3dfx heeft vandaag alweer nieuwe drivers uitgebracht voor zowel de Voodoo2 als Voodoo3. De Voodoo3 drivers van eergisteren zijn dus alweer van een update voorzien. Hieronder de info en links:

Voodoo2 Windows 9x versie 3.02.02

1. Bug fixes on various games.
2. Fixed issue, which caused some Glide apps to hang when changing from 640x480 to 800x600.
3. Fixed issue with the control panel. Running a D3D app, pressing ALT+TAB and then attempting to use the control panel caused the D3D app to freeze.
4. Fixed issue with the control panel. Incorrect memory configurations were getting reported.
5. Fixed issue with the D3D function ValidateDevice ( ).
6. Fixed issue Speed Busters, Turok2 and Cyberstrike2. After running these games they could not be restarted unless the machine was rebooted.
7. Fixed issue with pulsating circles around edges of jump pads and lighting around skull being corrupted with Q3 test.
8. Fixed issue with fog not correctly displayed on Q3 Test.
9. Fixed issue with Quake 3's brightness control being grayed out.
10. Updated OpenGL with miscellaneous bug fixes.

Voodoo3 2000/3000 Windows 9x versie 1.04.00 Updated

1. Fixed 3dfx Tools bug that had language problem with non-English languages.
2. Driver updated to support General Format mode Timings
3. Udates to support Microsoft DCT300 tests
4. Fixed issue with possible Deer Hunter 2 hanging at main menu
5. Fixed issue which caused a slowdown with some Glide and OpenGL applications.
6. Fixed issue with Unreal not running with OpenGL.
7. Fixed issue with the control panel not allowing the selection of 800x600 when the machine was used with a non-PNP monitor.
8. Fixed issue with Quake 3's brightness control being grayed out.
9. Fixed issue with Flight Sim 98 and 2000 missing point lights during night scenes on right of screen.
10. Fixed issue with desktop corruption occurring when changing form a 16bit mode to 8bit mode on certain motherboard/processor combinations.
11. Fixed issue with Organic Art screen saver causing screen corruption and/or system lock when running with power management enabled.
12. Fixed issue with Moto Racer2 crashing to the desktop when attempting to load.
13. Fixed issue with System Shock 2. Players could lose weapon overlay, depending on position.
14. Fixed issue with Jane's USAF, Textures beyond plane visible through the plane.
15. Fixed issue with Deer Hunter 3, Terrain behind buildings visible through the building.
16. Updated OpenGL with miscellaneous bug fixes
17. Updated 3dfx Tools to provide video overlay gamma adjustment.
18. 3dfx Tools now supports an external call that allows the display device to be switched between output devices.

Voor Windows 2000 gebruikers: op deze site staan er nieuwe Voodoo3 drivers voor je klaar.

Onze grote kabelvriend United Pan-European Communications (aka UPC) gaat in samenwerking met Priority Wireless in Noorwegen een snel draadloos netwerk aankweken. Het netwerk zal in eerste instantie gebruik maken van frequenties in de band van 3,5GHz (thanks Epsylon voor de tip):

De twee zullen het nieuwe netwerk als eerste gaan aanleggen in en rond de Noorse hoofdstad Oslo. Daarna zullen ook andere steden in Noorwegen aan bod komen. Men hoopt het hele project binnen twee jaar af te kunnen ronden. De opgedane ervaringen zullen worden gebruikt bij de aanleg van soortgelijke infratructuren in andere delen van Europa.

In Noorwegen wordt gebruikgemaakt van een frequency in de band van 3,5 gigahertz. Daarnaast studeert men op plannen om een kanaal in de 26 GHz-band te kunnen inzetten voor het aanbieden van breedbandige datadiensten. Voor beide frequentiegebieden heeft men inmiddels een licentie verkregen.

Voor de complete info kun je dit artikel van de Automatiserings Gids nalezen.

