3dfx heeft nieuwe Win9x drivers voor de Voodoo Banshee uitgebracht, zo meldt 3dfx Gamers! Deze drivers bieden o.a. support voor DirectX 7 (dat je dus nodig hebt om deze driver te kunnen gebruiken). Hier heb je de info:

Voodoo Banshee Windows 9x DirectX 7 Reference Drivers AGP/PCI - Version: 1.03.00

Version: 1.03.00

Download Updated: 10/28/99

Page Updated: 10/28/99

Voodoo Banshee - Version: 1.03.00 reference drivers for AGP/PCI boards running under Windows 9x. This driver kit includes: Glide 2.6, Glide 3.1, DirectX 7.0 (Direct3D and DirectDraw) and the Voodoo Banshee Control Panel. These drivers support Intel, Cyrix and AMD 3DNow! based CPU's.

System Requirements:

Windows 9x

Voodoo Banshee AGP/PCI-based Accelerator

DirectX 7 runtime from Microsoft

Download and installation instructions:

Download DirectX 7 runtime from Microsoft's webpage.

Install DirectX 7 runtime on your computer.

Click on a "Download" link to begin downloading. the vbwin98.exe file (2.1MB).

Locate and run the file you downloaded by choosing the Run option in the Start menu. (You need to point to the location your Web browser saved the file in.) Extract the files to a location on your hard drive. See the README.TXT file for information on installing the driver.

NOTE: These drivers will NOT work with Voodoo2, Voodoo Rush or Voodoo Graphics based cards. DirectX 7 is required for this kit.

Je kunt de drivers hier downloaden.

Trouwens, d'r is ook goed nieuws voor Voodoo 3 bezitters. Vanavond (of morgenochtend) zal 3dfx ook nieuwe DirectX 7 drivers voor de Voodoo 3 (2000, 3000 en 3500) uitbrengen.

Sanser Sassen (jaja, Nederlander! ) van Hardware Central heeft een review van de Soyo SY-6VBA133 op z'n site gekieperd. Dit plankje heeft een VIA Apollo Pro chipset met officieel support voor PC133 SDRAM. De daarvoor benodigde AGP divider van 1/2 is ook aanwezig, wat overklokken op hoge busspeeds veraangenaamd (voorkomt het overkoken van je AGP videokaart):

Moreover, all new Soyo boards provide a means to adjust the Vcore voltage; the SY-6VBA133 is no exception, although they have a different approach, using % instead of an actual voltage. Raising the Vcore by 10% means that the CPU runs at 2.2volts.

One neat feature is the ability to set the DRAM clock, the speed at which the DIMMs are operated. This is derived from the busspeed and the PCI busspeed; it can be either: equal to the busspeed, equal to the busspeed minus the PCI busspeed or equal to the busspeed plus the PCI busspeed. In case of a 100 MHz FSB / 33 MHz PCI setting this means that the DIMMs can be run at either 100 MHz, 66 MHz or 133 MHz.

Klinkt goed. Check de review voor info en benchmarks.

Cool! Industriele bronnen "schijnen" bevestigt te hebben dat Microsoft bezig is met een Handheld console voor bij de X-Box!

A number of industry sources have confirmed to FGN Online that Microsoft is working on a new handheld and the whole project is nearing completion. "There is a handheld in development that is part of the X-Box project," said one source. Another informed, "The project is nearly complete and Microsoft has already started working with a select number of developers."

This news follows IGNPocket's reports that the handheld is said to feature a powerful 3D graphics chip and processor that could be supplied by Toshiba. The unit is said to be compatible with Microsoft's Direct X API, making it easier to program for, as well as to port PC code to. The new unit could also hook up to X-Box in some way

Voodooextreme zegt dat het hier om een gerucht gaat en dat er waarschijnlijk toch niets van waar is. Zou wel jammer zijn

Hier heppie de link naar het artikel.

