JC heeft SPEC benchmarks van een 600MHz Coppermine (waarschijnilijk met 133MHz bus en PC800 RDRAM), afkomstig uit een artikel van Biztech:

CPU SPECint_base SPECfp_base Pentium IIIEB 600MHz 29 25

[break]De reaktie van JC op deze onwaarschijnlijk hoge scores:[/break] For comparison, these are some unexpectedly sweet scores. I might wait for the numbers to officially appear at spec.org, as they're pretty striking -- unless I see the full configuration, I may have to assume that these scores are partially obtained with modifications to the compiler. There's nothing wrong with that, except that if, for instance, Intel changed their compiler to use SSE prefetching, then this would result in performance jumps of all PIII subfamily processors as well as AMD's K7 family processors (thereby making the current Athlon spec scores obsolete). As a quick note to the uninitiated, SSE (or 3DNow! for that matter) cannot handle the double precision floating point calculations required for spec (at least, not in the vast majority of the benchmark), so it'd be "illegal" to use the floating point portion of SSE in spec95. Anyway, if these scores are obtained without any unseen changes to the system, they are phenominal improvements, representing a 20% improvement in specint and an impossible sounding 57% boost in specfp. This would imply that PIII with lower latency 256K L2 by far outwits a PIII Xeon of much higher clock with 2MB (higher latency, albeit) L2.

That's, well, why I suspect that either the report is in error or some sort of interesting optimizations are being used. Of course, this might just be me being an AMD apologist and making up excuses as to why these scores are significantly higher than that of the K7-600. Oh, and for reference, that c't page earlier today said that Coppermine is instead 12% faster in specint and 20% faster in specfp (than Katmai), which is actually just about exactly what I've been predicting (three cheers for my big ego!) over the past several months.

BTW, I checked with a guy at AMD who said that the K7-700/266 with optimized compiler score is not with increased or sped up cache. (as a reminder, this yielded projected scores of 37 specint and 42 specfp). No idea how much the Ultra would get over this.

Cor heeft z'n Nino Windoos CE handheld dood gemaakt. Dit tragische nieuws bereikt ons via News.com:

Philips Electronics is discontinuing its Nino line of Windows CE-based handheld computers, another setback in Microsoft's battle to usurp the Palm Computing throne.

After selling its remaining Nino 500 and 200 handheld PCs, Philips will exit the market for the Microsoft-based handhelds, the company said. Instead, it will refocus its resources on developing voice and data products, such as "smart" cell phones.

Nino never gained much of a following, even among devices running Windows CE, Microsoft's scaled-down operating system. But Philips's decision to pull the plug on the product indicates the larger turmoil among Microsoft's Windows CE hardware partners, which have largely been stymied in their attempts to break Palm Computing's grip on the handheld market.

Alles dat ze daar maken faalt (zo ook mijn 40-speed Boonstra drive ).

Sony is dusdandig overtuigd van de power van de Emotion Engine dat het heeft aangekondigd er een complete workstation lijn omheen te planten, zo bericht EETimes:

The Creative Workstation effort at present has three phases. For Phase 1, SCE intends to develop a workstation with about 10 times the performance of the development tool workstation, and to complete that work in 2000. The workstation will have the capability to handle graphics of 1,920 x 1,080/60p (progressive). SCE will not have time to develop new chips by 2000, so it will achieve the performance by using in parallel faster versions of the Emotion Engine and Graphic Synthesizer found in the Playstation2.

The Phase 2 workstation, scheduled to be introduced in 2002, will have 100 times the performance of the development tool workstation and will feature the Emotion Engine 2 and Graphic Synthesizer 2, each with an enhanced architecture over the current chips. The CPU will have 40 million transistors and will be fabricated on a 0.13-micron process. The workstation will handle the same 1,920 x 1,080 pixel graphics, and will have a flexible frame rate ranging from 24 to about 75 frames/second.

