Donnerstag 20.04.2000

3dfx hat neue Beta Treiber für die Voodoo3 2000 und 3000 veröffentlicht. Die neuen Treiber tragen die Versionsnummer v1.04.07:

- Updated kit after server failed
- Contains new Driver installer
- Contains New edge tools - 1.5.7.77
- Force Commander fix
- Incorrect texture sizes reported from Glide fixed´

Download

20.04 Outrageous Ultra Review

PlanetGeForce hat die Outrageous Ultra von Absolute Multimedia getestet. Die GeForce DDR-RAM Karte kommt von Haus aus mit 375MHz Speichertakt:

As hinted on earlier in this review the Outrageous Ultra GeForce DDR is an incredible overclocker, the principle difference between it and the Outrageous 3D. When we reviewed the Outrageous 3D our main complaint was how hard it was to push the card beyond it's specs. In fact even in the middle of Canadian winter, just in case you though it had to do with ambient temperature, we could not get the thing past 130/325 for the core and memory. Even at that low a speed, as overclocking goes that is, there were significant artifacts and even lockups.

The Outrageous Ultra GeForce DDR however is very well suited to pushing its limits as we were able to pull numbers of 149 MHz for the core and 375 MHz for the memory! (...more)

20.04 NVIDIA Treibervergleich

3D Rage hat einen Treibervergleich zwischen den Treiberversionen v5.13 und v5.14 gemacht. Beide Treiber sind bisher noch nicht offiziell veröffentlicht und sind somit als Alpha/Beta ohe jeglichen Support anzusehen.

If you've read anything about these drivers, then the nice 14% frame rate boost in 98 is no surprise. As of the time I'm writing this (April 19), I haven't seen any other benchmarks with the NT and 2K drivers, and those results really surprised me. Win2K actually suffered a slight loss while NT 4 posted huge gains, actually beating out 98 by 1 fps at the highest setting. (...more)

Mittwoch 19.04.2000

ASUS hat neue VGA Treiber und Tools veröffentlicht:

19.04 Erste Voodoo5 Benchmarks

Erste Ergebnisse mit den neuen Voodoos:

HardOCP:
Let's take a look at the situation here.  3dfx is bringing a card to market that we had hoped to have seen almost a half a year ago.   This card is going to be very late to market.  While we have not put it in a direct comparison with the GeForce at this time, due to it being an Alpha, you can damn sure better believe that is what the entire hardware community is going to do soon.   The Voodoo 5 seems to have the strength to stand toe to toe with the GeForce at this time, and possibly give superior framerates.  Given the features that can be enabled on the Voodoo 5 out of the box, this card will very likely make a LOT of gamers happy.  I am sure we will see the drivers mature even further in the next couple of weeks to make our benchmarks here seem slow (hopefully).  

Beyond3D:
With the VSA-100, 3dfx is finally bringing to the market many of the long asked for features, such as 32-bit rendering, high-resolution texture support and more accurate Z-buffering. Also, additional features have been included such as texture compression, stencil buffering and as well as 3dfx's new T-buffer.

AGN3D:
It is very important to remember a few things about this card before looking at the results.  First and foremost, this is an alpha based board using early beta drivers.   Secondly, these results are more a measure of the performance hit associated with FSAA than a comparison between the Voodoo 5 and other manufacturers cards.  We will bring you more results as we get them, and a full review in good time as well, but this is just a taste, and not to be mistaken for an in-depth review.  With that in mind, off to the numbers:

Die Ergebnisse sind mangels direkter Vergleiche zu anderen Karten nicht sehr aussagekräftig. Etwas verwundert bin ich über den Performanceeinbruch bei Benutzung von FSAA, denn es war bisher von "at no costs, because it´s done in Hardware" die Rede. Warten wir die ersten direkten Vergleiche ab....

Dienstag 18.04.2000

Core Magacine hat ein paar Informationen zum NVIDIA X-Chip zusammengetragen. Dieser soll Ende 2001 die Microsoft Spielekonsole X-Box befeuern:

NVIDIA development team members recently went on record in Japan regarding the 'X-Chip,' the graphical heart of Microsoft's X-Box. According to company representatives, the finished chip will feature approximately 65 Million transistors; nearly 23 Million more than the Sony's Graphic Synthesizer. In terms of pixel fill rate, the X-Chip is capable of 4.8GB/second, whereas the Graphic Synthesizer is capable of 2.4GB/second. (...more)

