Bij Voodoo Extreme staat een link naar dit bericht bij Silicon Investor waarin gemeld wordt dat 3dfx begonnen is met de productie van haar VSA-100 chip, het hart van de Voodoo4 en 5 kaarten die nog steeds gepland staan voor een release in April.

Production on VSA-100 has started...

Just got word about VSA-100 from Scott Sellers. He said it was okay to go "on the record" with this info so here you go...(as usual this is not edited so nobody can accuse me of slanting the info)

...we are demonstrating our very first silicon spin for VSA-100, what we call internally our "A0" spin. Due to some silicon processing problems, the A0 spin has been reduced to fairly low operating frequencies, in addition to suffering some video ramdac problems. As a result, we opted not to show the VSA-100 in public at CeBit and showed it only to select members of the press and media. But some of the recent negative feedback on the net, in particular the disappointment on the frequency being run and the video quality issues, are known issues and are expected from the silicon processing problem inherent in A0. Now on to the good news. First and foremost, the processing problem is completely understood and has already been addressed. In fact, production wafers are now flowing through the fab for our final production version of VSA-100, which we believe will be the A1 silicon spin. In addition, from a functionality point of view, we are very happy with A0. The part is extremely functional and robust, with only a few minor bugs which will be fixed in the A1 silicon spin. All of the major new functionality is working perfectly, including 32-bit color rendering, texture compression, full-scene anti-aliasing, T-buffer capabilities, as well as all the multi-chip SLI and FSAA capabilities. As a result, software development has been able to go full speed and thus we expect software to be very robust for shipping product. We believe we are still on track for April production for the first VSA-100 products. While the nature of the processing problem with A0 is disappointing in that it makes early demonstrations less than spectacular, we feel very good about the health of the A1 product and as a result silicon production has begun...

Thanks Insane voor de tip!

Thresh's FiringSquad brengt ons de info over ATi's S1-370 TL, een nieuwe North Bridge & graphics chipset voor Slot 1 en Socket 370 processors met een ingebakken T&L engine, goed voor 12,5 miljoen polygonen per seconde. De ATI S1-370 TL zal in het tweede kwartaal debuteren en geproduceerd worden door IBM. De eerste modellen zullen overigens op 100MHz draaien, 133MHz samples volgen later dit jaar.

ATI Technologies announced its integrated North Bridge and graphics chipset for Slot 1 and Socket 370 processors including Pentium II, and Pentium III, the ATI S1-370 TL. ATI's new integrated chipset will be marketed to the OEM and motherboard manufacturers. ATI will also produce motherboards with the S1-370 TL to facilitate the introduction of the chipset to the market. The earlier-than-expected product introduction was made possible as a result of the acquisition by ATI of ArtX Inc.

Among the features of the ATI's S1-370 TL chipset is its support for transform and lighting technology- with a through-put of 12.5 million polygons per second, four pixels per clock and greater than 330 million textured pixels/sec. ATI's S1-370 TL chipset combines North Bridge system logic with ArtX's 3D graphics accelerator and is compatible with the single chip Ali M1535D and M1543 South Bridge parts. With a 128 bit memory interface, supporting standard PC-133/100/66 MHz SDRAM, ATI's S1-370 TL provides 2.1 gigabytes/sec bandwidth. ATI's S1-370 TL chipset features motion compensation technology that delivers 30 frames-per-second DVD playback and will support 32-bit full color and resolutions up to 1600x1200 (non-interlaced).

ATI's S1-370 TL chipset is being fabricated in 0.25 micron at IBM. 100MHz samples are available now, with production quantities available in Q2, 2000. 133 samples will be available in Q2, 2000 with production volumes available in Q3, 2000. ATI's S1-370 TL is priced at $36 each in units of 10,000.

Meer info over deze nieuwe chipset van ATi kun je vinden in deze press release.

Guillemot heeft nieuwe Windows 2000 en NT4 drivers uitgebracht voor de Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI. De Win2k driver is nog wel een beta en biedt nog geen ondersteuning voor TV-Out en DVI output.

Check deze page om de drivers neer te halen.

Bij GamePC is een review geplaatst van de Mitsubishi 2040u, een 21" monitor gebaseerd op de superplatte DiamondTron NF beeldbuis met een .24mm aperture grille pitch. Hieronder een hap uit de review:

We would have to say the 2040u did not just beat its previous predecessor the 2020u, but it slaughtered it. Having a 240 MHz video clock frequency, the 2040u has a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 @ 60 Hz. Compared to Hitachi's 814 having a 300 MHz video clock frequency, the 2040u only has a 60 MHz input difference. However, that 60 MHz difference did not hinder the 2040u's performance as you may think. At every selectable resolution provided by the monitor, we saw a prime example of what every monitor's image quality should look like. Color and text from corner to corner was very good, best we have seen yet. But the fact that the monitor possesses that natural flat CRT makes images look so much better. With any 21" monitor supporting a resolution of 2048 x 1536, its basically not the most logical setting to use. True the 2048 x 1536 resolution setting on the 2040u is very usable in terms of image quality, but squinting at your screen all day long is not the most enjoyable thing to do in the world. So with that said, we consider the sweet spot for the 2040u being something of the neighborhood of 1600 x 1200 @ 85 Hz. Keep in mind that a contributing factor to a monitor's image quality also depends on the video card being used. A video card with a high RAMDAC is a must for high-resolution monitors. Otherwise you won't be doing a monitor like the 2040u justice. In our case we used Elsa's GeForce DDR video card which did its job well on the 2040u. All in all, we must say JOB WELL DONE to Mitsubishi on their 2040u monitor. It should pose a definite threat to Sony's F500R and Hitachi's 814.