The Phase 3 workstation, scheduled to appear around 2005-2006, will have the Emotion Engine 3 and Graphic Synthesizer 3, which will have drastically changed architectures. As a result, the workstation will have 1,000 times performance of the development tool workstation, and will handle 4,000 x 2,000-pixel pictures at 24-to-120p. At this stage, Playstation3 will be taking a shape, Sony said. [break] The Register acht het waarschijnlijk dat de systemen onder Linux gaan draaien: [/break] Sony is to follow up the launch of the Playstation 2 next March with a move into the business workstation market, according to this morning's Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The new line of machines will use the Playstation 2's Emotion Engine processor, and although the company doesn't seem to have said anything about the OS as yet, Linux would seem the logical choice.

[...] Sony intends to aim the workstations at broadcast, film production and software developers. This morning's Japanese reports also extend Sony's processor roadmap a tad. Yesterday in San Jose it went to 2002, but this morning we've a second refresh in 2005. Things move fast in IT...

Hmm, dit is wel een redelijk grappige nieuwsposting bij The Register :

For some important documents, like its Annual Report, Microsoft uses Macs.

Kerry Leimer Jay used Word 98 for the Mac on his G3 system, and his file - with a path name that will be familiar to Mac users - was msft:ar99:downloads:ar99.doc. The discovery was made by Richard M Smith, a MacInTouch reader.

The Word version of the Annual Report has the metadata that provides the proof. All you need is to download the .DOC file and put it though a utility to display the content.

In July, The Registe rpointed out the perils of using Word if you want to keep any little secrets contained in so-called hidden text fields.

Ga'ash Soffer, eerder werkzaam bij AnandTech en nu schrijvend voor Voodoo Extreme, heeft een artikeltje in elkaar geklust over Transforms & Lighting en de nieuwe mogelijkheden die deze technologie ons kan gaan brengen:

What I consider the greatest strength of hardware T&L is the ability to create huge outdoor (and indoor) environments which are also extremely dynamic. Currently, most games' architectures are generally static because that is the only way to keep the number of transformed polygons/frame low enough to keep up frame rates. With the ability to transform around 10 million polygons a second, scenes of 100,000+ polygons will become a reality. Instead of using the 100,000 polygons to increase detail, I propose it be used to increase size and dynamics. I would much rather explore few large outdoor levels (something like twenty times the size of "Bluff Eversmoke" (my favorite Unreal level, and, IMO, the most best FPS level ever made) than many small levels in sequence. T&L is a major step towards large virtual worlds (RAM/storage being the other major requirement). Hardware T&L makes it possible for the gamer to experience new levels of vastness, for example, imagine being able to stand atop of a castle and look down at an entire village in the valley which this castle overlooks.

The Tech Zone heeft een review van de Addtronics 7896A server kast op het net gezet. Het frame van deze kast komt deels overeen met de SuperMicro SC750-A / SC760-A, dwz errug veel space en veel koel mogelijkheden, zodat de creatieve overklokker zich ongeremd kan uitleven:

This case has a place for 10 fans! One of those is a special fan blowing directly on the CPU. Nothing beats the cooling options this case has. Your options are endless. You can have the top fans blowing in or out. If you have hot scsi drives installed up there, what you can do is install hd coolers that exhaust out, and have the 80mm fans blow in. What this will do is blow the hot air off the SCSI drives and the HD coolers will exhaust them out of the case instead of blowing them into the case and adding more heat. A perfect setup! I will be definitely be testing this case in the future when I have all the fans and coolers.

Nog een nieuw apparaatje van Creative Labs (zie ook de Webcam Go). De Nomad II MP3 player heeft een ingebouwde FM Tuner met een Mic voor voice-recording en dient aangesloten te worden op de USB bus voor het overbeamen van MP3'tjes. De introductie moet ergens begin 2000 plaats vinden, tegen prijzen van rond de 400 dollar:

reative Technology Ltd. today introduced the next-generation Creative NOMAD II portable digital audio player at the 1999 Fall Internet World convention in New York. The NOMAD II is one of the exciting new devices that make up Creative's Personal Digital Entertainment (PDE) Internet solutions.

