Nullsoft heeft een kleine update voor WinAMP 2.5 in elkaar geschroefd. Hier de soep van Betanews:

Nullsoft has kicked out another slight update to Winamp 2.5. This release includes new MJuice code and some bug fixes in the CDDA plug-in. Although not yet posted to the Winamp Homepage, you can download version 2.5e straight from the FTP site. With version 3.0 in the works, it's nice to see the guys are still updating the current releases.

- WinAMP 2,5e Full (1,18Mb)
- WinAMP 2.5e (588Kb).

3dfx is een nieuwe advertentiecampagne gestart in een aantal console magazines, waarin het tracht de 'console kindjes' over te halen naar het pc kamp:

But 3dfx Interactive, one of the leading manufacturers of 3D graphics accelerators for the PC, has unveiled an "in-your-face taunting" ad campaign targeted at console game players. It consists of three, full-page advertisements running in the new issues of magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly, the Official US PlayStation Magazine, Expert Gamer and PSExtreme, to name but a few.

The ads associate console game playing to bed-wetting, thumb-sucking, and never having seen a woman naked (insinuating that all console gamers are male). Mostly consisting of text, one particular ad running in the current (November) issue of EGM reads - "That's cool if you're still gaming on console. Oh, by the way, did one of you guys lose your blankie? Because we found one... Most of us started out our gaming careers on a console. And that's fine. But things change as we mature. We stop sucking our thumbs. We stop wetting our beds.. ."

Slimme mannetjes en vrouwtjes bij IBM hebben het voor elkaar gekregen om 4,3Gb aan data op een vierkante inch te plakken. Een nieuw record, zo bericht News.com:

IBM said today it set a new computer data storage record, beating the previous milestone the company achieved less than five months ago.

By cramming more data in the same amount of storage real estate, hard disk drives can hold more data, and become cheaper and potentially faster.

IBM's new technology packs in 35 gigabits of data per square inch, beating its previous record of 20 gigabits. This is the equivalent of 4.3 gigabytes (GB) each square inch, IBM said.

Red Hat heeft versie 6.1 van z'n Linux distributie officieel aangekondigd (eerder zagen we al de i386 ISO image op de Red Hat ftp site verschijnen). Hier heb je een flinke hap info uit de press release:

-October 4, 1999--Red Hat ®, Inc. (NASDAQ: RHAT), a leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the release of a suite of Official Red Hat Linux 6.1 products. The latest release of the award-winning Red Hat Linux operating system incorporates easy installation, software update information and access, and improved system management capabilities. These new features enable users to harness the power of open source software in the demanding enterprise and Internet applications that run the day-to-day business of companies worldwide.

Red Hat Linux 6.1 extends Red Hat's commitment to customer service and the strength of [true] open source development by incorporating improvements that make it easier to install, maintain and manage Linux-based computing environments. Users can move quickly through installation with graphic-based directions, choosing from GNOME, KDE, server or custom interface settings, with seamless integration of software RAID configurations to safeguard critical data and application availability. Additionally, the PXE 2.0 technology (part of the Wired for Management Baseline 2.0) enables Red Hat Linux 6.1 installations to be done across the network, with no need for local media.

Red Hat Linux 6.1 also provides customers with fast access to the latest software technology from Red Hat through the Red Hat Update Agent, an online customer service application for retrieval and management of software updates. Red Hat has combined the RPM package management technology with the Internet capabilities of Red Hat Linux to seamlessly enable customers to take advantage of the continuous technology improvements offered from the open software development community.

"We expect that the improvements in installation, service, support and performance built into Red Hat Linux 6.1 make it an asset to enterprise networks," said Bob Young, CEO of Red Hat. "Red Hat Linux 6.1 combines the power, stability and flexibility of Linux-based open source operating systems with tools and services to handle critical business applications that ensure the peace of mind for corporate users."

Red Hat Linux 6.1 applies many advances in the 2.2.12 Linux kernel and the collaboration of the open source community, including improvements for high availability Internet server clustering and new Web or email-based configuration support for the Apache Web server.

[...] Additional features of Red Hat Linux 6.1 Include:

- The first distributed English version of Sun Microsystems' office suite Star Office 5.1a, a complete office platform featuring word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, graphics, web publishing, scheduling, database and management applications.

