Tip de redactie

Coppermine Motherboard Guide

Door Tweakers , 5 december 1999 21:575 reacties, bron: Thresh's FiringSquad

De mannen van Thresh's FiringSquad hebben een flinke Coppermine Motherboard Guide op het net gezet waarin ze in totaal 27 plankjes bespreken waar je je Coppermine CPU op kunt plakken. In de guide vindt je een opsomming van i820 en i840 mobo's van o.a. Abit, Asus, Aopen, Soyo en MSI. Hieronder een gedeelte:

Besides the EB Coppermines, there are also those that ship with the embedded cache but without the 133 MHz bus. These CPU's are given the "E" designation and are available in speeds of 700, 650, and 600 MHz with the 600 model given the official "E" designation. These three CPU's ship with the S.E.C.C.2 package. In addition, there are also 550E and 500E models that come with the newer Flip-Chip Pin Grid Array package (FC-PGA) to make matters even more confusing.

The final Coppermine variant is the "B" model. Available in speeds of 600B and 533B MHz, these are traditional Pentium III's (i.e. they ship with 512K L2 cache running at half the speed of the processor) running on the 133 MHz system bus. Like traditional Pentium III's, these CPU's feature S.E.C.C.2 packaging.

Users looking to upgrade their older Celeron or Pentium III systems based on the BX-chipset can upgrade to the "E" series CPU's if they have the right motherboard. For those of you who want the embedded cache and support for RDRAM or AGP4X however, you'll have to purchase a new motherboard based on the Intel 820 or 840 chipset. We've compiled an exhaustive list of motherboards that feature either the 820 or 840 chipset so you don't have to. But first, lets see what these new chipsets add to the table.

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Abit VA6 info

Door Tweakers , 5 december 1999 21:4410 reacties, bron: WaveMatrix

Bij WaveMatrix hebben ze wat info gepost over een Abit moederbord gebaseerd op Via's Apollo Pro 133 chipset! Vrij onverwachte actie lijkt me, sinds Intel FIC al heeft aangeklaagd toen zij een bord met deze chipset lanceerde. Deze Abit VA6 zal verder ook nog eens 50 tot 60% goedkoper worden dan de nieuwere BX en i820 mobo's. Hieronder de rest van de info:

It looks like ABIT has a new board based on Via's Apollo Pro 133 chipset which is the same chipset that Intel has been trying to stop the production of. Its called the ABIT VA6 and according to pricing at a site of an OEM over here, it going for 50-60% lower than ABIT's new i440BX boards and Intel's CC820, or in simple terms, well under $100! Hmm, it looks like ABIT acting like ASUS did with the K7M by not acknowledging that it exists, they don't even have a support page on their site. However, if they did, Intel may sue them just as they sued FIC for distributing boards based on Via's chipset. Anyway, here's the specs: Apollo Pro 133 chipset, Slot 1, 3 DIMM sockets, 5 PCI, 2 ISA, and 1 AGP slot, suppport for 233-733MHz PII/PIII processors, ATX form-factor, onboard Audio, AGP 4x, and ATA66. Not bad, considering your going to save a lot by going this root over Camino, and of course its from ABIT, and who knows, it may even be a good of an overclocker board as ABIT's i440BX boards.

Hopelijk durft Abit nu ook de volgende stap te nemen, een Slot A plank te maken!

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c't over Transmeta Crusoë

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 15:114 reacties, bron: c't

Andreas Stiller van c't heeft een artikel over de geheimzinnige Transmeta Crusoë processor gepost. De info gaat nogal diep en is bovendien in het duits, wat het voor velen niet echt relaxed leesbaar maakt. Hier een stukje over de Translation Lookaside Buffer:

Einen wichtigen Anteil an der Arbeit übernimmt der TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer). Er cachet nicht nur wie beim x86 die Übersetzungstabelle von physischen zu linearen Adressen, sondern markiert auch die Seiten, die bereits übersetzt wurden und gibt Auskunft über die Speicherattribute, als ob es sich um normalen Speicher oder um eine als Speicher angesprochene I/O-Komponente (Memory mapped I/O) handelt. Eine variable (wahrscheinlich konfigurierbare) Optimierungsstrategie kann dafür sorgen, dass der Code umso besser optimiert wird, je häufiger er benutzt wird. Beim ersten Durchlauf wird er lediglich übersetzt und bei späteren Durchläufen dann immer weiter und filigraner optimiert. Transmeta belegt dies an einem Beispiel einer typischen kleinen C-Schleife, die aus zehn komplexen x86-Befehlen besteht. Nach vielen Optimierungsschritten kann man sie auf vier einfache VLIW-Befehle (zweifach parallel + ‘Commit’) reduzieren.

