Bij Tech-Arena hebben ze een klein artikel gepost over de Savage 2000 van S3. Volgens dit stukje mogen we geloven dat S3 nVidia voorbij gaat streven:

I recently had the opportunity to have a brief talk with Mark Hirsch, Executive Producer over at S3, regarding the Savage 2000.

It would appear that S3 would like to edge out nVidia on the performance of today’s applications. For instance, Mark Hirsch told me : “For the Savage 2000, we used the nVidia tree demo”. We also proceeded to discuss the hardware lighting - it appears that GeForce 256 can do 8 hardware lights per triangle onscreen, but when GeForce 256 lights more than 4 and close to 7 hardware lights per triangle that there is a performance hit. Mark Hirsch assured me that Savage 2000 will not have such a problem, and that in Quake3 we may be able to see the gun set 8 hardware lights into motion for polygons in close proximity in full lighting on the Savage 2000.

Mark Hirsch did, however, inform me that they did not focus on pure transformation throughput. Transformation being the geometry that a game requests is first generated onscreen and then textured. The fillrates will beat nVidia's, and texture throughput would be faster, yet it would appear that S3 believes in generating the performance results today and not tomorrow.

Deze 3 coole screenies staan er ook nog in high-res...

Hardware Central geeft in zijn Cooling Tools artikel een kleine round-up van de verschillende soorten en merken coolers momenteel op de markt. Hieronder wat uit de conclusie:

With all the cooling solutions available today, you can easily reduce your case temperature and improve stability and extend the life of your peripherals.

The simplest solution is to buy a couple of case fans and mount them in the available brackets, which will reduce your case temperature by at least 5 degrees. And for only $ 9.50 for the 3-pin version, you can’t go wrong.

The Super-Duper-Slot-Fan can be used to cool a hot peripheral, such as a 3D accelerator directly, but it also holds its own when used to get the hot air out of your system. Priced at $ 18, it's not too expensive.

However, the best performing cooling solution, and the one that impressed us the mos, is the Twin-Turbo, as it is a quiet, powerful and very well-performing cooling solution that will bring your case temperature down like none other available. The $ 25 price tag is a bargain, considering price / performance ratio.

Furthermore, if you are looking for a good way to cool your harddisk, the Ultra-Thin-Exhauster is probably the most powerful and compact device available. For only $ 25 you can’t go wrong here, either.

Voor meer info, check Hardware Central.

SystemLogic vond het nodig om een review online te planten van de Elsa Erazor III TNT2 videokaart met de geinige 3D Revelator Glasses. Zie hieronder een hap uit de conclusie, lees het volledige verhaal hier.

Overall the Elsa Erazor III is not a bad card at all, in fact it is up there among the best of the TNT2's. The one thing that tops it off from above average is the bundle with the infamous 3D Revelator Glasses. After reading that last statement you may be saying to yourself, hey, doesn't ASUS bundle with 3D glasses too? To tell you the truth, yup, they do, but one problem. They SUCK! The 3D revelator kick some major butt, and it would be hard to top that off. The card isn't a speed demon, but without conclusive benchmarks as of yet, we can't just say that. This conclusion will be re-written once those new benchmarks are up within a week or so. With a generous 32MB and a heft $225 price tag (EB World) it's not the cheapest thing, but it's not that expensive when it comes down to it either. All in all from the looks of it this is pretty much your average TNT2 with a little boost here and there. Those little boosts let the score rise up a bit to an 8.5, although the score may change once the new benchmarks are done. You never know, maybe a little rockin' overclockin' will do the trick...

UnrealTournament.com en de Unreal Tech Page liggen op dit moment plat en bij Voodoo Extreme wordt duidelijk waarom, want de Unreal Tournament D3D/OpenGL demo is eindelijk gereleased! Hier de info van VE:

The full version of the new demo (55Mb) is now released. Modem users can download it from Gigex here - this is a resumable download so if your modem connection dies during the 55Mb download you can still get the file without starting the whole download over. Those using really fast connections and those behind firewalls should try here which is a more normal FTP-style download.

The patch for the existing 3DFX demo (10Mb) is also available now. Modem users can download it from Gigex at here - this is a resumable download so if your modem connection dies during the 10Mb download you can still get the file without starting the whole download over. Those using really fast connections and those behind firewalls should try here which is a more normal FTP-style download.

