Analysten voorspellen een tegenvallende verkoop van i820 moederborden. Als gevolg daarvan zou Intel inmiddels z'n produktievolumes naar beneden hebben bijgesteld, zo bericht News.com:

Analysts say that the 820 is facing limited demand, and at least one asserts that Intel has reduced its production plans.

"Intel has significantly scaled back their short-term expectations," according to Ashok Kumar, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. The company had planned for the 820 chipset to account for 20 to 25 percent of the chipsets it makes, but has reduced that number to 5 percent, he said.

[...] The reason Intel would scale back its production plans is simply lack of demand, said MicroDesign Resources analyst Peter Glaskowsky. "It's going to be very difficult for Intel to sell a lot of those chips" because of the high price of Rambus memory," he said.

A system with the 820 chipset and 128 MB of Rambus memory will cost a manufacturer another $300 to make, Glaskowsky said. That cost will translate to another $500 added to the price the end customer sees, he estimates. Except for a very few people such as gamers and users or large databases, "that's a pretty much unacceptable price penalty," he said.

GA-Source heeft een kudde benchmarks van de nieuwe Matrox G400 TurboGL OpenGL driver gepost. Het drivertje is verantwoordelijk voor een behoorlijk heftige framerate toename, wat de G400 Max in Quake2 bijna evensnel maakt als de Ultra TNT2 en Voodoo3-3000:

Over a 20% jump in speed. Thats what I call a TurboGL driver. The G400 MAX was still not quite the fastest, but now it is within 10% of the absolute fastest available in 16 bit color, and this is an early beta version. With more tweaking, it has the possibility to beat the others. In 32 bit, its performance went from weak to within 3%, which really shows the power of the G400 chip.

In the lower end cards, the G400 regular gets as much of a jump, making it competitive with some of the other high end cards. I must say that this makes the 16mb much more attractive now as its performance is likely the same, and Matrox is selling them via their online store for $149. Definitely a nice buy and it is also upgradeable to video input via the Rainbow Runner G-Series addon, which gives it even more flexibility.

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dat DirectX 7.0 officieel gereleased is. Althans, ze hebben een link naar de binary, ik zie nog geen DX7 info op Microsoft's eigen DirectX site verschijnen.

Hopelijk kunnen we nu binnenkort de release van de Unreal Tournament D3D/OpenGL demo verwachten.

Update: hier de info van de DirectX 7 download page:

Tap into the fun on your PC with this update to the multimedia system services for Windows. DirectX 7.0 delivers fast performance for DirectX-enabled games and other rich media software programs and provides support for the latest generation of 3-D graphics acceleration hardware.

• For More Information - http://www.microsoft.com/directx
• Version - 7.0
• Release Date - 20 Sep 1999
• Estimated Download Size/Time @28.8 - 6,312 kb / 31min

System Requirements

- This distribution is for Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98 only. It does not work on Windows NT. DirectX 7.0 will be included in the forthcoming release of Microsoft Windows 2000. In the interim, you can download SP5 service pack, which includes DirectX 3 for Windows NT 4.0.

- The DirectX installation process will require approximately 50 MB of free space on your hard drive. After installation, the DirectX download will take approximately 15 MB of hard drive space.

- If you have an earlier version of DirectX installed on your system you will see little difference in available space on your hard drive since DirectX 7.0 will overwrite the earlier version.


Operating System - Windows 98 & 95

Download Now

DX70eng.exe - 6,312 Kb

GA-Source heeft een nieuwsartikel met veel info over de toestand van de grote chip production plants in Taiwan. Hier heb je een paar interessante happen:

Analysts said production was unlikely to restart for as long as there was a threat of aftershocks, contributing a loss of at least 50 basis points to Taiwan's quarterly economic growth figures.

``Any product still in the product line will not be useful, and all the equipment will have to be adjusted. That will take half a month,'' said Oliver Fang, head of institutional sales at National Securities.

Analysts said makers of DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips will be more affected than foundry chip makers, whose wafer production facilities run intermittently, but the prices of all IC products will rise sharply.

Taiwan contributes more than 65 percent toward global capacity of integrated circuit products, most of which are high value parts used in a wide variety of electronic products.

[...] Price projections for a 64-megabit DRAM chip range from US$17 to US$20 in the next few days. Thereafter, consolidation could shave off some gains, but even the most bearish analysts said prices would remain at a minimum of $15 for the next few weeks.

``Prices will remain tight until year-end,'' said Peter Tsao, head of research at ING Barings in Taipei.

