Monday 22.11.1999

iXBT-Hardware overclocked a Creative Annihilator GeForce card:

The majority of our readers probably know that the graphics cards based on NVIDIA GeForce 256 work at 120/166MHz as default frequencies (the first one denotes the chipset frequency and the second one - the memory frequency). Compare these values to the parameters of NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra: 150/183MHz. Surprised? However, the restrictions like that are far not occasional: GeForce 256 chipset heats too much that is why if there is no additional cooling (except the already provided chipset cooler), the microchips and even the whole card get so hot that the temperature almost reaches the human threshold of pain. So, it is more than evident: this graphics card will be a hard nut to overclock.

But is the game worth the candle? Well, we think it is. You shouldn't forget that NVIDIA GeForce 256 can boast not 2 (as we saw by NVIDIA Riva TNT2) but 4 pipelines, which means that if the frequency gets only 1MHz higher the effect will be twice as big as that by the previous generation graphics cards. And bearing in mind GeForce's bottleneck - narrow memory bandwidth, which very negatively tells on the performance in 32-bit color regime, memory overclocking may have a really impressive effect on the performance in True Color.

Den komplettenArtikel gibt es hier.

22.11 - Webwide

Red Hat 6.1 Review - CPU Review
Aztech TNT2 Review - Hardwarezone
Act-Labs GS Gun System Review -  The Techzone
Intel i820 Mainboards - Hothardware
Comdex Report - Thresh's FiringSquad
Comdex Report - The Techzone

Saturday 20.11.1999

I got some strange results during some benchmarks with GeForce and DirectX7. Normaly release 4 drivers (v3.xx) do only work with DirectX7. Most games crash with DirectX6.1. But I forgot to install DirectX7 on a new Win98SE testpartition. So I made some 3DMark99 Benchmarks with DirectX 6.1 which works without problems in 3DMark99 MAX.

System: Pentium III 750/100, 196MB, ASUS V6600 Deluxe, ASUS Beta Treiber v3.48 RC1

GeForce is up to 46% in 3DMark99MAX if you use DirectX 6.1 instead of DirectX7!! I really donīt know if this is because of drivers, DirectX 7 or 3DMark9 MAX. But fact is: thereīs something fishy here and itīs not a problem of the ASUS drivers! Hereīs a result table in 1280x1024-16 where you could finde the hughest differences:

The detail results are almost the same. But the Game-framerates are way higher with DirectX 6.1! But I must say that the D3D performance in game-benchmarks with DirectX7 and GeForce is OK. But these games do not run on GeForce with v3.xx and DirectX 6.1 so I canīt say if thereīs also a problem.

20.11 - News about the Viper II

AGN3D reports that the information about missing HW T&L in Viper II posted by Maximum PC is not correct at all. The HW T&L is disabled in the first shipping drivers but will be enabled agin later:

"T&L works, it just not completely enabled in the first shipping drivers as we focused on stability and performance on today's games.. Bottom line, today we have kick ass performance on games that are shipping for Christmas and we will have T&L capabilities in soon to be released drivers..."

S3 now has a small problem: They hyped HW T&L and now after they have problems with their drivers and say that it isnīt very important today.... can you feel their pain? :-)

20.11 - Demos update

Update of the Gigex demo page. This week the following demos were added:

1.Rayman 2- Ubi Soft 57MB
2.Quake 3 test v.11/15- Activision-id 51MB
3.Pro Bull Rider - Sierra 30MB
4.Wheel of Time- GT 77MB
5.Messiah game play trailer- Interplay 15MB

You can find the demos page by clicking on files in the menu above.

20.11 - Links Update

Update/rework of the Links page. Thanx to the great work of HomerS! You find it in the menu by clicking on links.

20.11 - Athlon and GeForce

RIVA 3D baout problems with GeForce and Athlon Mainboards:

It appears that the GeForce card is susceptible to AGP line noise interference (not a problem so far on Intel-based machines). The Athlon systems seem especially prone to this due to the complexity of the chip and motherboard design.

