December 13 - 19, 1998
Archive

• Based on the latest DX6 drivers from 3Dfx
• Supports DX6 multitexturing
• Supports AMD K6 3DNow! optimizations
• Bug fixes and other enhancements

• Wicked3D 3.0 BETA
• Wicked3D 3.0 CD BETA (This is for those with the original 2.80 CD)
• EYEScream 1.00 BETA (This also requires the EYEScream CD)

Just a note, for those with the 2.80 CD, you must have the CD in your drive when trying to install the new beta drivers.  If you don't have the 2.80 CD then you can download the first one and install it normally.

Like any other product we get in at the Wiggle Labs, the ACT Force RS came to us in a plain brown wrapper. However, based on what we saw at E3, and the amount of hype this wheel has gotten on the internet in the past year, I was really excited to have it show up. I cleared a space on my desk here in the labs and set it up, and was immediately glad that I started working out a couple of years ago, because the wheel practically ripped my arms off! This is an incredibly strong wheel, and even games like Viper Racing and PowerSlide, both known for light force feedback effects, are much more pronounced with the ACT wheel. It's really, really strong! If ACT made a workout video to go along with this baby, that would be amazing. It'd sell like hotcakes to housewives.

 

• TweakIt Beta (Win9X - 148 KB)
• TweakIt Latest Release (Win9X - version 3.0.8 - 150 KB)
• Direct Control (Win9X - version 2.0.8a - 113 KB)
• Matrox Overclock (Win9X - version 2.0.8b - 170 KB)
• Required controls for above programs (Win9X - 728 KB)

 

• Matrox G200 Driver (Win9X - version 4.50 - 1.54MB)

 

In their PR release, Diamond says that the Rio "stores up to 60 minutes of digital-quality sound". What does "digital-quality" mean? In this case, they're referring to the 64kbps sample you can hear above. Compare it to the 128kbps sample. It isn't any good. In any case, let's hypothesize that the 64kbps sample sounds just fine. Let's say that it's indistinguishable from a CD to your ears. It isn't, but this is is just for the sake of the hypothesis, okay? I have over twelve gigabytes of MP3's. Almost all of them are encoded at 128kbps, and only a few at 112kbps. None of them are encoded at 64kbps! What does that mean? It means that I would have to export every single MP3 that I own to a .wav file and recompress them to MP3. The two and a half-minute song used in the examples above took up 28.6 megabytes as a .wav file, and took about two minutes to compress to a 64kbps MP3. Imagine doing that for every MP3 you've got!

• Graphics Blaster TNT Driver (Win9X - Beta - 1.3 MB)
• Unreal Shadows Patch (Release Candidate - 2.4 MB)

 

The 400-MHz Celeron will join the previously planned launch of the 366-MHz Celeron, sources said. Both CPUs are expected to be formally introduced on Jan. 4. Intel declined to comment.

The 400-MHz Celeron had been scheduled for introduction as late as April, according to an Intel road map. The early introduction could mean Intel is ahead of the production curve, or that it is concerned rival chip makers AMD and Cyrix are getting a longer lead at the low end.

 

Since you flagged the CPU usage issue, I thought I'd let you know that we have been working on optimizing our Vortex 2 drivers for better CPU usage.   The current reference drivers (v2015) are about 4x faster than the ones shipping in the box with the MX300 (v2011) for 3D performance.  The alpha version of the next release (planned for early next year) is running an additional 10x faster for 2D performance, and another 4x faster for 3D performance.  This will make us faster than or about even with the SB Live in all areas of CPU usage (compared to their current drivers).

 

I love SCSI.  Think it shows from what I have had to say in this review, and my choice of hardware in my system.  The FirePort 40 is a must have for anyone looking to upgrade their machine to SCSI without paying the high price that is normally associated with SCSI controllers.  The Price is right, the bundle is down right awesome and is worth more than what the board will cost you.  The card installed like a dream and is compatible with up to 15 devices with the Ultra Wide bus enabled.  If you are looking for UltraWide SCSI speed and dont want to pay too much, look no further than the Diamond FirePort 40.