Diamond heeft vandaag de nieuwe Rio 500 portable MP3 player aangekondigd. Het apparaatje is voorzien van 64Mb flash memory, waarmee het mogelijk wordt om 2 uur aan muziek mee te sjouwen. Dankzij een USB interface zou het omhoog duwen van de MP3'tjes nu vijf keer zo snel moeten gaan als met de parallelle kabel van de oude Rio:

Diamond's second-generation Rio 500 MP3 player features 64MB of on-board memory, allowing listeners to store and play back up to two hours of high-quality digital music. Optional 16MB and 32MB flash memory cards are available for increased playback time. A single AA battery provides up to 13 hours of continuous music. With the fast USB connection, listeners can download MP3 files and fill the player with music in as little as two minutes.

The Rio 500 player features a new visual interface with a larger, back-lit LCD display for viewing - even in the dark. The Rio player's intelligent spin dial allows Rio listeners to easily alter the fully customizable bass and treble settings, organize or randomize playlists, group music in folders by genre, preference, etc., and more.

The Rio 500 device is the first portable MP3 player to support the Macintosh platform, connecting to iMac and G3 systems through the USB port. During its debut at the 1999 MacWorld Expo, the Rio 500 product was awarded the "Best of Show." The player includes Casady & Greene's SoundJam MP digital audio system, which provides a suite of digital audio tools, including MP3 encoding, playback and downloading, for Macintosh users.

[...] The Rio 500 MP3 player is available now for an estimated retail price of $269.95 at North American retail outlets. The retail package includes the Rio player, earphones, a USB cable, carrying case, battery, RioPort Audio Manager software, and sample content. The player supports Windows 98 and Macintosh computers and is available in silver; later this year Diamond will ship translucent blue and teal models.

Consumers also have the option of purchasing the Rio 500 from Diamond Multimedia's On-Line Store at www.estore.diamondmm.com or RioPort at www.rioport.com. The Rio's Smart Media flash memory upgrade cards are available online at the estimated retail price of $59.95 for 16MB and $99.95 for 32MB.

Hardware One heeft een review van de Asus V3800 Ultra Deluxe op het net gegooid. Hier een stukje over de overklokbaarheid van deze kaart:

Many of you must be interested in knowing how well this Ultra TNT2 card can be overclocked.

I used the given Asus Tweak Utility to overclock the TNT2 Ultra. The Asus Tweak Utility allows you to overclock the core/memory to a maximum of 160/220MHz. The default setting is 150/183MHz.

After much experimentation, I found that the 180/195MHz setting was most stable for the card that I had. Any higher and artifacts would start to appear in games. As always, luck plays an important factor. In the world of overclocking, there are no guarantees. Sometimes you get the juice, sometimes you don't.

For a stability test, Final Reality was run overnight. It ran fine with the heatsink and fan provided.

Pioneer heeft bekend gemaakt dat hun nieuwe 10-speed DVD-ROM drive vanaf heden leverbaar is. Als we Pioneer mogen geloven gaat 't hier om de snelste DVD drive van dit moment:

Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc. announced today the immediate availability of the industry's first 10X DVD-ROM drive. The fastest DVD-ROM drive on the market, Pioneer's DVD-114/104S offers speeds that are 10 times (max.) faster than first generation DVD-ROM technology.

The 10X DVD-ROM is compatible with single and dual layer DVD, DVD-R, CD-ROM and CD-R media, preserving compatibility with conventional CD formats. Pioneer's most sophisticated drive to-date, the 10X DVD-ROM's performance is enhanced by its ability to rapidly access specific data areas. It offers random seek times of less than 90 msec for DVD-ROM (70 msec for CD-ROM) and access times less than 100 msec (80 msec for CD-ROM).

Current versions feature an ATAPI interface, which supports PIO mode 4, DMA multi-word mode 2 and Ultra DMA 33. Both slot-load (DVD-104S) and tray-load (DVD-114) options are available. Ultra SCSI drives will be available in late 1999.

Pioneer's slot-in disc mechanism features a chucking system for safer disc loading and unloading. The mechanism grips the disc by both edges without touching the data surfaces and its gentle operation eliminates any risk of damage. In addition, ejected discs are held in the slot with the central hole accessible to allow the discs to be removed without leaving fingerprints on the data surfaces. Both the slot and tray models provide added flexibility by enabling both horizontal and vertical mounting.

Pioneer's DVD-ROM drives feature a 512 KB buffer memory, audio output, a front panel headphone jack and volume control knob. Compatible with the Windows 9X Plug and Play standard, the drive is easy to install and use.

The 5.25-inch half-height drives measure 148x207.5x42.3mm (WxDxH) and weigh 1.0 kg. The drive is available now through OEM and distribution channels. The estimated street price is $125 (ATAPI).

