Raymond stuurde me deze Voodoo4 en Voodoo5 plaatjes, afkomstig van 3dfx pressweb:

Ik kwam via 3D Accelerated Gaming bij deze pics van Akiba's PC Hotline (hier ook wel bekend als 'wazige japanse site' ).

Caught this over at Akiba PC Hotline. Some nice pics of those Rambus modeules we all love to hate =) I'm not sure that visiting Akiba will do you much good though, it is in Japanese afterall. And keep in mind, the 128mb module shown goes for about $760 US Dollars. Whew.

Kee, ff 5 minuten stilte. 760 dollar dus. Nu de pics:

Ars Technica heeft een review van de Asus K7M neer gelegd. Hoewel Ars over het algemeen tevreden is met de kwaliteit van het bord, lijkt er wel een probleem te zijn met de TNT2 Ultra kaarten. De oorzaak blijkt (alweer) te liggen in een power probleem:

Although our test bed for this round-up used a non-Ultra TNT2 card, I decided to throw an Ultra into the FIC and into the K7M to see if I could verify any of the reports I had heard regarding the K7M's Ultra support. Having none on hand, I busted out and acquired a Guillemot Xentor 32. To keep it short 'n sweet, the rumors are true. The Xentor 32 (which is an Ultra-class card) would consistently lock up the machine when running at it's stock speed. I could get it to run reliably by clocking it down to 150/175 (from the 175/183 it comes at), but what the...? I tried the same card in the FIC board, and I was able to get the Guillemot card up and running on the FIC board all day long with no problems.

Now this is a very interesting turn of events. See, originally FIC was being ripped on because of its finicky power supply support, but now we see that the FIC is, when supported properly, capable of supporting Ultra TNT2 cards. The irony here is that the Ultra card is almost certaily failing because it can't get enough power. The Ultra consumes considerably more power than the standard TNT2, and when you combine that with the power-thirsty Athlon, you've got a serious power strain on your hands. There's a reason why AMD recommends certain power supplies!

Techweb heeft een artikel gepost over de verkrachting van de SCSI standaarden door het toevoeging van allerlei eigenhandige tweaks. IBM kwam bijv. met Ultra160+ en 'packetization', Seagate bedacht een feature genaamd 'fairness' en Quantum voegde de 'Asynchronous Information Protection Feature' toe:

Under a loosely worded SCSI interface standard, a number of disk drive suppliers are shipping incompatible productsthat even industry executives are grumbling about.

On the surface, it's simple: The 16-bit Ultra3 SCSI specification allows data to be transferred at 160 megabytes per second using double-clocking. But delve into the specification, and things get a little murkier. Suppliers have the option of choosing one or a number of performance enhancements, and the result has been a crazy quilt of incompatibility.

[...] At I/O supplier Adaptec, however, dealing with the interface changes is a headache the company is familiar with, said Mark Delsman, director of advanced technology at the Milpitas, Calif., company and a member of the STA board of directors. Revisions to the Ultra160 specification such as IBM's Ultra160+ require a silicon redesign, although Delsman said both the UltraStar 72ZX and the corresponding silicon will be available when the drive ships in the first half of 2000.

According to Delsman, the features promoted in the Ultra3 specification all enhance performance, and he said he expects all of the features will be included in the 320-Mbyte/s Ultra320 spec, which was being ratified last week in Monterey, Calif. The final spec should be in place by March or April, and samples will likely be shown at Comdex in 2000, with production slated for early 2001

Check Techweb voor het complete artikel.

Beetje errug laat, maar daar issie dan: de PCI versie van de Videologic Neon250. Hier een paar zoden uit de press release:

VideoLogic Systems - a division of Imagination Technologies - has today launched a PCI version of its Neon 250 graphics card. Neon 250 PCI will be available from the end of November 1999 from VideoLogic's network of distributors, resellers and retailers for just $169 (USA) / £106 (UK RRP, excluding VAT) and from VideoLogic's web store at www.videologic.com.

The VideoLogic Neon 250 features the NEC PowerVR 250 graphics processor with full PCI 2.1 support and integrated 250 MHz RAMDAC and comes with 32 MB of high performance SDRAM memory running at 125 MHz.

Kevin Dale, VP worldwide marketing and sales, says: "Neon 250 is a performance leader amongst PCI offerings. The demand for PCI accelerators remains considerable but many vendors have decided to ignore this important upgrade market. Neon 250 is the best possible choice for users who are looking to update their PCI 3D graphics."

On an Intel Pentium III 600 based system Neon 250 PCI achieves 64.8 frames per second on the Quake II Crusher demo and 82.7 frames per second on the Quake III Demo1, both at 640x480 resolution. On 3DMark 99 Max, run at 800x600 resolution, Neon 250 PCI scores 4061. 1

On a typical PCI system - an Intel Pentium 200 MMX - Neon 250 PCI achieves 17.5 frames per second on the Quake II Crusher demo and 23.3 frames per second on the Quake III Demo1, both at 640x480 resolution. On 3DMark 99 Max, run at 800x600 resolution, Neon 250 PCI scores 1107.2

Neon 250 is based on the PowerVR 250 chip, part of the PowerVR Series2 family designed by PowerVR Technology and marketed by NEC. Other PowerVR Series2 chips are used in Sega's Dreamcast* console, the Sega Naomi* arcade system and on the R-Cade Vision 250* from VideoLogic Systems for the ArcadePC platform.

