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Thread ID: 26022	2002-10-17 08:54:00	THURSDAY OCTOBER 17 news	tweak'e (174)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
90293	2002-10-17 08:54:00	New Matrox Parhelia 2000/XP beta driver and Apptimizer game tool Matrox released a new 2000/XP driver and Apptimizer Game support tool for enhancing games when using the Parhelia and adding support Sourround gaming. The new Apptimizer adds support for UT 2003, Operation Flashpoint : Resistance and others. Apptimizer Tool (www.matrox.com) Beta Driver (ftp:) Four core Itanium power EET has reported that Intel has announced that it could combine four Itanium 2 cores that share a large cache memory to create a processor with more than 1 billion transistors. Intel described the processor at a Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, saying that the design is imminently doable from a die-size and manufacturing standpoint. Crawford did not disclose specific plans for such a processor, though he said Intel will be able to design and build a 1-billion-transistor microprocessor using 65-nanometer process technology by 2007. here's a bit more on the details of the processor: Crawford went on to describe a hypothetical processor that would contain four Itanium 2 cores and 12 to 16 megabytes of shared cache memory, all connected through a leaf interconnect scheme. Each Itanium 2 processor would contain about 120 million transistors while the cache would carry 700 million to 950 million transistors, bringing the total transistor budget to well over 1 billion, he said. You can read the full article at EET (http://www.eet.com). IBM unveils 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor IBM has announced that they have developed a high-performance PowerPC microprocessor for use in a variety of applications, including desktops, workstations, servers and communications products. The new chip called the IBM PowerPC 970 is derived from IBM's award-winning POWER4 server processor to provide high performance and additional function for users. As the first in a new family of high-end PowerPC processors, the chip is designed for initial speeds of up to 1.8 gigahertz, manipulating data in larger, 64-bit chunks and accelerating compute-intensive workloads like multimedia and graphics through specialized circuitry known as a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) unit. read below for more details: IBM plans to pack performance and new features into the chip using ultra-thin 0.13-micron circuitry (nearly 800 times thinner than a human hair), constructed of copper wiring and about 52 million transistors based on IBM's efficient silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. "IBM's new PowerPC 970 64-bit chip is all about bringing high-end server processing power to the desktop, low-end server and pervasive space," said Michel Mayer, general manager, IBM Microelectronics Division. "IBM is committed to helping more customers put our expertise in advanced chip design and manufacturing technology to work for them." The chip incorporates an innovative communications link, or "bus," specially developed to speed information between the processor and memory. Running at a speed of up to 900 megahertz, the bus can deliver information to the processor at up to 6.4 gigabytes per second, to help ensure that the high-performance processor is fed data at sufficient speeds. While supporting 64-bit computing for emerging applications, the PowerPC 970 also provides native support for traditional 32-bit applications, which can help preserve users' and developers' software investments. The design also supports symmetric multi-processing (SMP), allowing systems to be created that link multiple processors to work in tandem for additional processing power. IBM plans to make the PowerPC 970 chip available next year. "They can't say Apple, but we can, speculatively, of course," said Tom Halfhill, an analyst with MDR/In-Stat. Check out more at IBM (www.ibm.com). Another Winamp3 update has been released that includes some new coding and tweaks as well as fixing the utf8 missing file for users who want to use Internationalisation but didn't install at setup. Winamp3 3.0.1b extension patch (www.fileconnect.net) A-tuner version 1.2.2.5 has been released with the following changes: FSAA modes are now correctly indicated for the GeForce4 MX And supports 8x recognizes AGP hardware Compatibly with the 40.72-er detonator A-tuner is a small tool for changing the following settings on your nVidia based vide card: Anti-Aliasing (including all unofficial modes) Anisotropic Filtering Vsync MipMap LOD (Level Of Detail) Bias A-Tuner 1.2.2.5 out (www.3dcenter.org) nForce Audio crashes windows XP The MSI Forums are showing how users are reporting that nForce boards are suffering from the BLSOD (Black Screen Of Death) due possibly to the nForce Audio. Here's one of the quotes: People are getting day by day more and more discouraged in buying nForce. And the people who already own an nForce MB are getting frustrated. This problem needs to be resolved by nVidia and the nForce MB construction companies in order to rectify the nForce MBs stability reputation. You can read a full description of the problem and research at the MSI Forums (www.msi.com.tw). RARLabs (www.rarlab.com) have released anew beta version of their ultimate compression tool, Winrar. the