A key feature at the core of the NOMAD II is its programmability, designed to be virtually future-proof. By incorporating this upgradeable feature, the NOMAD II can be programmed to support multiple digital audio formats such as MP3 and Microsoft Windows Media or software extensions that will be made available on http://www.nomadworld.com. In addition, NOMAD II is designed to enable consumers to download support for future digital rights management technology, including future SDMI compliance requirements, enabling the NOMAD II to play digital music in secure formats.

The NOMAD II is designed for the active consumer, with features that emphasize quick setup and mobility. The new NOMAD II comes equipped with a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection for faster transfer rates and hot- plugging connectivity, a wired remote for accessing the playback controls while on the move, a high-quality backlit LCD, and SSFDC (Solid State Floppy Disk Card) compliant flash memory card support in all configurations. And like the current NOMAD, the next- generation NOMAD II features a built-in FM tuner, MP3 playback and voice recording capability. Creative will, for the first time, include built-in support for the secure CD-quality audio of Windows Media in its next-generation NOMAD II.

Fiets richting GA-Source voor de volledige press release.

Creative Labs heeft een nieuwe portable webcam uitgedokterd die ook als stand-alone digitale camera kan fungeren (dat bedoelen ze waarschijnlijk met 'portable', mijn parallelle Webcam II is namelijk ook al heel erg portable...). Hier de press release, bruut gejat van GA-Source:

Creative Technology today introduced the first portable PC camera - the Video Blaster WebCam Go. A key component of Creative's Personal Digital Entertainment (PDE) Internet Solutions, the WebCam Go is an easy-to-use Internet video camera that lets PC and Internet enthusiasts capture digital images on-the-go when detached from the PC. In addition, WebCam Go offers all of the benefits of a traditional PC-based Internet camera including the ability to send video e-mail, set up a spy cam, create and design personal Web sites, and the ability to video conference live via the Internet.

With its built-in 4MB of memory, light compact design and detachable camera with viewfinder, WebCam Go has an accessible street price of $149.99, and is available in time for the holiday season. The WebCam Go offers all of the advantages of a traditional PC camera and can also function as a portable digital camera when unplugged from the PC. WebCam Go delivers features that include crisp resolution, a plug-and-play USB connection, and software applications that are simple and easy to use.

The WebCam Go stores images in Web-ready JPEG format at 640x480 resolution to allow easy uploading to the Internet. On the PC, the integrated control panel allows consumers to easily preview images before using Windows' drag-and-drop feature to store them in an album, place them in an application or delete them.

The WebCam Go is available now through Creative's network of distributors and resellers worldwide at a suggested retail price of US $149.99. More information about the WebCam Go can be found at: www.creative.com/video/WebCam-Go.

Gamespot heeft een artikeltje neer geprikt over de DDR SDRAM GeForce kaarten (die vergeleken met de normale SDRAM versies een verdubbelde memory bandwidth hebben). Moraal van dit verhaal:

Now here's the catch. Actually there are two catches. Don't expect GeForce 256 cards with DDR RAM to become available at your local retailer anytime before November, or even December. And when they do ship, these cards are going to be hot property and thus their availability will be severely limited. Now here's the kicker - DDR RAM doesn't come cheap, and the vendors that'll be supplying DDR boards are paying through the nose for this stuff. How expensive will they be? Well, Creative announced its DDR board, called the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, for US$349... and that's without a software bundle of any kind. Guillemot also announced the 3D Prophet DDR this morning for a whopping $389. To Guillemot's credit, however, its video cards have historically shipped with an above-average game bundle and have been clocked faster than Nvidia's reference specification.