Win some UT goodies: If you download either version through Gigex, and provide your email address, you could be one of 50 lucky winners (chosen at random) to receive a long-sleeve, black UT T-shirt or be the one lucky winner to get a very exclusive Unreal Tournament leather jacket! Details appear with the download.

Voodoo Extreme hoopt zo snel mogelijk een mirror online te hebben. Houdt ook AGN 3D in de gaten, want ik verwacht dat zij ook snel een mirror opzetten.

Overclockers' Workbench bericht dat de prijzen voor ZX en BX chipsets omhoog zullen gaan, met als logisch gevolg een stijgende prijs voor moederplanken die gebruik maken van deze chips. De oorzaak ligt zoals altijd weer (deels) bij Intel, die liever ziet dat we i810 chipsets gaan gebruiken:

Intel is promoting their i810 chipsets and reducing the BX/ZX chipsets to manufacturers, and due to lack of ZX and BX chipsets and the recent earthquake in Taiwan, there is a lack of component for mainboards. Mainboard manufacturers Gigabyte, Microstar and ASUS has plans to raise the pricing of their mainboards from October onwards.

This is not the first raise in pricing. In Aug, it was raised by US$2 and in Sept by US$5. The earthquake affected the semiconductor industry tremendously and this will definitely lead to much jacking of mainboard pricings in October onwards.

So if you haven't buy your mainboard, buy it now!

The Adrenaline Vault heeft een patch gepost waarmee de al eerder gereleasde 3dfx demo van Direct3D support voorzien kan worden. De 'echte' D3D/OpenGL demo lijkt nog niet gereleased te zijn, maar als je de 3dfx demo + deze patch bij elkaar prakt krijg je ook de nieuwe demo:

This patch will upgrade the 3dfx Unreal Tournament demo to the latest 338 build which adds Direct3D support.

Vervolgens geeft AVault een 4 kilometer lange lijst met alle fixes sinds de 3dfx demo. De binary kun je hier naar beneden vissen (7,09Mb).

*Update (19:30)*: de patch blijkt weer van de AVault server verdwenen te zijn ...en we wachten verder...

3DFiles heeft een nieuwe RC2000 demo klaar staan om gedownload te worden:

As rally enthusiasts eagerly await the launch, it has been revealed that Rally Championship will shock the market with a number of new features that have never been seen before:

Including multiple driving positions, fully operational 3D dashboard instruments, a superb selection of top rally cars, new crash, collision and damage routines and comprehensive multi-player options - adding up to the most exciting driving experience you can have without getting into a car and doing the real thing. New! Moon and Star playable demo A brand new stage! Improved handling and car physics! Steering wheel support! (including force feedback) Visual damage and selectable graphics resolutions! [break] Een lijstje met download locaties vind je hier. Ik heb meteen ff het RC2000 forum van High Gear gecheckt en daar heeft Kenneth Verburg een korte review van de nieuwe demo gepost: [/break] The Star and Moon stage is a tarmac stage. It should take you approx 3-4 mins. to complete.

One of the things I noticed immediately is that you can run over bushes, maybe you can even rip them out...Not sure...

Brakes are still the carbon fibre ones (you brake really easy and fast) and the fences are still unbreakable. Physics haven't changed (at least, not that I noticed).

The stage is great fun to do. On the tarmac the car is A LOT faster, so you really have to listen to that co-driver. The close-by fences and trees also make the stage look faster.

Well, I like the new demo, although this stage is a little short. I think it's one of the shortest stages of the rally (MF guys?). If you can't download the 31MB demo, then I would certainly download the 18.4MB one. The same menues, options and intro movie, only the stage is shorter.

Scytale: thanks voor de tip .

Gamers Depot heeft een review gepost van 2 Athlon planken: de "BCM QS750 Athlon" en de "FIC SD11 Athlon". De eerstgenoemde is mij onbekend, maar het schijnt gewoon een replica te zijn van het reference design. Anyway, lees de review hier.