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XFree86 4.0 twee maanden delayed

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 14:577 reacties, bron: XFree86.org

De release van XFree84 versie 4.0 lijkt met 2 maanden vertraagd te worden en staat nu gepland voor het eerste kwartaal van 2000:

The XFree86 Project has been working very hard to get the 4.0 release out the door. It is taking a little longer than expected so we will be releasing the next pre-4.0 snapshot (3.9.17) before the end of the year. We expect to release 4.0 about two months later in mid-Q1/2000.

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Duidelijkheid rondom Windows 2000 OpenGL

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 14:526 reacties, bron: OpenGL.org

Otis schrijft: "Om aan al het ge-urineer over OpenGL en Win2K een eind te maken heeft Microsoft zelf een FAQ gepost op OpenGL.org. Een Must Read(tm) voor allen die denken of gedacht hebben daarover te moeten meezeveren op de verschillende reactielijsten alhier ":

I would like to provide the OpenGL community with the following FAQ containing the official Microsoft position on its support of OpenGL in Windows 2000. I apologize for any delay and subsequent worry caused as we got this information together.

Its unfortunate that internal mails like mine get forwarded and see air-time out of context and cause alarm and I apologize for that. This statement regarding our intentions with respect to Windows 2000 and OpenGL makes crystal clear my email was a personal lament over general lack of drivers for W2K and not policy. As far as my point about our directions and where we are placing our resources - thats been no secret for years. My personal technical opinions in internal debates about simplifying the driver model mess are just that. This shouldn't have been news but out of context it might appear to be.

Phil Taylor
SDE, DirectX Evangelism

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Linux Quake III Arena server

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 14:483 reacties, bron: Dave Kirsch .plan

Dave Kirsch heeft z'n .plan geupdate met het nieuws dat de Linux Quake III dedicated server vanaf heden neerhaalbaar is. Check de soep:

A linux dedicated server binary is now available at: ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake3/linux/linuxq3ded-1.11-i386.tar.gz

This allows server operators to run a Linux Quake3 Server (full version). The full linux demo should be out in a few days. It'll include the new Loki installer.

Enjoy.
/// Zoid.

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Unreal Tournament Patch 401 fix list

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 14:3923 reacties, bron: Unreal Universe

Unreal Universe heeft een 23 kilometer lange lijst neer gemikt met alle fixes die in UT 401 weggepetst worden. Goeie ouwe Epic style:

The guys at Epic sent me the fix list for the upcoming update (ver 401) for Unreal Tournament. They say the patch should be released around Monday. The update comes in at 3.5 megs, in case you were wondering. Check out the fixes, changes and improvements:

Bug fixes:
  • D3D detection works properly
  • removed log warnings for players ghosting out of the level
  • fixed saving last start spot for players
  • timemessage sounds play correctly if viewing another player
  • don't allow spaces in names when using console name or setname commands
  • suicide can now end overtime of tied game
  • fixed stuck animation if killed while coming out of feign death
  • no connect time on team scoreboards in single player
  • attach decals in post begin play when zone is properly set
  • fixed player sounds appearing to change location when using 3d sound
  • turn fog off by default for D3D - was causing texture thrashing w/ D3D drivers
  • fixed CTF-coret alternate path problems
  • fixed guided warhead blowing up if no client response with 300 msec after spawning
  • players can no longer switch to illegal team if server is full and force
  • team balance set
  • fixed bots not always playing take hit sounds
  • don't kill spectators in the pressure chamber!!!


Server performance improvements:
  • Don't replicate actor properties of GameReplicationInfo
  • Don't replicate actor properties of ZoneInfo
  • Less frequent visibility checks for currently relevant actors
  • don't keep checking visibility of optional effects
  • less frequent checks for temporary actors after 0.2 seconds
  • reduced playerreplicationinfo update frequency from 5/sec to 4/sec
  • inventory class-specific scripted replication only done if bNetOwner
  • native replication for weapon, pickup, levelinfo, and ammo classes
  • don't spawn decals on dedicated server
  • don't spawn non-replicated effects actors on dedicated server
  • sort static actors so can ignore non replicated static actors when
  • testing for replication


New features:
  • added flesh hit sound to bullets
  • automatic path builder (documented in updated UT_AI.htm)
  • postnetbeginplay() called for actors spawned on network clients
  • Pawns use PostNetBeginPlay() to make sure they have a valid skin and mesh
  • improved D3D texture pool allocation when world and actor texture detail is medium
  • Pawns add momentum to velocity after effects of damage mutator
  • Optional package downloading implemented.

