Tip de redactie

Motherboard Monitor 4.11 released

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 23:220 reacties, bron: Betanews

Alex van Kaam heeft versie 4.11 van Motherboard Monitor gereleased. Hier de details van Betanews:

Alex van Kaam has posted an updated version of MotherBoard Monitor for download. This program will try to access one or more of the following chips: LM75, LM78, LM78-j, LM79, LM80, WinBond W83781D, WinBond W83782D, WinBond W83783S, WinBond W83627HF, Asus AS99127F, GL518SM, GL520SM, ADM9240, ADM1021, ADM1020, MAX1016, MAX1016a, FMS2701, THMC10 and THMC50 on your motherboard and will try to provide you with information about your motherboard's temperature, voltages, fan speeds and cpu temperature. To install this update, close the program and copy the 4.11 DLL over the original 4.10 DLL (required to update) and restart MBM.

De MBM 4.11 DLL update kun je hier downloaden. De volledige versie van Motherboard Monitor 4.10 staat hier.

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News.com over nieuw Transmeta patent

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 23:220 reacties, bron: C|Net News.com

News.com heeft een nieuwsartikel gepost over het nieuwe patent dat Transmeta afgelopen week toegewezen heeft gekregen:

Many eyes are fixed on Transmeta. David Ditzel, formerly a top designer for Sun's UltraSparc chips, is the company's chief executive; Linus Torvalds, founder of the upstart Linux operating system, is among its employees. Last month, the buzz around the company increased when Torvalds hinted the company might debut its products at the Comdex computer trade show in November.

The patents indicate that the company is working on a combination of a chip and accompanying software that is capable of acting like an Intel chip. In fact, the chip is capable of acting like any number of other chips, Transmeta says in its patents, but the company appears to be working chiefly on speaking the "x86" language that Intel invented for its mainstream chips, Belgard said.

De wijze waarop de Transmeta processor een x86 CPU emuleert voorkomt dat Transmeta in conflict komt met Intel patenten. Dit scheelt weer licentiekosten en dat maakt het chippie goedkoper. Errug interessant allemaal. Check News.com voor de complete info.

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Firingsquad over de teloorgang van Hercules

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 23:213 reacties, bron: Thresh's Firingsquad

Thresh en zijn kameraden hebben een artikeltje gepost over de neergang van Hercules, vooral bekend vanwege de super snelle Dynamite TNT2 Ultra en natuurlijk de legendarische monochrome hercules videokaartjes uit de jaren '80:

In 1997, when the current ex-management team took over, Hercules was already deeply in debt. In the last two years, the Hercules team concentrated on bringing the company back to profitability by producing the best graphics products given the existing technologies. We did fairly well given the competitive nature of tour industry, but ultimately our financial situation caught up with us.

In the last few weeks, the employees were made aware that their pay could not be guaranteed. Virtually everyone, including upper management, decided that we would attempt to deliver the exiting backlog of orders and provide customer support. In the meantime, a prospective business proposal was in the works that would alleviate the financial burdens that we were carrying. In the end, the team just could not stay together long enough for the completion of the deal.

In het artikeltje helaas geen woord over een eventuele overname van de merknaam 'Hercules'.

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EETimes over DRAM prijsstijgingen

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 23:210 reacties, bron: EETimes

Ook EETimes heeft een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid met info over de oorzaken achter de recente DRAM prijs explosie. Hier een stukje:

One problem was the difficult transition many DRAM makers experienced in moving to linewidths below 0.25-micron this year, said Jamie Stitt, DRAM business development manager at Toshiba America Electronic Components (Irvine, Calif.). "There were major challenges in going to 0.22 and 0.18," leading to poor yields at many vendors. "Some DRAM manufacturers were possibly making fewer parts in the third quarter than at the beginning of the second quarter." He expects similar snags when the shift to 0.15 micron begins to takes place next year.

Het volledige artikel lees je hier.

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Sun releast Solaris onder eigen community-source license

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 23:210 reacties, bron: ZDNet

Sun heeft de source code van Solaris onder de eigen 'community-source license' vrijgegeven, zo bericht ZDNet:

Sun Microsystems Inc., in a major shift, plans to begi making the source code of its Solaris operating system freely available to the public in an attempt to parallel the sucess of the popular Linux operating system.

