The current state of the benchmark is that it is built off of build 848 of the Unreal Engine. Although the engine currently doesn't take advantage of any custom pixel/vertex shader programs it is considerably more GPU limited than any previous test we've run. To give you an idea of the complexity of the engine and the benchmark, we asked two of Epic's finest, Daniel Vogel and Tim Sweeney to give us a brief overview of the Unreal Performance Test 2002:

"The Unreal Performance Test 2002 currently consists of a flyby through an outdoor terrain map with as many as 100,000 triangles. Due to the nature of the flyby and extended visibility in outdoor areas the flyby is quite memory bandwidth intensive on the GPU. To achieve a realistic CPU load 14 bots walking around pseudo-randomly have been added to the map."

The 181B uses the same type of active matrix panel as the other Samsung monitors I have tested, but I noticed that it does not seem to be covered with the same hard plastic as the others are, when I push on it leaves much more of an impression then when I touch the other ones. This isn't really a concern unless you plan to be throwing things at your monitor, just an observation. This monitor has a 170° vertical and horizontal viewing angle, which means the image looks proper from almost any angle you can see it from. On monitors with smaller angles the color gets more distorted when you look at it from the side. The optimum and maximum resolution of this monitor is 1280x1024, which is a nice resolution for a monitor of this size, but I wouldn't mind being able to put it up to 1600x1200.

Being the gamer I am, the V8200Ti500 Pure caters to me perfectly because I frankly dont need the other features dotting the Deluxe version. I wouldn't use them, and I really don't keep my videocards long enough to care much about them eventually being used.

Like most other BGA chips, the GeForce3 Ti500 isn't perfectly flat like FC-PGA CPU's, so to smooth out the unevenness, we lapped the core a little. This didn't allow us to overclock the V8200Ti500 any higher, but it did seem to make everything more stable and the system was less prone to lock up during our many overclocking adventures.

Pragmatists would certainly look favourably upon its benchmarks, shrewdly discerning that decent gameplay is still achieved at 1024x768/32bit, which is what most 17" monitors can take anyway.

But, we wish to point out, it didn't send the release to us. We're not on the mailing list and so when Asus says it will now remove us from the mailing list, it doesn't need to bother.

A representative from a European office of Asus drew our attention to a letter that accompanied the release and used some harsh words that went very much like this: "What part of 'Please don't release until Feb 6' was unclear to you?"

Fortunately the heatsink surface is quite big and surpasses this problem in normal operating conditions. In our tests we covered the chip surface with more thermal grease for a better thermal conductivity. As I said in the first page of the review it seems to be only one large memory heatsink "L" shaped. Actually there are two heatsinks, but these heatsinks are installed in such a way that it's hard to realize this. The memory heatsinks are stick to the memory chips with thermal adhesive paper. The size of the memory heatsink which covers the three memory chips perpendicular to the motherboard is small because it's covered by the GPU heatsink. You can see a picture of the smaller memory heatsink in the left.

Today, Apple introduced a new Macintosh computer featuring NVIDIA's next generation, mainstream GPU - GeForce4 MX. GeForce4 MX is 3 to 5 times faster than our previous generation mainstream processor, the GeForce2 MX. In general we do not comment on or compare our products' performance to the competition. Regarding benchmarks that Apple has posted on their website you should contact Apple.

NVIDIA will be making a formal announcement in regards to our family of next-generation GPUs in Feburary - including high-end products."

If you remember my Comdex report, you will remember I mentioned the NV17 chip from NVIDIA. Well this time around I was able to get more information and a hands on experience with these incredible little chips. Little because they are a standard 31mmX31mm size. Incredible because there is a 64MB model this same size. How do they do that? Pretty simple actually. There are two separate designs for the NV17 - the 32MB version and the 64MB version. Both chips (and future NVIDIA designed chips for use in notebooks) use what NVIDIA calls MAP, or Mobile AGP Package. Don't you love it when an acronym has an acronym within it?

• The Tech Zone - Weekly Price Index

• 3D Spotlight - Product Price Comparison

• SL Central - CPU/Memory Watch

HalcYoN: I hope by posting links to 8500 AIW reviews I give NVIDIA a kick in the pants to step up development on a second generation Personal Cinema. This is one area ATI has NVIDIA.

For pure gaming value, it's tough to beat the GeForce2 Ti cards. These are clocked (250 MHz) at GeForce2 ULTRA levels, but with a memory speed (400 MHz) of the GeForce2 Pro. What is amusing is that the hybrid GeForce2 Ti is less expensive than either of the other GeForce2 products. This makes it the natural choice for a value system, but the problem is in finding just the right model. For our money, the Gainward GeForce2 Ti/450 TV more than fits the bill, not only due to its great performance and nice price point, but for the extras you get.

MikeC: I blasted the editors of PC World about that article. Their benchmark suite is outdated and they don't cover major features such as what DirectX 8 brings to the table, antialiasing, and the Radeon's Smoothvision.

While the current GeForce2Go is one of the top performers in the notebook market, the name still says it all. GeForce 2 Go. The GeForce2's day in the sun is long past, as the GeForce3 and GeForce3 Titanium families are also nearing the end of their product cycle. Considering nVidia has all but passed up the opportunity for a GeForce3Go (or perhaps, GeForce3-2-Go?), we're betting that nVidia's next generation mobile chip (codenamed NV17-M) should be hitting markets fairly soon with a new name attached.

The Zen CPU Radiator is one of these exotic heatsinks that uses a fairly new cooling method (for CPU's anyway). While the name gives away its special distinguishing feature, the heatlane radiator used to transfer heat from CPU to the surrounding air isn't your average radiator.

Typedef: I just went to the website, and the link is now working. Unfortunately, I'm still @ work, and I'm afraid that this Matrox G400 isn't quite cutting the mustard for trying this out (of course, it doesn't support this extension either).

The beta 27.20 drivers are available at 3D Chipset.

Typedef: Mike, you beat me to the punch. The one thing that I think deserves some recognition is the fact that nVidia has been able to significantly increase the Triangle throughput in these latest set of drivers. The 1 light test has increased by 30%, while the 8 light test increased by a whopping 62%! One might conclude that nVidia has uncovered a sizeable performance gain while tuning NV25 drivers. Just imagine how significant the performance might be once the...

The press release for the dual 1GHz Power Mac G4 can be found here.

"The new dual 1-GHz Power Mac G4 with NVIDIA GeForce4 graphics is the fastest Mac ever and the fastest personal computer ever for creative professionals," said Philip Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "This is the first Mac to break the 1-GHz barrier and the first computer in the world to feature NVIDIA GeForce4 graphics."

Versions 1.08 of NVIDIA's Media Driver is also available for Personal Cinema owners.

Update: Malcolm has informed me that these are available only for Windows XP systems.

Second Update: It appears the drivers on MS's WHQL page only support the nv17 and nv17m... so Max Reboot has mirrored modded version of these drivers so that they support all NVIDIA cards. Does it show that I don't really care about these revisions? ;)

So imagine my surprise when I cranked up the core to 245, memory to 545, and stayed stable. Looping Quaver, with 4x Full Screen Anti Aliasing over the course of 12 hours, and not a blip or hiccup at all! Again, I don't exactly live in the Sunshine State but still - after getting my jaw up off the floor, I noticed that now we were entering into Ti 500 territory - both in terms of being well beyond the normal clock speeds for those cards, and in performance that comes darn close to some very expensive cards. We are talking 10 to 20 FPS over the stock Gainward, and a solid 20+ over a standard Ti 200 - all for the same price as those cards. To me, that's pretty bloody impressive.

HomeLAN - What has been done to improve the graphics in the new game?

Richard Yasi - Quite a bit. We're using texture compression now, and we are now supporting anisotropic filtering. Our cars are much higher resolution than they were in N4, and we have a cool backfire effect that really adds to the realism level. Overall, I think people will be pleased by the changes.

I used the demo of Nascar 2002 in an image quality comparison in my Prolink GeForce3 Ti 200 review. Click here to check it out.

When I reviewed the 921DVI I made the remark that although there was a good layer of thermal grease under the GPU sink, the fact that I wasn't the first to use the board meant I couldn't confirm Elsa had applied it. The good news is that the 721 was a virgin board and popping off the sink revealed the same application of grease, a sure sign that Elsa are taking the cooling side seriously.

All 128 MBytes cards are not useful much as there are no applications which would require such a size for acceleration of texturing.

The article goes on to say that Intel will monitor the success/failure of AMD's Hammer, and then make a determination as to which direction to pursue: either kill Itanium or go with Yamhill.

The expected timeframe is 2003-4.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be something that I would have thought would be very useful; however, after playing around with it for an hour or so, I have come to the conclusion that this is, indeed, a very nice feature.

I setup 2 different desktops: one for doing some development on, and another used strictly for fun (gaiming/DVD/WinTV/etc). I setup 2 hotkeys to switch back and forth....From one desktop, I was playing Quake3, and was able to switch to the other without causing any major errors. Also, I was able to do so while within the game itself...I thought I might run into some problems, but to my surprise, it worked OK.

About the only issue I encountered was the inability to restore the resolution state when going from Quake3 to the other desktop. Hopefully, they can work around this issue...

In celebration, they have a new version of NVmax available, here.  Another gizmo of interest is VCool, a software utility to cool Athlon and Duron CPU's, latest version here

• AMD confirmed that SSE2 will be included in all Hammer processors, including the Clawhammer, which is scheduled to debut later this year.

• NVIDIA told us that NV17 is five times faster than GeForce2Go, while consuming less power.

• Sales of its nForce core logic controller are very brisk, with some vendors claiming to be quickly selling out of nForce-powered motherboards.

• DDR400 will not likely happen at all -- at least as far as modules are concerned -- because this speed will not be easy to achieve unless a new core is designed, which, in itself, would be a two year process. At best, DDR400 is seen as a niche product.