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Asus V6600 vs V6600 Deluxe vs Leadtek GeForce

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 14:307 reacties, bron: Dan's Data

Dan's Data heeft een handige vergelijking tussen de Asus V6600, Asus V6600 Deluxe en Leadtek Winfast GeForce 256 in elkaar gefrutseld. Voor overklokkers heeft de V6600 Deluxe een leuke feature genaamd 'SmartDoctor', waarmee je de temperatuur, voltage en fan speed van de GeForce kunt meten:

Because the Deluxe has on-board temperature monitoring, you can use the included ASUS SmartDoctor program to automatically clock the card back when it's too hot. When SmartDoctor's auto-cooling is activated no other overclocking options will work, and I couldn't tell exactly what speed the card was running at when it was cool. It seemed about the same speed with SmartDoctor activated as when I'd manually overclocked it to 140MHz core speed, 195MHz RAM. SmartDoctor's constant monitoring of the chip voltage and fan speed is supposed to cause a slight performance hit, but I couldn't detect any speed loss. Some early ASUS hardware monitor software was appallingly bad in this regard (forget slowing the machine down, it just crashed it!), but SmartDoctor seems well written and stable.

Wat betreft overklokbaarheid bleken alle kaarten rond de 135/140MHz core en 190MHz memclock uit te komen. Meer daarover lees je in de review.

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Intel maakt zich klaar om met de prijzen te spelen

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 14:1525 reacties, bron: The Register

Insane schrijft: "The Register meldt dat Intel zich klaar maakt voor een prijsoorlog":

While Intel will make some small reductions on Pentium IIIs across the range on the 12th of December next, the biggest cuts will come 23rd of January next. On the 23rd of January, Intel will slash the price of its flip chip, socket 370 Pentium III-600, which supports the 133MHz bus and has 256K cache in the chip, to $310/1000 or so.

And it will trumpet to the world its Pentium III-750 MHz part, which is likely to be around $740/1000. However, sources differ as to whether the 750MHz part will support the 133MHz front side bus -- documents we have seen seem to suggest that the two flavours of 750MHz Pentium IIIs only have 100MHz bus support.

"PIII 750 ziet er strak geprijst uit, aangezien de AMD Athlon 750 $795 kost. AMD gaat dus duurder worden dan Intel?."

De PIII-750 wordt pas eind januari geïntroduceerd en het lijkt me logisch dat AMD tegen die tijd de Athlon prijzen gewoon mee laat zakken.

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Aureal geluidskaarten in europa

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 14:0322 reacties, bron: The Future Online

Anonieme Fred Internet schrijft: "Eindelijk bestaat er de mogelijkheid om echte retail Aureal Vortex SQ2500 kaarten in Europa te bestellen. Het kost je 75.39 Engelse ponden en dat komt overeen met 268.19 gulden. Zoals jullie al weten betaal je geen invoerrechten op hardware, wel BTW.

In totaal ben je 315.12 gulden kwijt inclusief verzendkosten en BTW. Het leukste is dat je Quake III Arena erbij krijgt. Die ondersteunt zoals bekend alleen A3D 3.0.

Ze garanderen bovendien levering binnen 48 uur.":

Full retail version of Aureal Vortex SQ2500 (which includes Heretic 2, Drakan and Slave Zero) PLUS FULL VERSION of Quake III Arena.

Bestellen kan op TheFutureOnline.net.

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Athlon / Pentium III prijsvergelijking

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 13:5919 reacties, bron: CPU Review

insane schrijft: "CPU Review heeft hun Athlon / Pentium III prijsvergelijking van een update voorzien":

It has been eighteen days since my last update; prices had remained relatively stable for the last couple of weeks. I expect another round of price cuts after December 12 (when the next Intel cuts are supposed to happen).

The price war is over - AMD appears to have won. AMD K7's are cheaper than P3's at ALL CLOCK SPEEDS. As of today you can get a K7-700Mhz processor for $137 less than an Intel P3-700Mhz! Intel seems to be unwilling to undercut AMD pricing.

"Pricewar over? Nee, nog lang niet! Ik ben benieuwd hoe zwaar Intel de prijzen van de PIII naar beneden gaat halen. Nu hebben ze de snelheid niet in handen, maar ze kunnen één ding wel in de hand hebben en dat is de prijs. Op beide fronten verliezen is triest voor Intel (wat _nu_ het geval is)."