Sun doesn't intend to simply give away Solaris, its version of Unix that the company runs on its entire line of computer servers and workstations. But the Palo Alto, Calif., computer maker does plat to make the Solaris source code - the computer instructions that set out exactly how the program works - available under its 'community-source license', said Greg Papadopoulos, the companay's chief technology officer.

Under Sun's community-source license, programmers around the world will be free to download the Solaris source code and to make any changes they desire, so longs as they provide open 'interfaces' to the software and report bugs back to Sun and other programmers. Developers will also be allowed to use Solaris for free in noncommercial applications, but will owe Sun licensing fees if they incorporate it into commercial products.

Klinkt allemaal leuk en aardig, maar voorlopig lijkt men bij Slashdot nog niet erg warm te lopen voor Sun's SCSL license.

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Nieuw Asus P3B-F beta BIOS

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 23:2112 reacties, bron: Betanews

Betanews weet ons te vertellen dat Asus een nieuw beta BIOS voor de P3B-F op z'n duitse FTP heeft geparkeerd. Versie 1003.008 kun je hier naar binnen hengelen.

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Hitachi legt DRAM produktie stil ivm nuclaire ramp Japan

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 23:193 reacties, bron: EETimes

EETimes bericht dat Hitachi als gevolg van de nuclaire ramp in Tokaimura een aantal fabrieken plat heeft moeten leggen, waaronder enkele 64 en 256Mbit DRAM production plants:

An accident at a a nearby uranium-processing plant forced Hitachi Ltd. to suspend its manufacturing operations, including those at a leading-edge semiconductor fabrication facility, on Friday (Oct. 1).

[...] Hitachi has 11 plants and a laboratory within the 10-km range, resulting in the evacuation and closing of all the facilities in Hitachinaka and Hitachi City, where the company was founded. Hitachi said it would resume normal operations by Friday evening.

The plants affected include the Digital Media Products Division, which produces cell phones and DVD-RAM drives, and the most advanced IC fab of

Hitachi's Semiconductor & Integrated Circuits Division, which upgraded the fab to 0.18-micron design rules late last year. The Naka fab produces 64- and 256-Mbit DRAMs as well as advanced logic products such as the SH series processors, a Hitachi spokesman said.

Hitachi makes 30,000 256-Mbit DRAMs per month at Naka. The spokesman could not determine how much total production was lost on Friday, nor whether the unexpected work stoppage caused any damage.

Als het goed is draait alles nu dus weer.

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AMD Athlon 700 benchmarks

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 19:5316 reacties, bron: Jatehok.hku

Ik kreeg van Sake een handige tip richting deze Athlon 700 benchmarks van Jatehok.hu (hongaars ofzo, wazig taaltje schrijven ze daar). De PIII-600 wordt zoals verwacht op alle benchmarks keihard vernederd. Check de tabelletjes hier.

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Nieuwe Matrox G400 Win2K Beta drivers

Door Tweakers , 1 oktober 1999 18:184 reacties, bron: Voodoo Extreme

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dan Matrox nieuwe BETA Millennium G400 Windows 2000 drivers gereleased heeft. op deze page kun je ze neerhalen. (243kB)

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Abit BE6-II review @ Hardwareinfo.net

Door Tweakers , 1 oktober 1999 17:220 reacties, bron: Hardwareinfo.net

Ook Koen van Hardwareinfo.net heeft een review geplaatst van deze nieuwe Abit plank. Dit moederbord is voor overklokkers erg interessant vanwege de 120 (geen 119 zegt koen ) FSB instellingen. Anyway, lees Koen's review hier.

Het belangrijkste voor ABIT is het natuurlijk om de titel “beste overklokkers moederbord” weer terug te krijgen. Deze was namelijk met 29 FSB instellingen laatst overgegaan naar SOYO. ABIT komt nu vrijwel onoverwinnelijk terug met maarliefst 91 FSB instellingen meer dan SOYO: de BE6 heeft zo dus in totaal 120 (!!) verschillende FSB instellingen. Zo heeft ABIT 66 MHz, 75 MHz en dan alles van 83 MHz t/m 200 MHz in stappen van 1 MHz. Dit maakt het bord in één klap het meest ideale moederbord voor het overklokken van ieder type processor. Aangezien de mogelijkheden zich uitbreiden tot maarliefst 200 MHz (ja, dat is twee maal de gespecificeerde waarde van de BX-chipset en de huidige PII/PIII processoren) is natuurlijk de bruikbaarheid van veel van deze instellings-mogelijkheden erg miniem.

