insane schrijft: "Zo te zien gaat AMD het millenium in met de snelste CPU. Intel brengt de Pentium III 750 op 10 januari uit, terwijl AMD komende maandag al de Athlon 750 releast":

Internal Intel documents we have seen give the release date of the 800MHz Pentium III Coppermine processor as being towards the end of quarter one. And Intel will attempt to fight AMD by introducing a 750MHz Coppermine Pentium III in early January

On the 10th of January next, Intel will release a 750MHz Pentium III, again in both flip chip socket 370 and Slot 1 versions.

On that date too, Intel will intro 700MHz flip chip Pentium III, as well as a 667MHz and a 650MHz Pentium III in the socket 370 packaging.

"Intel gaat gewoon door met het uitbrengen van veel CPU varianten, da's wel irritant. Van de Athlon bestaan nu 5 versies (500, 550, 600, 650, 700). Hoeveel heeft Intel er? Ik ben de tel kwijt".

Ralph schrijft: "Nu zelfs een tegenaanval van XS4ALL in de rechtzaak die aangespannen is door de "gratis" internetproviders Wanadoo en NokNok.
Ook de consumentenbond heeft een publieke steunbetuiging aan XS4ALL gestuurd i.v.m. XS4ALL's "open de mensen hun ogen" reclame-actie.":

Naar aanleiding van de paginagrote advertenties van Wanadoo in de landelijke dagbladen op woensdag 24 november jongstleden, heeft XS4ALL besloten om een tegenvordering tegen Wanadoo in te stellen. In de advertentie van Wanadoo wordt volgens XS4ALL ten onrechte de indruk gewekt dat Wanadoo de persoonsgegevens van haar abonnees in het geheel niet voor commerciele doeleinden aanwendt. Afgaande op de algemene voorwaarden van Wanadoo zelf, acht XS4ALL deze suggestie onjuist en derhalve misleidend.

GA-Source heeft een review gepost van de Elsa Erazor X met 32Meg 5,5ns SDR SDRAM. Hier een stukje over de overklokbaarheid van deze op 120/166MHz geklokte GeForce kaart:

We were wondering how much extra performance could we squeeze out on this baby. With the extra large heatsink and 183MHz rated memory the results should be pretty good. We decided to bump up the speed in small steps. First Memory, then core clock. We ran a round of TreeMark with 8 lights with Q2 demo to see if we can detect any texture tearing/swapping. 170 MHz for memory was very uneventful, 175 doing well. At 180 we still could not notice any texture problems. 183 was a different story, we could see clusters of colored circles everywhere in the background when running TreeMark and Q2. We stepped down to 182 but there were still some artifacts left. 181 MHz turned out to be the "best" speed for the memory settings. Ok we turned the memory back down to 166 MHz and started to play around with core speed. 125 was without problems. 130 still doing well. However, anything over 130 increased the amount of texture tearing we experienced earlier. At 135 MHz the whole screen was flashing with textures and artifacts.

Extreme Hardware heeft een review van de Logitech Wingman Force Feedback mouse neer gemikt. In tegenstelling tot eerdere reviews, die dit trilmuisje zwaar de grond in vibreerden, is Extreme Hardware redelijk te spreken over het apparaat:

The Force Feedback Mouse’s basic Win 98 performance was excellent and in some cases I actually preferred it to a regular mouse. The FEELit Desktop had some great force feedback effects and the ability to remap or disable certain events allows a great deal of personal customizability. Gaming performance was more of a mixed bag. 1st-person shooters don’t come off well, especially if you’re a big fan of genre. While the Force Feedback Mouse can be used to play FPS games, don’t count on performing specialy moves like circle-strafing anytime soon. Strategy games are a different story and actually meld quite well to the Force Feedback Mouse’s overall design. Adding force feedback support would also be a natural progression to the strategy genre, especially with slower, turn-based games, but it might also benefit RTS titles like Tiberian Sun and Age of Empire 2.