There is a hardware fix for this, which basically entails replacing a capacitor on one of the strobe signal pins of the motherboard, or the addition of two capacitors on the GeForce card itself. This will not be done on the GeForce card, however, due to the fact that it will violate the AGP 2.0 spec, and therefore not allow the card to run at AGP 4x should you later upgrade. So it appears that the motherboard manufacturers will need to make a design revision, and hopefully offer end-users the opportunity to exchange their older revision Athlon boards for the new design.

It is also rumored that AMD has a newer version of the Northbridge (751) chipset which will also solve this problem. Rest assured that there is really no one to blame here. It is inevitable that as the complexity of systems and components rises, the incidence of problems such as these will occur.

The driver fix consequently turns off the Turbo AGP, causing the system to run at AGP 1x speeds, which results in a SLIGHT performance hit. We'll have some hard numbers for you soon.

NVIDIA now offers special Athlon GeForce drivers. It seems that these drivers are based on v3.62 and only use AGP 1x. If you didīnt have any problems yet you should not use them: NVIDIA GeForce Athlon Treiber

Friday 19.11.1999

The farmers of MadOnion.com (former Futuremark) have send some screenshots of the upcoming benchmark 3DMark 2000:

Click to enlarge

Additional shots can be found at MadOnion: 3DMark2000 screenshots

19.11 - The new Voodoos

Here are some images of the new Voodoos in  amuch better quality:

Voodoo4 4500	Voodoo5 5500	Voodoo5 6000	Voodoo5 6000

19.11 - Hardware T&L

ZDNet reviewed 12 graphic cards using the ZD Benchmark Winbench 2000 and others. Winbench 2000 allready uses DirectX7 hardware T&L Tests. So the Creative Annihilator is a lot faster than its competitors here: ZDNet Graphic cards

19.11 - Comdex Report

Beyond 3D made a Comdex report about the new 3dfx cards: Comdex Report

19.11 - Savage 2000 only with Software T&L

It now seems that the rumors are true: S3 will release the Viper II with software T&L only. Maximum PC reports about that:

S3 confirmed today that the Savage 2000-based Viper II will not support hardware transform and lighting. The new card, which is slated to ship this Friday, will instead do T&L through software.

Although S3 attributed this feature drop to the current lack of hardware T&L support in games, they did not address the poor performance issues that have plagued their hardware T&L engine since day one. Interestingly enough the hardware support is still in the chip itself and will make its appearance later in a limited edition Viper II board that will be clocked significantly higher.

S3 didn't say how much the limited edition Viper II would cost, when it will ship, or what the clock speed will be

19.11 - Viper II Review

Anandtech reviewed the new Diamond/S3 Viper II with Savage 2000 Chip:

On the bright side, if S3 does get their act together and produces some better drivers, there are a few things to look forward to with the Savage 2000. The 32-bit performance of the chip is undeniably quite competitive, as is the performance of its OpenGL ICD. In theory the Savage 2000 should be able to outperform the GeForce due to its faster raw fill rate, it would be nice to actually see that theory represented in the benchmarks with better drivers.

Overall, the performance of the card can definitely be improved with some better drivers, and enabling S3TL (hardware T&L) in the drivers will yield another performance boost that should make the Savage 2000 a much more competitive solution. Until then, keep an eye on the Savage 2000 because    it could definitely become an affordable GeForce alternative, but for now, it's not something you'll want to go out and purchase.

Read the whole article here.

Thursday 18.11.1999

Reactorcritical made an article about graphic cards in Quake3:

One of the most intriguing features of the Q3Test is that its graphics can be widely adjusted. While before you only could lower the resolution to get some extra fps, now you have many alternatives. By degrading the visual quality in one way or another you can make your system run faster. Owners of powerful PCs should no more suffer from wretched graphics used just because more complex and lovely graphics can't be handled by less powerful machines.

The article can be found here.

