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Saturday - May 15th
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Dual Processing Article 6:20
PM EST - Email Us |
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The Sanctum has posted an article
which takes a look at setting up a dual processor system. Since dual
processing is now affordable for most of us (via S370's Celeron's and a couple
Powerleap PII-PL converter cards), a lot of people are starting to do it.
Unfortunately, the benefits are not that great right now unless you do graphics
with Photoshop or compile huge VC++ programs, but soon enough we might start
seeing games take advantage of dual processor's, who knows?
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High Performance PC's Part 5 6:13
PM EST - Email Us |
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Johan over at Ace's Hardware must be
having a ball writing these Secrets of High Performance PC's articles, or maybe
he just knows a hell of a lot about the issue (I think its both). Anyway, he has
posted part
5, which is entitled, "The
Subtle Power of EPIC." Check out this bit:
Intel's x86 architecture is now 20 years old, and it is crystal clear that
designing a fast x86 CPU is like designing a race car with the brakes on.
While the Pentium was a big step forward compared to the 486, the PII could
not show the same improvement over the Pentium.
Intel is well aware that the x86 instruction set is limiting CPU
performance and is working hard on the next Instruction Set Architecture
(ISA): EPIC. To Intel, "IA-64 is the architecture for the next 10 to 15
years." This new ISA should allow Intel to ditch the old x86
architecture, and design CPUs which would dwarf all older RISC and x86 CPUs.
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Brian Hook's Q3 Benchmarks 10:34
AM EST - Email Us |
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Yesterday Brian Hook updated his .plan with Q3 Test benchmarks across a huge
variety of 3D cards. Pretty interesting results, check it out here.
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Newbie's Guide To The CPU 10:27
AM EST - Email Us |
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Speedy3D has posted a newbie's
guide to the CPU. That's central processing unit, for you newbies
;) Just kidding, I'm sure you know at least that. If you want to go
a bit more in depth, check it out.
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Lack of Updates 10:18
AM EST - Email Us |
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Sorry for the lack of updates everyone, I've pretty much been away for the past
two days doing various jobs, setting up a network, fixing computers .... I'm
sure some of your will know what's its like.
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Friday - May 14th
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Hercules Ultra TNT2 Review 8:46
AM EST - Email Us |
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Sharky Extreme has done a review
of Hercules' Ultra TNT2 card. This card will have a 175/200MHz
core/memory clock speed. Check out this bit:
Let's face it, the price is high. $245 for a card with no software bundle
is extreme, particularly when Diamond's Viper770 is going to be offered at
$229. Creative might even debut their TNT2 Ultra part at $200 - $210 knowing
their traditionally aggressive pricing.
It's entirely possible that Hercules is paying more money for their batches
of TNT2 Ultra chips from nVidia in order to deliver not only the massive
175MHz core speed, but on the overclocked speeds as well.
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CL TNT "Unified" (Glide) Driver 8:43
AM EST - Email Us |
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I noticed over at Voodoo eXtreme that Creative
Labs has released a "Unified"
beta driver for the CL Riva TNT card. This driver allows their card to
run games which are based on 3dfx's Glide technology. Very interesting, I wonder
what 3dfx thinks about this. Anyway, click here
to go the information page where you can download it. Check out the press
release here.
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3dfx Voodoo3 3000 Review 8:40
AM EST - Email Us |
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FPS3D has posted their review
of 3dfx's Voodoo3 3000. However, in this review, they dig deep into
the 22-bit, 16-bit issue, head over and see what they have to say about it.
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Diamond Viper V770 Ultra Driver 8:37
AM EST - Email Us |
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Diamond decided to release the driver
even before the card even hits stores. If you're going to be getting one, you
might want to get these:
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New Matrox G200 4.33c Driver 8:31
AM EST - Email Us |
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Matrox has released a new WHQL certified
driver for G200 based cards. This release contains driver versions
4.33.045 and Powerdesk version 4.11.01.4330. Grab it below:
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Thursday - May 13th
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Even Newer 3dfx Q3A Drivers 9:04
PM EST - Email Us |
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Hmm, the amount of drivers coming out within the past week is amazing, I wish id
Software released a new Quake game every week ;) Anyway, 3dfx
has yet again revised their V3 drivers and released new NT4 drivers. Grab
them below:
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ATi Rage Pro Drivers 8:55
PM EST - Email Us |
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ATi has released a new release candidate
driver for cards based on the RAGE PRO chip. Check out the release notes here,
then grab them below:
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Winamp 2.21 Released 8:52
PM EST - Email Us |
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Nullsoft has released a new version of their
very popular audio player, Winamp. Here is the latest info and a link to
download:
- WMA support fixed
- Vastly better DirectSound output
- Other bug fixes
- Winamp
(Win9X/NT - version 2.21 - 584 KB)
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Wednesday - May 12th
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EPoX EP-ZX370 Mobo Review 8:10
PM EST - Email Us |
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Super7.net has done a review
of EPoX's EP-ZX370 Motherboard. Now this is what I like, by looking at
the model name, you can tell exactly what this motherboard is; a Socket 370
board based on Intel's ZX chipset. Already, I can tell I like this board!