Ik kwam bij AMD Zone een posting tegen over (dual) Athlon moederplanken van Tyan:

Dear Tim,

Thanks for your email and support for Tyan products.

Due to the capability and the support on AMD chipset, we decided to use the VIA solution to support Athlon. VIA supports 4X AGP graphics cards and unlike 2X in AMD chipset. In addition we could not get necessary design documents from AMD's chipset division to design a Tyan quality motherboard around it. Based on the VIA chipset schedule, we plan to launch our Athlon board around 11/99.

As for the Dual Athlon, we are working w/ couple start up chipset companies at this time. We plan to launch the dual board during Q1'00, assuming there is no delays from the chipset side.

Regards,
Steve Hsia
Tyan Marketing

...dat is zo'n beetje waar ik aan moest denk toen ik dit zag:

En ja, ook dit is weer overduidelijk het werk van een stel wazige japanners .

Tom Schmidth, Chief Executive van Amiga, heeft bevestigd dat Amiga stopt met hardware zaken en zich op een multi-platfrom middleware strategie gaat richten:

In his latest Executive Update, posted last week, Schmidt takes the hints he dropped in his previous Update a stage further. He admits the company is focused on "setting software standards for the coming generation of Internet appliances". Those standards, he claims, "will open up the an exciting new era of software development".

It's a shame Schmidt doesn't go into details. The Update suggests Amiga is continuing to develop the successor to AmigaOS, the so-called Amiga Operating Environment (AOE) with its basis on the Linux kernel. But Schmidt also says the company is working with "other operating systems that support Java".

Check dit nieuwsbericht van The Register voor meer info.

Volgens The Register zou er ten gevolge van de aardbeving in Taiwan een tekort aan Athlon moederborden kunnen ontstaan. Dit terwijl de Athlon planken op dit moment toch al moeilijk verkrijgbaar zijn:

Commenting on the disruption caused to motherboard production on the island, one Register reader said: "Where are you going to put your AMD chips now?" A quick trip to AMD's Web site and a spot of easy searching will throw up a list of all the mobos recommended for use with the Athlon.

The roll call is this: FIC, Gigabyte and MSI. All are dependent on Taiwan for board manufacture.

Earlier this month, AMD was hit by problems with some mobo makers' boards not working. Having the supply of boards dry up altogether is a much more serious matter.

The Register meldt in dit nieuwsbericht dat Intel van plan is 700 en 733MHz versies van de Coppermine volgende maand al te releasen. Dit als gevolg van de Athlon 700 die 4 oktober uitkomt.

Intel may have had a working Merced on show at its developer forum a few weeks back, but sources within the chip behemoth report that the next CPU, scheduled for launch next month, has yet to find its way to OEMs.

The delay is possibly caused by the bringing forward of the 700 and 733MHz parts, originally due at the end of the year, but now believed to be targeted at mid to late October.

The first 133MHz FSB parts from Satan Clara are due out next week, alongside the much-delayed 820 chipset, but these are revamped Deschutes parts, rated at a measly 533MHz.

Intel's original roadmap showed Coppermine debuting at 600MHz, but continuing pressure from AMD's Athlon means that wouldn't have been nearly enough in the rapidly-escalating Megahertz war. ®

3dfx heeft officieel bevestigd dat de release van de Voodoo4 is gedelayed richting het eerste kwartaal van 2000. Naar verwachting zou het ding nu ergens midden februari gereleased moeten worden:

In an e-mail statement to the Adrenaline Vault, a 3dfx representative wrote, “With a technology product such as this, it is not uncommon for unforeseen circumstances to arise in the final stages of product development. As a result, we are steering the public to expect our next generation product in Quarter 1, because we believe this is the most probable result. We are standing by our statements that our next generation product will be head and shoulders above competitor's products and will solidify the technology lead for 3dfx. Additionally, our internal roadmap will maintain that lead for 3dfx well into the future.”

As a result of the postponement, Ballard is telling investors to expect losses in the third and fourth quarters, as their revenues will remain about the same and perhaps down 10 percent in the fourth quarter, but with gross margins declining significantly. However, Ballard is predicting the company will return to profitability in Quarters 1 and 2 2000.

De nVidia NV15 wordt waarschijnlijk ook ergens in het voorjaar van 2000 gereleased, dus het wordt grappig om te zien wat er dan gaat gebeuren. nVidia en S3 bevinden zich voorlopig in een relaxte positie.