- Full LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) integration, enabling administrators of large networks to manage distributed computing by authenticating and maintaining information about users and network services.

- 128-bit secure signature technology, Red Hat public key verification of the source of Red Hat Linux 6.1 updates. Available in the US and Canada only.

Through collaboration with Intel Corporation, Red Hat has also included PXE server support, optimizations for the Intel Pentium III processor, and remote management enhancements through support for the Wired for Management Baseline 2.0 specification as part of Red Hat Linux 6.1.

The Register meldt in dit nieuwsbericht dat we dit jaar nog 9 nieuwe versies van de Pentium 3 kunnen verwachten. Onderstaande info leen ik even:

Intel is due to launch nine more versions of its Pentium III chip this quarter.

The chip giant is on track to add 733 and 667MHz versions of the processor, with SECC2 Package, .18 micron process technology, supporting 133MHz system bus, by the end of 1999. They will come with 256KB on-Die full speed L2 Cache.

These will have the same specifications as the 600EB and 533EB versions of the Coppermine family, which is due to launch on 24 October.

Sources have revealed that there will be 700, 650 and 600E versions of the PIII using a 100MHz system bus. They will have the SECC2 Package, .18 micron process technology and 256KB on-die full speed L2 Cache.

The 550E and 500E will use the FC-PGA370 package, with .25 micron process technology, 100MHz system bus and 256KB on-die full speed L2 cache.

The E, B, and EB naming conventions are to be used to distinguish the processors from current PIII Slot 1 processors.

Ik lees bij The Adrenaline Vault dat Intel een naampje heeft verzonnen voor hun IA-64 processor, voorheen gecodenaamd Merced. Deze chip gaat nu door het leven als Itanium.

Intel today announced the brand name for its first product in its IA-64 family of processors, formerly code-named Merced. Behold the Itanium which Intel hopes will extend its reach into the powerful server and high-performance workstation market. Itanium engineering samples have already been delivered to Intel customers with the processor's production on schedule for mid-2000. Intel expects that Itanium based servers and workstations will then be available in the second half of 2000.

Voor meer info over de Itanium/Merced, check even deze page van Femme's Intel Roadmap.

Mensen die nog wel ietsje verder komen dan deze site, hebben misschien al gezien dat Dimension 128 zal ophouden te bestaan zoals het nu is.

Een van de twee mensen achter de site, Bill, gaat er nu mee ophouden, nadat hij degene was die enige tijd terug de site redde. Snake, de andere van de twee, deed er toen namelijk niet veel meer aan.

Bill zal D128 gaan verlaten en zet zijn eigen site op: G256.

De naam getuigd bepaald niet van originaliteit en het nieuwe site-design ziet er ook niet uit, maar dat zal ongetwijfeld binnenkort wel weer veranderen. Ik kwam er trouwens toch al nooit voor het mooie design, alleen voor het nieuws

A year ago, D128 was almost dead, Snake was not updating anything and the amount of hits were almost zero. D128 was my favorite site back then and to keep the site alive I offered Snake a partnership. We overhauled the graphics and message boards, Updated the news and D128 was alive again. Snakes Responsibilities were to get me hardware to review (He got it only for himself) to update the the website including the drivers and files section (He rarely did this) and I would update the news and answer tech support questions on the message board plus post reviews of the hardware he got me)

Enzovoorts... lees de rest hier.

Vergeet dus niet om binnenkort niet meer naar http://www.d128.com te gaan, maar je muis te laten wijzen naar http://www.g256.com.

Beta News meldt dat er een nieuwe versie uit is van ICQ Surf. Met ICQ Surf kun je chatten met mensen die op dat moment dezelfde site bezoeken. Versie 1.02 Build #71 kun je hier downloaden.

