Beta News meldt dat er een update is voor Adaptec's cd-recording programma, Easy CD Creator 4.0. Klik hier om de update neer te halen.

Golden Hawk Technologies heeft trouwens ook een nieuwe beta in elkaar geknutseld van CDRWin met support voor de nieuwere cd-burners. Haal versie 3.8a hier naar beneden.

Bij de Singapore Hardware Zone hebben ze een Pentium III 450 SL37C te pakken te weten te krijgen die makkelijk op 600MHz wilde draaien (133MHz), hij wilde zelfs wel op 630MHz! Dit lukte zowel op een Asus P3BF als de Microstar MS-6163 plank. Voor het complete verhaaltje, klik hier.

When we got to Sim Lim Square, we headed right to Marketplace, where they informed us that they managed to get hold of a recent batch of Pentium !!!-450 that was capable of running at 133MHz FSB. That automatically translates the total speed to a whopping 600MHz, which is currently the fastest Pentium !!! CPU you can get in the market. What's more, it runs at 133MHz FSB, which means, you can buy a relatively cheap Pentium !!!-600B CPU. Now, is that a good deal or what?

I guess this isn't really new to some of you, as I know that some have already been running their Pentium !!! 450 overclocked to 600MHz. However, getting a piece that really work at the desired frequency has been somewhat of a gamble.

Anyway, we went to test the CPU and was really amazed at how overclockable it was. We managed to push it up to 140MHz FSB (140x4.5=630) on the P!!!-450 CPU, but at a voltage of 2.30V. At 133MHz FSB, we managed to get it up and running at the default voltage. That's really something considering the fact that all other P!!!-600 CPUs are running at a default voltage of 2.05V. Running the Pentium-!!! at bus frequencies above 133MHz (133x4.5=600) is really pushing your luck since most Pentium-!!! CPUs are somewhat limited to only about 600MHz. Why then do you think that Intel didn't release a 650MHz version to counter AMD's K7, but instead, released a 133MHz FSB version? Well, if you are really lucky, you may just get one that could run higher than 630MHz, but you should be aware that your PCI and AGP clocks also increase with the FSB. Make sure your devices are not affected by the increased bus speed.

Check de review voor de benchmark resultaten!

Bij Hardware Central hebben ze een kleine review gepost van de Abit BE6-II en Abit BF6 moederbord. Nou echt een review is het niet te noemen, meer een stukkie gelul over de features. Verschil tussen de twee planken is dat de BF6 geen ATA/66 heeft, maar wel een extra PCI gleuf.

Both the BE6-II and the BF6 allow you to set up CPU’s parameters such as; busspeed, multiplier, L2-cache latency, Vcore / VIO voltage and many more, all through the use of the Softmenu III BIOS. VIO voltage adjustments allow you to fine-tune your CPU where Vcore adjustments might just not give you the stability desired. Furthermore, and this is actually the biggy, both allow you to set the busspeed in 1MHz increments from 83MHz up to an amazing 200MHz. So we are now finally able to wrench every last bit of performance out of our CPU’s by using these 1MHz busspeed increments.

The Adrenaline Vault heeft een aantal errug mooie screenshots gepost van Quake III Arena. Hieronder heb je zin in het klein, check deze page bij Avault voor groter formaat.

De demo van Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation is uitgebracht. In de demo kun je een gedeelte uit een level spelen zodat je vast een voorproefje krijgt voordat de game volgende maand gereleased wordt. 3D Files heeft de download locaties. De demo weegt trouwens 11.6MB.

Hm, de servers van 3D Files willen op het moment niet echt werken, bij Voodoo Extreme had ik meer succes...

Silicon Insider heeft een uitgebreid artikel in elkaar gezet van AMD K8 processor, codenamed Sledgehammer. Hieronder vast een klein stukkie, lees hier verder.

In his presentation at Microprocessor Forum, Fred Weber (VP of engineering, in AMD's Computational Products Group) made it quite clear that AMD intends to take on existing high end RISC processors and Intel's new IA-64 product line with x86-64. They have addressed the two biggest disadvantages the current x86 ISA has - lack of 64-bit addressing, and disadvantageous floating point performance architecture. Through conveniently selective comparisons he tried to show that AMD's K7 family had caught up to the fastest RISCs in integer performance. Mr. Weber claimed that the new architecture will allow future AMD processors to close the gap in floating performance.