Het volk van Digital-Clips heeft een review online gezet van de Epson Perfection 1200U USB scanner met een maximale resolutie van 1200 dpi x 2400 dpi. Hieronder wat meer info:

This Epson scanner is definitely a good buy if you want quality scans for all those illicit magazines lying under your bed. But seriously, it depends on the usage of your scanner. This scanner is aimed at a higher market, hence its slightly higher list price and thus, if you just want a scanner for producing some personal homepage, you don’t need this. You can get a lot cheaper scanners elsewhere. What you get is a scanner that is worth about $500 for about $300. What more can you ask for? Lastly, you can also expand the scanner with a film adapter so you can scan all those negatives or slides that you might want digitized or add an automatic paper feeder if you really do scan that many documents. Versatile, expandable, cheap in relative terms to features, this scanner gives all the other competition a good run for their money. Too bad its pricey, costing about $150 more than most scanners today.

iXBT Hardware heeft het tweede deel van hun uitgebreide GeForce 256 videokaarten vergelijking online geparkeerd. Toegevoegd zijn de tests van de Elsa Erazor X, Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, Asus V6600 Deluxe en de Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR. Hieronder maar vast de conclusie voor je:

Summing up we would like to single out ASUS AGP-V6600 (Deluxe), which takes the lead among the graphics cards with SDR-memory. However, these cards are still not that promising as those with DDR-memory. Only they can give the user to feel all the beauty of the 32-bit color at a relatively high speed. Here Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR proved the best. Of course, such cards still cost quite a lot of money, however, they are very likely to start getting cheaper pretty soon. Some 1.5 months ago the cards with SDR memory cost about the same, and today for $270-275 you can buy an accelerator which will save you time and trouble for minimum a year. And since the price difference between the graphics cards with SDR and DDR memory is constantly getting smaller, the first ones are very likely to slowly sink into oblivion. Of course, we wouldn't recommend buying DDR cards immediately since there is a tendency towards the reduction of their price. According to some reliable sources, they are about to cost some $200 by the beginning of February.

As far as the other cards are concerned, the resume about ELSA Erazor X sounds not so encouraging, actually, because the card fell behind all its competitors. Besides, the revision we had at our disposal was deprived of the praised ChipGuard technology. Both Creative cards stopped somewhere in the middle of the rating, although you can often come across some super overclockable pieces among the cards with DDR-memory.

Hard OCP heeft de Maximizer Athlon Gold Finger Device eens aan een testje onderworpen. Deze Gold Finger Device van Road Rebel bleek aan alle verwachtingen te voldoen:

I mentioned a few sentences up that there are a couple of advantages that this unit has over some others out there. First, it is very compact and takes up little to no room with how they ran the layout down the back of the CPU. Second, this unit is not as expensive as some of the others I have seen.

Keep in mind, almost all the current Gold Fingers adapters CANNOT alter the L2 Cache speed. There are promises of this coming to market but I have yet to see it first hand.

These units are about to become even more popular as the SlotA processors start to scale up, and they will not doubt go down in cost as time passes, but if you are in the market for one today. I suggest you take a look at Road Rebel and see what they have to offer.

Check Hard OCP voor de rest van de review.

Ook Hardware-One heeft inmiddels een review gebakken van het Asus P3C 2000 i820 plankje. De conclusie wijkt niet veel af van de rest; de P3C 2000 is niet 100% stabiel en geeft tegenvallende prestaties.

ASUS has definitely tried all possibilities to take a Camino configured with SDRAM, to its highest plane attainable, via its various Soft BIOS options, VIO jumpers, etc. In that regard, they should be applauded for their ingenuity and perseverance. The P3C-2000 will most certainly bring out the most from a Coppermine CPU with its extensive overclocking options.

However, whilst I’d love to warrant it, the intrinsic problems of the Memory Translation Hub inherent in the I820 + lower attainable overclocked DDR settings, are starkly manifested in its degraded performance. Also, the peculiarities of its DIMM configurations are questionable, and will probably confuse & diminish users’ confidence over anything else.

