Sept 9 - 16, 1999
Archive

What makes 3dfx's FXT1 better than S3TC/DXTC?

There are numerous ways FXT1 is superior to S3TC. From a technology perspective, FXT1 utilizes four separate compression algorithms that result in substantially better overall image quality than S3TC. Also, S3TC does not support a 4 bpt compression format for 32-bit textures which use the Alpha channel for translucency, a capability supported in the FXT1 compression format. From a development perspective, S3TC is not an Open Source technology and is thus restricted by S3 licensing terms and conditions, thereby limiting its use as a cross-platform compression standard. With a cross platform texture compression technology like FXT1, a develop can use the same high quality artwork and high resolution textures for direct X with other platforms like Mac and Line Linux the texture compression technology transfers, too.

• Download HPT366 Driver for Windows 2000
  
  
  

However, we are about to enter the 21st century, and cable modem is the fastest connection publicly offered. Looking back on all of this makes you realize that we’ve gone from 300 to 14400 bps in eight years, from 14400 to 64000 in six years and to 5 Mbps in four years. If this trend continues, we’ll have 25 Mbps before 2002.

• Download Creative Unified Driver
  
  
  

This utility allows over clocking of the board and the ability to disable wait for vsync. The main purpose of this utility is to respond to the overwhelming demand from the Developer Community who require such a tool for the purpose of debugging, optimizing and fine tuning applications under development. This utility only supports G400 boards and will not function on a WHQL certified driver.

This utility is not recommended for use by the ordinary end user. However, due to the overwhelming amount of problems encountered in the field with 3rd party over clocking utilities, advanced users who insist on making use of such utilities are recommended to use the Matrox utility instead in order to avoid the risks associated with 3rd party utilities. These 3rd party utilities typically program the bios incorrectly and can potentially damage the board thereby violating the warranty on these board.

Matrox does not promote the use of any over clocking tool. Matrox will only support the Matrox tweak utility to the extent of providing support for un installing and/or disabling the utility.

• Matrox Utility (Win9X - v1.00.12 - 825 KB)
  
  
  

You may now download and experiment with Creative 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Win95/98 driver version 2.08beta.

There are several ways to get the drivers. However, this is the download page which has some basic information and precautions.
http://www.soundblaster.com/graphics/tnt2-ultra/driver-w9x.html

There are precautions about installing the drivers. This primarily applies to people who have installed more recent drivers. In theory, installing our drivers over more recent file versions should ask you to overwrite the newer files when appropriate, but this apparently is not 100% reliable. Some newer drivers have an uninstall which you should run. Otherwise, the easiest thing to do is to switch to the Standard VGA driver, reboot and delete all the NV*.* files from the Windows\system folder. If you want to be thorough, you may want to look for a few NVIDIA registry keys:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls
Folder\Display\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers

• Download CL TNT2 Ultra 2.08 Beta Driver
  
  
  

Click for a larger image

Needless to say, the Deskstar 22GXP isn't for everyone. It's more expensive than a few other second generation 7200rpm hard disks. But when you factor in the costs, remember that you are not only buying speed here. Reliability is important too. I have personally lost, oh... about 50GB of data or so over the last two years and I have hence cultivated a healthy craving for data integrity and safety. So, if plunking extra dough gets me a really reliable drive, I think it's worth every single cent.

• Sharky Extreme: 3dfx FXT1 Explored
• Firing Squad: FXT1 - Advanced Texture Compression
• EuroGamer: 3dfx "Napalm" Article
  
  
  

• 3dfx FXT1 Press Release
• 3dfx FXT1 White Paper
  
  
  

Sources close to AMD's plans say the company has shifted its plans on its future, 64-bit K8 processor.

The original K8 64-bit design is now on ice, and the firm has decided instead to derive the design of the future processor from its Athlon K7, but extended to 64-bit mode.

That is not a retrograde step, according to one source. The K7 design worked out well and a K8 based on that can re-use x.86 compilers, thus bringing a product to market quicker than expected or usually feasible.

