hjs en Eric (The Man himself) brachten een link naar een nieuw artikel van Fastgraphics (de derde in 2 dagen, het is feest daar geloof ik ), waarin vijf all-in videokaarten vergeleken worden. Het groepje slachtoffers bestaat uit de Matrox Marvel G200, Marvel G400, 3dfx Voodoo 3 3500TV, ATI All In Wonder 128 en de Elsa Erazor III Pro, allen voorzien van TV-in & out en realtime video compression. Van deze vijf kaarten werd de Marvel G400 als beste bevonden:

On our Pentium II 400 the Marvel cards were the only ones which let us capture full motion video at full PAL D1 resolution. The image quality of the captured video files is very good, most of all when you capture at full PAL resolution with little to average compression. At about 1.7 Mb per second it will be hard to tell the difference between the image from the DVD disc and the captured image from the Marvel.

For those that want to use the Marvel to rip DVD's to harddrive I'm afraid I have some bad news. The Matrox drivers continuously look for Marcovision on the input signal and as soon as copy protected content is detected it will stop encoding.

Insane komt aanzetten met dit nieuwsartikel van The Register, over fluisterstille harddisks van Quantum. Dankzij de Quiet Drive Technology wordt het mogelijk om harde schijven in bijvoorbeeld settop boxen te verwerken, waar eenlaag geluidsniveau essentieel is. Verder wil Quantum de technologie gebruiken om de irriterende bijgeluiden van z'n 7200 en 10.000rpm SCSI schijven te dempen, zodat deze herrieschoppers zonder aantasting van gebruiksgemak in desktop systemen verwerkt kunnen worden:

In read and write mode the Fireball lct's average decibel level is 32 decibels. According to Quantum, it's nearest rival measured 32 decibels when idle and 35 decibels when active. The average PC hard drive produces 36-48 decibels when in use.

Quantum says it will incorporate its proprietary acoustic technology (called Quiet Drive Technology) into its 7200rpm Atlas V, and its Atlas 10K series high performance drives.

Quiet drives are an essential feature for the new class of home entertainment devices requiring local storage. We wouldn't put up with the HDD "hum" in our living room, so why should we put up with that horrible noise in our offices? It's good to see vendors extending quiet drives to the desktop PC market. This strikes us as a much more meaningful performance improvement than shaving a millisecond or two off average seek time.

McMiGHtY schrijft: "Er is dus alweer een nieuw millenium virus in aantocht, je zou als computergebuiker toch bijna gaan maken voor het millenium probleem ":

Softwareleveranciers Computer Associates en Symantec waarschuwen voor een nieuw vernietigend computervirus dat op 1 januari 2000 kan toeslaan. Behalve het herformatteren van de harde schijf van de gebruiker, verandert de worm de instellingen van de startpagina van Microsofts Internet Explorer.

De mail-worm met de naam Worm.Mypic of W32/Mypics.worm arriveert met een e-mailbericht zonder een onderwerp. Het bericht bevat een attachment met de naam 'Pics4You.exe' met een grootte van 34 kB. Als het bestand wordt geopend, verspreidt de worm zich in de computer van het slachtoffer.

Onverlaat schrijft: "Elsa claimt in de specificaties van de Elsa Erazor X (GeForce 256) dat deze samenwerkt met de Revelator 3D bril. Ik dus die bril kopen en wat denk je, hij doet het niet":

Q: The installation doesn't work with my Creative Annihilator nvidia GeForce 256 card. When will these drivers be available? i.e. drivers which could also be used with Erazor X.

A: We are working on Revelator support for the ELSA ERAZOR X. Other GeForce graphics boards will be supported in the future, but I cannot say when that support will be available.

Kind regards,
Stefan Kreutzer

De fanatieke DPC'er zal weten dat we gisteren een massale Sinterflush actie hebben gepland. Vandaag zouden hiervan de resultaten bekend moeten worden, ware het niet dat Distributed.net (weer eens) een bommetje onder de eigen statsbox heeft gelegd. Jim Nashy aka Decibel spreekt ons toe in zijn .plan update:

"Uhoh."

