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8:18 PM
Pictures of 3DexPlorer
Seems like from my tests the Riva 128 just isn't all that hot at
accelerating Quake 2. Even the lowly Stealth II beats it, except at really high CPU
speeds. Anyhow, there are pictures of the 3DexPlorer on its review now,
and there's a link to the Video Roundup from that page, although I'm not quite posting it
up on the front page yet because I'm trying to think of what else to say.
1:56 AM
South Park video game
Good lord. Acclaim has secured the rights to a South Park video game
of some sort. Acclaim is not exactly known for great games based on licenses.
I just hope they don't mangle what is probably the show I've enjoyed the most in years.
Next Generation's story
8:30 PM
Navigator GPL'd
OK, what I failed to mention is that the source code for Navigator will be
released as well under the GNU Public License. Now that's much bigger news!
Infoworld's
story
Microsoft gives in
Microsoft has finally relented and is now offering recent versions of
Windows 95 without the browser. Shouldn't there be a fine for the whole time they
were screwing around with the DOJ though? And if they can now offer the browser
unbundled from Windows, doesn't that mean they were lying this whole time?
Actually, Microsoft says that removing the browser will hurt the operating system, but
that what is being done now is hiding it, not removing it. Whatever!
Infoworld's
story
4:21 PM
Netscape Navigator now free
Not just free to individuals, free for anybody. Including ISP's,
companies, etc. Communicator will still cost money, however. It's not really a
big deal for Netscape anyway because they don't make much money selling the browser.
Most of us don't really care since it was already free for most of us anyway,
right? Actually, I don't get the people who buy the boxed versions of Navigator in
the stores. Don't they know you can download it for nothing?
3:21 PM
CPU dependency of 3D accelerators
There's now a nice little graph showing the CPU dependency of 3D
accelerators sitting on the ASUS 3DexPlorer
3000 review...which, now that I come to think of it, probably needs to show up in the
Recent Articles and Reviews section. Oh well. That graph is really intended
for the roundup I'm planning to go up in the next couple of days or so, but it's there now
and you can look at it. Oh yes, and there are quite a few sample points missing for
everything but the ASUS...I can probably get more for the Righteous 3D and possibly the
Permedia 2 in a little bit.
Building traffic
How would you guys suggest that I build traffic to this site? Post
your views on the Message Board. I'm trying to provide more interesting content, but
man, it's a bit of work. Come on, link to me or something! :-)
12:26 AM
LSX vs Xing
Well, I've gone ahead and uploaded a small feature comparison
and observations about these two MPEG-1 video encoders. I'll try to get up some
sample clips shortly.
4:58 PM
Hercules Thriller/3D
Well, as the card makes it out onto the market it does seem as if the
biggest determinant of the V2200 is its higher clock speed. The highest overclock
I've heard of so far is from the default of 62.5 MHz to around 70 MHz, which is not nearly
the percentage increase one could get with the V2100.
3:12 PM
Sega's Model 3 hardware gets a boost
Seems as if Sega has redesigned the Model 3 hardware to run at a 70%
faster clock speed, raising its polygon pushing power to something around two million per
second. The new hardware is going to be used in Fighting Vipers 2 (bleah) and
Virtual On 2 (wow!), so expect even better graphics than ever in these two games!
Now if only I could get one of these in my PC!
Some additional comments about Model 3 vs. Voodoo 2...Voodoo 2 pushes more polygons,
but Model 3 supports hardware anti-aliasing and lighting. There's no question that
Voodoo 2 is going to be much cheaper and a much better value from a consumer standpoint,
however.
Next Generation's story
7:46 PM
When will I ever learn?
I tried to install that ViBRA 16 PnP card in NT today and was once again
thwarted. The simple fact is, the newer Creative Labs full-duplex drivers are the
only ones I can make work, but they are unstable. The older Creative Labs drivers
just flat out don't work.
By the way, when you install the PNPISA driver, if you accidentally click "Do not
install a driver (Windows will not prompt you again)," you are in for some real fun.
I had to trace down the registry key where the PNP ISA Enabler was storing its
information, and then I had to delete the keys in order to get NT to redetect the
card. That wasn't happening right away, though, because at first I couldn't delete
the keys until I explicitly took ownership of them using regedt32.
WinAMP 1.7 released
Wow, that was fast. Download here.
3:41 PM
WinAMP 1.69 released
Download here.
MK Overrun bug
Oh yeah, that IE 4.0 bug sounds like a rehash of the other bug where a URL
buffer would get overwritten and leak into memory.
4:06 PM
New IE 4.0 security fix
Fixes the MK Overrun bug. I have no idea what that is. :-)
MK Overrun Security
Fix
2:50 PM
Layer III audio encoder tests
Down at http://www.mp3bench.com they
have some new tests (under compressors/quality) of .MP3 encoders done by performing a
spectrum analysis on the decoded file. Now while this kind of test might be useful
in spotting glaring problems such as the ones with Xing Encoder, it really isn't useful
for measuring the quality of most encoders, simply because the psychoacoustic models used
to encode MP3's don't lend themselves well to any scientific tests like SNR, spectrum
analyses, or the like. Psychoacoustic models, after all, are designed to throw away
information. In fact, the only way to properly test an encoder so far is to conduct
a lot of listening tests very carefully!
5:32 PM
6.4GB IBM Deskstar 5 for $199?
It may be too late already, but apparently at Best Buy's all over the
country the 6.4GB boxed Deskstar 5 from IBM has been ringing up at $199, despite what the
price tag says on it. A great deal if it's still happening.
3:52 PM
3D roundup
With the addition of the screenshots for the ASUS 3DexPlorer 3000, I now
have enough info to basically cover the major chipsets on the market in a big ol' video
card roundup. Now, the way it is now, I have a bunch of screenshots on each
review...do you think it would be better to move the big table of screenshots to the
comparison page and leave only the screenshots for each individual card on its own page?
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