Apparently the extension to 64 bits will come without too much pain either. AMD claims that stretching 32 bit x86 to x86-64 only adds 5% to processor die size, and since the same processor core executes 32 and 64-bit code the performance will be equivalent. This might be a bit of a stretch since research conducted at DEC indicates that in practice compiling an application with 64-bit addressing instead of 32-bit addressing causes a performance loss of about a 4 - 5% on average. This results from address data taking up more room in the data cache and main memory causing the cache and TLB miss rates to increase.

nVidia heeft een nieuwe versie van haar TNT2 uitgebracht. De TNT2-A is namelijk gemaakt met 0.22 micron productie technologie wat goedkoper is om te produceren en wat ook nog eens minder hitte veroorzaakt. De Gigabyte GA-660 Plus heeft dus zo'n TNT2-A chip aan boord, waardoor hij op 175/185MHz geklokt kan worden. Sharky Extreme heeft er een review van geschreven, check het hier.

In the end, pleasingly fast game performance coupled with a low price makes the GA660 Plus an attractive buy. The dual heat sink and fan combination attached to the .22 micron TNT2-A allows the card to run noticeably faster than many TNT2 Ultras and much faster than normal TNT2s. A 170MHz graphics clock and a 180MHz memory clock are nothing to sneeze about.

With the advent of the GeForce, the TNT2 has been pushed into the mid-range of video cards, and at a price of $170, it fits right in. If you're looking for the best price/performance combination in a TNT2, the Gigabyte GA660 Plus is probably it. The only black mark comes from a weak software bundle, but we'll trade away software to get frame rates this high and a price this low. And it's aquamarine!

Bij de weg, zoals de andere TNT2's van Gigabyte is deze ook weer in stijlvol blauw uitgevoerd

Entech Taiwan heeft een nieuwe versie gereleased van het handige monitor / videokaart programma Powerstrip, die nu op versie 2.53 uitkomt. Om te downloaden, klik hier. Hieronder wat info over de nieuwe features in deze versie.

...with custom refresh rates for 3Dlabs P3/R3 chips under NT, as well as GeForce DDR and Intel 810e support. For optimal D3D and OpenGL hardware acceleration secondary monitors can now be easily disabled by PowerStrip presets and associations, the in-game gamma controls have been beefed up, and problems with 3dfx color correction under NT have been fixed. Note that while this release supports all graphics cards under Windows 2000, a special build specifically compiled for W2K will be posted in a few days.

Mooi, binnenkort dus een speciale Windows 2000 versie van Powerstrip!

HenkyDoodle schrijft: "Ja jongens en meisjes .. Eindelijk eens een goede TnT driver voor win2k die EN opengl ondersteund en D3D.. Dit is waarschijnlijk ook de driver die in de officiële Win2k gebakken gaat worden! Eindelijk ":

An anonymous source has handed BetaOS the BEST nVidia TNT2 drivers for Windows 2000 yet ... these are the official drivers that Microsoft will most likely be incorporating into post RC2 and RC3. They are still BETA drivers, but are the absolute best so far ... Here's a short list of the driver highlight: actual nVidia drivers (no imitations, no hacks), fast OpenGL performance, DDraw bug fixed (DirectDraw finally works!), and FULL Direct3D performace. These drivers are h o t ! ! ! Remember: this is exclusively from BetaOS - Beta Operating System resource website

De driver kun je hier downloaden (890Kb).

Ik kwam deze info tegen bij JC (door Wim Bervoets opgepikt tijdens de opening van Fab30 / Dresden):

- 750MHz Athlon: when it'll be released is based on marketing decisions (they could get it out now). To quote Jill Lindstedt from AMD (Vice president Communications)... very high, she speaks with CEO Sanders: we could introduce an Athlon 750MHz in November but won't do it because of marketing... :-(

- Expect parts coming from Fab30 in Q2 2000. (this means available to the general product in quantities) Athlon at 1000MHz: in first half of 2000. They have some Athlons at 1000MHz in their labs

- Intel's attitude towards the press has totally changed after the introduction of the Athlon. Several magazines have been given a Coppermine at 900MHz! (but are not allowed to talk about it)

Wegens de sterkte vraag naar LC displays gaan Hitachi en Matsushita beide nieuwe LCD fabrieken bouwen. Hopelijk gaat dit voor ons arme PC gebruikers in de toekomst een prijs verlaging van LCD schermen betekenen:

Abandoning the reluctance held through their last two unprofitable years to make large-scale investments in LCD production, Hitachi Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. have each decided to build a new LCD fab in anticipation of strong market demand.