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Athlon 500 overclocking artikel

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 05:3425 reacties, bron: RB Computing

RB Computing heeft een Athlon 500 artikeltje in elkaar geknutseld, met o.a. een aantal handige benchmarks die de relatie tussen L2 cache snelheid en integer/FPU performance laten zien. De getest Athlon's bleken allemaal over een Athlon 650 core te beschikken, en draaiden stabiel op snelheden tot 800MHz (met verlaagde L2 cache divider):

The first chip I modded was a 500 with a 650 core clocked to 700. The solder time took about 15 minutes. Plugged her into our board and bang! Scared ya.. It worked! Windows98 booted without issue. Ran Winbench99 and it ran flawlessly.

That set me off. I proceeded to crack another one open.. and then another one.. and then two more. For the sake of this review, I got a 650, 700, 700 (1/3), 750, 750 (1/3) and an 800 (1/3) working.

Check de benchmarks op deze page.

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Quantum3D Mercury pic

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 05:1216 reacties, bron: NVNews

Kwam deze verzameling Quantum3D kaartjes tegen bij NVNews. Sterk spul.

They also mentioned the Quantum 3D Mercury graphics accelerator which has a 180 Megapixels per second trilinear filtered texture fill rate (with full-scene hardware anti-aliasing, Z, alpha, and per-pixel fog enabled).

This mother takes up 4 PCI slots. Just goes to show you the incredible horsepower needed for full-scene anti-aliasing.

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Powerstrip 2.55 beta

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 05:070 reacties, bron: Betanews

Ik lees bij Betanews dat Entech Taiwan een nieuwe beta van Powerstrip heeft gereleased.

Designed to compliment the native Windows Display Properties sheet under Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT, the PowerStrip combines advanced, multi-monitor API support with extensive programmable hardware support. A simple toolbar and menu that pops up from the system tray provides configuration and fast access to your favorite display settings, incremental enlargement and reduction of desktop size, comprehensive color calibration controls with gamma hotkeys, the ability to associate specific applications with custom display settings, graphics system diagnostics, flexible font controls, extensive hotkey and screen saver support, a database of over 1500 monitors, and on-the-fly color depth, resolution and refresh rate switching. Additionally, the PowerStrip includes direct hardware support for many chips, permitting an unprecedented degree of control over your display sub-system, particularly under Windows NT.

Changes in Current Version:

  • Better Windows 2000 support
  • Released to keep in sync with the accelerated D3D and OpenGL W2K drivers that the board manufacturers have been leaking or releasing lately

Powerstrip 2.55 kun je hier naar binnen lepelen.

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Powerstrip 2.68 released
Powerstrip 2.68 released Nieuws van 4 juni 2000
Powerstrip 2.65 released
Powerstrip 2.65 released Nieuws van 11 maart 2000

Gigapixel 3D Accelerator preview

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 05:024 reacties, bron: OneWorldOnline.com

OneWorldOnline.com heeft een preview van de Gigapixel 3D accelerator gepost. Gigapixel claimt full-scene anti-aliasing te kunnen doen zonder snelheidsverlies. De GP-2 chip heeft een fillrate van 732Mpis/sec en kan deze fillrate dankzij tiled rendering optimaal benutten:

Their main selling point is the fact that they do full screen anti-aliasing at any resolution. Not that I am any sort of 3D mathematician or anything, but the gist of the idea is that instead of rendering all the polygons in a scene, these guys just render the ones that you can see. All the other technologies render all the polygons - even if you do not see the polygon. The reason the other technologies render all the polygons is because of the high complexity of the algorithms to figure out if a polygon is visible or not. There is also a huge speed and resource penalty for computing visibility. These GigaPixel guys have figured out a way to use the algorithms without a speed or resource hit.

Right now the GP-1 technology is available and is being integrated with a 3D accelerator chipset manufacturer (they would not say who). The GP-2 is slated to be released in January 2000. Update! The GP-2 is now avaliable!

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'Foutje' in Internet Explorer 5.5 Platform Preview

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 04:5712 reacties, bron: Betanews

Stamhoofd Bill blijkt een klein foutje in de Internet Explorer 5.5 Platform Preview verstopt te hebben, lees ik bij Betanews:

When doing a IE 5.5 Platform Preview installation over Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE, users will notice that an about box has been modified. Microsoft intends to eventually include user interface enhancements with IE 5.5, originally slated to be included with Millennium. Although these won't appear until futher into the beta, Microsoft has let a couple references to Millennium slip through.