18.04 1GHz Test

TweakPC hat die 1GHz Schwelle mit einem Intel Pentium III überschritten

Als uns der erste FCPGA Prozessor ins Haus flatterte, eine 866MHz Version, war die Spannung groß. Dass dieser Prozessor genauso schnell wie sein Slot-Kollege sein wird und auch gleich stabil laufen wird, war eigentlich zu erwarten. Wir haben den Prozessor mit Adapter auf verschiedenen Boards getestet und er lief in allen ohne jegliche Probleme. Die alles entscheidende Frage war also: Wird dieses Baby die 1000MHz schaffen ? Wie stabil wird das ganze laufen? Logisch, dass wir uns sofort an die Arbeit gemacht haben. (...mehr)

18.04 Online Result Browser

Madonion.com hat den Online-Resultbrowser für 3DMark2000 nun einsatzfähig. Mit dessen Hilfe lassen sich die eigenen erzielten Ergebnisse direkt in einer grossen Datenbank vergleichen:

MadOnion.com is pleased to announce that our Online ResultBrowser(ORB) is now up and ready for your 3DMark2000 benchmark submissions. The ORB allows you to quickly compare your "3D marks" to the results achieved by other users worldwide. You can make these comparisons based on CPU and/or 3D Adapter. Additionally, you can get a test-by-test analysis of your computer's strength and weaknesses, as well as quantify its gaming abilities.

To access the ORB, simply load 3DMark2000 and, after running a full set of benchmark tests, select "Submit Saved Results" from the MadOnion.com pull-down menu. You will be connected to MadOnion.com's Online Services page where you can select your browsing options. To access these services, you will require a cookie-enabled web-browser.

The results supplied by the ORB reflect averages calculated from our performance database of approximately 500,000 submissions. Because these averages are affected by the number of scores submitted, encouraging others to submit results will improve the statistical accuracy of these reports.

At MadOnion.com, web development is an ongoing process. We strive to offer you the content and services that will help you make informed upgrade decisions, and keep you up-to-date with the latest advances in PC technologies.

Um den Online Resultbrowser zu nutzen klickt man nach erfolgtem Benchmark auf den "Online Result Browser" Button. Daraufhin öffnet sich eine Webseite auf der man das eigene Ergebniss nach CPU Leistung oder 3D Kartenleistung vergleichen kann. Auch eine Gesamtübersicht der Ergebnisse in einer Tabelle ist verfügbar.

18.04 Neues zur Creative GeForce 2

Auf The Daily Telefrag gibt es neue News über Creative´s kommende NV15 Karte:

The board is supposed to be announced right after the announce of NVIDIA (the 26-th of April) and will most probably appear in the stores in the beginning of June. The expected price – 500 USD. They also are promising a board with a TV outset. The 64 megabyte board will first hit the OEM dealers and the box version will be out in the stores by the end of August. The processor will have to be under 200 MHz, the memory – 166 MHz (DDR memory).

Nichts neues eigentlich. Der Preis von 500$ klingt allerdings etwas utopisch und entspricht wohl kaum dem Strassenpreis. Es gibt auch Gerüchte das der TV-Out erstmals gesockelt kommen soll - Eine Sache die ich schon seit Jahren vorschlage....

18.04 Viper II Treibervergleich

Rizenet hat einen Treibervergleich mit der S3/Diamond Viper 2 gemacht. Getestet wurden dabei 5 verschiedene Treiberversionen.

Because of the bad glitches contained in 9.00.23, the only driver with both speed and image quality is 9.10.24. This driver not only is faster than the others in D3D, it has the "4 textures in one pass" feature enabled, and the 9.10.32 OpenGL ICD can also be used with it for newer OpenGL support. In fact, I'm running it now. I did test to make sure D3D was usuable (9.10.21, it's closest compiled build available, crashed nearly every D3D game I tried). My game of test, TrickStyle, booted and ran fine. Therefore, Rizenet now recommends 9.10.24 for everyone with a Savage2000-based card and who is looking for speed. Enjoy! (...more)

18.04 Webweites

Montag 17.04.2000

nV News hat eine Reihe von Benchmarks mit dem Spiel Soldier Of Fortune gemacht um die 3D Leistung einer GeForce DDR mit und ohne T&L zu messen: SOF Benchmarks

17.04 Fahrplan

Diesen Monat werden einige neuigkeiten im Bereich Grafikkarten kommen:

• Über Ostern werden die ersten Benchmarks zu 3dfx´s neuen Voodoos mit Spannung ewartet. Die Specs lesen sich bis auf fehlendes T&L weiterhin sehr beeindruckend.
• um den 25.04: ATi Rage6c alias RADEON (?). Der Chip wird Hardware T&L Berechnungen beherrschen und soll es mit NVIDIA´s neuem NV15 aufnehmen können
• um den 26.04: NVIDIA NV11 und NV15 alias GeForce2 (?). NVIDIA will mit immens hoher Fillrate 3dfx ausstechen. Verschiedene Leistungs/Kartenversionen wahrscheinlich. NV11 für Budget

Sonntag 16.04.2000

Ein neues Update in Christopher Hill´s GeForce FAQ:

9.9 - 15/4/2000

Added command line switch tip to 'I get problems in Messiah, especially when enabling T&L. How can I fix them?' question.

Renamed 'OpenGL programs run very slowly or crash in Windows 2000. How can I fix it?' question.
Updated all the drivers questions (Win9x, Win2K, WinNT) with 3.84 and 5.14 driver links (leaked).
Updated 'What Windows 9x drivers should I use?' question with information that the 5.14 drivers fix flashing textures problems with The Sims.

16.04 Neuer Wicked GL

Wicked 3D hat eine neue Version der Wicked 3D Treibers ins Netz gestellt:

This version contains accelerated MiniGL support for 3Dfx Voodoo2, 3Dfx Voodoo3, 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee.

New in This Version
* Fixed HiRes version of WickedGL with Quake3 bug
* Fixed gamma when exiting game in Win2K

Download

16.04 Creative Labs NV15

Die russische Website iXBT hat auf einer von Creative abgehaltenen Pressekonferenz in Moskau Details zur Creative NV15 alias GeForce 2 erfahren:

• 32MB DDR card will be introduced simultaneously with NVIDIA announcement.
• The samples will be available in the first or second week of May.
• The cards will be shipped in volume in the beginning of June.
• 32MB DDR card will be priced at $349 at launch
  the retail card box design is the same as GeForce and GeForce Pro (or Annihilator) but with a word GeForce2 on it.
• The card will be bundled with several games and software titles - Evolva (enhanced version with EMBM), Rage Rally, Whole Experience, Colorific, software DVD player (probably WinDVD.
• There will be no TV-out on the card, but this feature will be provided by a specially developed daughter card.
• 64MB DDR card will initially be available only for OEMs. 64MB DDR retail version is scheduled to the end of summer. 128MB version won't be produced.
• Chip will run at "about 200MHz".
• The card will be equipped with Infineon DDR memory chips. We can suppose that memory will be clocked at 166MHz (333MHz DDR) since Creative's manager mentioned that "there were no DDR memory chips at the market faster than 166MHz at an acceptable price".
• Reference design of NV15 based card for NVIDIA was developed by Creative (since the company is the main NVIDIA's partner - it buys about 17% of all NVIDIA's graphics chips).

iXBT berichtet auch von grossem Performance Zuwachs in Q3A mit GeForce auf Athlon Systemen bei Einsatz der neuen inoffiziellen v5.14Treiber. Mehr dazu auf iXBT.

Freitag 14.04.2000

Neue inoffizielle NVIDIA Treiber im Netz verfügbar: v3.84 und v5.14 für Win9x/NT und Windows 2000. Die Treiber sind nicht von NVIDIA released! - Benutzung auf eigenes Risiko (Download)

14.04 Benchmark Analyse

John Scott, technischer Entwickler bei Raven Software (SOF - Soldier Of Fortune), analysiert in einem Artikel bei The Trenches die Benchmarkergebnisse die mit einer ganzen Reihe von Grafikkarten in SOF erzielt wurden:

Personally, I think video card manufacturers need to divert some of their attention from developing obscenely high fill rates to optimising the transform path of their drivers. This is clearly where Soldier of Fortune would benefit the most, and as poly counts increase, where many other games would too. Hardware T&L is the way to go.

The difference between the 3dfx reference driver and the WickedGL mini driver clearly indicate how much can be gained on all cards.

The Geforce romps home as the clear winner, its hardware transforms give it a considerable lead on the nearest competitor. It is the card of the moment.

Demnach hinkt bei vielen Karten der Treiber noch sehr hinterher. Auf der anderen Seite darf man nicht vergessen das SOF ein OpenGL Spiel ist, das zudem noch auf einer zwar verbesserten, aber dennoch alten Q2 Engine basiert. Rückschlüsse auf den Direct 3D Part der Treiber lassen sich nicht ziehen.