 

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced samples of industry standard 133MHz 64 Meg synchronous DRAMs (SDRAMs) and modules (commonly referred to as "PC133"). All products currently available in the standard PC100 speed are also available in the 133MHz speed grade. This includes 8M x 8, 4M x 16 and 16M x 4 133MHz SDRAM components, as well as industry-standard registered and unbuffered DIMM modules. Production volumes of 133MHz components and associated modules will be available in January 1999.

"The 133MHz SDRAM meets the need for incremental performance improvements in today's evolving products," said Kit Fawcett, Micron's DRAM Product Marketing Manager. "This faster SDRAM is a cost-effective alternative for a variety of applications requiring higher bandwidth memory, and addresses memory needs in multiple PC segments."

 

The Sblive had good positional audio. Doing test in games and with their test programs it sound complete. But the MX300 had a stronger more realistic sound during tests. With my eyes closed I did tests on both cards where you could move the sound source around you. The MX300 seemed to have a more distinct feel when I moved it from front to back. The problem with this is that it is subjective and some just don't hear the difference but I did. In games I had a better sense of things around with the MX300 than with the sblive and that made all the difference. I find I am a better player when I hear audio cues of my surroundings of things I can not see.

 

A table released by AMD claimed that 3DNow beats KNI (Katmai New Instructions) by supporting functions in existing operating systems, DirectX 6.0 and current titles.

But those claims are disputed by Intel. A representative said: "KNI will run with Windows 98 straight out of the box." He said, however, that Windows 95 will never support the instructions.

He said that Microsoft has already released a Windows NT patch to allow it to support Katmai CPUs and that DirectX 6.1, which is currently in gold code, also supports the instructions.

 

IRVINE, Calif. - December 14, 1998 - Western Digital Corporation (NYSE:WDC) today announced a new 7200 RPM desktop product line, the WD Expert, in initial capacities of 18.0 GB, 13.5 GB and 9.1 GB. The WD Expert series features giant magneto-resistive (GMR) head technology and includes the high-speed Ultra ATA/66 interface and Western Digital’s Data Lifeguard data protection system. Evaluation units are available this month, with volume shipments commencing in January, 1999.

 

The thing that impressed me the most, outside of really good performance under 32bit rendering is the overall image quality we are talking here.  In both 2D AND 3D I have yet to see a card that provides this level of image quality and detail.  I guess for me, the whole beauty here is how ATI totally proved 3Dfx wrong by showing 32bit rendering can be done without a performance hit.  It's kind of funny because 3Dfx's Scott Sellars says that 32-bit color rendering is a "frame rate killer" and thus "pointless".  Well 3dfx, WRONG! :) The Rage Fury definetly raises the standard for other chipsets to follow.  Kudos to ATI for no longer playing "follow-the-leader" and acutally becoming a leader and example for others to follow!

 

While the Viper V550's TV-out was initially branded as being horrible by the first reviews, the drivers appear to have been sorted out quickly by Diamond. The TV-Out is your standard fare, capable of up to 800x600, which is about as good as you're likely to get these days, and is very good quality. I did not experience any of the problems some video cards from lesser known companies have brought, and the picture was very good. One interesting thing to note about the Viper V550 is that there is only an S-Video Out jack. Composite TV-Out is achieved through an S-Video to Composite connector, which I found odd.

Again, I must re-iterate, Diamond's drivers are top-notch.

 

The MX300 out performs most cards this day. The gaming performance is outstanding and the quality is stunning. I would have to recommend this $99 bad boy over the Sound Blaster Live (or Value) anyday, but if you are looking for top level recording... the SBLive! should be your choice

 

Whether good or bad, the consolidation that we are now witnessing was inevitable. Chip and graphics board companies have been at war with each other in order to come out with even just a profit. The graphics scene is still very crowded and one should expect further consolidation down the road. Greg Ballard, CEO of 3Dfx Interactive, refers to this as a "game of musical chairs". He says: "...because we moved first, we got to pick the best chair ... Now everybody else is looking around and looking at which chairs are left over, and, frankly, some of them have broken legs."