GA-Source heeft een artikeltje neer geplant over de aankondiging van de VSA100 chip, die gebruikt zullen worden in de Voodoo4 en Voodoo5 kaarten. Hier een stukje over de geheugen architectuur van de dual en quad VSA100 kaarten:

Dual and quad solutions use memory much the same way as Voodoo2 did, each chip has to have its own allocated memory where all textures have to be loaded. For quad solution this results in the same textures being loaded 4 times in the video card’s local memory. The allocation schema works as follows, first frame buffer memory is allocated then the remaining memory is split in 4 or 2 (quad/dual solutions) equal portions. For example, take the impressive 128MG of Voodoo 5 600. Let’s say 28 MG are allocated to frame buffer, the game applications will be left with (100/4 =) 25 Mg for textures. Which is not very impressive after all.

Iomega (die eindelijk heeft ontdekt dat het magnetische Zip gebeuren niet meer van deze tijd is, en daarom maar achter de CD-RW trein aan huppelt) heeft een externe USB versie van de ZipCD CD-Rewriter aangekondigd:

Iomega Corporation (NYSE:IOM - news), a leader in smart, portable storage solutions, today introduced the ZipCD(TM) external Universal Serial Bus (USB) CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) drive that enables customers to record, create, share and archive up to 650MB of data on a common CD format. Iomega's ZipCD drives are high-capacity, easy-to-use and ideal for saving and sharing original music, personal photos, games, Internet content and more.

The ZipCD(TM) 4x4x6 external USB drive offers an innovative external design and complements Iomega's ZipCD 4x4x24 internal drive, introduced in August 1999, providing customers with a choice of optical storage methods.

``Optical storage, especially CDs, are universal. The proliferation of CD-ROM drives provides consumers with a comfort level regarding the CD platform,'' said Mary Craig, principal analyst, Optical Disk Drives Worldwide at Gartner Group's Dataquest. ``Dataquest is projecting continued solid growth in this segment of the optical storage market with CD-RW drive shipments expected to grow to at least 43 million drives in 2003. The leaders in this growing market will be companies with marketing and channels muscle and a strong brand identity.''

The ZipCD(TM) external USB drive supports standard CD-Recordable (CD-R), CD-ReWriteable (CD-RW) and CD-Read-Only-Memory (CD-ROM) discs, offering customers a universal platform for organizing and archiving files without cluttering up their hard drive or network. By supporting the USB standard, the ZipCD external USB drive is easy to attach and install to computers and laptops, eliminating the need for larger parallel port or SCSI conversion cables or rebooting the computer.

Tom heeft de primeur met de eerste review van Kryotech's nieuwe SuperG koelkast met 1GHz Athlon! Vergeleken met de oude Cool Athlon systemen heeft de SuperG een verbeterde compressor die nu 20Watt meer power levert. Kryotech blijkt uit flink aan de config getweakt te hebben, want de performance van de SuperG scaled bijzonder goed ten op zichte van de Cool Athlon 800 en 900. Hier een stukje uit de conclusie:

Smashing into the 1GHz realm, we have entered a new era in computing. The Kryotech SuperG is a premium product and it offers the very best in performance. This is what SuperG is, the best and that is without a doubt. In every single one of our tests it managed to beat out the very best that the competition had to offer. Even with a revised CPU core and enhanced chipset with higher bus speeds, which at times equals an Athlon at the same speed, the SuperG maintains a strong lead thanks to the wonders of arctic overclocking. It is hands down the fastest PC we've ever used. Not only is it the current performance leader but also it allows owners to step up to the next level thanks to the new design that has multiprocessing and hotter CPUs in mind. With this type of upgrade path they should remain the fastest PCs in the foreseeable future. SuperG isn't for everyone and that's obvious because it's a premium product and we all know that you pay for it. At $2450 the only cost effective feature is the ability to upgrade the Athlon PCB as soon as AMD releases their latest products and at the ability to cool 150 watts, I think you'll be set for quite a while. Another thing to remember is that this unit is by no means a little box that sits by the side of your desk. It isn't just the fastest machine but it's also the bulkiest and heaviest machine we have here in the lab. Don't expect to move this all the time unless you're looking to use it for a good workout.

OMG! Ik las net een stukje over de Voodoo 5 op 3dfx Gamers en het schijnt zo te zijn dat Quantum3D een videokaart met 32 VSA-100 (Voodoo 4/5) chips gaat maken! Als je je realiseerd dat er op een Voodoo 5 6000 (ja, die kaart van 1200 piek ) "maar" 4 van die chips zitten.........

At the heart of both the Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 family of products is 3dfx’s newest chip, the VSA-100 Engine. 3dfx will be able to offer an extremely wide range of products based on this hardware. You’ll see anywhere from single chip (Voodoo4 4000 and 4500) to dual chip (Voodoo5 5000 and 5500) to quad chip products (Voodoo5 6000). Quantum3D will even be offering a 32 chip solution, but with a price tag of up to $40,000, it may not be the type of product you run out and buy for your home computer.

Ik vind het wel vaag hoor. 32 VSA-100 chips op een kaart. Hoe groot moet die kaart wel niet worden (om al die chips te huizen)? Is er wel een CPU die deze kaart kan trekken??
En ik zou de eerste persoon nog moeten tegenkomen die 40000$ voor een videokaart over heeft.

Al met al is het wel stoere shit en ik zou best graag benchmarks van deze kaart willen zien (als ie uitkomt) Je kun die shit hier lezen. (voor het geval je dacht dat ik dit uit mijn duim zat te zuigen )

ruben pruim schrijft: "Is al een dag uit maar wel handig!!!!!
":

New Banshee Drivers - 12:57 AM EST

Voodoo Banshee - Version: 1.03.04 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.

