September 26 - 30, 1998
Archive

Unlike Sound Blaster Live, the Vortex 2 is not DSP-based. Instead, it has hardware more specifically designed for processing 3D audio streams. According to Aureal, Vortex 2-based boards will initially ship with hardware acceleration for 16 DirectSound3D sound sources, though that number will be increased to 76 with a future driver upgrade.

 

• Guillemot Phoenix Win95 Driver
• Guillemot Phoenix Win98 Driver
• Guillemot Phoenix WinNT4 Driver
• Mini Gl Driver

 

• STB Velocity 128 Driver (Win9X - version 1.82 - 1.9 MB)

 

• Graphics Blaster TNT Bios (404 KB)
• Graphics Blaster TNT Driver (Win9X - version 1.03 - 1312 KB)
• Sound Blaster 16/AWE32/AWE64 Driver (WinNT4 - Revision 9 - 954 KB)

 

Sure, the top-notch sound that comes from the built-in speakers alone is almost enough to justify purchasing the chair, but it's the nonstop rumbling that comes from within that really sends this chair over the edge. The Intensor responds dynamically to the bass in a game. Pop a bad guy with a standard first-person pea-shooter and you'll feel the seat acknowledge the kickback with a gentle shake. Unload an over-the-shoulder rocket into a crowd of monsters and it'll feel like the apocalypse with every explosion, crash, and smash.

 

• Matrox OpenGL D3D Wrapper (Revision 3 - 147 KB)

 

If you're a loyal STB customer I can't think of any reason why you shouldn't pick up the Velocity 4400. The Velocity 4400 is an excellent TNT-driven 2D/3D solution, which does a fantastic job at accelerating Open GL and Direct 3D games and simulations. It's not a "Voodoo II-killer", but nothing out there really is.

 

• Winamp (Win9X/NT - version 2.02 - 554 KB)

 

So yet another Voodoo Banshee product goes under the hammer in the Sharky Extreme labs and yet again passes the entire test regime with flying colors. There were no 2D errors, faults, and/or crashes, nor were there any Bios errors. All the games I tested worked flawlessly and add to the fact that the board is so simple to install, the average PC user will feel right at home. The rest of the drill you already know, hard-core Quakers and dual TMU lovers steer clear etc… But in sum, Quantum3D's Raven is the most competitively priced Voodoo Banshee product on the market. I know it seems rather strange for any Quantum3D product to be dirt-cheap but it is. And with the stonking games bundle, I'd stick my neck at far enough to say that if you're going to opt for a Voodoo Banshee product, then the Raven, from Quantum 3D, is the Voodoo Banshee of choice.

 

The S2/Midiland 4100 speakers have the best quality sound output that I have heard from a set of "multimedia" speakers. Even when you crank it up to eardrum shattering volumes, the overall output is still very crisp and clean. With the addition of the control module, you can also easily control most aspects of the speakers from your PC. I do admit that the $399 price is a little on the expensive side, but you always get what you pay for. In the instance of the S2/Midiland 4100 speakers, you even get a little more.

 

The floor plan of the chip indicates a massive floating-point unit. This would be in keeping with Intel's stated design goal of keeping Merced's performance in step with anything its reduced instruction set computer competitors can throw at it.

"I am happy to report to you we are on track to get our product in production by the middle of 2000," he said. "The logic is basically complete. We are doing exhaustive testing at this moment. The circuit design and layout are on track."

 

On Neil Finn's "Sinner" (from the album Try Whistling This) the MicroMedia's sound was clear and precise. As the song's many instrumental layers unfolded, I could clearly discern the distorted guitar stabs, piano tingles, and digitally sampled string loops. On "This Cat's on a Hot Tin Roof" from The Brian Setzer Orchestra's The Dirty Boogie, the booming jitterbug of the stand-up bass was pleasantly fat, while Setzer's guitar wailed with the appropriate midrange sting. The stereo imaging was so precise that I could hear the quick, stabbing counterpoint lines played by the horns in the right speaker against the horns in the left speaker. Wow!

 

As you see, the fill rate increases with about the same percentage as the clockspeed, and even a real life game like Incoming gains 22.5% ... So with proper cooling, it's possible to get an additional 20 - 23 percent speed out of a Hercules Terminator Beast (SDRAM version). If you decide to overclock your card, please be sure to use GOOD COOLING. Cooling is absolutely the key in overclocking. If you decide to go for it, you might want to download Powerstrip (version 2.27 or above) which has a built-in slider to set the clockspeed on most cards, including ones based upon the S3 Savage 3D chipset.

 

• S3 Savage3D Reference Driver (Win9X - version 4.10.01.4000-6.00)

 

• Sound Blaster Live! Download Page

 

Server administrators should get it, and people who experienced any of the following version 216 problems should get it:

• Fixed ESC in intro level crashing games in the software renderer on some machines.
• Eliminated chance of server crashing when player limit is exceeded.
• Disabled CD check, which was causing problems for some users.
• Fixed problems with 3dfx Voodoo Rush cards under some versions of Glide.
• Fixed volumetric lighting rainbow effects on 3DNow!

Again, this is a beta patch, which has not yet undergone wide testing. This patch doesn't contain any new performance enhancements, just fixes. Download it here.

 

Ultra DMA (Direct Memory Access) is the successor to the now outdated Fast ATA, achieving twice the theoretical transfer rate at 33.3 MB/s compared to the Fast ATA max transfer rate of 16.7 MB/s. However the advantages of Ultra ATA (another term for Ultra DMA) are somewhat dubious. Synthetic tests such as ZDNet's High end and Business Disk tests show tremendous performance gains when using Ultra DMA but oddly enough Winstone tests, which measure overall system performance, increase incrementally, if at all

 

Available through a special arrangement with Midway, Raven comes bundled with three full versions of proven arcade and console game titles. NFL Blitz^TM, Rush the Rock-Alcatraz Edition and GEX^TM: Enter the Gecko are offered simultaneously with Midway's launch of NFL  Blitz^TM for the PC. These titles have a combined retail price of $120, further enhancing the value of Raven. Priced at $149, Raven provides high-end Voodoo-based 3D quality at a low-end cost.

