Tech News for Saturday,
October 2nd 1999
GeForce 256-Ultra fake.
Posted: 10/02/99 Source: Riva3D
Added by: Kim Heise
Riva3D has posted a brief news article that nVidia has
directly stated that the GeForce 256-Ultra news is completely fake and there
will never be such a card.
With all the news posted daily on literally hundreds of web sites sometimes
these fake articles do show up.
Tech News for Friday,
October 1st 1999
GeForce 256-Ultra Video card announced.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: Tec Zone
Added by: Kim Heise
nVidia is turning up the heat again with a souped up
version of the much anticipated GeForce 256. Take a look at this
Adobe Acrobat document over at the Tec Zone that outlines the new GeForce
256-Ultra. No price on the card is given. Here's an excerpt from the document:
I have received a pdf file containing the preliminary spec
of the GeForce 256 Ultra! This is one fast card! Features includes
QuadEngine Architecture, QuadPipe 256 bit Pixel Pipeline, 150Mhz core speed, 600
Mpix/sec and the world first HDTV processor!
All I have is one word to add to this: WOOHOO!
Windows NT 4.0 service pack 6 posted on Microsoft beta site.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: Active Win
Added by: Kim Heise
Looks like Microsoft is prepping Win NT 4 service Pack
6 and has posted it up for official beta testers only. Not sure when this
service pack is going to hit the streets but I'll keep you posted.
AMD talks about the K8.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: Yahoo
Added by: Kim Heise
AMD talks about the new K8 processor slated for next
year in this Yahoo article. The new chip is a 64-bit processor and is AMD's
direct contender to Intel's upcoming Merced processor. Here's a tasty snippet
from the article:
Although little is known about the K8, sources close to AMD
have said that it will be a 64-bit processor, which means it can process 64 bits
per clock cycle, double the current rate of current Intel and AMD
microprocessors. Merced, due by mid-2000, will be Intel's first 64-bit
processor.
Intel i820 review.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: Anandtech
Added by: Kim Heise
Once again Anand has written up another superb article
on his first impressions on the new Intel i820 chipset. Visit his site to read
the article.
To quote a piece from Anand's first impressions:
The i820 platform has the ability to succeed, but at its current level of
performance with the Pentium III B, it can’t beat AMD’s Athlon but when it
pairs up with the Coppermine the competition could once again grow to be quite
heated.
Sun to make Solaris code available.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: ZDNN
Added by: Kim Heise
To quote directly from ZDNN that best sums it up:
Sun Microsystems Inc., in a major shift, plans to begin making the source
code of its Solaris operating system freely available to the public in an
attempt to parallel the success of the popular Linux operating system.
AMD 700mhz K7 chip to be launched October 4th.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: The
Register Added by: Kim Heise
The Register reports that AMD is turning up the heat
for Intel on October 4th by shipping the new 700mhz K7 chip.
More RAM price increases expected due to earthquake in Taiwan.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: TechWeb
Added by: Kim Heise
If you are planning on adding some more RAM to your
system it may be bad timing. TechWeb reports that various OEM's have increased
the price of RAM and warned that further price hikes are expected. The
earthquake in Taiwan has created a massive cutback on RAM production. What
makes the news even worse for people in the market for RAM is that it looks like
the shortage is expected to last until the first half of 2000.
nVidia 3.34 reference drivers.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: The
TechZone Added by: Kim Heise
The TechZone reports that a French web site has posted
DirectX 7.0 reference drivers for the TNT/TNT2/TNT2-Ultra and GeForce 256 for
Windows 9x. Not sure where these drivers were obtained from so please use at
your own risk. Download the drivers here.
Creative Labs
offers exciting new SB Live additions.
Posted: 10/01/99 Source: Ars-Technica
Added by: Kim Heise
In addition to Creative Labs releasing EAX 3.0 shortly
there is a new hardware add-on for any SoundBlaster Live owner that sounds very
interesting. Here's a snippet from the Ars-Technica interview:
The Live!Drive looks amazingly cool, will it be available separately?
Yes. The Live! Drive will be available as an upgrade to Sound Blaster Live!,
Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer and Sound Blaster Live! MP3+ owners. When the
stand-alone drive is available, you'll be able to order it through Creative's
customer service department or directly through the Creative Web site.
For those that don't know, the
Live! Drive fits into a 5 1/4 inch drive bay in your PC, delivering
increased functionality and ease-of-use, with connections including: SPDIF in
and out, Mic. in, headphone out with volume control and MIDI in and out. In
addition, a Digital Output provides easy connectivity to digital speakers and
devices.
Hop on over to Ars-Technica to read
the full interview with Creative Labs.
Tech News for Thursday, September
30th 1999
New Tirtanium benchmark program for DirectX 7.0
and OpenGL
Posted: 09/30/99 Source: Michael
Tirtasana Added by: Kim Heise
Finally an all in one benchmarking program to test
both OpenGL and DirectX benchmarks. You can download the Tirtanium benchmark
program here and
compare your results here.