• Altera and TSMC Deliver Industry's First 0.13-Micron All-Copper

• TSMC Fab 12 Sets World Record for Delivery of 0.13-Micron Devices on 300mm Wafers with Production-Worthy Yields (10/22)

• Capacity utilization decreased to 50% from 105% due to softer business conditions.

If you need any information on the car's history, you have access to the mechanics that have done all the work on the car since I bought it in 1994: Norwood Auto Racing here in Dallas, TX. The turbo is set at 14 pounds of boost, but you can take it up from there to about 18-19 pounds for a whopping 750 bhp!

We got some nice Chrome ramsinks on there and a huge heatsink with the standard vidcard fan. We all know that Chrome makes everything faster so were off to a good start here. A look at the side shows the connections we got to play with on this card. We got the standard 15 pin vga, we got the S-Video connector, and the DVI connector... my favorite one of all. I think all these connectors is what drew me to this card over all the others, well.. that and it was the cheapest one at newegg.

Intrinsically, the Titanium(s) represent mere offshoots of the original GF3, differentiated only by clock/memory speeds. By further segmenting the GF3, Nvidia aims to up the baseline ante of 3D graphics in the mid-term, thereby extending the GF3 chipset life-cycle by another year or so, whilst still shrewdly fulfilling their claim to a 6 month product development cycle. Notably, this move has been actively replayed by Nvidia - from the onset of TNT Ultras till today's GF3 variants, and has become an integral part of their product strategy.

The benchmark is designed specifically to push the latest and greatest graphics cards as hard as we can. UPT is about the future, not the present. All of this will become clearer over the next few months. We will also be adding more features and content to UPT2002 to push things even harder. "Influence, Educate and Improve" will be our motto for the Unreal Performance Test. A lot of cool things are planned. In popular game development lingo what you're seeing now are some preliminary results from what equates to an early alpha version. Stay tuned!

Hmm, Yamhill anyone?

• BladeRunner completes his silent PC project which utilizes the GeForce3 cooler he developed a while back.
• ParaKnowYa has posted a guide on how to flash the BIOS on Kyro based graphics cards.
• Games Fusion discusses optimizing performance on the ATI Radeon 8500.
• Overclocked Cafe has posted part one of their guide on building an a cost-effective overclocked PC.
• VoidYourWarranty shows how to use a speaker grill for a case fan cover.
• Tweakers Asylum has a showdown between the AOpen AX45 and Shuttle AS40GTR motherboards (Pentium 4 / SiS645 chipset / 333MHz DDR).
• Bjorn 3D takes a look at Medal of Honor.

A few more while making my rounds...

• x-bit labs reports that Abit's NV7m nForce based motherboard has shown up in Japan.
• Viper's Lair reviews the AMD Athlon XP 1800+ processor.
• Tiscali Games has the playable demo of Motoracer 3 available for download.
• MadOnion reviews Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

I'm feeling warm and fuzzy all over as Bill Gates invests $500 million in Cox Communications.

At this moment, actually just a few weeks before the announcement of GeForce4 the GeForce3 Ti500 is the fastest 3D Graphics consumer videocard available to date. The last products we reviewed from Creative was their GeForce3, performance was right on par with the NVIDIA reference design. Basically a very good product but what I missed and noted in that review was some custom made items like ram sinks and high-performance cooling, I recall it overclocked like a lunatic despite whose missing features.

While it doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things (heck neither does car racing) MadOnion was kind enough to have a "Fastest Webmasters Competition ". This is nothing big, just bragging rights for webmasters, and since yours truly is on top, I figured I might as well share some of the tips that have kept me kicking everyone else's butts for the last few months!

The "Hardware Options" panel displays your AGP settings, while the "Display Orientation" panel should allow rotating the display. However, this feature doesn't work too well yet, as it does not rotate the mouse pointer movement and drops out of that mode quite often.

MikeC: The registry entry in your system may differ from those found in the file depending on the OS. Normally, the first two entries should work fine. It's the last three that may require a different registry key. For example a visitor sent in an e-mail stating that the key needed to be changed from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nv\Device0] to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{CFF0CEA2-5C99-46A7-80F9-0718C6194DFD}\0000] under the professional version of Windows XP.

However, you cannot discount the Krass graphics engine which is one of the few titles taking advantage of features new to DirectX 8 which include vertex and pixel shaders.

With the GeForce4 rumored to contain a second vertex processing unit, any preview/review of NVIDIA's upcoming chipset should include some kind of performance results from Aquanox. While I don't have a retail version of the game, I do have an OEM version which I will probably used to test performance in upcoming reviews. However, my results will be based on actual gameplay in lieu of a demo.

Anyway, Tom's Hardware takes a look at the performance of the retail version of Aquanox with a variety of graphics cards. DirectX 8 compliant cards, such as the GeForce3 and Radeon 8500, do very well in the tests. Thanks for sending the link Mark.

While current video cards have no trouble with older games like Quake 3, running them at record speeds of around 150fps even at high resolutions, the new crop of DirectX 8 games can bring even these performance monsters to their knees. The CPU is really only of secondary importance, as the scores of the Athlon 1333 system show.

I took the warped heatsink and put it on a cookie sheet, placed it in the oven on 400°F for about 20 - 25 minutes. I removed the heatsink from the oven and placed it between two steel rulers and set a 15lb weight on top of it. I let the heatsink cool down for the next hour with the weight applied to it until it was cool to touch, and taa-daa. . . I had a "like new" heatsink, and I was ready to roll.

What first appears to be just a very smart looking 17" TFT LCD manages to pack in HDTV compatibility an optional TV tuner for cable Television and if that weren't enough by itself, the 171MP also sports built-in speakers, RCA video and S-Video inputs. This LCD TV quite capable in the home, office, or multimedia studio. Stereo audio via RCA input and a mini-head phone jack are also cared for if headphones are you method of choice.

• Socket 370-based processors
  (Intel Pentium III, Celeron, VIA C3)
  
• VIA PL133 (VT8604 north bridge, VT82C686B south bridge)
  
• Built-in S3 ProSavage AGP 4x
  
• Interconnect PCI (133MB/s shared)
  
• PCI slots 1 (none shared)
  
• Memory 2 168-pin DIMM sockets for up to 1GB of
• PC100 or PC133 SDRAM
  
• 2 channels ATA-100
  
• Ports - 2 line in for AC97 audio, 1 game port, 1 DB15 VGA connector, 1 S-Video, 1 composite video, 1 RJ-45 Ethernet
  
• Bus speeds - 66/100/124/133/140/150MHz

HalcYoN; I am still waiting on someone to take advantage of the nForce chipset to build a more powerful Flex ATX mobo for use with my home theater...

Best GeForce3 went to the Asus V8200 Deluxe...

To put things into perspective, the average polygon counts range from 50 - 100 times that of Unreal Tournament. We were also told that texture usage has increased approximately 8 fold as well. Courtesy of DXT texture compression, the overall memory bandwidth usage has only gone up by a quarter of that.

Overview of the new functions / changes:
• Support for Philips TV chips
  
• Option 'Dot Crawl Reduction' resp.'Cross Color Reduction'
  
• Option 'Chroma Bandwith'
  
• Option 'Multi-Row style'
  
• Option 'Load on startup' Sharper image for Chrontel chips
  
• New hotkey 'Size toggle'
  
• New Hotkey-Modifier Win and CTRL+ALT
  
• Hardware detection expanded for new cards
  
• Improved user interface

Among others these bugs are fixed:

• DVI connection should work properly again
  
• Image shifting on Chrontel chips solved

It seems like Visiontek will be the first vendor out the door with a wide variety of cards (as was the case with the GF3). Who said helping NVIDIA with the design wasn't worthwhile? ;)

Update: Couputers4Sure has stopped taking the Pre-orders, but PC Mall has it for $117.99 and eCOST for $114.87.

Indeed, the reason for the Ti450 title of this card is because out of the box the 64Mb of 4ns DDR is clocked at 450MHz, as opposed to the standard reference speed of 400MHz (200MHz Double-Data Rate). The core GPU clock is also higher, set at 200MHz instead of 175MHz as with the stock Ti200.

What does this mean for the consumer? It means that the guesswork involved in buying a graphics card with a view to overclocking it is gone. Many people buy a graphics card and are very disappointed because they can't clock it as high as someone else with the same card. This card is overclocked out the box, and Gainward guarantee the speed so it is stable at the speeds it's shipped at. Will it go higher? Find out later!

I'm proud to announce that NVmax 4.0 has hit it's last alpha! In this version there is only one known problem left, and its tiny.

If you used any previous version of NVmax with detonator drivers 12.90 or higher and found clock speeds would not adjust, they will with this version. This is due to enumeration of devicekeys until the real value is found (Windows and NVIDIA sometimes use different keys)

The results are quite amazing. Click on the headline to check it out!

• Enhanced tools for COPPA support
• User birth date field (required for COPPA, optional if you have not enabled COPPA)
• Post preview function
• Printer-friendly topic view
• XHTML templates (~99% compliant, thanks to Allen Ayres of UBBDev!)
• "Recent Visitors", a superior implementation of "Who's Online"
• UBB Accelerator updated to comply with PHP 4.1.0's new security model
• After a reply or edit, you are now taken to your post in the topic
• Enhancements to the user search feature (new searchable fields, such as IP at registration, IP at last post, and birth date)
• Topic authors may now toggle email notification by editing their post (they may turn it on if off, and off if on)
• Private forums may now be set to disallow new topics or replies (previously, new topics and replies were forced 'on')

• The Tech Report reviews the Shuttle AK35GTR KT266A motherboard. Can the Shuttle take the top postion in the best Athlon mobo list?

• SL Central does PC TV on the cheap with the AVerMedia AVerTV Box. Pretty good image quality, slightly buggy...