Eric van Fastgraphics heeft een snelle roundup (weinig tekst, veel benchmarks) neer gemikt met resultaten van o.a. de Guillemot 3D Prophet, Elsa Erazor X en Creative Labs Annihilator. Naast deze drie GeForce kaarten werden ook een aantal TNT2, G400, Savage4 en Rage128 plankjes getest:

This isn't a really a review of equal cards but more like a warp-things-up-kind-of-article. The differences in tested hardware in this review are huge, but so are the price differences. It's clear that if you're looking for top-notch hardware you've got to get yourself a GeForce card. Keep in mind that the Guillemot 3DProphet was tested with earlier drivers than the other two GeForce cards, which explains the difference in performance. Picking one of the 3 GeForce cards that I've tested so far isn't easy. The differences are small, but I think I'd go for the Creative Annihilator. Solid performance combined with good overclocking possibilities make it my number one GeForce at the moment.

Check Fastgraphics voor de benchmarks.

Ik lees hier net op Gamespot dat de Age of Empires II: Age of Kings demo op het net staat! Hier heppie de buzz:

The demo you've all been waiting for has finally arrived! Microsoft has improved upon the original Age of Empires and delivered one of the year's best strategy games. The basic details of the demo are listed below, and we've also posted the readme.rtf as a download (it'll come through reaaaallly quickly) in case you want to know everything possible about the demo before downloading.

The contest being held through our upcoming Gigex download will start shortly, within the next hour. We have 20 copies of the full game to give out as well as about 20 posters signed by designer Bruce Shelley.

Included in the demo:

The William Wallace Learning Campaign - Whether you are a master at Age of Empires and Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome or completely new to real-time strategy games, the William Wallace campaign will teach you the basics, plus you'll see what's new in Age of Empires II. To play the William Wallace campaign, click Learn to Play on the main menu.

A Sample Random Map Game - This is the heart of Age of Empires II and the variations are endless. You start in the Dark Ages with just a Town Center, three villagers and a Scout. Build your empire to eliminate your two computer-player opponents. To play, click Random Map on the Single Player menu.

Four-player multiplayer game - Using another sample Random Map, you can join your friends and battle your enemies on the MSN Gaming Zone. To play a multiplayer game, click Multiplayer on the main menu.

System Requirements: Pentium-166, 32 MB RAM, SVGA w/ 2MB, mouse, sound board, Windows 95; Windows 98; Windows NT

Je kunt de Age of Empires II demo bij Gamespot zelf binnenhalen, maar voor een echt snelle download kun je hem ook via Cameron's FTP binnenhalen!

Verder kunt je ook nog de RTF Readme file hier binnenhalen.

De demo is trouwens 46,81MB.

Hehe, deze cool page kwam ik tegen op /.: een paar Jopies hebben een NETtel Router met 90MHz Motorola ColdFire CPU omgebouwd tot een MP3 player :

The Moreton Bay NETtel is a low cost embedded network appliance. It is designed to be a very flexible embedded engine for creating dedicated networked devices. One of its main uses is as a small network router, providing a gateway/firewall for dialup or cable/ADSL internet connections.

The really great thing about the NETtel is that it is powered by a version of Linux. The NETtel runs a uClinux/ColdFire kernel and tool set. Micro-controller Linux (uClinux) is a port of Linux to run on CPU's that do not support virtual memory.

[...] The only additional hardware required was an Analog to Digital Converter (DAC). I chose a simple National Semiconductor DAC0800 part, they are cheap and easy to get hold of.

The Register heeft weer wat vage info over de Willamette. Ze beweren dat Intel nog dit jaar de opvolger van de PIII zal introduceren (erg onwaarschijnlijk, want op welk platform zou die proc dan moeten draaien?!):

Intel appears to be about to come clean on the early launch of the 'Athlon killer' Willamette, as exclusively revealed here a couple of weeks back.