Vandaag een interessante aflevering van de Ask Hook column van Voodoo Extreme. Hier de vraag:

OK, so we're getting the first hardware T&L chips RealSoonNow. And they'll be nice 'n fast, and nice 'n sterile. Looking over the GeForce256 specs, I see a shocker: support for only 8 lights. Now, I don't mean to rain on NVidia's parade here, but that's just silly. In the WorldOfQuake, that's 8 rockets flying through the air; or "lower end of activity" for a 2on2 match.

What does it really mean to say that the GeForce supports 8 hardware lights?

Is "8" just an arbitrary number and the driver will handle 'cycling' the 100 or so actual lights thru the 8 little "lightme" units? Or is there a viable way to have the CPU handle lights beyond the 8 the card will do? Or can we 'cycle' those 8 lights through all the places we need them (like the old c64 trick of making 8 sprites perform like 16 by beating the raster down the screen)?

Or are we just SOL with our eight flashlights for 20 partygoers?

Het antwoord van Brian Hook (ex-id Software en nu werkend voor Revenant) lees je hier.

Firingsquad heeft een review gepost van de nieuwe PowerMac G4. Helaas hebben ze nog geen benchmarks (die komen hopelijk later), wel wat theoretische info over de werking van de G4 en z'n Altivec SIMD engine, waar Steve zo fanatiek op loopt te hypen:

How's AltiVec compare to MMX, 3D-Now, and SSE? Well, MMX is a joke. It always been considered more hype than substance, so I won't even compare them. SSE and 3D-Now are pretty much comparable to each other, although 128-bit vs. 64-bit registers give SSE the advantage. AltiVec kicks both their butts however. Why? Partly because the AltiVec is a newer implementation with more and better instructions. However, it is mostly because of the number of available SIMD registers. SSE has 8 registers available for it, while AltiVec has 32.

For the uninitiated, registers are the locations on the processor that hold the numbers being played around with. For most instructions, data has to be brought in from the memory or cache to the register before being manipulated. This is true with integer and floating-point operations as well as SIMD. Less registers means that a Pentium III will run out of data to process faster than a G4. It also makes it more difficult to do complex calculations that involve more than 8 x 128-bits of data. This prob

InterCosmos heeft een artikeltje in elkaar geknalt waarin ze de features van DirectX 7.0 met de oude versie 6.1 vergelijken. Ook hebben ze een aantal benchmarks gedraaid, waaruit blijkt dat DX7 over het algemeen nét iets sneller is:

Out of the 4 tests i have conducted, 3 of them concluded DX7.0 scored slightly better while only in Final Reality it scored lower. As you can see, the % change in performance when using DX7.0 is minimal, just an increase of performance by slightly more than 1%. So if you playing games now, you wouldn't able to notice any performance increase at all. As we know DX7.0 is meant for next generation cards and games, so we don't expect too much out of it. When you install DX7.0, in your heart you know that performance has increased 1% more so as to satisfy yourself.

Overclockers' Workbench weet ons te vertellen dat Tomato's Overclocker het voor elkaar heeft gekregen om z'n Athlon-600 op 900MHz te laten POSTen, daarna hing het ding. Op 850MHz bleek een boot in Windoos wel mogelijk te zijn. Als koeling werd een waterkoel systeempje van Kendon gebruikt:

MEM: HYUNDAI SDRAM 128MB 64MBitChip CL2

M/B: Microstar MS-6167 AMD750 BIOS W6167MS V1.1

VGA: SPECTRA5400PE AGclk170MHz/Mclk225MHz VsyncOFF

HDD: Quantum CR-4300A Ultra ATA/66 5400rpm

SOUND: GALLANT AUDIO ILLUSION SP401 YAMAHA 724

OS: Windows 98 4.10 Build:1998 DirectX6.1

3D Rage heeft een korte review gebakken van de vette Alpha1HO-P3 cooler van 3DfxCool. Lees het hier.

Now for the moment you've been waiting for. For the tests, I utilized an extremely "weak" Pentium III 450, that was stable at 504Mhz at 2.2 volts(which means it would run Quake 2 Crusher for 1 hour), but anything above that and it would crash. I booted my system and headed into Softmenu II, and changed the appropriate settings to get the CPU to run at 560Mhz. My first attempt was 560Mhz at 2.0 volts. Not surprisingly, it booted into Windows98, and was completely stable through normal operation , but it would absolutely refuse to run benchmarks. So, I quickly bumped the voltage to 2.1 volts and the same thing. So, finally, I bumped up the voltage to 2.3 volts and voila, a stable 560Mhz. I let Quake 2 Crusher run for about an hour, and then determined that it was definitely stable. Just for grins, I attempted 600Mhz, but it failed to boot into Windows. I tried

Ik lees bij Matrox Users dat Matrox bezig is met een TurboGL driver die Quake 2 & 3, Half-Life en Unreal een vette performance boost moet gaan geven. De drivers zijn wel alleen voor Pentium 3's en AMD Athlon's . Hier heb je wat info, voor benchmarks, klik hier. De driver zal 8 oktober gereleased worden.