• EX Hardware has posted a press release from VIA announcing the ProSavage DDR PN266T Chipset. The North Bridge integrates the S3 Savage8 graphics core.

• EX Hardware also takes a look at Belkin's home networking pacakage.

• GameSpy reviews Medal of Honor: Allied Assault declaring the game the "best Single-Player FPS since Half-Life and Dues Ex".

• Icrontic checks out the AMK SX1000 PC Case. The SX100 is similar to the case that Alienware uses for their systems with the SX1000 featuring side AND top blowholes.

Feedback here for those of you brave enough to try them.

HalcYoN: The drivers also contain several new OpenGL extensions and product codes.  They confirm many theories floating about the web.

Thanks to feedback from John, we should avoid using the phrase "click on the headline." Makes sense to me. As John's commented to his peers - "we eat pizza, we don't eat *on* pizza..." :)

Pakman: True, but I've been known to feast on pizza.

MikeC: Then again, Jessie offers this analogy - "Get down on the dance floor, wish upon a star, click on the headline - Pizza is not a location."

Pakman: If this is true, then I have hundreds of products which are mislabeled. They all say to "cut on the dotted line". I thought the link is "located" on our page, and we are simply pointing out where to click on our page to go elsewhere?

STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, closed out its year with a decline in net income of 90 percent during the fourth quarter while sales plummeted 33 percent.

Medal of Honor graphics are easily the best visual adaptation of the Quake III engine yet. I sincerely hope you have a strong enough rig to crank up the effects, as the results are truly spectacular. The particle effects are awesome, and you'll be blown away by the natural animation -- Nazi death sequences in particular (highly dependant on the hit areas: neck, head, leg, etc.), and the number of polys per scene.

Our Online ResultBrowser allows you to make performance comparisons between your PC and similar PCs from around the world! From the ORB comparison graphs, you can easily see how your PC's performance could be improved by upgrading to a faster processor or 3D accelerator The Publish Project feature allows you to make your projects visible to other users, and easily compare them with projects published by other users.

• RivaTuner 2.0 Release Candidate 9
• GeForce Tweak Utility 3.1.2 (3.2t16)

All you have to do is send us a short story (150 words or less) or other creative submission, such as a photo or short video attachment, describing or showing the most "original" way you've used your ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON, ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500DV or ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 7500.

The first release of CookieCop let you accept or reject cookies on a per-site basis. CookieCop Plus added the option to block offensive sites and banner ads by replacing them with the image of your choice. Our newest version adds the ability to disable pop-up windows, remove cross-site referrer information, and convert permanent cookies into session-only cookies that don't leave any "crumbs" on your hard disk.

The program's new performance features let you fine-tune the operation of CookieCop's proxy engine. Advanced users will appreciate the new Viewer window, which shows data transferred to and from your browser. The Viewer window is invaluable when trying to understand exactly what a site is doing.

• Fixed bug with SignOn message on non reference BIOSes.
• Added option to change OEM Revision.
• Added multilingual support German, Spanish, French, Croatian languages are included, and also included non translated files for other languages.
• Now program use installation system.
• Fixed some bugs in HEX Editor.
• Added options to change font in HEX Editor window.

• The Tech Zone - Weekly Price Index

• 3D Spotlight - Product Price Comparison

• SL Central - CPU/Memory Watch

The All-In-Wonder 7500 is designed for mainstream segment of the graphic card market for those interested in enhancing their multimedia experience on the PC. It's also great for those people who wish to turn their computer into a home theater. With a suggest retail price of just $199 the All-In-Wonder 7500 just may capture a big chunk of that market.

I get emails once in awhile about a decent video card for everyday use, and for occasional gaming. Most of the time, they'll add "But my budget is limited to about 50$ - 75$". Considering that nVidia is pimping the GeForce 3 Titanium, and with the GeForce 4 so close to RTM, I usually say if you're looking for a minor upgrade (pre-GF2), with a small budget in mind, it's hard to go wrong with the GeForce 2 MX series. Also, since most LAN parties I go to, everyone is still playing Starcraft and Counter-Strike, so any 300$ video card will be wasted here.

It goes without saying that ATI and Nvidia are locked in a battle for the desktops, notebooks, game consoles, TV tuners, and hearts of consumers. As in any good fight, sometimes it's not the combatants that decide the contest, but a bystander taking an interest in the outcome. Whether it's an OEM partner, software developer, or even CPU vendor, the idea is to not take a pummeling while a third party holds your arms behind your back.

Croteam does not use these shaders. It's a fact that future hardware is going in that direction but for the time being those shaders are at the limits of useability.

MikeC: I forgot that John Carmack had posted a few comments concerning vertex and pixel shaders back in February of 2001.

I noticed that fdiv_bug has put up a web site for the NVIDIA fan based RTCW clan and that there is a practice scheduled for tonight. Click the headline to check it out and be sure to join in on the fun!

• K7N420 Pro - nForce based from MSI
• GeForce3 Ti
• 1 GB memory (TwinBank)
• 120 GB harddisk 7200 RPM
• 1.7 GHz+ CPU

Meanwhile, given the performance of the 845G, which is close to that of Nvidia's GeForce2 MX400, and customers' affirmation of the 845G's specifications, Intel is not only optimistic about its chances in the system market, but also in the clone one. However, card makers said that business opportunities in the clone market may not be as great as Intel expects, citing the chip giant's previous attempt in the segment with its 810 and 815 Pentium III-based chipsets.

It's quite clear that the card offers excellent performance out of the box in both 240/500 and 240/550 guises but it really shines when the speeds are pushed a bit further. The memory clock was able to be pushed to at least 595Mhz in all benchmarks and at least 265Mhz on the core clock was doable with often quite a bit more. The card is highly overclockable and given decent cooling could maybe go higher. The card was stock cooled throughout with only a case fan near the card helping to draw the hot air away which is slightly worse than blowing cold air over it.

NVmax 4.00.14 is an ALPHA release and has been released to provide feedback for the non-alpha/beta release that will be available very shortly.

Please read the license agreement which includes details on known problems. DO NOT report problems that are included in this list!

For safety use this release on a test system and not your main machine.

Asus has always produced quality products. Asus Started with motherboards and as with many other manufacturers has moved to incorporate graphics cards into their ever growing product lines. The V8200 Deluxe Geforce 3 card was very impressive with its massive array of inputs and outputs and Asus's new Geforce 3 Ti500 based card, the V8200T5 should be no exception. Being based on the new Ti500 core and following nVidia's standard Clock frequencies of 240/500, core/mem the V8200T5 is a shoe in for one of the fastest card's available today.

Here are a few choice quotes...

about the BitBoys...

I OWNED a Pyramid3D board. I may actually still have it. IT SUCKED. BAD. It didn't run ANYTHING worth a damn. If BB was all that and a bag chips, you don't think they'd be out the door by now? Do you know how desperate board manufacturers are for a chip vendor OTHER than The Big Two?

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the BitBoys.

On the issue of ATI's R300 being Microsoft's DX9 reference board, rather than an nVidia board...And ATI's drivers, as perceived by developers...

This isn't what I'm hearing from, oh, developers. Keep in mind that it takes at least one or two product refreshes to alienate developers. Even when TNT was out and kicking 3Dfx's a**, many developers were still staunchly using Voodoo technology. It wasn't until it became blindingly apparent that 3Dfx was massively inept that they started changing over. And in the case ATI -- developers HATE ATI's drivers. They are disastrous. And no developer in his right mind is going to use that as his primary development platform.

Gameplay was smooth at 1280x1024 (Athlon XP 1800+/GeForce3 Ti 500) with pixel shaders enabled. Mouse control was sensitive and took time to get used to. A playable demo of Aquanox is also available.

A few items...

• We will be exchanging links with the German NVIDIA fan site www.NVinside.de.
• This Finnish web site takes Pentium 4 cooling to the extreme. Thanks bingo.
• X-bit labs takes a look at the Hyundai Cutie external hard drive.
• CDFreaks reviews Waitec's MEGALUS 24/10/40 CD-RW drive and compares performance with the Plextor 24/10/40 and the Lite-ON 24/10/40.
• Hardware Avenue has whipped up a review of the Philips Acoustic Edge 5.1 sound card.
• tbreak reviews Creative's new Digital/Web Cam (PC-CAM 600).

I'm off to 7-11 to get me and the wife caramel flavored cappuccino's...heh. Damn, they replaced the caramel flavor with almond. Had to settle for French vanilla.

There's even a press release that Vid_Craz dug up on Hynix Semiconductor's 128MB DDR SDRAM which operates at a 375MHz clock speed. Umm, tasty. So dig in by clicking on the headline.

• Pure Oc

  This board have potentials. The memory benchmarks is much higher then on any KT266A board but stil the performance is stil below the KT266a. I think it is a driver problem. I can't think of any other that can be stopping it. I used the latest nVidia Unified drivers and what I have heard they are much faster then the older. So maybe nVidia will release another set of drivers that can actually beat the KT266A board. If they are then they better do it soon, before the KT333 is released. As it is right now the board is performing acouple fps and points lower then the KT266a chip.

• AMD World

  Memory placement has been of much debate since the release of the NVIDIA(r) nForce 420/220 based motherboards and once again we see here that the optimum choice will be using two modules of Corsair XMS2400 in dimm1 and dimm2 using the third dimm reduced the memory performance as we will see and as we have seen on the MSI K7N420 Pro.

MikeC: These could have been decent reviews had the grammar been up to par. A better read is Amdmb.com's review of the MSI K7N420 Pro.

Void where prohibited by law...Offer Not valid in all states...

It is the weekend, time to wash the car (again, heh) and take the dog on a nice long walk. Maybe post a review, dare to dream! Hopefully you guys will dig it.

Now some Randomness...

• The car nut in me can't help but post this one. The Tech Zone reviews the Mercedes Benz S600. This is the benchmark for all sedans, perhaps the techno-laden new 7-series will give it a run for the money.