Noticed over at the ICQ FTP that a new alpha build of ICQ Surf is out. ICQ Surf Alpha version is a remarkable Internet tool that offers an exciting way to browse Web pages on the Internet. Using ICQ Surf Alpha version, you may ramble the vast Internet highways with fellow Internet travelers while enjoying mutually fun and interesting Web browsing adventures. ICQ Surf Alpha version allows you to communicate through public chat and personal instant messages with other ICQ Surf users while simultaneously browsing the same Web page. ICQ Surf Alpha version is therefore, the perfect way to increase your social contacts and generally be among friends. ICQ Surf Alpha version is great for discovering others who share your interests or hobbies. It's the ideal way to share your knowledge and experiences, receive and transfer to other users' tips and ideas as you browse from Web page to Web page soaking up all that the Internet has to offer.

Guillemot Germany heeft een paar daagjes terug wat nieuwe producten in Duitsland laten zien, waaronder hun nieuwe GeForce 256 kaart, de 3D Prophet. De core/memory snelheid is volgens hun 135/166MHz, en hij zal 32Mb 5,5ns SDRAM mee krijgen. Oh ja, de prijs in Duitsland zal ongeveer DM 599,- bedragen.

The 3D Prophet is equipped with 32MB 5,5ns SDRAM Memory that is clocked at 166MHz. The clockrate of the GeForce GPU is 120MHz. The Chip is cooled by an active fan. An additional feature is the Video Out. (I also heard the rumor of higher clockrates but these are the ones Guillemot told me!)

Voor meer info over o.a. Maxi Gamer Cougar, Maxi Gamer Cougar Video en de Maxi Sound Fortissimo, klik hier even.

Vandaag heeft Creative dan eindelijk officieel de 3D Blaster Annihilator GeForce 256 kaart aangekondigd. Er zal trouwens ook een Pro versie van deze videokaart komen. Deze zal DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM meekrijgen, wat de memory bandbreedte zal verdubbelen t.o.v. SDRAM en SGRAM. De prijs van deze Pro versie zal $350 dollar gaan bedragen. Voor de normale versie betaal je een stuk minder, namelijk $250 dollar.

This version of the 3D Blaster Annihilator offers the same stunning features such as Hardware Transform & Lighting, Cubic Environment Mapping and Quad Pixel Pipeline Architecture but additionally features 32MB of DDR (Double Data Rate) memory, thus increasing the performance even further.

DDR memory is the very latest in graphics subsystem memory and offers power users increased performance at higher resolutions and deeper color depths. By utilizing both the front and back edges of the memory clock DDR memory achieves approximately double the bandwidth of conventional technologies such as SDRAM and SGRAM. This dramatic increase in memory bandwidth eliminates one of the major bottlenecks for high performance graphics.

"Traditionally there has been a compromise between high frame rates and the desire to run games at resolutions beyond 1280*1024. The 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro eliminates this compromise and lets the extreme gamer run games at 1600*1200 above 30 Fps," said Steve Mosher, vice president, Graphics Business Unit for Creative.

Voor de rest van de press-release, klik hier.

Naast AnandTech en Sharky Extreme heeft ook Gamers Depot een review van de AMD Athlon 700 gepost. Hieronder een klein gedeelte uit de test:

Our in-use experience with the 700, has been more than pleasant. The performance delta over the 600Mhz version, was quite noticeable, and proved quite stable.

In fact, I have yet to see a non-thermally overclocked PC move Windows around so fast, that if you blink you might just miss something. Using the same "Fester" motherboards that we used for our review of the 600, we had no problems just taking out the old chip, popping in the 700, and firing up the computer. One of the coolest features about the Athlon design, is that there are no jumpers to mess with, and no BIOS settings to tweak with, making upgrading chips an easy task for those us of who used to ride the "small yellow bus" to school. Obviously, this will upset the "hardcore" overclockers out there, but rest assured that there WILL be motherboards out SOON, that will let you overclock through the BIOS. It's even rumored that the upcoming Athlon board from ASUS will have this ability.

GA-Source heeft een review online gezet van de Cambridge SoundWorks Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Digital speakers. Hieronder heb je wat info zijn gaming performance, voor de hele review, klik hier.

In games, the DTT2500 defintely matches the FPS2000. I would have been surprised if it didn't considering it uses essentially the same components. I have to say that there was little to no difference in most of the games I played between the two. Given that the FPS2000 won the Gamer's Alliance Stamp of Approval, you can bet the DTT2500 sounded great. I played Unreal Tournament, System Shock 2 and Heretic 2, and they all sounded spectacular. The size of the subwoofer that is included with the FPS2000 and DTT2500 really gives that extra kick to guns firing.