 

By now we are pretty much at the end of the sweet days of overclocking. The upcoming Intel chips Katmai and the socketed Celeron will not allow any form of overclocking anymore and it would be no surprise if even the well known Pentium II and Celeron chips we know now, will soon also be equipped with Intel's new overclocking protection. AMD seems to consider the same, so that there will be hardly any new chip available that will allow us to tweak its performance by running it faster than it is supposed to.

 

• Mirabilis ICQ 99a (Win9X - build 1690 - 3.9 MB)

 

I will admit right from the beginning that I was a TNT skeptic, finding myself more oriented toward other new chipsets and board designs such as the Voodoo Banshee, the Rage FURY, and the Savage 3D.  That is, until I got the Dynamite TNT into my test system.   The Dynamite TNT has changed the way I look at TNT and Hercules, and Hercules is hoping it will do the same for you.

 

A DPMS screen saver is now integrated into the latest PowerStrip beta release. While compatible with Windows 95/98 as well as NT5 B2, the screen saver is specifically designed for NT 4.0 users, who - after two years and four Service Packs - still lack both native or any other kind of third-party display power management support. The newest PowerStrip build also includes some significant general optimizations that make it worth checking out whether you're running NT or not, including better support for ATI chips and a handful of improvements for the GX3, TNT and Banshee.

• PowerStrip (Win9X/NT4 - version 2.31 Beta - 740 KB)

 

Yesterday morning I was able to fire off a couple of short questions to Brian Burke, PR d00d at STB. While the first question is a given, the second is likely to be of more interest to those who already own RIVA 128, 128 ZX or TNT cards made by STB.

1. What exactly does a stock-for-stock purchase transaction mean?

In a stock-for-stock purchase transaction, STB shareholders will receive 0.65 shares of 3Dfx common stock for each share of STB stock. Basically we just trade stock.

2. Would this purchase affect STB's relationship with other video chip manufacturers, such as NVIDIA?

That is unavoidable. It will have no effect on our legacy products through their current product cycles. We will be supporting our current commitments for products from both a sales and customer support perspective. Our customers are our #1
priority in this transition. The development of future graphics products will focus on 3Dfx technology (Voodoo3).

 

Next, there are four 8ns Samsung SGRAM chips mounted on each side of the board for a total of 16MB of RAM to work with. The Erazor II is one of the few TNT boards out there today that offers SGRAM over the more common SDRAM. Its 8ns rating implies that the RAM should be overclockable up to 125MHz - something else that we'll have to explore.

 

This is an update to the December 4th RC. The December 4th RC had an error in the installation script which incorrectly identified the driver as DirectX 5 in the Windows registry. There's no need to download the December 14th RC if you've already installed the December 4th RC.

• Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo2 Driver (Win9X - RC - 3.3 MB)

With the summer’s focus on the Sound Blaster Live! and its audio DSP the question that first came to mind was why did Aureal abandon the flexibility of a DSP? After all the previous editions of the Monster Sound all used DSPs. So we went right to Toni Schneider of Aureal with the question. Toni’s response was that "you can't change the physical facts of silicon engineering: a "hardwired" chip like Vortex 2 is 2-3 times more efficient than a general purpose DSP that provides the same feature set. This means a hardwired chip will be 2-3 times more powerful for the same money! And if you manage to get the feature set right, you'll never miss the flexibility of a DSP"

 

AGN3D: Does 3Dfx eventually plan on not sending out graphics chips to 3^rd party board manufacturers?

