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

21.12 - GeForce X-Server

Ulf sends a mail that there´s a Linux X-Server for GeForce available. You can download the file here: GeForce X-Server.

21.12 - XMAS greetings!

Here is my XMAS greeting card for all RIVA Station visitors out there (and thouse who want to become one <g>)

click to enlarge

This from a (very) small Q3 Arena Map I´ve made. You can download the 500KB sized map and try it yourself if you want: RIVA Station XMAS Map

Merry Christmas all! :-)

21.12 - Q3 Timedemo

Many 3dfx users are using the Wicked GL driver instead of 3dfx drivers for Q3A because it seems to deliver much higher framerates. Reverend the Pulpit now made a timedemo that demonstrates that it´s still faster than the new 3dfx drivers:

Well, I honestly didn't feel the need to make such a demo UNTIL I discovered the BIG performance difference between the WickedGL and 3dfx's own drivers (namely its OpenGL ICD) when playing in a specific map, namely Q3Tourney4. I also received some emails saying that, with the latest 1.03.05 Voodoo3 drivers, 3dfx's ICD is now up to par with the WickedGL in Q3 - NOT!

The one setting that clearly shows how much faster the WickedGL is compared to 3dfx's ICD is the "Texture Detail" slider, i.e. the console variable r_picmip. With the slider at maximum and at NORMAL and HIGH QUALITY settings, this particular demo of mine will show the huge gap between the two drivers. The short of it is that with this demo, and at these two settings with max Texture Detail, 3dfx's ICD results in a slide show, no joke.

Read a bit on this demo of mine or just download it (212kb).

Hmmm, High Quality textures should be downsampled for 256x256 (max size for 3dfx)...

21.12 - Dagoth Moor Demo

WXP released the demo of Dagoth Moor Zoological Garden. The game wil be released in fall 2000 (so don´t wonder if you don´t get 80FPS). The game uses D3D hardware T&L. I made 22 screenshots from the demo inmy last GeForce review:

Dagoth Moor Zoological Gardens is a technology demo and benchmarking tool developed by WXP to show off the latest hardware accelerated features of NVIDIA's GeForce 256 accelerator cards (hardware transform and lighting, cubic environment maps, etc.). It is NOT a game, or a demo of a game.

DMZG requires DirectX 7 and a GeForce 256-based accelerator card. It will probably run on other video cards, but you may experience visual glitches (especially on Voodoo3 cards). WXP has only approved DMZG for use on GeForce-based accelerator cards.

DMZG is a brief glimpse into the world you will see when "Experience", our first person strategic action shooter, ships late next year. We hope you enjoy what you see and hope this raises the bar of what gameplayers expect from the next generation of PC games.

Happy exploring!

Some of the new additions to the engine are:

GPU accelerated geometry transformation
GPU accelerated vertex lighting
GPU accelerated cubic environment maps
Fading detail maps

Each of these GPU features offloads work from the CPU to the GPU, which frees up the CPU for better physics, AI, and game code. By implementing these optimizations WXP has been able to push the DMZG poly counts from 10,000 polys per frame to over 80,000 on the same CPU. The level of detail this affords is astonishing.

Download: 3DFiles Download page.

20.12 - S3 still shopping

Saw on Gibbed.com that S3 is about to acquire #9:

In a move to strengthen the competitive position of its Multimedia Division, S3 Incorporated announced today that it has begun the process to acquire substantially all of the assets of Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation. The acquisition of Number Nine, a contract supplier of S3-based products to IBM, will allow S3 to consolidate its graphics business with IBM into a single source distribution model, while also adding highly skilled hardware and software engineering resources to S3's existing teams. "Over the past year, we have been working with IBM to build a long-term business relationship based on a supplier agreement with Number Nine," said Ken Potashner, chief executive officer for S3 Incorporated. "We expect that our acquisition of Number Nine's assets will enable us to streamline this business model and further strengthen our direct relationship with IBM."

