Onze vrienden van de BSA hebben aangekondigd nu ook de warez channels op IRC aan te zullen gaan pakken. Hoe ze dat willen gaan doen mogen ze zelf uit gaan vogelen, hier heb je in ieder geval al wat geleuter uit de press release:

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) today announced it has launched a new initiative aimed at shutting down illegal trafficking in software on the Internet. As part of the initiative, BSA has filed a lawsuit against twenty-five individuals allegedly participating in the "warez4cable" IRC channel, an Internet forum used to traffic in pirated software. This is the first lawsuit ever filed against individuals for pirating software in an IRC channel.

In the past week, under the supervision of U.S. Marshals, BSA carried out unannounced inspections of computer equipment at residences in Sacramento and Downey, CA, and in Troy and West Bloomfield, MI, seizing five computers. Under U.S. law, all twenty-five defendants named in the lawsuit are potentially liable for damages up to $100,000 per copyrighted work infringed.

"Because of the increased access to high-speed connections, piracy in IRC channels is fast becoming one of the most popular ways to traffic in illegal software on the Internet," said Bob Kruger, vice president of enforcement for BSA. "That is why BSA is taking immediate action against this aggressive form of piracy," continued Kruger.

The lawsuit results from months of intensive investigation by BSA's Online Investigative Unit. By using a special subpoena procedure created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act enacted by Congress in 1998, BSA was able to identify the individuals named in the suit and take legal action against them. The lawsuit adds a new dimension to BSA's Internet anti-piracy campaign that to date has involved the shutting down of thousands of warez web sites and working closely with law enforcement to promote criminal prosecutions.

"This lawsuit is part of BSA's on-going campaign to keep the Internet from becoming a safe haven for the conduct of software piracy," said Kruger. "Anyone who thinks that they can hide behind the anonymity of the Internet to commit copyright infringement had better know that the law gives them no quarter," continued Kruger.

|TheDuke| schrijft: "ISDN zonder telefoontikken aangeboden door KPN. Ja, je leest het goed : KPN!":

Beoogd KPN-voorzitter Paul Smits heeft gezegd 'nog dit jaar of 'zeer begin volgend jaar' met een ISDN-abonnement voor Internet te komen waarbij geen tikken meer in rekening zullen worden gebracht. In dat geval zullen kabelexploitanten waarschijnlijk antwoorden met een prijsverlaging, denkt het management van Chello.

Ok, leuk, maar ik zit op een analoge modem .

Compaq introduceert de iPaq, een simpele legacy-free PC die enigzins voortborduurt op het idee achter de Netwerk Computer. Wat betreft design is het apparaat enigzins vergelijkbaar met de Sun Ray:

Compaq komt met een uitgeklede, legacy-free PC voor bedrijfsnetwerken. 'Legacy-free' betekent dat er geen ouderwetse ISA-sloten meer in het systeem zitten. De Compaq iPaq heeft zelfs geen PCI-sloten. Alles gaat via de USB-poort; de enige andere aansluitingen op de iPaq zijn voor de monitor, het toetsenbord en het geluid. Het moet trouwens eens afgelopen zijn met het plaatsen van een kleine 'i' voor nieuwe producten. De coolheid is er inmiddels wel vanaf. De iPaq is vanaf januari 2000 leverbaar voor 499 dollar (exclusief monitor).

En zo gaan wij op en neer: eerst wist Gamespot te vertellen dat de Dreamcast de laatste Sega console zou worden, toen volgde Sega Web met een bericht dat het voorgaande allemaal lulkoek zou zijn ('foutje in de vertaling') en nu schrijft The Register dat het toch echt wel allemaal waar is:

Some claimed that Okawa's comments had been incorrectly translated, but according to GIA, that's exactly what he said.

"I will say that the future doesn't necessarily lie in the hardware business," said Okawa. "I think in the future there is the possibility of Sega becoming a software-only company...

[...] But Sega is clearly worried about the effect of PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's rather more distant N64 successor, codenamed Dolphin. And it should be. The original PlayStation did for the Sega's 16-bit MegaDrive in no uncertain terms, and has easily outsold even the technologically superior 64-bit N64. Sony is going to promote the 128-bit PlayStation 2 is going to be promoted even harder than it did the PSX, not least because the Japanese giant has in mind a much bigger role for the device than mere games console. Even without Dolphin, that's going to hard for the much smaller Sega to compete with.

Verder zou ook de dreiging dat Microsoft de console markt binnen komt wandelen een rol mee gespeeld hebben.

Het Koreaanse bedrijf OSK heeft een Linux port voor het Palm platform in mekaar gefixt, ze schrijft The Register. Het gebeuren heet 'WindStone' en draait op dit moment al op de Motorola Dragonball CPU. Versies voor Intel en ARM processors volgen later:

Korean operation OSK has released what it claims is the first version of Linux for the Palm handheld organiser. In fact, it's not the first -- that honour must go to µCLinux but OSK's WindStone does appear to be the first implementation of the open source OS' kernel to provide PalmOS compatibility too.