• tuplay takes a look at Return to Castle Wolfenstein Multiplayer. If you have not tried it yet, go see what you are missing.

• PC Stats also reviews a motherboard, the IWill XP333-R. The board has 2/5th, 1/3rd, 1/5th and 1/6th PCI dividers in an attempt to become the ultimate overclocker's mobo.

• Hexus.net shows off their DIY water-cooling project. I may give water-cooling a try some day.

• 3D GameMan has posted another video review.The Lian Li PC-76 is shiny, I like shiny things, heh.

Ironically, a set of leaked ATI drivers for Windows XP just showed up today.

HalcYoN: If you rememeber at the launch of the 8500, new drivers were leaked fairly regularly.  Seems ATI has decided to limit the leaks after all...

Perhaps a clearer explanation should be made about Sidrial so everyone here understands what we are trying to do. Sidrial was created as a Machinima project, not a game (for info on machinima, visit machinima.com). What does that mean? It means that new media is being created to tell a story, an animated story within the environment (ie: the levels that you are playing in, we film the story in - it's our set and it's our playground). This is why you do not see any AI and why the single player is relatively simple.

While developing the animation, we were having such a good time running around the environment that we felt others would enjoy it too. We put a lot of work into the animation and thought it would be cool to release some of what we had done as a TC for Quake III. We think Machinima is cool and that it has a future that coincides with games. I think the fact that some folks think this is a demo for a full retail game is evidence that the synergy is there.

With over 5,000 registered forum members that can post messages, there should be plenty of content. So who's going to be crowned the "King of Gossip?"

MikeC: Da_Razor takes the early lead...

• added support for negative D3D LevelOfDetail values
• enhanced anisotropic4tap setting
• added a lot of "quickhelp" / tooltip information (The text that appears in the statusbar when you move the mouse over a setting)
• added DirectX Texture Format settings
• renamed ZCullEnable setting to "Enable Z-Occlusion-Culling"
• bugfixed VSYNC setting with 23.11 driver
• disabled Level 4 & 8 Anisotropy (32 and 64 tap) on all cards below GF3
• fixed wrong LODBiasAdjust algorithm

Whenever I get a chance to talk to someone "on the inside" I would rather not try to pimp out any information about the future products, well not too hard at least. :þ  Instead, I like to find out what its like to actually be "on the inside".  Just like many other places, things at NVIDIA are not all that mysterious.  Meet the goals set by the business and stay in business.

We discussed the corporate culture, plenty of hard work, but not with out reward.  It is surprising to hear the names of companies employees previously worked for thrown around.  Some rediculously obscure. NVIDIA, as a company, is as strong as they have ever been, partially due to open recruiting with people from 3dfx, ATI, Rendition, you name it, all coming to NVIDIA to be the best.

There are some great things on the horizon, maybe a surprise or two right around the corner.  Unfortunately, you have to wait, just like I do.

Thanks for lunch Brian...

The MSI K7N420 Pro is a great performing, and very stable board during testing. So long as I kept my overclocking to 140 FSB or less, things were fine and dandy. For the money, it has great sound, a network interface, extra USB ports (which I neglected to mention earlier), and a decent video solution. Add a high performance board with your own video, sound, and NIC and most likely, you'll be paying more.

• Support for Microsoft DirectX 8.1
• Fully compatible with Windows XP
• A new DirectX 8.1 feature test, utilizing Pixel Shader 1.4!
• Updated 'System Info' which can display additional system configuration info, including installed hard drives and AGP settings.
• The usage of compressed textures has been optimized.
• Support for the latest AMD and Intel processors.
• All reported compatibility issues fixed.
• Benchmark results from the original release of 3DMark2001 and 3DMark2001 SE are comparable.

I received an e-mail from Grace at Prolink this morning who was quite upset that their PixelView GeForce4 MX box shots and specs had been leaked on the Internet. She's been in damage-control mode since then and people may not realize the grief it's caused her.

I urge other webmasters to do the same. It's not right to put a persons job in jeopardy by posting rumors or pictures of unannounced products.

Instead of asking us to post this information, there's nothing stopping you from posting it in the forums.

MikeC: I've received word from other prominent webmasters who have previously started (as Bjorn 3D already had a policy) or will join this cause - 3DGPU, 3DChipset, and Bjorn 3D.

Comments on this decision can be made here.

HalcYoN: This initiative will be a difficult undertaking at nV News. While we all like the buzz, people's livelihoods are at stake. It just is not worth it.

Many leaks come at the cost of someone's word, a betrayal of trust all for a few additional hits. Compromising principle has never been our style and I thank Mike for making a stand.

First off, consider that you have a cherry picked, bin sorted GeForce3 core to work with. It comes at a standard clock of 240MHz. Then add a cooler with a decent sized fan, and razor thin cooling fins to keep the heat off. Then use RAM heatsinks on 64MB of quality 3.8ns DDR RAM which comes at a default clock of 500MHz. What does this all add up to? One heck of a fine overclocking card. I ran several batch loop tests to determine where I found the true sweet spot for this card was. That is, a clock ratio that will not fail and is safe to run at. The result was 250MHz core coupled with a 590MHz memory clock.

The GeForce3's pixel shaders allowed us to create real time reflections and gloss maps for vehicles and the fast stencil buffers are great when it comes to accurate shadows. We also were able to generate more realistic surfaces across water and tires for instance, by using dot product 3 bump mapping.

Last but not least, I'm glad to be back on-line. I missed the work, I missed the site, I missed the community ...

JonathanM: Warp2Search has 7 mirros up and they're extremely fast (100+Kbps).

Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All travel in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.

The problem with NVIDIA cards arises when a third party manufacturer's low-pass filter filters out some of the important frequencies as well as those that aren't needed. It is unlikely that the capacitors and inductors that make up the low-pass filter are deliberately chosen to be of poor quality, rather the rating of the components is not up to par with what NVIDIA's specifications call for.

• Hot Hardware takes a look at NVIDIA's reference nForce motherboard
• AMDWorld tests Corsair's XMS2400 DDR RAM on nForce and Via chipsets and compares performance against Crucial's PC2100 memory modules.
• SimHQ has a follow-up to their AMD Athlon XP vs Intel Pentium 4 processor dogfight with more benchmarks.
• GotApex? reviews the AMD Athlon XP 2000+ processor.
• Tweaktown reviews the SiS 645 chipset based 4SDA+ motherboard from Epox.
• Tbreak has complete specs and a picture of Soltek's upcoming KT333 motherboard in their forum.
• GamePC takes a look at Coolermaster's new stylish aluminum PC case, the ATC-110-SX1.
• nV News visitor Magnus from Sweden sends word of another anti-cheat for Counter-Strike called Cheating Death. It's running on his server and invites fellow players to check it out at IP: 217.215.22.232:27020. Stats are at http://aeolus.kicks-ass.net.

• Fast-MHz has added a ton of case mods making the total number now up to 230.  There are some pretty sweet rigs...

• VR-Zone has started a Pentium4 Northwood Overclocking Database.  Share your results with the rest of the web and try to beat 3.67GHz.

• The Tech Zone gives the ECS K7VTA3 Rev 2.0 the full nelson.  This board offers the KT266A chipset up at a bargain price.

• Hexus.net has posted their Hexus System Guide.  The budget model uses the integrated video from the MSI nForce motherboard, while the gaming and dream systems stress the importance of having a good video card with the Hercules Ti 500.

• hardCOREware updated their weekly OEM prices.

• 3D GameMan has a video review of the Shuttle AK35GTR.  The email teaser calls it "one incredible motherboard."

It seems that the end of SGI, as we know them (or knew), is approaching. At least, that's the speculation.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Wednesday reported a fourth-quarter loss compared with a year-ago profit, hurt by a price war with rival Intel Corp., but the maker of microprocessors and memory chips managed to post revenues that edged ahead of analyst forecasts and forecast a return to profitability in the second quarter of 2002.

In this article I'll discuss the pros and cons of the shader architecture for developers, and give you my opinions about the way games programmers are going to have to change to accommodate this new architecture.

The Paladin system was born after PunkBuster retreat. Our main objective is to keep the "good" fun during Counter-Strike game play and more than this... Counter-Strike is now becoming an eSport: there wont be any real competition while people use cheats to win. Our best effort is to keep the game as fair as possibile. Paladin is the leading champion of the anticheat cause!

• Noticias3D has posted a review of VIA's 866MHz C3 processor.
• MGON checks out the GeForce3 Ti 500 graphics card from Hercules.
• DigitTimes reports that Via and SiS will be producing new Athlon based chipsets in February.
• Microsoft is in discussions with Japanese software giants Square and Enix in regards to developing games for the Xbox.

After nearly a month of downtime due to our server move and other issues, the Overclockers Australia PC Database is back up and running! In case you missed it, the PCDB aims to be the ultimate online gallery of modified PC's as well as a database of configuration and overclocking information. It's
fully automated, in that you can submit your information and pictures and your entry will instantly be available for viewing. The system will even let you upload your pictures into it so they are hosted from our server! People use PCDB links in their homepages, email and forum signatures on different websites all over the world. The revamped PCDB has quite a few bugfixes, much more speed due to our new grunty server.

We are going to add up the total "wins" for each benchmark from the "default clock" category and the "overclock" category together with our "technology" points, for a DOGFIGHT winner. We started this Head-to-Head with the full intention of picking a winner so we are going to be crowning a new SimHQ CPU champion today!

GURNEE, Ill. - Jan. 16, 2002 - VisionTek, a leading provider of advanced graphics and memory solutions for PCs, today announced that it has captured the top retail spot among PC graphics accelerator manufacturers. Sparked by the soaring success of their Xtasy(tm) video cards based on Titanium(tm) graphics processing units (GPUs) from NVIDIA(r) Corporation, VisionTek seized more than 42 percent of all U.S. retail graphics card sales for November 2001, according to the latest report from NPD INTELECT Market Tracking(r).