Anand Lal Shimpi heeft het tweede deel van zijn KX133 review op zijn site gemikt. In dit deel wordt de review compleet gemaakt met o.a. OpenGL benchmarks onder NT4 en wat meer Quake / Unreal / Expendable scores. Vanwege de nieuwe nVidia NT4 drivers is de KX133 setup een heel stuk sneller geworden in de Specviewperf tests, het verschil t.o.v. van de AMD 750 plankjes met SyperBypass is tot wel 50%!

The next release of NVIDIA's Detonator drivers for Windows NT will feature the performance enhancements and optimizations that propelled our KX133 test bed to the top of the charts under the SPECviewperf tests. For those of you that own KX133 setups now and need the performance boost immediately, you can easily find the beta drivers online if you search around a bit.

As more KX133 based boards hit the streets, we can hope that the performance will improve as manufacturers begin to tweak the BIOS files more for speed. The only thing there is to be worried about is if motherboard manufacturers decide that promoting their KX133 products isn't worth the potential risks caused by VIA's competitors. If you remember, this was the case with the earliest AMD 750 based motherboards and their manufacturers, while we are expecting things to change with the KX133, there will still be a few frightened manufacturers, let's hope those frightened few don't become the majority this time around.

FreeBee wilde even kwijt dat er beta Windows 2000 drivers neer te laden zijn voor Voodoo2 kaarten. Let wel op dat ze zwaar beta zijn en 3dfx ze nog niet officieel ondersteund. Lees dus eerst de instructies op deze page, waar je ze ook kunt downloaden.

-=CraxyZ=- schrijft: "Volgens Webwereld staat de Planet Media Groep (eigenaar van Planet Internet en Het Net) op het punt contracten af te sluiten met TMF (de muziekzender, die ook TMF-web aanbiedt) en NOB Interactive. De diensten zullen bestaan breedband-ADSL met een muziekclip site, het Gamepoint netwerk en audio- en videomateriaal. De downstream zal zo'n 350 kilobit per seconde zijn":

Het opzetten van een unieke ADSL-dienst staat hoog op de agenda bij de Planet Media Group. Het internetbedrijf wil zijn breedbanddienst onderscheiden van de aanbiedingen die zullen worden gedaan door Sonera, Cistron en XS4ALL.

Met TMF wordt gewerkt aan het opzetten van een clipsite, vertelde Nijenhuis. NOB Interactive heeft een scala aan diensten in haar pakket, waaronder het gamingnetwerk GamePoint. Daarnaast is de interactieve divisie van het Nederlands Omroepproduktie Bedrijf gespecialiseerd in het geschikt maken van audio- en videomateriaal voor verspreiding via breedbandnetwerken.

Om alle breedbandige content goed op het scherm van de abonnees te brengen bouwt Planet een 'proxy farm'. De caching servers worden volgens Nijenhuis speciaal ingezet voor de ADSL-klanten. Breedbandklanten kunnen 'streaming media' verwachten met 350 k/bps streams. Ter vergelijking: debusop6.nl werkt met streams van 40k/bps.

Planet-woordvoerder Dolf van den Bos bevestigt dat content, de vakterm voor inhoud van webpagina's, een hoge prioriteit heeft. "Dat blijkt duidelijk aan alle overeenkomsten die wij de afgelopen tijd hebben gesloten." Van den Bos wil niet verder ingaan op de gesprekken die worden gevoerd met NOB Interactive en TMF. "Ze zijn in een vergevorderd stadium."

Fiets even richting WebWereld voor het complete bericht.

Naast nieuwe Windows 2000 drivers (zie deze nieuwsposting) zijn er nu ook nieuwe Win9x drivers gereleased voor Matrox G400 / G200 / G100 kaarten. Check deze page om te downloaden. Thanks BastaarD voor de tip.

New Features

DX7 optimizations.

Zoran DVD module support is included (with the next set of VT).

Main Fixes

Black screen when changing resolutions in Unreal and UT.

Flickering lines in the "Sensor Manager" screen in Homeworld.

Green tint around explosions in Q3.

Invalid Page fault when quiting HL.

Black screen when running Descent 3 in OGL mode.

Fixed problem in 3DS Max where the image in top left viewport was not being refreshed properly when moving the window.

Fixed corruption when previewing 3D Pipes Screensaver.

Fixed various problems with Star Office 5.1.

Fixed various OGL problems with GP Legends.

Fixed various bugs with dark engine games.

Main known issues

Tiger Woods - If game resolution is increased Image exceeds the screen size.

Forsaken - Power ups leaving pixels trail and flashes (G100 and G200 only).

Fogging issues in X-plane 461

Cyberdeck schrijft dat Sony twee nieuwe 10x4x32x CD-ReWriters heeft geïntroduceerd. Meer info over de CRX145E-RP en CRX145S-RP vind je op deze page.

Verder lees ik bij CD-R Info dat steeds meer fabrikanten de ReWrite snelheid omhoog krikken. Teac kondigde al een 8 speed ReWriter aan, maar Ricoh wil zelfs over een paar maanden al een 10x ReWriter op de martkt brengen. Het zou dan wel handig zijn als er ook Cd-RW schijfjes uikomen die met deze snelheden om kunnen gaan...

You read 2 days ago news for the Teac CD-W512 (12/8/32) drive. Apparently not only Sanyo but also Plextor and Acer have similar drives presented in Cebit (12/8/32). Ricoh made the suprise and presented a 10x/10x/32 prototype (in a glass case) CDR-W drive.

Teac's drive is a worker ( Demo / Prototype ) and Ricoh's 10x/10x/32x is a prototype (not working..). But Yamaha suggestion of 8x RW works (at last added CD-Text) and will start selling drives from April/May possibly!. But we don't think those CDR-W will be out soon..You also might wonder what do 8x RW when none 8x RW media is sold! Thing again and check this site.