- Number one thing you don't want to hear a stats person say while testing new statsrun code

For all you stats-junkies that noticed, stats was down for several hours. I had changed the queries that insert new participants into the main participants table in the interest of cleaner and faster code.

Unfortunately, what should have been a relatively simple change didn't work. The net result was that some 13,000 emails were added to STATS_participant even thought they were already in the table. This is a BadThing(tm).

To make matters worse, while deleting the duplicated records, I 'went a bit too far', and deleted new rc5-64 participants from yesterday (57 people all told). I was able to add these records back in, but any changes made to these records during the day yesterday (such as joining a team, setting up your friends, adding a motto, etc.) were lost.

Anyway, everything is pretty much back in one piece again. Sorry for all the cowfusion!

On a different note, as Nugget mentioned, we found out what was slowing statsbox to a crawl before. It was a change made right before the slowdown that really shouldn't have had the impact that it did. The only thing we can figure is that the change was just enough to cause sybase to start turning over it's internal cache at a very rapid rate. Another BadThing(tm).

Bruce, Nugget, and I came up with a plan for fixing this on a more long-term basis, which we should be implementing sometime this week. Once we do implement that change, we should be able to make some other changes that should speed up the statsrun.

RC5 stats are now running, and I've got apache disabled to speed them up as much as possible. Stats should be back up in an hour or two.

Thanks as always for your patience.

De statistieken zijn inmidels weer online, alleen is de oogst van gisteren nog niet verwerkt .

Voor het geval je me nu vaag vindt blaten: check hier de info over hoe je de Dutch Power Cows kunt joinen!

valkenier schrijft: "Linus Torvalds werkt aan een nieuw, nog geheim project bij Transmeta. In een interview met de LA Times licht hij alvast een stukje van de sluier op. Meer nieuws op 19 januari":

Q: What is the project you are working on at Transmeta?

A: We've been very, very secretive, and I can't tell you much about what we're doing. We did open up to the degree that we announced when we will start talking about what we're doing. The exact date is like Jan. 19. We think we're doing something that no one has ever done before, so we are . . . trying to keep the technology end of it silent until we're ready to release. Right now, we only tell three facts: We're doing a CPU [central processing unit, the brains of a computer]. It's based on a strong software component. And it's especially for mobile markets. The code name is Crusoe. Like Robinson Crusoe.

Q: Is that a hint?

A: No, I think the name was mainly an issue of having something that was recognizable and easily remembered. It's a low-power CPU and that's about all I can say.

Crusoe is bdw ook een anagram voor 'source'.

Xymie komt een linkje brengen naar AVault, waar men meldt dat Intel is begonnen met het wegstrooien van de eerste Itanium systemen aan hard- en software developers:

Chip manufacturer Intel told Reuters on Monday it is shipping systems with prototypes of its new Itanium processor to hardware and software developers so they can develop Itanium-based products. The Itanium chip, which is due in commercial volume by the middle of next year, is Intel's first processor to use its new 64-bit architecture, which processes data in 64 bits instead of the current 32 bit architecture. The Itanium and others in this new family will be initially targeted at higher performance computing.

In August, Intel announced it had achieved first silicon, meaning it had built the first chips from the design of the new product. Now it is shipping servers and professional systems with prototypes of the new chips to help speed the development of future computers and software to run on the new chips.

Developers have been using emulation software that immitated the Itanium processor and its new architecture environment for more than a year. There are now six operating systems running on the new chip, including Microsoft's Windows 2000, Sun Microsystems Solaris and others. Intel remains on course to begin volume production of Itanium processors for commercial use in the middle of 2000.

SLaSH! leidt ons richting een nieuwsposting van Planet Multimedia, over een stel hackers van HIT2000 (Hacking into the Millenium) die als protest tegen het online persoonsbewijs een berg mail op het parlement gedropt hebben:

Het pleidooi van de politie voor een online kenteken is vannacht door hackers beantwoord met een protest e-mail naar alle adressen van het Nederlandse parlement. De hele lijst is openbaar geworden, en daarmee in principe niet beveiligd voor spam, ongewenste e-mail.

De jongeheren van Hit2000 hebben aan 633 mensen die een parlement.nl adres hebben een bericht verzonden. En de e-mail is verzonden via de mailserver van de politie, om even duidelijk te maken hoe broos de situatie op Internet is als het gaat om beveiliging.