Both boards offer rock-solid performance. I was able to run all applications and all games to my heart's content, and never hit a snag. Both perform very very fast (it's an Athlon!). I preferred the FIC over the BCM, because it's more in line with newer board design goals of fewer legacy devices and more PnP devices. That, and the quicker bootup make this a better board for the average high-end gamer. One very important caveat to both these (and ALL Athlon™ boards) is the REQUIREMENT of certain very particular POWER SUPPLIES. Both manuals have an insert warning about this. Please take it seriously - I tried for days to get my Fester running in a 200W system, and it just wouldn't work stably. Refer: http://www1.amd.com/Athlon/power. There's actually a very very helpful guide and FAQ on constructing your very own Athlon™ system, at: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/Athlon/pdf/quick_ref_faq.pdf. Lastly, the QS750 is really a near-replica of the AMD Fester Reference motherboard, with the exact same specs and connectors right down to an unusual heat sensor strip just below the CPU. I guess, if you go with the reference design, how can you go wrong! Oh yes, and both boards run reasonably cool, requiring less fan power than I had expected.

ZDNet heeft een gigantische monitor roundup gepost, waarin 38 19-inchers worden getest. De MAG Innovision 800v en LG Studioworks 995E werden bekroond met de Editor's Choice:

The MAG InnoVision 800v and the LG Studioworks 995E offer a combination of quality, features, and price that edges out the competition.

For overall value, it's hard to top the $400 MAG InnoVision 800v. Ideal for the business or home user, this model has an easy-to-operate user interface and enough fine-tuning features to please a high-end user.

Our jury ranked it number one for image quality in both the business and graphics categories.

Graphics and CAD users should look no further than the LG Studioworks 995E. Its $470 price is well below that of many other monitors targeted at the professional graphics user, but it doesn't skimp on features or image quality.

The 995E is especially adept at handling high resolutions and graphics-intensive applications.

GPU 3D heeft een artikeltje neer gekieperd waarin ze de features van S3TC en 3dfx FXT1 vergelijken. Hier een stukje uit de conclusie:

Though these two compressions do have their differences, the end result is the same, an equivalent picture of smaller size, allowing developers to utilize larger textures and to devote precious bandwidth to other places. The 10,000 dollar question, which is better? That's a toss up. The FXT1 relies on complex algorithms and coding to deliver a better looking image, however common sense dictates that this may be slower than the S3TC. Is the greater complexity , free source, and greater flexibility enough to supercede S3TC, time will tell.

Eric van Fastgraphics brengt het nieuws dat Environment Mapped Bump Mapping support uit de Savage2000 is weggesloopt . Tevens gaan er geruchten dat levering van de Savage2000+ is gedelayed naar het tweede kwartaal van 2000:

Previously I wrote that the Savage 2000 chipset DOES support Environment Mapped Bumpmapping, but I just got a call from Diamond and it now turns out that this feature has been cut from the final design... Word is also that due to the problems in Taiwan we might not see Savage 2000+ cards shipping in Q1 of next year. It might be somewhere in Q2.

Henk-Jan Smit: thanks voor de tip .

Sake gaf de tip richting deze wazige japanse site, waar men een aantal plaatjes van de Freeway K7VM Athlon plank op het net heeft gegooid. Dit Freeway bordje lijkt voorlopig de meest ideale Athlon overclockers plaat te gaan worden. Zie ook dit BIOS scherm:

The Tech Zone heeft een review in elkaar gezet van de AMK SECC-80+ cooler. Dit ding schijnt errug goed te werken:

The AMK-SECC80+ ranks among the best CPU coolers out there, recording the second lowest temp reading among the coolers tested. It's very interesting to know that you can drop your temperature 2C just by removing the CPU back-plate. With the CPU back-plate removed, the Global Win VEK32 remains at the at top of the heap. You really can't remove the CPU back-plate with the other coolers because their clipping system makes use of the back-plate (well you can, but that's for another article).

The AMK-SECC80+ had no problems running the P3-450 at 580Mhz. The performance is simply outstanding and if I remove the CPU back-plate, it would be the coolest of the coolers tested. With a street price of $23.99, it's offer great bang for the buck. Cheaper than the Vantec but higher performing, same price as the Global Win VEK32 but no need to modify it to work with your P3. All in all, another great product from AMK Services.

Lees de volledige review hier.

