NEWSPAGE DEUTSCH RIVASTATION - There´s something FISHY when you can read this!

28.02 3dfx VSA 100 Status

Siliconinvestor showed an E-Mail of 3dfx´s Scott Sellers with information about the production status of the VSA 100 chip. This chip is the engine of the upcoming Voodoo 4 / Voodoo 5 cards:

...we are demonstrating our very first silicon spin for VSA-100, what we call internally our "A0" spin. Due to some silicon processing problems, the A0 spin has been reduced to fairly low operating frequencies, in addition to suffering some video ramdac problems. As a result, we opted not to show the VSA-100 in public at CeBit and showed it only to select members of the press and media. But some of the recent negative feedback on the net, in particular the disappointment on the frequency being run and the video quality issues, are known issues and are expected from the silicon processing problem inherent in A0. Now on to the good news. First and foremost, the processing problem is completely understood and has already been addressed. In fact, production wafers are now flowing through the fab for our final production version of VSA-100, which we believe will be the A1 silicon spin. In addition, from a functionality point of view, we are very happy with A0. The part is extremely functional and robust, with only a few minor bugs which will be fixed in the A1 silicon spin. All of the major new functionality is working perfectly, including 32-bit color rendering, texture compression, full-scene anti-aliasing, T-buffer capabilities, as well as all the multi-chip SLI and FSAA capabilities. As a result, software development has been able to go full speed and thus we expect software to be very robust for shipping product. We believe we are still on track for April production for the first VSA-100 products. While the nature of the processing problem with A0 is disappointing in that it makes early demonstrations less than spectacular, we feel very good about the health of the A1 product and as a result silicon production has begun...

28.02 New Matrox W9x/NT drivers

3D Chipset reports that Matrox released new W9x and Windows NT4 drivers for thier G200 and G400 series:

Win9x G200
v5.52.015
Date: 02/25/00
Size: 4.3mb
Download Here

Win9x G400
v5.52.015
Date: 02/25/00
Size: 4.3mb
Download Here

WinNT 4.0 G200
v4.43.033
Date: 02/25/00
Size: 2.9mb
Download Here

WinNT 4.0 G400
v4.43.033
Date: 02/25/00
Size: 2.9mb
Download Here

23.02 - Review: ASUS PCI V3800 - PCI vs AGP

RIVA Station reviewed a TNT2 PCI card, the ASUS PCI-V3800. This card uses a standard TNT2 with a clock of 125/150MHz.

I compared the card with a downclocked AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe: Review ASUS PCI-V3800 - PCI vs AGP (!!!!! Currently only in German language !!!!!)

Sorry for the huge delays of the english translations. I´m really very busy these days... damn!)

23.02 - UT on GeForce

Daytonmisc has a small article with some hints that help you to run Unreal Torunament on GeForce without problems: UT/GeForce settings

23.02 - GeForce SDRAM vs DDR RAM

Ars Technica made an article that shows the differences of GeForce SDRAM vs a DDR RAM version:

The question that we're asking today is, where is the value point between the SDR and DDR versions of the GeForce 256 (if indeed there is one). Rather than line up 30 cards from 15 manufacturers and assault you with enough benchmarks to make your head spin, we've decided to do a case in point, and this time around we're looking at the two offerings from Guillemot, aka Hercules. Guillemot markets their SDR card simply as the Guillemot 3D Prophet. The DDR card, however, is the spawn of Zeus: meet the Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI. Both cards are still available on the market, although the death of SDR may not be too far off, if only because market forces are seemingly favoring the DDR models across the board. But with a $110 difference between the boards (and an even broader difference if you start to compare different manufacturers), we're not so sure that this should be the case. I dunno where you come from, but in my world $110 isn't anything to laugh at. Indeed, with the advent of Windows 2000, I think I'd rather save that cash to pay for more RAM! In any case, our subjective experience told us that it was time to put these cards to the test. When we received our first units 3 months ago, the driver's weren't so hot, and the cards had a hard time really differntiating themselves from the TNT2 Ultras out there. Now things are a bit better, but are the good enough to temp you? Well, let's see. (...more)

