. Zie dit toffe plaatje:

Dankzij een combinatie van peltiers en waterkoeling kan een PIII-450 richting de 621Mhz gebracht worden:

Well the overclocking results we achieved with the PIII in our testing were very impressive. We started by rebooting the system, entering the BIOS and increasing Vcore to 2.5V DC, after a few other misc. checks in the BIOS we rebooted the system and fired up SoftFSB, a program designed to adjust FSB settings from within the OS. Throwing all caution to the wind we moved the FSB up to 138MHz. This translates to 621MHz on our PIII 450. Everything seemed very stable. We ran some tests with Sisoft Sandra and recieved positive results.

We tried advancing the 450MHz processor to the next setting of 143MHz FSB (643MHz) and although it ran reasonably well when there were no applications loaded, it was not stable with Quake II or Sisoft Sandra. This was somewhat disappointing given that we were expecting to see somewhat higher frequencies with our 133Mhz RAM stick supplied by Bigfoot Computers. We now have to consider whether or not our CPU, or some other hardware device we used for the tests, was just not capable of handling the 143MHz FSB. (We know heat was not an issue here as we were able to keep the CPU temperatures consistently bellow 0 C under load). Maybe it is time to get a processor with a higher multiplier clock. This should make getting higher MHz somewhat easier whiles keeping the FSB low enough for other hardware peripherals to handle. Stay alert peeps, looks like there will be a Part III to this article coming shortly!

Verder weer veel handige foto's in het artikel van Sysop Solutions. Check 'm hier.

AMD heeft wat info los gelaten over de beschikbaarheid van Athlon moederplanken. Inmiddels zijn er zes fabrikanten die binnen enkele weken hun mobo's in beperkte hoeveelheden moeten kunnen leveren:

Many motherboard manufacturers are working diligently to supply the channel with motherboards for the recently released AMD Athlon. Currently, motherboards for the AMD Athlon are in very limited supply. However, we expect up to six different manufacturers will have AMD motherboards available in September. AMD is working closely with each of these manufacturers to ensure reliable use with the AMD Athlon processor, and will be posting an updated list of recommended motherboards to our website at http://www1.amd.com/athlon/mbl.

By the middle of the September, we anticipate GVC (revision 1.0), Microstar (rev. 1.0B), and FIC (rev. 1.7) will have boards available in limited quantities. Later in September, we expect Asus (rev. 1.03), Gigabyte (rev. 1.0), and Biostar (rev. 1.0) to have boards available in the channel. Of course, we do recommend you use the noted revision or newer for all of these boards. Please work closely with your distributors to secure orders for these boards. These dates are our current prediction of availability, but are approximations that could change. It is important to continually refer to the AMD website for the most updated list of recommended boards that have been tested by AMD.

Volgens ZDNet UK hebben Sony en Toshiba problemen om de graphics chip van de PSXII aangekacheld te krijgen. De geplande release date van december 2000 zou daardoor in gevaar komen, waardoor de introductie waarschijnlijk naar februari of maart 2001 verzet wordt:

Sony may have to push back the launch of the successor to its PlayStation game console into next year, widening the head-start of rival Sega, whose latest Dreamcast machine hits the US market Thursday, analysts say.

They said Sony and semiconductor partner Toshiba are working on trying to churn out super-fast chips for the new video game system, which is expected to have 200 times the graphics power of Sony's current PlayStation and 20 times the power of Sega's Dreamcast. "The production of new chips is a challenge for Sony, which is inexperienced in graphic chips," said Takashi Mimura, analyst at Societe Generale. "In either case, I'd say Sony's target of selling two million new PlayStations by the end of next March is ambitious. Sales won't reach even half of that."

Analysts expect Sony to either put off the early December launch to late January or March or go ahead with a small volume, supplying the market with about 200,000 to 300,000 PlayStations.

Geruchten dat Microsoft een op de pc architectuur gebaseerde game console in ontwikkeling heeft zijn bull-shit, volgens opperhoofd Bill. AVault heeft de info:

Microsoft has denied the existence of a console system code-named X-Box, although various independent sources have admitted development has been underway for the past several months. British trade publication CTW is repoting the top secret console project involves a partnership with Dell and Gateway, who would manufacture the unit, and could also involve graphics giant NVIDIA.

GA-Source heeft een kort Q&A'tje met Nick Court, senior producer van Grand Prix 3, online gezet. Hier twee vragen over weersomstandigheden en multiplayer mogelijkheden:

Q: What about weather?
A: Good news- realistic weather effects are in the game.

Q: What about multiplayer?
A: As well as supporting hot-seat and direct serial link, GP3 will also support 4 players vie LAN.

Het is de bedoeling dat GP3 eind dit jaar / begin 2000 gereleased wordt. Meer info vind je in het artikel van GA-Source.