Ultimately, there are better alternatives in the market today which are less blemished than Camino’s limitations (perhaps, the VIA Apollo Pro 133A or BX) with similar overclocking capabilities. And if you’re considering this board over a BX to capitalize on AGP 4x for your games, you’ll be dispirited to note that the performance jump is purely incremental and even less, if you factor in the lower attainable overclocked settings for a DDR GeForce. Of course, running a BX board with GeForce DDR will typically limit your CPU overclocking to <133MHz FSB, without the presence of a 1/2 AGP bus-divider. However, if CPU overclocking is still imperative, perhaps the VIA Apollo Pro 133A boards would still be a better choice (with a much reduced memory performance loss).

Bezoel Hardware-One voor de rest.

Bij Tech-Junkie is een interview te lezen met Richard Brown, een PR-mannetje bij VIA. Hieronder een gedeelte, voor meer info, ga even langs bij Tech-Junkie.

Tj: The Intel 820 chipset relies heavily on the success and adoption of RAMBUS,which has proven to be unfavourable due to exorbitant prices. Has Intel shot themselves in the foot by relying too much on RAMBUS? If the prices of RAMBUS does plummet and become viable, will VIA support it? Where does VIA see the memory industry going?

Richard Brown: We believe that the mainstream memory this year will be PC133, and that it will migrate to DDR 266 in 2001. RAMBUS memory will still be available, but we think that its market share will remain low because of the cost.

Tj: VIA is intensely supporting AMD in the Ahtlon effort by developing the KX133. But VIA is also developing the Joshua processor. Wouldn't the support of Athlon hurt the success of Joshua? When Joshua is released, will VIA continue to support AMD by supplying chipsets?

Richard Brown: VIA regards AMD as a very close strategic partner and we are 110% committed to supporting the Athlon processor with our chipsets - now and in the future. Athlon is a great processor which is positioned in the performance segment of the market while Joshua is firmly targeted at the Value segment, so there are no potential market conflicts.

Bij iXBT Hardware hebben ze de gedetailleerde specs gepost van de PM133 Slot 1 / Socket 370 chipset van VIA, zoals die al eerder op hun roadmap te vinden was. Hieronder de info:

VIA PM133 chipset integrates VIA VT82C694X system controller and S3 Savage 4 graphics core into a single package. The key features are:

- AGP 4X, 2X or 1X external AGP graphics card support
- 66/100/133MHz FSB support
- SDRAM, VCM, and ESDRAM memory types support
- 3 DIMMs or 6 banks for up to 1.5GB of SDRAM
- AGP controller - AGP Rev. 2.0 compliant
- Integrated Savage 4 2D/3D/Video Accelerator (2 to 32MB frame buffer using system memory)
- S3 texture compression (S3TC) support
- High quality DVD video playback with motion compensation
- 2D/3D resolutions up to 1920x1440
- 300MHz RAMDAC
- Flat panels support

VT8605 (VIA's part number) is coupled with Super South bridge VT8231. The main features of VT8231 are the following:

- Integrated Super I/O
- Ultra DMA 33/66/100
- 4 USB interface with root hub and two function ports with built-in physical layer transceivers
- AC'97 Link for S/W audio and HSP-based modem functions
- Integrated H/W monitoring
- OnNow/ACPI compliant advanced configuration
- Power management interface
- Integrated MAC and 10Mbit PHY for LAN connection

ZDNet meldt dat AMD de produktie van de K6-III zal staken. De K6-III werd ongeveer een jaar geleden geïntroduceerd, maar heeft met de komst van de Athlon zijn positie op de markt verloren:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has axed its year old K6-III range of microprocessors due to lack of demand.

[...] According to Romtec PC research analyst Nicky Bird, the death of the K6-III is no surprise. "With the [Athlon] at the top and the K6-2 at the bottom, the K6-III seemed to be getting squeezed out," Bird said. "The K6-2 has had good take-up but there seem to be few machines using the K6-III."