Why develop a mini-ICD?
While Matrox continues to optimize and certify it's full ICD for all application areas (including high-end professional OpenGL applications such as 3D StudioMax), we have dedicated parallel resources to develop a mini-ICD that provides game enthusiasts increased performance on selected popular gaming titles and platforms. The Matrox G400 TurboGL increases performance when running Quake II, Quake III, Unreal and Half-Life on a Pentium III or an AMD K7 system.

The mini-ICD will be integrated in the 5.30 driver that is scheduled for public release on October 8. The 5.30 driver will use the Matrox G400 TurboGL driver automatically when it detects the above mentioned systems and games. Games that are not supported by the Matrox G400 TurboGL will automatically use the full ICD also integrated in 5.30.

How much of a performance increase can users expect from the mini-ICD?
Matrox anticipates the following scores at 640x480 resolution, in 16-bit colour:

Quake II: 100 fps
Quake III: 75.8 fps
Half-Life: 35 fps
(Unreal performance will be available on October 8, 1999).

Anand van AnandTech heeft in zijn "Battle at 500MHz" artikel een Pentium 3, Celeron en AMD Athlon tegenover elkaar gezet. Naast business en gaming performance heeft Anand ook gekeken naar prijzen, industry support en de toekomst van deze processors. Hier heb je wat over de overklokbaarheid van de CPU's:

What good is a Celeron 500 if you can already push your 366 to 550MHz? That is the very principle that overclocking is based on, squeezing the extra ounce of performance out of your CPU so you don't have to pay for what you can get for free. When comparing the overclocking potential of all three processors we made sure not to take into account super cooling setups simply because, if you're going to spend $50 - $100 on an elaborate cooling fan setup both for your processor and for your case you're better off just buying the faster processor.

The first Pentium III 500 we took a look at back in February of 1999 had no problems hitting the 560MHz mark, provided that you used the 112MHz FSB. The most recent 500MHz parts seem to have similar success with quite a few users claiming the ability to hit 585MHz (117MHz FSB) with a bit of added cooling. Especially with all of the FSB settings of some of the newer BX motherboards such as the BE6-II with its 1MHz FSB increments, the possibilities are endless. However we can safely say that the 560/585MHz marks are the sweet spots for the Pentium III 500 without going overboard in terms of cooling.

At 560/585MHz, the business/office performance of the Pentium III is closer to that of the Athlon with a slight 2% - 5% advantage in favor of the Athlon. Additionally, the gaming performance of the overclocked Pentium III still lags behind the default clocked Athlon 500 as well and the raw FPU performance (i.e. 3D Rendering) of the overclocked Pentium III still takes a back seat to the unoverclocked Athlon. The overall system performance of an overclocked Pentium III (560/585MHz) is about a few percent slower than that of the default clocked Athlon 500, so even if you overclock the Pentium III 500 the Athlon still holds a pretty hefty performance advantage.

Overclocking the Celeron is a much trickier situation because it uses such a high multiplier (7.5x in the case of the 500) and still uses the 66MHz FSB. Very few BX motherboards provide for FSB settings other than 75 and 83MHz but the ones that do offer quite a bit of flexibility. Once again, citing the BE6-II example where there are a total of 20 FSB settings under 100MHz including 66MHz, the Celeron 500 has a much greater chance of being overclocked. But how high can it realistically go? Using the 75MHz FSB, the 563MHz clock speed is the most realistic setting for the Celeron 500. At 563MHz the processor is faster than the Pentium III 500 in all tests, though it still loses out to the Pentium III at 560MHz in some high-end tests thanks to the Pentium III's larger L2 cache.

The Athlon is an entirely different situation because, as of now, overclocking the CPU requires a somewhat complex method of modifying the PCB by adding and/or removing resistors. For most normal users, this is too risky (especially when you are lucky enough to have an Athlon) and thus leaves overclocking the Athlon a very dangerous possibility for now. However, for those of you interested in getting the most out of your already high performing parts, Tom's Hardware Guide has the entire how-to on overclocking the Athlon and the general consensus on the results of overclocking the Athlon 500 seems to indicate that reaching the 600MHz performance level isn't a stretch at all. At 600MHz the Athlon can't be beat by either of the two Intel processors regardless of whether or not they are overclocked.

Check de rest van dit artikel hier.