Soyo maybe you can take a hint from this.
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VE's ASUS V3800 TNT2 Preview 7:40
PM EST - Email Us |
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Voodoo eXtreme has posted their preview
of ASUS's V3800 TNT2 card which has a 125/150MHz core/memory clock
speed. Check out this bit:
Would I spend a lot on this card? I was a
little disappointed with the low resolution benchmark scores. The low
resolution scores where not the fastest I had ever seen, but after cranking
the resolution to1024x768 you will quickly notice that this card starts to
leave many other 3D cards in the dust. Even by 1152x864 the speed of this card
is apparent as it is a lot faster than a TNT. The 32 bit color scores are
steadily getting better, which now makes it possible for people to play at
high resolution AND use 32 bit color with only a small penalty. The image
quality is some of the best I have seen.
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SB Live! Liveware 2.0 Released 7:35
PM EST - Email Us |
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Creative Labs has finally released the much
awaited Liveware 2.0 package with
EAX 2.0 support. People felt that they bought a very expensive card and
they expected frequent updates, but Creative Labs didn't come through for quite
a while. Anyway, its here now, so check out the new features and grab it
below:
Live!Ware 2.0 includes an enhanced 3D Audio Engine, which allows you
to distinctly experience discrete 3D audio sources. With support for 3D audio
elevation, you get better discrete positioning and immersiveness in games. Now
you can pinpoint the sounds like never before. You can feel a fighter jet
taking off, ascending into the sky and diving down below the clouds. To
maximize your 3D audio gaming experience, get one of the Cambridge Soundworks
FourPointSurround speaker systems.
With 32 Accelerated 3D Audio Channels, Live!Ware 2.0 enables the
rendition of every sound detail in a game. You will also be able to experience
the Occlusion and Obstruction Effects offered with EAX 2.0 support, enabling
you to distinguish a sound distinctly coming from behind an obstacle or even
the next room. Together, these features deliver you the best gaming experience
on Environmental Audio games.
Live!Ware 2.0 has also included 80 Environmental Presets to ensure
that you continue to enjoy your legacy games with Environmental Audio. You can
also easily customize your own Portable Environments and share them with
friends.
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NVidia Riva TNT2 32MB Review 9:30
AM EST - Email Us |
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3DGaming has done a review
of NVIDIA's Reference TNT2 board which was outfitted with 32MB of RAM. Here
is what they thought:
nVidia has another prosperous year ahead of them. They once again have been
able to produce a high-end OEM product. Based upon what has been announced and
what has been introduced, I dont think you can get a faster 3D accelerator
for graduation or fathers day than the TNT2. The nice thing about the TNT2
is that if you only upgrade your CPU down the road later on, the TNT2 will
benefit from the improved CPU. As the benchmarks have already shown, the TNT2
is CPU limited on a 450MHz Intel, which until only a few weeks ago had the
fastest floating point processor available on a board with an AGP slot.
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Voodoo3 Overclocker 2.0 9:27
AM EST - Email Us |
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I noticed over at Voodoo eXtreme,
that Gary Peterson has released version 2.0 of his Voodoo3 overclocker.
Check out the info and then grab it below:
The new Voodoo3 Overclocker
version 2.0 now has support for Windows NT4. You can adjust the graphics clock
rate, and toggle the Glide Vsync and Video Filter settings. I've also added a
new checkbox that allows the user to enable or disable the graphics clock
slider. This allows users not interested in overclocking to use the Vsync and
Video Filter settings without being concerned with the graphics clock
adjustment. Another addition is it now detects a missing graphics clock
registry entry and uses the default clock rate for the Voodoo3 board you
selected during installation if the entry is missing. This keeps confusion
down when you reinstall or upgrade drivers and the graphics clock entry is
deleted by the driver installation process. I hope all users of the Voodoo3
Overclocker will upgrade to this version.
