Ga'ash Soffer van Voodoo Extreme heeft weer een van zijn zwaar technische verhaaltjes online geknikkerd. Dit keer een les in 3D Engines voor de PC.

For most 3D computer applications, the Z axis goes from positive (+) into the monitor to negative (-) out of the monitor. The X axis goes from (-) left to (+) right. The Y axis goes from (-) down to (+) up. This is different than the "right hand rule" coordinate axis used by mathematicians.

Vectors in 3-space have magnitude and direction. Vectors are usually denoted by a bold face letter of the alphabet, i.e. a. A specific vector can be written as an ordered pair of n scalars, for n-space. In our case, 3. So, we could say the vector v = (1,2,3). The first column is units in the x direction, the second column is units in the y direction, the third column, units in z. Vectors are added by adding corresponding components, i.e. (1,2,3) + (2,3,4) = (3,5,7). Vectors can be scaled by multiplying by a scalar. This multiplication is done by multiplying each component of the vector by the scalar. For example, if v is (1,2,3), 2v is (2,4,6). The magnitude of a vector can be determined using a 3 dimensional analog to Pythagorean Theorem. Example, for the vector v = (1,2,3), ||v|| = magnitude of v = sqrt ( 1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 ).

Check Hot Hardware voor een review van de Soyo SY-6VBA-133 moederplank met de VIA Apollo 133 chipset en o.a. een 1/2 AGP divider en een flinke collectie busspeeds.

Overclocking with this new VIA based board was as easy to do as any BX based Soyo board. The BIOS has all the same features with a nice addition of controlling the clock of your SDRAM too! You can select SDRAM clocked to the FSB or the FSB minus the PCI clock (133-33=100 for example) or FSB plus the PCI clock (100+33=133 for example). We didn't play too much with this but it should provide nice flexibility with respect to the type of SDRAM you run. If you only have PC100 RAM and want to run a 133MHz. FSB, you can still achieve your goal. Just set the BIOS to 133 FSB and the DRAM option to FSB minus PCI clock. You'll then be running your RAM at 100MHz.and your processor at a 133MHz. clock times its multiplier. Another nice touch.

Finally, our P3-533B handled 620MHz. very easily with excellent stability on this board. We set the CPU down to 533 and 600 for the benchmarks. Oh yes, you were interested in benchmarks weren't you?

Lees hier de rest.

Bij Maximum Hardware kun je een review vinden van de Guillemot Maxi Gamer Cougar met TNT2 M64 chip. In de review kom je een zooitje benchmarks tegen die weergeven dat vanwege de gecastreerde 64-bits memory bus de kaart alleen geschikt is voor gamen op een resolutie van 800 x 600 of lager.

Before I continue I'd like to say that I wish I could call this a review of NVidia's TNT2 M64 chip and not a review of Guillemot's Maxi Gamer Cougar. Why? Because Guillemot has done a fine job in delivering a well-constructed card with a decent heatsink at a decent price. In fact, Guillemot has earned itself quite a reputation in the past year or two in the 3D accelerator market and is now competing for a share of this highly-competitive arena alongside such huge contestants as S3/Diamond, Creative Labs and 3dfx.

The cards weaknesses, that is, its difficulty with 32-bit color depths and resolutions above 800X600, is entirely the fault of the TNT2 M64 chip it uses and its 64-bit memory bus. To be perfectly honest, I have yet to consistently play a game in 32-bit color depth (Quake 3 with a GeForce being a possible exception) so to me the 32-bit issue is pretty much a non-issue. To some it will be important. I typically run games in 1024X768 and the Maxi Gamer Cougar fared ok at this resolution, although the performance drop from 800X600 to 1024X768 was generally considerable due largely to the overloaded 64-bit memory bus.

Taking into account that this card is geared towards a less hardcore, more budget-oriented audience, I have to say it delivers what it was intended to, so I wasn't dissapointed.