DOWNLOAD - 2.5 Megs

Bij Kickass Gaming is een review te vinden van de Microsoft Sidewinder Dual Strike game controller. Dit maffe ding zou de keyboard/muis combinatie moeten vervangen. Hieronder wat indrukken van de controller.

To tell you the truth, this controller actually turned out to be better than I expected it to be. I thought that I wouldn't even be able to play first person shooters with my favorite settings, but I was wrong. This baby can pull off almost everything that my mouse and keyboard can. We're talking inverted mouselook, strafing, and functions such as shooting, crouching, jumping and weapon switching in the palms of my hands. After putting it to the test, I figured out that when it comes to turning around for more than 180º with reasonable sensitivity settings, this controller doesn't even come close to beating my Logitech Mouseman. So performance-wise, not being able to turn around for 180º+ is pretty much the only downside of using the Dual Strike as your weapon in action-packed first person shooters. That might not seem like a big deal now, but when you're in the middle of a big online battle, you will easily beat someone who can't turn around quickly enough to fire back at you.

Arjan stuurde deze link naar een nieuwsartikel van Webwereld:

UPC heeft de Deutsche Bank voor de rechter gedaagd. Deze bank troefde UPC af in de strijd om de grote Duitse kabelexploitant Telecolumbus.

Deutsche Bank was echter ook de bank van UPC en was in die hoedanigheid een van de financiers achter het oorspronkelijke bod dat UPC in februari van dit jaar op Telecolumbus uitbracht. UPC is woedend over de houding van de bank. Het bedrijf zegt het ongehoord te vinden dat het wordt beconcurreerd door de eigen bank, waarmee de kabelexploitant zijn zakelijke en strategische plannen had besproken, waaronder de expansie in Duitsland.

iXBT Labs heeft er weer een uitgebreide review bij, ditmaal van de ATi Rage Fury Pro. Helaas is de kaart om minder enthousiast over te zijn, de prestaties lopen een generatie achter:

First of all, we are disappointed with the uncompleted drivers. We have already mentioned this disadvantage so many times! However, nothing changed...

Secondly, RAGE FURY PRO graphics cards appear somewhat worse than those based on NVIDIA Riva TNT2 (Ultra) in terms of performance and image quality though their prices are almost equal.

Even if we suppose that the drivers are working perfectly, the market sector these cards are aimed at is already occupied. ATI will really face a lot of problems when looking for a worthy application for its graphics cards. ATI is late again. As soon as NVIDIA launched its GeForce 256 GPU, the prices for NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra based graphics cards quickly went down. In this respect the conclusion is more than evident. Only if ATI provides its RAGE FURY PRO graphics cards with such specific features as TV-in/out, for instance, they will get a good chance to win the users' acknowledgement. By the way, we hear that ATI plans to sell its RAGE FURY PRO graphics cards together with a DVD-disk and a licensed movie. And in this case the movie will cost you 50% less than if you were buying it separately (don't count on getting it absolutely for free).

Probably, ATI RAGE FURY MAXX graphics cards have a happier future, who knows, but they are expected to enter the market only in December. Although we can't be sure if this forecast is credible, because now their samples are available only to a limited number of testers. In other words, ATI keeps pursuing a very strange marketing policy when only most well known observers get their products in time.

Check hier de rest van de test.

3D Spotlight heeft een review gepost van de 3DfxCool Alpha P3 125 cooler. De reviewer is er erg te spreken over en benoemd hem tot beste luchtkoeler voor je PIII van het moment.

The Alpha P3125 is an excellently made cooler. If you are willing to give up $55 of your hard earned dollars for the unit you won’t be disappointed with how well it does perform.

The cooler can increase the life of your CPU by keeping it cooler than what you would get with anything else and it can be used with some of the future P3 CPUs. The Alpha P3125 allowed me to overclock my CPU to 600MHz with only a core voltage of 2.0 volts.

Many people that I have seen with Pentium 3 450 SL37Cs were only able to get to 600MHz, but they had to use a little bit higher voltage level. The actual installation of the cooler is easy. Removing the stock unit is a little different though. If you were willing to pay $55 for the Alpha P3125, it would also be a good idea to know how to properly remove the stock unit, so that you don’t also end up with a $150 to $600 dead CPU. Overall, the Alpha P3125 does what it is supposed to do and that is to be the best air-cooling unit for the Pentium III.

AVault weet te vertellen dat de gold versie van Unreal Tournament klaar is en dat de CD'tjes ieder moment in produktie kunnen gaan. In Europa zal het spel dan vanaf 26 november in de winkels liggen:

3D action fans rejoice! Epic Games has notified the Adrenaline Vault that Epic's 3D action title Unreal Tournament has gone gold and is in manufacturing this very moment. GT Interactive will have it in stores by this Friday in North America and in Europe by Nov. 26. An official announcement regarding the release is being prepared and should hit the web by tomorrow.

Elmbo schrijft: "Een leuk verhaaltje over case cooling. Drie 12cm fans in je miditower, voor de gekken onder ons . Ik zie het boren en zagen alleen niet zo zitten":

There’s no question that a top priority of every overclocker is keeping those overclocked components in your system as cool as possible. The effectiveness of the cooling methods you use is critical in gaining those extra frames per second. But simply put, you will find it difficult to “cool” anything with warm air. If fresh air is not circulating through your case, the warmer air temperature inside the case will drastically reduce the effectiveness of your existing CPU and Video Card cooling.