14.04 Voodoo 4/ Box-Shots

Puissance PC zeigt erste Packshots der Voodoo 4 4500 und V5 5000 und 6000. Die Spanische (?) Website Info Guía Juegos hat eine Auskunft zum Erscheinungstermin von 3dfx´s jüngstem Kind bekommen. 3dfx´s Alf Covey:

It is true, the 5500 will ship towards the end of this month and the estimated pricing is $299. These are also available pre-order through the online 3dfx store. I don't have any information on when other models will ship but we are planning review units.

In Deutschland erfährt man soviel wie sonst auch immer bei diesen Dingen.... 0,0 - Mal schaun wanns bei uns soweit ist....

14.04 S3 Texturkompression in den neuen Detonatortreibern

nV News hat sich den neuen inoffiziellen NVIDIA Detonator Treibern angenommen und erklärt die Funktion der S3 Texture Compression, die für OpenGL erstmal im neuen Treiber implementiert ist am Beispiel von Q3A:

It's been a little over a month since we posted our first look at NVIDIA's progress with the Detonator drivers. For those of us who follow NVIDIA closely, it's no secret that they're readying the next release of the Detonator drivers to coincide with the roll out of the NV15. Rumor has it that the official announcement of the NV15 will take place sometime towards the end of April. (...more)

(Weitere Features der Treiber sind Anti Alisaing - siehe RIVA Station Detonator Treibervergleich)

14.04 EMBM in Rollcage II

Matrox hat einen Patch für Rollcage II released, der Hardware-EMBM (Environmental Bump Mapping) im Spiel ermöglicht.

This patch adds EMBM support to Rollcage Stage II. Download (836KB)

Mehr EMBM Patches für Matrox Karten der G400 Serie sind hier erhältlich.

Donnerstag 13.04.2000

Systemlogic stellt in einer Vorschau 3dfx´s neue Voodoo 4/5 vor und geht dabei auf die technischen Details und Features der kommenden Karten ein. Wie zuvor leider immer noch keine Benchmark Ergebnisse....

All in all, I enjoyed my visit and my little chats with both Brian Burke and PT Barnum, they are really nice people. Also, I gotten to see what might possibly be one of the more feature-packed cards that we will see for some time. With high fillrates and spectacular hardware FSAA, combined with T-Buffer effects, we will probably not see such as revolutionary card for a while. Some things we might not have covered in this article is the Voodoo4 and the Voodoo5 5000 PCI, this was because we weren't shown those cards but if we ever do, you will see another one of these monster previews! Mass production of the Voodoo5 will lead to the release date of early May, and if we are lucky, you might see a review or two here are SystemLogic before then. (...more)

13.04 WickedGL Test

R-Age hat den neusten Wicked GL Treiber für 3dfx Karten unter die Lupe genommen:

To date, 3dfx only has one release of Windows 2000 drivers for its Voodoo3 2000 and 3000 cards. This driver release offered Voodoo3 2000 and 3000 users to play games such as Quake3 in Windows 2000, but because of lower frame rates, compared to Win98, many users went back to Win98. This is where Wicked GL comes in. Up to this point Wicked3d.com had only a Wicked GL for Windows 98. In this setting, when using Wicked GL Voodoo3 2000 and 3000 users saw increased frame rates at higher resolutions, but with the very mature 3dfx drivers there was a decrease in the lower resolutions.   (...more)

Der WickedGL Treiber bietet eine deutlich bessere Performance unter Q3A - nun auch unter Windows 2000.

13.04 GeForce FAQ Update

Chirstopher Hill hat seine ausführliche GeForce FAQ nochmals aktualisiert.

Added 'I get problems in Messiah, especially when enabling T&L. How can I fix them?'
Added 'DVD playback seems slow with my ALI chipset based motherboard. How can I fix it?'

13.04 MSI BX Master Review

Tweak PC hat das BX Master Mainboard von MSI ausführlich unter die Lupe genommen:

Das MSI MX Master richtet sich an die Overclocker. Grund genug für uns, dass Board einmal genauer zu betrachten. Ist das BX Master wirklich der Meister seiner Klasse? Die beiliegenden Tools auf jeden Fall! Und das Board? (Test).

13.04 S3 Presserklärung in Deutsch

S3 hat nun den deutschsprachigen Text zum neuen VIA/S3 Joint-Venture Unternehmen veröffentlicht: Presserklärung

News Archiv - weitere März News

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