Is it worth getting a TNT2 M64 card today? I hit PriceWatch and I'll just lay the facts out. You can get a "true" TNT2 card with 16MB of memory (the Maxi Gamer Cougar has 32MB) for as low as $75 US or so. That is cheap. You can find a Maxi Gamer Cougar for around $85, but for that same price you can pick up a "true" TNT2 card (with 128-bit memory bus versus the M64's 64-bits) with 32MB of memory as well.

Bij CPU Review hebben ze een preview in elkaar gezet rondom de nieuwe processor van Via/Cyrix genaamd Joshua. Het is de bedoeling dat VIA hiermee in het low-end segment gaat rouleren. Hieronder vast een klein gedeelte uit het artikel:

The large 64k L1 cache, with the addition of the 256k of full-speed L2 cache will be able to feed the core at a higher rate than any previously released Cyrix processor.

I was assured by the Cyrix representative that the floating point unit is also much improved.

The "mutually exclusive" description of the L2 cache implies that it will be possible to configure the processor to treat the L2 cache as a slightly slower extension of the 64k L1 cache; resulting in overall higher performance as the core would effectively see a 320k "L1.5" cache.

For integer/business use I would expect that Joshua's performance would be somewhere between a Celeron and a Coppermine at the same frequency; certainly more than enough performance for the value / integrated market.

I am very much looking forward to testing Joshua; it will be interesting to see how well my predictions of its performance will match reality.

Bij The Register lees ik dat Kenwood een Hi-Fi systeem op de markt wil brengen met MP3 support. Naast een gewone cd en cassette speler zal er een modem en 13GB harde schijf in gehangen worden. Het is de bedoeling dat-ie eind 2000 / begin 2001 leverbaar wordt.

Japanese consumer electronics giant Kenwood this week demo'd the world's first hi-fi units with built-in support for Internet-sourced digital music tracks.

Kenwood's offering, a mini component system, was shown at the Audio Expo 99, held in Tokyo. In addition to the usual CD player, radio and tape deck, the unit contains a modem and a 13GB hard drive.

The unit's remote control features an 6.5in colour LCD panel to display Kenwood's music distribution Web site, allowing users to select tracks for download and, presumably, pay for them too. The remote control currently hooks up to the unit by a cable, but Kenwood said it plans to replace it with a Bluetooth-based unit in the future.

The company also envisaged equipping the unit with a satellite reception link at some stage, to allow music tracks to be downloaded more quickly using a one-way high-speed link. The modem would be retained, said a spokesman, for access the Web site and selecting which tracks to download.

Kenwood didn't specify what music formats the device supports, but presumably we're talking about SDMI-compliant MP3 and MS Audio here. The unit will ship with Sony MemoryStick and Matsushita Secure Digital (SD) Memory Card support to allow tracks to be copied over to portable devices.

Kenwood plans to ship the unit at the end of 2000 or early 2001.

Wakisch moest het volgende kwijt: "Eindelijk dan toch voor alle tebenetters: TEBENET IS OVERGENOMEN door UPC!!!! Er verandert dan misschien nog niet zoveel dit jaar maar volgend jaar gaat er ongetwijfeld wat veranderen met de snelheid/datalimiet. UPC zou een snelheid van 200 kb/s hebben!":

GELDERS DAGBLAD:

Kabelnet Tebecai komt in handen van UPC

Kabelmaatschaapij UPC heeft een bod uitgebracht op Tebecai Netwerken BV en Tebecai Telecom BV in Zutphen

Torenstad beheer uit Zutphen heeft in principe al toegestemd en ook de andere aandeelhouder, de gemeente Doetichem, stelt zich naar alle waarschijnlijkheid positief op ten opzichte van de verkoop. Voor de gebruikers van de kabel in de regio's Lochem en Zutphen/Warnsveld, zowel voor internet als voor radio en televisie, verandert er voorlopig niets. Volgens directeur J. Timmerman van de Zut[ehns onderneming Torenstad Beheer blijven het basispakket en de tarieven gelijk en zal UPC pas volgend jaar met de zogeheten pluspakketten komen. Huishoudens kunnen dan zelf kiezen wat ze nog meer op de buis willen hebben.