Nintendo and S3 join forces for the next
generation game console.
Posted: 09/30/99 Source: Yahoo
Added by: Kim Heise
Just to quote the article:
Nintendo's 'Dolphin' to Use Unique S3 Compression
Technology -- S3TC
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 30, 1999--Nintendo
and S3® Incorporated (Nasdaq:SIII
- news) today announced a
partnership to employ S3's industry-leading graphics technology on Nintendo's
next home video game console, code-named 'Dolphin.'
Dolphin is the first home video game console in the world to
embed S3's advanced texture compression technology right onto the graphics chip.
The results will include elimination of blurriness, blockiness and monotonous
repetition of the same elements on screen. Furthermore, S3 will help to make
indistinguishable the lines that separate art from photography, fantasy from
reality.
Windows NT tweaking Guide.
Posted: 09/30/99 Source: Ars-Technica
Added by: Kim Heise
Ars-Technica has posted a very useful article for
tweaking Windows NT. The tweaks allow for overall performance tweaks under
Windows NT. Take a look at the document here.
Western Digital issues recall on several Caviar
series drives.
Posted: 09/30/99 Source:
N/A Added by: Kim Heise
Western Digital has issued recalls on several Caviar
series drivers. If you own one of these models go their web
site here for more information.
- WD64AA
- WD68AA
- WD84AA
- WD100AA
- WD102AA
WD135AA
- WD136AA
WD170AA
- WD172AA
WD200AA
- WD205AA
Tech News for Wednesday, September
29th 1999
Cisco teams with VocalTec for Net telephony
Posted: 09/29/99 Source: CNET
Added by: Kim Heise
Cisco Systems agreed to form an alliance with VocalTec
Communications to develop, market, and sell software and equipment to make phone
calls over the Internet.
If I throw in my two cents worth I think this has got to be the worst news for
the long distance phone companies since with this system we might be able to
make free long distance calls for the price of your local call. This appears to
be a future trend in that the internet (or it's next generation) will be our
primary communications medium for both audio and video.
8x8 Chip Enables IP Handsets
Posted: 09/29/99 Source :TechNet
Added by: Kim Heise
This very exiting article talks about a company that
has developed a new single chip design that allows packetized transmissions over
corporate networks. 8x8 (name of the company) says the chip can be used to
develop standard IP telephone handsets that will sell for less that $100. Head
on over to TechWeb
for the scoop on this one.
Windows 2000 Detonator drivers 2.01 and 3.03.
Posted: 09/29/99 Source :Zoiah
HQ
Added by: Kim Heise
Zoiah HQ has posted TNT/TNT2/TNT2-Ultra Detonator
V2.01 drivers for Windows 2000 and GeForce support for Windows 2000 with
Detonator drivers version 3.03. Please use these drivers at your own risk as I'm
not sure where they obtained them from. You can download them here.
In case you are not familiar with Detonator drivers they are general reference
drivers supplied by nVidia for the TNT,TNT2 and TNT2 ultra based video cards. It
looks like the upcoming GeForce 256 card from nVidia will follow the Detonator
reference driver model. If you own one of the aforementioned video cards you
should be using Detonator drivers instead of the drivers supplied by your
manufacturer. The exception to this is if your nVidia based card follows a
non-reference hardware design then you need to use the supplied drivers from
your manufacturer.
Netscape Communicator 4.7 released.
Posted: 09/29/99 Source :CWSApps
Added by: Kim Heise
Netscape has released Communicator 4.7
for both Windows 98/NT/2000 and the Macintosh. Download it from their website.
Microsoft IE. Security patch updates.
Posted: 09/29/99 Source :Microsoft
Added by: Kim Heise
There are two new security patches
available for various versions of IE.
S3 Savage 2000 to give nVidia's GeForce 256 a run
for it's money?
Posted: 09/29/99 Source :Tech-Arena
Added by: Kim Heise
This interesting interview with Mark
Hirsch (Executive Producer at S3) posted on Tech-Arena claims that the new
Savage 2000 will outperform the much anticipated GeForce 256. Here's a clip from
the interviews:
It would appear that S3 would like to edge out nVidia on the performance of
today’s applications. For
instance, Mark Hirsch told me : “For the Savage 2000, we used the nVidia tree
demo”. We also proceeded to
discuss the hardware lighting - it
appears that GeForce 256 can do 8 hardware lights per triangle onscreen, but
when GeForce 256 lights more than 4 and close to 7 hardware lights per triangle
that there is a performance hit. Mark
Hirsch assured me that Savage 2000 will not have such a problem, and that in
Quake3 we may be able to see the gun set 8 hardware lights into motion for
polygons in close proximity in full lighting on the Savage 2000.
