Get Sponsored30.08.98 - new RIVA TNT cards |
| STB starts the delivering of their new Velocity 4400 wit nVidia RIVA TNT
and is the first manufactorer who has a TNT board on the market. Read the press release
that comes monday at Rivazone. There are also details and speculations about the Video I/O of the announced SPECTRA 2500 from Canopus. AGN3D reports in a news article that Canopus wil offer a upgrade solution to get Video IN with the SPECTRA 2500. The connectors will be place in a drive bay in the front of the computer. But there are no more details about that. It´s also interesting that you can use the Video-Out part with other cards with 'loop through'. You can use it for example with a Voodoo Add-On card. Read the complete article here. If ELSA will have a simmilar solution with their Video I/O Add-On card for the Erazor II ? |
29.08.98 - Wing Commander Secret Operations |
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| Origin released the first part ofWing Commander Secret
Operations. The game is available at the WING
COMMANDER SECRET OPS webpage. You must not have Prophecy to play the game. Only a
short registration is needed. The minimum download is 65MB (Speech 53MB). The complete package is available with 118MB! ( At this point a big thanks to 4FRONT for the T1 ). The next parts shall be much smaller with about 1MB ....
The game is also available at Avault and Gamecenter and others... |
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27.08.98 - OpenGL ICD |
| Grandmaster B.
responds to the question why it is so difficult for the conumer cards manufactorers to
deliver well working OpenGl drivers at the question and answer page at Voodooextreme: " Writing an OpenGL driver is not trivial work. In order to do an ICD
properly you must implement ALL of OpenGL. By comparison Direct3D only allows you to
implement the very back end of the rendering pipeline (rasterization), which means that
Direct3D as it stands today does not allow for lighting or geometry acceleration by
hardware vendors. Grandmaster B. - Voodooextreme " A comment to that at tge Permedia General Resource pages: "Today, GrandMaster B gives us the "skinny" on why OpenGL ICDs have been so slow to market from the "other" graphics chip manufacturers. We of course have no idea what he's taking about ;) and "yes" he fails to mention 3Dlabs the grandfather of OpenGL on PC's but then again the post isn't directed towards the big OpenGL players. - PGR " If you take a look on the explanation of the Permedia drivers at the 3DLabs webpage you see what they want to say with that: " These robust and highly optimized drivers include an OpenGL Installable Client Driver and Autodesk's Heidi for Windows® NT 4.0 and Windows 95 and Direct3D for Windows 95. 3Dlabs has currently invested over 70 work years in its OpenGL Installable Client Driver, alone. Windows NT 5.0 and Memphis drivers are also being developed. This extensive set of APIs is expected to allow PERMEDIA 2-based boards to provide robust acceleration for almost all 3D applications ranging from high-end CAD packages such as SolidWorks to Direct3D game titles" The answer on the question wether the problem with actual games depends on the card manufactorers or the game developers is up to you. I think the truth will be, like always, somewere in the middle..... :-) |
26.08.98 - RIVA 128 and OpenGL |
| You can get a OpenGL testing
software for your graphics card made by 3DLabs
(thanks Tayfun). Download (45 KB): X29.ZIP A complete benchmark test is the OpenGL Benchmark. You can compare your results a the Webseite of OpenGL benchmark. The benchmark needs much time for a complete run. But the results with a Erazor are in the region of a SGI O2 ! Another small OpenGL software is Oct Fly (watch readme file). To see the different between Hard- and Software mode you should maximize the window at a screen resolution of 1024x768...... (if you have a 4MB card) If you want to tweak system you should use the small Tray-Tweak software made by TET which switches between nVidia and ELSA OpenGL drivers. You must have the nVidia reference drivers installed any time before or that does not work (Drivers page). Blue Symbol: nVidia OpenGL drivers, red symbol: ELSA OpenGL drivers (watch news from 1.8) |
25.08.98 - New Erazor Bios-Flash software |
| ELSA released a new version of the Erazor Bios-flasher software at the Driverspage. The Bios is still version 1.55. |
25.08.98 - Unreal OpenGL beta |
| A new version of the Unreal
GL-Beta patch is available: Download If you need hints how to get your RIVA128, Permedia2 or Rendition and i740 card to work with unreal take a look at the UNREAL-OpenGL page. |
25.08.98 - Erazor LT drivers |
| Win9X / NT drivers for the new Erazor LT cards with RIVA128 / ZX are available here. |
23.08.98 - Unreal OpenGL INI file |
| PlanetRiva offers a OpenGL-INI file for Unreal that shall work well with a Diamond Viper. I was not able to test if it does also work with the Erazor because I don´t have that game. You should use the newest drivers. |
22.08.98 - Unreal OpenGL Beta - NO RIVA128 support |
| Epic/Dream Forge released a OpenGL Beta Patch for Unreal.