Chipzilla is holding a web briefing for analysts only (don’t want any of those nasty press animals listening in, do we?) later today and CNET reports that Willamette will be high on the agenda.

Andy Grove is expected to reveal a Q4 launch for Willamette at 800MHz, going up to 1100MHz in Q1 ’00. [break] Ik zou ook ff deze reaktie van JC op het vorige Willamette nieuwsbericht van The Register lezen.

Update [19:08]: News.com heeft ook een nieuwsbericht over de web briefing: [/break] Andy Grove, CEO Craig Barrett, and other high-ranking Intel executives will provide details on the current state of the company as well as provide a more granular look into its 2000 road map later this afternoon.

[...] Desktops will see changes as well. At the end of the year, the company has said that it will come out with Willamette, the code name for the family of chips that will succeed the Pentium III. Willamette processors will be based around a new architecture. By contrast, the P6 architecture, the basis of the Pentium III, has been around since the Pentium Pro.

A slide shown at a Pentium III launch earlier this week showed that Intel plans to ship desktop processors running at 1 GHz by the end of the year.

Welk jaar!?

Jazzy schrijft: "Mijn ervaringen over de veiligheid van Superweb worden hier dus bevestigd. M'n security software bemerkte al de nodige Backorifice/2000 en Netbus/pro aanvallen op verschillende poorten en blijkbaar was ik niet de enige...":

Nadat deze nieuwe provider er eindelijk met veel kunst- en vliegwerk in is geslaagd haar netwerk in de lucht te krijgen, blijkt Superweb een vrijplaats te zijn geworden voor computerkrakers.

Directeur Martijn Eier geeft de problemen toe. Volgens hem waren ze gisteren nagenoeg zijn verholpen. In de nacht van dinsdag op woensdag zijn in allerijl een nieuwe computer (router) en een 'beveiligingsmuur' (firewall) geplaatst.

"Dat maakt de kans op inbraken kleiner", zei hij. Maar Eier was nauwelijks uitgesproken of nieuwe meldingen van kraken kwamen binnen. Er werden zelfs pogingen gedaan complete systemen van gebruikers thuis plat te gooien.

Met deze feiten geconfronteerd kondigde de 21-jarige directeur van de Rotterdamse internet provider gisteren extra veiligheidsmaatregelen aan. De zogeheten poorten die de Superweb-abonnees gebruiken, zullen permanent in de gaten worden gehouden. Krakers krijgen een eenmalige waarschuwing. Bij herhaling volgt onmiddellijke afsluiting, aldus Eier.

Meer info lees je bij De Televaag.

Bob, van Thresh's FiringSquad, heeft een 12 pagina's (!!!!) grote review van Age of Empires II online gegooid. Hij vond het spel zo goed dat hij het spel een Editor's Choice award heeft gegeven .
Hier heppie de conclusie:

Age of Kings represents the pinnacle of traditional RTS games. This isn't just AOE 1 rehashed with a new thing or two and put into a new box. Age of Kings is a clear step up from its predecessor with some great new features that really add to the game. AOK is as addictive as crack, but at the same time, as refined as a 30 year old cognac. Package all that into a drop dead gorgeous graphics engine and it's easy to see that Ensemble and Microsoft have a real winner on their hands; AOK is going to be around for a long time. I've been burned out on Starcraft and thought I'd never touch another RTS game again with all the Quake 3 playing around here. AOK has changed my viewpoint, and this will definitely be one of the select few games I will continue to play after the review. If you're a RTS fan then you owe it to yourself to grab a copy of Age of Kings - it's the first RTS game to win Firingsquad's Editor's Choice award.

Je kunt hier klikken om direct naar de review te gaan

The Register bericht dat Intel problemen heeft met de levering van 0,18micron mobiles. Da's prettig nieuws voor AMD, die het de laatste tijd toch al niet slecht doet in het mobiele segment:

The lack of ability of Intel to supply .18 micron Pentium IIIs to its channel dealers and distributors in volume until next year has given AMD a rare window of opportunity to sell its products.