The latest market share data confirms that VisionTek has taken a commanding retail lead over all other board manufacturers, marking the first time an NVIDIA graphics card partner has achieved market share dominance in U.S. stores. The news also means that VisionTek achieved a strategic sales goal to become the No. 1 supplier of graphics cards at retail by the end of 2001.

"We are very pleased with Visiontek's rapid retail growth in 2001," said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of sales at NVIDIA. "NVIDIA has grown to become the #1 retail graphics supplier with partners like Visiontek and the award-winning performance of the Titanium and MX families of GPUs."

"VisionTek's dominance in U.S. retail stores is the direct result of a dedicated effort to bring the industry's best graphics technology to consumers on time and at price points that sell," said John Malley, director of marketing at VisionTek. "We are proud to have achieved this milestone during the toughest holiday shopping season in a decade."

Who would have thought back in the days of the Riva 128 or the good old TNT that memory would eventually become a limiting fed for profanity*.

Looking at the VIVO features, both support S-Video and composite in and out, have full support for Digital VCR, and include the same exact production and editing software. There are really no differences when it comes to VIVO features. However, in image quality, there is a difference. The composite TV-out on the Asus card was a bit sharper, as well as its 2D at 1600x1200x32 resolution. If VIVO and high resolution 2D computing are your thing, then the Asus is the better choice.

• W2K/WXP
  
• W98/Me

• The Tech Zone - Weekly Price Index

• 3D Spotlight - Product Price Comparison

• SL Central - CPU/Memory Watch

53.9% - Over a year.
16.4% - Over a month.
10.5% - This is my first time.
8.6% - Since it was Viper 3D.
5.6% - Less than a month.
5.1% - Since it was Mikes Diamond Viper Resources.

The new poll asks "how much are you willing to pay for a graphics card?".

The Abit Siluro Ti200 is based on the nVidia reference design, however, Abit have added a few features of their own. Firstly, for those of you that have a case window and would like to show off your video card, the Siluro Ti200 features a black PCB with an attractive silver heatsink/fan unit. Instead of having separate heatsinks for the core and memory chips, this card features one large heatsink covering the lot. We'll see how this affects overclocking results a bit later on in the review.

While I find the admin of that server at fault for exercising poor judgement in Dave's case, I also have to place some of the blame on the developers who were responsible for implementing the on-line gameplay in Counter-Strike.

Dave's certainly not alone as other visitors to nV News have expressed their frustration with Counter-Strike as well.

Recall, the R300 is a DirectX 9 part, and it would take (apparantly) something along the lines of a NV30-class part to go head-to-head with it. The article even classifies the R300 as a "NV25 killer."

Furthermore, don't forget that R300 is designed by ArtX so we're not talking about the same ATI anymore :)

MikeC: I don't know what to think about the folks over at the Inquirer. Referring to NVIDIA as the "Great Satan of Graphics Chips" makes me wonder if they have a hidden agenda.

The author seemed to indicate that the activity was much more intense than some of the other shows of the previous year. Hopefully, this will be a sign of things to come, as far as the overall economy is concerned.

Just a note to let everyone who's interested know that I'm going to be hosting an [nV] RtCW clan gathering on our server on Monday, January 14th, at 9:30PM Eastern. People who are interested can just come by the server, or meet us in #nvclan on irc.enterthegame.com. The server's address is:

208.247.195.100:27960

I'd like to use this opportunity to see how well this server survives under load, so come one come all! And invite your friends.

We investigated the ways of modifying GeForce3 Titanium graphics cards in order to get the highest performance possible. We modified GeForce3 Ti500/Ti200 based graphics cards, the reference ones as well as those featuring different PCB layouts, and carried out some extreme overclocking experiments. Overclocking a Ti200 piece by over 50%, this is something you should look at!

Basically, you take your motherboard assembly and dunk it into a vat of non-conductive fluid to cool all the components. This enterprising individual was able to score some gently used transformer cooling oil. Using an aquarium and a custom rack to hold the drives, final results were good, yielding a constant system temp of 24C and virtually no noise.

The system includes a GeForce2 MX.

HalcYoN: the site is in French so here is a translation of the history using Google Language Tools.

• GameSpot Hardware pits the nForce against Via's KT266A chipset.
• x-bit Labs has a news blurb on Socket A motherboards chipsets from Via and SiS which will support DDR333 memory.
• Digit-Life has posted their ATI RADEON 8500 and NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 Video Card Extreme Overclocking article.
• XP Refresh.net discusses the refresh rate bug in Windows 2000/XP and offers solutions in addition to registering a complaint to Microsoft.
• x-bit Labs has an ATA/133 controller roundup (Promise Ultra133, HighPoint HPT372 integrated into the mainboard and the M1535D+ South Bridge of ALi MAGiK 1 chipset).
• Little White Dog covers adding USB 2.0 support to Windows 2000 (using BETA drivers).

The Economic News, which does not specify which graphics chips will be used in the deal, does however say that the average price of the cards that Asus will supply is $60 each and it will make a 10 per cent margin on the sales. Dell is expected to source a third of the 800,000 graphic cards a month it needs from Asus, the newspaper adds, and the deal could mean a turnover boost of 10 per cent for the number one mobo company over the year. Asus is one of Nvidia's favoured partners - while Gigabyte, as we reported here a week ago - seems to be swinging towards using major graphics chip rival ATi.

I can't help but recommend the stuff to any auto enthusiast. Follow their directions to the letter and you will be stunned by the results.

As far as requirements go for WineX, they're pretty specific...not due to hardware, but due to available drivers. A P3 or Athlon is required at minimum, and Xfree86 version 4 or higher is also required. This means that if you actually intend to use a 3D accelerator (and you'd better if the game actually uses 3D), then you'd better be using a GeForce at bare minimum. XFree86 version 4's ATI drivers are open-source, and do NOT support 3D acceleration...the only way to get 3D acceleration from an ATI is to you a version 3 Xserver. So ATI cards are out. Matrox cards will work, though serious gamers consider them a lethargic joke (albeit a functional lethargic joke, in this case). Kyro-based cards are also out until the Linux drivers that are in development are released. That leaves NVIDIA with 3D acceleration-compatible XFree drivers, and since they're developed by NVIDIA themselves, they're excellent. And that's it for the Big 4...don't bother thinking about lower-end GPUs like S3, Trident, or even SiS on this one, since they most likely just won't be powerful enough. The video card HAS to be able to accelerate OpenGL under Linux, since WineX converts Direct3D into OpenGL.

HalcYoN: I personally have not had any problems with my SB Live X-Gamer but I did have to use beta drivers at installation of Windows XP.

For all of you spammers out there:

• I have no problem financing my home.
  
• I do not want to take advantage of the lowest cruise line prices to Alaska during the winter.
  
• I do not need a new set of Ginsu knives, even if they are only $12.99 a set.
  
• I won't ever get any prescription drugs, including Viagra and Xenical, from an email form that asks me to send check or money order to "Bob Smith".
  
• I am not losing my hair, and if I were, I certainly would not trust a product named Biofen.
  
• And do you really think that I am going to buy life insurance from jfo8a2y2331@yahoo.com?

So this is my formal announcement: Spam-mongers, please remove me from your email lists. I figure this would be the best way to let you know because your reply address and remove webpages are mysteriously having technical difficulties.

Thank you for your time.

Update: I am about to snap. : I just got spammed for anti-spam software!

BRAND NEW ANTI-SPAM TECHNOLOGY!

Detect & eliminate spam BEFORE it gets to your mail client! Tired of the hundreds of unsolicited commercial email (UCE) infiltrating you mailbox everyday? Now you can do something about it! Seek and Destroy all unwanted junk e-mail at the click of a button, BEFORE it reaches your mailbox!

• Altec Lansing 4100
  
• Cambridge SoundWorks FPS1600
  
• Creative Inspire Digital 5700
  
• Logitech Z-560

The FAQ is up to version 19.4, FYI.

ELSA will continue to promote into the North American market the professional range of graphic cards based in and around the Gloria & Synergy cards. For people in the US & Canada wishing to buy ELSA Multimedia cards then they shall have to purchase cards from the UK or EU from companies like ourselves (Amazon International) who have been shipping back to the US and Canada the Gladiac 921.

With respect to the UK & EU markets and withdrawal of Multimedia Cards, ELSA will continue to supply multimedia graphic cards based around the Nvidia GeForce GPU. Professional graphic cards will be supplied as normal in the UK & the EU.

• Earthweb has an article on NVIDIA's newly announced nForce 415-D motherboard chipset.
• Digit-Life has posted the second part of their December 2001 hardware digest (graphics, monitors, PDAs, notebooks, web-tablets, digital photo, multimedia and peripherals).
• 3dXtreme checks out the Hercules 3D Prophet 4000XT graphics card. The 4000XT is based on the PowerVR Kryo chipset and uses tile based rendering to provide a low-cost 3d gaming solution.
• The Kyro and PowerVR FAQ has been updated to version 2.4 with new content under the Linux section.
• DarkCrow (Korean) has published a review of the Radeon 8500 LE graphics card from FIC.
• 3DGameMan sends word of a video review of the Lian Li PC-35 USB silver mini-tower case.
• GamingIn3D compares mid-range air cooling against water cooling.
• MadOnion has posted reviews of the Sound Blaster Audigy3D and Solarism LM1503 LCD monitor.

MikeC: AshG began a thread on this very subject yesterday.

Bearing in mind the new strategy, ELSA will not sell gaming graphics cards from Gladiac and Erazer families any more, at least in North America. However, the company's daughter divisions in other parts of the world are not obliged to stop selling Erazer and Gladic products immediately. These solutions may still be available in other regions for some time.