3D Rage heeft het eerste deel van zijn System Cooling Guide online gemikt. In deel 1 bespreken ze de basics en harddisk cooling. Hier heb je een gedeelte over het laatst genoemde:

Many hard drive coolers that you will find will fit in front of your drive and blow air onto it from the outside. There are a couple however, that fit under your hard drive and blow air onto the bottom of the hard drive. These are perhaps the easiest to install, since they fit under the hard drive via scews, but there may be some disadvantages. One of which is it might render your hard drive useless because it will not fit into your case properly. The one I received raised the screw slots off of the metal casing just enough so that the screw would not go into place, and in some drive bays, it wouldn't even go all the way in.

Hard drive coolers can get pretty pricey also, with some reaching into the $40 range. The most common hard drive coolers I have seen range from $25 to $35, which is a pretty big price to pay considering video card coolers and CPU coolers cost the same or less in some situations. However, if your hard drive begins to overheat you run the risk of a hard drive crash and possibly even losing some or all of your data. If you have anything less than a 7,200 RPM hard drive then I would recommend you not get a hard drive cooler, mainly because they don't generate a lot of heat compared to the other two, and you would be spending a good bit on relatively useless cooling, but, if you happen to own a 7,200 RPM drive, then a hard drive cooler would be an excellent investment. Other ways to cool your hard drive other than buying a third party cooler is to position your hard drive so a case fan or two will blow cool air over it, or suck the hot air away from it, which is the cheaper method, since you should already have the case fans for proper circulation. You would just need to reposition a case fan or possibly your hard drive.

iXBT-Labs heeft nu ook een artikel gepost over de gevolgen van de aardbeving in Taiwan van vorige week. Voor zover ze het nu kunnen berekenen heeft de Taiwanese economie al minstens een verlies geleden van 3.1 miljard dollar:

As for the damage, it will take pretty long before it is finally calculated. For today, the preliminary estimates show that Taiwanese economy has lost about $3.1 billion. Quake damage can cut the island's exports by as much as US$1 billion this month. Among this money the semiconductor manufacturers lost about $100 million, according to preliminary estimates. And here we mean not the destroyed buildings. To tell the truth, not so many buildings were directly ruined.

Most manufacturers didn't suffer any significant direct losses. To the most unlucky ones we would refer ADI (a part of its factory is in ruins), Unipac (its "clean house" was flooded by a water pipe leak after the earthquake and as result the company lost all the pieces for new LCD panels) and WSMC, which supplies chips for ATI (after the quake its backup power generator overheated and a fire broke out having caused over $600,000 losses). However, we should mention that the most important parts of ADI and WSMC's factories remained untouched.

Though only a few buildings were destroyed, the equipment still needs being replaced. TSMC and UMC had to order new quartz furnace tubes to replace those, lost in the quake. It looks as if these two were not the only ones, which would go to the same expense. However, some of the manufacturers got off really lightly. One of the largest chip testers, ASE Test (which, by the way, happened to be situated not in Hsinchu) didn't halt production during the quake, and nor did it suffer any damage.

Voor meer gedetailleerde info, fiets even naar iXBT-Labs.

CNET News meldt dat steeds meer computer fabrikanten (waaronder IBM) kiezen voor VIA Chipsets vanwege de vertragingen van Intel's i820. VIA heeft namelijk het voordeel dat ze wèl full 133MHz FSB support bieden, naast AGP 4X. Voor het volledige nieuwsbericht, klik hier.

Although the delay to the 820 will likely boost Via's fortunes in the market, PC manufacturers and analysts have pointed out that the company's products offer advantages over Intel chipsets.

Via, for instance, makes Intel-compatible chipsets with a 133-MHz system bus, faster than 100-MHz system bus on most Intel chipsets. Some Via chipsets also support faster 133-MHz SDRAM. The system bus is a conduit for shuttling data between the processor and other components.

Today, Intel released the 810(e) chipset, which contains a 133-MHz system bus. However, the 810(e) works only with the slower 100-MHz SDRAM. An Intel chipset that can work with faster 133-MHz SDRAM will not come out until next year, the company has said. Via therefore can brag about performance advantages, analysts have said.

Via chipsets also are designed to work with SDRAM, today's standard computer memory. Although SDRAM has surged in price recently, it is cheaper than Rambus memory and a more familiar commodity. The 820 was to be Intel's first product fluent in Rambus.

Another plus: Via's latest chipsets can support AGP 4X, an internal technology that improves graphics performance and can wring out the best in the latest generation of chips. AGP is a technology invented by Intel. However, current Intel chipsets can only take advantage of the slower AGP 2X technology.