Koen van Hardwareinfo.net heeft een uitgebreide review op z'n site gemikt van de MSI 6167 Athlon plank. Grote kans dat als je in NL een Athlon systeempie in elkaar wilt zetten je dan dit bordje tegenkomt. Koen was er in ieder geval wel tevreden over:

De installatie van zowel Windows 98 SE als Windows 2000 verliepen zonder problemen op de MSI 6167. Na de installatie van Windows 98 moeten er wat extra drivers worden geïnstalleerd vanaf de bijgeleverde MSI cd-rom en dan is het systeem geheel bedrijfsklaar. Als extra hardware heb ik het volgende gebruikt: 128 MB PC100 geheugen, een Diamond Viper V770 Ultra (TNT2 Ultra) videokaart, een IBM 13,5 GB Ultra ATA/66 harddisk, een Panasonic 5x speed DVD-rom drive en niet te vergeten een AMD Athlon 600 MHz CPU.

Aangezien er geruchten de rondte doen dat de MSI 6167 incompatible zou zijn met enkele videokaarten heb ik ook de gehele rij andere nieuwe generatie videokaarten geprobeerd: zowel de TNT2, de Savage 4, de Voodoo 3 als de G400 gaven geen problemen. MSI heeft zelf toegegeven dat het gebruik van enkele oudere AGP kaarten (waaronder bijvoorbeeld de Matrox G200) tot onaangename gevolgen kan lijden. Het belangrijkste is echter dat het moederbord werkt met alle videokaarten van de laatste generatie, en daar heb ik geen problemen ondervonden.

Qua stabiliteit heb ik ook absoluut geen klachten over de MSI 6167. Tijdens het testen is het systeem er geen enkele keer met een vreemde foutmelding uitgevolgen. Zelfs de Winstone tests, die soms nog wel eens voor vreemde foutmeldingen willen zorgen, liepen meteen probleemloos op het MSI 6167 moederbord. Als iemand andere bevindingen heeft ben ik daar uiteraard zeer benieuwd naar, maar in de korte tijd dat ik met het moederbord aan de weer ben geweest heb ik dus absoluut geen vreemde zaken kunnen ontdekken.

Lees de rest van de test hier.

Anand heeft een review van de ATi Rage Fury Pro op z'n site geplakt. Uit de benchmarks blijkt dat deze opgefokte Rage 128 videokaart op alle fronten achterblijft bij de G400Max, TNT2 Ultra en Voodoo3. ATi ligt dus zoals gewoonlijk weer een generatie achter...

So how does the Rage Fury Pro and its Rage 128 Pro chip stack up to the competition? The first thing we have to look at is price, with an introductory price of $179 minus a $30 mail in rebate for a net price of $149, for the hard core gamer, this card is a rip-off. So hard core gamers should stick to their TNT2s and Voodoo3s, as if you didn't know that before.

For the occasional gamer the Rage Fury Pro seems ideal but pairing the card up with a fast processor such as a Pentium III 500+ or an Athlon will most likely be doing your processor an injustice if you're concerned with gaming performance. The "slower" processors (< P3-450) is where the card will begin to shine, especially against the more CPU dependent TNT2, especially under Direct3D. The current limitation of performance under Quake 3 seems to be a result of the OpenGL ICD which does seem to have some room for improvement. It wouldn't be surprising to see the Rage 128 Pro beat out the TNT2 in a few Quake 3 runs with a better ICD.

Mika Tuomi van Bitboys Oy (onze Finse Glaze3D vrienden) heeft bij Voodoo Extreme een "Understanding fillrate and memory types" artikeltje gepost, als follow-up van z'n opmerkingen over de beperkte fillrate van GeForce 256 (zie deze nieuwsposting):

To calculate theoretical maximum fillrate you need to know available memory bandwidth, pixel size (16/32bit), Z value size (16/32bit) and texel size.

When a 3D accelerator renders a triangle, it splits the triangle to single pixels. Normally 3D accelerator does the following sequence for each pixel:

- Read old Z value from Z buffer
- Write new Z value to Z buffer
- Read Texel(s)
- Write new Pixel to frame buffer

From this sequence we can calculate maximum pixel fillrate for a given bandwidth.

