Tuesday, August 31, 1999

More GeForce 256 Goodness -- 1:10 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Elsa has announced a new product based on NVIDIA's GeForce 256 chip. The best preview I've read so far is Dan "Tweak Monkey" Kennedy's GeForce 256 preview on Tweak3D. Unfortunately they are using their patented "Very Slow Web Server" technology so it may take a bit of patience to get through.

I also noticed that the GeForce 256 will support DXTC (the DirectX-licensed version of S3TC, S3's texture-compression method).

And does anyone besides me think that NV10 was a better name than GeForce 256? Sounds like a bad animé series to me ("Coming up next after Pokémon, GeForce 256!"). Update: I saw on Voodoo Extreme that Billy Wilson doesn't care for the name any more than I do. But who cares what they call it, as long as it does what they say it will!

Update #2: I was reminded that there is a bad animé series called G-Force. Guess my intuition was pretty good on that one.

NVIDIA Announces the GeForce 256 -- 10:40 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The GeForce 256 (aka the chip formerly known as NV10) was unveiled to the public today. Here's the specs for you pointy-headed types, which I nabbed from Riva3D's GeForce page:

• 15M triangles/sec - sustained DMA, transform/clip/light, setup, rasterize and render rate
• 4 Pixels per clock (4 pixel pipelines)
• 480M pixels/sec fill rate - 32 texture samples per clock, full speed 8-tap anisotropic filtering.
• 8 hardware lights
• 350 MHz RAMDAC
• Most feature complete for DX7 and OGL - Tranform & Lighting, Cube environment mapping, projective textures, and texture compression.
• Will utilize 4x AGP performance with Fast Writes , which enables the CPU to send data directly to the GPU (1 GB/sec transfer rate), increasing overall performance and freeing the system memory bus for other functions.
• 256 bit rendering engine
• Highest quality HDTV (High Definition Television) video playback
  • High Precision HDTV video overlay
    • 5 horizontal, 3 vertical taps
    • 8:1 up/down scaling
    • Independent hue, saturation and brightness controls in hardware
  • High bandwidth HDTV class video I/O
    • 16 bit video port
    • Full host port
    • Dedicated DMA video
  • Powerful HDTV motion compensation
    • Full frame rate DVD to 1080i resolution
    • Full precision subpixel accuracy to 1/16 pixel
• Enables the PC to compete with the Playstation 2 as a major entertainment platform.

Whew! Creative Labs has already announced a new product based on the GeForce 256. Check out Riva3D's GeForce FAQ, GeForce Technical Papers, and GeForce demo shots.

The really cool thing about this new chip is that it offloads so much work from the CPU that you can keep your old system up-to-date by simply replacing your video card instead of a whole new motherboard/CPU/video card. I think I've found my next video card :). BTW, This news update wins the award for "most HTML ever used in a news blurb."

New Webdog, NV10 -- 8:15 am CST, Update by The Master

K-News for today includes a new build of WebDog 2.0 and the anticipated release of the NV10 today. NV10. Ohhhhhhh baby. I want one. Like, now.

Yeah, right... that's gonna happen :-(

Monday, August 30, 1999

NHL 2000 Demo Soon -- 5:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I just saw on NHL-Online a message from an EA rep saying that the NHL 2000 demo should be out the end of this week or early next week. Naturally, I will review it ASAP.

NV10 Announcement Follow-Up -- 5:17 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

It seems that nVidia will most certainly be announcing the NV10 tomorrow. On their webpage it now says "In 16 hours, the world will change." Sixteen hours from now would be noon U.S. Eastern time. Thanks Blue's for the tip-off.

HTML Rant -- 11:53 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

<RANT>Hey webmasters! Check your TABLE, TR, and TD tags! Make sure all of them are closed! For some insane reason IE will close them for you, so your page will display properly even if your code is bad. Netscape won't do your dirty work for you, and so anyone using it cannot see your page at all! Close those tags!</RANT>

The Master comments: Do I detect some frustration there A.T.? Or is Netscape just kicking your butt again :-)

Neo Shogo Screenshots -- 11:24 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

There are some new screenshots up of Neo Shogo, the mod formerly known as Shogo Swirl. It looks like there will be new weapons, new explosions, and new skins. Should be a blast.

X-Wing Alliance Atmospheric Shipset Beta -- 9:07 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I downloaded a (extremely) beta version of the Atmospheric Shipset being made for LucasArts' X-Wing Alliance. It looks promising, but it's definitely not ready for primetime. Installing the beta was a pain to because the utility they use to do it GPFs and the installation procedure is poorly documented (OK, it's not documented at all). Still, it did give a good idea of what could be. I suggest you wait for the next beta.

The skies did look surprisingly nice as did the mountains. The problem was that you currently can fly into and below the ground without crashing. There are also a multitude of texturing errors. I think it will be cool, but it's going to be a while.

In the meantime, I plan on finishing the last battle and a half in XWA. Gotta blow up the Death Star II!

New ICQ -- 9:01 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

There's a brand, spanking new version of ICQ on the block, 99b Beta v3.18 #2568. You can get the Win32 version here or the Win32 version without mfc42.dll here. Thanks Blue's.

New TNT2 Chip -- 8:55 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Just to make your life a consumer's Hell, there is a new TNT2 chip on the block, the TNT2 Pro (in addition to the TNT2, TNT2 Ultra, and TNT2 M64). The Pro is a .22 micron version of the TNT2. Elsa has just come out with a card for it, and it apparently comes close to TNT2 Ultra speeds with less heat. No word on whether or not a TNT2 Pro Ultra (or a TNT2 Pro M64 for that matter) is in the works.

The Master comments: Now, if they'd just put this hummer out there for a nice cheap price (I wouldn't mind $79 myself) I may have to get one for my machine. Then my wife can have my TNT :-)

NV10 Announcement Tomorrow? -- 8:48 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I'm hearing rumblings all over the place about nVidia announcing the NV10 tomorrow or Wednesday. Stay tuned.

S3 Savage 2000 Announced -- 8:38 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The NDAs expire today. The wraps are officially off the S3 Savage 2000, due to be on a Diamond card near you in the fourth quarter. Check out Sharky Extreme's preview for more information. S3 coming out with a blazing fast chip? What's this world coming to? Of course, right now it's just paperware, so we'll see once the reviews come in of the real production boards. No matter what, this means more competition. More competition means faster products at lower prices. Can't beat that.

The chip is due to go to manufacturing in October. The big question is, can they make this time frame, especially since they are making the jump to a .18 micron process. Considering the labor pains the industry went through when it shifted to a .25 micron process, I find it difficult to believe that they can make this jump that quickly. More power to them . . .

The Master comments: I really think S3 can deliver a powerful graphics processor. They have a good chunck of the graphics patents in the industry, and the fabs to deliver the chips. They just needed the engineers to wake up and realize-oh, yeah, I guess we'd better design a REAL processor one of these days :-)

Past Two Days' News

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