More and larger resolution shots can be found here

At Scary's Shugashack you cann allready find some screenshots of the upcoming new Q3Test Phase4:

I just mailed id Software exec Todd Hollenshead and asked if the new Quake III Test will be released this Saturday and he replied "We're *hoping* we'll have it released by this weekend. I'm not saying that we will, but that's what we're shooting for."

...You can say many things about ID but the Q3Test stuff is great! :-)

3Dfx: ...Promises have been made that this next product will be the outright leader and will have more features than any other product on the market. Features include 4X AGP with sidebands/texturing, 32 bit z-buffer (using their patented W-buffer, which is a linear buffer as compared to the traditional 1/z Z-buffer: the W-buffer has been used in all 3dfx products to date.), 8 bit stencil buffer, M-buffer, T-buffer (what these two are is beyond me? Perhaps this is the technology demo that 3dfx will present in late July?), 32 bit color, S3TC, Narrow Channel YAB Texture Compression, bilinear-trilinear-anisotropic filtering, full-screen anti-aliasing, and the ability to add a third party transform and lighting processor....

NVIDIA: ...Very little is known about this chip other than it will support onboard transform and lighting calculations. Reports have it that it is behind schedule and was originally supposed to be announced by early fall. It now looks like it will be announced sometime in December. Rumors state that it will have many advanced features including S3TC, environmental bump mapping, quad-texturing, and an advanced memory architecture that will support up to 256 MB of memory (OUCH!). It will be produced initially on the .25 micron process with speeds up to 200 Mhz, and will then be produced on the .18 micron process 6 to 8 months later with some optimizations (NV-11). This monster supposedly has over 15 million transistors.

There is also info about chips from S3, Matrox, Trident, intel und ATi. Take a look at it.

Futuremark made a facelift of the 3DMark Website and starts with a new competition. Every other week Futuremark is giving you the chance to win a AMD K6-400Mhz PC featuring 3DNow! Technology! To enter all you have to do is download, run and submit a 3DMark result. Check it out: 3DMark Competition

This article provides an architectural overview of NVIDIA's TNT graphics processors, followed by a performance evaluation of TNT. Lastly, some shortcomings of TNT are addressed. Unless otherwise stated, performance numbers are based on a 450 MHz CeleronA system.

Read the whole stuff here.

Need the best of both worlds? Do you need the full-featured set that the Nvidia TNT2 product offers and have the ability to play Glide based games at high-resolutions? Are you confused about what Video Card to pick, 3DFX Voodoo III or Nvidia's TNT2?

Well Alienware has the solution, choose both! Now Alienware offers an exclusive technology that will allow you to have both an Nvidia TNT2 and a 3DFX Voodoo III, in the same system, at the same time. You are probably asking yourself how is Alienware getting two (2) 2D/3D video cards running in the same system. Alienware in cooperation with Metabyte have developed special drivers that essentially let you pick and choose what video card you want to use when playing the game of your choice. Essentially we have taken the robust, full-featured set that comes with Nvidia's TNT2 and the powerful performer that is the 3DFX Voodoo III and put them in one system.

The other question you are probably asking yourself is why would I need both 2D/3D cards in the same system? The honest truth is that we recommend this special configuration only to the hardcore gamer that needs it all. The truth is that you can pick either video cards and still have a great gaming system. Both video cards in their own right are awesome, and if you are a gamer you can't go wrong with either one. Alienware is all about giving the customer alot of different options and this is just one of many options we offer. We are all about performance and pushing the envelope.

Major Advantages:

• The ability of playing games with all the major API's supported, Direct3D, OpenGL, and Glide
• 32-bit color support of Nvidia TNT2 at high-resolutions
• Glide base games not limited to 1024 x 768 resolutions, can go higher (if game supports it)
• You don't need to use an older 3DFX Voodoo2 Card to play your favorite Glide based games
• Have the ability to play D3D and OpenGL games with either video cards
• Hardware support of Glide vs. Glide Wrapper (emulation)
• We give you the flexibility that no other system manufacturers give you

What it comes with:

• Nvidia Ultra TNT2 w/32 MB AGP TV-Out Video Card
• 3DFX Voodoo III 2000 PCI w/16MB Video Card
• (2) VGA Cables
• VGA Switchbox (1600 x 1200 Resolution)
• Super Multi-Card Drivers

ThanX to AGN3D! (Maybe they should name that system BOILER <eg>)

• On Systemlogic you can find a preview of 3DLabs Permedia3
• CG Cafe took a look in a coffe cup and made a small Preview about TNT3 alias NV10 (or what ever)
• AGN Hardware hat ein review of the Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor32 gemacht. Schaut mal vorbei!!
• Adrian's Rojak Pot finished part one of the BIOS Optimization Guide

The Athlon's 128K L1 cache is awesome for memory-intensive games like Unreal.    Operations like visibility determination, which thrash on the Pentium III's 32K cache, now run at full speed on the Athlon.  This CPU truly shows a generational performance improvement, like going from my old 486 to my first Pentium.

When I saw AMD's K7 spec, I was pretty skeptical.   The K6 had been hyped up, but in reality it was slower for Unreal than a Pentium II of comparable clock rate, due to its poor non-SIMD floating point performance.  The K7 claimed to fix all of that, and debut a new architecture with 3 execution pipelines.   I decided to wait and see, without getting my hopes up.

Bottom line: I waited, and now I have seen!  The Athlon is clearly the fastest x86 CPU at any clock speed.

ELSA managed to sign up a number of OEMs on the NT platform for their graphic products, boosting their already leading position in that market further. Their stock reacted with a 21.5% gain. The machines will be equiped with the Synergy II TNT2 card.

Another thing: Voodoo3 3000 heat. It seems that the heat problems that occured in my RIVA Station Cardtest (translation is finished half) are not a special of the card I reviewed. The german site TweakPC report to me in a mail about similar heat problems.

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