With all the hype that chip manufacturers throw at us
consumers these days I would wait until we see some actual benchmarks.
On a footnote I did see some benchmarks with the GeForce256 and Quake III and it
looks like under 32 bit color the card still slows down dramatically. I
think that I'm going to wait to see some more benchmarks before swapping out the
TNT2 Ultra.
Intel Xeon CPU problem with 8-way servers
Posted: 09/29/99 Source :CNET
Added by: Kim Heise
Planning on purchasing/building a 8-way
Intel Xeon 2MB server? A very serious flaw has been uncovered if you plan on
building a high end server with 8 Intel Xeon 2MB CPU's and plan to use a Saber
motherboard. The problems causes the chips to overheat causing system crashes
and eventual "frying" of the CPU's. Learn more about it directly from
CNET.
Intel appears to be plagued by numerous problems with their new systems
including the delayed 820 chipset.
Tech News for Tuesday, September
28th 1999
Intel releases two new Pentium III chips
Posted: 09/28/99 Source :SharkyExtreme
Added by: Kim Heise
It looks like Intel has released two new Pentium III
chips with 133mhz front-side bus speeds. The two chips are known as the 533B and
the 600B which are basically 533mhz and 600mhz chips respectively with an extra
33mhz speed boost to the current 100mhz front-side bus. What does this extra
performance gain you? Nothing actually if you compare the 550mhz P3 and the
533mhz P3B. The extra price is not worth it. Here's a snippet directly from the
article that sums it up:
Even though the amount of total ram, the two CPU's
core speeds, and the video cards were kept the same between the two systems, the
P3-600B exceeded the standard P3-600 in speed by up to 5% in optimal conditions.
This is enough of a boost to similarly allow the new P3-533B
CPU to compete stride for stride with the P3-550MHz CPU in the same tests,
although at this point the two models are nearly identical in price so there's
no outright advantage in choosing the new 533B over the older 550.
In case you feel confused about all the different Pentium III
chips, here is a table to help show the differences:
- P3-450 (100MHz front side bus speed)
- P3-500 (100MHz front side bus speed)
- P3-533B (133MHz front side bus speed)
- P3-550 (100MHz front side bus speed)
- P3-600 (100MHz front side bus speed)
- P3-600B (133MHz front side bus speed)
Source: SharkyExtreme
Site Update News
Posted: 09/28/99 Source :N/A
Added by: Kim Heise
Just got back from a super vacation at the 33d Ryder
Cup and I must have picked up a 3d degree sunburn from sitting all day in the
sun. Thanks to my good friend Lance the site has not totally fallen behind and I
promise plenty of news in the next couple of days.
Tech News
Summary for the Week ending September 26, 1999
DirectX
7 Released
Posted:
09/24/99 Source :3DNews
Added by: Lance Gibb
Microsoft has released the final version of DirectX 7
for Windows 95/98. You can download it here.
Cheap
Voodoo 2 Cards
Posted:
09/26/99 Source :3DNews
Added by: Lance Gibb
Creative Labs is selling their popular Voodoo 2 board
the 3D Blaster for $19 and $29 (8 & 12 meg versions). Get one here.
S3
& Diamond Merger Approved
Posted:
09/25/99 Source :Active
Win
Added by: Lance Gibb
After
a slight problem with finding enough shareholder votes to approve the merger
between S3 & Diamond... they have finally approved the merger.
Intel's
820 Chipset Motherboard Delayed -
Posted:
09/26/99 Source: Active
Win
Added by: Lance Gibb
Intel
is putting a serious dent in shipping the 820 chipset (which supports the highly
anticipated Rambus technology) by delaying it indefinitely.
The problem stems after some assembly lines had already begun
to manufacture the chipsets. Some manufacturers claim to have discovered
the bug when the motherboards came hot off the assembly lines: having three
memory slots in a Rambus chipset environment causes serious data loss, even if
the third memory slot is filled.
The fix is, of course, to remove that third memory slot - but
that limits these motherboards to 512mb of RAM... and not to mention the fact
that thousands of the motherboards have already been manufactured with the third
and faulty slot.
Microsoft
Ushers in the end of the PC?
Posted:
09/26/99 Source: Active
Win
Added by: Lance Gibb
Microsoft
Corp. is hedging its bets that the PC may not be center of the computing
universe forever. The company Thursday previewed a new computing device called
the MSN Web Companion, a move that could ignite more interest in the evolving
"Internet appliance" market.
Microsoft's
Millennium OS to Change the Face of Computing?
Posted:
09/26/99 Source: Active
Win
Added by: Lance Gibb
Betanews
has posted a new article about Windows Millennium called "Millennium
to change the face of computing" ok, that may be taking it a bit too
far but anyway. Although it doesn't touch on anything new it does span a few
things out well...Including the features of Neptune (Screenshot),
that will be blending in with Millennium (Not completely in Beta 1).
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