Hitachi will invest about $324 million to build its third LCD production line, named the V3 Line, at in its Mobara LCD works. The company hopes the facility will put it into position to take the lead in the LCD market in about two years, when Hitachi expects the market to expand drastically as LCDs gain wider use in TVs and other consumer electronics products.

"Current shortage will be slackened by the end of next year when Taiwan manufacturers enter into production and Korean manufacturers increase their production," a Hitachi spokesman said. "But demand will continue to grow and we want to take the lead at that time."

Check EETimes voor het volledige artikel.

Onder het idee van Global World Domination heeft Bill weer wat lopen winkelen. Het resultaat: een bijna 30% aandeel in het britse Telewest, goed voor 3 miljard dollar:

Software giant Microsoft will pay nearly $3 billion in stock for a 29.7 percent stake in British cable operator Telewest Communications under terms of the deal disclosed in a federal filing this week. The purchase, which still requires regulatory approval, would be Microsoft's second-biggestinvestment after its related $5 billion investment in U.S. cable and phone giant AT&T.

Microsoft agreed to buy the shares in Telewest owned by cable operator MediaOne Group in May as part of a complex three-way deal under which AT&T would acquire MediaOne for $58 billion in cash and stock.

Fiets richting Techweb voor het complete nieuwsartikel.

Ik lees bij AMD Zone dat Abit nu zelf begint te zeggen dat er een Abit Athlon plankje gaat komen. Zal dus wel waar zijn. Alleen de reden die zij aangeven waarom het bord zo laat is, is nogal vaag:

This is just in. Thanks to an source that wishes to be anonymous for the info he got from an Abit marketing guy. Apparently the delay in producing a board is because it will be of a jumperless design, and that it has an ETA of November. Hmm, I thought most Athlon boards are jumperless though. Hopefully this will be the definitive overclocking board for the Athlon.

ZDNet schrijft- in een artikeltje over de release van de i840 Carmel chipset komende maandag - dat AMD ondersteuning voor Rambus zal bieden in haar nieuwe Slot-A chipset (release date ergens begin volgend jaar?). Desondanks zal de meeste aandacht gericht blijven op Double Data Rate SDRAM:

Intel's closest competitor, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD), says it too will support Rambus memory, but seems to be focused on another alternative, called Double Data Rate SDRAM. Under development now, the memory technology will push SDRAM speeds up to 266MHz. AMD has said it will up the bus speed of its Athlon system bus from 200MHz to 266MHz next year, and implement support for the 266MHz DDR SDRAM in high-end applications of its Athlon processor. Athlon is available now at 700MHz and supports a 200MHz system bus.

GamePC heeft een review gepost van de Asus K7M - voor zover we 'm zo mogen noemen want Asus wenst z'n naam op geen enkel wijze aan dit bordje te verbinden. Het is zelfs zo erg dat ze het ding leveren in een merkloze doos... en dan beweren ze bij Sharky Extreme dat Taiwanese mobo fabrikanten niet onder druk worden gezet door Intel!?

Anway, volgens SE zou de K7M plank over multiplier tweaking beschikken, maar GamePC heeft die feature niet op de K7M aan kunnen treffen:

What you've all been waiting for, how does it overclock? Actually, pretty decently, but there is margin for improvement. Unlike all other Athlon boards (with exception of the FIC SD-11 with the most recent BIOS), this board can overclock by altering the FSB speed. The board supports bus speeds of 100-125 in 1 MHz increments, and also 133, 140 and 150 MHz. If you select an interim bus speed like 107 or 108 MHz, it will not show the actual clock speed in the BIOS, but rather round off the number to the nearest standard number. For example, if you had an Athlon 650 at 107 MHz (6.5 x 110 = 715 MHz), the BIOS screen would show 733 MHz. While this may excite some users at first, your CPU is not running at the speed specified on the boot screen. A little confusing, but for the first overclockable Athlon board, we'll let it slide.

Incite Games heeft een interview gepost met niemand anders dan The Man himself:

incite: You usually work from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. Do your odd hours cause conflicts with working with other people? Returning voice mail?