Currently only Rendition v2100 and v2200 wotk with this
patch. Intel i740 should work but there is no offical OpenGL driver
available at this time. Cards that are not supported:
I think Epic had enough time to contact 3DLabs/nVidia to solve these problems.Currently only one card runs with OpenGL. |
22.08.98 - ELSA Takes Over Hercules |
| ELSA announced yesterday that ELSA will take over the American
graphic-cards manufactorer Hercules.
Hercules develops mainly for the consumer market so we will here a lot of ELSA in this
market in future. Here ist the Press Release: "Translated by Dr. Tayfun Erkeskin [TET Ltd] ELSA AG, Aachen-Germany, a leading manufacturer of
computer graphics and data communication products announces the complete take-over of the
American computer graphics board pioneer Hercules. According to Mr. Theo Beisch, president and CEO of ELSA,
Hercules provides vital development knowledge, excellent contacts to internationally known
chip producers, and superior distribution channels in the US and Europe. ELSA will be
fully benefiting from all of these factors, as innovative products will be launched much
more quickly and production capacity will be increased. In order to optimize the cost
structure the headquarters of both companies will join together in the US. |
21.08.98 - WING COMMANDER Secret Ops news |
| Origin has updated the Secret
Ops page and shows some screenshots of the free Prophecy add-on. It starts at August 27th
with the first episode. There will be a new episode every thursday over a 7 week period.
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19.08.98 - MainActor 2 with ELSA-Check |
| The new Version v2.03 of
MainActor2 including the ELSA-Check is available for download at the ELSA
driverspage. This Version runs as full on with your Erazor if you have a ELSA driver
installed. Download: ( 8,9 MB ) |
19.08.98 - Erazor News |
|
| The packing shots I showed in
the 18.08 News are packings of ELSA Inc. USA. They are NOT available in
Germany or Europe, so don´t search for it ;-). I´ll show german or european 'packshots'
as soon as I get them. In addition I got the new Erazor II logo how it will be used on the european packing and in advertising:
I also got the confirmation that there will be no Erazor II with Video I/O. |
19.08.98 - TNT with AMD K5-166 |
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Ross, owner of RIVA 3D, wanted to see how a TNT card
works with slow CPU´s. He tested it with a AMD K5-166 which is equal or slower than a
intel Pentium 133. The results:
These results show that you´ll get good results with a intel Pentium MMX or a K6. Jo Lux gave me a hint to the TNT-Test by HardWare.fr. There you can see how a iP233 MMX compares to a K6-2 350 and P-II 450. Although these test were run on a beta TNT-Board with only 70 MHz. The results show that the TNT is not as CPU-dependent as a Voodoo 2. |
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18.08.98 - New design |
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ELSA made a new packing design for the VICTORY Erazor and Synergy:
Source: www.necx.com |
17.08.98 - New ELSA cards |
| ELSA will release a couple of new graphic cards in the next time. A
short list shows like this:
There are also plans of a stand alone Video I/O solution. |
16.08.98 - ERAZOR II |
| The new ELSA ERAZOR II with
nVidia RIVA TNT will release end of september. There will be a bulk version with 8MB and a
Bulk/Retail version with 16MB. These cards wil ship without Video I/O. There will be 16MB version which includes Video I/O late november. But that´s not sure now (watch news from 13.08). There are rumours that ELSA works on a independent Video I/O solution that is not integrated in a graphics board. |
15.08.98 - Urban Assault Demo |
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Microsoft released a demo to the
game Urban Assault. This demo offers 3 missions wich allow you to see the features of the
game.
Download: ( 12,9 MB): comment: no automatic detection of D3D card (change settings in options menu) |
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13.08.98 - ERAZOR TNT without Video I/O ?!? |
| I got information today that ELSA will not build a Erazor II with Video I/O functions. There will alos be no PCI version. With that, ELSA follows the actual trend to AGP. Almost no developer builds PCI cards with the new upcoming chipsets. |
12.08.98 - New Victory ERAZOR WIN9X drivers |
| ELSA released new drivers for Win95/Win98 for the Victory Erazor. The new driver allows a FULLSCREEN PAL TV-OUT in Win9X that is no longer distort. There is also a fix in the 3D-Settings. Download ( 1,4 MB ): |
10.08.98 - MAIN ACTOR 2.01 |
| MainConcept released version 2.01 of
its new MainActor Software after some bugs were found. The ELSA-Check ist still NOT
included in the shareware
version. This version will only be available on the ELSA-(drivers)Webpage and will be released in the next days. |
10.08.98 - ELSA Erazor II specs. |
| ELSA USA releases
technical info about the ERAZOR II card with nVidia RIVA TNT: Explosive 3D Features: The RIVA TNT 3D pipeline maintains the highest vertex, Z-buffer, texture filtering throughput to achieve visually stunning interactive 3D:
Dynamic 2D Performance: Nuclear Direct3D Acceleration: With hundreds of entertainment titles available for Windows® 95 and Windows 98 using Direct3D, the record setting performance provided by the ELSA ERAZOR II is unmatched.