Uiteraard is het toevoegen van extra FSB-instellingen niet het enige dat aan het BE6 moederbord is gewijzigd. Zo maakt het BE6-II moederbord bijvoorbeeld gebruik van de nieuwe Award 6.0 BIOS, waardoor niet alleen meer zaken kunnen worden geconfigureerd, maar alles ook een stuk overzichtelijker bij elkaar staat. Deze nieuwe BIOS heeft ook een zeer goed werken help en suggestie systeem, wat vooral beginnende overklokkers zal aanspreken. Bij iedere optie is duidelijk te lezen wat e.e.a. precies inhoudt. Een nieuwe brengt natuurlijk ook met zich mee dat de BE6-II over een nieuwe versie van Abit's SoftMenu BIOS-uitbreiding bevat. Nieuw is ook dat de CPU-instellingen indien gewenst ook d.m.v. dip-switches kunnen worden gemaakt. Dit hebben we al eerder gezien bij het ASUS P3B moederbord. Ook afgekeken van het P3B moederbord is een tweede versie van het nieuwe moederbord met 6 PCI sloten: de BF6 mist de Ultra ATA/66 controller die standaard op de BE6(-II) zit, maar heeft daardoor wel een extra PCI slot. Als laatste biedt de BE6-II, net als veel moederborden van de concurrentie, ondersteuning voor het Suspend to Ram systeem.

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nVidia GeForce 256 Ultra op 150/200MHz

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 15:0833 reacties, bron: Gathering of Tweakers

Ik kwam op ons eigen forum deze erg interessant posting van Whizzy tegen, met een link naar een nVidia confidential .pdfje. Check this:

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Release iMac-2 dinsdag

Door Daniel Kegel, 1 oktober 1999 14:113 reacties, bron: The Register

Volgens The Register zal de wereld volgende week dinsdag verrijkt worden met de nieuwste versie van de iMac, de C2-revision. Op dezelfde dag zal MacOS 9 beschikbaar komen.

The next version of Apple's iMac, the so-called C2 revision, will be launched onTuesday, according to sources cited by Apple-watching Web magazine MacWeek. The event, to be hosted by interim CEO Steve Jobs, will also mark the availability to the public of MacOS 9. [break]Inmiddels zijn de advocaten van Ome Steve druk in de weer om sites die al foto's van de nieuwe Mac hadden gepost te bedreigen met rechtszaken.[/break] One site owner told The Register: "Apple's Legal Department has told me to remove some images and have threatened me with a lawsuit. They also have said that they will contact my ISP or Web Host and have my site shutdown if I do not comply with their request."

Check dit artikel bij The Register voor meer info.

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BeOS Release 4.5 introductie

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 13:3913 reacties, bron: Rivastation

Rivastation heeft een kort artikeltje gepost over BeOS 4.5, geschreven door de editor van BeNews.com. Hier een stukje over hardware support en de misverstanden die daar over bestaan:

The magazine articles about BeOS mostly end by saying that BeOS is a truly great OS but that the hardware support and applications are still missing. While I cannot fully deny this I cannot agree either. The hardware support list is always growing and Be is doing their best to provide the support for the biggest names out there. Sadly not a lot of hardware manufactures provide their own drivers for now, meaning Be has to write them on their own, but this is starting to change. If you have a more or less standard system you are likely to have BeOS running without a problem. And if you want to make sure just check the hardware compatibility listing. If your graphics card is VESA compliant you can run BeOS at 1600x1200 and 16bit, though not accelerated even if the card is not supported. Once your hardware is supported you will be able to install BeOS within 15 minutes including a running network, modem or anything else. You can keep windows or Linux on another partition of course and BeOS will be just fine confined to 500 MB of space.