WindStone is based on three components, the Kernel Environment, which is actually based on µClinux, itself derived from version 2.0 of the Linux kernel; the Graphics Environment, which provides "a high-speed graphics engine for embedded devices"; and the Portable Environment, which is the PalmOS binary compatibility module.

Na het positieve nieuws van AMD CEO Jerry Sanders, die wist te vertellen dat AMD dit kwartaal mogelijk break-even zal draaien, zijn de AMD aandelen sterk gestegen (hoewel inmiddels al weer licht gedropt). Met Intel verliep het precies tegenovergesteld: de aandelen gingen omlaag, nadat Merrill Lynch & Co. in een rapport had bekend gemaakt weinig heil te zien in de Itanium. Intel's IA-64 platform zou niet kunnen concurreren met Alpha's Wildfire technologie:

The share price of AMD fell by a couple of bucks this morning after its precipitous ramp yesterday. But it did not drop as much as Intel's price, which fell by over five dollars after Merrill Lynch issued a warning on the stocks.

Merrill Lynch has shoved Intel down a notch to "accumulate" rather than "buy", following yesterday's news from AMD. Other Wall Street analysts are now promoting AMD as a buy, following reports from the firm that it could break even in Q4.

More worryingly for Intel, the Merrill Lynch report expresses doubts about whether the Merced-Itanium will work wonders in the marketplace. [break] Check The Register voor meer info.

Update: C|Net News.com heeft ook een artikel gepost over het Merril Lynch rapport: [/break] Merrill Lynch cited increasing competition from AMD as one of the reasons for the downgrade. As reported yesterday, AMD said it stands a good chance of breaking even in the fourth quarter, substantially better than the large loss expected earlier, because of improved sales of flash memory and microprocessors. The company also outlined its product road map for 2000. Although Merrill analysts said they were upbeat about the AMD meeting, they did not change the rating on the stock.

In another report on AMD, Osha stated: "Despite the improved earnings outlook, however, we are not changing our intermediate-term and long-term neutral ratings. We believe that AMD is going to encounter the same competitive response from Intel as it attempts to ramp the Athlon as it did during the ramp of the K6. Intel has the ability to drop prices aggressively on the PIII lineup if it wants to, especially given Intel's own recent move to the P858 0.18 micron process."

R-Pov.com heeft een interview met Scott Miller, mede-eigenaar van 3D Realms, op het net geplant. Uiteraard werden er een aantal vragen over Duke Nukem Forever gesteld, waaronder deze over het wapen arsenaal dat Duke ter beschikking zal krijgen:

stonewall: Duke Nukem 3D had an arsenal that was imaginative and a blast to use. So much so that the weaponry, in my opinion, has yet to be equaled in a first person shooter. Which of the original DN3D weapons are currently still in the plans to be included in Duke Nukem Forever?

Scott: Duke will have several improved versions of his basic DN3D arsenal, as well as several all- new weapons. Our philosophy with weapons, beginning back with DN3D, is that more is not necessarily better instead, weapon balance and variety are the two most important factors. Weapon balance means that weapons should not get increasingly more powerful. We design the top five or six weapons to be equal in power, but each weapon has a unique strategic use, as well as an Achilles' heel.

Ik kwam bij Ace's Hardware wat handige info tegen over de ALi Aladdin 7, een super socket 7 chipset met support voor 133MHz FSB (K6-2+ / K6-III+?) en geïntegreerde 3D graphics:

Thanks to KH for the head up!! Now check this taiwanese place for a cool Alladin 7 picture and some info. For instance 133MHz memory FSB and 128bit memory bus. It again mentions abotu the T&L engine thats built into the video part. The polygon rate quoted is 12.5M polygons per second and pixel rate is about 250M pixels/sec. Now with the souped up memory subsystem this might prove to be a nice and cheap small server platform with K6-3 and the T&L engine might allow some limited lowend CAD work to be done.

Verder hebben ze een link naar een plaatje van de Epox K7VA (Athlon bord met VIA KX133 chipset, zie o.a. deze nieuwsposting):

Marius stuurde deze link naar nieuwsartikel van Webwereld. Zo te lezen heeft de DoJ geen zin om de rechtszaak tegen Microsoft in een lame schikking te laten eindigen:

Zonder overigens specifiek op de zaak Microsoft in te gaan, stelde Klein tijdens een antitrust-workshop dat hij er duidelijk de voorkeur aangeeft dat antitrustzaken tot het einde toe in de rechtszaak worden uitgevochten, boven het onderling regelen middels een schikking.

Klein noemde volgens persbureau Reuters twee vorige zaken waarover hij teleurgesteld is dat deze via een schikking werden opgelost: de 9 miljard kostende overname van Northtrop Grumman door vliegtuigbouwer Lockheed Martin en de acquisitie van satellietbedrijf door PrimeStar.

Met Microsoft wil Klein deze weg duidelijk niet bewandelen. De topambtenaar wil er duidelijk een principezaak van maken.