23.02 - Viper II W2K drivers

S3 offers first Windows 2000 drivers for the new Viper II with Savage 2000 chip. The drivers do not yet offer 3D acceleration of D3D and OpenGL:

Drivers: ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com/pub/display/viper/viper_II/viperII_win2k_92011.exe
Info: ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com/pub/display/viper/viper_II/viperII_win2k_92011.txt

22.02 - TNT/GeForce Tweak Guide

3D Spotlight made a new TNT/GeForce Tweak Guide. If you don´t know what you should set in your drivers you should take a look on it: TNT/GeForce Tweak Guide

22.02 - New Prophet drivers

Guillemot/Hercules released new drivers for the 3D Prophet series based on NVIDIA referencedrivers v3.77. Download:

3D Prophet
3D Prophet DDR-DVI

22.02 - Reviews in the WWW

GFX:
ASUS V6600 Deluxe - Digital Web
Annihilator Pro - The Techzone
3D Prophet DDR-DVI - Beta Bites

Misc:
Suse 6.3 first look - CPU Review
Rush´s 3D Ratpads Mousepad - Glideunderground

21.02 - TexBench

Michael Tirtasana (Tirtanium) made a new Texture benchmark which allows you to check the fillrate of a graphic card:

- benchmark different texture resolution from 16x16 to 4096x4096
- create from 1 to 200 (12GB) textures
- benchmark under different OpenGL modes
- uses http://www.fltk.org FLTK GUI

Download: TexBench v0.4

21.02 - Siluro GT2 Ultra Review

iXBT made a review of the new Abit Siluro TNT2 Ultra card:

ABIT SILURO GT2 Ultra looks like an ordinary card on NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra chip constructed according to the reference design. The card supports AGP 4x mode and is equipped with 32MB SDRAM located in 16 16Mbit microchips. ABIT decided on 5ns microchips from ESMT. As a rule, the manufacturers of TNT2 Ultra graphics cards usually use 5.5ns memory. ABIT, however, suggested using 5ns memory, as providing higher overclockability of the card.

Strange as it might seem but ABIT card worked absolutely impeccably at the standard frequencies of NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra. The chipset supported 150MHz and the memory - 183MHz. The cooling of the chipset was arranged with an active cooler by AAVID, which was very much like the coolers fastened on Matrox G400 MAX. Judging by our personal experience we can say that this cooler provides quite good chipset cooling and together with the memory, which boasts quick access, they should guarantee high overclocking results for ABIT SILURO GT2 Ultra. (...more)

21.02 - Abit News

Abit shows their new Siluro graphic cards series at CeBit and also their new Mainboard with i820 chipset, the CH6: Pressrelease.

21.02 - CeBit and Online Mags

You should know that the CeBit sees itself as one of the most modern IT shows in the world. But you should know that Online Mags are not wanted there. Online Mags do NOT get a press access anymore this year. Even well accepted mags like Toms Hardware Guide did´nt get it. I knew that Germany is far behind the rest of the world in things like Internet and WWW. But I had no idea that we are so much behind.... :-(

Read more about that at The Register

19.02 - Reviews in WWW

Grapic cards:
ASUS V6800 Deluxe - Sharkyextreme
6 GeForce DDR Karten - GamePC

Misc:
Plextor 40X UW SCSI CD-ROM - FiringSquad
Everglide Gianta Review - The Techzone

19.02 - Dell with 64MB GeForce DDR

Dell will offer a system with a 64MB GeForce DDR Plus (?). It seems that this GeForce Version will be an exclusive for Dell. It should be available later from other manufatureres as a seperate card later:

Computer maker Dell is preparing to introduce an exclusive new graphics card. Starting Monday, The Dell Dimension B series of desktop computers will be available with the 64MB DDR Nvidia GeForce Plus. As the name implies, the card will be an implementation of Nvidia's highly praised GeForce graphics chipset with 64MB of DDR (double data rate) memory.

According to Dell's public relations representative Andy Prince, the card won't be available separately from Dell Dimension B computers for approximately one month. After that, the card will likely become available separately from graphics card makers. No product announcements have been made at this time.