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Pentium III Major Price Drops 9:22
AM EST - Email Us |
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I noticed over at ZDNet that Intel is
planning to slash prices on its Pentium III's this Sunday by up to 35%, check
out this bit from the article:
Intel will drop Pentium III prices by as much as 35% starting Sunday,
according to a source familiar with the cuts. It means a 450 MHz
chip will fall to $268, and a 500 MHz chip to $482. Also, the company will
announce new speeds for its mobile and desktop processors. The aggressive
pricing underscores Intel's continuing desire to outpace rival chip makers
like Advanced Micro Devices. Click
for more.
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Tuesday - May 11th
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Tom's First Q3A Benchmarks 10:00
PM EST - Email Us |
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Tom Pabst over at Tom's Hardware Guide
has jumped the gun and is the first to post Quake
3 Arena Test scores using various next generation 3D cards like the TNT2,
Voodoo3 and Savage4. He also does a nice job on comparing the image
quality between the 3 chips on various quality settings within the game.
By the way, on an interesting note, he used a V3 3500 clocked at 200/200 and a
TNT2 Ultra clocked at 180/220MHz, very nice stuff.
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Another V3 Image Quality Article 9:45
PM EST - Email Us |
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Beta Bites amongst many others, decided
to check out the
Voodoo3's image quality and compare it to that of the TNT/TNT2. This
comparison is mostly visual as it has a lot of screenshots using both
cards. The conclusion? The TNT kicks as at 32-bit, but the V3 still
looks good at 16 "22-bit".
Just to add my little bit here, I played Quake3 Test today with both my TNT
and my Voodoo2 and you want to hear my conclusion? The Voodoo2 sucks
compared to the TNT, the image quality is so poor, even in 16-bit vs. 16-bit
comparison. I feel like my vision is going blurred with the V2. But
that's just my opinion.
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Matrox G400 Screenshots 9:43
PM EST - Email Us |
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Are you just thirsting for some more of that G400 environmental bump mapping
action? Well check out this page
which has many screenshots, with and without bump mapping enabled.
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Teac 6x24 CD-R Review 12:45
PM EST - Email Us |
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AGNHardware has done a review
of Teac's 6x24 CD-R Drive. This drive uses the SCSI interface and
writes at a very nice 6X, check it out:
CD burning speed is an entirely different story. A full CD took about
12 minutes to copy. The same CD took 17 minutes on the Plextor 4/12x and
9 minutes on the 8/20x. With fast CD-Rs like these, 4x almost seems too
slow. While the 6x performance still lagged behind that of the 8/20x
from Plextor, the gap was certainly small enough to start to justify saving
some money by going with 6x.
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Another Celeron 466 Review 12:32
PM EST - Email Us |
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iXBT Hardware has also posted a review
of Intel's Celeron 466MHz Celeron (only available in PPGA format).
They have a very interesting bit about the upcoming Celeron 500, check it out:
As to the official sources, a 100MHz bus will be supported only by Celeron
500, which is due in the beginning of the year 2000. And again it is supposed
to be perfectly overclockable. However, 0.25 micron technology has almost
exhausted its potential at 500MHz frequency, that's why further frequency
increase will be possible only in two cases. The developers will either switch
over to a new technology, or increase the CPU core voltage. As for AMD, it has
chosen the second way for the time being because of certain problems with its
productive capacities. But Intel with determination embarks on the first path.
For us this means that Intel Celeron 500MHz with 100MHz FSB will be developed
with 0.18 micron technology, which is much richer in various possibilities.
That's why all overclockers, who are looking forward to buying this particular
CPU, won't be disappointed. But there is little hope that overclocking will
lead to speed increase by 1.5 times, as we had with Celeron 300A. The clock
multiplier of a new processor is most likely to be locked and the system bus
frequency can hardly be raised to such a high level. However, this CPU is
quite a promising piece, and you will still manage to get a lot from it.
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NVIDIA TNT/TNT2 1.76 Driver 12:22
PM EST - Email Us |
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Tweak3D has gotten hold of even newer
drivers from NVIDIA. These are
supposedly more stable than the 1.73 drivers. The great thing is that Q3A
supports the ARB multitexturing extension so these drivers work great with Q3A,
I tried it myself. Grab it below:
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Celeron 466 PPGA Review 9:46
AM EST - Email Us |
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Sharky Extreme has done a review
of Intel's Celeron 466MHz CPU that only comes in the PPGA (Socket 370)
flavor. Check out this bit:
Is this a Celeron or a Pentium III? 466MHz is 466MHz no matter how you
label it, and the Celeron 466 delivers a level of performance never before
seen in the "under $200" CPU price segment. Even though the Celeron
has one quarter the amount of L2 cache as the P3 has, it still holds its own
in the gaming arena as most of the benchmark results clearly indicate its
parity level against Intel's fastest and most expensive desktop CPU, the
P3-500.