Abit kondigt een plank aan die je vooral niet wilt kopen:

Introducing a Micro ATX slot 1 board with PC99 color-coded connectors and double-decked I/O designed for the fastest Slot 1CPUs (Pentium® III processors 100/133MHz FSB) and re-aligning Value PC standards, ABIT brings to the market the WB6. “Based on Intel’s new 810e chipset the WB6 is poised to bring our greatest price to performance ratio yet” touts ABIT PR Manager Jeremy Smith.

With the 810e chipset, the WB6 supports: 66/100/133 MHz Front Side Bus speeds, Ultra DMA33/66, Two 168-pin DIMM sockets support SDRAM modules for up to 512MB with stand-by voltage to support the STR (Suspend to RAM) function and integrated AGP 2X 3D graphics accelerator with 100MHz Dynamic Display Memory Interface and On board AC Link ’97 video with 4MB SDRAM Graphics Memory, Micro ATX form factor, 3 PCI slots and One AMR slot.

Check de press release voor meer info.

Ga'ash Soffer van Voodoo Extreme heeft een artikel neer gemikt met speculaties over nieuwe CPU's die volgend jaar hun opwachting zullen maken. Hier een stukje:

-The Athlon is a hell of a product. It outperforms Intel counterparts significantly and costs around the same price. It's really a shame that OEMs aren't adopting the Athlon and that motherboard manufacturers are reluctant to make Slot A MBs.

-The L1 cache looks like it has a great impact on Athlon's performance. 128K L1 is an insane amount. Since Spec and many other benchmarks depend a lot on cache, the 128K L1 cache may be one of the main (the main) reason the Athlon significantly outperforms Intel counterparts. Then again, fact is: Athlon is faster than P3.

-Coppermine shows more clearly the effects of cache.

-Merced estimated performance is around 50 SpecInt95, 75 SpecFP95. Not bad.

-EPIC sounds promising; however, compilers will be key.

-AMD Sledgehammer claims to close the gap on RISC processors in FPU performance. I have my doubts; RISC processors improve as well.

The Register heeft meer info gepost over de nieuwe Athlon modellen die medio volgend jaar door AMD geïntroduceerd zullen worden (zie ook deze nieuwsposting van eerder vandaag):

Thunderbird will be a .18 micron K7 device with on die cache and coming in both Slot A and Socket A configurations.

Spitfire will be a chip with on-die cache and aimed at the Intel Celeron market. It will use Socket A.

Mustang will be an Athlon with on-die cache of up to 2Mb, using an enhanced core and coming in both Socket A and Slot A configuration. There will be another version of Mustang aimed at the low end mobile market and coming in a Socket A configuration.

Through 2000, AMD will move from a .18 aluminium interconnect to a .18 copper interconnect technology, with processor speeds at and surpassing 1GHz and using a 256MHz front side system bus.

AMD will also introduce SMP Athlons for two to eight way systems, and employing the double data rate (DDR) memory configuration, having a 266MHz front side bus, and supporting 4X AGP Pro and PCI 66/64. The company will look to scale these processors even higher, using either Alpha technology or its own Hotrail technology.

WAcKiN` schrijft: "Ik kreeg het perspericht over de telex waar ik werk (een krant dus). Blijkbaar wil de OPTA dat hun grote vriend KPN in samenwerking met de andere telecom- en Internetproviders een inbelnetwerk opzet dat los staat van het 'gewone' bel netwerk van KPN. Dit om de connectie kosten van KPN en de gewone KPN tikken te verminderen. Da's toch goed voor ons?":

In een vandaag gepubliceerde discussienotitie vraagt OPTA telecombedrijven, Internetproviders, consumentenorganisaties en alle andere belangstellenden mee te discussiëren over toegang tot Internet. De notitie legt verbanden tussen de enorme groei van Internet, de schaarste in het KPN-net, de betalingen van telecombedrijven aan Internetaanbieders, het eindgebruikerstarief en mogelijke verstoringen van de concurrentieverhoudingen. Er is ook een samenvatting van de notitie beschikbaar.

scar@dds.nl" rel="external">Oscar stuurde: een link naar BurnAllGifs.org, waar men een actie is gestart tegen Unisys, die plotseling zijn policy heeft gewijzigd wat betreft het gratis gebruik van het GIF formaat. GIF maakt gebruik van de door Unisys gepatenteerde LZW compressie methode. Unisys eist nu dat programma's die gebruik maken van het LZW algoritme een licentie nodig hebben en dat maakt de ontwikkeling van bijv. freeware GIF animators of viewers vrijwel onmogelijk:

LZW is used in an obsolete graphic format called GIF, which many web sites use in order to be compatible with old web browsers. Unisys is now demanding that web sites pay them $5000 or more to use these now-obsolete GIF graphics if the software originally used to create the GIFs was not covered by an appropriate Unisys license.