Sander Sassen HardwareCentral Siteleader (toemaar ) schrijft: "HardwareCentral brengt je het laatste nieuws over de Intel Coppermine, compleet met gaming en business benchmarks.

<Euhmmm, ik ben dan wel Nederlands, maare m'n site is dat nie, dus hier volgt een blatente plug in het Engels>":

We take a closer look at the performance of the new .18 micron Coppermine CPU and tell you what to expect. We also look at how well it performs using different busspeeds and videocards to see how well it'll scale up and what to expect of the pending 800 MHz model.

Seniorbro schrijft: "Om de SMP bug uit de Voodoo3 drivers te krijgen heeft 3dfx de hulp nodig van alle dual CPU gebruikers met een retail Quake 3 Arena. Stuur de info naar mij en ik zorg voor de rest.":

In order to get the SMP V3 Q3A crash issue looked at 3dfx needs the following info from you if you have an NT 4.0 workstation with service pack 4 or higher, and a dual CPU setup, with the retail version of Quake 3 Arena (not the demo):

• 1. What type of system or motherboard is the card installed in?
• 2. What type of System BIOS and what version is installed in the system or motherboard?
• 3. What is the system BIOS date?
• 4. What type of CPU is installed in the system?
• 5. What type of memory do you have installed in the system?
• 6. What chipset does the motherboard use?
• 7. What other adapters do you have in the system?
• 8. What IRQ does the display adapter have assigned to it? (In most cases this will show as not assigned under NT.)
• 9. Is there any other device assigned the same system resources as the display card?

Please be thorough, they need all of this info or the issue won't be looked at! If you mail the info to me I will send it straight through to Jarrod.

Ze voeren dat open Source nou wel heel erg ver door nietwaar . Maargoed, jullie hebben het gehoord, naar de winkel en koop dat CD-tje!

Voor degenen die weer als een bok op de haverkist sprongen: All for not! Kennelijk proggen ze daar behoorlijk stevig door!

Fixed Problem introduced in 1.0.0.9: When error reporting was disabled, reading hangs.

Added option to disable bad sector scanner

Added option to disable eject of media

Removed warning message, if a drive delivers suspicious sub channel data, as it sometimes triggered a "false alarm"

Hopla, nummer 1.0.0.10 dus! Veel plezier met downloaden.

Wow, Ace's Hardware heeft best wel heftige info van een (hopelijk betrouwbaar) mannetje bij AMD. Volgens deze bron halen de 0,18 micron koper-interconnect Athlon's, die op dit moment in Dresden gesampled worden, al kloksnelheden van 1,2GHz!

Well, our sources close to AMD are telling us good and bad news.

The good news: a good percentage of .18 micron Athlon's (Al) are yielding 1 GHz. A decent amount of Copper Athlons (better take a seat) are already hitting 1.2 GHz!! Again, Yields are way better than expected. The Thunderbird seems to be ahead of schedule too (no details right now).

The bad news: the K6-2+ and K6-III+ continue to have problems to yield at higher speeds (533 MHz+). Oh well, you can't have it all.

Goh, toch nog een klein beetje positief nieuws van het Rampbus front: Samsung gaat de produktie van Rambus DRAM's tussen nu en februari verdubbelen. Hier de info van EETimes:

Samsung had stopped ramping production of Rambus memories in October after Intel delayed its 820 chip set, which was to support the use of Rambus memories. But the company resumed Rambus production last month. "Many customers came to us because not many companies can supply [Rambus memories]", said Yoon-Woo Lee, president and chief executive officer of Samsung's semiconductor unit. Although Samsung is building about one million 128/144-Mbit Rambus chips per month, there is still a big market shortage of the devices, he said.

Samsung currently plans to ramp production to 2 million Rambus chips per month by February, Lee said during a wide-ranging interview here with U.S. journalists and analysts. Lee said he expects Rambus devices will make up about 20 percent of Samsung's DRAM revenue next year, even though he expects Rambus will account for only about 10 percent of the overall DRAM market.

Around 70 percent of Samsung's DRAM revenue next year will come from synchronous and EDO parts, including PC133, with the other 10 percent coming from DDR memories, Lee said.