Here is one instance of the Help/About being changed to say "Millennium." Those of you with the upcoming Microsoft Windows Millennium installed already have Internet Explorer 5.5. Take a look:

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GeForce driver problemen

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 04:4731 reacties, bron: NV News

gdew stuurde deze info afkomstig van NV News:

I try to offer my assistance when fellow users are having problems. Early this morning I received an e-mail from a Swedish visitor who was having trouble running Unreal Tournament. After exchanging quite a few troubleshooting tips, we finally decided to give the NVIDIA 3.56 beta reference drivers a shot. Touchdown! Looks like Michael is having fun again:

"Hi Mike,

Thank you. I solved the problem with the NVIDIA driver 3.56. This is the driver that is running like a dream. I am rocking aroung 80-90 fps in 1024X768@16bit. That rocks...am I right or am I right!!!

The 3.58 works, but does not run at the the same speeds as the 3.56. The 3.62 also works, but is swapping like hell...it's also ment to work with Athlon processors and not the Pentium 3.

Now you know the answer. When a computer with a Pentium 3, Asus V6600 and Windows 98 is crashing in UT, try the NVIDIA 3.56 or 3.58 drivers, NOT THE 3.53!!!

PS: All my other games (Halflife TFC, Q3, SIN, Unreal and Alien vs Predator) are working like a dream too!"

Ik heb hier nu een Guillemot 3D Prophet liggen en die werkt prima met de Guillemot v3.62 drivers.

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Mars Polar Lander nog steeds dood

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 04:3735 reacties, bron: Discovery Channel

Beetje off-topic maar naar mijn mening wel interessant: de Mars Polar Lander zwijgt nog steeds in alle talen, hoewel de Nasa al wel de landings locatie gevonden denkt te hebben. Discovery Channel houdt ons op de hoogte:

"We think either the spacecraft placed itself in safe mode approximately twenty minutes after landing," Cook says, "or else its internal gyroscopes lost track of the Earth, and it’s been trying to find us."

Mission controllers will attempt to send messages that could solve either problem at 9:30 p.m. ET Saturday, when it’s morning again on Mars. The soonest a positive result of their efforts could reach Earth would be at 11:15 p.m. ET Saturday night.

If the Lander doesn’t connect with Earth by the end of Sol 2 -- its second day on Mars -- Cook says the Mars Global Surveyor will try to wake it up in the martian night at 1:50 p.m. ET Sunday and act as a communications relay. "We’re remaining upbeat," he says.

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Netscape 5.0 beta 2 maanden vertraagd

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 00:1831 reacties, bron: Betanews

De release van de eerste Netscape 5.0 beta is met 2 maanden vertraagd. De beta staat nu gepland voor februari, met de eigenlijk release van Netscape 5.0 6 tot 12 maanden later :

An alpha preview of the product code named "Seamonkey" by Mozilla will be available for download on December 15, officials at Mozilla stated. The actual beta is not expected to release until sometime in February. After that release, it could be anywhere from 6 months to a year before it becomes final. The Mozilla browser will be available sometime after it enters beta, however, the branded version for Netscape will require a few more months.

Delays are mostly due to Mozilla completely rewriting the engine, named "Gecko" or "NGLayout". This engine has been written from the ground up, completely from scratch. Originally, code writers expected to use various parts of the old code to make developement faster and to keep its schedule, but they discovered that this was not possible late this summer. Delays were also caused by new features involving the user interface of the browser.

Check Betanews voor het complete verhaaltje.

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3dfx T-Buffer artikel

Door Femme Taken, 5 december 1999 00:100 reacties, bron: Beyond3D

Beyond3D heeft het tweede deel van hun 'T-Buffer Investigated' artikel gepost, met errug diepe info over de mogelijkheden van de T-Buffer technolgie (motion blur, anti-aliasing en meer van dat soort zaligheden) die 3dfx in de Voodoo5 zal toepassen. Hier een sampletje over anti-aliasing:

Well, 3dfx is planning on giving the user the option to decide which setting to use and this will be used a on per-game basis. A lot also depends on if a game is fill-rate of CPU limited. If you're playing something like Falcon 4.0, you might be just fine rendering 4 sub-samples on a 2-chip board because you're so CPU limited, where as if you were playing Quake III, you might not want to use any anti-aliasing at all. It is really a personal choice that each user will make. What frame-rate is fast enough for a given game for you? If you demand the absolute highest frame-rate, you won't use any AA at all, where as if you're fine in the 40-50 fps area, you might use 4X AA on a 4-chip board. Again, it is a very personal choice.

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