Roger stuurde: een link naar een review van het draadloze AirBoard tikplankje. Naast gebruik voor normaal typewerk blijkt dit bord erg handig zijn bij het spelen van games op een TV:

Let me put it this way - gaming on a big screen TV through a home theatre setup ROCKS. You have not really played MechWarriors: Mercanaries, MotoRacer and Tomb Raider 2 until you've played on a big screen through a home theatre setup.

Ok, you lose on the resolution - some of the small text can be quite difficult to read; but you get a much more "immersive" gaming experience from the big screen.

It is not really a typists keyboard and the keys feel a bit rubbery; but it is fine for casual use. Let's be honest here, nobody is going to use it to write the next "War and Peace" in their living room using the TV as a monitor.

Firingsquad kreeg de kans om een bezoekje te brengen aan id Software headquarters, om daar Quake 3 Arena te betatesten. Da's natuurlijk allemaal erg leuk, maar wij tweakers zijn vooral geïnteresseerd in hardware :

Well, anyone who knows id knows about the fabled id garage - John Carmack's obsession with Ferraris has garnered him the prized possession of all Ferraris, the amazing F-50. The rest of the id team trails behind slightly, but most have vehicles that cost more than many folks' salaries. Being the remoras that we are, Dave and I took the last few minutes of our time in Texas to check out id's rides. Here you go, in all their shiny carbon-fiber and sheet-metal glory!

Voor de Q3 info moet je hier zijn.

Dit is op zich opmerkelijk te noemen: Matrox heeft altijd zijn eigen videokaarten gemaakt, op een enkele OEM na die de chips op een moederbord geintegreerd heeft. Nu brengt Gigabyte een nieuwe kaart uit die gebaseerd is op de single head G400 chip van matrox. Matrox users serveert de soep:

When is a G400 not aG400? When it's a GA-MG400. GigaByte are producing their own G400 based boards which are equivalent of the Millennium G400 singlehead card. Obviously being based on the G400 chip it has all of the same features as the Matrox Millennium G400. I wonder if they'll produce a MAX version, now that would be interesting... [break]Verder heeft Matrox ook nieuwe drivers voor de Gx00 series voor Windows NT uitgebracht. Die kan je hier vinden, of direct hier neerhalen (3,2 MB) Dit is de lijst met verbeteringen en known bugs (helaas nog veel OpenGL ellende): [/break]

New Features
- Added 1280x960 support
- DualHead Zoom feature can be used with the flat panel and TV out.

Main Fixes
- Improved Bus Mastering.
- Fixed Bypass mode problem on RRG and Marvel boards.
- Fixed black screen on flat panel with G200 MMS board.
- 3D Studio Max OGL Extension fixes
- Fixed DDC on certain monitors.
- Fixed problem when bringing the task manager while Fog City is running.
- Fixed problem in AutoCAD 2000 where Gouraud shaded image is in flat color.
- General bug fixes for 3dsmax buffer region.
- Fixed the corruption problem with the G100 at high resolution.
- Fixed crash with a TV and DDC monitor when multi-display mode is applied.
- Fixed the freezes in ProEngineer (ver19) when running benchmark test.
- Fixed a slowdown in Glaze3D demo.

Main known issues
- Freezes in Quake 2.
- Problems when Rendering RayTrace in OGL.
- Refresh problems in Pro Enginner.
- Corruptions in HL when using OGL.
- Corruptions in Q3 Arena when using OGL.
- Blank preview in SoftImage when previewing in OGL.

c't heeft benchmarks van een 450MHz G4 gepost en vergelijkt 'm o.a. met een PIII-500 en Athlon 750. Laat ik maar meteen het commentaar van JC rippen, da's wel interessant (en bovendien engels, duits leest niet echt relaxed):

Neat. c't put a G4 running at 450MHz through their heavy floating point pain tests. In Cinema 4D (an insane 3D raytracer) The G4-450 scored 6, well ahead of the PIII-500, which scored a 4.84 (for you "clock for clock" people, that's .0133 points per MHz for the G4 and only .0097 for the PIII). The 750MHz Athlon in their tests scored 9.77 (again for you ipc folk, that's .0130 points per MHz for the K7). Thanks to Armand Hirt for pointing me in this direction.

BTW, note that depending on the linearity of the app, ipc may drop as clock speeds go up, so at 750MHz, both the G4 and the PIII might be slower per clock than their 450/500 scores. Of course, mind you, the 7xxMHz version of the PIII contains more efficient cach, this might cause its ipc to go up a little. Also, by the time G4 hits 750MHz, it will likely have an added decoder and execution unit, which may increase its ipc (on the other hand, that "G4+" also has a deeper pipeline, which can drop ipc -- the two effects may cancel each other out).

Interestingly enough, these numbers seem to strongly agree with the specfp numbers so far advertised by Motorola, Intel, and AMD.

Niet dat wij tweakers geïnteresseerd zijn in Gateway systemen, maar voor AMD is een vette OEM deal wel belangrijk... AMD Zone heeft van contacten bij Gateway begrepen dat het op de 23ste van deze maand begint met de produktie van Athlon systemen:

That's the word I'm hearing from a contact from Gateway. The contact says they are to begin production on the 23rd of this month. If anyone can confirm/deny this, let me know. [break] En later... [/break] I have received more confirmations of Gateway making Athlon systems. The latest is that they have been ordering processors from 550MHz to 750MHz from AMD. I have now heard this from Gateway contacts, and AMD contacts. Suck it down Intel.