Bird also points out that this makes considerable sense from a marketing perspective. "AMD do not want the range to be too confusing," she said. "Two lines is a sensible number."

Thresh & Gang hebben een review online gemieterd van de ATi Rage Fury MAXX videokaart met zoals reeds bekend dual Rage 128 Pro chippies. Qua performance is het zeker geen GeForce-killer, de DVD acceleration is echter wel zeer goed te noemen:

Overall the ATI Rage Fury MAXX only stands out at the highest resolutions and detail settings. If high-res, high quality isn't your cup of tea, i.e. you like to play at fast framerates, then the Rage Fury MAXX probably wouldn't be the best use of your money. If you really need to show off what that new 21" monitor can put out, then considering the good 1600x1200 performance and multimedia acceleration, the Maxx is a deserving candidate.

In the end what cost the Maxx the most was its performance - ATI bills it as a 3D gaming powerhouse, but it fails to delivers in most cases (even with nearly twice the hardware present on competing cards). What it all comes down to is whether the uniqueness of the Rage Fury MAXX can complement your unique gaming and computing needs. Having the industry's best DVD acceleration helped the Maxx's score a lot, if anything because the FS team consists of a number of A/V enthusiasts.

Hilko schrijft: "Het lijkt er steeds meer op dat alle fabrieken van Intel gewoon helemaal stil liggen. Bij iXBT hebben ze het ook al over de enorme tekorten aan BX chipsets en het is al langere tijd bekent dat de 733, 750 en 800MHz Coppermine pentium III's moeilijk leverbaar zijn. Nu gaan we echter nog weer een stapje verder:

Intel Pentium III Katmai Slot 1 is helemaal dood en bijna tot niet meer te krijgen (600 eigenlijk alleen nog maar) en ook de Coppermine FLIP (socket 370) is zo goed als onverkrijgbaar in alle mogelijke snelheden. Vooral de kleinere distributeurs die geen grote voorraden aanhouden zitten zonder CPU's en daarom zullen veel winkels slechts weinig computer systemen kunnen uitleveren met Pentium III processoren.

Dit alles is alleen maar positief nieuws voor AMD, aangezien AMD zijn eigen chipset (de gehele 750 chipset ofterwijl de losse 751 northbridge en 756 southbridge) prima kan leveren en ook de Athlon CPU's kennen geen leveringsproblemen.":

BX is under shortage

According to our sources Intel's BX chipset is still under shortage. The gray market price is currently about $36 (it is $12 higher than official price). 2nd tier M/Bs vendors can't get enough BX chipsets form Intel. It looks like Intel press manufacturers to produce more i820+SDRAM boards and not BX based boards.

BX is under shortage. Part two…

We've got some additional info on BX chipset shortage. According to our sources Intel has raised the prices for BX by $ 4.5 last week. Besides, they made a decision to provide BX chips only to three manufacturers: ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI. Other Taiwanese manufacturers will receive only 20.000 chipset (20.000 - it is not a joke) and not per company but in total! Intel said they wouldn't change this situation till March.

So, what changes does Intel plan in March? First of all they want to push the excess stocks of Whitney into the market, and they will STOP producing BX in March. Later they will only produce Whitney and Camino and some new chipsets.

Op deze wazige Japanse site zijn wat plaatjes te vinden van de Transmeta Crusoe en de apparaatjes waarin hij gebruikt zal worden. Hieronder heb je er vier, hier kun je de rest vinden.

The Register weet te melden dat de nieuwe versie van de i820 chipset, waarmee zowel SDRAM als Rambus op één bord gecombineerd kunnen worden, midden februari gereed zal komen. De verbeterde i820 chipset heeft tevens een gefixte Memory Translator Hub, die hopelijk een betere performance levert dan de huidige, mager presterende MTH (thanks Arjan voor de tip):

Sources close to the company's plans have informed us that Intel will ship an updated chipset for sampling to mobo vendors in mid-February which will, at last, support both Rambus memory and synchrous DRAM memory on the same planar.