Een aantal wakkere jongens en meisjes bij Rainbow Technologies hebben een PCI kaartje ontwikkelt die de werking van een secure webserver met 90% kan versnellen. Met behulp van de CryptoSwift Secure Server Accelerator wordt het encrypten en decrypten van een SSH, SET en SSL verbinding hardwarematig geaccelereert:

Improve your secure web server response time and extend the life of your server investment. Rainbow Technologies' CryptoSwift™ accelerates the public-key cryptographic functions of SSL, SET, SSH and other widely used security protocols.

Using patent-pending technology, CryptoSwift contains a public-key math processor that off-loads and speeds up the operations of a secure web server's main processor. Running up to 200 transactions per second and processing a transaction in 5 milliseconds, CryptoSwift improves server response time by up to 90% and frees your server to perform other tasks. The CryptoSwift board easily plugs into the PCI slot of your server and seamlessly installs into your secure web server software including Netscape and Microsoft. CryptoSwift works with the secure web server resources you have in place and makes your infrastructure investment last longer.

CryptoSwift's performance is available in speed configurations including 50, 100, and 200 transactions per second, matching your needs at a price you can afford. In addition, because CryptoSwift is scalable, multiple cards can provide increased performance swiftly handling any size peak load – two cards equal twice the speed, three cards triple the speed, etc.

Day schrijft: "Nadat ze Kasparov te pakken hadden met Deep Bleu is IBM weer bezig met een nieuw speledingetje: Blue Gene. Ze gaan het gebruiken voor wetenschappelijke doeleinden. Jammer, ik dacht zelf meer aan een Quake server" (UT mag ook? ):

Horn said that Blue Gene, when fully operational in four to five years, will be capable of speeds up to one "petaflop." In more simple terms, Horn said that Blue Gene will be able to perform 1 million billion operations every second, and would be 500 times faster than the world's present fastest computer. That would also make it a million times faster than the fastest desktop currently in use, he said.

Goyal said that, assuming sufficient bandwidth existed, the communications power resident in Blue Gene would be able to download all the pages on the World Wide Web in less than one second.

Haha, ik zie die zogenaamde supercomputers van Saint Steve al in hun broekie plassen .

DOS kwam aanzetten met dit nieuwsartikel van Nu.nl, over het Italiaanse bedrijf Vitaminic dat een community op poten wil zetten waarin artiesten en fans elkaar op legale wijze blij kunnen maken met MP3'tjes:

Vitaminic wil graag Europa's grootste ontmoetingsplaats voor afnemers van legale MP3's worden. Daartoe openden de Italiaanse oprichters gisteren naast de site ook een Nederlandse fysieke vestiging.

[...] Vitaminic maakt het voor beginnende bands mogelijk om gratis MP3's aan te bieden. "Ook kunnen ze kiezen om hun nummers voor een kleine vergoeding aan te bieden", zegt Joanna Mak, die de Nederlandse vestiging leidt. "De prijs van een nummer zal tussen de één en de vijf gulden bedragen, afhankelijk van de artiest."

VorteX schrijft: "En weer een nieuwe versie van CloneCD. Alleen jammer dat het niet werkt met mijn TEAC ":

New clone CD version:

• Hardware requirements updated. FAQ updated.
• Overall more reliable operation. Copies more protections.
• Workaround for bug in firmware of NEC CD-ROM:466 (3010 SCSI) added (might help other drives, too)
• Added sanity check for delivered Sub channel Data
• Fixed problem, if read errors are present in a small data track. This fix makes it possible to copy more protections.
• Added recalculation of sub channel data during read. This improves readability of the created disk.
• Reworked bad sector scanner. It failed on some protections.
• Enhanced read reliability with Toshiba CD-ROMs and DVDs (might also improve reliability with other drives).
• Added more read speed selections
• Added workaround for "Mode1 data Pre-Gap of Audio Track" bug for Plextor CD-Writers.
• Added warning message, if a drive delivers suspicious sub channel data
• Added error message, if a drive delivers bogus session info.