Does the extra speaker and direct separate access to the subwoofer give any real benefit to gaming? The subwoofer definitely seems a little sharper, but thats all. That is definitely nice, as it gives that wee bit more of a solid feel when guns go off. You don't really notice the 5th (center) speaker, as games are not made to use it separately, so it just helps to fill in the soundfield.

Bij Tech-Review hebben ze een review gedumpt van de Soyo SY-6BA+III slot-1 mobo. Het toffe aan deze plank is de voltage tweaking en 27 verschillende FSB instellingen.

When taking into account everything that the SY-6BA+III is comprised of, this motherboard is a sure bet. Twenty seven FSB settings, three fan connects with monitoring, four DIMM slots, wake on time/lan/click/key, auto PCI clock, CPU and environmental temperature monitoring, and a nice bundle make for a great Slot 1 solution. The only complaints we have are the location of the motherboard power socket and the lack of onboard ATA66 support, which the just released +IV solves.

At a price of $100 the SY-6BA+III matches almost the entire line of ABIT boards and surpasses them with increased FSB settings and an extra DIMM slot. A definite top choice for overclockers and non-overclockers alike.

Het hele verhaalthe kun je hier nalezen.

De hardware afdeling van Voodoo Extreme heeft een review gepost van de Sonigistix Monsoon MM-1000 flat panel speakers. Hieronder een hap uit de review:

The MM-1000 really shines when that A3D support is turned on. In a quick Unreal 1 botmatch, I could pinpoint the location of the explosions better than any other setup I’ve tried, with the exception of headphones (which simply can’t be beat for positioning). Once again, these speakers have to be heard before you can truly understand the difference in quality. During "earthquakes" the floor rumbled a little less, but you can definitely still feel the explosions, so I’m not complaining.

I then switched sound cards to a Voyetra/Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla (look for a review soon...) The Quadzilla supports A3D 2.0, which in turn enables wavetracing, and much more realistic environmental effects, such as occlusions, refractions, reflections, etc. With this added depth of realism, it becomes even more critical that the signals reach your ears as in-tact as possible. I’m sure you can guess what I found out. Yep, the MM-1000’s kick ass. Again. Playing Half-Life, those marines’ grenades are much less of a problem when you can hear them hit the ground behind you, just on the other side of that crate...

Thresh & Gang hebben een preview gebouwd rondom de nieuwe Diamond MX400 soundkaart. Deze zal geen Aureal chippie meekrijgen (Aureal gaat zelf kaarten bakken) maar de Canyon3D van ESS. De MX400 zou eind deze maand, begin november leverbaar moeten zijn.

When it comes to sound, two names have the lion's share of consumers' minds: Creative Labs and Aureal. Creative of course has always developed their technologies in-house, as well as marketed, branded, and sold their products individually. Aureal is now doing the same. So where does Diamond turn to find a high-tech sound chipset still being sold to independent vendors? The answer is ESS, whose Canyon3D chipset has been charged with leading a silent revolution in sound.

The Canyon3D is a relatively new chipset, and has been on the market for only several months now, in products like the Terratec DMX. While it doesn't boast anything revolutionary over the products provided by Aureal or Creative, ESS is focused on creating an identity for itself and thus looks to innovation where it can.

While the world was waiting for Aureal to produce a driver set to allow the Vortex 2 to support more than 16 3D audio streams, ESS already had support for 32. Before SBLive!'s LiveWare 2.0 update allowed Creative's product to enhance the 3D characteristics of sound passing through the rear stereo speakers, Canyon3D already supported Head Related Transfer Functions for all four speakers. It looks like Diamond had found a solution.

Voor meer info moet je effe hier klikken.

Ook Sharky Extreme heeft een review van de Athlon 700 op het net gekieperd, waarin ze de performance van deze nieuwe proc vergelijken met die van de Intel PIII-600B op een i820 plank met PC800 RDRAM. Afgezien van een enkel (SSE-enhanced?) Photoshop testje blijkt de Athlon op alle vlakken sneller te zijn (dat was te voorspellen). Naast benchmarks ook wat info over toekomstige Athlons:

Our best sources within the company cannot confirm at this time whether a 750MHz Athlon CPU will arrive before January 2000, which is the time table that the .18 micron Athlon cores are supposed to begin rolling out of AMD's Austin Texas and Dresden Germany fabrication plants.