In the first calculation example we have 32bit Z buffer, 32bit frame buffer, and we read one new 32bit texel for each pixel. 32bits is 4 bytes (32bits / 8 bits). Normally texels are read from onchip texture cache, so this one texture read per pixel is just one possible behavior of texturing. This example can be considered very high quality rendering.

- Z read (4 bytes)
- Z write (4 bytes)
- Texture read (4 bytes)
- Color write (4 bytes)

This sums up to a 16 bytes that have to go through the memory system for each pixel. Now we can take our first memory system example (128bit @ 166MHz SDRAM) and see how many of these pixels go through it. 2.656GigaBytes/sec / 16Bytes = 166MegaPixels/sec.

Nu zou ik wel eens willen weten hoe dit bij de Glaze3D werkt.

ATI heeft de press release gepost van de Rage Fury MAXX, een videokaart met 2 Rage 128 Pro chips, 64Meg onboard video geheugen en een fillrate van 500Mpix/sec:

ATI Technologies Inc. (TSE: ATY, NASDAQ: ATYT) today announced the RAGE Fury MAXX , the first dual processor, 64 MB board for the hardcore gamer. The board is designed with two RAGE 128 ProÔ chips and 64 MB of memory on one single board.

The RAGE Fury MAXX is the fastest game accelerator for true color, ultra high resolution gaming.

The RAGE Fury MAXX achieves a maximum "fill rate", or the number of textured pixels it can render per second, of 500 megapixels/second. "Fill Rate" is key to accelerating the latest, massively textured games and coupled with a complete set of features for Direct X and OpenGL API’s, the RAGE Fury MAXX is destined to become the board of choice for the power-hungry gamer.

"The RAGE Fury MAXX, with its dual RAGE 128 Pro chips delivers never seen before performance at ultra high resolutions in true color for the power gamer," said Alan McCann, Director of ATI’s Visual Technology Group. "With ATI’s patent-pending MAXX technology, gamers will be able to experience the highest levels of visual quality and gameplay."

High Resolution, 32-bit color with minimal performance hit

Superior to next generation single chip solutions, the RAGE Fury MAXX ensures that ultra high resolution 32-bit color acceleration is achieved with minimal performance degradation. For example, changing from 16-bit to 32-bit, playing Quake III at 1,024 by 768 with competing next generation single chip solutions sees a drop of up to 30 per cent in performance.

With RAGE Fury MAXX, the performance is maintained at 95 per cent of the 16-bit frame rate.

Running at these ultra high resolutions in true color generates an improved level of visual quality and gameplay. First person shooter games will benefit as the field of view will be expanded and the level of background detail will dramatically improve. For example, long range weapons in Quake III will become much more effective as enemies that would have been impossible to distinguish in 800 x 600 become clearly visible when you move to higher resolutions at higher color depths. Fans of strategy games will be able to view and manage their troops more effectively while flight simulator pilots will be able to better judge their flight patterns with the increased field of view and improved visual quality.

Het kaartje moet 299 dollar gaan kosten. Meer geblaat lees je in de press release bij Voodoo Extreme.

GameFan heeft een artikeltje gepost over de gebrekkige support die game developers van Apple kunnen verwachten bij het porten van games naar het Mac platform:

Quick to post his two cents on the matter was Ritual's Jack "Morbid" Mathews. Formerly of 3dfx and now a programmer working on Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2, another Quake III engine-based game.

"Well, it'll be hard to give Heavy Metal: FAKK2 Mac support as well without any Macs here as well. So unless that situation changes we're not going to be able to have mac support either," said Morbid. "Which is actually pretty sad considering we're using an engine that has Mac cross-compiling built right in and no boxes to do serious testing and development on. While developers and the dominance of Windows are being blamed for the disparity in number of Macintosh games versus PC games, it's showing that Apple really doesn't seem to care. We here have been begging for Mac equipment, but apparently it has been into deaf ears. If Apple is going to pick and choose among five or so companies to support and force everyone else to farm games to dedicated porting houses, I don't see how they're going to even make a dent in the gaming market at home."