AMD officially released its 25th October prices yesterday but the prices of its mobile processors are unchanged. That demonstrates its products are holding solid compared to the extremely volatile desktop processor market.

Although AMD, so far, makes few performance claims for its mobile microprocessors, the family, ranging from a K6-III/450 at $320/1000 right down to a K6-2/350 at $74, is making considerable inroads into the marketplace.

Interessante info van Johan op Ace's Hardware:

Industry sources told us that 3DFx is in huge troubles. Nothing new, but now I am hearing that the Voodoo 4 won't make it to the market this year. Some sources even whisper that next year, 3DFx will cease to exist in its current form. At this very moment we got no prove, but it is not looking good for the Voodoo 4. I sincerely hope this is not true, as we, customers, need more good competitors for nVidia. nVidia technological and financial results are extremely impressive and they deserve their success, but we need more competition. We expect a lot of S3 and Matrox...

Ik kwam bij Ace's Hardware deze erg handig info tegen over de Motorola G4+, een opgevrolijkte verbouwing van de G4 processor die hogere kloksnelheden mogelijk moet maken. Tevens gaat Motorola, in navolging van Intel, een 256Kb groot L2 cache op de core plakken:

According to Microprocessorwatch's, Keith Diefendorff, a coarchitect of the beloved alti-vec instruction set Motorola have taped out the so called G4+ 2 monthes ago. This new chip as presented at uPF is a significant mid-age improvement upon the G4 core. First doing what Winchip did, they added pipeline stages to the orginal design, this is said to allow the core to scale past 700MHz on Motorola's 0.18um copper HIP6 process. Unlike Winchip who just added pipeline stages to get MHz, Motorola increased the instruction fetch/decode bandwidth from 3 to 4 (1 being a branch) beside adding a new integer excution unit for a wider machine. To further extract ILP from teh code, the added the instruction reorder buffer depth. These improvement is said to allow the G4 to maintain its brianiac per MHz performance while scale up its clock speed.

The other significant addition is the added 256KB ondie L2. Being fully pipelined at CPU speed, this cache boast 2X the bandwidth of Coppermine's L2. (22GB/s at 700MHz, vs 11GB/s at 700MHz for Coppermine, this also says that the bus is probabily 256bit wide) Yes, the apple users/Steve Jobs can rightfully claim that their L2 cache can feed twice the data to the core than Intel's at the same clock speed, if Intel cannot get Willaimette out first. Besides that the G4+ still have a backside L3 bus for an even better memory sub-system.

Loki van Ars Technica heeft een leuk artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid over de 'Athlon Response kit', een verzameling propaganda waarmee Intel tracht pc bouwers ervan te overtuigen dat zij nog steeds alles onder controle hebben. Eén van de anti-Athlon argumenten is de wonderbaarlijke performance boost die SSE bij het internetten geeft (bullshit van de bovenste plank )...

Other high points of the kit are Intel saying that 3DNow! only has optimizations for gaming, and that SSE is far superior because it "enhances the Internet experience". This, of course, is Intel's current advertising strategy so it's understandable that they'd bring up this point (no matter how stupid it is). Whenever I hear Intel talk about their WebOutfitters service and how it's only for Intel Pentium III owners, I can't help but think... well, good. It's not like it offers much of anything that I can't get somewhere else. But to continue to quote the document regarding 3DNow!, "No Internet focus or compatibility with the hundreds of SSE web sites, plug-ins and applications." Hundreds of sites? Can anyone name one site other than WebOutfitters itself? We're talking an SSE only or SSE enabled site.

Check Ars voor het complete verhaaltje.

