Wednessday 03.05.2000 |
| 03.05 Neue Creative W2K drivers Creative released new VGA drivers for the Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT, 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT2 Value (32MB) and 3D Blaster GeForce/3D Blaster GeForce Pro cards: This is the latest driver release for 3D Blaster RIVA TNT/TNT2/GeForce for users running on Windows 2000 . This release :-
Download (2,6MB) 03.05 NVIDIA vs. 3dfx Tech-Report compares the 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 against NVIDIA´s new GeForce2 GTS: The GeForce 2 GTS, despite its huge pixel and texel fill rate advantages over the GeForce DDR, has gained very little in memory bandwidth. The V5 5500 looks pretty good on this front, matching the GeForce 2 in theory and threatening to beat it some real-world scenarios. (It's tough to say how these things will play out in terms of real-world performance, of course, but the possibility is there.) And 3dfx's monster, the V5 6000, might just rule the 3D roost (while doubling as a space heater). (...more) 03.05 3dfx V5 6000
HardOCP made some images of the Voodoo5 6000 gfs monster at WinHEC: We had a pretty sweet experience at WinHEC before we had to leave to get on the plane, we ran into our buddies at 3dfx and they gave me a chubby. No, not with their cute smiles, but rather with their BIG boards. If the sight alone of this hardware does not get you a little bit excited, you probably have to tie it up with a couple of Popsicle sticks to make it stand at attention. ( ...more)There are no dates available (or anything else) in germany about the new Voodoos. Rumors speak that the 6000 will come sometimes in August - same time when ATi want´s to have RADEON in the shelves. Also no dates on V5 5500 cards here. In Germany we have still massive problems to receive review-samples.... 03.05 Viper T&L Part 3 Savagenews made the third part of their Diamond/S3 Viper II T&L article available. Read it here: Viper II T&L |
Tuesday 02.05.2000 |
| 02.05 GeForce2 GTS Review Part 2 I´ve finished the second part of the RIVA Station GeForce2 Review. But still only the german language. I´ve decited to finish it completely until I post the english version because it´s always a lot of work to translate an article... so please stay tuned! The german version can be found here. 02.05 Madonion.com The Madonion.com (Makers of 3DMark 2000 and Video 2000) was relaunched in a new design. Take a look on it and visit those crazy onions: www.madonion.com 02.05 AntiAliasing comparsion FiringSquad took a look on AntiAliasing and compared the technology of 3dfx and NVIDIA with their actual cards: "3dfx made a big hoo-haa about FSAA a while ago when they first started talking about their new generation of video cards, the Voodoo4/5. Then NVIDIA came along and made this schpiel about T&L. Notice a trend here? The days of straight comparisons by FPS are coming to an end. The big boys are now setting their sights on high quality images. This does make sense; the last few generations of video cards have given phenomenal frame rates at some pretty decent resolutions. Now that speed has been sufficiently covered, image quality can be improved." (...more) 02.05 NVIDIA Q3 Level NVIDIA now offers an own Q3A level for download. It is very impressive in kinds of polygon size and shader effects. Download (5,8MB): NV15-Q3 Level 02.05 GeForce FAQ Update A new update of Christopher Hill´s GeForce FAQ:
GeForce256 FAQ 11.2 (or newer?) 02.05 GeForce2 GTS CAD Benches RIVA 3D tested GeForce2 GTS in sights of CAD capabilities: The GeForce showed itself to be an admirable contender as a high end CAD card. And you would so expect that the GeForce 2 GTS would make at least as good a CAD card, if not better than, the GeForce card. With its advanced T&L design and faster clock and memory speed, the GeForce 2 does indeed shape up as a seriously wicked alternative to the mega monster (and expensive) CAD workstations. We'll start off by examining the results from the SpecViewPerf 6.1.1 tests. We'll look at all the results, and compare them to results from the SpecViewPerf website. (...more) |
Monday 01.05.2000 |
| 01.05 GF2
Benchmark Update I wanted to make the Q3A benchmarks I´ve posted in the GeForce 2GTS article more "feelable". So I´ve added results of a TNT2 Ultra and Voodoo3 3000. The V3 3000 was also run with the Metabyte WickedGL driver. Testsystem: Intel Pentium III 800E (100MHz
FSB), 196MB RAM, Tekram P6BX-A Mainboard, Windows 98SE
The results show you that a TNT2U and V3 have gone old. A GeForce2 GTS is almost 3x faster in 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 (16Bit). In 1024x768 it is still twice as fast.
The Voodoo3 3000 can´t take part in these test any longer because of the lack of 32Bit rendering support. You can see the GeForce2 GTS running twice as fast than the TNT2U.