DOS brengt: ons richting dit artikel van ZDNet NL, over een nieuw stuk presentatiesoftware van RealNetworks. Het proggie heet RealPresenter en moet net zo lekker streamen als de andere waren van RealNetworks:

RealNetworks presenteert vandaag haar nieuwe RealPresenter technologie. Hiermee kunnen bedrijven dia- en powerpointpresentaties streamen via Internet.

[...] Met de streaming media-technologie van Real kunnen websurfers in real time gebruik maken van video en audio. Veel bedrijven gebruiken Internet al voor webcasts van bijvoorbeeld jaarcijfers. Real en Intel gaan dit nu verder stroomlijnen.

[...] RealPresenter zal bestaan uit een plugin die is te downloaden van Internet. Hij is te gebruiken in samenwerking met andere streaming software van RealNetworks.

PaCKo schrijft: "Ik heb zojuist een site gevonden in Duitsland waar een Pro versie (met DDR SDRAM!) van de Creative Labs Geforce wordt verkocht. Hij kost omgerekend 725,-. ".

Joost_V2 kwam vertellen dat V2 (organisatie voor vage media en opvang plek voor verloren ID'ers ) een eigen 'Rap OS'je' in elkaar geprutst heeft. Het besturingsysteem is bedoeld voor development werk en is slechts 37Kb klein (da's weer wat anders dan een 400Meg grote Win2k install die zich 4 keer laat klonen tijdens het installatie ):

The V2_OS is a brand new Operating System developed by the techies at the V2_Lab (International lab for the unstable media) in Rotterdam. V2_OS offers more speed, expandability, and hardware control for adventurous projects and easy programming FOR FREE!

The FASTEST OS there is:

V2_OS is the fastest Operating System available for the 386+ PC ! Everything in this system is focused on speed: the architecture, the filesystem, it's avoidance of virtualization, everything. And of course, the choice of development language: The V2_OS is written in 100% pure 32Bit Assembler !

A perfect development platform

Because of it's clear, modular architecture, it has become a great development platform. The functionality of all 'parts' of the system can easily be accessed from your applications and if you miss a part, it's very easy to add it. That's the idea behind the architecture of the V2_OS. Everything can be connected, and everything is replacable.

We invite everyone to take a test-drive, and start using the OS as a development platform for your applications or for educational purposes. The use of the system is completely free, all we hope is that you post the programs, modules and servers you have created back to us, so it can be shared with the rest of the world !!

Wil je 'm uitproberen, of heb je trek om mee te developpen, dan kun je de binary hier naar beneden halen.

Planet GeForce heeft een review van de Guillemot 3D Prophet neergelegd. Hier een stukje over de overklokbaarheid:

During the overclocking evaluation of the 3D Prophet, the core frequency was tested between 125 and 145 MHz, where the card started to see it's limits. While stability was achieved at 140 MHz, bumping the speed any higher would result in lockups with seconds of running any 3D application. Still, 140 MHz is nothing to scoff at. Using a few quick calculations:

• 120 MHz x 4 = 480 megapixels/sec - GeForce default
• 140 MHz x 4 = 560 megapixels/sec

Not bad for an increase of only 20 MHz over the default. Of course realizing all this processing power is a different story, as we must also take into account the memory and how it's speed will affect available bandwidth. As the memory on the 3D Prophet is indeed 5.5 ns, pushing it immediately to 183 MHz was a no-brainer. Pumping it beyond 190 MHz, however, was unsuccessful, at least in the sense of doing it and avoiding artifacts. It is possible to push the memory up to 195 MHz, however expect flashing pixels are strange lighting when doing so.

Een erg leuk kaartje (ik 'm hier ook liggen), alleen krijg ik random crashes in UT en Q3A . Errug klote, want Unreal Tournament heerscht op 1152*864 bij 32-bit kleur.

Geheugenfabrikanten zien steeds minder heil in Rampbus, blijkt uit dit nieuwsartikeltje van The Register. Van de zeven fabrikanten die ooit met Intel in het Rambus bootje stapten blijkt het grootste deel geen of slechts een beperkt deel van hun capaciteit aan Rambus chippies te besteden:

Hyundai, Infineon, Micron, NEC, Samsung and Toshiba lined up with Intel and Rambus itself to promote direct RDRAM. What has happened to the Seven Dramurai in the wake of Intel's well-documented problems with its i820 chipset?