"Verder staat er nog wat lulkoek in het artikel, niet interessant genoeg om te posten."

Sake schrijft: "Op de Creative newsgroup is gemeld dat Creative Labs voortaan alleen nog de GeForce DDR SDRAM versie gaat maken. Einde voor de SDRAM versie. Dit nieuws wordt onderstreept door William Ball van Creative".

Het wil me hier niet lukken om de Creative newsgroups binnen te komen, dus ik kan de originele posting niet terug vinden (moet ergens in creative.products.3d_blaster.annihilator staan).

chucky schrijft: "3DChipset heeft de eerste afbeelding van een Quantum3D pre production AAlchemy board gepost:":

Check deze page voor een hi-res plaatje.

News.com heeft een artikeltje met nieuws over de mistige Elbrus E2K processor, die volgens de makers stukken sneller is dan "a chip in development by Intel" (Itanium?):

British investment bank Robert Flemings today said it hopes to nail down funding by the middle of next year for Russian computer engineers who say they have developed a microprocessor that beats anything in the West.

The engineers, who developed computers operating Soviet missile defenses, say their E2K chip runs several times faster than a chip in development by Intel and could roll off assembly lines in three years if they can secure funding. But the Russian team, Elbrus International, has not made an E2K chip yet, but only designed and run simulations.

Elbrus engineers say their chip, based on ones developed by the same team for the Soviet Union's military, will be fast and cheap, though a factory might cost well over a billion dollars to build.

Flemings is looking to attract at least the $60 million needed to finish engineering and develop prototype chips. So far the Elbrus team has used its own money from other work to develop the chip.

[...] The E2K is based on a type of parallel processing which breaks down tasks, a method widely used in Soviet defense computers.

Meer positief telecom nieuws bij Webwereld, want de Europese Commissie heeft tariefplafonds ingesteld voor huurlijnen:

"De hoge prijs van huurlijnen in Europa is schadelijk voor de concurrentiebevordering op de Europese markt en heeft de opkomst van internet in Europa vertraagd," schrijft eurocommissaris Erkki Liikanen, verantwoordelijk voor ondernemingsbeleid en de informatiemaatschappij, in een verklaring.

Huurlijnen met een capaciteit van 84 K-bit per seconde mogen niet meer kosten dan 80 euro per maand, het plafond voor lijnen van 2 M-bit/sec is 350 euro en voor lijnen met een capaciteit van 34 M-bit/sec mag niet meer dan 2600 euro worden gevraagd.

Volgens Liikanen zijn deze prijzen vergelijkbaar met gangbare tarieven in andere markten, met name de Verenigde Staten. De aanbevolen tariefplafonds zijn gebaseerd op de al geldende prijzen in de drie goedkoopste Europese landen: Denemarken, Zweden en Finland.

/me hoopt dat het dankzij deze ontwikkelingen ooit mogelijk wordt om tegen redelijke prijzen een server in polderland te co-locaten...

GamePC heeft een review van de Kryotech Cool Athlon 900 op het net gezet. Tja, wat wil je hier nog over zeggen (snel?):

Where the KryoTech really will shine is in FPU-intensive 3D-work, CAD programs, and some server operations, where processor speed is everything. Pair up a KryoTech box with a nice E&S or Oxygen high end video card, and you've got one hell of a 3D modeling machine. But alas, we are a gaming PC company, and that's pretty much what has the final word around here. It IS the fastest gaming machine you can buy now, but it won't be for long with the way AMD is pumping out the new Athlons, every other week it seems. KryoTech will keep bumping up the speeds of their boxes to, and past, the 1 GHZ mark, and they'll keep the speed crown. What you have to decide is whether you want to spend the cash on an extra 200 MHz of speed, where you can pretty much buy a whole system at the currently top rated processor speeds. We can't make that decision for you, we're just showing you the results we found. The machine certainly breaks your back lifting it, and breaks your wallet paying for it, but you'll have the fastest system around.