The ideal solution is to have as much fresh air circulated through the case as possible, and which better location to bring that air in than right over the critical hot spots in your system, focusing on your peripheral cards and CPU. My 7200 RPM IBM Deskstar Hard Drive does run a little warm but because it is out of the way near the front of the case, it is not as significant of a concern as the main heat producers that are running overclocked. Mainly, my Hollywood Plus DVD card, my TV Tuner card and my Viper V770 Ultra are in need of cooling. And of course I would like my CPU, the main heat bandit of the system, to stay as cool as possible. I am using an Intel Retail Pentium III 500 SL37D.

Bij FPS3D hebben ze een review in elkaar gedraaid van de Asus K7M Athon plaat. En ook hier weer: 110Mhz busspeed maximaal.

The K7M supports Athlon processors from 500Mhz to 1GHz, so I can safely say you won't have any problem with an Athlon not working on this board. Also, unlike the SD-11, there are no problem using 650Mhz processors (thanks to those unlucky souls who told me about this problem).

I know you've been waiting, so before you wet yourself, here's the overclocking report: it works! Although the SD-11 has overclocking capabilities, I only know of a few who got them to work, excluding me. However I was successfully able to use a 220MHz (110Mhz) bus on my Athlon 600 without a problem. I tried a couple higher speeds, but since I didn't have my Peltier cooler set up yet, things crashed (as expected) after a few minutes.

After installing all the patches, everything was perfect at both 200Mhz and 220Mhz buses, so no worries for you "mission critical" job-holders. I can officially declare the K7M a perfectly stable motherboard. You won't even realize it's not a BX, except for the nice speed increase target=new>grin. Obviously the reasons for my overclocking crashes were processor cooling related, not motherboard related.

If any of you have ever used an AMI BIOS before, you know that the boot up times kick the best Award BIOS' pretty little bottom. Although Award BIOS usually offer many more features, in no way was this one a disappointment. Of course it can't match the BX-based Abit BF6's 119 available bus speeds, there are plently of reasons to like the BIOS.

SystemLogic heeft een review gepost van de AOpen AX63 moederbord met de VIA Apollo Pro Plus chipset. Hieronder een stukkie:

Although there are much better motherboards out there, AOpen's AX63 offers decent performance at an affordable price. I don't really see anything special with this motherboard. What brings this motherboard down are the little things that AOpen neglected to include. The not so great memory performance is also a problem.

If you are a hardcore overclocker, you probably wouldn't want this motherboard when there are numerous ones out there that can do the job much better. However, for casual overclockers and regular users, this motherboard provides satisfactory performance and features to keep you satisfied.

Take note that this motherboard is more of a PII/PIII overclocking motherboard since it lacks the bus speeds between 83 to 100 MHz which are ideal for Celerons. It still remains to be seen how the motherboard performs at extremely high speeds (133 MHZ and up). If I can get the right components, I'll write a follow up testing this mobo at those speeds. For now this motherboard gets a 7/10 for what it offers.

Billy van Voodoo Extreme heeft alle 3dfx links handig op een rijtje geparkeerd. Bruut & schaamteloos geript:

The New Voodoo Technology
Press Release
VSA-100 Chip Presentation
The VSA 100: A Gamer's Perspective
Interview with Scott Sellers
Gigapixel? What the Hell?
Kittyhawk Demo - Movie & Screen Shots
Soft Reflectance Screen Shots
Rocket Burger Demo Screen Shots
Quake 3 Arena Screen Shots - with AA
More In-Game Screen Shots [break] En een kort overzicht met de specs van alle V4 en V5 modellen: [/break] Voodoo 5 6000 AGP
128MB Graphics Memory
1.33 - 1.47 Gigapixels per second
32-bit color rendering
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects

Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
64MB Graphics Memory
667-733 Megapixels per second
32-bit color rendering
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects

Voodoo 5 5000 PCI
32MB Graphics Memory
667-733 Megapixels per second
32-bit color rendering
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects

Voodoo 4 4500 AGP and 4500 PCI
32MB Graphics Memory
337-367 Megapixels per second
32-bit color rendering

Aureal heeft de press release uitgebracht van de nieuwe Vortex2 SQ3500 Turbo geluidskaart die in het eerste kwart van 2000 op de markt komt. Hij zal o.a. ondersteuning bieden voor A3D 3.0, geometry-based reverberation effects en Dolby Digital decoding. Hieronder een stukkie, check hier de rest van de press release.

The Vortex2 SQ3500 Turbo will retail for $199.95 and will come bundled with an impressive array of applications and games, including the new Aureal Vortex Player and complete versions of the latest games that take advantage of the card's capabilities. Aureal will be working closely with its marketing partner, IOM Holdings, to launch it in major retail outlets during the first quarter of next year. Customers will also be able to purchase the SQ3500 directly via the Aureal and A3D Web sites at www.aureal.com and www.a3d.com.

"We expect our latest offering to make some real waves in the PC audio community," said Brendan O'Flaherty, Aureal's Senior Vice President of Operations. "The SQ3500 uses the unprecedented power of both the Aureal Vortex2 processor and our new Turbo DSP module to deliver acceleration for A3D 3.0, advanced geometry-based reverberation, and Dolby Digital decoding - resulting in a package that should appeal to all PC audio users."

"Aureal's new SQ3500 has some impressive spec's" said Jake Simpson, lead programmer at Raven Software, "This card will definitely take Aureal in the 21st century and beyond. Ravens new products "Solider of Fortune" and "Star Trek : Voyager" will definitely sound all the better for it. I can only urge other developers to listen to what this card can do, and think about what A3D 3.0 can do for their latest titles."

Pacific schrijft: "Als je perongeluk je jumper van je Pioneer DVD speler heb verwijderd en nu regio-locked is of je wil een pioneer 114 kopen (standard regio-locked) maak hem dan nu weer regio vrij!":

PIONEER DVD-114 DVD ROM RegionCode ERASER NOT only for 1.10 firmware!