Ook Sharky Extreme heeft nu een review in elkaar getypt van de nieuwe Pentium 3 533B en 600B processors met 133MHz FSB ondersteuning. Hier heb je het gedeelte over de performance, de rest van het verhaal staat hier.

Beginning with our 3D-application suite of tests, which is comprised entirely of game based benchmarks, we see that the increase of both the CPU's and the memory's bus speed does enable a small performance boost.

Even though the amount of total ram, the two CPU's core speeds, and the video cards were kept the same between the two systems, the P3-600B exceeded the standard P3-600 in speed by up to 5% in optimal conditions.

This is enough of a boost to similarly allow the new P3-533B CPU to compete stride for stride with the P3-550MHz CPU in the same tests, although at this point the two models are nearly identical in price so there's no outright advantage in choosing the new 533B over the older 550.

In our synthetic 2D test suite, we noticed that under most of the tests that are based on real-world apps like PhotoShop and Naturally Speaking, the faster bus speed allowed the P3-533B to actually outperform the vastly more expensive P3-600/100 CPU.

We also noted similar gains when using Intel's platform bandwidth tests, which move large amounts of data across both the video and memory busses system-wide.

The end conclusion that readers can take from these results is that a faster front side bus speed can assist in generating faster performance under certain conditions, specifically in apps that utilize a tremendous amount of memory.

Games however can only benefit slightly from this bandwidth boost (games of late '99 and early 2000 anyway) and that's only at the lower video resolutions where video cards are not as fill-rate limited.

[break]Hm, en als je trouwens denkt dat je deze 133MHz FSB CPU's goed kan overklokken heb je het mis...[/break]

Even with these impressive preparations, we still weren't able to hit either the 600MHz mark for the P3-533B or the 675MHz mark for the P3-600B from the charts above, which was disappointing. Much of overclocking success or failure still lies with the CPU itself, if it's not capable of running at a higher speed with stability then it likely won't no matter what the user opts to try.

Even when cooled to 2 degrees C, we couldn't achieve the speeds that we felt would make the level of effort worth while.

Hopefully as higher volumes of both mainboards and memory that are capable of frequencies of 133MHz and higher are achieved we'll all be able to pursue more overclocking possibilities. For now though, we're still very limited by system level components as well as the CPU's cores themselves.

TargetPC heeft een review gepost van de Epson Stylus 740. Ik heb die printer ook en kan alleen maar zeggen dat het ding regeert, vooral bij gebruik van glossy papier. Op 1440dpi levert-ie een sublieme kwaliteit! TargetPC is het geloof ik wel redelijk met me eens:

Picture quality remained excellent as long as the heads remained cleaned. I did have to clean the heads once after all my printing. Included in the utilities is an automated head cleaning feature. There is a warning that the cleaning procedure should be used sparingly as it wastes a lot of ink. Unfortunately this procedure took 4 tries to completely clean the heads. Once clean I resumed printing both text and color and was satisfied that my results were back to the original quality I saw when I first used this printer.

Epson advertises laser quality text printing. This is accomplished through the use of their Micro Piezo droplet technology. By using many more small dots Epson is able to achieve far crisper text. Edges of text have very little artifact. What Micro Piezo does for text creates very well blended textures and hues in color pictures. The only other manufacturer who approaches this quality is Hewlett Packard with the PhotoRet technology.

Overclock.com heeft een errug interessant artikeltje in elkaar geklust over de NV10 drivers in Win2000 (die zitten er standaard in!). Win2k blijkt drie NV10 versies te kennen: de NV10, NV10 GL en NV10 Ultra. Hmm...

It included support for the GeForce (NV10)!!! This really got me thinking, and I came up with the following theories:

The GeForce has the same micro architecture as the TNT.

If the drivers are the same, then the two chips must use the same instruction set. It looks like they added another pair of texture units, and doubled the bus to accommodate them (256bit vs. 128). From this we could expect the GeForce to run twice as fast as a TNT, at the same clock speed. Also, this could also explain why Nvidia is able to bring the GeForce to market so quickly - because they're basically putting two TNT's on one chip.

Nvidia will be coming out with different versions of the GeForce.