Plycon Computers heeft een aantal Athlon heatsinks van Alpha en GlobalWin getest op de Asus K7M moederplank. De resultaten waren teleurstellend, want door de bijzonder onhandige plaatsing van de voedingsconnector en DIMM sockets op het Asus bord is het vrijwel onmogelijk om een fatsoenlijke heatsink aan te leggen:

So, we have these very impressive heatsinks designed for an overclocker, with no Athlon motherboards designed for overclocking to use them on! Asus then releases the K7M and our dreams are answered. But a snag is noticed by the overclocking community of North America. Our Asus K7M's don't look the same as the ones we've seen available in Europe... The ATX power connector is placed too close to the CPU slot. This presents a problem when using these large heatsinks. They will not fit without modifications or only going with the single fan version.

biobak schrijft: "Er zijn gisteren weer 3 nieuwe characters voor Quake III Arena bij gekomen. Een overzichtje (inclusief de laatste 3) staat op Stomped.com. Kwijlen voor de Quake III fans. Ook de Doom-guy zit ertussen ":

The Tech Zone heeft een artikel gepost waarin ze uitleggen hoe je de Athlon van z'n mooie cartridge kunt ontdoen:

How Rip Apart An Athlon Written: 11/24/99 Written By: Moto Racer® Athlon Supplied By: AMK Services Now why would Moto want to take a perfectly nice AMD Athlon and rip it apart you ask? The first reason is because I can. The second is because if you want to overclock the AMD chip and you don't have a K7 overclocker's board like the Asus K7M, you will need to open up the Athlon to change it's speed settings. Another reason for ripping out the case is because the Athlon will run cooler once it's stripped down to bare PCB. The casing that house the CPU traps heat, not good if you plan to overclock.

While this article shows how to rip an Athlon apart, the same steps would be used if you want to take apart an old Pentium 2 since the housing is the same. So for those of you who have one of those nice SL2W8 PII-300 hanging around and want to remove the casing, just follow the same steps.

De enige echte Diederik schrijft: "Wat moet ik nou nog zeggen , maar er zal vast wel een adder onder het gras zitten. Het is ook alleen voor ISDN, ze zeggen dat het zo'n 60,- piek in de maand gaat kosten.":

Nog dit jaar of in het begin van het volgend jaar komt KPN met een ISDN-abonnement voor internet dat niet meer op basis van tikken in rekening wordt gebracht. KPN-voorlichter Bram Oudshoorn bevestigt dat.

Het zogeheten ‘flat rate’ abonnement hangt al een tijdje in de lucht aangezien veel onderzoeksbureaus blijven roepen dat de telefoontikken de rem zetten op de ontwikkeling van de Europese e-commerce, de handel via internet. Bedrijven melden vaker dat ze een product in de markt zetten omdat de markt erom vraagt. Dat blijkt zeker waar in het geval van de abonnementen zonder tikken.

Begin november meldde de Engelse telecomreus British Telecom een dergelijk abonnement te gaan lanceren. En dan is het slechts een kwestie van tijd voordat andere partijen, waaronder het Nederlandse KPN, dat spoor volgen. Bram Oudshoorn, voorlichter van KPN, zegt dat in algemene zin te kunnen bevestigen.

Een vergelijkbare ontwikkeling was onlangs waar te nemen met de opmars van gratis internettoegang, die ook via Groot-Brittannië het Europese vasteland in zijn greep heeft genomen.

EBNews heeft een erg interessant artikel over de Intel chipset roadmap. Ace's Hardware was zo handig om een opsomming van de belangrijkste punten te posten:

The Intel 815, or Solano, which is expected to sample in January and will succeed the popular 440BX. The Solano will support PC133 SDRAM, an AGP 4X. Funny that Intel seems to prefer PC133 all of a sudden.

A double-data-rate (DDR) chipset for desktop PCs. Incredible! Is intel totally dropping Rambus ?