New beta version 2.0 is now out for test purposes. This release has many bug-fixes. The 1.1 version sometimes not working. This caused by TOC ref- resh bit is lock the access to flash area. Newest version uses MORE SAFE access commands, and entire ROM reset is done with carrying out two ven- dor specific commands (not with trying 6 other undocumented commands). This beta version already checked for 1.10 firmware on my DVD-114 drive and working perfectly anytime. The TOC bug was resolved with software TOC refresh carryied out with LOAD/UNLOAD packet commands. This release has an /NOCHECK command line option. Using this option (DVD114 /NOCHECK) the program will allow erase function to work without checking firmware and hardware version. I suggest to use this option careful. I've not test with another hardware or software. I perhaps this will work with 104 dri- ves, but i'm not sure. If you have an locked 114 or 104 drive please try this utility first after upgrading your locked drive with the latest ava- ilable firmware. In this case you have nothing to lose.

Succesfull erasings on this drives!
PIONEER DVD-114 with 1.10 firmware (work good with 2.0)
PIONEER DVD-A03S region locked 1.16(becomes region free!)
PIONEER DVD-103R region locked 1.16(becomes region free!)
PIONEER DVD-103S region locked 1.16(becomes region free!)
COMPAQ DVD-113R region locked 1.16(becomes region free!)

The list above is based on replies from happy users,who try this utility! (Updated 11.15.99)

Hmm, handig, ik zit hier nl ook met zo'n Pioneer DVD drive (alleen heb ik nog geen DVD's ).

3dfxgamers.com heeft een stel Q3 Arena T-Buffer screenshots neer geplant. De screenies laten o.a. het effect van T-Buffer motion blur zien. Ook zou je er Anti-Aliasing in moeten kunnen ontdekken, alleen zijn de JPEGjes zo zwaar gecompressed dat het moeilijk achterhalen valt waar die bluriness nou vandaan komt (Aargh, waarom leren ze zo'n webpimp nou niet ff hoe die moet JPEG om moet gaan). Anayway, hier twee niet gedownscalede voorbeelden:

Tja, ik vind 't het er persoonlijk nogal bout uit zien. Vier poppetjes achter elkaar die motion blur moeten suggereren. Hopelijk is het effect beter wanneer het geheel beweegt...

Massaal werden we op de hoogte gesteld dat de (test) demo van Quake3 uit is. De eerste die ons dit blije nieuws kwam vertellen was denz|ufx. Om te beginnen een overzicht met download locaties:

q3DemoTEST.exe - CDROM.com
q3DemoTEST.exe - id software
q3DemoTEST.exe - file planet
q3DemoTEST.exe - MNG Network
q3DemoTEST.exe - telepac
q3DemoTEST.exe - avault [break] En voor super snel downloaden vanaf Cameron Diaz' server bij de UTwente: [/break] cameron.webmagix.net/tweaker/q3DemoTEST.exe [break] De 2 meeste recente .plan updates van Graeme Devine: [/break] 11/15/99

It's out there. We're aware of some issues which are documented in the readme, otherwise I expect a lot of you to be missing many hours of sleep tonight!

11/14/99

Quake 3 Arena demo test should be out tonight. Watch the skies!

Just so we’re all sure. This isn’t the general demo. If all goes well we’ll upload the general demo in a few days.

The demo contains four maps (q3dm1, q3dm7 (q3test1), q3dm17 (q3test2) & q3tourney2 (q3tourney) and six characters (Sarge, Visor, Major, Grunt, Daemia, & Stripe). Bots are in there on five difficulty settings (from “I can win!” to “nightmare!”). [break] ...en de .plan update van Tom Hollenshead, CEO van id Software: [/break] Demo Test notes:

As Graeme indicated, this is a preliminary release. We are retaining the prohibition on physical media distribution until we release the final or "gold" demo. That means that magazines will NOT be allowed to distribute this version of the demo on coverdisks. This is marked all over the test, however I would appreciate it if all of the Quake 3 and game site webmasters that are mirroring or covering the release would lend me a hand and make sure our friendly neighborhood game and computer magazines understand this.

Rest assured, we will allow physical media distribution of the final demo, once it is released, but not yet.

Second, although the 1-800-idgames number is on the screen, we (id) aren't accepting orders yet. Also, please remember that number is not for technical support for Quake III Arena, the demo test, or any other id game. Feedback, bugs, etc., in the demo test should still be sent to feedback@quake3arena.com

Finally, before the crazy speculation starts, we aren't done with the game yet. We will be finished "when it's done!" Again, anyone besides id claiming to have the official release date is just pulling your chain.

Enjoy!

Zoals eerder bekend werd gaat Abit ook in de markt voor videokaarten. Bij de opening van de Comdex beurs hebben ze de Siluro graphics card kudde aangekondigd, bestaande uit de GT2 Ultra , GT2V, GT2 (alle drie TNT2) en GF256 (GeForce 256). Hier wat soep uit de press release:

Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. November 5th, 1999—ABIT Computer Corporation announced today a new family of graphics cards and new motherboard models. Indicating a new direction for ABIT, the company announced they will introduce their Siluro™ family of graphics cards based on nVidia's TNT/2 and GeForce256® graphics chips. The first models will be the Siluro™ GT2 Ultra, Siluro™ GT2V, and Siluro™ GT2 based on nVIDIA's RIVA TNT2™ 3D graphics processor, and the Siluro™ GF256 based on nVIDIA's GeForce256® graphics processor. The ABIT Siluro™ GT2 is a high-performance 3D/2D graphics and DVD accelerator card, integrating up to 32 MB of ultra high speed memory and a 300 MHz DAC. ABIT will also offer its Siluro™ GT2 Ultra, a “maxed-out” version of the Siluro™ GT2 based on the RIVA TNT2 Ultra chip, “the highest-end version of the RIVA TNT2”, says nVIDIA.