20.12 - NVIDA is first with High Performance Memory

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 20, 1999--Continuing to raise the graphics performance bar, NVIDIA(TM) Corporation (Nasdaq:NVDA - news) announced today that it has established another industry milestone by being first to deliver an ultra-high performance Double Data Rate (DDR) Synchronous RAM graphics solution for the mainstream market.

Working with DDR manufacturers Infineon Technologies and Hyundai Electronics Corporation, NVIDIA's GeForce 256 and Quadro GPU-based add-in cards with DDR are already available this Christmas season. With DDR memory end users get lightening fast frame rates and higher resolutions and color depths. For technical information on DDR memory, refer to the NVIDIA Technical Brief located at www.nvidia.com/products/DDRtechbrief.

More about that in the pressrelease.

20.12 - Q3 Map

Many asked me about the Q3 map I´m currently working on. Sorry, but I´ll post it when it´s finished. There´s too much missing at the moment. You can´t really play it because many areas are not ready for playing. But I can give you some Q3 goodies tomorrow (when I can solve a small problem). More about that soon :-)

20.12 - ASUS Live Software

Anson sends a mail that ASUS has released a new Live Software:

AsusLive 3.50 Release
AsusLive 4.00 Beta1

20.12 - New NVIDIA Demos

NVIDIA has released new Tech-Demos. New are GL_Bump and BenMark5: NVIDIA Demos page

- GL_Bump: A great demo of bump mapping in OpenGL sent in by Diego Tartara. Thanks!
- BenMark5: 13 million is a lot of triangles per second.

19.12 - V6800 Pure Review

Tresh´s Firing Squad reviewed the GeForce DDR card ASUS V6800 Pure:

Like other GeForce video card manufacturers, ASUS is ready to ship its DDR GeForce card, the AGP-V6800. As with the AGP-V6600, ASUS is offering the card in both Pure and Deluxe versions. What's the difference between Pure and Deluxe? Well, the Pure version is just a basic GeForce card with a single monitor output connector. The Deluxe version comes with an S-Video input, an S-Video output, a composite output and a VR output (for 3D glasses).

According to ASUS, the AGP-V6800 Pure is scheduled for a mid-December release, and the Deluxe version should be available in early January 2000. We managed to get our hands on an ASUS AGP-V6800 Pure card for review.

We take a look at the card, and see how it performs in our benchmark tests. We also try our hand at overclocking. We've noticed that all the new GeForce cards we've tested lately have been great overclockers, and we were curious to find out how well the ASUS AGP-V6800 would overclock.

You can read the review here.

18.12 - New V3400/3800 drivers

ASUS also released new v2.27 beta1 drivers for the V3400/3800 TNT/TNT2 card: ASUS V3400/3800 Drivers

18.12 - My first Quake3 Level

Here are 3 screenshots taken from my first Quake3 Arena level. Nothing really spectacular and not finished yet but we´ll see.....


click to enlarge

The screenshots were made in 32Bit colordepth.

18.12 - DirectX 7A

Microsoft released a new version of DirectX7. The chages in DirectX 7A are only in Direct Input files because there were some bugs with USB devices. Other changes are not known. Download: DirectX Home User Downloads

18.12 - V6600 v3.62 Beta5

ASUS released new W9x Beta drivers for the GeForce card V6600. I don´t know what´s new at all: V6600 drivers

17.12 - 3DMark 2000 and GeForce

My last 3DMark2000 benchmarks startet many diskussions about GeForce T&L capabilities. Here are some new results that will give you even more questions. I´ve made some runs with a GeForce DDR on a Pentium III 500 and a Pentium III 700E with 3DMark2000 using Hardware T&L, Software T&L and Pentium III optimizations:

Click to Enlarge

The results are pretty surprising. The Pentium III performs better in some tests than the GPU unit of the GeForce using Hardware T&L. The differences are higher with the faster CPU. But you should be carefully before you think a PIII can do calculations faster than the GPU unit of the GeForce. Many OpenGL benchmarks show opposite results. This behavior can´t be seen in 3D Winbench 2000 either. So a conclusion is limited to the 3D engine of 3DMark 2000 and can´t be used for all 3D applic ations out there.