In this benchmark the texture and polygon size are set to max in the graphic options. The differences are pretty impressive. You may wake up now if you still think that your TNT/TNT2/V3 system is still actual. Ok, the CPU I´ve used it pretty fast but the advantage of GeForce cards will be larger on slow CPU´s because of the T&L feature of these cards. TNT2 and Voodoo3 are almost one year old - and there happened a lot in this time as you can see in these results. 01.05 Bt848/878 W2k drivers A bit off-topic because not graphic card related at all: a fan-site (?) offers new Windows 2000 drivers for TV-Tuner cards based on Bt -848/878 decoder Chips. (ThanX to Mike!) 01.05 WinHEC report GA-Hardware made a report on WinHEC. This is were the new 3D chips from ATi and NVIDIA were shown for the first time: Video cards aren't the only thing at the show, and also none of the NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) expired till later that night or the next day, so I went into the show as it opened to see what other excitement it held. There were quite a few interesting things at this show beyond just the regular insanity of New Orleans and all the video cards launching. (...more) 01.05 AOpen GeForce2 AOpen announced a new graphics card based on the NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS: The PA256 Pro. The card runs with the standard specs of 200MHz Core and 333MHz (DDR) memclock: PA256 Pro had 200MHz core clock and 333MHz memory clock as default clock. AOpen design a specific OpenBIOS™ version for Geforce 2 GTS. In PA256 Pro, OpenBIOS™ support major functions below:
New is the so called OpenBIOS. It allows the user much more than only to increase the chip and memclock. It also offers to change the voltage of the chip and to read out the temperatures for Hardwaremonitoring. 01.05 GeForce2 More Reviews/Previews/Articles on NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS: ELSA GLADIAC Review - Anandtech 01.05 Internet I have some trouble with my internet connection at the moment. I can only surf with a V56 modem instead of my standard 2MBit connection. So don´t wonder about slow news plz! :-) |
Sunday 30.04.2000 |
| 30.04 GeForce2 GTS review - PART 1 The first part of the RIVA Station GeForce2 GTS review - currently only in german language.... translation will follow. The first part is primarily on performance so you may allready check the benchmark charts:
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Friday 28.04.2000 |
| 28.04 GeForce FAQ Update GeForce256 FAQ 11.0 Christopher Hill has updated his great FAQ for GeForce256 owners. What's new:
Check Chris' Hill GeForce256 FAQ 11.0 (or newer?) 28.04 New 3D Demos Tranzmit offers a couple of new 3D demos:
28.04 GeForce2 in the WWW A large number of GeForce 2 articles are currently available in the net: GeForce2
Memory Overclocking Results - nV News 28.04 ASUS V7700 ASUS announced their new GeForce 2GTS card AGP-V7700:
Here is the official ASUS pressrelease: Taiwan, Taipei April 27, 2000: ASUSTeK Computer, Inc. announces its next generation graphics card - AGP-V7700. The new graphics card is powered with the world's first gigatexel shading graphics processor unit (GPU) - NVIDIA's GeForce2 GTSTM. "NVIDIA sets a new milestone for 3D graphics realism again!" said Jonathan Tsang, vice president of marketing and sales division of ASUSTeK Computer Inc. " Based on the successful experience of ASUS' award-winning AGP-V6600/6800, ASUS's new AGP-V7700 completely exerts the power of NVIDIA's GeForce2 GTSTM GPU. It can not only provide desktop end users with interactive, real-time, and photo-realistic graphics experiences, but also provide a best safety for users' valuable system with ASUS's innovative SmartDoctorTM technologies." Advanced Visual Realism beyond Current Texture Mapping Techniques Featured with new powerful techniques like NVIDIA Shading Rasterized (NSR) and advanced per-pixel shading capabilities, ASUS's AGP-V7700 allows per-pixel control of color, shadow, light, reflectivity, emissivity, specularity, gloss, dirt, and other visual and material components used to more accurately model complex environments. AGP-V7700 delivers the next generation of visual realism by going beyond the texture mapping techniques of previous graphics processors. 8-texel-per-clock Delivers the Industry's Best 3D Performance Utilizing the technology of four pixels per clock (dual-textured) or eight texels per clock. This new AGP-V7700 delivers more than twice the performance of the award-winning AGP-V6600 (powered by GeForce256). And the new AGP-V7700 can achieve the most extreme resolutions and color depths: up to 2048 x 1536 x 32 at 75 MHz. SmartDoctorTM Technologies Prove the Best Safety for Your Valuable System AGP-V7700 is also featured with ASUS's innovative SmartDoctorTM technologies including Fan RPM Monitoring, AGP Power Level Monitoring, SmartCooling technology, OverHeat Protection, and Dynamic OverClocking. These innovative designs in ASUS AGP-V7700 will prevent lots of dangerous conditions when enjoying the world's most powerful graphics card. Shipping Date and Pricing The ASUS AGP-V7700 is scheduled for week 3 of May release, retailing for USD349.-. And the ASUS AGP-V7700Deluxe (with TV-out, Digital VCR, video editing, and 3D VR glasses) is scheduled for week 1 of June, retailing for USD398.- Price and release date may change as time goes by. 28.04 ELSA GLADIAC Preview As promised: The english version of the ELSA GLADIAC preview with information and photos of ELSA´s new High-End GeForce 2GTS graphics card:
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Donnerstag 27.04.2000 |
| 27.04 @home again
I´ve arrived after a couple of driving hours back home after the ELSA GeForce 2 pressconference on wednessday and the NVIDIA PC on thursday. Sorry for the few news the past two days! 27.04 Detonator v5.16 Inofficial referencedrivers: Reactorcritical offers new referencedrivers v5.16 for download. This is no official release so you won´t get any support - use them on your own risk. 27.04 GeForce 2GTS Here is the official pressrelease on GeForce 2GTS: NVIDIA Introduces New Ground-Breaking GPU New GeForce2 GTS Delivers First Major Step Toward Real-time Cinematic Experience WINHEC 2000, NEW ORLEANS, LA. — April 26, 2000 — Taking a giant leap on the quest for truly interactive, cinematic-quality real-time graphics, NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today introduced the GeForce2 GTS™, the first per-pixel shading graphics processor unit (GPU) for the desktop PC market. The combination of blazingly fast graphics processing and powerful new features, such as sophisticated per-pixel shading, provides unprecedented interactive realism never before available on the PC platform. The GeForce2 GTS will be available from a wide variety of PC OEMs and add-in-card manufacturers over the next few weeks. Both the desktop graphics and animated film industries are striving to create spectacular, lifelike worlds. Film quality realism requires complicated per-pixel operations, previously impractical for desktop graphics which must render frames as fast as 60 times per second. The GeForce2 GTS is the first GPU with the 3D performance and enhanced feature set necessary to approach this distinct level of realism. "Achieving Pixar-level animation in real-time has been an industry dream for years," explains Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO at NVIDIA. "With twice the performance of the GeForce 256 and per-pixel shading technology, the GeForce2 GTS is a major step toward achieving that goal." The GeForce2 GTS includes the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR), a radical new technology that enables advanced per-pixel shading capabilities. This breakthrough technology has the ability to process seven pixel operations in a single pass on each of four pixel pipelines, simultaneously. The NSR allows per-pixel control of color, shadow, light, reflectivity, emissivity, specularity, gloss, dirt, and other visual and material components used to create amazingly realistic objects and environments. Per-pixel shading delivers the next-generation of visual realism by going beyond the limited texture mapping techniques of previous graphics processors. John Carmack, id Software stated, "Per-pixel shading, utilizing cube environment mapping and normalized dot product bump maps look incredibly good across an entire world. Everyone at id is way psyched about developing new content with the GeForce2 GTS." A Discontinuity in the Desktop Graphics Industry The GeForce2 GTS achieves an astounding four pixels per clock (dual-textured) or eight texels per clock and delivers 1.6-billion texels (or 1.6 GigaTexels) per second -- more than twice the performance of the award-winning GeForce 256™ and more than three times the texture processing power of any competitive consumer graphics product. GeForce2 GTS drives the most extreme resolutions and color depths of up to 2048 x 1536 x 32 at 75 Hz. Another key feature of GeForce2 GTS is its High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP), which enables a variety of crystal-clear HDTV solutions when combined with a mainstream CPU and a low-cost DTV receiver. The HDVP allows mainstream high-performance processors to support all 18 Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) formats with a simple, cost-effective DTV receiver card. Major 3D features of the GeForce2 GTS include:
"GeForce2 GTS' support for the DirectX 7 API gives developers the capability to incorporate transform, lighting and per-pixel shading, and deliver a new era of real-time, cinematic 3D effects in Windows-based gaming", said Jason White, lead technical evangelist for DirectX at Microsoft Corporation. "AMD is excited that NVIDIA is bringing cutting edge features to desktop graphics and AMD processor platforms, such as their new NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer in the GeForce2 GTS" said Richard Heye, vice president and general manager of the AMD Athlon™ Product Division. "We are working closely with NVIDIA to help ensure that platforms based on AMD processors maintain and advance our performance leadership. We believe end users implementing NVIDIA's GeForce2 GTS are fully optimized to harness the raw power of an AMD Athlon processor will be thrilled with the tremendous level of performance delivered to their desktops." More information on the NVIDIA website. |
Wednessday 26.04.2000 |
| 26.04 GeForce 2GTS Preview It´s 26.04.2000, 4.00 AM passed. Today NVIDIA announces the successor of the GeForce 256, the GeForce 2GTS. I´ll be on the road to munich until tomorrow to take a closer look on the new chip on a pressconference of ELSA and NVIDIA in munich. Until then I can offer you a preview on the GeForce 2GTS, an interview with NVIDIA´s European Marketing Manager Alain Tiquet and first images of the new Guillemot/Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS:
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Copyright: RIVA Station 1999 - Lars Weinand |