Carmack: I'll return email if I actually read it. In general, I wish that I had less interaction with the rest of the world than I actually do. I'd very much like to be the perfect programmer. In many cases there's the real desire to go off to a mountain cabin someplace with my computer and work for a while. Leave me undisturbed. There's a lot to be said for a clarity of focus in being away from things.

Verder in het interview ook nog een paar zinnige vragen over het managen van projecten zoals Q3. Lees 't hier.

Raven heeft nu twee GeForces en ze zijn er zo te lezen erg blij mee . John Scott heeft een .plan update gepost met opmerking over de kaart (zie ook deze nieuwsposting):

Mmmm....2 GeForces to play with

Chris and Jeremy love the card, it runs QERadient about 10-30 times faster. It is a hard amount to quantify, but it is at least an order of magnitude faster.

As Rick and Jake have stated - Ghoul can make use of GL lighting, a feature that has always been in GL but has never been fast enough to use in a game. Using this, Gil got about a 20% speed improvement on the GeForce.

Generally your frame rate is limited by one of several bottlenecks - I shall endeavor to explain what these are and in what situations they are most prevalent. I'll try to make it as untechnical as possible and most likely fail miserably

1. Fill rate - raw pumping of texels to the screen.

This used to be the major hold up, but with the latest cards is not so much of an issue. For example, the TNT2 can handle 350 million marketing pixels per second, which is enough to draw an entire 800x600 screen about 12 times at 60fps. Even in a game with oodles of fancy spell effects (such as Heretic2) this is plenty. Marketing pixels are the theoretical peak rate of rendering, real world apps can achieve about half that.

2. Texture uploading - the amount of texture in a game

This is still a major bottleneck, especially in games with lots of procedural textures (eg Unreal). If all the textures in a level will fit onto the cards local memory, then this is not an issue. However, in the real world we normally have a lot more texture than will fit for any given scene, so the game is continually swapping textures in and out of the cards local RAM. Setting gl_picmip in Quake based games will reduce the memory required for textures and so reduce the amount of uploading, but will have the downside of reducing the final image quality. S3TC has a similar effect on uploading without the loss of image quality. In a game with procedural textures, the CPU creates the texture and then has to upload it, thereby exaggerating this bottleneck. D3d can handle this better than OpenGL purely because you can manage your own textures and optimise for your own special cases.

There are many factors that affect this, Voodoos are quicker at uploading than TNTs, but they have less memory so have to do it more. The Permedia3 has a very interesting approach that it will only upload the portion of the texture it needs.

3. Geometry - the number of verts in the world.

This is definitely where SoF in limited. The CPU has to perform lots of calculations to work out where to place a vertex on the screen. This can either be done by the driver or by the game. We use the OpenGL transforming for ease, and although it maybe a little slower on a vanilla machine, it enables the driver writers to optimise for SSE or 3dNow! instructions transparently, and allows us to automagically take advantage of hardware T&L. The GeForce acts as the equivalent of a parallel Pentium processor running at about 2GHz (source : nVidia) which purely handles the transforming and lighting, thereby offloading a major chunk of work the CPU had to do to a custom much faster processor. In practice this means a much faster game.

The downside of this is you are limited by the transform speed of the card, so if you have a 3GHz processor in your machine, you may actually have a performance hit Then again, feeding the card enough verts to make this noticable would choke the AGP bus completely. I think I would be fairly confident in saying this will not be a problem for some time to come.

Any OpenGL game that uses the OpenGL transform pipeline will be accelerated by hardware T&L. I can't comment on any other games than Heretic2, Sof and Trek, which all do.

4. Game code - the amount of processing required to run the game.

If the AI of the game is your bottleneck, no video card is going to help!

The overall approach to getting performance is to find out where your limiting process is, the bottleneck that is holding up the other processes, and speeding that up.

smiley schrijft: "Na lang wachten en het wel leek of asus helemaal stilstond is-ie er eindelijk":

The ASUS P3W-E Mainboard is based on the all new Intel® i810E chipset with ATX form factor for the latest support in Intel Pentium® III 400~600+MHz processors. Such new chipset is the first of the kind to incorporate with 4MB 100MHz SDRAM 3D Graphics with exceptional high 2D & 3D resolutions. This mainboard also supports JumperFreeTM Mode via BIOS setup and Suspend to RAM.

Mwah, het blijft een low-budget modderbord. Geïntegreerde slow-motion graphics en AMR soft audio, daar zitten wij toch helemaal niet op te wachten?