ABIT is also announcing plans for production of the Siluro™ GF256 which will be based on nVIDIA's new Geforce256® graphics processor. “This definitely represents a new area for us to expand in and we are excited about bringing the ABIT name to a quality set of cards based on proven nVIDIA technology” said PR Manager Jeremy Smith. Although, he said the Siluro™ GF256 will not be ready until later in the first quarter of 2000.

The Siluro™ GT2 meets all the requirements of the mainstream PC graphics market and Microsoft's PC'98, PC'99, and DirectX 6.0 initiatives as well as Pentium™ III and K6-2/K6-3 3Dnow! optimizations. In addition to DirectX support, the Siluro™ GT2 provides a complete high-performance professional-grade OpenGL ICD.

ABIT also enhances the features set of the Siluro™ GT2 with their ABIT MaxGraph™ Software Utility as well as proactive hardware monitoring using special cooling to ensure card stability when there are high temperatures. With the Siluro™ GT2 using the MaxGraph™ Utility, users can fine tune the Siluro™ GT2 to maximize values for variation of resolutions, and color depths depending on the application, for greatest performance enhancement and flexibility.

Abit heeft vandaag twee nieuwe op de i820 chipset gebaseerde moederborden aangekondigd: de CX6 en CH6. Het verschil ligt om zo te lezen in het aantal en type geheugen slots: de CX6 heeft 2 Rambus slots, de CH6 biedt plaats voor 3 reepjes SDRAM. Verder vinden we weer de gebruikelijke features die we van Abit gewend zijn, zoals de Softmenu II (geen III?) jumperless CPU setup. Hier de press release die ik van Abit's press manager kreeg opgestuurd:

Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. November 15th, 1999—Following the launch of the long awaited Intel 820 chipset, ABIT has announced their Intel 820 solutions to the market. The ABIT CX6 and CH6 are Pentium® III AGP based ATX mainboards supporting Ultra DMA 66/Direct RDRAM With ABIT's patented CPU Soft MenuTMII technology. These are considered ABIT's premier boards based on the Intel 820 chipset. “These have been a long time in coming, but I think it will be worth the wait, the Intel 820 chipset is just fantastic”, assured ABIT's PR Manager Jeremy Smith. For the upcoming Intel 820 chipset, ABIT will introduce the CH6, and CX6. “We realize there will be different needs for 820 based products because of the RAM issue, so we are offering 2 solutions, one with 2 RIMMs the CX6, and one with 3 DIMMs the CH6”, explains ABIT's Smith.

Based on a completely new chipset architecture, the CH6 and CX6 are AGP based ATX mainboards supporting Intel Pentium® III/II CPUs, Ultra DMA 66, Direct RDRAM or DIMM with CPU Soft MenuTM II technology and represent some of ABIT's premier board technology based on the Intel 820 chipset. The Intel 820 chipset supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI) and AGP 1X/2X/4X (Sideband) 1.5V/3.3V devices and support 100/133MHz Front Side Bus settings. Featuring the latest in memory technology, the CX6 supports 2 184-pin RIMM sockets for Direct Rambus Memory modules for up to 1GB MAX. (64, 128, 256MB) with 600, 700, 800MHz Direct Rambus Channels supporting ECC. The CH6 has 3 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting SDRAM modules for up to 1GB MAX. (64, 128, 256MB). There is also an AC'97 Digital Audio controller with integrated AC'97 Audio CODEC on the boards with an included audio driver. With ABIT's Soft Menu TM II the CX6 eliminates the need for jumpers or DIP switches to set CPU parameters. The BIOS also has the Award Plug and Play BIOS supporting APM and ACPI and features the Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS.

With the CX6 and CH6 there are multi I/O functions with 2x Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to four Ultra DMA 66 devices. As well as support for STR (Suspend to DRAM). They each have 1 Universal AGP slot, 5 PCI slots and 1 AMR slot with Hardware Monitoring of fan speeds, voltages, system environment temperature and one thermal header for a CPU or other temperature monitoring.

Eindelijk is het zover, 3dfx heeft de info vrij gegeven over hun nieuwe videokaarten. De nieuwe Voodoo4 en Voodoo5 gaan gebruik maken van de VSA-100 chip, die tot wel 32 keer op een kaart geplaatst kan worden door gebruik te maken van scan-line interleaving (SLI). Hierdoor creëert 3dfx van 333 megapixels tot 1,47 gigapixels per seconde. Hieronder wat meer info over de specs van de VSA-100 chip:

The VSA-100, composed of over 14 million transistors, is fabricated in an enhanced .25 micron, 6-layer metal semiconductor process. The architecture incorporates industry standard 3D features including 32-bit RGBA rendering, 24-bit depth-buffer (Z and W), 8-bit stencil rendering, DXTC and FXT1 texture compression support, 32-bit textures, 2048x2048 texture size support, and advanced texture and color combine capabilities. Additional support is provided for both AGP 4x and PCI, DVD hardware assist, and the world’s most powerful 128-bit 2D engine. All VSA-100-based products include support for all major APIs including DirectX®, OpenGL® and GLIDE® providing the highest possible software compatibility. The VSA-100 is designed for optimal performance on current and future CPUs from Intel and AMD.[break]De Voodoo4:[/break]The Voodoo4 family of products feature single-chip implementations of the VSA-100 architecture and are targeted to deliver great performance at mainstream prices. The Voodoo4 4500 will be available in both PCI and AGP versions, and will feature a single VSA-100 processor and 32 MB of graphics memory. The boards, which render two fully featured pixels per clock, will deliver between 333 and 367 megatexels/megapixels per second fill rates and are expected to be priced at $179.99*. [break]De Voodoo5 zal er in verschillende smaken komen, de Voodoo5 5000 PCI, de Voodoo5 5500 AGP en de Voodoo5 6000 AGP:[/break]The Voodoo5 family of products feature multi-chip implementations of the VSA-100 architecture including both dual-chip and quad-chip configurations. The multi-chip capabilities of the VSA-100 allow for the first time, true full-scene, hardware anti-aliasing at real-time frame rates. True full-scene anti-aliasing removes visual artifacts, such as “jaggies” and triangle “popping,” to create smooth images that create a substantially improved immersive experience for the viewer. Additionally, Voodoo5 products enable advanced T-Buffer™ digital cinematic effects including motion blur, programmable depth-of-field, soft shadows and soft reflections.

The Voodoo5 5000 PCI will have dual VSA-100 processors and 32 MB of total graphics memory. The Voodoo5 5000 PCI board, rendering four fully featured pixels per clock, will deliver between 667 and 733 megatexels/megapixels per second fill rates and is expected to be priced at $229.99*.

The Voodoo5 5500 AGP will feature dual VSA-100 processors and 64 MB of total graphics memory. 64 MB of memory allows for higher resolutions and pixel depths with full-scene anti-aliasing and T-Buffer effects enabled, along with more memory available for texture storage. The board, which renders four fully featured pixels per clock, will deliver between 667 and 733 megatexels/megapixels per second fill rate and is expected to be priced at $299.99*.

The flagship product of the VSA-100 architecture, the Voodoo5 6000 AGP, will feature quad VSA-100 processors and 128 MB of graphics memory. It will be the first consumer graphics product to break the one billion pixel per second fill rate barrier. The Voodoo5 6000 AGP, which renders eight fully featured pixels per clock, will deliver between 1.33 and 1.47 gigatexels/gigapixels per second fill rate. It is expected to be priced at $599.99*.

Dit zooitje zal in maart 2000 op de markt gebracht worden, exacte prijzen worden dan ook bekend gemaakt, die zullen afhankelijk zijn van de geheugenprijs op dat moment. Voor de hele press-release, fiets even naar Voodoo Extreme of bezoek deze page bij de ShugaShack.

Imaging Resource heeft een review van de Olympus C-2500L op het net gezet. Deze digitale camera heeft een maximale res van 1712 bij 1368px, een 3x optische zoom en kan volledig handmatig bediend worden!

Let us first say, wow! The C-2500L will definitely capture the hearts of those who love fine photographic equipment and full manual control. We really loved all the features and controls on this one, with the exception of the limited aperture control (only two stops available). But beyond that, the C-2500L is a great camera with a lot of flexibility. In the C-2500L, Olympus set out to create camera that offering professional-level features and functionality, and to our mind, they've succeeded.

Beetje heftig en ook een beetje duur...

Ook Sharky Extreme heeft een Viper II binnen gekregen en heeft, vlak voor vertrek naar de Comdex beurs, nog snel wat benchmarks neer gemikt. Wederom blijkt de Savage2000 achter te blijven bij de GeForce:

As we said earlier, once we return from Comdex and have a bit more time with the board we'll give you our conclusions (preferably once we've had time with a 32MB board). In the meantime, it's safe to say that the initial skew for the Savage 2000, whilst very promising, isn't a GeForce 256 killer. It does have its strengths though. Under Quake 3 tests where the texture sizes are maxed to 512x512, the gap between timedemos for a GeForce 256 and Savage 2000 drops considerably. Also bear in mind that the Viper II will retail at $199.99, which is $50 - $80 less than a GeForce 256 and one starts to realize that the Savage 2000 is a good 'second place'. With its S3TC and Dual Pixel/Dual Texture Pipeline, gamers that enjoy the 'single player' experience can crank up the visual options to their fullest and enjoy drop dead gorgeous visuals. We'll have more when we get back from the show. Until then take care...

John de Gelas van Ace's Hardware heeft een _errug_ interessant artikel gepost met speculaties over de CPU's die we in de loop van volgend jaar mogen verwachten. John verwacht o.a. dat de verbeterde Athlon's met een 'exclusive' L2 cache zullen worden uitgevoerd, waarbij de L1 en L2 caches als één grote 6-way associative emmer van 384Kb zullen werken. Verder zouden Thunderbirds met deels mislukte 256Kb cache herbruikt kunnen worden als Spitfire, eenzelfde strategie die Intel zal toepassen bij de Celeron Coppermine. Hier wat stuff om op te sabbelen:

AMD will produce (very) small amounts of Athlons with 512 KB L2-cache (speculation) and quite a few cores with 256 KB L2-cache (confirmed by several sources). The successful 512 KB cores will be sold in the server market for huge amounts of money, the 512 KB cores of which the L2-cache does not yield entirely correct will, will be sold as 256 KB L2-cache parts, targeted at the high end desktop market and the workstation market.

While it isn't sure that there will be Thunderbirds with 512KB L2-cache on die, our sources confirm firmly that 256 KB parts will appear. The Thunderbird cores of which the 256 KB L2-cache does not yield well will be recuperated. If the 128 KB L2-cache is correct, the other part will be disabled and will those CPU's will be sold as 'Spitfires'. The Spitfire, alias the Athlon select is a socketed version of the Athlon, which will compete with the Coppermine 128 in the budget market.