Epox heeft wat meer info losgelaten over hun Athlon Slot-A plaat met de VIA KX133 chipset. Volgens eerdere berichten stond het moederbord gepland voor eind november, maar dit is nu helaas begin 2000

- Supports AMD Athlon™.
- ATX form factor.
- VIA 'KX133' with 686A.
- 200MHz Front Side Bus support.
- 5 PCI, 1 ISA, 1 AMR, 1 AGP.
- 3 DIMM. 768MB SDRAM max.
- ATA 66 EIDE.
-AGP 4x mode support.
-Onchip Audio AC-97.
-Estimated Release Date: TBD (Q1 2000).

Exxtreme 3D heeft een review in elkaar gezet van de Logitech Mouseman Wheel Cordless. Schijnt een erg prettig beestje te zijn:

Well you probably all read the title, which kind of gives away all the surprise factor. Yes indeed, there is no cord attached! This mouse uses radio technology to communicate with the transmitter (which plugs into your computer in the PS/2 or Serial Port). The mouse can be away from the transmitter for up to six feet. You will need two AAA batteries for the mouse, which are included and are guaranteed to work for quite a while (around 3-5 months).

In my test, this technology proved to be very accurate and I never had transmission problems, but your results may vary depending on the appliances on your home. The mouse can connect on quite a large number of channels/frequencies, which should counteract any problems that you may have with interference. This mouse seems to fit perfectly in your hands, though. The design is one of the best I’ve ever seen and could be considered a piece of art (if there was such a thing as hardware art…).

Bij Active Hardware hebben ze eens gekeken naar de AOpen AX63 Pro moederbord met de VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset. De CPU settings kunnen mbv het BIOS aangepast worden, erg handig voor overklokkers. Lees de hele review hier.

This board's expansion capabilities are similar to most modern boards in its 5/2/1 design. This translates to 5 PCI slots, 2 ISA slots, and 1 AGP port. Also, its 3 168-pin DIMM sockets can accomodate a maximum 768MB of memory.

Configuration of the AX63 is effected totally within the BIOS submenu "Chipset Features Setup". Within this menu, we may: adjust the clock frequencies, choose clock multipliers, and adjust the processor's core voltage. Finally, a pair of jumpers (JP23 and JP29) permits the user to choose the range of clock frequencies available in the BIOS menu. Choices available include: automatic frequency adjustment by the system, 66Mhz to 83Mhz, 90Mhz to 124Mhz, and 124Mhz to 155Mhz. Within the BIOS, it is also possible to adjust the memory speed to that of the front side bus and to add or subtract 33Mhz from that frequency. For example, you can set your processor to operate at with a FSB of 133Mhz, and subtract 33Mhz from that frequency in order to employ PC100 memory.

As mentioned, the processor's core voltage is also adjustable via a BIOS function. The processor's voltage can be set to a level between 2.0 and 2.2v.

Available clock frequencies, according to the user's manual, include: 66/75/78/81/83/90/95/100/105/110/112/113/115/117/118/120/124/126/133/

135/137/138/140/142/144/150 and 155Mhz, with clock multipliers available between 1.5X and 8X in steps of 0.5X.

Op deze page hebben ze eens gekeken wat de verschillen zijn tussen de 3.53 en 3.56 Detonator drivers. Zoals al werd verwacht is er niet echt sprake van een grote vooruitgang. Check hier de resultaten.

Bij Sharky Extreme hebben ze een review gepost van de vette Falcon Northwest Special Edition Xentor TNT2 videokaart, geklokt op 195/235MHz. Nu met de GeForce op de markt issie eigenlijk niet meer hard nodig, maar het blijft wel een cool kaartje:

Falcon and Guillemot included a custom version of the PowerSprinter overclocking utility with the SE Xentor. The first difference between this software and the version included with the Xentor boards is the Falcon SE logo right on top of the PowerSprinter screen. The Falcon SE Xentor PowerSpinter software also increases the maximum clock speeds over the one distributed with the standard Xentor cards. While previous versions maxed out at 185 MHz clock/220 MHz memory, the Xentor 32 SE PowerSprinter software allows an incredible 220MHz-clock/250 MHz memory clock combination.

In previous Xentor 32 overclock testing, I was able to achieve a high of 183 MHz clock and 200 MHz memory. The default Falcon SE Xentor settings put this to shame and the prospect of strapping this bad boy on the overclocking rack was very enticing. When overclocking a split-clock card like the TNT2, it's easier to diagnose problems if you adjust one setting at a time. The core clock speed was the natural first choice and I was able to get a high of 205 MHz (410 MPixels/sec. fill rate) before I had the slightest hint of texture degradation. The highest memory clock rate I could drag out of the Falcon SE Xentor was 241 MHz, only an increase of 6 MHz. Moving the memory slider any higher would hard lock my PC, as opposed to the texture problems experienced when going too high on the clock rate. The Falcon SE Xentor is similar to a souped-up hotrod, running right at the ragged edge, and it's not surprising that further overclocking is not one of its strong suits.

