Unreal Universe heeft een interview afgenomen met Jack "mek" Porter van het Unreal Tournament team. Hieronder vast een vraag, check de rest hier.

What's a typical day like at Epic games?

We have a fairly laid back office environment compared to other gaming companies. We all set our own hours. I've been waking up around 10:30am. I watch really bad daytime TV over breakfast before coming into the office around lunch time. First thing I do is read and reply to email, and surf the various news sites that interest me - the Unreal sites, Blue's, VE, Wired.com, Slashdot etc. Then it's down to whatever I've got on my todo list. We ususally go through to about midnight, tho we were doing much longer hours when we were in crunch time. This schedule is for weekends too, although you might spend more time playing games if it's a Sunday.

Some days we have meetings which consist of everyone sitting on the couches in the break room (in front of the 64" HDTV) and throwing ideas and comments around. In the afternoons, Steve Polge and I play Dreamcast Soul Calibur on the big screen, which is a totally awesome game BTW. Epic is a really creative place - I'm amazed other game companies can be creative when they force their staff to arrive at 9am. Though I think this kind of office environment only works when you have such a small and focused team as Epic does.

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dat John Carmack ook de Linux en Mac versies van de Quake 3 demo online heeft geplant. Hieronder wat links gejat van VE:

Mac Q3A Test Demo
Linux tar.gz Test Demo
Linux RPM

3D Accelerated Gaming heeft een review geschreven van de 3DCool Super Duper Slot Fan cooler. Hieronder wat info en een pic:

When you are going for some serious overclocking, you start to generate some serious heat. I'm pretty sure the heat generated by my system could warm the people over in Russia for quite a while. Sure, I love my Alpha, my UT Exhauster and my case fans, but they all have one crippling feature. They take the heat, and move it somewhere else in the case. As a result, your core components stay relatively cool, but everything else gets very hot. Your options are limited. If you're really going after the ultimately cooled, money-is-no-option system, you probably would put some fans in the side of the case (blowholes or exhaust fans). However, this work can be tedious, expensive, and very difficult. Enter the Super Duper Slot Fan. What 3DCOOL has created is, in essence, an exhaust fan that takes 60 seconds to install. This little guy fits in one of your card slots and just starts pulling the hot air from your case. No matter what fans you have internally, they will be limited by the ambient case temperature. Slap in a Super Duper Slot Fan, and suddenly the ambient case temp falls. The result is a seriously lower temperature.

Tweak 3D heeft een flinke guide online geklapt over hoe je een harddisk in je systeem hangt. Ze hebben het o.a. over ATA/33 en ATA/66, master/slave gedoe, jumper settings, maar ook cooling een overclocking komt aan bod. De guide vind je hier.

Those are some funny acronyms, aren't they? And no, I'm not going to bore you with their exact definition - all I'm going to tell you is that they are fast - and fast is good. The number after the slash refers to a hard drive's burst rate, or rate of peak data transmission per clock cycle. This burst rate is measured in Mb's, so an ATA/33 enabled drive has a burst rate of 33 Mbps while an ATA/66 enabled drive has a burst rate of 66 Mbps.

ATA/33 has been around for a long time now (well, a long time in the computer world). Just about any computer you buy supports it, so using it isn't really a conscious decision. It only requires a standard IDE cable, so as long as your computer is using IDE, you're in the clear. ATA/66, however, is something of an emerging standard. Many hard drives are starting to use this feature, but as of right now almost no motherboards (short of the ones using Via's new 133 MHz chipset) do (there are also a few PCI ATA/66 cards out that will handle the job, if you want to spend the extra cash).

If you are lucky enough to have the option, you should have been supplied with an ATA/66 compatible cable with the motherboard (you can tell because the lines on the ribbon are narrower than usual). Then find the special ATA/66 enabled IDE port and connect the hard drive to that port using the special IDE cable. Your access speeds should be much higher after this operation. Note: depending on your setup, you may need to enable ATA/66 in your BIOS.

Bij de 3D Wars is een preview gepost van de Vortex2 SQ3500 soundkaart die begin volgend jaar gereleased zal worden. Hieronder een stukkie:

One of the more interesting features of this new sound card will be the fact that it has a Vortex2 chip on it and has the ability to upgrade the card by adding Turbo DSP modules (made by Motorola). This will produce a more efficient use of A3D in the end. Aside from that, this will be the first sound card to have full support for A3D along side of all of the other major APIs. There will also be a new geometry-based reverb effect in the processor as well. This is a great feature to have for any gamer. Next on the list is the Dolby Digital Hardware Decoding. For those DVD on your PC lovers out there, this option is a very nice touch. It will add that extra bit of realism that you may here in movie theatres. Coming over to the software end, we have quite a bit of newer features to the SQ3500. For starters, the Aureal drivers will allow users to rather customize the way they want to hear sounds (a bit like making your own 'environment' with a SB Live). There will also be a 576-voice wavetable synthesizer, which is another great feature for gamers out there. The standard Aureal software, such as the player, Future Beat 3D, drivers, etc. will all be present in this package as well. Aureal has also stated that three new games will accompany the sound card in retail and will use all of the new effects of the SQ3500.

Carnifex stuurde deze info afkomstig van Akiba's PC Hotline (die ook leuke plaatjes heeft):

AMD-Japan sponsorship open an exhibition "Custom PC WORLD'99 in AKIHABARA" at Tokyo/Japan.Each company disply Apollo KX133 M/B etc.

Reports are all Japanese-Text, but include many pictures.

* MELCO developed 'Athlon Overclocking Set'
* FREEWAY demoed 1GHz Athlon with 'Super Cooling Kit'
* ASUS unveiled official K7M BOX and New M/B 'K7M-RM'
* AOpen demonstration Apollo KX133 M/B 'AK72'
* BIOSTAR demonstration EasyNow! PC and Apollo KX 133 M/B 'M7MKB'
* Microstar demonstration micro ATX Athlon M/B 'MS-6191' and FlexATX M/B
* SOYO demonstartion Athlon M/B 'SY-K7AIA'

Freak! heeft een review van de Freeway FW-K7M op het net gezet. Dit slot-A moederplankje is in feite een geOEMde Asus K7M en is dan ook identiek aan dit bord. Wat betreft overclocking onderging Freak! vergelijkbare ervaringen als andere reviewers: if($FSB>110) {plank_doet_raar();}

The AMI BIOS allows you to choose any bus speed you wish. Unlike the Award BIOS I'm used to there is very little for one to change other than the FSB setting. You can also change the memory settings but these will not affect your performance too much.

During my tests, I was able to attain stable speeds up to 550Mhz (110Mhz). I was able to run up to 560Mhz (112Mhz) but there would be weird system anomalies after prolonged usage. Regardless, the system was impressively fast and responsive. Even though there are other bus speeds it's unlikely that you'll be able run anything above 112MHz.

GamePC heeft een vergelijking gepost van 4 21-inchers: de Mitsubishi 2020, Sony GDM 500PS, Cornerstone P1700 en Viewsonic P815. Jammer dat de Iiyama Vision Mastor Pro 510 er niet bij zit, want die monitor lijkt op dit moment erg populair te zijn vanwege z'n lage prijs en goede specs. Hier maar een stukje over de Mitsubishi, die samen met de Sony als beste bevonden werd:

Image quality of the 2020u is near perfect, but is edged out by the Sony monitor by a very small margin. At the same 1600x1200 native resolution, the 2020u had single pixel ghosting on icons, whereas the Sony didn't, and that was the only difference that we saw. The 2020u is debatably more attractive to the eye, since the monitor has a more "curved" look than the other monitors in the roundup. The 2020u also has a great USB setup, which consists of four USB ports (two upstream, two downstream), and a signal downstream port on the bottom/front/left hand side of the monitor, perfect for plugging in a shiny new USB mouse, which I found to be a very useful feature, instead of having to move around your desk trying to get to the USB port on the back of the monitor.

DukeWorld heeft een interview met George Broussard, mede eigenaar van 3D Realms en samen met Scott Miller de man achter Duke Nukem Forever. Hier alvast twee stukkies ctrl-v:

Dukeworld: There has been talk in the past about the use of vehicles in Duke Nukem Forever. The stuff seen when Duke Nukem Forever was being developed with the Quake II engine was impressive. Have you guys been able to adapt the Unreal engine to make use of vehicles, and if so, to what level?

George Broussard: Vehicles are something that willmake it in, if we have time. We have an awesome plan for some vehicle based gameplay that we'll keep quiet until it's actually in and working. But if all goes well, that would be early next year after Christmas.

Have you guys worked out issues to prevent software piracy? Will there be a CD required for play? Some gamers really have a problem with the WON authentication system used in Half-Life. What steps will you guys be taking to cut down on piracy?

George Broussard: We believe in doing something to stop piracy, but the WON method was a mistake. In the end, the game will be pirated regardless. The goal is to stop casual, next door neighbor piracy, without burdoning people too much. I'd expect things like CD required or entering a code from the CD ala Windows to happen.

En voor het geval je de DNF screenshots nog niet gezien hebt: check deze nieuwsposting van 2œ week geleden.

C|Net's KillerApp.com heeft een interessant lijstje van de best verkopende moederplanken neer geknalt. De top 5:

1.Abit BE6
2.FIC SD11
3.Abit BP6
4.Abit BX6 2.0
5.ASUS P3B-F 5PCI/2ISA

Toshiba heeft een artikel gepost over hun in eigen huis ontwikkelde Fast Cycle RAM architectuur. Met FCRAM wil Toshiba vooral het latency probleem aan pakken, de peak bandwidth is gelijk aan DDR (2,1Gb/sec), terwijl de effectieve bandwidth volgens Toshiba respectievelijk 1165Mb/s (FCRAM) en 897Mb/s (DDR) bedraagt. Hier wat info over dit nieuwe geheugentype:

All of the DRAM types commonly discussed in the industry today, such as EDO, SDRAM, DDR and RDRAM, have one major thing in common ñ their memory cores are the same. What is different about each type is the peripheral logic circuitry, not the memory cell array. What this complex new peripheral logic circuitry does is attempt to hide the inherently slow memory core.

FCRAM is a novel concept, which finally recognizes and fixes the slow memory core by segmenting it into smaller arrays such that the data can be accessed much faster and latency greatly improved. How this is done is beyond the scope of this paper. If the reader is interested, both Toshiba and Fujitsu can provide more detailed information on FCRAM functionality.

The key measure of how FCRAM improves latency and can improve system performance is the read/write cycle time (tRC), which measures how long the DRAM takes to complete a read or write cycle before it can start another one. In the case of conventional DRAM types, including SDRAM, DDR and RDRAM, tRC is typically on the order of 70ns. With FCRAM, tRC of 20 or 30ns is possible. For this reason, this new device is referred to as a fast cycle RAM.

Besides faster tRC, FCRAM also improves latency with several new features that will be discussed below. [break] In hetzelfde artikel tevens info over DDR-II, dat ten opzichte van normaal DDR SDRAM een verdubbelde clock/data rate van 200/400MHz heeft. De peak bandwidth bedraagt 3,2Gb/s bij een busbreedte van 64-bit en 6,4Gb/s bij een 128-bit dikke bus: [/break] It should be noted that DDR in the above table is based on today's industry specification, which basically includes 100MHz and 133MHz clock rates. DDR-II is currently being defined by JEDEC, and is expected to offer much higher clock rates and features to improve effective bandwidth, some of which will be discussed below.

Based on the above analysis, DDR can match RDRAM in terms of peak bandwidth. However, the system designer must make the determination of which device to use based upon the advantages/disadvantages of widening the bus from 64 to 128 bits for DDR vs. adding multiple channels for RDRAM. Additionally, peak bandwidth is only one factor in determining effective bandwidth as was mentioned above and will be discussed further below.

Positief nieuws bij Ace's Hardware, want de huidige Athlon borden zullen geen enkel probleem hebben met het leveren van de juiste voltages aan de nieuwe 0,18micron Athlon processors, die vanzelfsprekend op (nog) een lager voltage zullen lopen:

Good news! Two different sources have confirmed that all current Slot A motherboards will have no problems with the different voltages that the .18 µ Athlon will require. The Athlon card draws 2.5 V from the motherboard and then devides it down internally to the specified core voltage. So you can safely assume that you will be able to plug at least a 900MHz Athlon in the Slot A motherboards that are out there.

Dat voltage probleem heeft AMD zo te lezen erg handig opgelost.

Ook bij Tom's Hardware Guide hebben ze een Comdex verslag online geplant. Ze hebben de aandacht vooral gericht op 3dfx, nVidia en ATi. Check de hele verhaaltjes hier.

So, where's the pressure going to come from now? First of all, the VSA-100 isn't ready yet. 3dfx has yet to get first silicon so, the company has a long way to go before it can be competitive in terms of performance and features. On paper, it's move towards a set of multi-chip high-end consumer boards is daring, but it could have a big payoff. If the company only manages to convince its existing fan base to upgrade to the Voodoo5 it will do very well in the coming eighteen months. On the other hand, the company is also betting that the gaming community is going to want to pay the price of its high-end offerings. The Voodoo5 6000 is going to cost greater than $500. It's a very strong play for the enthusiast market, but if any company can pull it off, it's 3dfx.

Michael Howse has other concerns. He wants to leverage the 3dfx brand, and distribution channels to bring in non-graphics hardware and technologies. Already, the relationship with InterAct has helped to create a 3dfx inspired game pad for the PC market. There may be more of the same kind of thing happening in the future. While I believe that 3dfx would do well to extend itself and its engineering expertise to incorporate other gaming peripherals, I do have some concern about the company becoming a label for other people's technologies. Can a graphics company be an input company, or an audio company, or a communications company? In some cases, yes, but it is a very difficult transition technically, culturally, and most organizations find themselves stretched too thin. However, 3dfx seems to want to be an entertainment technology company so, in that regard, it has a better chance than most. A lot will depend on how it builds up its gaming product lines, beyond graphics, and whether the company can bring in an operation oriented CEO who can ensure that the company can be an effective manufacturer in the retail peripherals market.

My greatest concern for 3dfx has to do with content. I am entirely convinced that the company needs to have a content strategy that should, or could, involve the creation, as well as distribution, of gaming content. Scott and Michael assured me that they have an Internet strategies that addresses my content concerns. I am not sure what it is, but I think there is a chasm in front of 3dfx and that only an effective content strategy will help them to cross it. A few months ago that chasm was the gamers that love the company. 3dfx would either have to jettison them to get the OEM market it needed to compete in the full graphics arena, or it would have to embrace them completely. It seems that the company chosen to embrace them, and now, the chasm needs content to fill it. This just may make 3dfx fun again. I am eager to see how things turn out in the next six months. I have been consistent in my criticism of the company's past business strategies and posturing. This is all or nothing time, and I'd like to think good things can come of it for the company.