The boards will have support for two Rambus sockets and two SDRAM sockets, and also will include a revised, B2 stepping of the memory translator hub (MTH).

[...] It is still unclear whether this revised i820 chipset will also support PC-133 memory.

Bij WebWereld staat een interessant bericht van UPC over het opvoer-truukje met de Lancity modems. UPC heeft een actieplan ingesteld en zal het tunen van kabelmodems tegen het einde van de week onmogelijk gemaakt hebben. Daarnaast kunnen overtreders een waarschuwing verwachten:

Alle klanten die hun modems opvoeren kunnen bericht verwachten van UPC, kondigt Simmons aan. "We zullen iedereen die het doet erop aanspreken. Wanneer er teveel verkeer wordt gegenereerd, sluiten we de klant zonder aarzelen af." De abonnee krijgt wel eerst een waarschuwing.

De opvoer-truc werkt alleen bij Nortel Lancity modems. Simmons bevestigt geruchten dat UPC dat type modem aan het vervangen is. "We waren al bezig dit type modem te vervangen." Hoe lang geleden de vervangingsoperatie is gestart en om hoeveel modems het gaat, wil de woordvoerder niet zeggen.

Volgens kenners zou het UPC-netwerk kunnen bezwijken als vele klanten grote hoeveelheden data gaan uploaden. Simmons weerlegt dat. "Het netwerk gaat niet plat, we hebben dat voldoende beveiligd. Bovendien is er maar een beperkte groep klanten die het modem opwaardeert."

Bedankt xoror voor de link!

Target PC brengt ons een review van de IBM PC Camera met USB aansluiting. Dit geinige apparaatje kost slechts $49 dollar en wordt geleverd met een erg groot softwarepakket. Hieronder wat meer info:

Adjustments and tweaks abound in the camera’s control panel. For the video nut like me, I had all the relevant control necessary to grab high quality stills and movies. Yep, you can make your own movies too. Of course the 6-foot USB cable limits you, but I’ve seen up to 25-foot USB extenders in the store if a portable laptop isn’t handy. Don’t expect digital camera still image quality, as this piece is limited to 352x288 pixels—far less than the 2000x1500, 3+ Megapixel jobs that can be had today. This camera is meant for casual picture taking/movie making and Internet use. Hey, it’s also only 49 bucks.

I had some concerns regarding the lack of a manual zoom, although it does have a very good adjustable focus. When the box says from "close up to infinity", it’s not just bogus advertising. The next samples are best case scenarios with good lighting and high-resolution (352x288). The first is a normal shot and the second is of a resistor--kudos to anyone identifying the actual value and tolerance. The resistor still was captured at a distance of less than œ inch. I think that qualifies as a good macro focus.

Bij 3DGPU is een informatief stukkie te vinden over texture compression, zoals S3TC van S3 en het wat nieuwere FXT1 dat 3dfx straks gaat gebruiken. Hieronder een gedeelte, lees hier meer.

As we all know, texture compression has only fairly recently been a "must have" feature in 3D accelerators. Although we've seen modern types of texture compression since the days of the Savage3D, and various other types of compression dating all the way back to the Voodoo 1 and even before, only recently has there been a "critical mass" of support for texture compression. Nearly every vendor supports it or has announced support for the future: S3, NVIDIA, ATI, 3dfx, and even Bitboys have either shipping or announced products which support texture compression.

There are two types of modern texture compression, S3TC (also known as DXTC in the context of Direct3D), and 3dfx's new FXT1. S3TC has of course been around in various incarnations since the Savage3D, and is now supported by NVIDIA (and ATI, I think) as well in shipping cards. 3dfx on the other hand has announced FXT1, which in some ways is similar to S3TC, but with a few nice improvements that should make a decent difference. The downside, of course, is that no one currently has a shipping implementation of FXT1.