ATI confirmed that it has landed orders from the two Chinese companies and will close another deal with Legend. Wang Pao-chu, president of ATI's Asia-Pacific operations, said that the three PC vendors have decided to adopt ATI's Rage 128 and Radeon 7500 products. At present, ATI ships about 40,000 Rage 128-based cards and 30,000 Radeon 7500 cards to China every month. Combined with other product lines, ATI's total shipments in China reach 100,000 units per month. The figure is expected to rise further in the second quarter of 2002.

Another interesting report is that home powerline networking products will begin volume production within the next two months.

Electricity companies in the US, China and Europe (including Germany, Sweden and Iceland), are dedicated to research on replacing broadband networks with electricity systems for data transmission. Ninety manufacturers, including Cisco Systems, Intel, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard (HP), have organized the HomePlug Powerline Alliance and formulated the HomePlug1.0 standard, boasting a maximum transmission speed of 14 mbps (megabits per second).

When I recently stepped on and broke my Compaq Armada M300, I shopped around Compaq's site searching for an Athlon4 laptop with a decent video card. Well if you have performed this same search then you know no one has yet to offer an Athlon4 notebook with a GeForce2 Go or a Radeon 7500. Failing my quest for a dream laptop I conceded that it would be yet another Intel lappy for me. The major factor I was considering was my aching to have a notebook with a powerful video card, such as the GeForce2 Go or the ATi M7 (Mobile Radeon 7500.).

January 7, 2002 - OCZ Technology Group in cooperation with 3DChipset.com announces the release of the OCZ 8500 Nitro video adaptor. The OCZ 8500 Nitro is based on the ATi Radeon 8500 chipset which features ATi TRUFORM(tm), SMARTSHADER(tm), SMOOTHVISION(tm), and HYPER(tm) Z II technologies. The OCZ 8500 Nitro gives you new levels of character realism and texture versatility by raising the bar in visual quality and performance.

"We have chosen to produce ATi Radeon 8500 video cards as ATi's shelf life of the 8500 far exceeds what NVIDIA has to offer.", said Dan Solomon Jr., VP of Product Development at OCZ Technology Group.

"By releasing our OCZ 8500 Nitro now and our OCZ 8500 Nitro SE soon to follow, we are able to provide a superior product with a longer shelf life then products available from other manufacturers".

The OCZ 8500 Nitro will be released in OEM version only. The OCZ 8500 Nitro SE will be retail box only. Pre-ordering will be available through several vendors on Wednesday, January 9th with the estimated shipping is on January 15th. MSRP for the OCZ 8500 Nitro Nitro is $224.99.

In any case, the Athlon XP 2000+ continues AMD's tradition of offering great performance at an excellent price. As hard as Intel has tried to crush it, the Athlon line of processors lives on, and in terms of performance, is thriving. As long as AMD's transition to 0.13-micron is a smooth one, we see no signs of this trend changing.

Our recommendation. If you want a powerful system without a whole lot of integrated components, stick with VIA's KT-266A motherboard. It performs better, is cheaper, and has been proven to be an incredibly stable platform. If you want a fully integrated nForce, stick with the MSI K7N420, if you want a barebones Athlon board, go with the Asus A7V266-E. While the A7N266 is a fantastic performing Athlon platform, there are simply better alternatives out there on both ends of the spectrum.

In addition, the PR also indicates that they will sell their Radeon 8500 products worldwide.

In case you don't recognize the name (I have mentioned it a few times already), there's an employee/mod @ the Matrox tech. forum by the name of "Haig" who likes to torture the Matrox faithful.

In response to somebody who wanted something from Matrox that would include 700 MHz DDR, Programmable T&L, Vertex/Pixel Shaders, 3D Textures + compression, shadow buffers, and 90-120 MPolygons/sec....

You aren't too demanding :)

Can't get into that right now but the die shrink size and and all other info will be up in the near future.

Can't comment on any features till they are announced.

But, the thing that should be VERY clear is the fact that Matrox are, indeed, coming back. Furthermore, it could signal the first time in years where we might actually have bona-fide competition in the high-end.

3D Velocity reviews the ELSA Gladiac 921DV GeForce3 Ti 500.  The review includes background info on the GeForce3 with specific info on the ELSA offering starting on page seven.

The Gladiac 921 comes with the usual assortment of connectors including analogue and DVI out and of course TV out which is handled by the Conexant BT869 chip. This aging chip is used on most Ti series cards and offers adequate if unspectacular performance at resolutions up to 800x600 from various YCrCb or RGB digital streams. It also offers both NTSC or PAL outputs. I can't help but think it's time manufacturers moved on to using the superior Conexant CX25871 chip which offers ATSC High Definition Television (HDTV) output, true international television display (NTSC, PAL and SECAM output), and resolutions from 320 x 200 to 1024 x 768. This isn't really a negative point as very few manufacturers are using the CX25871 chip as yet, it's more a passing remark.

Their latest product, the 3D Prophet III Titanium 500, is obviously powered by the latest and fastest GPU from NVIDIA, the GeForce 3 Ti 500. This GeForce 3 Ti 500 isn't a new GPU, but a boosted version of the existing GeForce 3 (known as NV20) that is, to date, the most powerful GPU. The 3D Prophet III Titanium 500 targets a niche market: passionate, hard-core gamers who can afford this beast of 3D power. The 3D Prophet III Titanium 500 is actually more a showcase of Hercules technology know-how than a real source of revenue for the company, especially when we look at its price. So let the review begin.

Now that we have investigated every important feature of NVIDIA nForce chipset, we can admit that it is an utterly successful product. Its integrated graphics core is notably smarter than those of any other integrated chipset from any other manufacturer to be met in the marketplace nowadays, while the audio processor of nForce is quite comparable with the latest gaming sound cards. Thus, nForce has every chance to become the first integrated chipset to be used not only in Value office PCs, but also in fully-fledged home PCs, which are now regarded as an entertainment center with up-to-date graphics and sound abilities.

For this inaugural diary entry, I'd like to talk a bit about the state of PC game development and why both developers and publishers are suffering. At the end I'll show how Pyrogon arose out of this rather troubling environment.

HalcYoN: Looks like ATI is moving towards a less vertical business plan.

The Tech Report has a comparison of two "value processors", the Athlon and Celeron both at 1.2GHz, duking it out for the Bang-for-the-Buck title.

Value processors might not be quite as fast or sexy as the latest and greatest from the chip giants, but they have their place. Not only do they make great corporate solutions where absolute performance usually isn't an issue, but they're also a cheap way to put together a second machine to lug to LAN parties and the like. For many users' needs, the performance of value chips is plenty. The faster they get, the more attractive they become to a steadily growing slice of the market.

With more Nvidia chips coming in at the end of last month, Prolink exceeded its original sales target and raised its 2001 forecast. It then even surpassed the revised target, ending the year with full-year revenues of NT$3.354 billion.

The 400Mhz memory clock seems a little low. Maybe there is a shortage of extra fast DDR memory now that the GF3's and R8500's of the world are gobbling it up but the core clock is nice and healthy. Coupled with the new DetonatorXP drivers (a requirement for calling any of the Ti cards Ti's is the fact that they have to be running the new drivers) we still have a potent card on our hands. For all the hype surrounding DirectX 8.0/8.1, pixel and vertex shaders and the like, how many games or applications are out there that really require a DX8 class accelerator? Not that many, meaning that there is still a very high demand for now pocket powerhouses like the GF2 Ti. It's still a fast card as many a gamer will testify to.

Xbox Launch One Of Most Successful In Video Game History

Xbox to Launch in Japan, Europe and Australia in Coming Months

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) announced today at the 2002 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that the Xbox(TM) video game system had one of the most successful launches in video game history. Microsoft sold 1.5 million units in North America between the Nov. 15 launch and the end of calendar year 2001. In addition, the NPD Group Inc. has reported that gamers bought more than three games with every Xbox system, the highest-ever game attach rate for a video game console launch.

``It feels great to kick off the global rollout of Xbox with a record-breaking launch in North America,'' said Robbie Bach, senior vice president and chief Xbox officer at Microsoft. ``In 2002, we're excited to bring Xbox to the world with our upcoming launches in Japan, Europe and Australia. We'll also be offering more great games and exciting online experiences like never before.''

The success of the North American launch has fueled worldwide excitement for Xbox, which is on track to launch in Japan on Feb. 22, and in Europe and Australia on March 14. In Monday's CES keynote address, Bach discussed the company's commitment to making Xbox a global success and showed new, cutting-edge Xbox game titles, including ``JSRF - Jet Set Radio Future'' from Sega and ``RalliSport Challenge'' from Microsoft(r) Game Studios.

I purchased the Logitech Z560s a couple of weeks ago based on the recommendations from the folks over at 3D Sound Surge's messageboards.

Logitech has a winner on its hands with the Z560s. What's most shocking about the Z560s besides its volume, is its price. It can be had for under $200 and it beats any other system hands down. Rivaling the audio quality of many home theater systems, the Z560s can even be used as one, thanks to careful attention to detail during its design phase.

With targeted price of around $100, it's set to compete directly with the Via KT266A series of motherboards. Here's a snip of the press release

NVIDIA Extends nForce Product Family With New nForce 415-D Platform Architecture New Cost-Effective, High-Performance PC Architecture Completes Top-to-Bottom Platform Product Offerings

CES, LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NVIDIA(r) Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA - news) today introduced the nForce(TM) 415-D processor set, the latest addition to the Company's nForce Platform Processing product family. The nForce 415-D, the perfect complement to the new AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2000+ and other AMD processors, combines nForce's heralded Media and Communications Processor (MCP) with a new System Platform Processor (SPP) to deliver unparalleled memory, networking, audio, and PC performance. The nForce 415-D is also the performance vehicle for end-users who desire the highest system performance possible, along with the utmost in upgrade flexibility.