Hyundai is not, apparently, interested any more in Rambus. We understand that Toshiba now says that it will produce Rambus, but not for the PC market [=> Playstation II]. Samsung, which ceased production after Caminogate, will not be able to supply volume until January next year.

Hitachi and NEC are reducing Rambus production to one million parts a month, "depending on demand". But, one memory distributor pointed out to us, quite a few of the manufacturers still have stock from those halcyon days when they thought the big launch would be in September.

GamePC heeft een review gepost van de Asus V6600 Deluxe, die geleverd wordt TV-out, 3D shutter bril en een aantal video-editing en DVD utilities. Zoals Eric van Fastgraphics eerder wist te melden is de V6600 Deluxe bijzonder prettig te overklokken: dankzij 5ns SDRAM chips haalde het exemplaar van GamePC een maximale kloksnelheid van 163/211MHz:

Using Powerstrip, we slowly upped the core and memory clocks in steps of 3 MHz each. At each interval, we ran a Quake3 Demo loop and 3DMark99 MAX to ensure reliability, our results came back very good. From a default clock speed of 125 Core, 166 memory, we were able to achieve a nice 160 Core, 207 Memory, which gave us about a 7-10 FPS jump in most applications. To test the limits even more, we slapped on a Card Cooler into our testbed system, we were able to achieve 163 Core, 211 Memory. Which didn't help our applications more than before. it's nice to see all of the GeForce's we've tested to be so overclockable, hopefully the DDR variants will have the same traits.

Dell gaat bij alle PowerEdge servers de mogelijkheid bieden voor installatie en support van Red Hat Linux:

Reuters is reporting that Dell Computer Corp. will install and support Red Hat Linux operating systems on all its PowerEdge server models.

The deal includes worldwide service and support to its Linux offerings. The deal allows the companies to provide operating systems customized to a business customer's needs, Dell and Red Hat said.

It extends an agreement between the two companies and makes Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, the world's No. 2 PC server provider, the first major systems vendor to factory-install Red Hat Linux across its entire server line, the companies said.

``Our shipments of Red Hat Linux have more than doubled over the past quarter and we expect this trend to continue and even accelerate as the adoption and acceptance of Linux as a mainstream operating system increases significantly,'' Jack Steeg, vice president of alliances, Dell's Enterprise Systems Group, said in a statement.

The agreement provides Dell customers with a combination of free and discounted services and support and will help improve their ownership experience, worldwide, the companies said. Red Hat recently opened a series of customer support centers to provide support for Europe, Middle East, Africa, Japan and the Asia Pacific region.

These new resources will assist PowerEdge server customers by providing Red Hat Linux support in native languages. The agreement offers Dell customers 90 days of Web and phone support from Red Hat; discounted Red Hat professional services, including installation assistance where necessary; and 180 days of Red Hat subscription services.

Eric van Fastgraphics heeft benchmarks van z'n bruut overgeklokte Asus V6600 Deluxe gepost. Met behulp van een peltier en Alpha socket370 cooler trok de V6600 Delux een core/mem clock van 160/210MHz. Uit de benchmarks blijkt dat de framerate prima meescaled en op 160/210 dicht in de buurt van de Creative Annihilator DDR komt.

Check de benchmarks hier.

NVNews vroeg Nick Triantos, manager van de nVidia 3D software group, of je in je korte broekje door Silicon Valley mag huppelen:

nV News: Do you wear a suit to work everyday, or are you permitted to wear Bermuda shorts and tank tops?

Nick: I haven't worn a tie since I left New York in 1992, except for my first two interviews I did after leaving school. I think that as long as your zipper is zipped, people consider you suitably dressed for most jobs around Silicon Valley. [break] Kee, nu de belangrijke info : [/break] nV News: We've heard rumors that the successor to the GeForce 256 will be based on a new architecture. Is this true, or will it be based on improving the current design (faster core and memory speeds)?

Nick: In the past, NVIDIA builds a whole new design for each Fall product, and then in the Spring, we add few features to the Fall design, and pump up the speed through higher clocks and internal optimizations.

Next Fall's product is going to kick mucho ass, but I can't really say anything beyond that or our PR guys will axe murder me.