Nee, helaas, geen nieuw deel in de Star Control serie. TimeWarp is een stukje software die is gebaseerd op de originele 3 delen, met medeweten van de originele programmeurs, maar niet met medewerking.

Star Control: TimeWarp is a fans created project that intends to create a science fiction war\exploration game based on the Star Control Universe. The project is Internet-based and the members are from different locations around the world. The project was founded in September 1998, and is still in early stages. Once the project is finished, it will be spread as Freeware around the net. [break]Voodoo Extreme had het over het Melee gedeelte van Star Control 2[/break] Once the project is finished, it will be spread as Freeware around the Internet. TimeWarp is the first Clone to successfully complete a Melee engine with all 25 original Star Control 2 ships available for play. All the ships were created as 3D models and then converted to 16-bit sprites. Melee is fully playable along with fleet selection. All the fleets which come with Star Control 2 have been incorporated, in addition to a new fleet consisting of all 25 ships. Network support over the Internet is planned for future versions.

Kijk op de pagina van Timewarp voor meer informatie.

Bij Overclockers' Workbench wordt gezegd dat de Athlon processor sterk in prijs zal gaan dalen. Dit gaat gepaard met de release van de 700MHz Athlon die binnenkort (=morgen?) uit zal komen. Dit pluk ik van Overclockers' Workbench:

I just received a email from our local reseller. According to him, the revised price of the AMD ATHLON on 04/10/99 Evening.

Expected price drop for 500MHz is a difference of S$50 and S$200 for 600MHz.

[break]Digital-Clips bevestigt dit ook nog eens:[/break]

AMD Athlon prices have reached an all-time low with following a series of jaw-dropping price cuts, ranging from a meager US$29 drop in the Athlon 500 to a mindblowing US$169 on its 600Mhz brother which can now be bought for US$673!! Jesu CHRISTO!!

The reason? Athlon 700.

That's no typo, boys and girls. AMD is keeping the pressure on Intel by rolling out an even faster version of its Athlon processor. The semi-official release date is tomorrow, Oct. 4th. However, based on AMD's past performance, we don't expect the CPUs to be readily available until three-four weeks time. And even then, at a sky high price between US$800-900.

Of course, those of us with the cash to spare won't really care, would we?

Als nu snel die Asus/Freeway plank richting de polder komt is het helemaal feest

Ik kreeg van JP Skalamera, European marketing manager van Abit, een mailtje over de huidige situatie bij Abit in Taiwan:

Dear Editors,

Thanks you to all of you which cared and asked about my status here in Taiwan, and the situation for our company. Indeed, we felt the quake here in Taipei, but the damages were minor compared to central Taiwan. All my coworkers here are going well, and also our factory had no damages. As you might have read in the newspapers, we are still suffering from power shortage.

This week our office only had power from 1-6 PM, and it seems next week we will have power only from 8 AM-1 PM. Our factory also suffers from power shortage, but everything possible will be done to maintain the output as high as possible. We hope the situation will improve until the end of next week, as we have been promised.

For those looking for more general information, I can offer also the following link:

http://www.yam.com.tw/921e/

We are all trying to keep any delays as litttle as possible, and get back to "normal" quickly.

Jean-Pierre Skalamera
ABIT

Op de wazige japanse versie van Daiki's site vond ik een link naar een semi-geheim deel van de site van ATi.

Het deel heet Project Aurora. Op de pagina van ATi zelf staat niets anders dan dat het pas op 4 oktober 12:00 EST open zal gaan. Daiki zegt er hetvolgende over:

@ATI Ì‚±‚¿‚ç‚̃y[ƒW‚ð‚Ý‚Ä‚Ù‚µ‚¢B‚Ü‚œŠô •ª‚É‹»–¡ [‚¢‚à‚Ì‚ªŒ»‚ê‚œBATI‚̓R[ƒhƒl[ƒ€hPROJECT AURORAh‚ð4“ú‚Ì’‹‚Ì1 2F00iEST)‚É–Ÿ‚ç‚©‚É‚·‚é‚æ‚€‚ŸBPROJECT AURORA ‚Ƃ͉ œ‚Å‚ ‚é‚Ì‚©‚Í’m‚ç‚È‚¢‚ª AŠô•ª‚É‹»–¡‚ð‚Ђ­˜b‚Å‚Í—L‚éBiD) [break]Op de pagina van ATi staat dit:[/break] THIS PAGE IS UNDER SECURITY EMBARGO CLEARANCE LEVEL 128 WILL OCCUR ON 04.10.99 @ 1200 EST AUTHORITY LEVEL : RAGE CONSPIRACY OPERATIVE MISSION CODE NAME : PROJECT AURORA