An Intel 870 server chipset that will use DDR SDRAM-based for high-end four- and eight-processor systems. the 870 may also be the chipset that supports the upcoming 64-bit Itanium.

Even the Itanium will use DDR SDRAM instead of rambus!

If this is true, RAMBUS is as good as dead. Who is going to invest in expensive RIMMS, when DDR SDRAM is going to be used in Intel and AMD based Desktops ? If even the expensive Itanium is not going to use RAMBUS ?

Mischa schrijft: "LucasArts en Verant Interactive komen volgens Gamespot.com met een soort van Ultima Online, maar dan in Star Wars vorm. Best hip idee lijkt me zo":

A reliable source has confirmed with GameSpot News that LucasArts and Verant Interactive are in the planning stages of building a new massively multiplayer universe based on the popular Star Wars: Episode I universe. Verant is best known for its work on the massively multiplayer titles Everquest and Tanarus.

So far, details are sketchy. As more information regarding the title comes to light, we'll bring those details to you.

Motorola zal in februari tijdens de IEEE International Solid-state Circuits conference een 780MHz versie van de opgefrisde PowerPC G4+ processor demonstreren. De chip krijgt een langere pipeline om hogere kloksnelheden mogelijk te maken en zal voorzien zijn van 256Kb on-die L2 cache:

The chip, the PowerPC G4+, was announced last month at Microprocessor Forum, and is the product of a major attempt by Motorola to catch up with the x86 world's lead in megaHertz. The PowerPC family has always been rather faster than x86 chips of equivalent clock speed, but of late x86 frequencies have shot so far ahead of PowerPC's that the Motorola chip has ended up looking decidedly underpowered.

Whether Motorola will demonstrate the chip in action remains to be seen. However, the PowerPC design team members presenting their paper at the ISC conference will detail its operation at up to 780MHz.

That's disappointing. When the chip was first discussed, Motorola said it would operate at around 700MHz but "with plenty of headroom for where we want to go", meaning scope for much higher clock speeds. The extra 80MHz doesn't seem that much headroom, frankly.

[...] The abstract for Motorola's ISC paper offers little more information about the G4+ than we knew already -- its dual (instruction and data) 32K L1 caches, 256K on-die L2 and support for up to 2MB of backside L3 cache were revealed at Microprocessor Forum.

Virtual Zone heeft een review gepost van de exotisch vormgegeven HP Polar Logic heatsink. Het design is niet alleen erg cool, maar blijkt bovendien uitermate functioneel: de Polar Logic leverde betere prestaties dan de brute FDP32 heatsink van GlobalWin. Hier een hap uit de review (wazig taaltje schrijven ze daar):

Polar Logic carries it high the hand and easily gains the title of better radiator socket 7 and 370 of the market. The only rival who can be opposed to it is quite simply Alpha P3125, which is the best radiator for processor slot 1. And really, few things must separate them ! !

If one takes into account that P3125 uses two ventilators, which are all two noisier than that of Polar Logic, than P3125 are sold at least 50 $, whereas Polar Logic can be bought between 15 and 22 $, one can only conclude that this last is an excellent business. What a pity that should be carried out do-it-yourself to succeed in assembling it on its slocket... but it is undoubtedly for this reason that stocks are currently sold off.

JazZz stuurde deze link naar Savage World, waar men weet te melden dat Creative Labs nieuwe drivers voor z'n Savage4 kaartje heeft gepost. De updates in versie 4.11.01.2104:

- better Quake3 Test support
- better Sega Rally 2 support
- TV tuner compatibility improved (for certain models)
- faster Blaster Control 3 loading

De drivers kun je hier naar binnen lepelen.

Silicon Graphics wijzigt z'n strategie voor Intel-based workstations, bericht News.com. De produktie van de Visual Workstation 320 en 540 zal gestaakt worden en zoals eerder bekend werd zullen er nieuwe Intel workstations komen gebaseerd op Linux met nVidia videokaarten:

The demise of SGI's 320 and 540 models marks the end of a grand attempt to bring the special-purpose, expensive hardware of the Unix workstation realm into a more price-conscious market. The plan had been touted as a key part of the company's turnaround strategy.