"With the introduction of the nForce 415-D and the new SPP platform processor, NVIDIA is now the only company to offer a broad product family in both core logic and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)," said Drew Henry, general manager of the Platform Processor Business at NVIDIA. "The pairing of the nForce 415-D with NVIDIA's latest discrete GPUs, such as the GeForce3(TM) Ti 500, results in the fastest, most feature-rich, cost-effective PC platform available today."

For unmatched system performance, the nForce SPP features TwinBank(TM), an optimized 128-bit memory controller architecture providing up to 4.2GB/sec. of system memory bandwidth; a dynamic adaptive speculative pre-processor (DASP(TM)) for boosting CPU performance; a single-step memory arbiter for the ultimate memory efficiency; and a 4X accelerated graphics port for external GPU expansion. The nForce MCP integrates an Audio Processing Unit (APU) with a Dolby(r) Digital 5.1 real-time encoder; StreamThru(TM), enhanced data streaming technology for superior broadband and networking performance; and the industry's most complete media and communications suite, including support for HomePNA 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet and USB. Both the nForce SPP and nForce MCP also feature AMD HyperTransport(TM) bus technology, delivering 800MB/sec. of data between the two platform processors.

4. Will Bitboys be manufacturing their own cards or selling the chips to other manufacturers?

Bitboys is a fabless semiconductor company much like other graphics companies who are not vertically integrated. We will not be building our own boards, but will work with several independent board makers who are interested in building products utilizing Bitboys' technology.

One that especially concerned me was that I was misleading readers considering the problem I've mentioned in the past with an issue with rear sound support. Looking back, I certainly understand why the visitor who posted the comment would say that.

However in this case, it was my failure to clearly mention the intentions of the review. I would never intentionally mislead a reader and have updated the conclusion to reflect this.

As you can see, Prolink have taken the memory clock of the card slightly over specification from the 400Mhz defined by NVIDIA in the official spec for the GF2 Ti. That's pretty much bang on the 4.5ns rating for DDR memory so we can make an educated guess that the card features memory of that rating. Taking a look at the card itself we can see it's a fairly stock reference design on a yellow/gold PCB with a small, actively cooled gold coloured heatsink and no ramsinks. As you can see the card also features TV-Out next to the standard 9-pin DSUB connector. Quite an attractive little card on its coloured PCB but nothing extravagant.

Overclockers be warned, check for heatsink compound...

Obviously the numbers speak for themselves. MSI has done a very good job overall of bringing out the best of nVidia's Titanium Lineup. I say overall, because there area few quirks that irked me, such as the absence of thermal compound for the GeForce3 based cards, I just can't believe MSI overlooked that, especially since their G2Ti Pro-VT has thermal compound between its GPU and heatsink fan.

• Performance tested using AMD's Athlon XP 1800+ processor
• Game performance compared against a GeForce3 Ti 500
• Over 200 benchmark results using a variety of graphics settings
• Over 20 games tested and/or benchmarked
• Performance compared at resolutions up to 2048x1536
• Gameplay recommendations and comments
• Twelve different image quality comparisons

Note that many of the pages are graphics intensive and based on past performance, our web server will come to a grinding halt. Please be patient or read the review during off-hours. So what are you waiting for? Click on the headline to get started!

HalcYoN: Amazing review, Mike!

15" LCD, 700Mhz G4, 128MB RAM, 40GB HD, CDRW: $1299

15" LCD, 700Mhz G4, 128MB RAM, 40GB HD, DVD/CDRW, Pro Speakers: $1499

G4/800MHz, 256MB RAM, Superdrive, 60GB HD, Pro Speakers: $1799

In the desktop market, it is a different game. Northwood features better gaming performance than the Willamette Pentium 4, but fails to leave the fastest Athlon XP behind. Knowing that a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 costs $562 and that an Athlon XP 2000+ (on average slightly faster) comes with a $339 price tag, it is crystal clear that the Athlon is still the king in the price/performance department. Even the Pentium 4 2.0A GHz costs slightly more, about $364. Intel made a nice comeback, but more SSE-2 optimized software and higher clock speeds will be needed to beat their crafty competitor...

Reviews of AMD's XP 2000+ can be found at amdmb.com and SimHQ.

GS: Where do you see the most important trends in game graphics for the next few years?

DK: I think that the most important trends will have to do with developers aggressively adopting programmability. By the middle of next year, I expect to see more than 5 million GeForce3 family GPUs in the hands of consumers, maybe as many as 10 million. That's phenomenal! That number of programmable GPUs in the consumer market represents a tremendous opportunity for developers to create special effects in lighting, shadows, reflections, and realistic materials. Programmable shading will completely change the look of games over the next year.

Fresh Diagnose is an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, hard disk performance, video system information, mainboard information, and many more! Unlike any other similar utilities, this software is 100% free.

PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released to manufacturing. They add fun and functionality to the Windows experience.

They also have a huge roundup of motherboards based on VIA's KT266A.

After a year of waiting, Northwood is finally here. Has Intel "redeemed" themselves? In most people's minds, the answer is a unsurprising "No". The Northwood does give the Pentium 4 platform a nice performance boost. Considering that many enthusiasts already have it in their heads that Northwood was going to be the end-all, be-all performance chip of the day, the Northwood will be considered a disappointment.

With "Enhanced Mode" enabled, the Gainward GeForce3 PowerPack!!! Ti/500 "JUMBO" "Golden Sample"TM runs at a faster engine clock and a significantly higher memory clock speed, resulting in up to 25% better 3D real world performance - compared with NVIDIA's proposed reference design - when running at 1024 x 768 @32 bpp or even higher resolution. These performance improvements vs. the reference design are possible because Gainward is using a performance enhanced, proprietary hardware design (high-performance/wide-bandwidthTM hardware design), the fastest DDR memory available and a more efficient cooling device.

HalcYoN: Looks like Gainward will be first to market with a 128MB GeForce3.  Thanks for the links, Dan.

Agent Ransack is a tool for finding files and information on your hard drive fast and efficiently. When searching the contents of files Agent Ransack displays the text found so you can quickly browse the results without having to separately open each file!

Agent Ransack provides compelling advantages over similar search tools:

• Regular expressions that allow complex rule based searches.
  
• Immediate contents results view.
  
• Various wizards to walk the user through the searching process.

Agent Ransack is provided FREE of charge for the benefit of the Windows community.

I see a Bad Moon Rising ....

Infogrames confirms Unreal Tournament 2 in the making by Digital Extremes. As rumored all week online, the co-creators of Unreal and Unreal Tournament are currently working on the sequel to the infamous 1999 Game of the Year. Late next week, in conjunction with the February issue of PC Gamer, Infogrames will officially announce the game and detail all the news currently available at this point in development. The cover story includes an in-depth interview with the development team at Digital Extremes, specifics about the gameplay and globally exclusive artwork to be seen only in PC Gamer.

Microsoft realized they were making a mistake by omitting USB 2.0 support from their "pride and joy" and changed their minds. Thus, the current reports state that Microsoft will be releasing a patch to provide USB 2.0 support in Windows XP sometime in 2002.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has been working with industry partners on the USB 2.0 project. We are pleased to announce that USB 2.0 drivers will be available for Microsoft(r) Windows(r) XP through Windows Update early in 2002. USB 2.0 driver support for Windows 2000 is still under development, and will be available later in the first quarter of 2002.

But we don't like to wait for stuff like this do we? Somehow, someone sent me a copy of the XP USB 2.0 patch a 'little bit' early, and I'm posting it here to share with the world. You should know that by downloading and / or applying this patch to your machine you are accepting sole responsibility for whatever happens to your machine.

NeilY: The above patch expired. Don't bother installing it - it will not work. However, Intel Corporation has pre-released the final EHCI driver for Windows XP. This same patch will be made available to Pro/Home/Corporate WinXP users in the next few business days. Download this patch (which works, btw, as it now allows me to review the bloody thing!) at this direct LINK.

I just came across some "new" WHQL drivers from nVidia - version 16.30 to be exact. If anyone still uses drivers older then 2x.xx series for whatever reasons, then you migt want to try these out.

The Gainward GeForce 3 Ti / 450 and Ti / 550 PowerPacks came with the exact same bundles. Included with the boards were driver CDs, a utility CD containing Adobe ActiveShare, Imagemore, E-Color 3Deep and trial versions of Cyberlink's Medi@show, PowerVCR and VideoLive Mail, and a complete version of Intervideo's WinDVD 3.0. There was also an S-Video to Composite (RCA) video adapter for use with the TV-Out feature.

The Gainward GeForce 2 Ti / 500 XP ViVo included all of the same items as it's GeForce 3 counterparts plus a copy of Ulead VideoStudio, and a slightly different adapter that provides both composite and S-Video in and out connectors. The bundles were very complete, the only thing Gainward could have done to make them better would have been to include a good game or two. :)

The Fall of 2001 absolutely brought console gaming to the forefront of home entertainment with the introduction of the much anticipated Nintendo Gamcube and the mighty XBOX. However, just prior to the XBOX's launch, the net was alive clammoring about reported store XBOX kiosk crashing consistently. While these rumors were not entirely unfounded, the percentage of problematic XBOX kiosk was sharply exaggerated. The slight movement towards anti-XBOX sentiment based on these rumors was still not enough to contain the mass media blitz surrounding its official launch. The XBOX swallowed up the 20-35 gamer age group, leaving the Gamecube the younger crowd. No doubt, the reason for the XBOX's appeal to the more mature crowd is based on the fact that, for all intents and purposes, it is a PC and it is widely known that PC games, in general, are geared towards a more mature audience.

Get to the guide by clicking the title link and update your bookmarks to the temporary url for the Pot at this link.

All of the lines that make up the backbone are owned and maintained by private companies. These companies care about one thing - money. They charge others to link up to their lines, and it's not cheap.