But there is a potential skill shortages to overcome -- a number of K8 engineers at AMD have been wooed away from the firm to work at various Silicon Valley startups, our sources say.

What's better then a good thing? Well, how about when you make it better? That's exactly what sound card maker Aureal has done with their latest offering, the SQ2500. Based on the AU8830A2 Vortex2 processor, the SQ2500 delivers the same A3D 2.0 sound you get with the Diamond MX300, Xitel Storm Platinum, and other Vortex2 based cards, only with a revised chip, claiming improved performance.

Milpitas, Calif. – September 13, 1999 – FREMONT, Calif., Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Aureal Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: AURL - news), a leader in digital audio imaging, today announced it expects to begin shipping two new Aureal-branded sound card products, the Vortex SQ1500 and the Vortex2 SQ2500, to retail outlets within the next month. The new products will be exclusively marketed under the Aureal name by I/OMagic Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: IOMC - news), a leading marketer of peripheral PC products. The SQ1500 and SQ2500 offer unprecedented value in terms of features and performance as well as bundled software -- which includes several powerful applications and recent game titles.

• ERAZOR II Driver (Win9x - v0400-0011 - 2.94 MB)
  
  
  

I'll make an assumption here and say that the Voodoo4/Napalm won't incorporate a geometry processor. The point being it won't help much in most games and huge fill-rates is more important. Another point is that game engines need to be coded for transform & lighting in the first place. Meaning there aren't any or isn't going to be many games that will have that and therefore an on-board geometry processor would be a waste. How do you respond to people that says, "But isn't this the same as when 3dfx said, with the Voodoo3, that 32-bit rendering is not important because not many games will have that color/texture depth?".

It is different. First of all, 32-bit rendering slows you down but doesn't cost much more in terms of chip area, while geometry processing tends to speed things up but does cost a lot more in terms of chip area and final product cost. Before the argument went something like this - 16-bit for speed versus 32-bit for quality. Now the argument will go like this - geometry engine for more triangles vs. anti-aliasing for quality pixels. These are two VERY different tradeoffs. I foresee another giant newsgroup battle. What people don't realize is that there is no "right" answer - it's a very subjective decision as to which is better for a game player. For existing games, we feel strongly that geometry acceleration doesn't provide as much value as anti-aliasing. For future games, it's a closer call, but more geometry without anti-aliasing is only going to increase the number of aliased pixels on the screen, which is not a good thing.

The P3B-F is a decent board with several interesting new features but really begs the more important ones. It is a good motherboard and performs smoothly without problems but definitely is not a cut above the rest. There is nothing distinct such as step by step FSB adjustment or a setting similarly flexible to allow a much larger range of overclocked speeds. The lack of onboard UDMA/66 support will place the P3B-F behind newly released boards which have it.

AMD's K6-2 475MHz desktop chip received the largest cut, falling 25 percent from $152 to $114. The K6-2 450MHz was reduced 17 percent from $112 to $93. The price of AMD's K6-2 400MHz chip was also cut by 11 percent, moving it from $82 to $73, company officials said on Friday.

AMD (NYSE:AMD), which has not reduced prices since mid-May, also reduced the price of its K6-III 400MHz chip by six percent, dropping it to $173.

Since this sound card can be purchased for around $65 I’m going to end up dishing it a 9.0 for price. Its almost identical to an Mx300 for a fraction of the price, if you buy retail that is. The most important rating for the card is Performance or Sound Quality which are the same thing. I will be flipping it a 8.5 for Performance because it was just an average A3D 2.0 Vortex 2 sound card. An average Vortex2 chipset sound card is still a good sound card, but nothing above the rest of the pack. So average in fact that you can download the drivers from Aureal’s web page without losing any of the functionality of the sound card. A3D 2.0 is good, but I found myself always craving for a little more or better sound here and there. But it does offer a digital S/P-DIF(TOSLINK) outlet which is a definite plus.