Labtec Inc., The Computer Audio Experts(tm), announces two high-end additions to its Audio F/X(tm) series, the APX(R)-4620 and ATX(R)-5820.

The systems bring home theater-quality audio to the PC environment, creating a whole new experience in gaming, DVD multimedia audio, and music reproduction. The ATX(R)-5820, the new flagship product for Labtec, employs advanced digital signal processing to deliver Virtual Dolby(R) Multi-channel Surround Sound from two imaging loudspeakers. Both new models feature 70 watts RMS total system power for room-filling sound, and offer several technological ``firsts'' for the PC audio category.

``The APX-4620 and ATX-5820 bring unprecedented sound quality to the desktop at the $149.99 and $199.99 price points,'' said Gary M. Savadove, president and CEO of Labtec Inc. ``We are proud to deliver the highest-quality PC audio input and output technology to the computer peripherals market, and at prices customers can afford. The APX-4620 and ATX-5820 mark our entry into the high-end multimedia speaker market, and we believe our combination of superb audio performance, convenience features, and aggressive prices will set a new benchmark for PC audio.''

 

After having played with the SPECTRA 2500 for many days, I have to say that it is simply the best video card for the PC that I have ever used or seen. The drivers were solid. The speed of the card was fantastic. The quality of the images were breathtaking. The included utilities were great and well thought out. In my opinion this is THE card to buy out of the current Riva TNT crop and is also number one on my list of 3D cards for those with at least a PII system.

 

The Sound Blaster Live! got by running all of these tests without a "flutter" in any sound quality. The only problems that I have heard of (but cannot test) is compatibility flaws in Windows NT 4.0. You might have to check into this one a little more before you NT guys go out and buy this. But anyway, the $199.99 price tag does burn a big hole in your wallet. My suggestions are unless you are going to be doing recording go for the Sound Blaster Live! Value (retail:$99.99). The Value basically downgrades sound partially (not a very big difference) and leaves out the I/O daughter card. This makes the SBLive! affordable to most everyone, considering that A3D cards are still running around $100-150, but some have dropped in price. The SBLive! is well worth your money and I would have to give it a 10/10 on my scale of approval.

 

3DLabs believes that hardware single-pass bump mapping will be a differentiating factor in future games. It has been likened to a "jump in quality, realism from point sampling to bi-linear filtering". It is not surprising, therefore, that the P3 has a dedicated bump mapping unit which operates independently of three general-purpose texture composite units. DirectX 6 supports 3 methods of bump mapping - the first 2 can be completed in a single pass on the Permedia 3:

Whether you're a video enthusiast, or are looking for a card that can do it all, you should definitely give the Matrox Marvel G200-TV a good look.   The $300 price-tag may be a bit much for most home users, but overall, it is well worth it if you're going to use the incredible features of this absolutely marvelous board.  It isn't advisable to seek out the Marvel G200-TV if you don't have at least a Pentium MMX 233 with a fairly sizeable portion of your hard drive free for any video clips you may capture (100MB is a decent size to have free).   While the 32MB system memory recommendation from Matrox may be stretching it, 64MB should be just enough for most tasks with 128MB being the ideal level.  Keep in mind that you don't want to construct an entire system around a video card, if you find yourself wanting a more professional video editing system, drop the Marvel G200-TV and explore something in the more expensive realms of PC video editing.  However for the user that has it all (or wants it all), yet has the desire to play around with a bit more than a weekly Quake 2 frag-session, the Matrox Marvel G200-TV definitely cuts it...and then some.

 

-WICKED3D REVIEW
-8 MEG VS. 12 MEG FINALIZED
-NEW SIN LEVELS
-UNREAL PATCH
-3Dfx VS nVIDIA
-BANSHEES, BANSHEES, BANSHEES!

 

• Unreal Beta Patch (version 216 - 2 MB)

• VoodooDoctor (Win9X - version 1.0.0 - 127 KB)
• DirectControl (Win9X - version 2.0.5 - 448 KB)
• TweakIt (Win9X - version 3.0.5 - 664 KB)
• Matrox Overclock (Win9X - version 2.0.0 - 169 KB)

This ICD release provides full accelerated OpenGL support under both Windows 95 and NT. As this is a beta release, some features have not been implemented yet, and a few bugs may still exist.  Be sure to read the included release notes before using.  

September 25th release includes AMD 3DNow support and fixed GL Unreal support. Many other performance and stability fixes have been incorporated into this release

• v2x00 OpenGL ICD (Win9X - Beta Release #3 - 654 KB)

 

As graphics chipsets become more powerful it seems that the manufacturers have a tendency to rely more and more on the power of your processor to drive the performance of their high end chipset.  But how high end is a chipset when you give it a low end processor?  This seems to be one of the major weaknesses of nVidia's Riva TNT Chipset, keeping it out of the hands of many Socket-7 users without the money to make a new motherboard/processor upgrade to a platform the TNT would benefit more from.

 

PowerStrip 2.27 consolidates a number of minor fixes and improvements into - well - a minor release. There's a little something in here for people with a G200, Banshee, TNT, Savage3D, Stealth II S220, Blaster Exxtreme, as well as anyone in need of display power management under NT. As usual, a lot of care has been taken to ensure that virtually every control you find under Windows 95/98 is available under Windows NT as well.

• Powerstrip (Win9X/NT - version 2.27 - 727 KB)