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Motherboard Buyer's Guide 9:43
AM EST - Email Us |
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Ars Technica has posted their Motherboard
Buyer's Guide. If you're new to building your own computer and are
having a difficult time choosing a motherboard, because they all seem to look
the same, then check out this article. It will tell you everything you
need to know.
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New ASUS V3400 TNT 2.17 Drivers 9:38
AM EST - Email Us |
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ASUS has released new drivers for the V3400
TNT card. I'm assuming this release is just bug fixes because the version
number was only incremented by .01, anyway grab em here:
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Q3A Win32 Test Finally Out! 9:30
AM EST - Email Us |
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Not hardware news but who the hell cares, Id
Software's Quake 3 Arena is one of the biggest events of the year.
Grab it from one of the two servers below (they are the only ones that worked
for me):
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3dfx Q3A Compatible Banshee Driver 9:26
AM EST - Email Us |
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3dfx has released a new Banshee reference
driver that is compatible with Quake 3 Arena and includes the full OpenGL
ICD. Grab it below:
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Monday - May 10th
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File Section Updated! 6:50
PM EST - Email Us |
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It's been a long time since I updated the file section, but I finally did.
The drivers page and utilities page have been completely updated with the latest
stuff, so head over and check it out here.
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STB Velocity 4400 W9X 1.60 Driver 5:50
PM EST - Email Us |
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Well here is something rather pleasant I stumbled upon. I was updating the
drivers section (yes, yes I know its been ages) and I was doing the STB section,
when I noticed a new driver for the 4400 was just released. I guess they
wanted to go out in style before completely merging with 3dfx :) Anyway,
on the driver page it says its for PCI/AGP TV-Out/No TV-Out and fixes a few
issues with OpenGL You can grab it below:
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Aureal Vortex2 SuperQuad Review 5:10
PM EST - Email Us |
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3DHardware has done a review
of Aureal's Vortex2 SuperQuad Digital PCI sound card. Didn't think
Aureal makes their cards did you? Check out this bit from the review:
The V2SQDP is currently one of the better sound cards out there offering
great compatibility, outstanding performance and a very extensive feature set.
Id generally go with the opinion that its very much a gaming card, so if
you like gaming, watch out for this board in a computer system near you.
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Creative Announces Ultra TNT2 4:20
PM EST - Email Us |
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Creative Labs today announced that it
will be producing a 32MB Ultra TNT2 card. I can't wait to see how these
card from Diamond and Creative will perform. This card should be available some
time this month at a price of $229. Check out this bit from the press
release:
MILPITAS, Calif. - May 10, 1999 - Creative Technology
Ltd. (NASDAQ: CREAF), the renowned innovator of market-leading multimedia
solutions for personal entertainment, today announced the addition of an
extraordinary new 32MB graphics card to its award-winning 3D Blaster family
of products. Creative's new 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra is the fastest graphics
accelerator built to date - combining exceptional performance and outstanding
image quality.
Based on NVIDIA's powerful new RIVA TNT2 processor, the 3D Blaster RIVA
TNT2 Ultra combines 128-bit architectures and a patented TwiN-Texel
dual-pipeline 3D rendering engine to deliver unrivaled power and performance
for exceptional gameplay. The 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra also supports
exceedingly high resolutions and refresh rates with 32MB of high-performance
Synchronous Memory and a 300 MHz DAC for pixel perfect color.
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CL FPS2000 Speaker Review 9:25
AM EST - Email Us |
|
GASource has done a review
of Creative Labs (or Cambridge Soundworks) Four Point Surround 2000 5-piece
speaker set. Check out this bit:
I really hate to sound too impressed by any product, but the FPS2000 is absolutely
awesome for movies. I popped Blade in the DVD player, and ruined my planned
testing procedure by watching the movie the whole way through. I was just
completely engrossed by it, largely because the sound was fantastic. I turned
the volume up (both in software and hardware) to the point where it began to
distort a little, then backed it down a notch. When my wife came in to ask me
to turn it down, I had to pause the movie to understand her.