Lekker veel Savage 2000 nieuws ineens . Alex "Sharky" Ross heeft een complete preview van de Savage 2000 powered Viper 2 kaart van Diamond in elkaar gedraaid. Hieronder wat over z'n performance:

The 16-bit scores recorded at the lower resolutions were not exactly 'smoking' but nevertheless very acceptable and would outpace a Voodoo3 or TNT2Ultra under the same conditions. The GeForce 256 is by our own estimation faster at the lower resolutions, with smaller texture sizes in use during benchmark runs. Where the texture size is set at the maximum of 512x512, S3TC will come into play since Quake 3 supports S3TC. It even edges close tothe performance level of a GeForce 256 DDR-SGRAM. To give you an idea, at 1024x768x32 in Quake 3, with 512x512 texture sizes, the GeForce 256 hits 54.7fps (on an Athlon 600MHz) which compares almost identically to the Savage 2000's 54.8fps. There will be certain instances where S3's architecture is being made full use of and it can maximize its potential. The benchmark comparison we just made is in indeed such a case. But at 800x600x16 when the texture size is NOT maximized, the GeForce 256 DDR races in just over the 100fps mark with the Savage 2000 lagging behind at 82.9fps. The benchmarks also demonstrated that S3's new Dual Pixel/Dual Texture Pipeline architecture was at work and behind some of the impressive scores. 32-bit vs. 16-bit performance was another strong point. Rarely was the drop in performance more than 10-15%, which just goes to show that 32-bit color is here to stay.

Meer benchmarks en info over de Viper 2 vind je hier in de preview.

S3 heeft de financiele resultaten van het derde kwartaal bekend gemaakt (een verlies van zo'n $11 miljoen) en kondigt verder aan dat ze een 'equity parnership' met Vulcan Ventures,Oak Investment Partners en MTV Networks Online hebben gesloten:

SANTA CLARA, Calif. --- October 26, 1999 --- S3 Incorporated (Nasdaq: SIII) today announced that it has created an equity partnership for RioPort.com with Paul Allen?s Vulcan Ventures, Inc., Oak Investment Partners, and MTV Networks (MTVN) Online. As a result of the partnership, RioPort.com will immediately begin operations as a separate company, with S3 as its largest shareholder.fficeffice">

Zo te zien gebruiken ze ook bij S3 MS Office.

GA-Source heeft er een review bij van de Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 20GB grote harddisk. Weinig info in de test, hieronder wat over de performance:

As I mentioned before I thought my old hard drive was a pretty decent performer. I changed my mind about my old hard drive as soon as I booted Win98 from the Maxtor drive. It was fast. I didn't take out a stopwatch and time the two, but I can say with surety that it boots at least twice as fast. The drive spins at 7200 rpm, which is a clear improvement, over my old 5400 rpm.

JanKees schrijft: "Thresh is naar hetzelfde feestje als Savage2000.com geweest en hebben ook wat nummertjes ter aanvulling : 640x480: 81.1 fps, 800x600: 77.5 fps (P3/600, normale Q3 setting). De klok (125/155) is trouwens definitief. Direct3D en Treemark nummers worden nog angstvallig verzwegen....":

I just got back from S3's Savage2000 party. I'll have a full report for you on Friday, but here are some preliminary Savage2000 numbers on a P3-600. They only had the cards clocked to 125/155MHz core/memory running on very beta drivers.

Bij Savage2000 zijn een aantal 'preliminary' benchmarks te vinden van een Savage 2000 kaart op 125/155MHz. Hieronder de Quake3 scores van de kaart draaiend op een P3-600 en een Athlon 600:

[break]De kloksnelheid van de Savage 2000 zal in november ook 125/155MHz bedragen:[/break]We have confirmed with several S3 employees that the FINAL clock speed of Savage2000 will be 125MHz core and 155MHz memory. This configuration will result in fill rate of 500 MT/s. The original specs stated 700 MT/s. We also have preview benchmarks results on hand from P3 600 (133) and K7 600. Stay tuned for more information and side by side comparison to GeForce 256 DDR.