These enhanced .18 micron Athlons will also be the first to run natively at a 266MHz bus speed (2 x 133MHz) versus today's 200MHz Athlons and hence, will require PC-133 SDRAM capable mainboards instead of PC-100 SDRAM using models. The older Athlon CPU models will also convert to the .18 micron process, which will allow for greater degrees of profit margin to be enjoyed by AMD if yields remain strong.

From there the next hurdle for AMD is the adoption of copper for use within the Athlon core by summer 2000 in lieu of their current utilization of aluminum to bridge the interconnects between trace routes

Power Gamerz heeft wat lopen chatten met Nick Triantos van nVidia. In dit interview werd uiteraard vooral gesproken over de GeForce 256:

PG: There seems to be much speculation about the clock speed of the GF256-especially if you follow the fillrate formula, which indicates that the card would be running at a measly 120mhz. Is this indeed false, true, or has the spec not been set yet?

Nick: Again, I'm not sure what the official timings will be. There are multiple clocks that drive most graphics parts these days though. It's up to the board manufacturers to choose the clock speeds. GeForce 256 has a higher fill limit than any other card out there, period.

Anand heeft een review gepost van de Athlon 700, waarvan de release vandaag plaats zal vinden. In feite gaat het hier natuurlijk gewoon om een hoger geklokt Athlon modelletje, dus de performance is vrij voorspelbaar. Wel interessant zijn de benchmarks van Anand, daar zitten ook de nieuwe Pentium III B CPU's tussen en die blijken dankzij hun busspeed van 133MHz in sommige gevallen bijna net zo snel te zijn als een vergelijkbaar geklokte Athlon:

What did we expect from the Athlon 700? Everything we got from the Athlon 700. The CPU is just a faster Athlon, which is definitely good for AMD for the time being, but what will it do in the long term?

Nothing much if Intel releases a drastically different architecture with their upcoming Coppermine CPU that completely blows the Athlon away. But chances are that this won't be the case, and the Coppermine won't be anything more than the same Pentium III core that we're used to with 256KB on-die L2 cache running at clock speed.

What the Athlon 700 does is it puts another step between Intel's fastest and AMD's fastest which is very good for the company. But what it doesn't do is secure the performance title for AMD throughout the rest of the year and on into 2000. Intel's Pentium III B doesn't do much with the i820 and RDRAM under Windows 98. But under NT, and especially under high bandwidth applications such as 3D Studio MAX where a lot of data is being manipulated, the 133MHz FSB + RDRAM makes for a very competitive combo. The Coppermine may push that competitive barrier even further, and may begin to threaten AMD's territory there.

Lees het complete verhaaltje hier.

Betanews verblijdt ons met het nieuws dat versie 1.20 van Sonique (weer eens wat anders dan WinAMP) is gereleased:

The long awaited release of Sonique 1.20 has finally arrived, with a fresh look the web site. Sonique is a windows audio player capable of handling Microsoft Windows Media files, MP3 files, audio CDs, and more. It fuses a highly stylized aesthetic with a fluid, windowless interface and fully animated menu systems. Additional functionality includes a full-featured playlist editor, a variety of unique output visualization modes via plug-ins, and a robust control set featuring pitch, balance and amplification adjustment, as well as a 20-band equalizer with spline-based level adjustment. It supports many audio formats, including MP3, MP2, WAV, MOD, XM, IT, S3M, and CD audio and all MS Windows Media audio formats. Version 1.0 adds skin support, an improved MPEG Audio decoder, a contextual help system, full-screen visual mode and much more.

Het proggie kun je hier naar beneden trekken.

Een stel gasten van het Weizmann Institute in Israël claimen dankzij quantum computing technologiën een 512-bits RSA-512 code in 12 micro seconde te kunnen kraken. Da's knap, want de hele wereld loopt nu al 2 jaar op een 64-bits RC5 key te kauwen en dan zij ze nog maar op 13,4%...