Volgens The Register zal het tekort aan BX en ZX chipsets nog tot eind dit jaar aanhouden:

Distributors close to Intel's plans have suggested that a shortage of BX and ZX chipsets will not get better until the end of the year at the earliest. At the same time, Intel is taking steps to further encourage adoption of its i810 chipset by using it for Pentium III processors as well as Celeron chips, according to Techweb.

According to UK, German and US distributors, there is no let up in the scarcity of BX motherboards, with preference being given to Intel's top OEMs and Chipzilla-only distributors.

A German distributor we talked to at IDF last week said that because he was not an Intel-only house, he had found himself desparate for BX mobos, in order to meet demand from customers.

Dus tegen de tijd dat ze weer ruim voorradig zullen zijn maakt het allemaal niet zoveel meer uit, want dan wil iedereen een Camino (of Athlon) plank...

HardOCP heeft een review van de Twin Turbo cooler neer gemikt. Dit ding kan in een 5,25" drive bay geplaatst worden en helpt bij het koelen van een harddisk of het omlaag brengen van de case temp:

What did all of this get us? Well, with one other exhaust fan installed, the addition of the Twin Turbo dropped the case temp by 8 degrees F while it is not being used for hardcore apps. The machine will now idle at 82 degrees F. While fragging some serious Q3Test ass, the system would go over 94 without the Twin Turbo, and only up to 84 or 85 degrees F with the Twin Turbo active. Pretty swanky.

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dat 3dfx nieuwe drivers op z'n FTP gedumpt heeft voor de V3-2000 en V3-3000. Je kunt ze hier neerladen.

NOTE: These drivers are not compatible with Voodoo3 3500TV. Installing these drivers with a 3500TV board may cause compatibility problems.

Voodoo3 2000/3000 drivers for AGP/PCI boards running under Windows 9x. This driver kit includes: 2D Display driver, Glide 2.6, Glide 3.1, DirectX (Direct3D and DirectDraw) and OpenGL(r) v1.1 ICD. These drivers support Intel, Cyrix and AMD 3DNow! based CPU's.

Ik lees op Voodoo Extreme dat de nieuwe versie van UltraHLE (N64 Emulator) nu ook support zal krijgen voor OpenGL, wel zo handig. Voor meer info, bezoek de UltraHLE Website.

Still getting many similar e-mails so I will try to answer them. First of all, you will notice the OpenGL logo to the left. As you can probably guess, this means that v1.1.0 will use OpenGL graphics for two main reasons, wider compatibility and possible future porting. Porting moves me onto the next question. Recently, several people have reported to me that UltraHLE works on Linux/Unix using WINE. This is an interesting and unexpected development. The question that has been asked is whether UltraHLE will be ported to other systems such as UNIX, MacOS etc. Well, potentially, yes, although not in the immediate future. The emulator is primarily written in C but the dynarec only currently compiles to Intel x86. This should be resonably easy to port to other systems, hence the possible future non-intel versions.

The Tech Zone heeft een handige guide online gezet waarin ze de optimale bios settings bespreken voor overklokkers. De guide is gebaseerd op de Abit BH6 en BX6-2 mobo's, check het hier.

Perhaps one of the most widely asked questions is "What settings should I use in my BIOS for overclocking?" Well, there are no hard and fast rules for this. In general, there are always going to be compromises between speed and stability. What this article shows is what the fastest settings generally are, and gives some suggestions for which to use when overclocking.

The motherboards I based this article on are the Abit BH6 and BX6-2. They seem to be what most overclockers are still using. Although there are minor differences with other motherboards, this guide can still form a basic skeleton for your motherboard's settings.

Again, let me stress that there are no "perfect" or even "right" settings for overclocking. Basically, you start at a pretty conservative setting and work your way faster from there. When you reach instability, turn it back down a notch.

nV News heeft een kleine review gepost van de Hitachi CM752U, een 19' monitor. Hier heb je een gedeelte, check de rest hier.

When I first booted the new PC, the Viper V550 was initially set at a resolution of 800x600, 32-bit color, and a 75Hz refresh rate in Windows 98. After testing various resolutions ranging from 800x600 to 1600x1200, I finally settled for 1152x864 in 32-bit color at a 100Hz refresh rate. After a few adjustments, I was able to square the edges of the monitor, center the screen, and save the settings for this resolution. I saw no geometry or convergence problems with the monitor.

I set the brightness indicator to 40% and the contrast to 90%. The percentages are approximations since the controls do not include a percent readout, but only a horizontal adjustment line. I also had to enable the horizontal moire adjustment and moved the indicator to about 33% to eliminate the moire patterns.