Furthermore, he went on to say, "So to let Mac Gamers know, this is Apple's misstep, plain and simple. If Apple would support us in entering the Macintosh market, we would. If they're gonna ignore our requests, I'm sorry, but we're not going to fight an uphill battle. If you want games written for your Macintosh, give them a hollar. Tell them to support developers, and developers will support them. That's the way it works with every other hardware company we support."

Maakt toch niet uit, want Mac gebruikers vinden 'spelletjes' over het algemeen nogal laag.

The Register bericht dat Intel waarschijnlijk al deze maand (tegelijkertijd met de rest van de familie) een 733MHz versie van de Coppermine zal introduceren. Snelheden van boven de 800MHz zouden dankzij de 0,18micron technologie binnen bereik moeten liggen, zegt Intel:

Chipzilla project architecture manager Jim Wilson would only say that Coppermine will become available "later this month" at 700MHz or greater, but as The Register has already reported, the chip is set to ship on 24 October in at 733MHz.

[...] Coppermine's release was brought forward, primarily to tackle AMD's 700MHz Athlon. Wilson claimed the 0.18 micron chip was also highly scalable, with the processor easily capable of increasing to 800MHz and beyond, allowing Intel to keep up with whatever AMD comes up with in the near future.

De PSX2 is nog lang niet op de markt en The Register begint al weer te speculeren over de release van de Playstation 3. Het ding zou in 2002 geïntroduceerd moeten werden en zou sneller moeten zijn dan Intel's Pentium familie (tja, wie gebruikt er nou nog Pentium's in 2002 ):

Head of Sony's PlayStation operation Ken Kutaragi today pledged to drive the technology behind the company's Emotion Engine processor line -- the heart of the upcoming PlayStation 2 -- way beyond that of Intel's Pentium family within the next six years.

And he hinted at the rapid evolution of future versions of the PlayStation and its chip pushing its upgrade cycle into something more akin to that of the desktop PC.

Right now, said Kutaragi, speaking at the autumn's Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, California, the latest Pentium III chip contains around 10 million transistors -- the same as the first Emotion Engine.

Both are constructed using 0.18 micron processes, but as process technology pushes to 0.13 micron and beyond, Kutaragi claimed, the next two generations of Emotion Engine will eclipse Pentium's transistor count. [break] Oja, het apparaatje is backwards compatible met de PSX2, dan hoef je je oude games niet uit het raam te gooien: [/break] Of course, Sony has an advantage here -- the PlayStation 2 will be the first games console to offer backwards compatibility. If future versions of the machine continue to offer that, users can ditch their hardware but retain their software investment, and that could easily persuade them to upgrade -- or at least to do so with less reluctance.

AMD heeft z'n derde kwartaals cijfers bekend gemaakt: een verlies van 105 miljoen dollar. Hier het nieuws van Techweb:

Strong sales of its Athlon processors and flash-memory products failed to stem losses at Advanced Micro Devices during the third quarter, forcing the company to take more radical steps to return to profitability.

AMD, in Sunnyvale, Calif., said Wednesday that it will sell its Communications group, which has 400 employees and accounted for slightly more than 10 percemt of the company's revenue in the third quarter.

[...] AMD continued to be plagued by manufacturing problems and was unable to ship as many Athlon processors as previously projected. The company said the recent earthquake in Taiwan "shut off motherboard shipments in the final week" of the third quarter, although it still expects to be able to hit its target of producing more than 1 million Athlon processors in the current quarter. [break] Positief nieuws is er ook, want het verlies is lager dan verwacht, zo bericht GA-Source: [/break] AMD Q3 Loss Narrower Than Expected, Athlon Chip Cited AMD reported a third quarter net loss that was narrower than analysts' expectations, citing strong sales of its new Athlon chip and flash memory chips.

AMD reported a third quarter net loss of $105.5 million, or 72 cents a share, versus a profit of $1 million, or one cent a share. According to First Call, the consensus estimate among analysts was a loss of 97 cents a share.