They listed a NV10 GL and a NV10 Ultra in the list of devices. I expect the Ultra model to be based on Nvidia's new .22u process. This is because the standard model comes with a heatsink/fan, unlike the standard TNT-2's. So the only way to go significantly faster is with a better process. I would expect a core clock speed of between 150-166mhz for the ultra part vs. 120mhz for the standard part. Now, I'm not too sure about the GL part. We know the GeForce will support OpenGL, so the GL must be some designation for a value version. I would guess the value version would use slower but cheaper 7ns ram instead of the 5ns.

Het volk van 3DHardware.net heeft het tweede deel van hun Creative Labs Annihilator review op het net gezet. In Part I zagen we al een aantal benchmarks en die waren nog niet bepaald positief te noemen. Onderstaande opmerking geeft hoop:

Even at that very alpha stage, the benchmarks were very promising and can only get better. Although we are now forced to hold back on the benchmarks we can assure you that the performance is indeed very solid. [break]In de review ook een interessant stukje over het gebruik van schaalbare geometrie in games zoals Quake III:[/break] Quake II Test is, however, far from the only game that has a variable LOD. Messiah has the same, Evolva has the same, and it seems like the entire industry is heading that way. Be it that they predicted this whole T&L biz, but Intel (with MetaCreations) have developed a file format, MetaStream, that allows for completely scalable graphics, even streaming such, which let you get an increasing detail depending on how fast your computer is, and how fast a connection you have, if it's online 3D content you're viewing.

Pretty interesting stuff isn't it? Whenever T&L gets enabled in Quake III Test, we can start doing some real benchmarks and enabling all these extra triangles won't hurt the GeForce 256 one bit. Even now, with ALPHA drivers, the performance drop is very, very low. Besides, I assume that if Carmack adds those extra settings in the final Quake III, the results that these console commands give would surely be included in those extra settings. Below are two shots comparing standard and high triangle rates of, what I think, the most impressive scene i Quake III Test.

3DH heeft ook een poging ondernomen om de GeForce 256 te overklokken. Standaard loopt het kaartje op 120MHz en 3DH was in staat om daar 125MHz van te maken. 130MHz zou mogelijk moeten zijn met betere koeling, wat dan zou resulteren in een fillrate van 520Mpix/sec (klinkt al meteen een stuk beter - misschien leuk om daar een peltier tegenaan te plakken? ). Maareuh, check eerst 3DHardware.net voor de review.

Freak! heeft een review van de Freeway Designs FW-6280BXDR/155 dual slot1 moederplank gepost. Dit bordje heeft 6 PCI slots, 3 DIMM gleuven en een flinke reeks busspeeds die 'm bijzonder geschikt maken voor dual PII/PIII overclocking:

As mentioned earlier, the board features the ability to run at 29 different FSBs. The official FSBs supported are 66, 75, 78, 81, 83, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 120, 122, 124(PCI 33), 124(PCI 41), 126, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 142, 144, 150, and 155. At speeds over 83Mhz the PCI divider is 1/3. At 124Mhz and above the PCI divider is 1/4 although you may run the 124Mhz at 1/3 if you wish to do so. Also, from 66-83Mhz the AGP divider is 1/1 so at 83Mhz you will be driving your AGP card pretty hard. From 90-155Mhz the AGP divider is 2/3 so you may not be able to attain speeds past 133Mhz. 133Mhz itself might be a little difficult to achieve depending on the video card.

The BIOS contains a software controlled CPU feature setup. This page contains information about fan speeds, chipset and CPU voltages, and system and CPU temperatures. It is here where you can also change the voltage settings, multiplier, and FSB for the CPUs. In addition, you have the ability to tweak the BX chipset voltage. You have pseudo independent control of each individual CPU slot. You can essentially tweak the first CPU's voltage and then choose if you want the second CPU to match the first CPU's voltage or if you want it to automatically pick the correct voltage. The voltage increments are in 0.1 increments.

Hardware Pros hebben een review van de vette 10.000rpm Quantum Atlas 10K Ultra160/m SCSI schijf op het net gekwakt. Kost wel wat, maar dan tel je ook meteen mee :

Performance-wise, the drive absolutely rocks. It beats out both the 7,200 RPM and 5,400 RPM drives by a significantly large margin. I was surprised to see that the Fireball KA Plus came pretty close in a couple of tests, such as the SiSoft Sandra test and Business Winmark 99. Even though it comes close in some scores, the CPU usage is quite high and would seriously slow down server operations if it was using the IDE drive. In any case, you'll be hard pressed to find a higher performing drive than the Atlas 10K. Running Windows NT, and Windows 98 SE day-to-day were also noticeably quicker, especially when using multiple apps and disk-thrashing started to kick-in due to increased swap file usage. We did not suffer any mouse slow downs either during heavy drive usage due to the fact that it uses the SCSI interface and its CPU utilization is very low. Overall, we were extremely impressed with the drives flawless performance under both NT and 98.