Bij Hardware Upgrade hebben ze een bekende CPU Overclocking online geschopt. Per processor hebben ze ook in een tabel gezet wat de aangeraden settings zijn. Lees de guide hier.

The PCI bus uses two kinds of basic divisors: 1/2 and 1/3; depending on the bus frequency used (66 or 100 Mhz) the PCI bus remains always within the specifications working at 33 MHz. This is the same for AGP bus, which works at 66 MHz as default, so it uses the 1 o 2/3 divisors depending on the bus frequency used both 66 Mhz or 100 MHz. The PCI bus can also use the Œ divisor, making it possible to use the bus frequency of 33 MHz (so within the specifications) even when the bus frequency is of 133 MHz; the APG bus, instead, doesn’t allow to use the 1/2 divisor, so at 133 Mhz of bus, it works at about 89 MHz, higher than the specifications, that is 66 Mhz (at least up to the introduction of chipset officially supporting the bus frequency of 133 MHz). This implies many stability problems with AGP video cards at bus frequencies higher than 120 MHz. Generally, an increase of 10% of the working frequency of a specific bus, PCI o AGP, such as from 66 to 75 MHz, doesn’t cause stability problems for peripherals (video cards, controller and other) connected to it; higher increases, instead, such as from 66 to 83 MHz of bus, can cause stability problems with some peripherals; hard disks can cause many problems with PCI bus frequencies higher than 37.5 Mhz, with data loss and instability; one solution can be to reduce the Pio Mode of the disk to decrease the performance speed of the electronic part allowing it to support better the working frequency of the PCI bus other than specifications. With SCSI hard disks, the stability problems depend on the SCSI controller, which could not work correctly with a frequency of the bus it is connected to (generally PCI one) higher than the default one.

Increasing the bus frequency, the memory too works at an higher frequency than specs: it can be necessary to act on the memory parameters to make the overclock stable, of course if you increase the bus frequency (increasing only the multiplier the working frequency of the memory doesn’t change). To change the memory timings you need to enter the BIOS of the motherboard and act on the item of the Chipset Features Setup menu, or Chipset Setup, or Advanced Setup (the names change but generally they are always concerned with the chipset and the advanced settings) and change the parameters; remember that with higher numeric values correspond lower memory performance, that is more stability, and turning off an item you obtain the same results.

Aureal heeft nieuwe Windoos 9x Vortex II drivertjes op z'n site geplankt. Hier heb je de info:

- Vortex 2 Drivers (Update Set)

Download the latest Vortex 2 drivers (without the A3D and Vortex demos and applications)
Windows 95 / 98
(Version 4.06.2040 - 8.38MB zipfile - 09/21/99)

- Vortex 2 Drivers (Update Set)

Download the latest Vortex 2 drivers (without the A3D and Vortex demos and applications and without the Aureal GM MIDI set)
Windows 95 / 98
(Version 4.06.2040 - 4.03MB zipfile - 09/21/99)

Vortex 2 Drivers (Complete)

Download the latest Vortex 2 drivers (complete with A3D and Vortex demos and applications and the Aureal GM MIDI set)
Windows 95 / 98
(Version 4.06.2040 - 34.5MB zipfile - 09/21/99)

The Register meldt dat DRAM prijzen inmiddels al 5% zijn gestegen als gevolg van de aardbeving in Taiwan

Memory prices went up by more than five per cent last night as news of the Taiwan earthquake broke. The price hikes have been labelled by some as callous profiting in the wake of human suffering, while others point to market uncertainties as the cause of the increase.

Initial feedback on the impact of yesterday's earthquake on the Taiwanese IT industry suggests that the sector will suffer little more than a minor set-back.

Alan Stanley, general manager of memory distributor Dane-Elec, played down the damage done by the quake. "I don't think it will do a lot of harm in the final analysis; we're talking about a three or four day delay in the DRAM market. I've spoken to most of the manufacturers out there and they all seem to be OK." [break] Ook de schade voor moederbord fabrikanten blijkt mee te vallen. Tevens blijkt de infrastructuur nog grotendeels intact te zijn: [/break] Some concerns had been raised that the Taiwanese motherboard industry would be harder hit than the DRAM market. Luke Ireland, a director of Evesham Micros, said he had information to the contrary.

He said that he had been told that most major roads and modern factories were unaffected by the earthquake and that a shipment he was expecting to be flown in from Taiwan was not subject to any delays. [break] En voor de duidelijkheid nog even deze opmerking: [/break] While the harm done to the IT industry may run into millions of dollars, it should not be forgotten that there were many human casualties in yesterday's earthquake. As this story went to press, the death toll had been confirmed at more than 1,700, with a further 4,000 injured.