NVIDIA told me that the High-Polygon results in 3DMark 2000 are influenced by the choice of light types. It uses one Infinite Light and N Point Light Sources (N = 0, 3 or 7, depends on the test). The results would be much better if it would use Spot Lights or Specular Lights (which a re more realistic for use in games).

Nevertheless, the results show that something´s fishy here. In my opinion you have the choice between the following reasons: The GPU unit of GeForce is limited, DirectX 7 hardware T&L does´nt work as it should, the GeForce Direct 3D driver is not optimized yet or 3DMark 2000 is too synthetic or buggy.

Don´t ask which one it is.... we need more D3D T&L applications to see what´s really going on here.

16.12 - Q3 and fframerates

If you wonder that you don´t get higher framerates than about 85FPS (cg_drawfps "1") although you´ve set "lego-graphics" (r_picmip "4" or higher) you should set the value com_maxfps to "150" or "200". I did´nt see any effect of this setting in Timedemo mode.

16.12 - GeForce Tweak Guide

3DGPU made a GeForce Tweak Guide:

GeForce 256 Tweak Guide you ask yourself? Sure, why not? Ask any hardcore gamer what he wants the most and he'll tell you more frames per second (FPS). And that's exactly what this Guide is for. Right now, the GeForce may be the fastest 3D accelerator on the planet, but put on some Quake 3, crank the details all the way up, add 15 opponents to the mix and you'll experience lag, no matter what. Here, I'll help ease that burden, and shift the lag away into a smoother experience. This leads to better gameplay and of course, more frags in Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament. By the way, this Guide applies to all the video cards with the GeForce 256 chipset. ...more

16.12 - NVIDIA v3.65 drivers (inoff.)

Reactor Critical offers (inoff.) NVIDIA referencedrivers v3.62 for Download: v3.65 at Reactor Critical

15.12 - ELSA ErazorX²

So does it look, the new GeForce DDR-RAM card ELSA Erazor X²:


Packshot	Fan	overview

Benchmark results and more details about the card soon!

15.12 - 1602AD

Gigex reports that they offer the demo to the game 1602AD for download:

The year - 1602. Your future is uncertain. Cities are overcrowded. Poverty and starvation are rampant. You and a small band of fellow voyagers set sail for a new life and New World. Welcome to the ranks of explorers and pioneers. Strategy. Colonization. Diplomacy. Production. Trade. Warfare. Real-time strategy brought into a whole New World.

Download: 1602AD

(I you wonder.... RIVA Station is a demos partner of Gigex. See Files section.)

14.12 - Revelator OpenGL for Erazor III

ELSA released new drivers for the ELSA Erazor III, based on NVIDIA referencedrivers v3.62. They include OpenGL support for the 3D shutter glasses ELSA 3D Revelator:

This driver based on NVIDIA's reference driver 362. It supports fullscreen OpenGL games in stereo mode with ELSA 3D REVELATOR. This driver is tested with Quake II and Quake III in stereo mode.

This driver includes support for the special video functions of ELSA ERAZOR III-Video and ELSA ERAZOR III Pro-Video.

Current known restrictions:

no ingame control panel visible within the OpenGL stereo mode (but it is possible to adjust the settings unvisible)
no support for Unreal Tournament in OpenGL stereo mode (Unreal Tournament may crash in OpenGL mode with enabled stereo while Direct3D works fine)

Download: ELSA Erazor III drivers

14.12 - A bit about NV15 - Nonsense

Argh.... I wrote the same news two times.... argh!!!