1. AGP-V6600:
GeForce256TM, 32MB SDRAM, VGA.

2. AGP-V6600 Deluxe:
GeForce256TM, 64MB SDRAM, VGA, TV-out, Video-in, VR 3D glasses.

Also, ASUS said that the ASUS AGP-V6600 will differ with other GeForce256 cards, but the info won't be released yet since it's their "secrete weapon"... overclocking with special cooling is what appears on my mind right now, but who knows, we will just have to wait.

We just finished a review of the CyberPower Power2000 1500VA UPS. It's an incredibly powerful battery backup for $99 shipped. As you know, though it doesn't directly have to do with overclocking, clean power delivery is one of the ingredients for system stability.

• Matrox G400 Uninstall Utility
• Matrox G400 Driver (Win9X - v5.26 - 4.22MB)
• Matrox G400 Beta OpenGL ICD (Beta 1 - 587 KB)

For the OpenGL ICD, just copy it over the existing file in the Windows\System directory.

What did all of this get us?  Well, with one other exhaust fan installed, the addition of the Twin Turbo dropped the case temp by 8 degrees F while it is not being used for hardcore apps.  The machine will now idle at 82 degrees F.   While fragging some serious Q3Test ass, the system would go over 94 without the Twin Turbo, and only up to 84 or 85 degrees F with the Twin Turbo active.   Pretty swanky.

These prices are for boxed parts and include heatsinks and fans. The Celeron 400 drops by $8 to $70, the 433MHz by $13 to $85, the Celeron 466MHz by $13 to $105, and the Celeron 500MHz by $13 to $160.

The Pentium III/450 and the Pentium III/500 prices remain at $185, and $254 respectively.

Meanwhile, the Pentium III/550 drops by $60 to $410, while the Pentium III/600 drops by $50 to $610.

The new Pentium III/533B will be introduced at $380, while the Pentium III/600B will cost $660.

"Quake3, 1600x1200 32bpp, highest detail setting. 30FPS?"

We expected (and wanted) a quick YES but that was not the case. In fact they said that is has "most probably not going to happen" but quickly added that performance would indeed increase with final drivers and final silicon. So you won't be able to run Quake3 at 1600x1200 resolution, but who cares anyway? They reported that Carmack was working on adding an additional notch to the "detail lever" for GeForce256 owners to enjoy. (*drool* ;)

Quake2 was also under discussion, and here the GeForce256 did much better. Creative reported that they had Quake2 running at 170FPS in 1024x768 16bpp and no AA. Pretty damn impressive.

Although overshadowed by its high cost, and the looming K7 chip (Athlon, for you more up to date people), the Pentium III 550 is still a rather impressive chip.  It overclocks well, and runs very stable and cool (more on this in the next review).  Do the 550's overclock better than the 450's and 500's?  You bet.  Of the 3 that I grabbed, two would do 644mhz at 2.0 volts, the remaining one 682mhz.

• Download 3dfx Voodoo3 2000/3000 1.02.18 Win9X Driver
  
  
  

In other words, unless you run at 640x480 and below, geometry acceleration will mean nothing in terms of framerates, at least in comparison to a boost in pixel bandwidth. But if 3dfx's chip doesn't offer at least a 10% jump in fillrate over the GeForce 256, T&L will be vindicated. Still, until more games offer uber-detailed models, geometry acceleration won't see it's full potential. And until the graphics chip has to wait on the processor, I wouldn't regard this technology as today's saviour, but rather as tomorrow's promise. 

We've been getting reports of Pentium III 450's of an S-Spec SL35D being Pentium III 600's being downclocked to 450 by Intel.  The reason sited is the SEC 4nS SRAM.  Unfortunately, THIS IS INCORRECT.  4nS SRAM is 250mhz SRAM.  You can calculate it yourself by dividing 1000 by 4.  Since the L2 cache on Pentium III's run at 1/2 of the chip speed, this is just enough for 500mhz chips.  Intel uses 4nS ram for it's Pentium III 450's and 500's.  It uses 3.6nS SRAM for the 550's, and 3.3nS SRAM for the 600's.   Yes, there's a chance it can take higher speeds, but it's no better or worse than any other 4nS SRAM.