Mark Rein heeft UnrealTournament.com geupdate met info over de release van de D3D/OpenGL Unreal Tournament demo:

We're working hard on getting the next version of the demo finished. It will feature support for D3D, OpenGL, Metal, Glide and software rendering. It will include another map but we haven't decided conclusively which map it will be. To use our D3D code will require DirectX Version 7 which Microsoft expects to release on their web site on Wednesday. We'll keep you posted on their progress. We definitely will not ship the demo before Microsoft releases Dx7 for downloading so don't expect the new demo any sooner than Wednesday or more likely Thursday or later. If you see Microsoft release Dx7 and you intend to run UT under D3D please go download and install Dx7.

Please also make sure you have the absolute latest drivers for your video card. You may find your video card vendor issues new drivers around the same time as Dx7 ships.

If you use a 3DFX card you want to use the Glide API and if you use a Savage4 card you want to use Metal. We believe Direct3D is the right API for those running Windows 95 or Windows 98 with the following cards: Nvidia Riva TNT, Nvidia Riva TNT2, Nvidia GeForce256, ATI Rage 128, Matrox G200, Matrox G400, Permedia Create3, and PowerVR 250. Apologies to any vendor we forgot here!

If you're running Windows NT4 and you don't have a Glide-compatible card OpenGL may work for you. We have not had time to work on our OpenGL drivers beyond what shipped in Unreal version 225 but we do expect to improve them before the final version of UT ships.

Betanews weet ons te verblijden met het nieuws dat Stardock de final version van WindowBlinds heeft gereleased:

Stardock Corporation has finally released a final version of WindowBlinds. WindowBlinds allows you to completely customize the look and feal of Windows using themes called 'skins'. This version is for registered users only, and will be made publicly available in a few days. Once you register your copy, you can receive free updates from Stardock.

Voor kewle skins kun je terecht bij skinz.org. Voorbeeldje van een omgebouwde desktop (met lighting effects):

Diamond heeft twee nieuwe videoplankjes aangekondigd, beide gebouwd rondom de Savage4 chipset van grote vriend S3. Hier heb je de soep uit de press release:

Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: DIMD - news), a leader in PC multimedia and Internet connectivity, today announced shipment of the company's most recent in value-priced graphics accelerators.

Diamond's new Stealth III S540 Xtreme, powered with S3 Incorporated's (Nasdaq: SIII - news) Savage4 Xtreme chip, features the combination of S3's leading innovations and Diamond's prestigious board technology. Diamond Multimedia's Stealth III S540 Xtreme is the first graphics accelerator of its kind to feature S3's texture compression (S3TC) technology, 32MB of onboard memory with 166 MHz memory and 160MHz engine clockspeeds at a $99.00 U.S. estimated retail price (ERP) price point based on a $30.00 rebate.

Diamond is also shipping the SpeedStar A90 graphics accelerator powered by S3's Savage4 Pro+ processor offiering a feature-rich graphics solution to system integrators and OEM's . ``It's unbelievable performance for the price!'' said Scott Vouri, vice president and general manager of the Multimedia Division at Diamond. We are shipping possibly the first high-performing graphics accelerator with amazing resolution capabilities and clockspeeds priced below $100.00. With the Stealth III S540 Xtreme PC consumers no longer have to sacrifice quality graphics enhancements for value-sensitive pricing.``

Diamond's Stealth III S540 Xtreme

Diamond's Stealth III S540 Xtreme is equipped with 128-bit processing-power, 166Mhz memory and 160Mhz engine clock, and 32 MB of system memory, as well as support for texture maps up to 2048x2048 to deliver high-performance for graphic intensive business applications and computer gaming,. The Stealth III S540 Xtreme is capable of performing single-pass multi texturing, 32-bit rendering, up to 1920 x 1440 resolution support and stencil buffering with AGP 4X backward compatibility. Additionally the Stealth III S540 Xtreme's hardware accelerated DVD playback with included DVD software application enables motion compensation and sub-picture alpha blending for awesome theater-quality video entertainment.

``Enabled with the Savage4 Xtreme processor, we are excited that Diamond's Stealth III S540 Xtreme is now available to the consumer'', said Michael Buchanan, director of Desktop Marketing for S3 Incorporated. ``The Stealth III S540 Xtreme delivers high resolutions and clockspeeds capable of running graphic-intensive applications at a high frame rate without compromising stability. Combined with S3TC, the Stealth III S540 Xtreme is a top to bottom solution normally expected from expensive, high-end boards attractively priced for the mainstream consumer. ''

The SpeedStar A90 Now Available To System Integrators

Diamond Multimedia also announced shipment of its Diamond's Speedstar A90 graphics accelerator, designed for cost-conscious system integrators. The SpeedStar A90 , based on the S3 Savage4 Pro+ chipset, integrates 16MB of 125MHz SDRAM memory, 128-bit processing, up to AGP 4X support, and features hardware motion compensation for video playback.