14.12 - NVIDIA uses Star-RCXT

NVIDIA and Avant! Cooporation announced that NVIDIA will use the hardware developing tool Star-RCXT for their next generation NV15 design:

FREMONT, Calif., Dec. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Avant! Corporation (Nasdaq: AVNT - news) today announced that NVIDIA(TM) Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA - news), the world's leading supplier of performance 3D graphic processors, has selected Avant!'s new Star-RCXT to extract and analyze NVIDIA's high-performance graphics processor unit (GPU) designs. Star-RCXT, with a new extraction core engine, integrated with Milkyway-based Apollo-II place and route system, enables the production of smaller and faster chips, with quicker design cycle times. XT is an option to the existing Star-RC product, which is the market leader for parasitic extraction according to Dataquest.

NVIDIA selected Star-RCXT after a detailed evaluation. ``Star-RCXT is the tool that we have selected for parasitic extraction of our designs, and is a critical part of our analysis flow,'' said Joe Greco, director of VLSI engineering at NVIDIA Corporation. ``The designs that we do are cutting-edge, and market-leading. We require the highest precision extraction along with the ability to handle a very large capacity. We have just completed our next-generation follow-on to our award-winning GeForce 256(TM) GPU (more than 23 million transistors, 50 Gigaflop graphics processing unit). This new processor, enhanced in both features and performance, absolutely demanded the accuracy, capacity and efficiency delivered by Star-RCXT. The tool performed excellently and seamlessly fit into our timing flow.''

``We are pleased that NVIDIA has chosen Star-RCXT,'' said Gerald C. Hsu, chairman, president and CEO of Avant! Corporation. ``Star-RCXT is designed to meet the stringent requirements of cutting-edge design houses like NVIDIA. Star-RCXT's breakthrough performance, accuracy and tight integration into the Milkyway-based SinglePass flow enables timing convergence and allows our customers to meet their time to market goals on today's challenging designs.'''

You can find the pressrelease here.

14.12 - Misc News

Abit BE6-II Review - Active Hardware
Gigabyte GA7-IX Athlon Mainboard Review - BX Boards
Cicero DVD Kit - CPU Review
Frank Hom Eidos Interview - Glideunderground
Polk Audio ARM5 Speakers - Glideunderground
Mellenger Video Card Cooling Kit - The Tech Zone

13.12 - More about the 3DMark 2000 results

There were some very surprising results in the 3DMark2000 benchmark results I´ve posted a couple of days before. A TNT and TNT2 using PIII optimizations was faster at high polygon test with 8 lights than a GeForce DDR and SDRAM with hardware T&L. I asked MadOnion.com about that and here´s the answer:

The TNT & 3.53 flicker is a known issue - it's been fixed to later drivers.

I'm aware of the 8 light test & GeForce "slowness". We were surprised on how fast the CPU optimizations were -- but also the NVIDIA result is pretty amazing.

It seems that the reason is dependet on a great PIII optimization in the NVIDIA drivers, not yet optimized GeForce drivers, or on a limited GPU unit!? Or is it a bug in 3DM 2000? Let´s wait and see... :-)

13.12 - OpenGL Screensaver

Demonews offers 3 new OpenGL screensavers for download:

13.12 - ErazorX Review

Voodooextreme reviewed the ELSA ErazorX:

Although performance is untouchable, 32bit performance is hampered by slow SDRAM. Still, the Erazor X manages a respectable 40+fps at 1024x768x32bit color (Quake3:Demo001). While, those who want 1024x768x32bit @ 60fps will have to wait for DDR GeForce solutions (such as the Erazor X2) or other future products, the Erazor X packs plenty of punch for months to come. And at $230, the performance is priced quite reasonably.

You can read the whole review here.

More GeForce Reviews:

Leadtek Winfast GeForce 256 Review (got Apex)
ELSA Erazor X (Tresh´s Firing Squad)

13.12 - New Diamond drivers

Diamond released new Win9X drivers v4.11.01.0402 for the TNT/TNT2 cards V550/V770 (based on NVIDIA v3.53 drivers): Diamond V550 drivers - Diamond V770 drivers