Allemaal erg duidelijk dus... NOT. Maar goed, iemand enig idee wat het betekend of wat dit project inhoudt? Het enige wat ik kan bedenken is dat het iets te maken heeft met datgene wat ATI al enige maanden geleden heeft aangekondigd, namelijk dat ze zich bezig zouden gaan houden met het maken van chipsets. En gezien de datum, 4 oktober, denk ik dat het wat te maken ZOU KUNNEN hebben met de AMD Athlon. 4 Oktober is immers de officiele datum voor de 700MHz en de prijsdaling.

Moeten we tot morgen middag wachten of iemand een idee?

-[UPDATE]-
Met dank aan JanKees:
Bij GXS maken ze er melding van dat de Duitse Tom's Hardware site er meer over heeft. Het schijnt te gaan om een SMP opstelling van grafische chipjes. ATi schijnt een jaar terug dit project al te hebben opgestart maar enige tijd later al weer in de ijskast gedumpt te hebben. Nu is het dus terug. GXS postte dit:

Two ATI Rage128 Pro chips working in parallel on one board ! Not too shabby ! I have no numbers, but that could be a real fillrate king. Assume 150 MHz, that makes 300 MPixels/s and if it does multi-texturing in one cycle, that could mean 600 MTexels/s. But 150 could be 175 as well, that would make 700 MTexels/s.

Morgen zal zeer waarschijnlijk de aankondiging zijn van het produkt. Misschien dat we dan ook al meer te weten komen over de specificaties...
=[EINDE UPDATE]=

Ik lees bij AGN dat de Shareware versie van GameSpy 2.16 gereleased is. Nieuw in deze versie is support voor de Unreal Tournament Demo en Deer Hunter 3. Op deze page kun je het proggie downloaden. Hieronder wat info over GameSpy voor als je geen flauw idee hebt waar ik het over heb

GameSpy Industries, makers of bulk steel products, chemicals for heavy industry, and a damn fine multiplayer game browser, have just released GameSpy 3D Version 2.16 Shareware. The Shareware release comes a few days after the registered only release, so if you're a registered user and you already have the new version there's no need to upgrade.

GameSpy is a "Multiplayer Game Server Browser" utility, which means you use it to find games that are going on online. GameSpy gets a list of all the servers out there, then it checks each server from your machine and tells you how fast of a connection you have with every game. That way you can always find the best game online. GameSpy supports over a dozen games, the most popular being the Quake series, the Unreal series, Half-Life, and Starsiege Tribes.

Gisteren is er een chat geweest met nVidia, uiteraard over de GeForce 256. Bjorn3D heeft de rauwe chatlog vast gepost, ik hoop dat er nog een beter leesbare 'edited' versie komt. Hieronder is in ieder geval wat info wat ik eruit heb geplukt.

- When will Retial card be on shelves?
- Should be real soon now. There is an unknown amount of delay between leaving our factory, sliding through distributors, and landing on a shelf.

- My Question: Will there be absolutly 100% for sure no "GeForce ULtra Card" ?
- We don't currently have plans for an Ultra Chip per se. You guys are reading the INF's from the win2K drivers that were worked on 5 months ago.

- Will using DDR make a big difference in performance? Fillrate?
- At 32-bpp, DDR can make a very big difference, especially in high res. But for many apps that might be transform / light limited, it will not make as much of a difference.

- Can you clear up this mess with the different drivers (3.31, 3.34, 3.37) that has been posted about on the net latley?
- None of those drivers have been released. We release drivers for GeForce before it ships to our customers, partners, and ISV's but they have known bugs and are not meant for a public release till they get posted on our website www.nvidia.com.

- So far Embossed BM has got little support, with like only 3DMark and SpeedBusters supporting it I think (correct me if..). Now with competition from Matrox, do you see the Dot Product method being used much? Like can you give a # of games not out yet that you've seen it in?
- The dot product capabilities in GeForce 256 are MUCH, *MUCH* cooler than what the env bump map stuff is that you can do with DX6. I hope that soon we'll have some demos posted on our web site that show off just how cool it is.

- When do you expect the next "big" card will come? GeForce 2 or something else? Cause I'm afraid to buy it, and 4 months later... poof it's worth nothing.
- We have new products every 6 months like clockwork.