Anand heeft deel 3 van zijn AMD Athlon Buyer's Guide op z'n site gemikt. Zoals je al doorhad wordt nu getest welke videokaart je het beste in je Athlon systeem kan hangen. Hieronder een hap uit de conclusie:

It turns out that the video cards we compared performed virtually identically across the three different CPUs. While the scores were naturally higher on the faster Athlon 700, the breakdown of fastest and slowest of the bunch remained relatively similar at all three CPU speeds. The GeForce 256 is the fastest of the group, but we already knew that from our review of the GeForce 256 itself.

Because of the power of the CPUs themselves, the Matrox G400MAX fairs very well in the tests, often times beating out the TNT2 Ultra. Not to mention that the G400MAX brings quite a few features to the table (i.e. DualHead) that the TNT2 Ultra cannot deliver. The faster memory clock of the G400MAX gives it a good boost in 32-bit color rendering situations, sometimes even pulling ahead of the "faster" GeForce.

The Voodoo3 performs quite nicely, but the Voodoo3 truly shines on CPUs slower than the Athlon where the TNT2 and G400 don't fair as well.

rode indiaan schrijft: "Deze "techneuten" hebben het voor elkaar gekregen om een Intel 486 SX 25 over te klokken op 120MHz! OK, echt wetenschappelijk is het niet maar zeker lache! Tjek bijvoorbeeld ff de test-setup:":

Cooling was begun. The door was closed and the power dial turned up to 11. The whole unit was left for 3 hours while the trusty ToTL technicians retired to "Solos's Diner" to discuss the experiment and eat too much carbonara.

Note: The Freezer used is a Lec Power Larder, chosen for its superior freezing ability. Its dial can be raised to a freezing factor of 11, where most freezers can only manage a pathetic 10. A large portion of the success of this experiment can be attributed to this (rather than the skill of the technicians).

Hehe, ok een geintje kan er wel even tussendoor . Check de rest hier.

KidPaddle schrijft: "Nou, het verhaal dat Sega geen verdere consoles zou maken lijkt op een misverstand te rusten. Communicatie voutje.. tja, Japans-Engels gaat wel eens mis.":

A competitor's site posted a story about Dreamcast being Sega's last console, but they were in error. Read the official response!

Earlier today, Videogames.com posted a story about a Sega executive, Isao Okawa, saying that Dreamcast was Sega's last console, and that the future of the company was in software and the Internet. We even ran the story ourselves! However, something smelled off about the whole deal, and Sega Web got curious...especially when it led to a rumor that Sega was about to be bought out by Microsoft!

Considering Microsoft is facing some serious consequences of being found to be a monopoly by the US government, we could resist no longer and called up our contact at Sega for the full monty on the situation. As it turns out, there were translation problems between Mr. Okawa and some of his English-speaking listeners. Sega Web e-mailed a Sega representative directly and got the full scoop from an eyewitness to the interview.

According to Sega, an editor asked, "If the Dreamcast does not succeed, how will Sega compete in the future?" Mr. Okawa's response was that the "future of Sega is the Internet, not hardware." What he was trying to convey is that Sega is going to be focusing its efforts increasingly on the Internet. That means using the Internet as a delivery system for software, online gameplay, e-commerce, etc. However, you still need some form of hardware to receive that information.

Sega will not be delivering content for PSX2, Dolphin or the PC through the Internet. So, Sega will always need to develop some form of console. Sega Dreamcast will have a long future thanks to it upgradability and evolutionary design. However, to say that Dreamcast will be the last console Sega will ever produce, is short sighted and not Mr. Okawa's intention at all.

Mr. Okawa knows that Sega's strength against Sony and Nintendo is its ability to pursue new technologies and advances designed to expand the gameplay experience, such as the Internet. Sony's PSX2 doesn't even have a built in Internet solution, nor have either of our competitors outlined any form of Internet strategy for their new systems, as Sega has already done publicly.

Sega is a little hesitant to host interviews with Japanese executives because of the translation problems. Mr. Okawa in no way meant Sega was getting out of the hardware business: he merely wanted to emphasize the importance Sega is placing on exploiting the Internet as the next great resource for advancing gameplay.

So there you have it, Sega fans! Fear not, the future of Sega does not end with Dreamcast...it's just the new beginning!