new version sports too many changes to list here, but you can read them here (http:) and download the beta from the link below: WinRAR 3.10 Beta 1 released (www.rarlab.com) New SiS 900 LAN and onboard SIS 315 VGA drivers ASUS have posted up some new SiS 900 LAN version 1.16 driver packages containing setup and diagnosis software and drivers for Windows NT4/95/98/ME/2000/XP. They also have new drivers for the SiS 315 VGA/OnBoard SIS740/650/651 (based on SiS 315 Core). SiS 900 driver (ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/lan/sislan/Lan_SP116.zip) SiS 315 Driver (ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/misc/vga/sis740/) New Creative MP3 Player Creative Labs have introduced the Nomad Jukebox Zen a device that looks uncannily like the Apple iPod. The Zen features FireWire and USB support as well as a massive 20Gbyte hard drive in a aluminium case with a 132 x 64 pixel resolution blue LED backlit display. It weighs 268 grams including the built-in Li-ion battery and is expected to retail for $US349. Software included is the PlayCenter 3 for ripping, managing and transferring files to Zen. The player also features playlist management and a quickscroll function to navigate your media library. You can read more on the Zen here (www.nomadworld.com). AMD Opteron 2GHz Spec CPU 2000 Benchmarks ExtremeTech has posted up and article on the AMD revealed benchmarks for the 64-bit Hammer chip at the Microprocessor Forum earlier this week. The Opteron posted the following scores: 2GHz Opteron 1202 (CPU)/1170 (FPU) Pentium 4 2. 8 GHz: 970 (CPU)/1010 (FPU) Itanium 2 1 GHz: 810 (CPU)/1356 (FPU) AMD did not formally disclose whether the chip was a Clawhammer or Sledgehammer chip to get these results. Get the full monty over at ExtremeTech (www.extremetech.com). New VIA Chipsets For Pentium 4 With QBM, DDR-II And Hyper-Threading Xbitlabs have posted details of upcoming VIA Pentium 4 Chipsets. Here's a bite of what they said: Later this year VIA Technologies will unveil its VIA P4X600 core-logic. The newcomer was already showcased at VTF, so, it should appear just as scheduled without any delays. The P4X600 is intended for the Pentium 4 processors with 400 or 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus and will feature dual-channel memory controller. I wonder if VIA announces this baby a couple of days before Intel announces its Granite Bay, in order to be able to call it “the first dual-channel DDR SDRAM supporting Pentium 4 chipset”. Keeping in mind VIA’s negative experience with DDR400, the company only declares PC2100 and PC2700 support for their new device. Frankly speaking, dual-channel PC2700 DDR SDRAM delivers about 5.4GB/s of peak system bandwidth what should be enough not only for the current Pentium 4 processors with 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus, but also for the up and coming Pentium 4 “Prescott” CPUs with 667MHz FSB. Could be a bit of a powerhouse chipset by the looks of it. Read more on the chipset at Xbitlabs (www.xbitlabs.com). Trillian security patches .74B and Pro 1.0B Trillian have released new security patches for Trillian .74 and Trillian Pro 1.0 with the following changes: This includes all the fixes that were released in Security Patch A (so no need to download that if you havent, just grab this). This includes a fix for the recent Yahoo issues. This includes a fix to the ctcp action and 2 other IRC issues. Fixes a few random bugs. You MUST have 0.74 installed (not a previous version) when installing. Trillian .74 (www.ceruleanstudios.com) Trillian Pro 1.0 (Requires login) (www.ceruleanstudios.com) New Need For Speed:Hot Pursuit 2 Demo EA has posted up an Australian version of the HFS demo that uses the same track as the US version released a couple of days ago, but this one lets you drive a HSV GTS Coupe and a Ford TS-50. The demo weighs in at 93MB. Ausgamers (www.ausgamers.com) Tiscali (games.tiscali.cz) No NV30 secrets in UT2K3 There have been rumours floating about of hidden settings within Unreal Tournament 2003 that would be enabled when used with an NV30 card. Epic has come out to squash the rumours saying that they not true totally, there is a setting, which can be upped generally for future cards. Here's Epics explanation: "The rumour is false. The German magazine misunderstood texture detail settings. If you set texture detail to ultra-high (something you can do in the INI but not in the game) then there are situations where you have as much as 180Mb of geometry and textures stored in the video card. Obviously today's video cards can't handle that but future cards that have 256Mb of RAM could. We originally had the setting available in the in-game settings menu but we took it out to prevent people from setting something that no current video card could handle." The whole explanation can be read here (www.ut2003news.com). thx monty (www.ozquake.com)	tweak'e (174)
90294	2002-10-18 07:04:00	Hi tweak'e Just curious - do you know roughly how many people read your news items?. I read them every day and must admit find it interesting reading and have visited many sites in your daily news. Keep it up. Cheers Laurie	Laurie (485)
90295	2002-10-18 11:56:00	I read them everyday.	-=JM=- (16)
90296	2002-10-18 21:55:00	Very handy :D	Neil McC (178)
90297	2002-10-19 09:33:00	yes I read them all too. Damien	Damien (1751)
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