PC World heeft een artikel gepost over Communicator 5.0, de browser die Netscape weer terug naar de top moet brengen. Het complete pakket is slechts 5Mb groot en zal dankzij de Gecko engine 10 tot 20% sneller zijn bij het renderen van pagina's:

Communicator 5.0 will be "groundbreaking," says Eric Krock, senior product manager for Netscape Communicator. He says Communicator 5.0 will restore Netscape's market share by offering speed, a smaller size, services, support for standards, and chat functions.

Netscape representatives would offer few specifics. However, they did confirm that Communicator 5.0 will support Extensible User Interface Language, or XUL. XUL lets developers use common Web building languages rather than computer coding languages to create a browser's graphical user interface, including menu items, buttons, and the address bar.

[...] Just as the Mosaic browser revolutionized the Web in 1993, today the focus is instant messaging and tomorrow we'll want entirely new standards, such as XML, Krock says. Netscape is positioning Communicator as a window to hundreds of Web-based applications.

[...] Reports suggest that Netscape has folded the America Online instant messaging client directly into a new left-hand pane of the browser interface, but the company won't confirm that new look. However, Netscape partner Net2Phone says its voice-over-Internet-protocol service is a featured "button" on the browser.

In navolging van Philips en Matsushita claimt ook Pioneer als eerste met een DVD Videorecorder op de markt te komen. In tegenstelling tot Philips en Matsushita, die de DVD-RAM standaard gebruiken, werkt het apparaat van Pioneer met DVD-RW schijfjes:

Pioneer Corp will launch the world's first recordable digital video disk (DVD) players and DVD discs in North America and Europe next year, the audio and video equipment maker said on Friday. The new video machines allow recording of up to six hours and will be first sold in Japan from December 3 at a price of 250,000 yen ($2,399) each, a Pioneer spokesman said.

The company aims to sell 30,000 units in Japan by March 2000 and 150,000 to 200,000 in Japan in the year starting next April. Pioneer has yet to set an overseas sales target or the exact date of its sales start-up, he said. Blank recordable DVD-RW discs will cost 3,000 yen ($28.79) each, the spokesman said. Reut04:24 11-26-99

Firingsquad heeft een review gepost van de Logitech Wingman Gamepad, een matje met 3M surface:

I was a bit skeptical when Logitech inquired whether or not I would be interested in testing out their soon-to-be-released, Wingman Gaming Mouse Pads. All I knew about them is that they had a 3M surface. "Big deal", I thought, I've used a 3M before - this is just going to be that same old 3M with a Logitech Wingman logo on it. I was already pretty happy with my Gamers.com Everglide. Well it turns out that I was half right. The Wingman Gaming Mouse Pad is a 3M with a Logitech logo on it, but this wasn't just a remarked 3M. The biggest change is that Logitech has added a very thin, rubber backing to the 3M surface.

Marcel en Ricochet stuurden beide links naar vergelijkbare artikelen van Nu.nl en Webwereld. Richochet schrijft: "De Consumenten bond steunt de reclame actie van XS4All. Die maakt letterlijk gebruik van de voorwaardes van de gratis Internet aanbieders. Het is niet interessant of dat nou relevant is, maar het is wel interessant om te zien dat de Consumentenbond misschien iets nuttigs kan doen inzake internet en dergelijke. Jammer is dat het artikel niet erg diep (lees helemaal niet diep) ingaat op het onderwerp.":

De Consumentenbond wil dat er een onderzoek komt naar de voorwaarden van gratis internet. Daarvoor heeft zij een verzoek ingediend bij de Registratiekamer. De bond vindt dat het bij de meeste aanbieders niet duidelijk is of zij persoonlijke gegevens bijhouden en doorspelen aan derden.

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dat MSI een tooltje heeft gereleased waarmee je de busspeed van een MSI plank on-the-fly vanuit Windoos kunt aanpassen (vergelijkbaar idee als SoftFSB):

BUSRacing is a program released by MSI designed to make overclocking their motherboards easier. It allows you to get lots of information about your board as well as allowing you to change your FSB. BUSRacing only works with MSI motherboards.

Het proggie kun je hier neerhalen.