With the delays, ever-advancing PC technology caught up with SGI's expertise, Stedman said. Intel's new 840 chipset provides most of the internal data transfer speed advantages that SGI worked for more than two years to add to its first Intel-based PC.

SGI's next-generation Intel machines, due in the second quarter of 2000, will limit additions to the graphics card, Stedman said. The company will build the card around a chip from Nvidia designed with the help of about 50 engineers SGI transferred to Nvidia as part of SGI's August reorganization, he said.

As previously reported, SGI also will try to take advantage of the Linux movement with its new Intel-based workstations, Stedman said. The strategy parallels the one SGI is taking with its higher-end servers.

SGI zal volgnes C|Net nog tot 2006 doorgaan met de produktie van op MIPS / Irix systemen.

Volgens The Register kunnen we pas in januari systemen met de 733MHz Coppermine verwachten. Hoewel de proc al een maand geleden werd gereleased is er nauwelijks supply:

Chip giant Intel pre-announced the 733MHz version of its Coppermine Pentium III along with a heap of other .18 micron processors on the 25th of October last. But now the evidence is mounting that we're only likely to see systems introduced by major vendors in January of next year.

Both Gateway and HP have confirmed to us in the last week that they're not selling systems using the 733MHz processors yet, while as we also reported, other major OEMs think Intel's Coppermine is pants.

[...] AMD has 750MHz parts at .18 micron. Intel has so few 733MHz parts at .18 micron that none of the major PC vendors can introduce machines based on it for a fair while yet. [break] De situatie bij AMD ligt er vrolijker bij: de Athlon 750 zal maandag tegen een prijs van 795 dollar geïntroduceerd worden. Vanwege de problemen bij Intel voelt AMD zich niet genoodzaakt om de prijzen van de bestaande Athlons te verlagen: [/break] There will be no price reductions on existing Athlon processors when AMD introduces its 750MHz microprocessor next Monday, sources only a cigarette packet away from the company said today.

That represents a major victory for AMD against Intel, and shows that the upstart chip firm is beginning to make the chip giant feel the pain.

The sources said that AMD will introduce the 750MHz Athlon at around $795 or so, but will keep prices of other chips in the same family stable.

co schrijft: "Na veel vragen op de mailing list is de koe weer terug in de win32 versie.":

Yes i know i just updated a few clients, but here are a few more updates. For those of you who wanted the cow back in the win32 client, well its back! The following clients have been updated

- dnetc-win32-x86.zip

- dnetc-freebsd-x86-elf.tar.gz

The win32 self-installer will be uploaded shortly So happy down loading

Windows 95/98/NT

• http | ftp Build 2.8002.447 Windows 95/98/NT x86 (self-installer) updated Nov/24/1999
  
• http | ftp Build 2.8002.447 Windows 95/98/NT x86 (zipped, client+docs only) updated Nov/24/1999
  
• http | ftp Build 2.8002.446 Windows NT Alpha (client+docs only) updated Nov/16/1999
• Starting with v2.7110 clients distributed.net clients now support block sizes up to 2^33 - because of this buffers CANNOT be shared with older version clients.

De clients voor andere OS'en kun je hier binnen halen.

biwan@multiweb.nl" rel="external">obiwan schrijft: "Ik probeer al een paar dagen de koeien uit de stal te krijgen, maar ze hebben het koud en houden de deuren gesloten. Nu zit ik met bergen voer opgescheept en weet ik ook niet of de uiers overvol zijn....":

We're having some difficulties...

Due to the recent strangeness we've experienced with unexplained slowdowns on statsbox, we've had to temporarily suspend RC5-64 stats updates.

While frustrating, the lack of stats in no way affects the integrity of The RC5-64 contest. The keyserver network is still assigning and accepting RC5-64 blocks, and we'll still notice if you find the key.

Logs are, of course, being kept and when we've managed to resolve the problems with statsbox, all stats will be brought online. This includes blocks done during this stats outage.