Roger schrijft: "Hier staat uitleg hoe je het beste een stabiel Athlon systeem kan bouwen, dus over moederbord, voeding etc etc.":

About a week ago I got an Athlon 500 and MSI 6167 board. I took it home and installed it, along with a chunky VEK32 cooler from Eyo. The problems started from the get-go as it got blue screens and spontaneous reboots while trying to re-detect the new hardware of the motherboard. I deltree'd Windows and attempted a reinstall, which took forever because of continuing lockups and spontaneous reboots. After a couple of hours I got sick of it and took the board back and exchanged it for an FIC SD11 board. The FIC board didn't even finish POSTing. It kept re-scanning for SCSI devices on my SCSI card in an infinite loop, and if I went into the SCSI bios it would have a corrupt screen. I rang back and asked if I could try a different MSI board, because it went a lot better than the FIC board and perhaps I just had a dud, or the original version which had known issues with some AGP cards. The shop guy agreed and this time I decided to put the machine together in the shop and test it in front of him rather than wasting my time going back home and having it screw up there. As it turns out this was a good move (or non-move , because it went better for awhile, but then blue screened when it attempted to detect the network card. It also beeped continuously with a blank screen with the Siemens RAM in it before POSTing (which it never got around to actually doing), when I took it out and just left my NEC ram in it, it was sort of fine (well, getting to a blue screen is more progress than no POST .

Dit verhaaltje kun je hier aflezen

News.com heeft een interessant nieuwsartikeltje gepost met info over de AMD Roadmap tot eind 2000. Op het programma staat o.a. de 'Thunderbird', een verbeterde versie van de Athlon met geïntegreerd L2 cache en snelheden tot 1GHz, die midden volgend jaar geïntroduceerd zal worden:

Even so, AMD has planned out an aggressive chip road map through the end of 2000. In the first quarter, AMD will release 800-MHz versions of the Athlon and continue to manufacture more of its chips with copper, rather than aluminum, wires, which is expected to boost performance.

By the middle of the year, AMD will release "Thunderbird," a new version of the Athlon that will contain, for the first time, an integrated secondary cache. Caches are small memory reservoirs for processors. Although many chips have secondary caches, performance goes up when it gets integrated into the same piece of silicon. Intel recently integrated the cache into its "Coppermine" Pentium IIIs.

Thunderbird will run up to 1 GHz. Simultaneously, AMD will release a scaled-down, less-costly version code-named "Spitfire." Although built on the same chip core, Thunderbird and Spitfire will differ in speed, packaging, bus speed, and cache size so that AMD can fit into as many market segments as possible, said Rob Herb, senior vice president of sales.

By the end of next year, AMD will debut a high-end chip code-named "Mustang" that will work in powerful servers with two, four, and eight CPUs, he said. The Mustang chips will come with as much as 2MB of cache built into the Mustang for mobiles.

Verder zal er dit kwartaal een 533MHz versie van de K6-2 gereleased worden, die in 2000 zal worden opgevolgd door de K6-2+ en K6-III+. Beide procs zullen gebakken worden op 0,18micron.

Een schietpartij in Brazilië, waarbij 3 mensen om het leven kwamen, zou volgens de lokale politie een imitatie zijn van een scene uit het wrede computerspelletje Duke3D. Check de crap:

In the game, the player can find a similar automatic gun before entering a cinema building. Then, he can go into the cinema's bathroom, where some evil monsters hide and before finally entering the movie theater.

Meira also entered the cinema's bathroom before the massacre and fired one shot in the mirror there. In the game, mirrors spectacularly crack when hit by bullets, sometimes revealing hidden weapons or useful objects.

Philips gaat de tiling techniek van Rainbow Displays Inc. gebruiken om voor relatief weinig geld grote LCD schermen te produceren. Zal er wel op neer komen dat ze simpelweg een aantal kleine schermen tegen een elkaar kwakken en samen vormen die één grote display...

Philips Flat Display Systems is betting on a seamless tiling display technology that it says will deliver unprecedented price/performance for 36-inch and larger flat-panel displays within just a few years.

An increasingly potent player in flat-panel displays, Philips FDS has put "a substantial joint-development team in place" to create products based on the tiling technology of Rainbow Displays Inc. (Endicott, N.Y.), said Hafiz Haq, vice president for business development and strategic planning at Philips FDS, based here. The company has also taken a minority equity stake in privately held Rainbow.

If the joint project bears fruit, those shopping for a big TV in 2001 may have a new technology choice along with CRTs, rear-projection sets and plasma displays.

Tiling, said Steve Sedaker, vice president of sales and marketing at Rainbow, "is a breakthrough and enabling display technology that combines several smaller-size displays to produce a single, large flat display without any visible seams." In Rainbow's case, the tiles consist of active-matrix (AM) liquid-crystal display panels.

Check EETimes voor meer info.

Goed nieuws voor AMD, want CEO Jerry Sanders heeft voorspeld dat AMD dit kwartaal mogelijk een break-even omzet zal halen. Hier de info van Techweb, afkomstig uit een press release van Reuters:

AMD's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, W.J. (Jerry) Sanders III, told analysts at a meeting that business "looks terrific" and that the company is executing well. He also told analysts that revenues in the fourth quarter should exceed $800 million, which he said would be a record.

Sanders said that, barring any unforeseen events, "We believe our break-even goal is attainable."