Gamecenter heeft een preview van de GeForce 256 in elkaar geflanst. Ze hebben zelfs de mogelijkheid gekregen om een paar benchmarks te draaien en echt opwindend zijn de resultaten niet: vooral bij 32-bit rendering is er nauwelijks verschil met de TNT2. Het lijkt ook alsof de T&L engine nog uit z'n neus zit te eten, want juist op lage resoluties (waar je mag verwachten dat er geen fillrate limit is en de geometrie processor dus volop benut kan worden) is er in Q3Test nauwelijks verschil met de TNT2. Anyway, hier een hap uit de conclusie:

The relatively low clock speed of the GeForce is also something of a disappointment. Though the four-pixel pipelines make it very fast on multitexture intensive games such as Quake III, the chip still can't run Quake III at 60fps at 1,024 by 768 in 32-bit. Driver tweaks may bring the GeForce to that level, but it would be nice to have a higher clock speed to allow more headroom for graphics in future titles.

Voodoo3.net heeft een interview met Brian Burke (mannetje@3dfx) gepost. Hier een leuke vraag over de T-Buffer grappen in de Voodoo4:

7) This question is in many parts..... :-) What's next for 3dfx? The T-Buffer heralds in a new era in video accelerators. Breaking down the visual experience of film into effects, how much more work beyond the T-Buffer is there to do before the video card is capable of matching the realism of film? Does 3dfx have a list of features and an implementation schedule to achieve this goal? For that matter is the "complete film realism" a goal of 3dfx?

[Brian Burke] Our goal is to close the gap between Digital Hollywood and the PC. We want to recreate reality for the ultimate visual experience by capturing the subtleties of light, color, and texture. We want to deliver these technologies with real-time interactivity and frame rates at consumer-friendly prices. We are a long way from being able to render "Bug's Life" or "Toy Story" in real-time on a consumer priced PC.

Tja, dan zul je toch op z'n minste enige vorm van T&L acceleratie nodig hebben ...3dfx?

Creative Labs heeft versie 3 van Live!Ware gereleased. De drivers worden geleverd met allerlei nieuw MP3 en internet spul. Hier wat plakwerk van de Live!Ware site:

By reprogramming the EMU10K1 audio processor of Sound Blaster Live!, Creative lets you enjoy new experiences in Internet Entertainment. Live!Ware 3.0 for the Sound Blaster Live! series will transform your sound card into the most ideal audio solution for Internet Entertainment.

Live!Ware 3.0 kun je hier naar beneden trekken.

Microsoft heeft Beta1 van Windows Millennium gereleased. Vrijdag gebeurde dat ook al, maar dat was een 'foutje' :

After issuing a press release last Friday stating that Windows Millennium Beta 1 had been released and then promptly pulling it from their Web site, Microsoft has once again announced the release of Windows Millennium Beta 1. Strangely enough, after making a big deal that Build 2380.2 was not Beta 1, Microsoft is now notifying beta testers that sure enough, Build 2380.2 has been deemed Beta 1. Testers do not need to re-download the release, as it is identical to the interim build posted on Friday. Why the huge mixup if the build ended up being identical anyways? That's what happens when your PR department gets out of sync with those making the actual release decisions. Beta 1 will reach over 300 ISVs and testers over the coming weeks.

Meer info over Millennium lees je in dit artikel van Betanews.

Slashdot heeft een leuke 'Ask Slashdot' column over het vreemde verschijnsel dat mensen altijd maar weer webpagina's uit willen printen. Ik kan er zelf ook nauwelijks het nut van inzien en de laatste keer dat ik iets heb uitgeprint is volgens mij anderhalf jaar geleden...