Jasper schrijft: "De onofficiële add-on packs voor Tiberian Sun, TS Gold genaamd, zullen niet meer uitgebracht worden. Volgens de makers worden hun ideeën gejat door Westwood. Tevens worden ze ervan beschuldigd om screenshots te editen met een paint proggy!

Zal het allemaal waar zijn? Of is het een gefrustreerd manneke die eigenlijk zelf daar had willen werken... Meer lees je op hun pagina!":

Westwood went the extra step and EDITED their screenshots with a paint program and put in things which probably would have never made it into Tiberian Sun.

Now back to the touched up screenshots... this has not only happened for Tiberian Sun. I've seen touched up screenshots for C&C, Red Alert, Dune 2000 and just about every Westwood title.

Have you seen the press release for the TS expansion pack, Firestorm? It mentions the new units... a Mobile EMP? Mobile Stealth Generator? Hey I've seen

those somewhere before...

Sow, das niet mis. Meer haat uitspattingen richting Westwood kun je op de TSGold website vinden.

Sharky Extreme heeft hun Weekly CPU Prices column van een update voorzien. Naast info over de AMD Athlon en nieuwe Intel Coppermine's hebben ze ook interessante speculaties over de opvolger van de GeForce 256:

Moving from the existing .22um GeForce core to a .18um manufacturing process is expected to allow for a strong clock speed increase in the 23 million transistor chip, up from the 120MHz speed of today's GeForce256 cards to nearly 200MHz for the NV15.

Ram speeds will also climb, as the NV15 will likely be paired with up to 64MB or 96MB of DDR SGRAM operating at a bus speed of 200MHz if ram prices and supply rebound in time to keep the retail card's price below $400.

The NV15 will be NVIDIA's well targeted answer to any new surprises by rivals 3dfx, ATi, and S3, including answering the questions of the current GeForce's rather limited 480M/Texels per second fill rate.

If the NV15 can deliver on the promise of early estimates of 800M/Texels per second+ then it will likely be able to repel the attack by the Voodoo4's rumored high fill rate level, as well as the threat of ATi's next foundational chip architecture (arriving in early 2000).

GameSpot zet ergens vandaag de exclusieve demo online van de RTS game Age of Kings. De game is al uit, maar als je hem nog niet hebt gespeeld zou ik zeker de demo eens proberen, de game schijnt erg goed te zijn. Hou dus deze page in de gaten vandaag!

3DRealms heeft de cover van het december nummer van PC Gamer (met zoals eerder aangekondigd een exclusieve DNF preview) online gezet. Hier een verkleinde versie:

Ik zag net op Matrox Users dat ene meneer die bij dit grafische kaarten bedrijf werkt uit de school is geklapt over de twijfelachtige praktijken die zich daar afspelen. Het is allemaal begonnen met de belofte van de OpenGL driver die maar niet kwam, en toen gebrekkig. Tegenwoordig is het grootste probleem de verkrijgbaarheid van de G400 Max. Dit heeft ie erover te zeggen:

3. Product Availability - For the Matrox reps reading this, take notice, you are only hurting yourself with the lack of supply of your graphic cards in the retail chain or is it something else. For those watching the various retailers, several big name companies have stopped selling Matrox products. Others have made plans to phase out the stock they have and never restock. See my next comments regarding their marketing tactics. Coming back, stores like Compusa, Best Buy, PC Connection, and PC Mall all have either stopped selling or phasing out. Compusa stopped carrying the product all together. Matrox has blamed some marketing problem or contract disagreement with Compusa, but I feel it was more than that. Matrox is blaming the current shortage of the G400 Max on their distributor, Ingram Micro. Once again some contract dispute lead to Matrox not shipping the products to Ingram, according to several individuals at Matrox. So companies all over continue to wait for the product to be delivered. But wait you can buy it if you are willing to pay $50 plus over the going market rate if they were shipped. They have switched to a new distributor, but no company is aware of this.