19.02 - Windows 2000 Treiber

ASUS released new Windows 2000 VGA drivers based on NVIDIA referencedrivers v3.76. Download: ASUS W2k v3.76

- Based on reference driver 3.76
- Supports ASUS user interface
- First release of OpenGL VR mode

Creative does also offer new Windows 2000 drivers: Creative W2K drivers.

Official W2K Reference drivers from Von NVIDIA are released:

Operating systems supported:

---------------------------
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

Adapters supported
------------------
NVIDIA RIVA TNT
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Pro
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Ultra
NVIDIA Vanta
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64
NVIDIA GeForce 256
NVIDIA Quadro

Download: NVIDIA W2K drivers v3.78

Lats but not least: 3dfx now offers new Windows 2000 drivers for download: 3dfx Vooodoo3 Win2k driver version 1.00.00

17.02 - New Creative drivers

Creative released new drivers for their TNT, TNT2 and GeForce cards

This is latest generic drivers (build 368) for Creative's TNT, TNT2 & GeForce accelerator cards for users running on Windows 95/98. This release :

Supports TV out (where applicable)
Corrects polygon rendering in several Direct3D applications (e.g. Shogo)
Enhances screen images on several DirectDraw applications
Allows BlasterControl software to report accurate screen refresh rate
Supports the following graphics card:
3D Blaster GeForce Pro
3D Blaster GeForce
3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra
3D Blaster RIVA TNT2
Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT2 Value (M64/Vanta)
Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT

Download: Creative drivers

17.02 - Erazor III Windows 2000 drivers

ELSA released new Windows 2000 drivers for the Erazor III. The drivers are based on NVIDIA refrencedrivers v3.76: Erazor III Windows 2000 drivers

17.02 - GeForce SDR@Anandtech

Anandtech reviewed GeForce SDRAM cards from ASUS, Gigabyte, ELSA and Leadtek:

NVIDIA produces the chip with the most buzz factor on the market today: the GeForce. Rather than sell these chips to one particular manufacturer or to produce the graphics cards themselves, NVIDIA sells these chips to almost any company that can afford to buy them, meaning that almost everyone and their brother is making a GeForce card. While this provides great possible variation in the market, in reality almost all GeForce cards are the same. With this in mind, it seems that the biggest differences between GeForce based cards are cooling methods, overclocking potential, drivers and support, memory type, and software bundle: almost exactly the same set of difference that were mentioned in our NVIDIA TNT2 Roundup. In this roundup, we have attempted to collect a handful of SDR based GeForce cards (thus removing memory type from the list of differences) and point out the pros and cons of each, making your decision as a buyer less complicated. (...more)

17.02 - ASUS CeBit News

ASUS shows 3 new technologies for the ASUS V6600, V6800 and V3800 at CeBit this year. Those are VR in windowed mode, a VR solution for Webbrowsersing and VCR functions:

1. Window Mode VR: Now, Asus VR technology is not only good for entertainment, new breakthrough bring Asus VR to be good tool for CAD/CAM, authoring software, and stereo InteNet browser.
New Asus Window Mode VR technology provide designers to examine their design-art in stereo vision to get more realistic feeling. Now, Asus user can turn on VR or turn of VR for True Space, Light way, 3D StudioMax. It is a good idea for you to do realistic demonstration such as virtual shopping, virtual demonstration, virtual house selling,...

2. 3DVRMAL in Stereo Vision New Asus Window mode VR technology can turn any 3DVRMAL capable home page into stereo Vision without any modification. Now, Your Web can be more attractive if you provide 3DVRML capability. and now Virtual Shopping in Internet become more realistic since this new VR technology.

3. TimeShift and Instant replay Asus has big video technology breakthrough in this CeBIT show. With new modified compression CODAC, we can show to customer a FULL-D1 resolution of TimeShift/Instant-replay. ( Please read it again, Asus provide to user a FULL-D1, rather than MPEG1, or Half-D1 resolution ) and more important, all are done by pure software without any hardware accelerator.
That is, end user can using Asus main board with Asus add-on card, such as V6600, V6800, V3800 to watch TV as a professional digital VCR with timeShift and instant replay capability.