ClanWorld heeft een artikel gepost over de geschiedenis van id Software, beginnende bij de release van Commander Keen in 1991. Hier een stukje uit de intro:

So what the heck happened and where would we see the first game that would revolutionize the 3D gaming market? John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, John Romero, and Tom Hall were the guys behind Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons, but only one month after the release, John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, and John Romero left Softdisk as the name was of the company. They decided to create id Software and this happened on February 1, 1991. By this, the world was about to change big, and I mean it. On May 5, 1992, id Software released their very first action title; Wolfenstein 3-D that was released by Apogee. Suddenly, a small bunch of guys created a new gaming genre that would continue to grow until today, and it's still growing. id Software suddenly became a name that was known worldwide.

De duitse c't heeft een artikel gepubliceert over de werking van de Transmeta Crusoë, een processor die ontwikkelt wordt voor gebruik in portable 'information appliances' zoals handhelds en notebooks. Een bezoeker van Ace's Hardware was zo vriendelijk om de belangrijkste punten uit dit artikel naar het engels te vertalen:

The author speculates, that a variable, possibly configurable, optimisation-strategy can optimise the code the better, the more often it is executed. At the first run, it will only be translated. At later runs, it will then be optimised further and further.

Transmeta claims to prove this with the example of a small C-loop, consisting of ten complex x86-instructions. After many optimisation-steps, it can be reduced to four basic VLIW-instructions (two times parallel + "commit"). This method of runtime-optimisation reminds the author a little of "intelligent" Basic-interpreters, but would be unique in hardware. Transmeta in no way intends to limit this method to x86-emulation, but rather explicitly mentions other possible applications, like Java.

The author then predicts the Crusoe to be an exceptinal power-saver, which should have great chances in the area of "Information Applicances", like mobile phones, PDAs and notebooks.

De rest lees je op Ace's Hardware.

Volgens GA-Source zal nVidia eind dit jaar met een volledige OpenGL ICD voor Linux komen:

While at Comdex, and during our meeting with NVIDIA, it came to our attention that by the end of the year, NVIDIA will release a full OpenGL ICD for Linux. This will provide full support for their latest products, and enhance the current Linux drivers available. Good news indeed for the Linux community.

Arjan stuurde dit artikel in van WebWereld over CloneCD, een proggie waarmee beveiligde cd's makkelijker mee te kopiëren zouden zijn.

Wie tot nu toe een beveiligde CD-ROM wilde 'back-uppen', moest zijn toevlucht nemen tot het downloaden van illegale cracks die her en der op het net worden aangeboden. Volgens de makers van CloneCD is dat niet meer nodig.

Een nieuwe slag in het gezicht van de software-industrie: kopieerbeveiligingen kunnen eenvoudig worden omzeild met het nieuwe CloneCD. Dit meldt CD Freaks, een site met veel informatie over het kopiëren van CD's en CD-ROMs. De beheerders van CD Freaks zeggen veel juichende mailtjes te ontvangen van mensen die het programma met succes hebben uitgeprobeerd.

Het programma bespaart de nijvere thuiskopieerder veel werk, want elke beveiliging vereist normaliter weer een andere crack en elke crack werkt weer op een andere wijze. Sommige hoeven slechts eenmalig te worden gebruikt, andere moeten iedere keer meelopen als men van een gekopieerde CD-ROM gebruik wil maken.

CloneCD wordt gemaakt door het Duitse Elaborate Bytes. Het programma (1,4 Mb groot) is vanaf de site van Elaborate Bytes te downloaden en is zonder registratie vijf keer te gebruiken.

Of de Duitsers rijk zullen worden van hun vinding, moet overigens betwijfeld worden. Volgens CD Freaks is CloneCD al 50.000 keer gedownload, maar slechts 50 keer geregistreerd. Serienummers van de software hebben zich dan ook razendsnel over het web verspreid.

In tegenstelling tot CloneCD kunnen andere brandprogramma's originele CD's niet 1-op-1 kopiëren. De aangebrachte beveiligingen zorgen er dan voor dat de back-up niet werkt, tenzij ingewikkelde omwegen worden bewandeld via cracks. Elaborate Bytes stelt op haar site aan dit probleem te ontkomen door in Raw-mode te kopiëren, waardoor 1-op-1 kopieën wél mogelijk zouden zijn.