3D Rage heeft een review neergemikt van de bekende Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI GeForce kaart met DDR geheugen. Hieronder maar een hap uit de conlusie:

The Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI offers incredible performance, wonderful image quality, and one of the best overclocking possibilities on the GeForce 256 market. The Digital Visual Interface offers digital flat panel users one of the best graphics cards on the market that will enable them to play their favorite games at blistering fast speeds. TV-Out is supported and works perfect from what we've seen, as does the DVD-Video acceleration that is handled exceptionally well by the GeForce 256. The only two downsides of the 3D Prophet DDR-DVI are the hefty price tag and the lack of any serious bundle. The price tag weighs in at $300 after the $20 rebate that is provided, so you're looking at one of the most expensive gaming cards on the market. If you can bare to dish out the $300 for the best performance at higher resolutions however, then the 3D Prophet DDR-DVI is the card for you.

Gamers Depot heeft een review gepost van de Gigabyte GA-7IX Slot-A plank voorzien van de AMD Irongate North- en Southbridge. Hoewel de GA-7IX geen uitgebreide overclocking mogelijkheden biedt bleek hij wel zo stabiel als een huis:

Using an Award BIOS, the GA-71X proved to be a stable board even while running our Athlon 800 chip. While the BIOS does offer a good selection of control and setup, we were disappointed to see that there wasn't a way to change the front side bus, so you can't overclock the CPU without using external "goldenfinger boards.

With a clean layout, and the powerblock postitioned where it won't interfere with the Heatsink on the CPU, 5 PCI, 2 ISA, and 1 AGP slot, the GA-71X should provide you with ample expansion for the future, although we wish they'd dump the ISA slots all together. The included manual has everything you'd want to know about the in's and out's of this board.

The other thing you'll notice is the row of capacitors behind the CPU Slot. Instead of opting for the one giant capacitor like the AMD "Fester" (reference) board did, Gigabyte slapped on some 330uf capacitors all over, and a 1200uf next to the Slot. They must know what they're doing as is confirmed by how stable this board is.

Thanks Dolphi voor de tip.

Onze vriend Anand heeft een flinke roundup geschreven van 7 moederborden gebaseerd op de i820 chipset van Intel. Naast uitgebreide tips en info over de chipset zelf vind je tests van de AOpen AX6C, AOpen AX6C-L, ASUS P3C-2000, Gigabyte GA-6CX, Iwill DS133R, Supermicro PIII-SCA, en de Transcend TS-ACA1. Als je dan toch aan de i820 moet blijken de AOpen plankjes met stip de beste keus.

If you’re in the market for an i820 motherboard, AOpen is the way to go. The AX6C and AX6C-L are both very stable and very reliable contenders for the best i820 motherboard, and just as the AX6B was to the BX motherboard market, expect these motherboards to remain on top in terms of reliability and stability in the long run.

The ability to manually select the RDRAM clock multiplier is a very useful feature, especially when overclocking, and it was a very good idea for AOpen to include that feature within the BIOS setup of both boards.

Therefore, our pick for Editor’s Choice for the best i820 motherboard with RDRAM support out of this group goes to AOpen for the AX6C and AX6C-L. [break]De Asus P3C 2000 wordt door Anand aangeraden als je liever SDRAM gebruikt ipv het asociaal dure en zo-goed-als-dode Rambus geheugen.[/break]The first runner up goes to ASUS for the P3C-2000, whose stability and feature set is just about on-par with that of AOpen, the only major downside being that with its SDRAM support comes sub-BX levels of performance. If you’re willing to make that sacrifice in order to have an i820 based motherboard, then the P3C-2000 is a very good option.

The flexible overclocking options of the P3C-2000 as well as SDRAM support make it a very appetizing option; if it weren’t for the performance hit associated with the MTH, it would be the perfect motherboard with 133MHz FSB support.