Scott: The plan now is to continue to support existing products for all of the current products including Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo2 and Voodoo Banshee. Right now we have not made a decision on the Voodoo3 product, although it is likely that product will not be distributed outside of 3Dfx, and that the board level product for Voodoo3 will only be supplied by the combined 3Dfx and STB entity. So the long term vision is to be a completely vertically orientated company and have a model that is in someway similar to ATI.

 

The Write Allocate Enable Limiter is wider (10 bits wide) in the XT core, than (7 bits wide)in the original core. This raises the theoretical limit for Write Allocates from the 508MB of memory in the original core to 4096MB. While in and of itself this is a relatively minor performance enhancement, exception to this is when working in tandem with the XT's   "Write Merge Buffer".  Instead of simply leaving non-cacheable write cycles alone, the Write Merge Buffer combines the all the data segments from a given set of memory writes into an 8-byte buffer. By combining all of the writes into the Write Merge Buffer, you reduce processor bus utilization and processor stalls, thus the processes in tandem create an overall increase in performance  by the XT core over those found in original K6-2™ processors.

 

The key benefits of the transaction will be:

• To provide PC-OEM and retail customers with a single source for 3Dfx branded add-in-boards for greater price stability and smoother product transitions.
• To provide high-capacity, high-quality and reliable manufacturing capabilities as a pre-qualified supplier to the top ten PC-OEM manufacturers.
• To allow for a more tightly integrated chip, software, and board-level layout and design for faster time to market and the most cost-effective graphics solutions.
• To drive a more controlled and focused brand investment for an even stronger retail presence.

 

The Creative Labs Encore PC-DVD 5x Dxr2 is an excellent DVD kit for anybody wanting the full-multimedia experience. The price is not too bad and the quality of the whole kit is right on mark. If you're looking for that special X-mas upgrade, look no further. The PC-DVD Encore is all you need.

 

If you have the SoundBlaster Live! with a DVD kit, you really can't have the true experience without the Desktop Theatre. What I don't like about this unit is that there are too much wiring going around for the rear speakers. It would be excellent if they could have a wireless version of the Desktop Theatre in the future. If you have the SoundBlaster Live! and have some cash to spare, definitely get this speaker unit to go with it. It'll not only give you the best home audio experience in games but also the best home audio experience with DVD movies. If you plan ask St. Nick for something this Christmas, I do not see why you should not add this product to the list. Let's hope that he'll bring it to you.

 

Even though it's no Voodoo2 killer in terms of performance, the Monster Fusion is still quite a powerful chip. Being able to run the vast majority of games fluidly at 800x600 isn't bad at all. However, if you want to go to the next level of gaming at 1024x768+ resolutions, you should look into the TNT or Voodoo2 SLI. The Banshee comes very close to the performance of the Savage 3D at the moment, perhaps with more refined drivers or optimization the card can become faster. However the biggest lacking feature of the Banshee is it's AGP 1X implementation which really doesn't do anything at all for AGP.

 

The PA-2013's performance rose an average of 3% in business applications, with performance increases peaking at the 5 - 7% level, placing it at the top of the Super7 motherboard performance charts.  As you might be able to guess, the improvements in 3D games is virtually un-noticeable, so if you have a PA-2013 or another Super7 board right now that you're happy with, there is no point to upgrading to this 2MB version simply because of the performance increases.  Even L2 cache dependent games such as Unreal didn't receive any improvement in performance as a result of the larger cache, in this case, their performance was being limited by the actual speed of the cache, not the size.

 

374Mhz: No problems at all. This I could run at a 1.9v setting (4.5x83).

450Mhz: Some problems at first, but all ran pretty well. Ran at 2.0v setting, with Jeremy's settings without Turbo Enabled (4.5x100).

464Mhz: No problems at all, ran very well. 2.0v setting, using Jeremy's settings.

500Mhz: This was the best thing possible since the Commodore 64 (so I'm lying again). I disable the L2 Cache for this one, ran it at 2.1v setting and set off (5x100).

 

• Unreal 220 Patch (6.47 MB)