6Sept99 Well, I guess you've noticed that ad banner right above this? It's the small price we'll pay to have the FSBench site hosted on AVSIM. It is a pretty good deal, really, when you consider the other options.

16Mar99 Ever want to use multi-monitors but didn't have an extra PCI slot? Matrox has announced the G400, spiffy little follow-up to the very good-looking G200, which can run two monitors at a time. Due Q2 99.  Thanks, MURC.

14Mar99 I haven't heard from anyone with a Rage128 who experienced the same problems that Dave Kelly did, so maybe his situation is unique.

Canopus is getting out of the video business completely, except that they will support all hardware they have made, they will still release driver updates, and honor the 3 year warranty.  Evidently they figure there is a lot of money to be made in "non-linear" (non-real-time) video program editing.

On the horizon now: the Voodoo3 (end of March), TNT2 (a very well-kept secret, due mid- to end-April), Permedia3 (Q2-99), and the Savage4 (Q2-99).  All do single-pass multitexturing, have very fast RAMDACs (to support high refresh rates at high resolutions, if your monitor supports them), huge memories (32 MB at least), and 32-bit rendering (except the Voodoo3).

11Mar99 Buy.com is taking preorders for the Voodoo3 boards.  The Voodoo3-2000 (faster than V2-SLI) is $100, and the Voodoo3-3500 (blazing) is $207.

Here is a Word97 files wherein Steve Christiansen debugs a problem with the TNT card.  Very informative, lots of details about the system settings that can influence how your card behaves. (260KB)

10Mar99 I got a very interesting email from Dave Kelly.  He just got the Rage128-driven Fury board.   Make sure you look at that groovy screenshot he took:

Hi Bruce..

I just installed an ATI Rage Fury 32 Mb into my P2 350....

some initial impressions you may be interested in...

On FS98..  I'm getting constant lockups after a few minutes of flying..
Have tried various driver sets including the latest ATI release drivers and
various BETA releases I've found.. . I use 3rd party panels exclusively..
Mostly Ralph Toffelemire's panels so it could be part of the problem, but
these are what I use.. and FS is locking up..

I also use X-Plane (open GL)  If you'd like to see what the ATI is doing to
X-Plane textures look at an image I uploaded
http://arundel.net/demos/atiRage32.jpg

I've been told it is a driver issue with the ATI drivers.. but why do most
Open GL games run fine with the ATI.... yet X-Plane seems to struggle with
many Open GL drivers..?
The creator of X-Pane always claims it is a driver issue but I have to
think there is sometimes more to it than that..  But I could be wrong..

Frame rates are excellent for the most part..  But most likely I'll go back
to my Permedia 2 till the TNT 2 or Permedia 3's are released..

Regards
Dave

Can anyone confirm this?

And another email from last week, from Graham Stewart, concerning 3D pauses in FS98:

During a call to FS technical support team in London today, I asked
them about the dreaded "Pause" issue.  I was taken through numerous
probable causes but there is no defined answer as we all know anyway.

I was assured that this problem will be fixed for the release of
FS2000 since they have a mass of data on file regarding the problem to
the extent it's been a serious issue.

I will personally adopt the "wait and see" attitude to this just in
case :)

Regards
Graham

9Mar99 Looks like the PentiumIII is not overclockable.  Anand and others have been trying, but can't get one to go more than 5 MHz over the rated speed, which indicates it is both bus-locked (=clock-locked) and multiplier-locked.  Celeron A's rule.   But hunt the web for K7 news if you're bummed about the PIII news.  It's looking to be a very sweet CPU.

Gamespot has an article about DirectX7 (well, D3D7).  It's getting more powerful, but will the programs comming out support all the fancy stuff it does?  I don't know very many programs that support everything D3D6 does (multitexturing, specifically).

Fly! has more screenshots and info available.  Clouds look nice (they didn't say what API was used to render those screenshots, I suspect Glide from the look of the alpha-blending).  No info on performance yet. Visit the AVSIM front page for more info.

Matrox has announced the G400.  Looks like a Rage128 clone, but it isn't.

The TNT2 is previewed.  Looks like it's the same advance over the TNT that the Voodoo3 was over the Voodoo2.

4Mar99 Tyler (Dynamix front man) posted a little teaser about SPP2000.  Here's the bit about the graphics:

Well this might as well be the time to pop the cork on a few things. I haven't heard anything about 1024x768 and don't think that's correct, but 800x600 will definitely be in PP2, which will definitely exist. There will also be additional 3D API support, details to follow. Transatlantic flight seems likely but isn't certain.

I'd bet the additional API is OpenGL, maybe the miniGL command set.  It's the easiest port from Glide, and isn't nearly so cumbersome as D3D.  That's be cool.  Open the sim up to a lot of people who'd like to try it but don't want to buy a new card.

31Jan99 There is a nice table detailing the features of the newest 3D chipsets by Joe Lux over on VoodooExtreme.

As most of you know, this site specializes in General Aviation sim performance.  Papa Doc (not the Haitian) runs a web site for Falcon 4.0 Benchmarks.   If you know of any other mil sim benchmarks, please let me know.

30Jan99 The SPP99 patch seems to be a winner.  I need a few links to Fly! sites.  If you know of a good, informative site, can you email me? And is there a release date on Fly! more definitive than just "March"?  Do we have a release date for FUIII?  And are there any other General Aviation flight sims out there or on the pike I haven't got?  I suppose I should do some benchmarks for X-Plane, if it is in a final version. 

By the way, if you want to know what I'm teaching this semester, visit http://bwilson153.sdstate.edu.

29Jan99 Here's the latest on the ProPilot 99 patch:

This is the v1.1 patch from Sierra. New bugfixes and features in this patch are:

• 1) Exaggerated over-banking tendency with banks greater than 30 degrees have been reduced.
• 2) Bonanza fuel selector, right fuel selection no longer drains fuel from both tanks.
• 3) Fuel consumption of all a/c have been improved for accuracy.
• 4) Excess ballooning effect when applying flaps (especially first notch of an a/c), has been adjusted in all a/c.
• 5) Attitude indicator's miniature airplane is no longer 1-degree pitch up when straight-and-level with a/c using an EADI, (B200 and 525CJ).
• 6) Trim wheel jitters with A/P ALT HOLD engaged has been smoothed out.
• 7) Trim adjustment for joystick; due to excess input with repeat, the smallest trim adjustment using joystick control was 2-3 times as great as using the keyboard and has been corrected.
• 8) Trim command effect can now be defined in the [Aircraft] section FLIGHT.INI for each a/c by assigning the ini variable names: "172Trim=", "V35=", "B58=", "B200=", and "525CJ=". Values can range from 1 to 32. The best way to create this entry is to run the program, then open the ini and enter the values (you will not see the field until you run the flight.exe once).
• 9) Excess tachometer values for the V35 and the B58, with throttle at idle has been corrected.
• 10) Speed brakes on Citation jet have been reduced in effect (about 50%).
• 11) Takeoff acceleration for all a/c is more appropriately modeled.
• 12) Rolling friction for all a/c is more appropriately modeled.
• 13) P-factor/slipstream effects are effective (with auto-coordination off).
• 14) Prop RPM on B200 is no longer entirely dependent on prop lever position.
• 15) N1 and N2 gauges now reflect spool-up and spool-down on the B200 and 525CJ.
• 16) Landing bounce has been dampened.
• 17) Excessive pitch up tendency when reaching airspeed at which elevator begins to lose effectiveness has been eliminated.
• 18) Wind milling effects engine rpm and is reflected on tachometer, with engine either on or off on prop a/c.
• 19) A feathered prop on either the B58 or B200 will now reduce drag, thus helping to eliminate the "yaw" of a "dead" engine, or the drag of two "dead" engines.
• 20) Vmca and Vyse are modeled more accurately on the B58 and B200.
• 21) Lift and drag characteristics in a/c have been improved in steep banks over 60 degrees.
• 22) Low altitude VOR's range over 18,000 ft is now domed to 19,500 if a/c is within 40 nm; whereas a terminal VOR's range is now domed to 13,500 if a/c is within 25 nm.
• 23) European waypoints are now displayed on GPS.
• 24) Propeller visual for the King Air B200: right propeller now rotates clockwise, not incorrectly in a counter-rotating fashion.
• 25) Spinning propeller after shutdown in the V35 and left-engine on the B58, if the prop advance for the appropriate engine was not positioned at full pitch, now stops.
• 26) Baron, and King Air prop animations can now be feathered with prop lever.
• 27) Nose-down camera rotation effect accompanied with braking with a high throttle setting now only occurs with the forward cockpit view active.
• 28) Stall warning is no longer a pulsing intermittent sound, toggling off and on incorrectly, but is now a constant sound, given that the stall warning is active.
• 29) Changing prop pitch on the King Air now has a discernable effect on sound.
• 30) Bonanza warning horn sounds if the throttle is retarded below 12 in Hg manifold pressure with landing gear retracted.
• 31) Baron warning horn sounds if the landing gear are retracted and either or both throttles are retarded below 20 in hg. This warning is disabled if airspeed is above 119 knots. With flaps full the warning horn will sound regardless of airspeed and throttle position if the landing gear are not down.
• 32) King Air warning horn sounds with flaps in Up or APR and N1 below 80% or flaps full and landing gear are up
• 33) Citation master warning occurs if gear are down or flaps extended and airspeed is over 186 knots; or if gear are up and airspeed is under 110 knots; or if flaps are fully extended and airspeed is greater than 161 knots; or if flaps are partially extended and airspeed is greater than 200 knots; or if flaps are on GND in flight, or on the ground and N1 is greater than 85%.
• 34) Artificial autopilot disengage warning sound has been removed, thus eliminating the five-second delay for the autopilot to disengage.

Primary Download Sites:
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/3dfiles/patches/pp99101.exe

Mirror Sites: (Mirrored Nightly)
ftp://ftp.epix.net/pub/3dfiles/patches/pp99101.exe
http://ftp.telepac.pt/pub/3dfiles/patches/pp99101.exe
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/3dfiles/patches/pp99101.exe
ftp://ftp.saix.net/pub/3dfiles/patches/pp99101.exe
ftp://ftp.iol.it/3dfiles/patches/pp99101.exe

 

28Jan99 First, to everyone who has submitted Benchmark Reports, a HUGE THANK YOU!!!  Without your participation this site would be pretty useless.

I was surfing over at the MS FS98 web page, and noticed a lot of new content.  Okay, it's brobably been there for a long time, but I haven't seen it before.  The best of the new stuff was the Captain Hal's page, with lot's of tips and advice on configurations (did you look at the video card advice page?   Seem familiar?).  The Tips and Support page was pretty good, too.  And why isn't this site listed there?

27Jan99 There is a new logo on this page.  Click on it for more info.  And yes, it's simply to get my hands on FS2000 as soon as it's out so I can get the Benchmark tests for it set up.  I'll try to get Fly! and FUIII as soon as they are out also.  This semesters classes aren't as time-consuming as last semester, so I'm thinking or starting up the Audio News again.  Since my old encoder passed it's demo time limit, I'll need to find another way (I hope one that won't cost me).

I noticed that the Information page has become very dormant lately.  If you have a site that would be of interest to the sort of person who visits this site regularly, send the link to me and I'll be happy to add it to the info page.

The new video cards are getting some pretty good drivers.  There is still a TNT panel problem, and I've heard the Rage128 drivers are not optimized yet.  If you know of driver problems, let me know.

There is a new Audio News posted!   Click on the Daily Audio News link to hear it.  I know, I need a better mic.

And as always, if there is some part of this site you feel passionately about, and you'd like to contribute, let me know and we'll work something out.  Like the Report System, it takes more than just me to make this site worth visiting!

17Jan99 If you haven't noticed, Pierre has updated the Results page (actually, it was a few days ago).   Thanks, Pierre!

There is a comparative review of WWII combat sims at Gamecenter.   EAW wins! (and you always thought the Allies were victorious)

DirectX6.1 is done.  Look for it under Windows Update.  Probably won't do much for speed, but it should solve a few of those pesky bugs that crop up.

If you have $50, the Diamond MX-300 is a good deal.  Look for it at CompUSA.com (backordered, of course). The MX300 wond the advanced sound card shootout at Gamecenter.

13Jan99 There are some screenshots of Looking Glass's Flight Unlimited III posted over at Through the Looking Glass (an RPG site).  head over there al take a gander:

TTLG's first Flight Unlimited 3 screenshots are here! These are posted at the memeber-only site, FlightSim.com, and sent to us by MrMills. These look very nice to me, someone who never had much interest in flight sims. (All shots are 800x600 and 100-200 K in filesize)

Beechjet over Mountains #1
Beechjet over Mountains #2
Beechjet over Seattle
Lake Renegade #1
Lake Renegade #2
Mooney over Airfield
Mooney over Mountains
Mooney over Seattle
Seattle
Stemme over Flatlands
Stemme over Mountains
Download All Shots Zipped (1.5 meg)

I really hope that this will spark some interest in this game for the readers of this site, and even attract new ones. Please visit and participate in our Flight Series Forum!

8Jan99 Well, it's been almost a month since I last updated the site.  I've had a hectic couple of weeks at the end of the semester (writing finals, doing grades), then a nice holiday (which took up a lot of time), and now the semester is going again.  I'm writing an update to my Full Throttle article on 3D, so that's taking the rest of my time.  What I'm getting to is this: there won't be a lot of updates coming in the near future.

But I added a link (to the left) for viewing the most recent entries in the Report System.  I noticed that we have over 250 Reports now.  Very nice to see.

5Dec98 If you haven't looked at the new Results page yet, head over there now!  Pierre Poirier has taken over the Results page, and he's doing a nice job in making all the data in the Report System more meaningful and easy to read.   Thanks Pierre!  The Results page has always been the real center of this site, and I haven't had time to keep it up like I used to, so it's a real favor Pierre has done for all of us.  If others want to take over some other aspect of the site, please mail me and we can get you on board.

Some news about Fly! has come from one of the AVSIM.com forums:

One of the other big questions I see is regarding video resolutions. FLY! will support 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 in our initial release. There is, however, a caveat to 1024x768 support: some accelerator cards allocate their Z-buffer from the fixed video frame area. On cards that have a 4MB fixed frame buffer, you cannot allocate a 1024x768 buffer AND have room for a 1024x768 Z-buffer at the same time. Cards that have this limitation are the Voodoo 1 and Voodoo 2 series (among others.) With current Voodoo 2 designs, you will be limited to 800x600 resolution; Voodoo 1 users will be limited to 640x480. If you have an AGP accelerator, you should be able to run 1024x768 with no problems. We natively support 3Dfx Glide and Microsoft DirectX (and NEC PowerVR, and Rendition Redline). There is nothing inherent with our design that limits what resolution FLY! can run in. We do, however, use custom artwork depending on the selected resolution while inside the game (i.e. in the cockpits and windows). If and when higher resolutions become more commonplace, you can be sure we will offer support for these technologies.
Richard Harvey
Project Leader
Terminal Reality Inc.

30Nov98 There is a Demo of Red Baron 3D now available for download at Sierra. It uses Glide 3D acceleration only.

Red Baron II Multiplayer lets you experience the excitement of World War I air combat against human players—across the room or across the world. Red Baron II Multiplayer can be played by one team against another; every player for himself; or even solo, to get used to the Red Baron II Multiplayer world. Depending on the game type, you may be assigned to destroy a number of enemy targets, or just to try to shoot down as many enemy planes as possible.

NVIDIA Corporation

21Nov98 A brief analysis of the effect rendering settings in FS98 have on performance.

What I did was use the FSB2 situation and record the frame rate with different display settings toggled off one at a time, to find out how much performance hit each had.  The system used was a P225MMX with a Creative TNT card and a Voodoo2 card, 1024x768, 16-bit color, and everything was by default turned on except cloud thickness effects.  I noted a couple things right off: Using the TNT 0.37 drivers, the TNT rates are slowed about 3-4 fps when text was displayed on the screen, including the "paused" message and the F-rate counter digits.   Add 3-4 FPS for a proper comparison to Voodoo2 frame rates.

So, as you see, most 3D effects come for free.  If you have trouble with frame rates during landing, the obvious one to turn off is Ground Scenery Shadows, since it will give you 10% more performance and not change the appearance of the sim very much.  textured Ground also has a large effect, but things look far worse with it disabled.  Textured buildings gives a small improvement with the Voodoo2 card, but probably isn't worth turning off.  Additionally, turning off the Aircraft Display settings had no effect on the frame rate during a cockpit view.

There is a nice general 3D card review over at Gamespot.

19Nov98 A Standing Offer: If there is anyone who feels passionate about some aspect of the FSBench site, passionate enough to take what's there now and develop it further, you are invited to sort of "take over" that area, to make it your own little fifedom.  The Results Page is already claimed.

I have come to realize that now that I have a real job, my time tending the site has dropped to almost nothing a day, and that isn't good.  Areas that could use some tending: 3D and FS news, the Image Comparison page, the 3D Glossary (maybe), and of course the individual card pages.

I keep working on that idea of a User News area, where you can add news items to this page, but I keep getting some very odd CGI errors and I haven't had the time to debug it yet.  Maybe this break I'll get the chance.

17Nov98 Lots of big news today.  First, the 0.25 TNT chip will probably be renamed to avoid confusion with the current 0.35 technology.  It is still due Spring 1999.

The Voodoo3 has been announced.  Sometimes called the Avenger, and due out in the Spring, 1999, it will come in two versions, the -3000 for gamers, the -2000 for office applications:

The Voodoo³-2000 will be the OEM-friendly silicon strapped with:

• 300MHz integrated RAMDAC
• Maximum resolution of 2048x1536 @ 65Hz
• 250Mtexels/s fillrate
• 125MHz internal clock speed

The retail-ready Voodoo3-3000 will come packing:

• 350MHz integrated RAMDAC
• 366Mtexels/s fill rate
• 183MHz internal clock speed
• Maximum resolution of 2048x1536 @ 75Hz

The early samples of the Voodoo3 are turning in some pretty amazing results, the goal being 60 fps for any game.  Quake2 is getting about 100 fps at 800x600.  The downside to the Voodoo3: still 16-bit color, chosen to keep performance very high.  For more info look at GameCenter, at www.voodooextreme.com, www.agn3d.com, www2.3dnews.net, and at the 3Dfx Voodoo3 site.

Savage3D cards are showing up.  Despite S3's tragic ViRGE, it looks as though they've fixed up the Savage3D to give some pretty good performance.  It hasn't been Benchmaked in FS98 yet.

nVidia announced thier next 2D/3D chip, the Vanta.  Due out next year, it will be aimed at a market less demanding than gamers, the broad OEM market.  This means the performance will not be top-flight (it will use the TNT core), but the chances are higher that you'll have one.  It also does hardware MPEG, DVD, video out, WebTV and propably other fancy video stuff they invent between now and its release.

And the ATI Rage128 chip, another contender for the 'Voodoo2-killer' title, is almost out as well.

There are (finally) some new TNT reference drivers (v0.41).  I haven't tried them yet.

And finally, for those who do things other than fly, Sierra's other big game, Half-Life, is due out this weekend.

14Nov98 Congratulations to Tim Parr for submitting the 200th Report in the Report System!

Here is an email I got with a solution to a vexing problem for some: The TNT cards, the cheaper ones, don't come with chip fans.  Some seem to get by fine, but others have experienced overheating problems that cause lockup after a couple hours.  Here's what sounds like a good solution:

Bruce, seems I have solved the TNT heat problem.

I purchased a Radio Shack 12v drum fan (2600 rpm Cat #273-260, $10) The fan opening is 1 in square. Placed just above the V 550 so as to blow air on both sides of the board-which is needed for the non heatsink side gets hot also. The unique position does NOT block the adjacent PCI slot like other chip coolers. Wow, this mother really blows allot of air and you can barley hear it.

If you have trouble picturing fan setup, you must go to RaidoShack and look at the fan. BTW, heat is a problem only when doing heavy gaming and it will increase the longevity of the card. I now run with my case closed. 

In addition, I think FS98 runs smoother since I have installed the fan.

Regards,
Gary Hinkle
ghink@mindspring.com

13Nov98 Well, I got my Creative Labs TNT card installed.  Took a bit of trouble because my old card, the Hercules Stingray, had a video BIOS TSR running, and I forgot to remove it.  These are very nice cards, and will be even nicer when the updated driver comes along.  I'm also going to try to work up a version of the Benchmarks for CFS.

And now, the winner of the Writing Contest.   Sorry the news of this is late, but I've been waiting for the second-place entrant to respond to my email (informing him that he won, and get permission to use his name, etc.).  But here it is, the Winning Entry.  It was a bit peculiar, because when I first read it, I didn't think it was as funny as I later found it to be.  It was submitted by Jim Kanold, and he chose the Stingray 128/3D video card as his prize.   Here it is:

Depression Elevation

   One uneventful night of searching and surfing the web for some specific details on depression, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys came to mind. I called up Infoseek to my browser and entered the following string into the search engine: "spends most of time in bed, Wilson" and hit enter. To my surprise only one link was displayed. The link was http://fsbench.bw.ml.org. Thinking this can’t be right and that maybe I had typed "bench" instead of "bed" I examined the search string and found my assumption to be wrong. Then, acknowledging this must be a valid site, I clicked the link.

   Real Audio, oh! good, a new Beach Boy tune. To my dismay I got someone who sounded like Chris Pirillo from http://www.lockergnome.com. (Check it out if you don’t believe me.)

   Searching further down into the posts I found out this Beach Boy also has a PHD and is a chemistry professor to boot. I thought I might take a minute to pass on, to the benefit of some of his students, the correct answers to some the quiz questions .

QUIZ 1

Chem112  Section 1

1.  What are the states of matter and how do they differ from one another?

The state of the matter is Pro Pilot 99 blows all other Flight Simulators out of the water.

How does it differ? Go to www.avsim.com and find out for yourself.

2.  Balance the following reaction.

              ATI + VOODOO2 ® PP99

These answers will induce passing marks from your professor.

   Since finding FSBench, I have upgraded to a Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo II card @ $ 199.95 US. Seeing that I’m Canadian that’s $ 1007.31 up here. As well, I had to take out a second mortgage on my house to afford my new motherboard and a AMD 300 K6-2 processor just so I can fly a $50 flight sim.

I hate the day I ever found this malicious site.

I’m now more depressed than when I first came here and this tone deaf Beach Boy can’t even supply a link to his famous cousins' web page.

And now the sad luck story…

   The company that I have given my life to for the past fifteen years has gone tits up. I’ve been married three times. I have just been diagnosed with diabetes and two years ago, some brain dead idiot put a casino in my home town. I have yet to win a dime out of the place. I’m a looser, always have been, and always will be. I even get cereal boxes void of promised prizes. I am sure Bruce will Email me with the latest unfortunate news.

I should mention that the sad luck story didn't influence my desision at all.  I just put it up to show those who didn't win what real tragedy is.  Congrats, Jim.  I'll get the card in the mail right away (now that I have a TNT card in my system).

8Nov98 A reminder: the writing contest ends in two days (I had to extend it because in one announcment I said it ended on the 10th and in the others I said the 8th), so get to work, I've seen some of the entries and the competition is considerable!  Remember, the prizes are Sierra's Pro Pilot 99, and my old Hercules Stingray 128/3D card (I know, it's not such a great prize, but it should help some newcomer into the 3D arena). Read below (26Oct98) for the details.

Other news that I've not posted: CFS is out, to some pretty great reviews.  Seems that those aspects of the game that have to do with regular flying are very well done, and those that have to do with fighting aren't as good as EAW.  So the upshot of all this is that FS2000 looks to be a very good product.  I have no idea when we'll see that.  As you may remember, Fly! got pushed back to Q2'99, so for half a year, SPP99 will be the best thing out there.   Soem screenshots from FUIII also look marvelous, again I have no idea when it is due for release.  I think this may be the Golden Years for flight sim, where the competition has all the programmers on their toes, making sims better than we have dreamed might exist.

Later today I'm going to pull my Voodoo2 out and test SPP99 with my Rush card.

30Oct98 I've added Benchmark tests for SPP99.  Look for the link in the left-hand frame.

28Oct98 Remember, the Writing Contest entries are due 8 November. See below (26Oct) for details.

Therer is a curious article about the benefits of low-resolution at Redwood's.

The Red Baron 3D superpatch is out.   You can find it at 3DfxMania. Avault looked at the update:

The addition of 3D support is what makes this game a winner. The new textures give a better sense of realism than any of the previous installments in the series, and the game played very smoothly on my machine. A couple of anomalies do exist, however: you can still see the squares where the tiles were put together in order to create the terrain, and the muzzle flash of the machine guns is a little lame. Other than that the graphics do a great job of portraying the era and making the player feel that he or she is really flying. The cutscenes and option screens are very beautifully done, with pictures from the war interwoven into the menu system

CPU prices are falling again.  C|Net has a news blurb.

So the TNT people don't feel left out, here's the TNT tweak guide.

27Oct98 I should mention   that if none of the entries to the FA(wFE)WICLWFSBWC are judges satisfactory then I'll give the prizes to randomly-chosen entrants.

GameOver.net has a reivew of MSCFS. They were for it. BattleZone also has a review. They too were in favor.

Got a hankerin' to tweak your Banshee?   Go Here.

Got a 'nother hankerin' to overclock anything?  Go Here.

There are some new drivers out there: The Creative Banshee has a new Flash BIOS and some cards have new drivers, and the TNT cards have new driver sets this week. The G200 cards have new drivers. Sorry I don't have links to them individually, but there are many different makers, and by now you should have the driver page for your card bookmarked.

Here's an interesting comparison of 3D API's by Tim Sweeny, programmer of UnReal:

In an interview on Voodoo Extreme, I gave my opinion in the ongoing OpenGL vs Direct3D debate, and I wanted to add some more information here.

First of all, both our DreamForge partners working on the OpenGL support, and our Direct3D partner have both done a very high-quality job, given the constraints of Unreal and the 3D card drivers available.  My feelings on the two 3D standards are based completely on their API's and the quality of drivers available.

Next, I wanted to give some more detail on the code.

API support layer	Lines of C++ code
3dfx Glide	1711
Direct3D	3123
NEC PowerVR	4049
OpenGL	5697

Now, the Glide is the simplest, because it's aimed at the Voodoo family of 3D cards, which are very standard and straightforward to support.  For programming to 3dfx cards, Glide is the ideal API.  For people thinking "If Glide is so great, why don't other 3D cards support it?"  The short answer is, if Glide supported other manufacturer's 3D cards, it would pick up all the complications  involved in real-world Direct3D and OpenGL programming: Testing for core capabilities, working around driver bugs, etc.

The Direct3D code is next in simplicity.   It began as a working 1600 line driver, then expanded as it was optimized and support was added for 3D cards that lack key features.  The Direct3D API follows the traditional Microsoft model of being not very beautiful code, but dealing with real-world hardware robustly, by providing a capability-querying mechanism and well-tested drivers.

The PowerVR code is large because the PCX2 chip's rendering approach is very different than what Unreal was designed for.  This makes the implementation fairly complex, though the next-generation PowerVR, currently on-hold in the PC market while NEC focuses on the Sega DreamCast, is a great chip that's more traditional in its architecture, and more optimal for Unreal.

The OpenGL code is large because of optimizations and support for lots of real-world hardware.  If reduced to plain-vanilla OpenGL, this would probably be the simplest and most stable driver of them all, because the OpenGL API is very straightforward.

26Oct98 Well, there was something screwy about the cgi programs I found (they kept going to the floppy drive and locking up), so I don't have the User News up.  I'll keep working on it, though.

Anand has a very nifty article on the latest video boards tested on non-Pemntium II systems.  A must-read if you plan to upgrade your video without also upgrading to a PII system.

But more importantly, I'll have the SPP99 Benchmarks up in a couple days.  And in conjunction with that:

I'm announcing the First Annual (well, First Ever) Why I Can't Live Without FSBench Writing Contest (hereafter known as the FA(wFE)WICLWFSBWC)!  There will be two prizes awarded.   The winner gets his/her pick of the prizes, the runner-up gets the other one.   One prize will be a Hercules Stingray video card (6 MB, based on the 3Dfx Rush chipset; it's my old one), the other is a brand-spankin' new copy of SPP99! I will be the sole judge of the entries, which will be essays on the theme of "Why I can't live without FSBench".  There will be only one criterion of judgment: Is it funny?  Pleas for pity, appeals to my humanity, and hard-luck stories will be posted for whatever snicker-value thay may have, but the winning entries will have to be Grand Documents of Mirth, Merriment, and Fun.  No half-assed entries have a chance; these need to be Purlitzer-level humor, things that Seinfeld and Monty Python would be proud of.  So get to work, boys!  The winning entry will take weeks to craft, to hone, to perfect! The deadline for entry submittal is November 8th.  Entries must be mailed to me.

23Oct98 I finally figured out how to do the User News.  Look for it later today on this new page.

AVSIM.com has put up a nice little list of free demos of some military air sims, which was so good I cannot improve it:

Top Gun: Hornet's Nest by Microprose.
(25.1 megs) Download from Gamespot

F-16 Mulitrole Fighter by Novalogic
(24.3 megs) Download from Gamespot

IF/A-18E Carrier Strike Fighter by Interactive Magic
(27.0 megs) Download from Gamespot

Israeli Air Force by Janes/Electronic Arts
(53.7 megs) Download from Gamespot

European Air War by Microprose
(14.3 megs) Download from Gamespot

Falcon 4.0 by Microprose
(46.0 megs) Download from Gamespot

WWII Fighters by Janes/Electronic Arts
(56.3 megs) Download from HappyPuppy

F-15 by Janes/Electronic Arts
(59.3 megs) Download from Gamespot

21Oct98 Thanks to Jim Kanold for this:

Just an F.Y.I..  DX 6.01 is now available off the MS Windows 98 Update Site.   If you have already installed the Multimedia Update off the ZDNET site then you will not see the update listed.  Go to the top of the page and hit the show all button and you should now be able to see it.   It's about 1096 KB in size and is a "must get" if you are running DX 6.0.

20Oct98 I'm still working on the news updater program for this page.  I managed to crash the server Sunday afternoon testin git, so it may be a bit before it's working.

Dynamix is about to release RedBaron 3D:

Dynamix announced that Red Baron 3D has gone gold. Red Baron 3D, designed from gamer feedback to Red Baron II and featuring a 3D graphic acceleration upgrade and new massive multiplayer engine, will be available in retail stores later this month.

For this title, Dynamix carries the Red Baron series into the age of 3D graphic acceleration by maximizing today's technology to create a truly immersive experience. The new 3D acceleration supports Glide-compatible 3Dfx cards and creates a real experience with new cloud variations and layering effects. Other 3D improvements include new textures to enhance smoke, fog, sun-glare, explosions, anti-aircraft gun fire, trees and bushes for definition of low altitudes, buildings and planes. Red Baron 3D's new massive mulitplayer engine enables Internet dogfighting action for 50+ players in Melee, Team Melee or Red Baron Tag matches on independent or rogue servers. Won.net will also supports free internet play. Dynamix has also fine-tuned the flight models in Red Baron 3D to bring the most realistic replications to the simulation. Red Baron 3D will ship with support for force-feedback joysticks and will sell for $39.99. Owners of Red Baron II will receive a full rebate when they purchase Red Baron 3D. Red Baron 3D will be available at most software retailers, as well as through Sierra Direct at (800) 757-7707. A download of the upgrade will be available as a "Super Patch" offered on the Red Baron website, www.redbaronplayers.com and Won.net.

18Oct98 So here's the deal: I don't have much time to look over the web and see what's there of interest.  So I'm going to have you do it.  I'm looking over a couple cgi scripts that will allow you, who by now know as much about 3D as I do, to submit articles directly to the News page!   That way, when you see something interesting about a 3D video card (like new drivers available, an upgrade or release date) or about 3D flight sim (a demo is out, or patch) then you can tell us all.  I ask only that you post legitimate stories, with references and links.

13Oct98 Combatsim has a full review of SPP99. I quote from the article:

I have gone through their new simulator with a fine tooth comb, and enlisted the help of a commercial pilot to fairly judge the product. 10 hours of flying later, I have come to a conclusion. Not only is ProPilot99 a better flight simulator than FS98, it just feels right, like that broken in pair of shoes. Dynamix has done their homework with ProPilot99. They have included everything into their simulator that Microsoft ignored with FS98.

What we liked

• ProPilot99 offers a refreshing feel to flying. The controls are smooth and responsive, unlike the jerky FS98 controls. During stalls, aircraft ailerons are sluggish and unresponsive to controls.
• Cockpit detail is amazing. All aircraft start-up procedures follow the same checklists as do their real counterpart. All visible switches work, providing the proper functionality.
• Air Traffic Communications AND a co-pilot. Your co-pilot can take care of most menial tasks while you concentrate on flying including talking to the air traffic controller (ATC), changing NAV aids, and setting up your frequencies.

• The ATC can also give you detailed vectoring information. And it’s real, down from the weather information channel, right from ground control, air traffic control, departure control et al. You have communications with all flight service communication facilities during takeoff, cruising, and landing. And it’s done well.
• Gauges respond accurately to the environment as you climb and dive.
• Sounds were realistic, except for one part. However, all other acoustics will put a smile on your face.
• You are actually able to maintain straight and level flight, unlike FS98 where you’re constantly fighting with your trim to maintain altitude. Here is where ProPilot99 shines through. All available trim functions are visible and functioning.
• IFR and NAV flying are accurately done. Mapped terrain in ProPilot99 also contains all real life NAV and VOR beacons.
• ProPilot99 is more realistic to fly both internally and externally. The aircraft interacts with the outside environment in a more responsive nature. Turbulence actually looks like turbulence, it wobbles your plane around in the sky, not quick left and right jerks. Wind gusts moves your plane wings, requiring realistic aileron adjustment. Loose an engine in a twin, and your fighting to keep your plane in the sky, requiring immediate attention as your plane yaws towards the down engine. Rudder adjustments during this situation may correct your flight path, but your aircraft is suddenly sideways at an angle.
• Weather emulation of clouds is fantastic. Flying through clouds seems actually real compared to FS98 Lego blocks. This allows realistic IMC navigation with IFR navigation and landing. Cloud thickness is wonderfully simulated.
• External views at high altitude are done well. Graphics with 3D accelerated cards can take benefits of sun flares, wispy clouds, and maximum resolutions.

• Built in Flight Planner. This flight planner is neat. Plot all your waypoints. Where you want to fly. With what aircraft. Even generate weather for your flight for your departure and destination location. ATC will even vector you to your destination.
• Built in navigation aids. The program can help you set up for all types of navigation by auto tuning your NAV radios.

What we didn’t like.

• Terrain is second rate. Up close, it lacks detail, detail, and detail.
• Cities look too much like copies of FS98. We were hoping for more realistic looking buildings and structures.
• Certain realistic flight characteristics were missing or just plain wrong. During a dive from high altitude, you can both pull back and climb out of the dive or your controls are ineffective. Neither was consistent which leads us to believe that it’s all luck if you put your plane into a dive, you can pull out of it. In real life, try to pull out of a dive in a King Air at 300 knots and you’ll either rip your wings or your tail off.
• Try flying upside down. Normally, you’ll starve your engines of fuel but in ProPilot99, they don’t cut out.
• The Overspeed horn was non-existent or just not working. We hope they fix this for the release.
• Stalls are modeled well, but spins are not. All the aircraft do not want to spin. Hopefully flight models are unfinished.

• Multiplayer has not been incorporated into this program. We'll find out if it's planned or not. If not, it should be, it's a hoot in FS 98.
• Damage modeling is non existent. There are no damage points on your aircraft. All crashes are simulated by a smashed and burnt cockpit view. With today’s damage modeling being a high priority for most simulators, why can’t the aircraft have break points on the surfaces?

Why can’t I damage my landing gear if I land too hard? I should be able to damage my control surfaces if I fly too fast and my flaps if I try to extend them at high speeds. But unfortunately, there is no damage modeling in ProPilot99.

During long distance traveling, I found that for some reason, the aircraft had an unnatural desire to climb. This was most noticeable after using the autopilot. This was a beta release so I can only assume this is fixed on the release. I’m searching here folks, but you know what, I can’t think of anything else that this game is missing.

Know what this simulator needs? A full motion cockpit, 5 point harness, buttons above my head, and a stewardess tapping me on my shoulder asking me if I want the in-flight meal. Microsoft, be afraid, be very afraid.

12Oct98 Anand has a nice video card comparison.

There are some Voodoo2 D3D v6 drivers available at the 3Dfx site.  If you have a Creative Voodoo2 card, go to the Creative site for the beta drivers.

11Oct98 Tom's Hardware has a nice piece about benchmarking, if you're wanting to know what it's all about, and what it means.   Anand has an article on the same topic, also worth a read.

Since I have no experience with multimonitor, does someone want to write up a section for inclusion in the FSBench site (with your name prominently displayed at the top, bottom, or many times in between)?  I think this would be of interest to a lot of people with Win98 and FS98, expecially those who, due to upgrading, have multiple video cards handy.  Perhaps something that describes getting set up, hints needed to make it a success, what to expect in terms of performance, the best set-ups; things like that. Let me know, or respond in the 3D Forum (hosted by AVSIM, [thanks, Tom!]), and we can get a group discussion thing going.

10Oct98 Looks like SPP99 is almost ready.  It went 'gold' the other day, which means the code is locked, no new features, maybe a bug fix or two, but the dev team has signed off on it.  The program goes over to distribution for final installer packaging and testing, then they send the CD-ROM master off to some company who cuts the CD's, and puts them in boxes with the manuals, etc. Should be on the shelves in November.

And it looks like Fly! missed their deadline big time.  They now announce Spring '99, but I'm pretty sure they'll miss that, too.  Maybe we should just call it Fly? for now.

There has been some talk on the forum about implimenting some way of having the Reports in the Report System immediatly summarized in the Results page.  I think I know how to do it, but it requires a bit of ASP/Access/SQL programming, and more importantly, requires moving the server up to my desktop machine at South Dakota State.  I will finally have my net connection this week, and I'll test the server and see what happens.  If it looks okay, I'll move the site up here.  You won't see any difference in access, however, as I'll simply move the machine that fsbench.bw.ml.org points to.

7Oct98 It's been a while, eh?  If you are curious about what I do these days, head over to my chem class page, chem112.bw.ml.org.

AVSIM has some nice screenshots of SPP99, still in beta testing.  Looks very nice, especially for an older version of Glide.

Combat flight sim has gone golden, and is ready to duplicate then ship:

Microsoft today announced that Combat Flight Simulator, the highly anticipated World War II historical air combat simulation game, has gone gold. This means that the product is completed and is expected to start showing up on store shelves in the U.S. as early as November 5th.

Combat Flight Sim includes eight realistically modeled aircraft, each with its own authentic flight model and all featuring accurately detailed cockpits. CFS is built on the realism of the immensely popular Microsoft Flight Simulator engine, but with the excitement of air combat and head-to-head competition. Players experience real-world navigation, based upon historical information and atlas data. Combat Flight Simulator allows each PC aviator to define his or her own experience by choosing from a variety of aerial combat scenarios. Options include historical missions and campaigns, Free Flight and Quick Combat.

2Oct98 Looks like X-Plane has upgraded the sim.  I'll download it and see if I can get it to run on my Voodoo2 properly (if you recall I get black test in a black window during the first-time startup, and can't seem to select a plane to start in).

1Oct98 Hi all.  Sorry I haven't been around very much lately.  I was moving internet providers, and now my parents are visiting, so time is short.  Besides, there hasn't been very much 3D news lately.  There were some more TNT reviews up, more of the same as before, really.   What I'm waiting for is here in the Report System: the TNT cards.  Maybe there is a Banshee report by now.  I'm especially curious (for personal reasons) about how the PCI TNT does in a P200MMX system (like my own).

Just about all the new cards have new drivers this week.  Go to the respective manufacturer sites to find them.

GameCenter looked at 3D sound cards, becoming increasingly important as system performance increases.

If you want to overclock a Banshee, go here.

25Sep98 18:30 Guillemot has shipped their Banshee card, the Phoenix.

Voodoo2 fans should watch the 3Dfx site the next couple days.  The Direct3D v6 drivers will be posted in beta form.

23Sep98 22:12 Jane's has released a demo of WWII Fighters.  The best page for downloading it is at 3Dfxmania. It's 59 MB, and uses Direct3D.  Looks like CFS and European Air War have some competition.

21Sep98 21:30 Speaking of new, fast cards, the Banshee-driven Creative Labs 3D Blaster Banshee will sell for $130, with a $30 rebate.  This is a 16 MB card, and is the only card out that will be fully OpenGL, Glide and Direct3D compatible.  And almost as fast at the TNT.  Not bad! The only real drawback: 16-bit color, not 32.

And for the X-Plane fans, FastGraphics has looked at a bunch of OpenGL cards:

OpenGL thoughts. I've been benchmarking quite a few cards yet, and here are some of the impressions so far:

• The 3DLabs Glint Gamma / Dual MX cards with 96 Mb rule the scene.
• The Mitsubishi chipset on the ECLIPSE II is pretty cool too.
• The FireGL 3000 performs really bad, most of all considering its price.
• Permedia II performs excellent, most of all considering its price.
• Riva TNT performs worse in professional OpenGL applications than Permedia II, especially when the polygon count increases.
• The Intel 740 chipset performs really bad when the polygon count increases..
• I didn't test G200 yet (No ICD available in the near future according to Matrox).....

20:34 Here's a followup to Steve's letter, addressing the anti-aliasing in the STB TNT drivers, from Dave Whittingham:

The antialiasing option 4x4 Sub sampling would setup the case where you compute the picture to 1600x1200 and then
anti-alias the WHOLE image down to 800x600 - or maybe I mean the 2x2 Sub sampling - not sure. The idea is that things like the edges of the runways and taxiways and any other "skinny" polygons would appear to have much reduced jaggies and therefore the image quality would be much higher even though the resolution is somewhat lower than 1024x768. We do most of our Out-The-Window graphics (on a $4 million Evans and Sutherland ESIG 3800 system) with an image that is downsampled to 960x720 and displayed for the pilot to fly to. The lack of jaggies really makes the scene much more real especially for landing. Also, the antialiasing reduces the "dancing" of nighttime light points.

So if you didn't get all that, if you select 2x2 sub-sampling then your card really draws everything at a resolution that is twice as big as the display resolution, in both dimensions.  So if you are running in 800x600 mode, your card is really drawing everything at 1600x1200, then sampling back to 800x600.   This results in the 'jaggies' of straight, diagonal egdes being reduced to about fouth the size they would otherwise have been at 800x600.  It's a very nice techinique if you have the video memory and the rendering horsepower to do it.  The performance while this is happening is a little slower than if you were running the program at 1600x1200, so there can be a significant performance hit if you get to high resolutions.  I'm still not sure what 4x4 sampling is.  Maybe it only works at 640x480?  By the way, this sort of whole-scene anti-alising is a crude, brute-force method.  Some cards due before christmas advertize the more sophisticated 'per edge' anti-aliasing, where only selected egdes are antialised (by a sort of 'averaging as you travel down the edge' method, without as big a hit to performance, but needing a lot more silicon).  If you want to see an example of antialising, go to the 3D glossary and look it up. Dave also pointed out that his machine is sub-$1000, not sub-$100 as I'd listed below.  Sometime I say the dumbest things.  Thanks, Dave.

20Sep98 14:12 I just got a very interesting email from Steve about the TNT drivers, in response to my asking if anyone knew if the Reference Drivers were any better than the OEM drivers:

I tried the nVidia TNT reference drivers a couple of days ago, and was unable to decide if they were slower or the same in FS98.  Definitely not faster than the newest STB drivers.

One thing you might be interested in- while the STB drivers don't let you change the memory or processor clock speeds, they DO have several interesting tweaking options.  For example, you can allocate the on-board memory between frame buffer and texture memory.  For example, I could set it to 12 and 4 for FS at very high res (don't know much about the logic, just an example) or 4 and 12 for a low res game like IAF with lots of textures.  THat's a PCI-only option.  Other configurable options- the anti-aliasing method (wish I knew what that was, but options range from disabled to "Super-Sampling 4x4"), select bi- or tri- linear filtering, and some weird option "Direct3D Texture Addressing: Origin of Non-Filtered Texels: choices are Top Left Corner or Center.

There's also an OpenGL options page, allowing you to configure for "Best performance", "Best Quality", etc., as well as gamma.

The best part is that you can save and load different profiles for different programs, so if the settings actually make a difference (yet to be tested) this could be a very convenient feature.

All these options, but they are well hidden and documentiation doesn't explain any of them.  When I get a chance I'm going to play around with them to try to find the optimal FS98 setup.

In case you didn't know, there is an update to PowerStrip that allows you to OC the memory and chip on TNT boards.  At least one of the big three hardware sites (for me, that's Tom, Cyrellis, Anadtech) had an article on overclocking the TNT.  Probably in the next week I'm going to try to come up with a cooling solution of my own and play around with it.  It should be interesting to find out whether overclocking will have any effect with a relatively "slow" (K6-266 OC'd to 300 at 4x75) system.  If you're interested, I can keep you informed or post to Avsim.

Oh my, I wrote quite alot considering that I was just going to say that the reference drivers weren't anything special. ;)

Regards,
Steve "TNT-boy" Wisniewski
Founding Member of the Branch nVidians

08:25 Curious about what OpenGL is?  Here's a presentation from OpenGL.org that's very enlightening.

19Sep98 15:38 I don't know if you folks have noticed, but there have been a flurry of Reports coming into the Report System, mostly having to do with the TNT cards.  For example, check out Dave's report #147.  Very impressive results form a sub-$1000 machine!

18Sep98 19:00 AGN3D has a review of the TNT.  Very good review, it is.

07:08 NextGen has an article up about Plane Crazy, an aerial racing arcade game.

A review of the Diamond Viper 550 TNT card, preferred because it setup without a hitch.

A comparison of the Voodoo2 with the TNT.

GameSpot looks at the three TNT cards.

Creative Labs Banshee card, the Voodoo Banshee 16 MB, is due 10Oct, for $130.

17Sep98 06:49 Dimension128, a Riva site, has posted some TNT Reference Drivers.  Anyone know if they are better/more recent than the drivers you get from Diamond/STB/Canopus? Here's a TNT demo, by the way, 9 MB, let's you play with different 3D efects to see how they change a rendered scene (I noticed it over at VoodooExtreme).

RivaRave put up a review of the Canopus Spectra 2500, a TNT-based card.  They were for it.

Here are gome new G200 drivers (v. 4.24, from Matrox), maybe they'll fix the runway lights at night problem.

From everything I've seen so far, the TNT is the current leader in performance and image quality, at least when it's running on a PII with AGP video.  I haven't heard much about the TNT running on a P200MMX/PCI, though, so the Voodoo2 may still have an advantage there, I just don't know.  The Banshee isn't far behind the TNT in performance, and it's way ahead of the TNT in compatibility with 3D games/programs (the Banshee will run Glide games, the TNT won't, a big advantage if you play a lot of different types of games, including SPP99).

Speaking of the Banshee, here's what I got from 3DNews:

Joe H. sent some mail that will interest people interested in the CompUsa Diamond Monster Fusion (Banshee card) and MX300 (3D-Soundcard) for $199.95. Here is how to order it:

After talking to a CompUSA employee who accually reads this site (yes I had to pick up my jaw from the counter) said that he had still not yet got any info from inside the CompUSA system and his dept manager did not know a thing about it. So if you don't want to depend on your average staffer to get this offer set up, it is available on the CompUSA direct web site (http://www.compusa.com). Look under video cards (graphic boards) and keep paging until you find the Fusion/MX300 bundle at $199.95

You can also view the product page @ CompUsa On-Line store right here.

16Sep98 There is a review of CFS at OGR:

It is the graphics that truly sets MCFS apart. Running under a pair of Voodoo 2's allows for a crisp 1024x768 display that hauls in terms of frame-rate. The landscape is perhaps the best I have ever seen, rich in color and detail that really lends credence to the fantasy of flying over France or the English Channel. The terrain isn't simply a flat rendering either, as players will find valleys, rolling hills, small cities, and packs of convoy's snaking their way through the sea.

14Sep98 00:00 <---Audio news is up.

12Sep98 21:20 Well, I guess most of you have noticed that I don't have as much time to work on this site as I used to.   I'm teaching two Chem 112 lectures (General Chemistry for Science majors), and gave a quiz yesterday.  That meant I spent most of last night and a bunch of today grading and recording and sorting 380 quizes. (What was I thinking when I put ten quizes in the syllabus?!).  So like I said a while ago, if someone who knows 3D pretty well (they don't have to be an expert; I wasn't when I started doing this a year ago) wants to help out, has the time and a little html skill, head over to the Site Overview link and read The Plan thing at the bottom, let me know and we'll talk about getting you on the News team.

There is a new demo, this time F-16 Multirole Fighter, by NovaLogic. It's 23 MB. Uses Glide, or will do 2D.

Canopus says they'll have some drivers out next week for the TNT that will get you 20% more performance.  I don't know much beyond that, and don't know if the other TNT cards will benefit likewise.

HangSim has an updated demo.  It's hang gliding.   On your computer.

Here's a likk to an article on tweaking your system for gaming.  Maybe it can get you a couple FPS.

10Sep98 00:00 There is a comparison at Riva3D of the Voodoo2 v. the TNT.

There is a 24 MB demo of iF/A-18 Fighter.

FastGraphics (a great site) has done a big roundup of OpenGL cards.   Interested in X-Plane?  You'll be interested in this.

CPUMadness has a little rundown of the Q4'98 3Dcards.  A nice summary.

The Canopus Spectra 2500, the best of the TNT cards, can be preordered by mail for $190.

MURC has posted info on the new PCI G200 cards. Here is the info:

Marvel G200-TV PCI

Matrox Graphics Inc. today announced a PCI version of the Matrox Marvel G200-TV. An all-in-one video and graphics accelerator, the Matrox Marvel G200-TV now delivers equally high performance for 2D, 3D and multimedia video applications in a single PCI (or AGP) board design. Targeting home and business users, the Matrox Marvel G200-TV accelerates all 2D and 3D applications as well as offers unparalleled performance for hardware Motion-JPEG (MJPEG) video capture and editing, TV on the PC and out to TV. Fitted with 8MB of SDRAM memory and upgradeable to 16MB, the Matrox Marvel G200-TV is priced at $299 and will ship in Q4 1998

9Sep98 18:25 Looking Glass has a FUIII page up now, but not much content.

07:09 <---Audio News is finally up.

8Sep98 21:40 A bit of news about CFS (I got this from VoodooExtreme):

Microsoft today announced the official retail shelf date for the much anticipated Combat Flight Simulator.  Reaching software resellers' stores on November 5, 1998, Combat Flight Simulator is a World War II historical air combat simulation game that is built on the realism of the immensely popular Microsoft Flight Simulator engine, but with the excitement of air combat and head-to-head competition.

Combat Flight Sim includes eight realistically modeled aircraft, each with its own authentic flight model and all featuring accurately detailed cockpits.  Players experience real-world navigation, based upon historical information and atlas data.   CFS allows each PC aviator to define his or her own experience by choosing from a variety of aerial combat scenarios. Options include historical missions and campaigns, Free Flight and Quick Combat.

To view a special Combat Flight Sim AVI movie, listen to a collection of voice clips and sounds from the game, read an in-depth Q&A with the Development team, or get additional information visit the official Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator Web site at:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs/

Combat Flight Simulator will start appearing on store shelves on November 5th, for an anticipated street price of $55

I watched #62 fly into the stands on TV. Very cool.

Sharkey did some tests of the TNT on slower systems.  Seems that on a K6-2 the TNT was still a might slower than a single Voodoo2 at higher resolutions, and a lot slower at 640x480.  So, while the TNT may not be a full-fleged 'Voodoo2-killer' it is certainly a sweet card for flight sim.

Speaking of the TNT, Steve W. over in the 3D forum informs us that the current set of TNT drivers have real trouble with frame rate when the panel is displayed, but positively hum with the latest beta drivers.  Thanks for the info, 'TNT-boy'!

Brian Hook recently had some good things to say about the i740 and the recent drivers.  He tested a lot of boards for medium-density triangle rates, and the i740 won over all the cards he has (he probably has them all).  His conclusion: the driver-writers have done a marvelous job, turning a mediocre card into a good one.

7Sep98 00:00 <---Audio news is up.

6Sep98 19:51 Rather than post links to all the great TNT reviews out there, here's a link to a page which keeps track of these things.

00:00 <---Audio news is up.  There are some new MonsterII drivers out, head over to www.diamondmm.com for more info.

5Sep98 12:47 Sierra has a new site for ProPilot, www.propilot99.com.

Computer Games magazine has a fluff piece about flight modeling.  Instead of discussing the pros and cons of different techniques, they start with some grade school math and use that to explain European Air Warrior's flight model (which is said to calculate over 10,000 parameters) AOA method for calculating the flight path.  No surprise here.  He also mentions Flight Unlimited II's approach of calculating the path of the aircraft in the air, then letting the air move.  So does everyone else.  Like I said, a fluff piece.  In another article they name the Starfighter card (i740 in a PCI card) the best 2D/3D card to get.  Someone's behind times.

3Sep98 21:30 <---Here's the Audio news up a little early.

Tom's hardware has a big Voodoo2 article up, an excersize in how to choose among equals.  I say: price, then game bundle.

NextGen has previewed MiG29 Fulcrum. PCME reviews F18 Carrier Strike Fighter.

BXBoards reviews the Celeron 300A running at 450 MHz.

AGN3D reviewed the Hercules Terminator Beast (Savage3D chipset), which can be had for $119 (8 MB,retail).   Almost Voodoo2 speed for that cheap.  A good buy.

8 MB Voodoo2 cards will be in the $130 range soon.

I tried X-Plane on my system: I still get black text on black backgrounds, so I still haven't gotten the program started.  And I just tried IAF demo, but it did not go into 3D mode, so I'll find the setting and tell you what I see (that is, if it's worth a download).

08:46 There is a huge (60 MB) demo of Isreali Air Force over at AVault:

Jane's Israeli Air Force™ delivers the state-of-the-art in flight simulations with the best terrain ever seen on the PC. Finally, a realistic sim that lets you dogfight through canyons at low altitude with fast gameplay and graphic detail that redefines photo-realism. Fly the real Israeli planes with accurate avionics, realistic cockpits, and detailed 3-D shapes, then use real tactic including radar evasion and pop-up attacks, and coordinated air assaults using multiple formations. With both historical and hypothetical missions, the only way to get a more realistic experience is to join up.

X-Plane 4.15 is out, with a 16 MB demo or a 6 MB patch.  3Dfx support.

00:00 <--- Audio news is up a bit early.

Gamecenter put up a big new chipset comparison. A very good read.

Creative Labs will have a TNT card, which they hope will be faster than the Reference design.  Time will tell.  Also, there will be a faster version of the TNT coming out next year, with a higher clock speed. So far the TNT is beating everything except the Voodoo2 SLI running QuakeII.

2Sep98 00:00 <---Audio news is up.

1Sep98 18:54 Lots of news today:  There are some new Permedia2 drivers.

3Dfx Glide 3.0 is finally Official.   We've had it for months, but it's now supported.

TNT cards announced today: Canopus Spectra 2500, and 4 form ASUStek:

AGP-V3400TNT/8MB(SGRAM)
AGP-V3400TNT/TV/8MB(SGRAM)
AGP-V3400TNT/16MB(SDRAM)
AGP-V3400TNT/TV/16MB(SDRAM)

08:00 I just added a thing on the bottom of the Hints page about how to disable the video IRQ, for those who need another one in your system.

07:05 Mercury Research has published the latest bunch of D3D tests.  These tests are scorned by most gamers, but they are pretty good predictors of FS98 performance.  Here's a rundown.  Keep in mind many of these cards do not have DX6 drivers (like the Voodoo2) so the DX6 results a kinda screwy.

DirectX6		DirectX5
TNT	1550	Banshee	1290
Savage3D	1260	Savage3D	1190
i740	1240	Voodoo2	1140
Revolution IV	1170	Revolution IV	870
Voodoo2	1140	i740	850
G200	1080	G200	828
Riva128ZX	993	Riva128ZX	809
Rage Pro Turbo	895	Rage Pro Turbo	763
Riva128	887	Riva128	717
		V2200	607
		PermediaII	588
		V2100	383
		ViRGE	115

In the "oh boy another new chipset" Department:

Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:DIMD - news), a leader in interactive multimedia acceleration, today announced the SpeedStar A50 graphics accelerator designed for cost-conscious system integrators.

SpeedStar is an AGP 2D/3D graphics board based on the 6326AGP chip from SiS and is available in 4MB or 8MB of SDRAM memory with a 200 MHz RAMDAC. SpeedStar accelerates an array of popular 2D/3D business and gaming titles written to DirectX 5.0/6.0 and OpenGL.

Producing rich, razor-sharp gaming and smooth-running 3D business applications, Diamond's SpeedStar A50 features an AGP 2X interface running at speeds up to 133MHz and a wide 24-bit color pipeline for exciting gaming with fast frame rates.

Additionally, the SpeedStar has Z-buffer support with 8-bit stencil and per-pixel precision, full hardware triangle 3D setup with per-pixel texture perspective correction, trilinear texture filtering, fogging, alpha blending, primitive transparency and video texturing.

For fast, full color 2D performance, the SpeedStar A50 has compelling value with impressive, photo-quality color and resolutions up to 1600x1200 as well as high, ergonomic refresh rates to 200Hz. The SpeedStar A50 is upgradeable to Diamond's DTV 2000 TV tuner/video capture board and is fully optimized for Windows 98.

I can't begin to guess how this one will perform, but I'll add it to the list of cards in the Report System. If I've left other new chipsets out, let me know.

Cyrellis has a review up of the Celeron 300A ('Mendocino'):

It's plain to see that Intel has accomplished all of their goals with the Celeron 300 A, it's a fantastic CPU. We're talking super low cost for a super high return, as well as a super-extreme overclocking ability here. It's important to note that Cyrellis used an "OEM" version of the Celeron 300 A for testing, meaning that this is the type of CPU that will come equipped in pre-assembled PCs from various vendors.

Several overclockers that we routinely communicate with seem to agree that in the case of the Celeron class of CPUs the "Retail" models overclock slightly better than their OEM cousins. We've already heard reports of people taking their new Celeron 300 As up to the 504MHz level (4.5 x 112MHz) with proper cooling. Cyrellis was never able to achieve this speed, or even come close to it, but again each CPU manufactured is unique especially when they're comprised of over 19 million trace routes as the Celeron A is.

Also worth noting is the fact that we weren't able to select any other multiplier with the Celeron 300 A besides 4.5x, even with the Abit BH6 mainboard. The Celeron 333 A will be equipped with a permanent 5.0x multiplier, so it's really unknown how "good" the 333 A will be for the overclocking-motivated buyer.

...And so does CombatSim.

Here's a good bit of news: the Matrox G200 drivers are out will full support for the 3DNow! instructions set used in the K6-2.   In the past the G200 didn't seem to benefit much from the K6-2 (at least it didn't benefit as much as the Voodoo2 did).  Here's what I lifted from the 3DNow now site:

Here are the Matrox 3DNow!™ Drivers for the G200 from MURC. This is what the new version includes:

1) Full DirectX 6 support
2) Optimised for AMD K6-2 (3DNow!)
3) Full support for ALI Aladdin V and VIA MVP 3 chipsets under Windows 95

Special thanx to Shane and Eric for letting me know. Click here to download the Matrox G200 Drivers v4.12 for WIndows 95/98 - 1677_421.ZIP.

00:00 Audio news is up.

Gamespot has a big review of F-16 and MiG-29.

OGR previews European Air Wars, which has a nice demo you can download.

Ripped from AGN3D:

Over at Combatsim they have taken another gander and posted their opinions and screenshots of Falcon 4.0. On the other side of the sim web page market, PCME has taken their 3d look at Israeli Air Force (IAF) and written down more info as well as screenshots on the game.

31Aug98 21:54 Sharkey has looked at the Banshee Reference card.  It's pretty cool!

There exists a Permedia3 FAQ if you like that sort of thing.

Also, here are some informal game benchmarks (no flight sim) of the TNT-based STB Velocity 4400 (ripped form VoodooExtreme):

They aren't calling it a full fledged review, but it's not a preview either...but the guys over at MPOG have tossed up, ummm, their thoughts on the Velocity 4400, TNT based guy -- Lots of information here!   Here's a few of their benchmarks (done on a P2-333):

TNT Benchmarks:
Quake 2 (timedemo 1 demo1.dm2) @640 x 480 = 60.6
Quake 2 (timedemo 1 demo1.dm2) @800 x 600 = 56.6
Quake 2 (timedemo 1 demo1.dm2) @1024 x 768 = 39.9
Quake 2 (timedemo 1 demo1.dm2) @1600 x 1200 = 16.4

Quake 2 Massive1 Demo @640 x 480 = 46.1
Quake 2 Massive1 Demo @800 x 600 = 44.9
Quake 2 Massive1 Demo @1024 x 768 = 36.3
Quake 2 Massive1 Demo @1600 x 1200 = 16.2

Quake 2 Crusher Demo @640 x 480 = 29.9
Quake 2 Crusher Demo @800 x 600 = 29.0
Quake 2 Crusher Demo @1024 x 768 = 27.8
Quake 2 Crusher Demo @1600 x 1200 = 14.3

Turok @640 x 480 = 93.7
Turok @800 x 600 = 93.3

And their V2 scores:

Voodoo 2 Benchmarks (Single Board):
Quake 2 demo1.dm2 @640 x 480 = 72.8fps
Quake 2 demo1.dm2 @800 x 600 = 56.1fps

Quake 2 Massive1 Demo @640 x 480 = 52.2fps
Quake 2 Massive1 Demo @800 x 600 = 44.6fps

Quake 2 Crusher Demo @640 x 480 = 32.4fps
Quake 2 Crusher Demo @800 x 600 = 30.3fps

Turok @640 x 480 = 88.6

Voodoo 2 Benchmarks (SLI):
(SLI) Quake 2 demo1.dm2 @800 x 600 = 73.7fps
(SLI) Quake 2 demo1.dm2 @1024 x 768 = 64.5fps

(SLI) Quake Massive1 Demo @800 x 600 = 52.8fps
(SLI) Quake Massive1 Demo @1024 x 768 = 34.0fps

(SLI) Quake 2 Crusher Demo @800 x 600 = 32.8fps
(SLI) Quake 2 Crusher Demo @1024 x 768 = 32.5fps

(SLI) Turok @800 x 600 = 88.9

19:05 Terry Turner graciously submitted an Image Quality contribution for the i740 chip.   Looks like the alpha blending is a bit different (lighter) than most cards.

There is an interesting article called "Microsoft and 3D Graphics: A Case Study in Suppressing Innovation and Competition" you can read about MS's effort to keep 3D technology under it's control.

00:00 Audio news is up, long this time.  I talk about video IRQ's and video priority issues.

30Aug98 17:10 Below I include a very interesting email from Pierre Poirier about the relationship between views in FS98 with and without panels:

I recently changed PC and fooled a bit with different video cards: Asus I740 and G200.

The clear winner is G200 without a doubt. Look at my new results record no 112,113 and 114. It does not beat the VoodooII, but it is close. However, there is one area where the G200 beats it. I have an aircraft Kingair350, full blown panel.  Well, when i stand at Meiggs airfield and watch fps, here is what i found out:

with VoodooII
with panel: 16 fps (everything is at maximum);
less panel: 55 fps

with G200 with panel:
60 fps (same everything, maximum)
less panel: 60 fps. 

This would tend to confirm the theory that these panels are treated differently than the rest of the scenery.

Regards
Pierre Poirier

I think his observations confirm the advantage of two things: a card with a very good 2D sections, and AGP.   Panels can get very big (the amount of data, I mean), and they consume time being transmitted on the data bus.  Normally this isn't too much of a problem, but it can be a factor when the screen resolution gets above 1024x768.  I think this same advantage will carry through to the Banshee and TNT cards, and others when they show up.   Thanks, Pierre.

16:32 The first TNT card, the STB Velocity 4400, is now shipping:

STB Systems, Inc. ^® (NASDAQ-STBI), a leading supplier of multimedia and convergence products, today began shipping its groundbreaking new Velocity 4400^™ multimedia accelerator. The Velocity 4400 is today’s fastest and most powerful accelerator for 3D games and business applications. The Velocity 4400 has a suggested retail price of $199 with a software bundle that includes a complete version of the award-winning game Forsaken^™. The Velocity 4400 is the first accelerator available to feature the advanced RIVA TNT^™ (TwiN Texel) architecture from NVIDIA^® Corporation.

STB’s Velocity 4400, which will soon be available at Babbages^®, Best Buy^®, CompUSA^®, Electronics Boutique^®, and Fry’s^® features high-performance 128-bit 2/D graphics, high quality video playback, and impressive 3D rendering for Direct3D^™ and OpenGL^™ API’s. The Velocity 4400 has a 250 MHz RAMDAC that supports a maximum refresh rate of 160Hz. True color display of 16.7 million colors is supported at resolutions up to 1900 x 1280 for crisp, clear photo-realistic images. With this combination, the Velocity 4400 meets or exceeds global standards for ergonomics. The ability of the Velocity 4400 to display images on a standard television allows business users to deliver presentations, and game players to play computer games on a large format television in addition to a PC monitor. The Velocity 4400 is available for the AGP 2X or PCI platform with 16MB of high speed SDRAM, and is targeted at the high-end performance PC and professional PC segments.

Warzone has reviewed Red Baron II with the 3Dfx patch.

28Aug98 00:00 Audio news is posted.

27Aug98 21:32 Sort-of sim news: a new demo, Spacefighters, is out.  It's a shooter/sim game, runs under OpenGL, but will run on a Voodoo with the miniport.

Another 2D/3D chip is announced: the ATi Rage 128. From the spec sheet will be in the Banshee/TNT range, if you believe spec sheets.

The Canopus Spectra 2500 will be TNT-powered.

MSFS98 has plummeted from the top-selling game in November all the way to number 10.  Talk about longevity!

12:54 There are some new screenshots of SPP99 at GamePen.

07:28 Diamond has new drivers for the V330: Release Notes, AGP Drivers - 2.30MB, PCI Drivers - 2.30MB. Let us know over at the AVSIM 3D Forum (see link at left) how they run.

F22-ADF has a patch.

Some chap at GeoCities has a nice chipset comparison, which is recently updated.

S3 put up some Savage3D screenshots. No airplanes, though.   Just a flying saucer is as close as they get.

BuyComp is listing the 16 MB STB Velocity 4400 (a TNT card) for presale at about $160 retail, $150 OEM. Click on the link and look at the bottom of the list.

Tom's Hardware looks at the new 450 MHz PII'sm and the new Celeron "A" processors (the ones with the 128 KB full-speed cache).

00:00 Audio news is up.

26Aug98 18:05 Diamond announced they will sell a Banshee card, the Monster Fusion. 16 MB RAM, $150 for the PCI version, $200 for the AGP.  If you buy the Monster Sound card with it, you'll get $60 back.

PCGamer talks about video cards, with some PCI v. AGP thrown in.

25Aug98 21:25 I'm not doing an audio news tomorrow.  I can't think of anything to say!

17