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Meer Asus V6600 info

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 13:288 reacties, bron: Rivastation

Rivastation heeft nog wat meer info over de Asus V6600 GeForce 256 kaarten:

More details about the upcoming ASUS V6600 with NVIDIA GeForce:

- V6600/32M: GeForce256 + 32Mbyte + Hardware-Monitor-IC
- V6600/64M: GeForce256 + 64Mbyte + Hardware-Monitor-IC
- V6600Deluxe/32: GeForce256 + 32Mbyte + Hardware-Monitor-IC + TV-Out + Video-In
- V6600Deluxe/64: GeForce256 + 64Mbyte + Hardware-Monitor-IC + TV-Out + Video-In
- V6600GL: GeForce256 + 32Mbyte + Hardware-Monitor-IC + Standard AGP 4x + TV-out + DFI FlatPannel
- V6600GL/PRO: GeForce256 + 64Mbyte + Hardware-Monitor-IC + AGP-Pro + TV-out + DFI FlatPannel

The Hardware-Monitor supervises and controlls the fan, temperature and voltage of the V6600. The r.p.m. of the fan and the core voltage of the card can be reduced if wanted by the SmartCooling Software to reduce the sound volume and the voltage consumption. The dynamic overclocking util also uses this principle.

Both Deluxe Version are bundled with Ulead Video Studio (http://www.ulead.de)

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ATi supply droogt op voor 6 weken

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 12:417 reacties, bron: The Register

Volgens The Register zal ATi voor zes weken geen videokaarten kunnen leveren als gevolg van produktieproblemen die zijn ontstaan door de aardbeving in Taiwan:

The dry spell will not, however, touch its handful of top OEMs, understood to include Dell and Compaq. The big guys will continue to get shipments.

ATI, which makes video cards, was today warning smaller systems builders that delays could be anywhere from four to six weeks, a source told The Register.

One of its Fabs, which makes the video card chips, is based in Taiwan.

ATI was unable to confirm or deny the delay times, but a representative said: "The impact of the earthquake will hit the entire industry, not just ATI."

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c't SPEC benchmarks

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 12:219 reacties, bron: Ace's Hardware

Idiot van Ace's Hardware heeft een zooitje SPEC benchmarks uit de oktober editie van de (duitste) c't gepost. Dit zijn de denk ik de benchmarks die wij ook in de volgende editie van de Nederlandse c't te zien krijgen (zoiets zeiden ze deze maand al). Laat ik de rauwe data van Ace's ff tot een net tabelletje ombakken:

CPUSPECintSPECfp
Pentium III 600MHz18,912,4
AMD Athlon 600MHz20,717,5
Alpha 21264 500MHz18,122,8
Alpha 21264 500MHz Compaq Fortran compiler 39,7
AMD K6-III 450MHz14,77,43
Intel Celeron 500MHz14,39,75
Motorola PowerPC 750 (G3) 400MHz14,811,1

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Nieuwe nVidia Detonator 3.34 beta drivers

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 07:2912 reacties, bron: AnandTech Webnews

Ik lees bij AnandTech Webnews dat nVidia nieuwe beta drivers heeft gereleased voor de TNT, TNT2, TNT Model 64, Vanta en GeForce 256. De file kun je hier naar beneden plukken.

Update: warning van Kyle / HardOCP over deze drivers:

I did install the 3.34 drivers listed below and they hosed my stuff. I could NOT get them to work properly with my Guillemot Xentor so be warned. Let me know if you get them to work.

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Sharky Extreme Motherboard Guide - part II

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 07:290 reacties, bron: Sharky Extreme

Sharky Extreme verblijdt ons met het tweede deel van hun Moederplanken Gids. In het artikel vind je info over voltage regulators, condensators, klok generators, BIOS & RTC chippies en ander spul dat ik op en rond de moederkoek bevindt. Om in de goede trip te komen hier een stukje copy/paste over multi layer PCB'tjes:

The PCB is the actual board whereupon all of the components will be mounted. The PCB is actually several layers of flat resin which have the various circuit lines, called 'traces', embedded into them. A typical PCB will have four layers, with the top and bottom being the signal layers. The two middle layers will be used as the ground and power planes (see Figure 1). By placing the power and ground planes in the center, fixes and corrections to the signal circuitry is more easily accomplished.

Some motherboards will require six layers, such as those designed for dual processors or when the processor pin count approaches 425 pins. This is because the signal traces must be kept far enough apart to prevent crosstalk and the additional layers allow for this. Six layer boards may have three or four signal layers, one ground plane and one or two power planes. With newer chipsets, three signal layers and two ground planes are typical to accommodate the additional power requirements.