Bij Riva3D hebben ze wat info over Guillemot's Geforce 256 kaart, de 3D Prophet. Deze zou op 135/175MHz core/memory draaien en geleverd worden met een overclock utility. Dit zou in ieder geval overeenkomen met 540Mpixels per seconde.

Kalyst over at the French RIVA site 3D Force sends along an interesting it about the Guillemot GeForce powered Prophet card. Guillemot France states that the Prophet will come with an overclocking utility, and a set core/memory speed of 135/175.

Bij The Tech Zone is een review te vinden van AOpen's AX6BC Pro moederbord, met het gouden heatsinkje. Hieronder wat info over zijn overklokbaarheid, wat vrij aardig mogelijk is:

The biggest benefit of the AOpen AX6BC Pro is of course its ability to overclock your CPU. The AX6BC pro features AOpen's version of soft menu. This allows you to adjust the CPU multiplier, FSB, voltage to 2.2V, and AGP divider. Everything can be adjusted in software with no need to ever open the case.

While the number of bus speed adjustments is no where near as great as the Abit BE6-II, there should be enough to get the most out of any CPU. You can chose from the the follow FSB: 66.8, 68.5, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 117, 124, 129, 133, 138, 143, 148, and 153Mhz.

The 117Mhz bus allows you to chose between 1/3 or 1/4 PCI dividers. Above that bus speed, it's all 1/4. AGP divider can be either 1 to 1 or 2/3.

The AOpen has no problem running my P3-500 at 620Mhz. It was 100% stable. However, it was unable to run my Celeron 366 at 616Mhz (112x5.5). The highest it could do was 567Mhz (103x5.5). It's really too bad that AOpen didn't include a 105 or 110Mhz bus as this lapped Celeron 366 has no problem running at 605Mhz (110x5.5). To be fair, no motherboard has been able to run my C366 at 616Mhz 100% stable, but the Abit BE6 and BP6 can run the CPU at 605Mhz without any problems.

I found the AX6BC Pro very stable as an overclocker's motherboard. Every bit as good as what Abit provides. It was just too bad I couldn't get the most out of my C366 because of the lack of a 110Mhz bus.

Ook GA-Source heeft een review in elkaar geknutseld van de Abit BE6-II moederbord. Met onboard ATA/66 en 119 FSB snelheden is dit een erg relaxte plank:

I can say from personal experience that the BE6 II is more stable at overclocked speed than either the BX6R2.0 or BE6. I have a Pentium III 550 that I have run in all 3 motherboards. In the BX6R2.0 and BE6, its top bootable speed was 616mhz (5.5 * 112mhz). With the BE6 II, I can run it fairly stably at 640 (5.5 * 116) and 100% stable at 630 (5.5 * 114). This is with retail Intel cooling only on the CPU. I think that the BE6 II would have been stable at higher speeds with more cooling, as I was able to get it to boot and post BIOS, (but not make it to Windows) at 650. When I got back to the BIOS, the CPU temperature showed 57 degrees Celsius, so I am not surprised it locked up.

Does this make the BE6 some sort of overclocking wonderboard? It is very hard to say. Like all overclocking, it is an experiment based on your personal equipment. Any and every piece of equipment that goes in your PC can have a significant effect on the overclockability of the system. Does that sound hard to believe? A CDROM drive that emits more than normal RF interference can affect the stability of memory, which effects overclocking. Another one that few people think of is the power supply. I have one case that I cannot use for any overclocking, as the power supply's output fluctuates too much.

The moral to this story? Please don't ever buy anything based on one or two (or even 10) people's statements on how overclockable it is. If the person who is selling it will guarantee a certain speed, then the speed markings on the chip or board don't matter. If you don't have seller's guarantee of operation at a certain speed, then you have no recourse whatsoever if the one particular unit you buy doesn't meet the claims of some excitable 14 year old reviewer - "I overclocked it to 418/621mhz and it ran great for 52 hrs of non-stop Quake 7". To me, possible overclockability is a bonus, and not a major factor in what I buy.

Check de rest van de info bij GA-Source.

Digital Clips heeft het eerste deel van zijn Unreal Tournament Demo en Q3Test vergelijking online gekieperd. Hieronder wat over de graphics comparison:

It’s extremely hard to compare the graphics of the two games, simply because each has their own advantages and disadvantages. Both engines support high-detail textures, transparency, mirrors, volumetric fog, colored lighting, and level-of-detail tessellation. However, one thing that UT doesn’t have, but Q3Test does have, are the famed curved surfaces.