After an Israeli research institute said it could break Europe's banking codes in less than a second, a initiative has been launched that could result in unbreakable codes.

The European Institute of Quantum Computing Network was launched on Monday, to bring companies and research labs throughout Europe together in the hope that the new technology - Quantum Computing - can be taken from the theory to the high street.

The institute was founded a few weeks after news leaked from the Israel's Weizmann Institute that it was using a mixture of quantum computing and special optical technology to break the RSA-512 code, the system used by the European banking system. It claims it has developed a hand-held device that can break the code in 12 microseconds.

Wil je ook RC5 eten, dan kun je de Dutch Power Cows joinen.

Riva Station heeft een paar 16 en 32-bit 3DMark99 benchmarks gedraaid met de Detonator 2.08 en 3.34 drivers. Blijkt dus dat de oude drivers over het algemeen iets sneller waren...nou zeg:

You can see that the performance of v3.34 is slightly slower than 2.08. But this can also depend on different default tweak settings of both driver versions! [break] De tabel met de benchmark resultaten vind je hier. Verder bij Rivastation een paar VSYNC register tweaks en deze info uit een .inf file (wat je daar al niet zoal kunt tegenkomen): [/break] Another interessting point in the new drivers can be found in the inf-file:

NVIDIA&DEV_00A0.DeviceDesc="NVIDIA Crush"
NVIDIA&DEV_0100.DeviceDesc="NVIDIA GeForce 256"
NVIDIA&DEV_0103.DeviceDesc="NVIDIA Quadro"

...klinkt interessant?

De Creative Labs Annihilator (GeForce 256) wordt inmiddels verkocht in Singapore, zo schrijft de webmaster van ALive!. Dit terwijl de NDA nog steeds van kracht is!

I went down to Creative's Singapore showroom to find out more about the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum! and guess what I saw?

Creative has their 3D Blaster GeForce Annihilator on sale NOW! The model on the card is CT6940 and it retails for S$425 (Singapore dollars). $250 US. I was thoroughly surprised, as these cards haven't even appeared in retail yet! Though I managed to get ticked off by a rude Creative staff just by picking up the Annihilator's box to take a look at the specs.

Betanews weet te vertellen dat Abit een nieuwe BIOS voor de BH6 heeft gepost:

Abit has a new BIOS for their BH6 motherboard. Nothing yet on the revisions.

De file kan hier gedownload worden.

Nog meer Athlon info bij BXBoards, in de vorm van een FIC SD11 review. Dit plankje (naast de MSI op dit moment het best verkrijgbare Athlon bord) heeft 5 PCI slots, 3 DIMM slots en busspeeds van 100, 120 en 133MHz:

Its difficult to say how good (or bad) the SD11 is. Compared to some of the later BX based mainboards on the market right now, it is feature light. Nevertheless, the SD11 has some commendable and vital features. It is super stable and easy to set up, which is ideal as the Athlon is new to all of us right now. All these are essential ingredients to make a successful first generation board.

We obtained the fastest non overclocked benchmarks ever obtained on our Winstone 99 NT test system. How much of this is attributable to the power of the Athlon, and how much to the speed of the SD11 is debatable. I've awarded 4.5/5 for speed. However this will be amended when we see more boards. We'll need to see more examples of Athlon boards before we can establish a baseline of performance. Whatever, these are the fastest scores we've seen, and on applications, the FIC SD11 / Athlon 500 combination, bests an Pentium III 500 overclocked to 560Mhz by a short head.

Andy van BXBoards heeft een Athlon 500 en PIII-500 op de pijnbank gelegd en er een zooitje benchmarks overheen gedraaid. Hier een hap uit z'n conclusie:

There is no doubt that AMD have a genuinely fast CPU, and Intel must be worried. The scores obtained here can only get better, when mainboard technology and chipsets improve. The scales could tip again when Intel launches the 0.18 micron P3, with 256k of full speed cache, but this is merely shrinking and tinkering with old technology. The Athlon is all new technology, building on the underrated DEC Alpha platform and bus architecture. With the Athlon 700Mhz already available, AMD not only have the faster like for like clock-speed processor, they also have the highest numbers in Mhz as well. For those who want the fastest, the Athlon is the only game in town right now.