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Abit BE6-II review

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 07:282 reacties, bron: iXBT-Labs

iXBT Labs heeft een review van de nieuwe Abit BE6-II gepost. Naast de HighPoint UDMA/66 controller die we al kennen van de BP6 en BE6 is dit plankje vooral leuk vanwege de Realtek klok generator, die kent namelijk maar liefst 119 verschillende bus frequenties!

Due to the new Realtek RTM520-39D clock generator (by the way, Chaintech is already using similar microchips everywhere) ABIT BE6-II supports 119 different system bus frequencies. This range includes 66, 75MHz and all the values between 83 and 200MHz taken with the step equal to 1MHz. Well, we believe you haven't yet seen anything like that, have you? However, this richness can't make you profit as much as you probably hope to. Of course, if the FSB frequency exceeds 140-150MHz, the proper work of the memory, AGP and PCI is really doubtful.

[...] Nevertheless, ABIT does its best to provide higher system stability when working at high FSB frequencies. As a result, we now have two new options in SOFT MENU (we have already seen the first one in ABIT BE6 BIOS): Level 2 Cache Latency and In-Order Queue Depth. Level 2 Cache Latency allows increasing L2 cache latency and hence the CPU performance can become a couple of tens of megahertz higher in many cases. The performance drop caused by the cache access time appears not so significant and fails to absorb the acceleration. And In-Order Queue Depth disables the bus pipelining between the North Bridge and the processor, which can also contribute greatly to the overclocked system stability though again accompanied by a slight performance drop.

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VIA blijft Athlon supporten, KX133 mobo's in januari

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:280 reacties, bron: JC News'n'Links

Deze info van JC suggereert dat VIA ook in de toekomst de Athlon zal blijven ondersteunen, ook al is het als x86 producent een concurrent van AMD. Verder zegt men dat we de eerste mammplanken met VIA KX133 chipset in januari 2000 kunnen verwachten:

Jeff Serafini passed along this email, which he received from one of the guys at viatech.com:

"VIA is committed to providing solutions for all platforms including the Athlon. While we have purchased 2 CPU companies, we will not hurt our growing chipset business to bolster the CPU side. We have in fact future products planned beyond the KX133. Thank you for your concern, and you should see KX133 motherboards by Jan. '00."

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AMD K8 en Athlon Ultra details volgende week

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:288 reacties, bron: C|Net News.com

AMD zal volgende week op het Microprocessor Forum in San Jose details vrijgegeven rondom de 64-bits K8 en high-end Athlon Ultra processors, zo bericht News.com:

Although little is known about the K8, sources close to AMD have said that it will be a 64-bit processor, which means it can process 64 bits per clock cycle, double the current rate of current Intel and AMD microprocessors. Merced, due by mid-2000, will be Intel's first 64-bit processor. Fred Weber, vice president of engineering at AMD, is slated to speak at the conference on Tuesday.

Weber also likely will discuss the Athlon Ultra, a version of AMD's latest chip that can be used in multiprocessor servers and workstations. Ultras, coming next year, are expected to have buses that run faster than 200 MHz, the current Athlon standard, and contain up to 8MB of secondary cache, or four times the amount found on Xeon processors.

Verder wordt in dat artikeltje gezegd dat de Athlon voorlopig nog niet erg wil aanslaan bij grote dozenschuivers (wegens beperkte mobo supply). News.com heeft ook wat info over de Compaq/API Alpha EV8 en de IBM Power4. Check 't hier.

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Samsung stopt Rambus produktie

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:2712 reacties, bron: Techweb

Oeps, weer een lekkere *pets* voor Intel: Samsung (één van de belangrijkse RDRAM producenten) zegt zoveel mogelijk capaciteit van z'n Rambus produktielijnen te willen vrij maken voor SDRAM produktie. Hier de info uit een nieuwsartikel van Techweb:

With another delay of a key Intel chip set for enabling Direct Rambus DRAMs in PCs, Rambus systems havemissed the window for the Christmas selling season, analysts said, potentially costing PC makers tens of millions, possibly hobbling the upcoming launch of Intel's next version of the Pentium III, and causing at least one DRAM maker to halt production of Rambus parts.

The delay could also help give double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAMs a stronger chance at becoming a mainstream alternative for high-end PCs sold next year.