Thundering 8 or 16MB high speed frame buffer/texture
mamory: Optional Feature TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION: Bus System: PCI or AGP SOFTWARE SUPPORT:
Additional information (a list of screenmodes) can be found on the ERAZOR II pages of ELSA USA |
06.08.98 - Riva TNT News |
| Gamespot stacked up a 16MB SGRAM TNT
board against a shipping 12MB Voodoo2 board, Diamond's Monster3D II. In 6 of 6 test of
their '3D GameGauge' Benchmark the TNT was faster than the Voodoo2. You can read the test here.
nVidia reaction was a pressrelease. There are also rumors from the MS Meltdown Europe that DirectX 6 is accaepted very well by game developers. DirectX runs fast and stable and supports (now or in future) all important 3D effects. The big ones in game development will develop their games mostly for DirectX. The Voodoo standard Glide will lose its role as first choice for developers. Mainly effects like Multipass Rendering (Texture + Light Map + Reflection Map) and TrueColor Rendering (32 bit) will be found in future games. If you make a frequency order you can say that the new games will support: 1. Multipass Rendering, 2. TrueColor Rendering, 3. Bump Mapping. The nVidia TNT supports all of these technologies and that in a resolution of 1024x768 with more than 30 fps. There is also the possibility of 3D-resolutions of 1600x1200. There are rumors that ELSA will built two ERAZOR II - TNT cards: one with 8 MB sync. RAM and one with 16 MB sync. RAM. One version with 3x Video-IN an 2x Video OUT will come early next year. The pricing will be about 399,- DM to 499,- DM. |
05.08.98 - MainActor 2.0 released ! UPDATED ! |
| MainActor v2.0 with the new
video Sequencer has been released by MainConcept
and is now available for download. See the MainActor page
for details on the new features, including the new video sequencer. This upgrade is free
for registered users of MainActor 1.x. The ELSA-check is NOT implemented in this shareware
version. Sorry for the wrong posting before. I´ll inform you as soon as possible if the
Elsa-Check version is available at the ELSA Webpage. Download ( 8,57 MB ):
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04.08.98 - DirectX 6.0 für Windows 98 |
| Windows 98 should work with this version: DirectX 6 for Win98 (Core Version). |
04.08.98 - Final Fantasy VII Riva patch |
| Eidos Interactive finished the
Riva/Riva ZX patch for FF7. There will still be some graphics corruption when the player
casts the spells Odin Steel Bladed Sword and Escape. Riva and Square are continuing to
look at ways to correct this. You can grap the patch at Eidos´s Riva-Patch page. |
04.08.98 - Direct X 6.0 |
| Microsoft released DirectX 6.0 today.
But it seems that this version does only work with Windows 95. If you are carefull you
should wait a few days until it´s sure what version you need and what DX 6 really offers
for you. Download-pages: German-languaged version - English-languaged version |
03.08.98 - MainActor 2.0 |
| Mainconcept, the developer of
MainActor announced on his webpage
that the new version 2.0 of the video-edit software will release at Wednesday , August 5. The update is free for registered users ( Elsa card + Elsa drivers ). |
01.08.98 - OpenGL tuning |
| I saw a hint to increase the
OpenGL performance of your Erazor card in the ELSA Newsgroup. ELSA says that you chould
change the regestry entry
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OpenGLDrivers\RIVA128 from
"nv3ogl.dll" to "elsaveao.dll" to activate the ELSA-OpenGL driver if
you had a nVidia-Driver installed before. The ELSA driver shall be a bit slower than the
nVidia driver. If you want to get max. performance you should keep the entry
"nv3ogl.dll". TET (Turkish Elsa Team) made a Tweak-Util to change this setting. You get a symbol in the task-bar after the start of the program. Now you can change the setting through a left-click on the symbol which changes its color: Blue symbol: nVidia OpenGL driver, Red symbol: ELSA OpenGL driver. You quit the program with the right mouse button. Attention: You must have a nVidia reference driver (AGP/PCI)
installed on your system before or it doesn´t work. |
01.08.98 - New Demos |
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| Some new demos released the
past days: European Air War from Microprose The demo is available in a german and english
languaged version. Download ( 15 MB ):
Need for Speed III from Electronic Arts This demo is a bit to large for me to test it
but it should work with Direct3D. Download ( 30,5 MB ): |
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01.08.98 - I´m back |
| After some lazy days I´m
going back to action. I´ve found a sponsor for my site. Somebody may not like it but I
think it´s OK when I try to reduce the costs I have through this site a little bit. It´s not so easy while studying. :-) |