[...] The company also said its Athlon microprocessors were being sold at higher margins that its K-6 processors, helping shore up declining revenues and cut the company's operating loss. AMD said it has the ability to make over 1 million Athlon processors in its current, fourth quarter.

AGN Hardware heeft een foto met specs van de Asus K7M Athlon plank gepost:

De specs check je hier.

Tim Sweeney heeft een update gepost op de Unreal Tech page, met opmerkingen over Windows 2000:

I recently upgraded to Windows 2000 Release Candidate 2, and wanted to mention that it's extremely solid! With NVidia's latest Windows 2000 TNT/GeForce drivers, DirectX7's Direct3D and OpenGL both work flawlessly. What's cool about the new OS:

- High-performance DirectX7 Direct3D and OpenGL support.
- USB mouse support -- mouse movement is very smooth.
- Much more stable than Windows 98, especially for software development.
- Good administration tools, more powerful than NT4 and far easier to use.
- Great international support.
- Dual processor support.
- Plug and play.

Volgens The Register heeft GigaPixel een 3D accelerator voor de consumer/games markt in ontwikkeling. Het ding maakt net zoals de Videologic PowerVR gebruik van tiled rendering, waardoor de fillrate vereisten veel lager zijn (hou je snelheid over om leuke dingen te doen, zoals full-scene Anti-Aliasing):

US 3D graphics specialist GigaPixel this week issued a challenge to the likes of 3dfx, Nvidia, S3 and ATI -- the company claims its GP-1 chip, based on its Giga3D architecture, has rival products well and truly licked on both image quality and performance.

What makes GP-1 interesting is its use of a tile-based rendering scheme instead of the traditional polygon approached used by every other mainstream graphics accelerator.

[...] Haber demonstrated Quake II running on a GP-1 reference board and a Matrox 3D card, and while the frame rate appeared comparable, with its anti-aliasing, the GP-1's output certainly looked better.

[...] GigaPixel plans to license its technology to third-party graphics card vendors, much as Nvidia does. Haber said the company was already talking to at least one board manufacturer, but he would not name them or say how close the two firms are to a licensing deal

Dell heeft een aantal nieuwe G400 drivers heeft gepost en volgens info bij Voodoo Extreme zijn deze beter dan de drivers die op dit moment op de Matrox site staan:

Just a note that Dell has recently released new drivers for the Matrox G400 card. I'm friends with one of the developers and he says that these are not just rehashed matrox ones but ones with improved speed, and vastly improved stability and robustness. Though these are dell specific, they should work on all g400 cards with all features intact...

98 drivers are at :
http://support.dell.com/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=2260&libid=6

NT drivers are at :
http://support.dell.com/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=2259&libid=6.

Ik kwam bij Voodoo Extreme wat info tegen over de nVidia Quadra (zie ook deze nieuwsposting van Robin, gisteren). Zo te lezen wordt dit de professionele high-end versie van de GeForce (voor 3D modelling e.d.):

For middle- and higher-end three-D graphics, spokesperson Derek Perez says Nvidia will introduce a faster controller, code-named Quadro. Quadro will use the same chip core as the GeForce, but it will run at higher clock rates. No doubt Quadro will come with other enhancements, including support for bigger frame buffers and higher-quality images, but Perez remained reticent about the details, pending the chip's public introduction (perhaps as soon as this month). Perez also was vague about who will sell the technology, but Elsa says it will base its upcoming Synergy III on the Quadro chip. As to price, we're making an educated guess that these boards will knock heads with the [3Dlabs] Oxygen GVX1 in the under $1,000 range."

Later in the article, a sections states:

"Closer to earth, an Elsa spokesperson told us he expected the Quadro-based Synergy III to achieve a score of about 30 on the ProCDRS OpenGL graphics measure from SPEC, the industry's premier benchmarking agency. That would surpass the [Intense3D] Wildcat 4105 by a small margin but undershoot the upcoming Wildcat 4110 by about 16 percent. Nevertheless this would be good considering the expected price.