Why is it that the further we get into this technological revolution, these incredible advances in communication, and begin to unfold the power of the internet that people (in general) insist on printing EVERYTHING out?? Everyday, I see more and more junk being sent to the print queues. Web pages, PDF files, auto-responder emails, the list goes on and on. And, this trend seems to have no end in sight. The further we advance, the more people seem to want to print. Why is this? What is driving this phenomenon? I, of course have my own hypotheses on this matter, but I'm curious as to what others think about it.

Check Slashdot voor de discussie die hierop volgt. Uiteraard kun je ook gewoon lekker thuisblijven en hier reageren .

Creative Labs heeft bekend gemaakt dat de SBLive! Platinum vanaf heden geshipt wordt. GA-Source serveert de press release:

Creative Technology announced today the availability of the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum audio card, a digital audio solution that provides users with a strong set of applications for Internet audio, music applications and gaming.

The new audio accelerator boasts the new Live! Drive, a front-end console that provides easy and convenient connectivity to a wide array of analog and digital devices ranging from general consumer accessories to sophisticated hi-fi equipment for professionals.

The Sound Blaster Live! Platinum sound card is a feature-laden solution that offers options for consumers and digital musicians looking for front panel connectivity. By integrating a front panel connection to virtually any audio source, the Live! Drive eliminates the need to connect consumer electronic devices and instruments directly to the back of the sound card. The Live! Drive features a coaxial SPDIF input, coaxial SPDIF output, MIDI input, MIDI output, line or microphone (Mono) input, and a headphone output with volume control. Users looking for immersive entertainment experiences will value the music playback and movie sound capabilities enabled by AC-3 pass through support. Sound Blaster Live! Platinum also offers easy connectivity to Creative's acclaimed DeskTop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Digital speaker system.

The Sound Blaster Live! Platinum offers a full feature set of innovative applications and utilities. Combining key elements of both the Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer and MP3+ solutions, the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum gives users control over content creation and enhancement through options such as customized pre-sets, software to organize and edit a variety of sound files and CD ripping software.

Gamers will enjoy the effects of Environmental Audio with its high-quality reverb and its improved 3D positioning and support for effects like occlusion and obstruction. For a head-start on the action, three new games are bundled with the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum solution: Descent 3, Need for Speed 4: High Stakes and Thief: The Dark Project.

The Sound Blaster Live! Platinum is now available through Creative's extensive network of distributors and resellers in the U.S. at an estimated street price of US$199.99.

S3 heeft zichzelf in 4 delen opgespleten: een communications, multimedia, professional graphics en Rioport business unit. Hier heb je de info van FGN Online:

The Communications division is headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, and will focus on designing the information infrastructure for future home and small office environments. The Multimedia unit based in Santa Clara, California will deal with desktop and mobile graphics products, audio products and other forthcoming graphics and video initiatives.

S3's Starnberg, Germany-based Professional Graphics department will work on bringing superior price and performance solutions such as the Fire GL1 accelerator, to the workstation-level graphics market. The final RioPort unit will maintain an online site for digital audio content from its San Jose, California headquarters.

The just-sealed merger provides that Diamond Multimedia shareholders will receive 0.52 shares of S3 stock for each of their Diamond shares. S3 CEO Ken Potashner was happy with the events as he said, "With the addition of Diamond Multimedia, S3 immediately expands its technology leadership beyond PC graphics and into several new, high-growth markets including Internet audio, broadband communications and home networking. S3 now has several key elements in place - comprehensive technology, strong distribution channels and an established brand name - to play a leading role in the rapidly evolving personal computing and Internet appliance markets."

Het begint er nu toch heel erg op te lijken dat we nog vandaag de Unreal Tournament D3D/OpenGL demo kunnen spelen. Hier twee postings van Voodoo Extreme:

Our plans right now are to release the Linux Server-only version of the Unreal Tournament Demo tonight, do some exhaustive overnight testing (and potentially a bug fix if it's needed) and then give the demo to GT to release tomorrow morning if everything goes OK. There are still a few known issues (Tim Sweeney will post a list tonight on the Unreal Technology Site) that won't get addressed in time for the demo release but otherwise we think it will be pretty solid and D3D users should be pleased. [break] Posting #2 (mailtje van Billy / VE aan Tim Sweeney over release date demo): [/break] We've gone through 4 "release candidates" in the past 2 days and just started testing version version 338 internally now. If everything looks good, it's a go...but it's hard to tell whether it will be tonight or tomorrow.

-Tim