It’s almost indescribable, how the curved surfaces add to the realism and flow of the level. The Q3 demo shown by id Software at the Macworld '99 Expo a few months back featured seemingly organic surfaces, which pulsated and writhed with life. Of course, the demo level used never made it to Q3Test (due to gameplay slowdowns because of the complex curved surfaces), but it accurately demonstrated the potential of curved surfaces.

However, this is not to say that the graphics of Q3 completely trounce those of Unreal Tournament. Unreal Tournament features some extremely impressive fire animations (as seen in the original Unreal “flyby” demo), as well as lens flares, and fractal-generated textures. “Fractal-generated textures?”, you may ask. Walk up to a wall in Unreal Tournament, and you’ll see what I mean.

The weapon effects and animations in UT seem to be much better than those of Q3Test as well. Hardcore Q3Test-ers will say that this eyecandy slows the graphics down considerably, and detracts from the gaming experience. Hardcore UT-ers will say that it doesn’t affect the framerate at all anyway, and it adds significantly to the gaming experience. Which camp do you belong to? It all depends on a matter of personal preference.

Speed-wise (as in raw framerate) Q3Test feels slightly faster. It is fairly difficult to quantify this statement, mainly due to the lack of an intensive benchmarking scheme for either of the games, but the flow of graphics in Q3Test feels extremely fluid and smooth. Of course, at lower resolutions, there is absolutely no speed difference between the two, but at 1024 x 768 / 16-bit color (the resolution I play at), Q3Test simply feels faster.

In my personal opinion, I think that the graphics of Q3Test are better than those of UT, but only by a hairline. Had the UT engine been faster than the Q3Test engine, this may have very well been a toss-up.

Hot Hardware heeft 2 standaard TNT2 videokaarten met 32MB tegenover elkaar gezet, namelijk de Gigabyte GA660 Turbo en de MSI 3DAGPhantom. Helaas voor Gigabyte moet (volgens Hot Hardware) de GA660 het onderspit delven:

Well, for starters I never expected the outcome that we have presented to you here. To look at the boards themselves you would think the total antithesis would be the case vrs. what our actual outcome is. Both products are solid efforts from their respective manufacturers. The MSI AGPhantom just seems a little more mature in terms of stability. Perhaps the folks at Gigabyte will tweak that cool looking Heat Sink / Fan set up a little more efficiently and work out the glitches. The down side for the MSI board is its less than stellar 2D Desktop Image Quality, a small thorn it its side.

Meer info en benchmarks vind je hier.

Over bij Hardware One hebben ze review gepost van de Compro 7503 SCSI-2 cd-recorder. Herschrijven doet-ie niet, maar gewoon branden wel rap op 8 speed, lezen op 20 speed. Verder wordt hij geleverd met de Adaptec 2906 PCI SCSI card. De review kun je hier vinden.

After extensive testing of this drive, I must say that it is a worthy successor to the 7502. Taking less than 10 minutes to finish a 650 MB disc, this drive is definitely a screamer. I guess we should see a new speed race with various manufacturers competing to bring out the fastest CD-R drives to the market.

However, the drive does not support CD-ReWriteable, a feature that is becoming more and more popular.

Currently, this drive retails for about S$479 (in Singapore of course!), a very competitive price. The inclusion of the Adaptec 2906 PCI SCSI card is an additional sweet spot for people who do not have a SCSI card in their system. I certainly would recommend this drive if you are shopping around for one.

De gasten van Thresh's FiringSquad hebben een mailtje naar John Carmack afgevuurd met wat suggesties voor Quake 3 Arena. Carmack heeft erg aardig overal gehoor op gegeven. Check alle info hier, hieronder vast een klein gedeelte.

FS: Hey John, Thanks a lot for being so quick to answer our questions! We got deluged with "bug fix" mail, and here are the few that we felt relevent to the game as it's developing. Scoring: Currently, if 3 people are tied for first, the 4th person down still registers as being in "2nd place" even though they may be significantly lower in frag-count than the ones above.

JC: Ok, changed it. I got the selectable crosshairs and crosshair offsets Dennis requested in, and most of the things you mention.

FS: Many people wrote in about racing someone to a weapon and hearing the pickup, only to find that the client-side predict was off by a fraction of a second, so they actually didn't pick it up. This never happened on any other id game, and we experience it regularly even on LAN. Is this something that can be fixed?

JC: I added a "cg_predictItems 0" option if you don't want predicted pickups, but I like them when playing online.