I don't know how Matrox (maybe being up north does things to common sense) but by the time Matrox gets the G400 Max in general distribution we will be on the Voodoo 5 and Nvidia GeForce 512 or whatever. Since the graphic card cycle is about 6 months, Matrox is going to face the same problems ATI did. They delivered a product after the market had already moved on to the next generation. Matrox was warned in many reviews, that if they fail to get the product in the retail chain quick enough this will do the G400 cards in, and sure enough they failed to get the cards out there.

En voordat je denkt dat dit wel erg hard is, dit is gepost in deze thread op het MURC forum. De officiele kant van Matrox heeft hier nog niet op gereageerd....

Ik ben zelf ook altijd een groot matrox fan geweest, tot voor kort zou ik blind een G400 Max nemen ipv een GeForce256. Maar nu ik dit gelezen heb begin ik toch serieus te twijfelen.

Sharky Extreme heeft een review gepost van de Gigabyte GA-6CX. Dit i820 plankje heeft 3 RIMM slots (waarvan de derde voorlopig niet gebruikt mag worden) en 13 busspeed settings. Op zich biedt dit leuke mogelijkheden voor overclocking, ware het niet dat PC800 RDRAM weinig tolerant is op snelheden boven 400MHz:

Even though the i820 isolates system bus pathways for the memory, video and CPU buses of the PC, the link between the CPU's FSB speed and the clock rate of the RDRAM is still connected as it was in the 440BX. Therefore even slight modifications to the CPU's FSB speed, say upping it from 133MHz to 137MHz, causes the PC800 RDRAM's speed to go beyond its 400MHz tolerance (200MHz x 2 rising/falling edge) into the 415MHz+ range. Normally this increase wouldn't be dramatic enough to warrant attention, but in our experience with RDRAM testing it's become clear that its very sensitive to speed variance.

This raises the incident of errors within the Win98 atmosphere and hinders making any significant core clock speed improvements on the CPU side when talking about 133MHz native CPUs.

The Adrenaline Vault weet te vertellen dat 3dfx Napalm gedemonstreerd zal worden op de Comdex99 volgende maand:

3dfx is going to drop some Napalm at Comdex 99. The company has sent out invitations to its Comdex event in Las Vegas that indicate it will be revealing details about its next generation 3D graphics card at the computer trade show. The event is Monday, Nov. 15 at 8:00 a.m. at Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum at The Venetian. Expect more details at that time on the successor to the Voodoo3 line, anticipated at this time to appear around March 2000.

Wederom van Betanews:

Stardock Systems has released a new version of WindowBlinds. This version fixes a lot of minor bugs and includes new real live buttons. WindowBlinds allows you to completely customize the look and feel of Windows using skins.

De shareware versie kun je neerhalen op download.com, meer info over WindowBlinds lees je op Windowblinds.net.

GamePC heeft een review van de 8-speed Plextor Plexwriter 8/2/20 CD-Rewriter op het net gegooid. Hier een stukje:

As you can see by the results, the Plexwriter 8/2/20 didn't deviate much from the previous Plextor results, and that's to be expected, after all it's almost exactly the same hardware spinning the CD. This drive proves that Plextor has what it takes to not only conquer the CD-R market, but CD-RW as well. The drive is quite a bit more expensive than the HP writer, which boasts better specs than this drive. Hewlett Packard drives perform well, but haven't earned the reputation Plextor has for drive reliability. Just as an example, eMusic.com uses Plextor drives to rip hundreds of audio tracks a day in large CD-arrays, no doubt they chose the brand of drives because of their reliability.

Storage Review heeft een review gepost van Wester Digital WD307AA, een 5400rpm ATA66 harddisk met 2Mb cache. De grote platter-size van 10Gb maakt de schijf ondanks de lage rotatiesnelheid toch vrij snel:

Like the ill-fated WD205AA, the newest Caviar explores new frontiers in 5400rpm performance. Comparisons with the DiamondMax 40 yield favorable results. In Windows 95, for example, the WD leads the Maxtor by margins of 13% and 9% respectively in the Business and High-End Disk WinMarks. The Caviar maintains its edge, albeit slight, in Windows NT, an OS that's traditionally Maxtor territory. Here the Caviar slides by the DiamondMax by 6% in the Business WinMark and an unnoticeable 1% in High-End tests.