Hopelijk hebben ze die op de SiS-nogwat chipset gebaseerde Speedstar A50 en A70 3D decellerators er nu ook uit geflipt, van die dingen zijn echt traaaaaaag.

Er komt toch geen officiële verklaring van 3dfx over de delay van de Voodoo4, zoals in deze nieuwsposting van gisteren werd gezegd. Desondanks is het vrijwel zeker dat we dit millenium (wat klinkt dat dramatisch ) geen nieuwe generatie Voodoo kaarten zullen zien. Hier heb je de info uit een posting van Greg Ballard / 3dfx op het Silicon Invester 3dfx board:

There is no press conference scheduled, nor is there a "formal" announcement being made. We have started today to inform investors that we have determined that Napalm will not ship in the 4th quarter or if it does, too late in the quarter to have a meaningful impact on revenues. We now expect it to ship in mid February with an outside chance of mid March. We expect that when it does ship, it will be the leading performance chip in the market.

The chip is now back on a more predictable schedule with all the previous problems having been resolved. There is always risk, of course, from this point on but we feel very good about the chip at this point. We spent many more months in the back end that we thought was going to be required and, literally, time ran out for a reasonable shot at 4th quarter volumes.

We are guiding people to expect losses in Q3 and Q4 as our revenues will stay roughly the same (maybe down 10% in Q4) but with gross margins declining significantly. Q1 and Q2, however, we believe will be very strong quarters with a return to profitability.

Ik kwam bij Voodoo Extreme (die het weer van Planet Unreal heeft) een posting tegen van Tim Sweeney (Epic programmer) over T&L support in DX7:

Q: By simply porting the D3D code from DX6 to DX7, will UT have already implemented support for hardware T&L, or are we looking at results more like the TNT2 chipset?

A: We don't use any hardware T&L. On the GeForce, the main thing we gain is improved fill rate.

Erm.. okay, so then DX7 does not, in fact, do hardware T&L transparently to the developer--you have to explicitly handle it yourself. D3D does hardware T&L automatically, unless you tell it, "hey my vertices are already transformed and lit, so don't mess with them" which Unreal does.

AGN Hardware heeft een review van de Logitech Wingman Formula neer gemikt. Dit stuurtje heeft dezelfde koele vormgeving als z'n grote Formula Force broeder, alleen dus zonder force-feedback:

As I mentioned earlier, there's a slight amount of play in the wheel, but it's not nearly as bad as I've seen some of the competition's product exhibit. I never really had a problem with the wheel re-centering properly, and the amount of tension offered wasn't excessive, or too much, but that's a matter of option, so your mileage may vary. The pedals on the other hand appeared a little on the weak side when it comes to the amount of tension offered. Some racing enthusiasts like myself prefer a little more tension in the pedals area, but you can clearly tell the brake from the gas pedal by the amount of tension offered by each. The Wingman Formula was put through a hardcore gaming workout with racing titles like Monster Truck Madness 2, Need for Speed: High Stakes, NASCAR 3 and Midtown Madness. Be it through the streets of the windy-city or on the winding back-roads offered in Need for Speed: High Stakes - the WingMan Formula performed very well. I almost forgot to mention the clamping mechanism. Like most of the newer PC wheels on the market, the design of the clamping mechanism did a great job as keeping the wheel planted firmly to the desktop, even in those down and dirty radical races in Monster Truck Madness 2.

CGO heeft een review gepost van de nieuwe Aureal Vortex II SQ2500, een geluidskaartje dat grotendeels gelijk is aan andere Vortex II incarnaties van Xitel, Videologic en Turtle Beach:

There are a few differences, though. First, Aureal's home-branded board uses a slightly optimized version of the Vortex2 processor. The result, they claim, is less CPU utilization in games that use a lot of DirectSound3D or A3D streams. We did a little testing, and the best improvement we saw in actual game situations was about 4 frames per second on a Pentium II 350MHz machine. Most games saw less of an improvement, but any improvement on an already fabulous sound platform is welcome. Second, Aureal's card sports an RCA S/PDIF jack, which is missing from many other inexpensive sound cards. Last but not least, Aureal packed in one of the best game bundles we've seen in a long time. Full versions of Drakan and Heretic II, both excellent games, are included, along with a 7-level OEM version of Slave Zero. In other words, for about the price of the bundled software, you get one of the best sound cards on the market.

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