Kort en krachtig:

There is no such thing as a GeForce Ultra, nor will there be. Sraight from NVIDIA. [break] Zo zegt Riva3D. 3DGPU weet hetzelfde te vertellen: [/break] Just wanted to let everyone know that after receiving tons of emails regarding the .pdf file floating around about the GeForce Ultra, I checked with NVIDIA, and it is bogus. Some genius with Acrobat just wanted to fuel the need for GeForce info.

Silicon Integrated Systems, bekend van z'n extreem trage video en core-logic chippies, heeft een nieuwe geïntegreerde SS7 chipset gereleased. Onderstaand geblaat komt rechtstreek van SiS:

"By integrating the Ultra-AGPTM technology and advanced 128-bit graphic display interface, SiS540 delivers over AGP 2x performance and up to 2 GB/s memory bandwidth. Furthermore, SiS540 provides powerful slice layer decoding DVD accelerator to improve the DVD playback performance. In addition to providing the standard interface for CRT monitors, SiS540 also provides the Digital Flat Panel Port (DFP) for a standard interface between a personal computer and a digital flat panel monitor. To extend functionality and flexibility, SiS also provides the " Video Bridge" (SiS301) to support the NTSC/PAL Video Output, Digital LCD Monitor and Secondary CRT Monitor, which reduces the external Panel Link transmitter and TV-Out encoder for cost effected solution. SiS540 also adopts Share System Memory Architecture which can flexibly utilize the frame buffer size up to 64MB." [break] Meer bruikbare info trof ik aan bij Ace's Hardware: [/break] So SiS have updated their 540 and 630 pages and the recentness can be seem by all the broken links at the 630 page. To many's dismay and also showing how hard it is to get FSB higher on an old bus protocol, the 133MHz CPU bus is dropped from 540's spec. This most likely means that if 133MHz SS7 is going to happen its not going to any time soon. The upsite being that since the chipset might originally be designed as an 133MHz one maybe some boards can be overclocked easily and/or it will be very easy for SiS to support the feature once AMD feels like it. The huge upside is that this chipset does indeed support 133MHz memory and 2MB of L2 which will cache up to 256MB of memory. VCSDRAM and HSDRAM are also supported for their low latency and relatively cheap price. The chipset is also different than today's solution in that its all on one chip. The North Bridge and South Bridge are combined together with along with video, modem, sound, NIC, and other neat components. SiS also have a cost analysis up so we can get an insight as to how much each component cost the OEMs.

Another downside of the chipset's performance is the UMA architecture which uses main memory as the frame buffer which eats up a lot bandwidth and could be result in costly increased latency for the CPU. This could offset its advantage in having 133MHz memory bus, especially at higher resolution and color depth. The SiS300 based video controler can use as much as 64MB for its frame buffer, and does seem to be faster than all other integrated solution on the market today, eg MVP4, SIS 530, i810e. Also since the video card is integrated SiS can use something even faster than AGP4X in what they called Ultra-AGP which have higher bandwidth/lower latency, just like on chip cache when compared to off chip ones. This advatage however doesn't seem very important today, until maybe video texture is used.

Slashdot meldt dat Red Hat een ISO image van RH6.1 i386 op z'n FTP site geparkeerd heeft:

"Red Hat 6.1 appeared on ftp.redhat.com Only a i386 version but the release also comes as an ISO image. " Its not supposed to be official for a bit yet, and my guess is that it'll be pretty rocky downloading for a bit, but it is there.

Downloaden zou dus nog wel eens problematisch kunnen zijn, check deze /. thread voor mirrors.

Techweb heeft een artikeltje met meer info over de Rambus problemen van de i820 chipset gepost. Intel zegt nog steeds niet achterhaald te hebben waardoor de problemen veroorzaakt worden. Een oplossing hoeven we daarom ook niet binnen korte tijd te verwachten. Tegelijkertijd blijkt het vertrouwen in Intel er ook niet echt op vooruit te gaan...

Nevertheless, analysts said Intel has suffered a major credibility gap by once again canceling the Direct Rambus launch at the last minute. The delay follows February's debacle, when PC OEMs and their suppliers were primed to launch Direct RDRAM only to have Intel pull the plug because of unspecified technical problems.