What if that wasn't the case? What if we changed all of that? I have been thinking of a solution to this problem for quite some time, and the answer is clear to me - government intervention. It's going to be impossible to advance the internet at any kind of reasonable speed without government intervention. In fact, the internet seems to be headed toward total collapse instead.

"We are finishing the work on the Serious Engine to fit the Xbox console and then we'll move from there," said Ribaric this morning. "So far, we've made the initial design outline. Basically, we plan to make a new game by combining the story and levels for Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter into one big Xbox game. We still need to have final talks with our publisher [Take-Two], but I don't expect a problem here. There's a big demand for the game to be switched to consoles, but we also decided to spice the things up with creating one big game out of two."

The employees did sort of get a raw deal by association, but to ascribe all of the antipathy towards Romero to jealousy is really missing the point.

>Daikatana and Deus Ex were finally released in 2000. Predictably, Daikatana was slammed while
>Deus Ex received many awards. Both made money for Eidos

Deus Ex made money. Daikatana lost an immense amount of money. We followed the PC-Data sales numbers for a little while, and it was really, really grim. It might have made a comback when it went to the bargain bin, but even if it had turned into the best selling game of the year, it wouldn't have covered the sunk costs at Ion.

My view:

Ion storm failued due to lack of focus, which came from the top. They had some great employees (we hired some of them!), but games don't get done without someone in a position of authority forcing everything together. Romero's primary mistake was believing that abstract creative design was a primary, or even significant, part of a successful game. The "strategic creativity" in a game is less than 1% of the effort, and if you put that on a pedestal, you will deephasise where all the real work needs to be done.

I think Romero has a chance at a comeback with his current foray into handheld games. I don't think he ever lost the enthusiasm for games, but if he can recapture the personal work ethic that he had early on, he can probably still do some pretty cool things.

John Carmack

Also, John followed up this post with another. Check it out.

While I enjoyed the demo, I am concerned about the performance which was less than stellar on an Athlon XP 1800+ and GeForce3 Ti 200. A couple of other folks have reported similar issues.

Any feedback on performance would be appreciated. Click on the headline to join in on the discussion and to learn how to enable the in-game frame rate as well.

...very soon the company will release its WinFast K7N420D board. The board is based on the most powerful version of the chipset - nForce 420-D, has 1 AGP slot, 5 PCIs, 1 CNR, 3 DDR DIMM slots, and like ASUS nForce board also features Cmedia 6-ch audio chip (in addition to MCP-D SB audio features) and Realtek LAN chip (also in addition to MCP-D South Bridge integrated networking features).

Eines gleich vorweg, in diesem Artikel soll es um die DirectX 8.1 Leistung der beiden GPU's gehen - also Pixel und Vertex Shader. Es wurden jedoch keine DirectX 8 / 8.1 Spiele herangezogen, da Aquanox, mit den ATi-Treibern (6.13.10.6011 - nicht als Download verfügbar!), noch immer kleine Darstellungsfehler aufwies.

First off, the MP demo that was released earlier put a *very* sour taste in my mouth. In fact, I was really afraid that this game was going to really tank, based on that one demo alone.

This is a perfect example as to just how important these demos can become as far as perceptions are concerned.

I would have to say that this is, by far, the best looking AND most realistic visual/sonic combat game I've played to date. True, a game like Ghost Recon is a pure simulation, and very good at that; however, this one is pure fun AND realistic, without having to deal with complex strategies, etc.

Anyhow, (IMHO) it was a grave error to release that MP demo, but they deserve serious kudos for this single-player demo. If this is indicative of the fully-released game (and I believe it is), it will definitely be a massive success. The demo is really *that* good.

Do yourself a favor and download it. You won't regret it.

MikeC: I haven't tried to single player demo yet, but I thought the multiplayer demo was entertainting.

Twas a few days after Christmas
I was at home alone
No parcels arriving
No-one on the phone

The perfect time, I thought,
To do a review,
Gainward GeForce3 Ti 500,
I present to you.

I also wanted to thank NVIDIA, all the hardware manufacturers and the online press for continued support. 2001 was a great year at nV News. We were able to increase our readership and establish a great online community in a time when just staying in business was accomplishment.

Now that the internet advertising network shakedown has stabilized, we look forward to an even stronger 2002. But first, it's time to nurse a hangover and watch some Professional College Football.

HalcYoN: I also want to thank Major Applewhite for his contribution to Longhorn football. We may never see a quarterback with as much intelligence, poise and class take a snap at Texas.

Oh and HNY to Mike and the rest of the NVIDIOT staff, even you Mitch. :þ

Mitch: Awwwwwwwwww, thanks Brian!

• Year 2001 overview of 3D hardware industry
• 5 different configuratins used for testing
• 6 different games and applications used to test performance
• 21 different games and applicatiosn used to test 3D image quality
• 37 cards tested and 28 more placed in archive
• New drivers released for Nov,20 to Dec,20 tested
• Performance results on different platforms
• S3TC/FXT1 influence on speed and quality (Windows ME) investigated
• Anisotropic filtering on the example of Serious Sam (OpenGL) and 3DMark2001 (Direct3D) (Windows ME) investigated
• Peak and minimal FPS in Giants (Windows ME) investigated
• Perfomance difference between Intel Pentium4: i850 and VIA P4X266 platforms
• Cards rating for the end of Dec'2001
• Two huge screenshot galleries

Minor bugfixes:

• Fixed display adapter location detection code. Due to the glitch in the previous location detection algorithm RivaTuner could fail to detect display adapter's location on certain systems.


• Fixed corrupted "High quality" preset for Windows9x.


• Fixed some resource and memory leaks.


• Minor UI fixes.

• Revised AGP/PCI bus type detection for TNT based boards.


• Revised 64/128-bit memory bus type detection for NV10 graphics processors. Now RivaTuner can detect underground assembled NV10 based boards with 64-bit memory bus.


• Added RTPatchesFix patch script. This patch unlocks the driver's D3DDEVCAPS_QUINTICRTPATCHES and D3DDEVCAPS_RTPATCHES capabilities, which have been disabled in the Detonator 21.xx and higher.


• Added integration with Explorer shell. Now RivaTuner's patch script (*.rts) and preset (*.rtp) files can be opened with the Explorer. RivaTuner must be started at least once before doing this in order to register *.rts and *.rtp shell extensions.


• Added integration with Windows desktop. The button is now available in the Launcher tab's context menu. This button allows you to create a shortcut for any launcher item and use RivaTuner's launcher by clicking a desktop icon.


• Added "Enable multisample masking" Direct3D option for GeForce3 and Detonator 21.xx or higher.


• Added "2x + 1 x 2 SSAA" antialiasing mode for GeForce3 and Detonator 21.xx or higher.
• Added SiS 645 and SiS 735 northbridges support to the low level graphics subsystem diagnostic module.


• Added new report categories to the low level graphics subsystem diagnostic module. Now RivaTuner can dump the capabilities of IDirect3D7 (both HAL and TnL HAL) and IDirect3D8 HAL. RivaTuner's report comparison tool allows you to track changes in the Direct3D driver's capabilities.


• Added experimental low level 7,159MHz granular memory clock adjustment mode for DDR boards (GeForce2 Ultra, GeForce3 and so on). This mode is currently hidden from inexperienced users, but the power users may play with the FreezeMPLLM and FreezeMPLLP registry entries.


• Windows95 is no longer supported since this version.


• Minor UI changes and improvements.

Widely respected among video game fanatics (nVIDIOTS), Nvidia makes chips that churn data into realistic-looking video in game systems and computers. Its stock has succeeded even as the S&P 500 index dropped 12 percent.

Nvidia has outperformed its customers, growing earnings in the third quarter by 60 percent despite the worst-ever slump for the semiconductor industry, which was ailing from overcapacity and sluggish demand.

In the summer, however, Nvidia was hit by heavy speculation that its stock would fall because of impending competition from other graphics chip companies (ATI?). Some investors predicted the stock would dip to $15 a share, a forecast the company has thus far shown to be false.

MikeC: It's been interesting reading the "Best of 2001 Games" articles on various web sites. One game that possibly should have received more consideration was Clive Barker's Undying. It blew me away when I played the demo last weekend. Try it - or maybe you're too scared...heh. So what were your favorite games of 2001? Click here and tell us.

Mitch: Hear hear Mike...

R200 IS THE CODENAME of Radeon 8500, ATI's first graphics processor with programmable vertex and pixel processing. Throughout this article, I shall refer to the Radeon 8500 as the R200. Before we get into the juicy details, I'd like to highlight a few points. First, R200's closest competitor is the NVIDIA GeForce3 Titanium 500, which I do not possess. For testing, I used an original GeForce3 which has a 200/230 clockspeed. Since the R200 board is 250/250, I tested the R200 at two speeds: the default speed (250/250) and a GeForce3-normalized speed of 200/230.

As it stands, the MSI K7D Master motherboard is an excellent product which will definitely be worth a look when it is released on the market. With great performance in content creation and office applications, the MSI K7D Master should provide for a good high-end workstation solution.

The review is particularly "telling," as they utilize both nForce and KT266A motherboards and a VisionTek GeForce3 Ti 500 as well. Check it out...

If there was any doubt in your mind about which company makes the fastest CPU in the business, there shouldn't be anymore. AMD is now rounding out the 2001 year with an absolutely amazing CPU, which rips apart the Pentium 4 in nearly every benchmark we threw at it. While the 1.67 GHz (2000+) processor doesn't have any technological advances compared to previous Athlon XP processors, its extra clock speed gives it a nice extra boost to show the Pentium 4 who's the boss.

• nForce motherboards (3 nominations)
• GeForce3 Ti 500
• GeForce3 Ti cards
• Xbox (2 nominations)

• GeForce3 Ti 500 - Fastest Graphic Card on Earth
• nForce - Best Newscomer in the Chipset Market
• Andrew Humber - Best PR of 2001
• Luciano Alibrandi - Best Technical Support