[...] The chip maker had also previously forecast that it would be able to produce 1 million of its new Athlon processors by the end of the year, including the 200,000 Athlons AMD shipped during the third quarter.

AMD recently said it will able to produce 1 million Athlon processors in the fourth quarter alone, surpassing its previous goals. According to Sanders, AMD also expects to produce an 800-megahertz version of its Athlon processor in the first quarter of 2000, about three months ahead of schedule.

AMD previously said it expected to ship 5 million microprocessor units in the fourth quarter, including its K6 family and Athlon. That now appears to be conservative, the CEO said, adding, "It appears to be a floor."

Eric heeft benchmarks gepost van zijn naar 165/195MHz overgeklokte peltier gekoelde Asus V6600. Vooral op hoge resoluties bleek de overgeklokte GeForce beduidend sneller te zijn:

It's quite interesting to look at the temperatures.. In all cases the temperature went up with the resolution. All temperatures in the table are from running Quake 3 Hi-Q at 1600x1200 for some time.. What I think is also interesting is that the temperature already rises quite heavily when only the memory clock is adjusted... When both core and memory are overclocked with temperature rises 3.7 degrees Celsius, which is more than 30% !!!! And all that with a 40 Watt peltier trying to chill the chip.

When we look at the performance numbers we see that the biggest gain is in the 1600x1200 resolution with "normal" detail settings.. Here we see a gain of around 10 fps which is about 30%. All other resolutions show less increase than that.

Check de benchmarks op Fastgraphics.com.

Volgens PC World zal VIA voor het eind van het eerste kwartaal 2000 de VIA Joshua socket370 proc releasen:

Positioned as a competitor to Intel's Celeron family, Via's Joshua processor series will feature a faster 133-MHz system bus interface, although the company did not reveal the clock speeds of the processors set to power prototype systems to be demonstrated at Comdex.

Previously known as Gobi, the code name National Semiconductor used for the chip series, Joshua will be designed around a different processor core than the M-II series, and will also feature 256KB of on-chip Level 2 cache memory. The Joshua processors will come in packaging designed for the same Socket 370 that Intel uses for its entry-level Celeron line.

Verder zal VIA de Cyrix MII herintroduceren. De MII-433 zal op 300MHz draaien bij een 100MHz bus en zou volgens VIA net zo snel moeten zijn als een Celeron 433 (sure, vooral de FPU...).

Abit heeft Softmenu III, dat gebruikt wordt op de nieuwe BE6-II en BF6 borden, aangekondigd. Onder de nieuwe features bevinden zich de mogelijkheid om uit maar liefst 120 busspeeds te kiezen. Verder kan nu ook het I/O voltage, de Oder Queue Depth en de L2 cache latency getweakt worden:

ABIT Computer Corporation announced today a new evolution of their famous SoftMenuTM technology, SoftMenuTM III. Currently only available on the ABIT BF6 and BE6-II because of those board’s use of a newer generation clock generator, SoftMenuTM II provides 120 sets of Front Side Bus speeds, from 66, 75, 83, 84, 85, 86 , 87, 88…. to …198, 199, 200 MHz and unlimited FSB speeds from 83 to 200MHz in increments of one. Power users can now try to find the best FSB with the best system performance. This technology equips ABIT’s products with some of the motherboard industry’s most cutting edge and flexible technology. It also increases compatibility to current and future specifications for CPU parameters.

The I/O voltage is adjustable with 8 sets ( 3.2-3.9 V). This function allows users to adjust the voltage supplied to DRAM, AGP, and Chipsets, greatly increasing the possibility of higher performance and greater stability. “Even the highest quality of motherboards will have some individual differences, being able to have as much control over various settings ensures that the user will be able to achieve the maximum in stability and reliability for his system”, explains ABIT PR Manager Jeremy Smith.

In SoftMenuTM III the CPU Multiplier Factors can be set from 2 to 8 in increments of 0.5, giving a total of 13 sets of multiplier factor support for all current and future CPUs. The CPU Core Voltage 1.3 – 3.5 V is also manually adjustable but protected by SoftMenuTM III from damaging the CPU.

The PCI/CPU FSB Clock now not only has a 1/2 and 1/3 divider setting but now also a 1/4 setting for selection. Users can freely choose between these three choices in most of the 120 FSB settings. This along with SoftMenu’s manual IRQ steering allows for users to more accurately control PCI devices and in this third generation of ABIT’s SoftMenuTM technology, like the previous version, SoftMenuTM II, the AGP/CPU FSB Clock divider settings allow for 1/1 and 2/3 options allowing the user to adjust AGP clock.

In the new SoftMenuTM III, the-Order Queue Depth allows the user to set cache buffer for CPU data processing, and the Level 2 Cache Latency can be set giving adjustment to the CPU L2 cache speed.

Perhaps most useful for the users is the new format, of SoftMenuTM in its third version. It is easier to use because of the new feature of having detailed descriptions in the “Item Help” box to the right. “As the user scrolls through the options, he will be greeted with help in making better informed choices assuring he gets the maximum amount of performance and please from his ABIT board”, says Smith.