[...] There will be no more wafer starts for RDRAM until we can better understand how long it will take to resolve the Camino situation," said Avo Kanadjian, vice president for memory marketing at Samsung Semiconductor, San Jose, Calif. "Any capacity that can be freed up will be reassigned to 128-Mbit or 256-Mbit SDRAM products. We will require some convincing before we restart any RDRAM production." [break] Dit hele Intel drama begint natuurlijk pas echt grappig te worden wanneer de Coppermine eind deze maand gereleased wordt (processor zonder bijpassende chipset...auw): [/break] While this delay is embarrassing, the real test will come later this month when the company is expected to roll out the 0.18-micron version of its Pentium III, code-named Coppermine, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64, Saratoga, Calif. That chip will also integrate the Level 2 cache, which generally brings about a 10 percent performance gain over similar chips running at the same clock speed but with off-chip cache.

Brookwood said Coppermine is the chip most PC vendors expected to really activate the Rambus rush.

"If Intel can't correct the Camino situation before the Coppermine debut, that will really throw a wrench into their plans," he said. "[Intel] doesn't even know yet what the problem is. This is an embarrassment to be sure."

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Tyan Athlon plank in november, voorlopig geen Asus?

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:276 reacties, bron: Ace's Hardware

Ik kwam via AMD Zone bij deze interessante posting op het Ace's Hardware message board. Lijkt erop dat Asus zich flink laat naaien door Intel. Het leuke nieuws is dat Tyan binnen een maand een Athlon bord aan zal kondigen. Ook hebben ze een dual plank in ontwikkeling:

I emailed Asus about 1 week and a half ago and recieved the very short response to the effect they can not have any PR about a motherboard made by themselves. In other words Asus is Intel's bitch. Well there is GOOD news, in 1 month TYAN will announce a MOBO and also intends to come out with a dual processor motherboard in Q1 of 2000. Here is the response that I recieved from them after inquiring about their Athlon solution. Keep your hopes alive,

Tim

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

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Logitech Wingman Force Feedback Mouse review

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:276 reacties, bron: Gamespot

Gamespot heeft een review van de Logitech Wingman Force Feedback Mouse in elkaar geknutseld. Het idee achter deze FF muis lijkt op zich best wel cool, alleen blijkt het beessie nogal onhandelbaar te zijn geworden. Gamespot vindt het dan ook een zuigmuis en geeft een rating van 2/5. Uh ooh:

The FeelIt desktop adds force-feedback effects to your desktop, including applications. The effects range from the sublime to the ridiculous to the frustrating. The sublime moment occurred when stretching a window; there was a nice resistance to the movement. The ridiculous was feeling the mouse "bump" through a ton of URL links on a busy web page. It was very difficult to center on the desired link. Frustration occurred when trying to move the mouse cursor to the scroll bar - the mouse insisted on pushing my hand to one side of the bar or the other. At times, the mouse would begin vibrating wildly, nearly pulling out of my hand.

Games are another disappointment. I loaded up the beta copy of Gruntz. The force-feedback effects were again too coarse. It was quite difficult to control the little gruntz while playing. Booting up a couple additional force-feedback games - Mechwarrior 3 and Heavy Gear 2 - also revealed problems. The mouse cursor in MW3 alternated between wild gyrations and no movement at all. HG2 fared a little better, but the effects were more distracting than useful.

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nVidia GeForce interview

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:260 reacties, bron: Bjorn3D.com

Bjorn3D.com heeft een interview gepost met Dwight Diercks, software mannetje van nVidia. Hier een vraag over hardware texture compression support in de GeForce:

Q12: Let's clear up one debate that has been raging on the net. Does the GeForce256 support hardware texture compression (S3's in Dx) or is it done via software?

Man, this rumor seems to be gathering momentum. Let's nip it in the bud once and for all. GeForce256 is able to render directly from DXTC compressed textures in either AGP or local memory. This operation is done directly in hardware, without an intermediate decompression stage – decompressed textures are not stored in either AGP or local memory.