Niet elke writer en CD-ROM drive werkt echter met de software. Op de site van de handige programmeur is een lijst te vinden met writers en drives die CloneCD ondersteunen. De software werkt vooralsnog alleen met Windows 95 of 98.

Je kunt het programma hier neerhalen.

Bij Gamespot kun je een round-up vinden van stuurwielen, joysticks en gamepads.

When you walk through any computer superstore, you often come across shelf upon shelf of game controllers. There's a seemingly endless variety of gamepads, joysticks, and even steering wheels. There was no possible way to cover all the available products, so I picked out a bunch that looked interesting, were widely available, and were moderately priced. The most expensive controller was a hundred bucks, and a few were $20 or less.

I'm gratified to see more and more USB controllers on the market, though there is still a wide array of gameport-driven controllers still available. Until USB-equipped systems completely replace the older, non-USB PCs, gameport controllers will be available. The good news is that a number of them support dual interfaces - either gameport and USB or serial port and USB.

If you have a choice, USB is preferable - but it's not a panacea. For example, you'd think that a USB game controller would be purely digital, but some still require calibration. The good news is that those controllers only need to be calibrated one time - they hold calibration much better than gameport-based controllers.

Bij Hardware One is een erg uitgebreide review online gezet van de Asus K7M Athlon moederbord. Blijft toch jammer dat de overklokbaaarheid zo tegen valt. Hier liep het bord alleen op max. 107MHz stabiel.

Utilising the Athlon 650, I couldn’t achieve stable speeds above 107MHz FSB (ie. CPU@700MHz). At 110MHz, it would hang intermittently during IE5 browsing. I could even replicate the failure a few times, but once I gradually decreased the FSB to 107MHz, it worked perfectly without lockups even after several hours of benchmarking. So despite the extensive, friendly overclocking capabilities of the K7M, it is unlikely one can practically make use of the higher FSBs, owing to inherent chip limitations on Athlons themselves.

However, another plus point to note is the speed in which the K7M boots up. In comparison with my normal P3 450@558MHz, I can vouch that the K7M booted up close to 50% faster. This could be predominantly attributed to the higher CPU running speed, but also in part to the K7M itself.

BXBoards meldt dat er een nieuwe beta BIOS beschikbaar is voor de Abit BF6 en BE6-2. Het schijnt dat de BIOS veel AGP problemen oplost bij hoge busspeeds... Downloaden kan hier.

Abit have sent me a beta-bios for the BF6 and the BE6-2. This is beta and I swore I'd never do this, again, so its all at your own risk. However it does very good things to AGP stability past 125Mhz or so it is claimed!

Verbatim, here is the mail I got with the BIOS so decide for yourselves...

I have a good news for you ...

The attached file is the latest BE6-II/BF6 beta bios ... This beta add one more fancy SOFTMENU III feature , which has hugh effect when FSB > 125 MHz

I tested this new feature and found it's really effective with my own Diamond VIPER V770 Ultra straight up to 150 MHz FSB !!! You can try this new feature ... If you feel that it's really useful to our customers , you can put this beta bios on your web...

ZDNet heeft een artikel gepost over Intel's 'PC-on-a-chip' Timna processor. Door de videokaart, memory controller en CPU in één verpakking te stoppen kunnen instapmodellen nog goedkoper worden aangeboden, geschat wordt voor zo'n $400 dollar.

To that end, the company will offer Timna, which is based on Intel's new 0.18-micron manufacturing process, in the second half of next year.

Timna will combine a Pentium processor core developed specifically for this low-cost market with a graphics engine and memory controller. By combining these three functions into a single chip, Intel says it will lower PC makers' overall component costs and reduce the size of the motherboard needed for Timna-based a system, another cost-saving measure.