"Even if Intel solves the latest Rambus technical crisis, it will face a hard time convincing OEMs once again to jump on this erratic bandwagon," said Sherry Garber, an analyst with Semico Research, in Phoenix.

[...] Direct Rambus is capable of such high-performance data transfers that the longer 10-cm bus line might be unable to return data in a single clock cycle, according to observers. A shorter bus line also would reduce noise and cross-talk, which can interfere with memory data transfers.

[...] Sources said cross-talk and noise problems associated with Direct Rambus channels could also be eliminated by adding more interconnect layers to the current four-layer motherboards, although that could add cost and further delay the design.

Doom is vanaf heden open-source, zo weet Voodoo Extreme te vertellen:

id Software's John Carmack has officially re-licensed the Doom source code to the GNU General Public License! For those not In The Know, the GPL license basically allows anyone to do whatever they want with the code, even modify and sell it, as long as the source remains freely and publicly available.

This means that if a person wished, they could modify the Doom source and sell a game based off of it, providing that all the art, music, sounds, and levels were different (id still holds a copyright on everything included in the IWAD). Regarding Doom source ports, Carmack says:

Any DOOM based EXE would have to have the source available upon request. It doesn't necessarily have to be included, but you have to be able to get at it if you wish. This would prevent a gldoom episode.

There you have it. I am not sure about the status of Doom source ports which use material from other sources. They may fall under the Lesser General Public License, but I'm not quite sure.

The updated Doom source is, naturally, available in our Source Ports section under "Linux," although nothing has changed other than the license information.

Hmm... 700MHz Athlon is snel! Maareh, hoe zit het met een 733MHz Pentium III op 133MHz FSB?

25 oktober zeggen ze bij ShugaShack.

Intel won't be far behind, however; it is slated to come out with 700-MHz and 733-MHz Pentium IIIs on October 25, sources said. The fastest Pentium III now tops out at 600 MHz. Overall, Athlon achieves a higher level of performance than the Pentium III at equal speeds, leading to crisper, more realistic graphics, according to testers.

Wanneer zou die 800MHz Athlon komen?

[update]Dit vond ik op het CPU-Central forum:

Intel will push to release the "Coppermine" Pentium III processor, an enhanced version of its high-end chip, in October and bring it out at a speed of at least 700 MHz, Intel chief executive Craig Barrett said here today.

Grote kans dus dat Intel inderdaad eind deze maand met een 700 Mhz-versie komt. Dit houdt waarschijnlijk in dat de prijzen van de langzamere PIII's weer flink gaan zakken.
[Daniel]

Ook op Dan's Data vond ik een review van een groot aantal verschillende koelers. Geen Peltier-gein, maar gewone AirCoolers. Een zeer interessante koeler is deze:

HD-600 Enter the far more interesting HD-600, which retails for $35 Australian. This exceedingly slim-line fan screws to the underside of any 3.5 inch drive, and adds only a tiny bit to its height at the mounting-rail sides, so it should still be mountable anywhere it could be mounted before, as long as there's no other drive directly under it to foul the bulge with the fan in it.

Tjek de rest hier.

Ik was al in geen eeuwen meer 'down under' geweest, maar klikte per ongeluk fout in mijn bookmarks en kwam bij Dan's Data uit.

Ze hebben daar kort geleden een nieuwe review online getossed van een 3D bril, zoals de Asus VR-100 en de Elsa Revelator. Maar deze vinden ze beter...

I've checked out cheap 3D glasses for PCs before - see my review of the ASUS VR-100 here - and I've been less than impressed. They're cheap, if you've already got a video card they work with, but it's not really worth spending much more on your video card just to get them, in my opinion. VR Standard's VRJoy, however, promises to solve this problem; VRJoy is a 3D glasses kit that is touted to work with pretty much any PC that has a CRT monitor (as opposed to an LCD flat panel). Not being tied to a particular brand of video card is attractive, and the VRJoy's price isn't ridiculous, either; $US79 for US buyers, or $US110 for overseas shoppers, shipping included. You can even add a second pair of glasses for $US45, so two people can share the fun.

Tjek de rest hier.