I am pretty sure that you understand now why Intel will introduce Coppermines with only 128 Kb L2-cache in the budget market. Indeed, those Celeron Coppermines will allow Intel to recuperate some of the bad yielded Coppermines (with 256 KB L2-cache) to compete in the budget market.

Lijkt erop dat we binnen enkele uren een neerhaalbare demo van Quake3 kunnen verwachten. Zoiets kunnen we uit de laatste .plan update van John Carmack opmaken:

The demo test is built. It should go up in a couple hours if nothing explodes.

Mac and linux builds won't be out tonight.

* clear SVF_BOT when exiting follow mode
* render temp memory
* new mac GL initialization code
* no zone memory use in music thread
* added check for trash past zone block
* explicitly flush journal data file after a write
* added FS_Flush

Update (Niels te Grotenhuis):

Hij is uit, nu ook te downloaden van

Cameron Diaz Server of van Clanbase

Betanews weet te melden dat er een nieuwe build van Powerstrip for Windows2000 uit is. Hier de info:

A new build of PowerStrip 2.55 for Windows 2000 has been posted by EnTech Taiwan, addressing a handful of odd compatibility issues which involve things like Real3D PCI cards, Internet keyboards, flat panel displays and so on. Like the last one, this beta is backwardly compatible with Windows 95/98 and NT 4.0, and you are encouraged to check it out even if you aren't running W2K.

Het proggie (waarmee je o.a. je videokaart kunt overklokken) kun je hier naar binnen lepelen.

Beetje laat maar goed: die 3dfx Voodoo3-3500 schijnt nu eindelijk verkrijgbaar te zijn en GA-Source kreeg de kans om een review te plaatsen. Voor de 3D performance hoeft je deze kaart niet te kopen, want de TNT2 Ultra, GeForce en de binnenkort te verwachten Viper II zijn gewoon sneller. Wel interessant zijn de video editing features, wat dat betreft is de kaart vergelijkbaar met de ATI All-in-Wonder:

Beyond it performance in 3D games, the V3 3500 has more entertainment value. The TV tuner worked very well, giving me as good of a picture as any of the other TV tuner cards I have tried. It did not necessarily have as many fancy software features as some, but the interface was easy and simple to use. The still image capture worked perfectly, and gave excellent image quality. Images were as crisp and clean as the original source. I was not nearly as impressed with the motion video capture however.

Attempting to do 320x240 30 fps live video captures was not quite possible with my test system. I would say that if you get dropped frames and pauses with a 600mhz Pentium 3 with 192mb of RAM and a 7200 rpm harddrive, its not very functional. At 15 fps, it didn't drop frames, however any fast motion was still a bit choppy. If you don't intend to try and capture live video for later use or editing, or don't mind using the lower fps or resolutions, then it does a decent job.

Goh, Firingsquad heeft weer eens een primeur, met de eerste review van Diamond's nieuwe Savage2000 videokaartje. De kaart bleek bijzonder sympathiek wat betreft overklokbaarheid: het exemplaar dat door Firingsquad werd getest kan helemaal richting 166/183MHz gepushed worden, dat vanaf een default setting van 125/155MHz!:

Our overclocking results were very surprising. We started work on the 125MHz engine clock first. We increased the clock in 5MHz increments because we didn't really expect to go past 140MHz. 130MHz went by without a problem, 135MHz passed just as easily, 140MHz? No sweat. 145MHz came and went, as did 150MHz. 155MHz? No problem. At this point we started to wonder if S3 gave us a "golden" chip for reviewers. Eventually we reached 175MHz, but stability problems pushed us back to 166MHz -pretty impressive overclock for a chip with a 125MHz default speed.

We had a better idea of what to expect with the memory. The 6ns rating told us that 166MHz should be a given, and our previous experiences with other 6ns SDRAM had us expecting maximum speeds between 175MHz and 183MHz. We managed to push the mclock all the way up to 183MHz. The memory wasn't stable at 195MHz and 188MHz. Wow, our Viper II was able to reach 166/183MHz (core/memory) from the 125/155MHz default.

Verder weer veel benchmarks, waaruit naar voren komt dat de Viper II vooral op hoge resoluties achter blijft bij de GeForce 256.

Voodoo Extreme heeft nog wat meer spul over 3dfx Napalm - of 'Voodoo X', zoals-ie lijkt te gaan heten - bijeen geraapt:

The new chip from 3dfx :

Voodoo X
-coming early 2000 to your pc
-capable of SLI
-multi-chip solution
-over 1 gigapixel fillrate
-up to 64 MB memory SDRAM segmented memory
-enhanced rendering and texture capabilities to deliver 32-bit per-pixel color and Z, source, and destination alpha-blending, stencil buffering, advanced texture compression, enhanced transparency support, and advanced video capabilities.
-T-Buffer(TM) technology enables the graphics subsystem to deliver unmatched, full-scene sub-pixel anti-aliased image quality, along with previously impossible special effects that significantly enhance visual realism. The architecture approach will enable wide parallelism for single-pass, full-scene, sub-pixel anti-aliasing with greater polygon throughput and deep parallelism for scalable fill rate
-faster texture download
-improved image quality
-enhanced triangle and texture paging throughput to deliver industry-leading peak textured triangle rates and texture paging performance, capable of supporting 1280 x 1024 resolution or greater
-dxtc texture compression
-and much much more

Op de Comdex beurs in Las Vegas, die vandaag van start gaat, zal 3dfx een officiële aankondiging doen. Effe wachten...