Cost savings allow PC makers to charge less for a given system. But for end users, the chip promises even lower entry-level pricing. Such PCs can be viewed as the equivalent of entry-level automobiles, which are relatively inexpensive, but meet all of the basic needs of the customer. Their low cost may also encourage those buyers who have not yet purchased PCs to jump on the bandwagon.

Als je geen zin had om al de 43 voorgaande Comdex verhaaltjes te lezen: SystemLogic heeft alle info in artikel bijeen geschraapt. Hieronder wat over de Abit aankondigingen:

Abit announced the introduction of the Siluro family of graphics cards based on nVidia's TNT 2 and GeForce256 chips. What you say? Abit making graphics cards??!! Well, this is apparently part of Abit's new direction. The first products in the Siluro family includes, the GT2 Ultra, GT2V, and GT2, which are based on the TNT 2. The GF256 will is the GeForce based card.

As for motherboards, Abit has got some new Intel i820 based boards, the CH6 and CX6. Both boards support AGP 4x, 100/133 Mhz FSB, ATA/66, 5 PCI slots and 1AMR slot, as well as on board sound. The CX6 supports 2 RIMM sockets for a maximum of 1 GB of RAMbus memory, and it also has Soft Menu II to change those FSB settings with ease. The CH6 has 3 DIMM slots which supports up to 1 GB of SDRAM. Abit knows there will be an issue with memory, so they have two boards which are basically the same except for the memory. This will allow customers to have more of a choice and actually get what they are looking for.

Ik vond net nog een review van de Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer. Deze is afkomstig van Scott's Hardware.

I hooked the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer up to my system tying both the PS/2 and USB ports and found virtually no difference in perceived performance using one over the other. However, when using the USB port I did observe a slight decrease of my system resources, in the System Properties box, even though its effect wasn't readily apparent in use. Being of the performance biased crowd, I chose to stick with the PS/2 port.

Upon connecting the IntelliMouse Explorer and installing the software, and after admiring the cool red glow emitting from the mouse's bottom and rear side, I noticed an immediate improvement in tracking. The occasional jitteriness I experienced with my original IntelliMouse was absent, and positioning the curser in tight places became a breeze. I tried tracking on my desktop, mouse pad, pants leg, and several other surfaces immediately available to me, and noticed no loss of tracking or precision. This is truly a remarkable advance in mouse technology, especially considering the mouse is rarely considered an system upgrade unless it happens to die because it ingested too much dirt.

As I mentioned above, I really enjoyed the additional controls along the left side of the mouse, as it made scrolling through long web pages and documents a much simpler task. The scrolling wheel functions normally for scrolling, but the convenience of a whole screen down or back up at the click of your thumb was a big plus in my book. Also, as mentioned before, these buttons can be configured to other options such as cut and paste, delete, close, alt, or a number of other options, in case you don't like (or need) the default settings.

Lees trouwens ook effe Reinder's verhaal over deze muis

Meer nieuws van Gigabyte, op Overclockers' Workbench staat namelijk de press-release van de GA-BX2000+ BX moederplaat. Features zijn o.a. ATA 66, 4 USB ports, core voltage tweaking, DualBIOS™ technology en Suspend-to-RAM (STR) power management. Hieronder de rest van de info:

GA-BX2000+ has the Intel 440BX AGP chipset with the 100MHz-system clock (with ability to adjust the voltage and set the system bus up to 150MHz) and supports the Pentium II/III family of CPU Processor chips from 200 to 600MHz, with slot 1. The GA-BX2000+ has main bus clock speed of 66 /100 MHz, a clock multiplier of 3.0 / 3.5 /4.0 / 4.5 / 5.0/ 5.5 all the way up to 9.0. On this mainboard it has 4-100 MHz 168 pin DIMM sockets and supports every DIMM Memory chips from 8MB to 256MB, with a total of 1GB. The chipset consists of the Intel 82440 BX AGP set, ITE 8671 I/O set (1MB/s) and the Winbond 83782 Health chip. What a great combination, it's right on the cutting edge. To go on, there is one APG slot for your Video card, six PCI slots and one ISA slot. It supports 2 UDMA/66 IDE ports (up to 4 Ultra ATA 66 Devices), 2 UDMA/33 IDE ports (up to 4 ATAPI Devices), PIO Mode 3,4 UDMA/IDE & ATAPI CD-ROM, four USB Ports, PS/2 mouse and keyboard. There is support on the main board for 3 fans, 1 CPU, 1 power supply fan, and 1 case fan. There is a sensor under the processor, which is in contact with the processor. It will sense the temperature of the CPU and send it to the CMOS for you to see. You can set your limits on the temperature and have it give you an alarm if it’s beyond that setting. The good thing did not stop here, this board also can detect the power supply voltage, CPU voltage, and also the fan rotation speed. All this information not only can be found inside the CMOS setting, it also can be display under Windows 95/98 and Windows NT by running the Gigabyte’s SIV (System Information Viewer) or the Intel’s LDCM (LANDesk Client Manager) software. With all these System Health monitoring functions added to this board, you never have to worry about your system will fail due to CPU overheat. There is also a buzzer built on the board, so you don’t have to use the case speaker. The computer can be powered up by Keyboard, mouse, LAN, RTC Alarm, and Modem Ring.

Skippie schrijft: "Net gelezen op aceshardware.com, dat Giga-Byte een Slot 1 daughter card heeft uitgebracht die de coppermine FC-PPGA ondersteunt. Nu dus twee bestaande coppermine adapter kaarten: Soltek en Giga-Byte.":

GigaByte has a very interesting socket 370 to slot 1 card. The 6R7+ card supports:

• 1. Dual - Processor (Celeron/Coppermine).
  
• 2. Intel & Cyrix (joshua) Socket 370 CPU's.
  
• 3. The Intel 133MHz Coppermine CPU.

So don't thow away your Slot one board yet ! This should make it easy to upgrade to future Coppermines and Joshua's.

Tjark schrijft: "Aopen heeft 2 Athlon mobo's in voorbereiding. Bij HardOCP hebben ze ook een plaatje. Mooi detail hieraan: er zit blijkbaar al een Chipset-fan op. Of dit ook met het uiteindelijke productiemodel zo zal zijn?"

Rich Pederson hooked us up with a very nice pic of the upcoming AOpen Athlon mainboard. This was told to Rich by AOpen Support:

"Hi: We will announce AK72 and MK72 MBs to support the AMD K7 CPU. The schedule as below: AK72 --> Jan, 2000. MK72 --> Feb, 2000."

Ik kreeg van Vindicator en hjs een link naar dit artikel van Tom's Hardware Guide waarin de Creative 3D Annihilater en de LeadTek GeForce kaart worden vergeleken. Het geheugen van de Annihilator kan net ietsie hoger geklokt worden dan de LeadTek waardoor hij net ietsie beter presteert. De LeadTek heeft daarentegen een tv-out aan boord.

Creative Labs has once again released an excellent product that offers high-end performance for the masses. It doesn't come with all the bells and whistles but it does come with a reliable board that's backed by the Creative name and providing you with drivers that support some of the leading edge features (Glide wrapper, support for Stencil buffer to create shadowing effects). The Annihilator is an excellent 3D performer that offers an average GeForce board at a decent price. Although the list price of this card is at $249, it's available in a variety of stores at a lower price (as low as $210).

Leadtek brings us the WinFast GeForce 256 equipped with more features, silightly faster memory-modules at faster timing and a somewhat larger software package. I was a bit disappointed that my review board didn't clock as high as I hoped it would. The faster memory didn't prove much to me, although it's arguably a touch faster when clocked the same speed as the Creative board. The TV-out feature can prove very practical however, particularly for DVD-playback on your television, and it cannot be found on the Creative Labs product. If you should be looking to get a flat panel next year sometime then you'll also appreciate the DVI connector. The Leadtek board is a bit harder to get a hold of and the pricing is pretty solid at $249, which makes it a little more expensive than the Creative GeForce solution, but you get a better equipped board that's slightly faster than Creative's Annihilator.