Thankfully, due to the small size of the database, we're still able to provide CSC stats despite the server troubles.

As always, keep an eye on staff plans. For details as the situation progresses.

yepyo schrijft: "In elke SF film zie je ze wel: de naturale smaak van het keyboard (volgens Bill). De nieuwe uitvoering komt in drie smaken, de mooiste is (volgens mij) de Pro uitvoering met een USB hub in je keyboard. ":

The new ergonomic Microsoft® Natural® Keyboard Pro features 19 Internet, e-mail, and multimedia "Hot Keys," which link directly to applications on your PC. You can customize these Hot Keys to launch Internet Explorer 5 and surf the Web; open Outlook® 2000 and check e-mail messages; play and control CDs; or load any other favorite programs—all with just the push of a button. The Natural Keyboard Pro also offers direct peripheral connectivity with two new USB ports.

Using Hot Keys on the Natural Keyboard Pro, you can instantly access and manipulate common applications. The keys act as pre-programmed shortcuts to Internet, e-mail, and multimedia programs. You can even personalize two shortcuts to open important documents quickly or run any program you choose.

Function keys on keyboards are usually application-specific—that is, their functions depend on the program you have open. However, each of the Hot Keys on the Natural Keyboard Pro—located above the keyboard's function keys—work independently of the program you're using, and they're labeled clearly with specific functions. You save keystrokes and mouse clicks, and get what you need more efficiently.

hjs stuurde een link in naar een page op de Creative website waar de 3D Blaster GeForce Pro met DDR Ram wordt aangekondigd. Je kunt er ook een trailer downloaden waarin je wel wat mooie grafische kunstjes te zien zal krijgen.

The 3D Blaster GeForce Pro is an incredible game accelerator, featuring the world's first Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) - the GeForce from NVIDIA - optimized with 300MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) memory. This revolutionary processor is made up of more than 22 million transitors - more than twice the complexity of a Pentium® III! 3D Gaming will never be the same again.

Many of today's 3D game accelerator are simply a rendering engine, forced to rely on the CPU to handle the critical steps of transform and lighting. In order to support the widest possible audience, developers had to limit the number of polygons and objects they included in a scene, with the unfortunate result that games are not as richly detailed or immersive. However with the 3D Blaster GeForce, the entire 3D pipeline is handled on the card, freeing the CPU - and the developer - to create richer, more detailed worlds, with improved physics and better AI. In short, to deliver a quantum leap in 3D gaming.

Download the trailer and take a look at what you can expect from the 3D Blaster GeForce Pro.

hjs schrijft: "Guillemot heeft nieuwe drivers voor de 3D Prophet, Maxi Gamers 3D2 en Maxi Gamer Phoenix.":

3D Prophet

- In the course of their Quality Assurance testing process, NVIDIA and AMD discovered potential system issues when a GeForce 256 based board is installed in a PC using AMD's Athlon processor and 750 core logic chip set. NVIDIA and AMD worked cooperatively to address this issue and offer the following solution. Guillemot's version 3.62 release driver, based on NVIDIA's version 3.62 reference driver, detects this core logic chip set and optimizes system settings to correct this issue.

- Performance update on all systems.

Maxi Gamer 3D2

Windows 95/98 drivers update version 3.00 for Maxi Gamer 3D².
Voodoo2 Driver kit Version: 3.03.00
Glide Driver Version: 2.56.00.0456
Glide3 Driver Version: 3.03.00.0667
Voodoo2 D3D Driver Build Number: 4.11.01.0441-2.18
Voodoo2 Control Panel Applet: 4.10.01.0081
OpenGL(r) Driver Version: 1.0.0.0439 ICD

The DG2-9X-300.EXE program will copy the updated Maxi Gamer 3D² drivers to your chosen directory*. During Plug and Play detection or Update Device Driver Wizard, please specify the full path name to the directory* where you have chosen to copy the new drivers.