I found that a resolution of 1600x1200 to be extremely too small, even with large fonts, on a 19-inch monitor plus the fact that the Viper V550 can only pump out a 75MHz refresh rate at this resolution. At 1280x1024 the refresh rate was 85Hz, which was acceptable, but I felt the text was still to small. Large fonts looked somewhat better at 1280x1024, but I still preferred 1152x864 using a normal font and the higher 100MHz refresh rate.

Ook bij Sharky Extreme, een CPU Buyer's Guide. Hier lees je wat info over de processors nu op de markt, en ook wat er binnenkort zoal gaat verschijnen in CPU land. Hier heb je bijvoorbeeld wat info over de Coppermine P3:

The most significant improvements that the Coppermine Pentium IIIs will offer over the current generation of Pentium IIIs are the doubling of the existing L1 cache level from 32KB to 64KB and the operation of the L2 cache at full core speed versus the half speed.

In raw performance these two improvements should add an increase of approximately 15 to 25% to Coppermine Pentium III CPUs versus current Pentium IIIs when running at identical MHz levels.

In entertainment applications such as 3D accelerated games, the benefits of the Coppermine's improvements will translate to approximately 5 - 10% depending on how new the application is. The newer the app, the better it likely will have been coded by the developer to take advantage of the higher-end functions of both the Coppermine P3s and the Athlon CPUs from AMD. Expect larger speed benefits to appear in applications that begin appearing in early 2000.

Ga naar Sharky Extreme voor meer.

Over bij Sharky Extreme hebben ze alweer een review online van de Abit BE6-II. De grootste veranderingen zitten in het SoftMenu, die nu nóg overklokkers vriendelijk is gemaakt. Wat dacht je van 119 FSB instellingen?

With 119 different front side bus speed settings available, the overclocking dogs in the Sharky Extreme lab drooled profusely when playing around within the BE6-II's BIOS settings.

Utilizing EMS' HSDRAM, which is rated to 150MHz, we were able to stabilize two specially unlocked Intel Pentium III CPUs at a front side bus speed of 142MHz with the BE6-II. That's not a record for us (our lab's MSI MS-6163Pro mainboard holds that title at 152MHz currently) but it is still very high.

Since the 440BX chipset only contains a divider for the AGP bus that equals 66% of the FSB speed (2/3rds), using a TNT2 or other AGP 2X video card at FSB speeds beyond 133MHz with it is out of the question.

At 142MHz, the AGP bus is forced to run at 93.7MHz, which is well beyond the stock 66MHz level that it's specification calls for.

Intel's upcoming i820 core logic set finally includes a full one-half clock divider for the AGP bus, which allows a PC using a 133MHz FSB speed to divide the signal in half, thereby hitting 66MHz properly.

Verder mikt Abit er ook weer Dip Switches op, maar dat wist je al.

iXBT-Labs heeft een zeer uitgebreide en diepgaande preview geschreven over de Savage2000 van S3, die 30 augustus was aangekondigd. De belangrijkste feature van deze Savage zal S3TL zijn, de onboard geometry engine van S3:

With the advent of hardware geometry, 3D cards are now capable of rendering entire scenes with little or no CPU intervention, which will revolutionize the 3D applications industry. Instead of spending 50-95% of its time moving and transforming data, static geometry can be prepositioned in AGP or video memory, and fetched directly by the 3D engine with massive bandwidth. As well as saving CPU cycles, this technique significantly reduces system memory bus traffic, which reduces competition for the same memory being accessed through AGP. Even if the static geometry (such as walls, floor, labyrinth ceiling in the game levels) is calculated in AGP memory, system memory bandwidth requirements are reduced by a minimum of two times, and may even reach four times or more. Finally, dynamic geometry (for instance the monsters or heroes moving) still gets the transformation benefits, without the bandwidth improvements, for a 40-50% speed enhancement.

This is very important for game developers in particular, who are urgently seeking more CPU time for the powerful, CPU-hungry artificial intelligence (AI) and physics engines currently in development.

Check iXBT-Labs voor de rest!

The Register meldt dat Intel binnenkort zelf ook twee i820 Camino moederborden zal releasen, in verband met de nieuwe 533B en 600B processors. Check The Register voor het nieuws.

Intel is readying both the Vancouver VC820 and another mobo believed to be called the Cape Cod CC820 and also based on the Camino chip set. A board called Fairbanks (FB820) will use the NLX form factor and will include ATI Rage Pro graphics on board.

The chip giant is hedging its memory bets, said the source. One allows people to move quickly from the BX set to the 820, while the other is intended to satisfy wide demand for the PC-100 SDRAM standard.

The Vancouver board is intended as a channel mobo using Rambus. The Cape Cod 820 -- a separate mobo -- is the "bee's knees" for SDRAM PC-100.

The boards will be available, in both varieties, in week 42, according to a German distributor familiar with these matters and Intel's plans.

3DHardware.net heeft een preview gepost van de SBLive! Platinum. De Platinum is de opvolger van de huidige SBLive!, maar is wat betreft de hardware niet verandert:

With the original name still intact, the Platinum soundcard will NOT be different to the original SB Live! in terms of new on-board hardware features. We were all disappointed by this, but there were never any intentions of releasing a totally new piece of hardware. Creative Labs have shown tremendous dedication to the EMU10K1 chip found on the SB Live! family of soundcards, and have constantly delivered new features and enhanced old ones.

Wel nieuw is de Live!Drive II, een 5,25" frontpanel waarop zich alle I/O connectors bevinden. Verder zijn er veel software verbeteringen. Meer daarover lees je in de preview.

The High Performance PC Guide heeft een review van de GlobalWin FEP32 neer gemikt. De FEP32 is de kleine broeder van de FDP32 en kan zonder hak- & zaagwerk op een BP6 geplakt worden. Hier een stukje over z'n performance:

As the test reveal, the FEP32 works considerably better than the original cooling system I was using previously. The two units gained 5 degrees centigrade in temperature between the open case, and closed case tests. Furthermore, with the FEP32 cooler in the closed case condition, the processor temperature only reached the one of the original cooler in an open case condition. The differences in temperature are not tremendous, but they are nonetheless noticeable. What must also be taken into consideration, was the relatively elevated on-location temperature of 24c. Under normal conditions (20c), the efficiency of the FEP32 would be even better.

Lijkt erop dat er eindelijk een geïntegreerde chipset komt die geen baggertrage onboard video heeft: ALi en nVidia hebben gisteren gezamenlijk de Aladdin TNT2 geïntroduceerd, een chipset met daarin een echte TNT2. EBN Online heeft de info:

ALI and Nvidia jointly introduced the Aladdin TNT2, a chipset the companies co-designed and which combines Nvidia's Riva TNT2 core with an enhanced ALI Aladdin Pro II chipset for Slot 1-based desktop PCs. The integrated chipset is the first fruit of the Nvidia-ALI development relationship that was officially acknowledged only three weeks ago.

[...] he Aladdin TNT2 configuration is similar to both Nvidia's existing core logic and its standalone TNT2 graphics accelerator. The graphics core runs at 150 MHz, while the chipset's front-side microprocessor bus interface runs only at 100 MHz, for now. Competing products from Via that feature a 133-MHz front-side bus sparked lawsuits from the bus' license holder, Intel Corp., which claimed that use of the technology violated terms of its agreement with Via. Intel has a similarly structured licensing arrangement with ALI, although Hartsoch declined to comment on specifics of the deal.

Glenn van FPS3D.com heeft een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid waarin hij het belang van een hoge fillrate en een snelle geometry setup afweegt. Hij komt uiteindelijk tot de conclusie dat T&L voorlopig niet nodig is, aangezien er toch geen games zijn die effectief gebruik maken van mogelijkheden van de T&L engine. Tegen de tijd dat die games er wel zijn ligt de NV15 al weer in de winkel:

Hardware Transform and Lighting is an excellent idea, and should definitely not be ruled out. Even though the top games support it, polygon throughput is not what is needed at the moment.

When games like American McGee's Alice hit the market, then that's when we'll want to jump on the geometry bandwagon. For now, higher fillrates are still the best way to go for speed and looks. At high resolutions, even a Pentium II has to wait on the graphics chip.

F1Grandprix3.com heeft een aantal screenshots van GrandPrix 3 gepost. De beeldkwaliteit ziet er redelijk goed uit, maar het heeft wel duidelijk iets GP2-achtigs. Ook lijkt het alsof er maar 8-bit kleur wordt gebruikt:

De full-size 640x480 versies vind je hier. Verder heeft F1-Grandprix3.net een aantal foto's gepost van de Grandprix3 demonstratie op de ECTS beurs in Londen:

Eeuwig dank aan Arjan voor de links!

Vision 4D (member van de Alliance of Wazige Japanse Sites) heeft een aantal plaatjes van een i820 moederplank online gezet:

Ik kwam bij HardOCP dit (gerenderde?) plaatje van de super toffe Polar Logic Arctic cooler tegen:

Gisteren werd bekend dat de nieuwe Abit BE6-II naast het van Abit bekende Softmenu II ook dip switches krijgt. Ik kan me het nut van die dingen niet voorstellen, maar het zal wel voor die mensen bedoelt zijn die maar niet kunnen geloven dat een BIOS setup betrouwbaar kan werken. HardOCP heeft drie exclusieve nudies van de BE6-II. Hier heb je er alvast 2:

Hmm, zitten die dip switches daar niet super onhandig bij de DIMM sockets? In m'n midi-tower zou ik er nauwelijks bij kunnen.