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System Apex over i820 Camino crisis

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:220 reacties, bron: System Apex

System Apex heeft een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid met een samenpakking van de gevolgen van het i820 chipset fiasco (de '8 ramifications' ):

First, there are the major problems like stated above. Profits will definitely fall from this delay. i820 powered machines are to be the best of the best systems available. With a new chipset running new technologies like Rambus and Coppermine CPUs, parts makers could fetch a hefty price at the beginning of the i820's introduction. While they can still do this when the i820 comes out, they are losing a month in which prices can be higher, as prices should drop quickly after Christmas. Until the i820, the BX chipset will still be tops, and no one can really make a profit off of the BX anymore.

The next ramification is going to be the introduction of the Coppermine CPUs. Only the i820 and i810e chipset will able able to initially support the 133mhz FSB that Coppermine uses. With the i820 out of the picture for a bit, only the i810e can support Coppermine for a bit. This is a problem because high end users will have a hard time being able to use Coppermine, as the i810e is a midrange chipset, and very few people would bother to use motherboards using it just to get Coppermine CPUs running.

...en zo krijgen we er nog 6. Check de info hier.

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nVidia GeForce 256 benchmarks

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:212 reacties, bron: 3Dsl.com

Het volk van 3Dsl.com heeft een paar GeForce 256 benchmarks uit de november editie van PC Pro op hun site geplakt:

The following results have been taken from PC Pro magazine November issue preview of the GeForce 256. The drivers used were an early beta set and we can only expect the performance to improve over the coming days as testers use newer drivers.

The test machine was a Pentium III P550, 128MB RAM.

Considering that the 3D Mark test used standard drivers, the old version of direct x and the current 3D mark the results of that test are amazing. Expect GeForce to rip these results apart even further as drivers get optimised and Direct X 7.0 becomes more widely adopted. Remember that hardware T&L, cube environment mapping and all the other new features aren't even being utilised here!

De performance in Quake II ziet er niet slecht uit: 54,6fps vs 26,6fps (TNT2 Ultra) op 1600x1200. In 3DMark99 is het verschil klein, maar dat wordt hopelijk beter bij gebruik van DirectX7 en nieuwe GeForce drivers. De getallen check je hier.

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Apple iBook review

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:210 reacties, bron: C|Net Computers.com

Computers.com heeft een review van de Apple iBook op het net gekieperd. Dit blueberry doosje bestaat uit een 300MHz G3 processor met 32Meg RAM en een 12,1" LCD scherm:

The system's 12.1-inch, active-matrix screen is bright and easy on the eyes. The iBook's 4MB ATI Rage Mobility chip can crank out a maximum 800-by-600-pixel resolution, which will limit the iBook's appeal to graphic artists, even though it supports 24-bit color depth. But this is more than enough color for Web browsing and other general applications.

The iBook that we received didn't come with Apple's hot, new wireless network connection, the AirPort, which is available for an extra $99. But the instructions for installing it were included in the manual, and a helpful diagram was even printed under the keyboard. The keyboard lifts out very easily via two small, retractable tabs that give users easy access to what looks like a very simple upgrade.

The iBook comes with a solid software bundle that should get the average college student or home user off to a good start. AppleWorks 5.03, Apple's integrated software package, is the main application, and it includes word processing, spreadsheet, drawing, and painting programs. PalmPilot users will be glad to find Palm Desktop loaded on the hard drive, as well. And Web surfers will appreciate that Apple has preinstalled both Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Communicator.

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nVidia verlengt GeForce NDA

Door Femme Taken, 1 oktober 1999 06:207 reacties, bron: JC News'n'Links

nVidia heeft het Non-Disclosure Agreement voor de GeForce 256 verlengd tot 11 oktober, zo bericht Bjorn3D.com:

Yes the NDA's have been moved back to 10/11/99. That is why I have not reported on anything. All I can say is I know why the NDA was moved back back and it is well worth it. I am even more excited about GeForce than I was before. [break] '...and it is well worth it'. Hmmm. Hetzelfde nieuws bij JC, met geruchten over de achterliggende reden: [/break] "You heard mention of anything relating to the GeForce's reviewer NDA's being extended till Oct 11th? It seems some kind of changes are being made in either the board design, possibly relating to using a new type of memory, or possibly some kind of heat issues cropping up. But one person bound by the NDA says it WILL be worth the wait......this is quite odd..keeping an improvement under wraps...especially amidst the hype war." [break] En een recentere toevoeging: [/break] Heard from a friend that the GeForce NDA delay is more a driver related thing. That is, they're waiting until they have final drivers before dropping the NDA.

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