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Voodoo3 3500 = Voodoo3 3500TV 9:19
AM EST - Email Us |
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I noticed over at Voodoo eXtreme that
3dfx has changed the specs for the 3500 model,
they are now calling it 3500TV because it has a TV-tuner as well as TV-Input
features. The digital flat panel support has been dropped and the clock
speed will still be the same (183MHz), all this at the exact same price of
$249. Check out this bit from the press
release:
SAN JOSE, Calif., - May 10, 1999 - 3dfx Interactive Inc.
(NASDAQ: TDFX) today debuted the ultimate system for PC-based entertainment:
the Voodoo3 3500 TV. Based on the acclaimed Voodoo3 graphics accelerator
technology, the Voodoo3 3500 TV combines the industry's most powerful 3D and
2D graphics with complete TV tuner and multimedia functionality in a single
AGP or PCI board. Featuring support for MPEG 2, DVD, FM stereo with dbx, and
high-resolution displays, the new board includes the most feature-filled
entertainment card for hard-core game enthusiasts and cutting-edge multimedia
entertainment consumers.
Equipped with the finest quality TV video and FM stereo available on a PC, the
183 MHz Voodoo3 3500 TV supports real-time MPEG 2 video and audio capture, and
includes such advanced VCR features as timed recording and frame advance - all
accessible through an intuitive software interface. With Voodoo3 3500 TV, 3dfx
users can surf channels, zoom in on their TV picture, and record their
favorite television programs and play them back in DVD quality.
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A Couple More Leadtek TNT2 Reviews 9:10
AM EST - Email Us |
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Here are a couple more Leadtek Winfast S320 II TNT2 cards. Be sure to
check out HardOCP's review as they put some huge ass fans on the card and
overclocked it to hell, anyway here they are:
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Sunday - May 9th
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AGN's Abit BX6 Rev 2.2 Update 6:54
PM EST - Email Us |
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AGNHardware has updated their Abit
BX6 2.0 motherboard review with some information on the newly released
revision 2.2. Apparently, revision 2.0 was having stability problems with
certain hardware. Check out the update here.
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Quake II Hack w/ TNT 1.73 Driver 5:02
PM EST - Email Us |
|
FPS3D has posted some information on how to
get multitexturing to work with the new NVIDIA 1.73 reference drivers. If
you haven't heard, NVIDIA pulled SGIS multitexturing in favor of the new ARB
type which is supposed to be faster. We usually don't post game news, but
since everyone plays Q2, I thought it might be a good idea. Check it out here.
Update: FPS3D has posted more precise instructions on how to use
the ARB hack, head over and check it out if you are having problems.
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Server Downtime Yesterday 10:00
AM EST - Email Us |
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It's just my luck, I finished a review
of Act Lab's awesome Force RS wheel system and the damn server goes down for the
whole night. At least Fresh3d was
able to get it back up for today. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, check
out the Force RS review here.
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Intel Coppermine Article 9:56
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Want to learn a bit more about why Intel's upcoming Coppermine (Pentium III) is
going to be so good? Well check out this article
over at Gurutech, it outlines all the
important points.
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ASUS P2B 1009 BIOS Final 9:50
AM EST - Email Us |
|
I noticed over at Betanews that ASUS
has released the final version of the P2B (with Hardwaremonitor) ACPI 1009 Bios
update. Grab it below:
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Logitech Cordless Desktop Review 9:46
AM EST - Email Us |
|
Glenn over at FPS3D has notified us that they
have posted their review
of Logitech's Cordless Desktop. This kit includes a cordless keyboard and
mouse. This would be absolutely great for me because my 50" TV is
pretty far from my computer, so using the controls from where my computer is to
play games on the TV is quite a pain. Check out this bit from the
review:
I really do like this pair. The mouse wheel, clicks, and movement are very
responsive, as are keypresses. Both feel just above normal, and not overly
ergonomic (ahem, MouseMan+?). Although not incredibly cheap, the ability to
slip your mouse in your pocket when heading to a LAN party without worrying
about tangle is just too excellent to be overlooked.
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Q3A Voodoo2/3 Compatible Drivers 9:34
AM EST - Email Us |
|
3dfx has released new drivers for both the Voodoo2
and Voodoo3 series of
cards. These drivers are supposed to be compatible with Id Software's
upcoming Quake 3 Arena. Lets hope, they get the Q3A test out tonight, so
we can all try out these drivers. Please keep in mind that these are full
driver sets, not just fixes. Grab them below:
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Copyright 1999 Hardware Pros. All Rights Reserved. |