ThreadMark results, however, place the WD307AA behind the DiamondMax 40. The WD trails the Maxtor by 18% under Windows 95. The gap narrows to 10% in NT.

Mirabilis heeft een nieuwe build van ICQ Surf (proggie waarmee je kunt ICQ-en met personen die zich tegelijkertijd op dezelfde site bevinden, vergelijkbaar met het geflopte Gooey) klaar gezet:

A new alpha version of ICQ Surf is available for download. 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.

Versie 1.04 build 79 kun je hier downloaden.

Zoiets werd al verwacht, maar wordt nu bevestigd door Ars Technica:

We've received a few question on this one. Yes, what you've heard is true. According to resources on Intel's website, the FC-PGA PIII E series CPU aka Coppermine will not work in SMP configurations. Heh, that's what they think . Seriously, check out the FC-PGA CPUs listed (e.g., the 550E). All of the FC-PGA CPUs listed have this note attached:

"These processors cannot be used in Dual Processor (DP) applications."

Doh! The good news is, the Slot-1 PIII E CPUs don't have this note attached to them anywhere (e.g., Slot-1 600E). I find it odd that they'd do this, I mean, these CPUs are sportin' the same cores, and they're both supposed to be high-end solutions. Now the question is, how far did they go in disabling SMP, and are they gearing up to charge extra for SMP capable CPUs? 'Tis not exactly brand new news, but there's been foads of e-mail on this one.

Blij nieuws voor NT4 gebruikers, want Betanews weet ons te vertellen dat SP6 gereleased is. Hier de soep:

After a long beta test, Microsoft has released Service Pack 6 for NT4. SP6 includes tons of updates in areas such as the Base Operating System, Year 2000 Issues, Networking, Shell, Security, etc. SP6 comes in both Standard and High encyption.

- SP6 Readme
- Lijst met updates & fixes
- NT4 SP6 website

Ook Gamespot heeft een vergelijking van de Intel PIII-733EB en Athlon 700 gepost, waaruit wederom blijkt dat de nieuwe PIII in de meeste benchmarks voorop loopt:

What seems to have happened is that Intel has come from behind and achieved parity with AMD. This is no doubt a relief to Intel, but it's still very significant that Athlon can stand up to Intel's latest and greatest and hold its own. Once AMD shrinks Athlon to 0.18 micron, AMD may once again have the opportunity to pull ahead. As before, AMD's biggest Achilles' heel continues to be the motherboard and core-logic chipset problems. I would have liked to run the AMD tests on a shipping off-the-shelf motherboard, but neither the FIC or Asus motherboards could complete all the benchmark tests.

harry gaf deze link naar een nieuwe MPEG-4 solid state (geen tape storage) camera van Sharp:

World's First MPEG-4 Digital Recorder Expands the Possibilities of Internet Communication Introducing the VN-EZ1 Internet ViewCam -- an MPEG-4 digital recorder made for the multimedia age. This new breed of digital video camera makes it easier than ever for computer users to incorporate moving pictures into their multimedia applications, such as home pages, Internet broadcasts, and e-mail. Utilizing the newly developed MPEG-4 digital moving picture compression standard and Microsoft® Corporation's Advanced Streaming Format, the Internet ViewCam produces moving picture files that are small in size and thus more practical for Internet distribution. And because the video data is recorded onto SmartMedia™ memory cards, tape hassles become a thing of the past. "Click" inside, and discover the exciting possibilities of the Internet ViewCam. Note: The VN-EZ1 will be available from June or August 1999. Debut date varies depending on the market.