18.11 - Abit Graphic cards

ASUS and Gigabyte do it and now Abit also wants to do it! 3DWars reports from a new line of graphic cards made by Abit:

The new line of graphics cards from Abit will be known as the Siluro Family. They will be based upon the Nvidia TNT2 and GeForce 256 graphics chips. The new Siluro Family will have a total of four new members. They will have three graphics cards based on the TNT2 chipset and one working with the GeForce 256 graphics processor. These four models will include the GT2 Ultra, the GT2V, the GT2 and the GF256. The first three will all be ramifications of the TNT2 and TNT2 Ultra while the last one will be a fully functional GeForce 256 card. What will these cards offer that the other ones will not?

18.11 - Savage 2000 and HW T&L

There are some rumors going around that S3 will release the Savage 2000 without HW T&L. Savage2K.com has some info about that:

We have seen a report stating that Viper II will not be supporting T&L. As far as we are concerned this is a fabricated report. We have met with S3 this afternoon, and nobody ever mentioned that T&L would not be included. The drivers supporting hardware T&L might not be ready at the time you bring your board home, but a quick update will follow soon. We will talk to S3 about this issue tomorrow and get a clarification on it. We will also make sure that person responsible receives a complimentary spanking session. This is take directly out of Viper II press release today.

18.11 - 3dfx vs NVIDIA Part II

Firingsquad released the second part of its 3dfx vs NVIDIA article: 3dfx vs. NVIDIA part II

Wednesday 17.11.1999

Doctor Tune sends news that the new  Guillemot Maxi Gamer Cougar/Xentor/Xentor32 drivers, based on NVIDIA reference drivers, work on ALL TNT/2 cards! Grap these drivers here: Guillemot drivers

17.11 - 3dfxīs demise

Voodooextreme made an article about 3dfx and the future:

3dfx believes that T&L is only necessary once developers start supporting it. This logic is flawed; developers are waiting for 3dfx to support T&L. The reasoning behind NVIDIA's introduction of hardware T&L, what many, myself included, thought was a dubious move is now becoming clear. NVIDIA is forcing T&L on hardware manufacturers. Blazing polygon rates is too much of a temptation for game developers to resist for long. It won't be long before T&L will be required. If software developers were to initiate this revolution, the blow to 3dfx (and other manufacturers which do not have T&L accelerating products) will be devastating. Furthermore, 3dfx had better be prepared when OEMs decide T&L is added to the checklist..

Read the whole stuff here.

17.11 - Comdex News

Battlax reports some links to some japanese comdex reports. Take a look on the AC-supply on the Voodoo5 6000 Photo:

3dfx Infos/pictures
Athlon&Co

Tuesday 16.11.1999

Game PC made a report about the first day at Comdex: All about Video cards

16.11 - Voodoo4/5

3dfx shows some first images (ThanX to AGN3D!!)of the new Voodoo cards with VSA-100 (VSA=Voodoo Scalable Architecture). The chip has the following features:

T-Buffer technology is available with Voodoo5. Thereīs no comment if these effects are dependent of the number of chips (for example Motion Blur: 3dfx speaks about max. 8 images for the effect). Iīm also wondering that thereīs no word about Bump Mapping. But 3dfx speaks of Dynamic Environmental Mapping in their VSA-100 presentation. So in a first look we have the following pros/cons:

Pro:
- Very high fillrat=high framerates at high resolutions
- Scalable architecture
- T-Buffer effects
- Actual features as 32Bit and 2Kx2K Textures
- Texturecompression
- DVD HW-support

Cons:
- Very bad use of the cards Memory (every chip needs its own memory)
- No HW T&L for upcoming games
- missing Bump Mapping(?)
- 0.25 Micron process (Heat)
- Bad stand alone specs of a single VSA-100 Chip (clockrates/fillrate as Voodoo3)
- Release in march 2000 (4 Months from now)

So, shall we hate it or love it?

News archives - more November News

Copyright: RIVA Station 1999 - Lars Weinand
No Copy without Permission!