My decision is pretty solid here. If you want a 'no-bullshit'-GeForce based board without any special features besides kick butt 3D performance, go pick up the Creative board at the cheapest price available. You can probably pick it up easier and at $20 less than the Leadtek. However, if you aren't decided between both boards, grab the Leadtek if you can find it. For a slightly higher price you can pick up the added software bundle and have video out that you might find useful in the future. Being able to pump video through your TV to show off DVD movies or MPEG clips can be useful and with flat panels coming around the corner, you might regret not getting a card with the DVI connection. Stay tuned for a GeForce round-up and a review of S3-Diamond's Viper II review next week. I wish all our US readers a Happy Thanksgiving!

Crow stuurde deze link in naar wat info over de MP3 speler van Terratec. In het apparaat kan een 30GB harde schijf bijgezet worden waardoor je voor zo'n 22 dagen muziek kunt opslaan!

The internationally accepted MP3 format lets audio data be reduced to one eleventh of its original size – with hardly any change in quality. TerraTecŽs m3po™ is a CD player to complement a conventional hi-fi set. The device plays MP3 as well as conventional CDs. Regardless of whether or not you buy them in a store or burn them yourself: after inserting a CD m3po™ searches the medium for MP3 files and playlists. It doesn't matter which directory they are located in.

Using a shuttle, titles can be selected and started very easily thanks to clear and comfortable menu directions.

But there's more: in addition to the built-in CD drive, it's possible to easily retrofit a conventional IDE hard disk! This lets you transfer the compressed audio files and the associated playlists to the hard disk. Considering that a 30 GB HDD contains more than 546 hours (or 22 days!) music, TerraTecŽs m3po™ will put an abrupt end to all storage problems soon!

Of course, the player looks as good as it sounds. The stylish as well as functional aluminium design cuts a fine figure in living-rooms, on barbecues, or the never ending birthday party of the mother-in-law. Its LCD rounds off its elegant appearance and arms the device fashionably for the new millennium.

The m3po™ comes with some MP3 goodies. And the streamlined remote control lets you operate the most important functions – even such as the volume of the adjustable headset amplifier - while lying lazy in your deckchair.

JanKees schrijft: "Hardware France geeft een nieuwe betekenis aan de Franse slag, want het is wel zeer grondig werk... en daar is een Diamond Viper 2 eigenlijk niet zo blij mee... Voor zover ik weet kloppen alle feiten ...... Een niet al te onleesbare vertaling ici:":

Is Savage2000 it disappointing? Yes, if one compares final chip with the announced characteristics 3 months ago. Not, if it is taken just as it is. Indeed, the chip in him even is very powerful all the same, as the performances obtained in OpenGL under Quake III Per 1600 Frs proves it, Viper II is located indeed has a level of performance ranging between GeForce SDRAM (2000 Frs) and GeForce GDR SDRAM (2400 Frs).

But... because there is always one but... there N is not that Quake III in the life! Indeed the current performances in Direct3D have nothing to do with the performances in OpenGL, so that the card sometimes evil has has to compete with " a simple " Ultra TNT 2. Moreover, the drivers of Savage2000 are not perfect. On do the 12 plays used for the test of compatibility, only 5 function perfectly... well on the majority are playable all the same in spite of the encountered problems, but acknowledge that it is not very pleasant... 20 fps without bugs or 30 fps buggés? For me the choice is quickly made.

Well on it is not absolutely necessary of a preview, and the drivers of Viper II have time to improve... finally, not as much as Ca since the first deliveries of the card should be done in one week. This is why I disadvise the purchase of Viper II as of his output. It is to better wait a few weeks in order to see the work achieved by S3 on the level of the drivers... I should make besides on this occasion a second test, in order to observe made progress. While waiting, it is to better prefer other solutions... with knowing a card containing G400 / TNT 2 for the same price less expensive to see (a little less fast certainly, but more compatible!), or a card containing GeForce GDR if you are fortunate. But that only did not leave given, and with better drivers Viper II could surprise of them well more one!

Hierboven heb ik dus maar even de hele laatste pagina (conclusie) vertaald neergekwakt. De rest van de review en de benchmarks kun je hier vinden.