Maxi Gamer Phoenix

- Windows 95/98 drivers (DirectX7.0 (tm) and Glide 2.x/3.x) update version 3.04
Voodoo Banshee(tm) Driver kit: 1.03.04
Voodoo Banshee Win9x 2D/3D Display Drivers: 4.12.01.1157
Voodoo Banshee Glide(tm) 2.X Driver: 2.61.00.0439
Voodoo Banshee Glide 3.X Driver: 3.10.00.0442
Voodoo Banshee Control Panel: 4.11.01.0442
OpenGL(r) Driver Version: 1.0.0.0507 ICD

JanKees schrijft: "Misschien niet bij iedereen bekend, maar alle Savages hebben nog een eigen API voor 3D stuff: Metal (zoiets als Glide voor de Voodoo's). Deze Metal kan al een hele tijd de speciale S3TC voor Unreal of Unreal Tournament aan (als je de demootjes kon vinden...). Voor UT heeft Epic zich uitgeslooft en heeft zelfs een speciale CD-ROM met allemaal mooie leveltjes gemaakt. Eigenlijk een beetje bedoeld voor de Savage2000.... Blijkt nu dat de Savage2000 geen Metal zal ondersteunen. Big deal, DirectX7 kan ook DXTC.. toch ? Erik van Savage World heeft Tim Sweeney gemaild en de vraag voorgelegd en kreeg als antwoord: D3D kan dat helemaal niet zo goed, alleen Metal kan die S3TC levels goed aan....":

"Only Metal -- DXTC works in Direct3D but we found it totally impractical to manage 1024x1024 textures in realtime from Direct3D, due to performance limitations in D3D.

We're surprised that S3 announced they aren't supporting Metal in the Savage2000. If they had figured that out earlier, we all could have saved a lot of time and money not bothering to create the S3TC textures."

Volgens postings op het Intel motherboard forum heeft de Intel Cape Cod moederplank (i820 SDRAM versie) een 30 tot 40% lagere memory performance als de goede oude BX chipset. Intel bedankt!

The much-delayed, blah, blah, blah, i820 chipset finally saw the light of day in cut-down form, both the Rambus Vancouver (VC820) and SDRAM Cape Cod being restricted to a maximum of 512MB of RAM. There are still problems getting hold of the Rambus jobo, however.

Because the i820 chipset was designed for Rambus, the PC100 CC820 mobo has a Memory Translator Hub (MTH) to act as a go-between for the CPU and the memory.

[...] Postings on the Intel motherboard forum cite a memory performance degradation of between 30 and 40 per cent when moving from a BX mobo to a Cape Cod.

The VC820 Rambus version should be a tad faster, but with RDRAM costing around four times as much as PC100 memory, you'd have to be bonkers to go down that route.

Volgens The Register zal Intel op 7 februari tijdens de IEEE International Solid State Circuits conferentie een prototype van de Willamette processor demonstreren:

Chip giant Intel will demonstrate a 1GHz IA32 processor at a semiconductor conference early next year, it has emerged.

The company will use 2000 IEEE International Solid State Circuits conference, which starts on the 7th of February in San Franciso, to outline the features of the processor, which is likely to be the long-awaited (and late) Willamette chip.

[...] AMD will beat them to the gun. Sources close to the company say that it will be able to launch a 1GHz Athlon in January, if it so chooses

Dikke deur komt blij vertellen dat de Goddard Flight Center page van de Nasa, samen met een aantal andere overheidssites, is gehackt. Wired News heeft er een artikel over:

The Web pages of three US Government agencies, including NASA's Goddard Flight Center, have been defaced by a cracker who is worried that US government security systems are vulnerable to cyberattack.

The front pages of the sites for NASA's Goddard Flight Center international page, the Bureau of Land Management's National Training Center, and the Defense Contracts Audit Agency, on Wednesday were replaced with a page showing a cartoon of a hooded hacker wearing a peace symbol necklace and a message warning of Web site security holes.

Mirrors van de gedefacede NASA site vind je op deze pagina. Screenshot: