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Intel's new 3D card in
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Wing Commander
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> 104 Win95 Keyboard & Mouse I Mini-ATX CASE with 235 Watt Power Supply
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Product Information Number 236
 Falcon Northwest
MachV, page 74

Speed Addict NEWS

when we were coming up with the 1^ hoOtWire News that matters.
new bootMarks, a debate broke out With the surge in popularity of low-end PCs, many big-name
among the crew here. We had to set manufacturers are killing of their high-end offerings or limiting
parameters for our new ForsakenMark them to built-to-order direct-maii venues, boot takes an in-depth
test numbers. We wanted them to
look at the current spate ofsub-$1,000 technologies. ALSO Months
ago, when we criticized the nVidia Riva 128 for Immature drivers
represent a legitimate attainable rate,
provided for review, we had no Idea the backlash these comments
but we also wanted room to grow into.
would draw. We've meet with nVldla's top people and looked at the
A benchmark doesn't do anybody any current drivers. This is our report.
good if every chipset that waltzes
through the lab maxes out the scale.
And the narrower the range, the more
distinct the differences between products. VOICES
Now,typical systems gave us frame rates around 20 to
30fps. And Riva 128-based cards were kicking frame rates in 23 ThS Saint Alex St. John reveals his darkest secret
about DirectX and the hidden truth behind OpenGL.
the 60s on the test. And our early trials with 3Dfe's Voodoo 2
were returning rates in the triple digits.
So 60^s seems like the natural midpoint, right?
27 Game Theory I. Ham McDonald's mad as Hell
about game companies ripping us off with half-assed products
WeU,those of you without aU this spankin' new technology that ship before they're finished.
might be a little bummed to find your pride and joy ranking
deep in the red on our new scale. 29 On the Line Shei Ktmen examinesjust how free the
And since 60fps is rapidly becoming the industry-wide free speech promised by free e-mall services really is.
standard for interactive content and you really can't even
visually detect much difference above that point, why set the 31 Fast Forward Tom Halfhai takes you along on his
top mark so high? painful three-yearjourney through the torment that could strike
any of us: RSI.
Who really needs 90lps in any game? You do.
You need 90fps in the ForesakenMark today to guarantee
that you'U have the power to run tomorrow's software.
104 Giitch Jon Phiiiips rummages the basement of
the boot building In downtown Manhattan to find out what ever
Voodoo 2 outruns today's most hardware-intensive games, so happened to the old Glitch cast.
software developers can raise the bar. And raise their polygon
counts, and texture map sizes, and level sizes, and so on.
The biggest complaint we hear from readers who have
invested their life savings into a kick-ass rig is how six DEPARTMENTS
months later, that same system feels pokey and outdated. The
hardware didn't wear down. The world moved forward.
5 Comm Port Readers air out the buzz via e-mail, fax,
Technology travels in one direction: forward. You may save and pope cards.
a buck by buying behind the curve, but you're doing so at the
expense ofthe life span ofyour system. That sub-$l,000 PC 12 bOOtOisc Your guide to thejoys of our shiny silver
may nm more or less everything you want it to today, but platter. A sampling of this month's bounty Includes: Video Driver
tomorrow? I guarantee you're going to load the latest digital Madness!PLUS Wing Commander Prophecy, Madden 98, FIFA 98,
video, or image editor, or 3D renderer, and it'U crap out on you. G-Police, Turok Dinosaur Hunter, Daytona USA Deluxe, NBA Action
Or the game that's everyone buzzing over won't run for you. 98, PC Anywhere 32, and much, much more.
It's a fact oflife. Just ask the person living with a 486.
Sure, someone out there will cry out,"But aU I do on my 20 Pure Lust Tech toys for digital girls and boys.
PC is file recipes, and I'm perfectly content with my 486."
WeU, rock on and more power to ya. But for the rest of us
60 12-Step/Ciinic Want a few more fps out of that old
SDfx card to tide you over until Voodoo 2 hits? We've got your
who want to ride the bleeding edge of this mad race (or just solution: Overciock that bad boy!Simply follow our 12 easy steps
enjoy front-row seats, ifthe budget doesn't allow us to be to faster frame rates. ALSO A slew of tips and techniques to soothe
behind the steering wheel), we need lOOfps. We need the your burning sensations In this month's Clinic.
most MHz Intel or AMD can throw into a CPU. We need it
all, and we're going to get it. 66 bootWorthy You've got the killer system, with the
killer graphics and the killer speakers, but now consider the
source. You need a killer soundcard. And no matter what your
Brad Dosland needs, we've gotjust the card for you In this roundup of the
Editor in Chief soundcards deemed bootWorthy.

2 boot MAR 98 ViCam Color Digital Video Camera, page 88

P/REVIEWS FEATURES

70 Pre vie WS The so world has been holding its

collective breath waiting for the Impending 3D chipset from 50 Jock Itch
goliath Intel. Wfe have one of the first slabs of silicon and run it Football. Baseball. Soccer. Racing.
through the grinder.
Hoops. Fingerjams. Groin pulls.
73 Reviews The revlewboot readers have demanded: Theismann-llke snappage. If you get
Falcon Northwest's "ultimate"game system, the MachVgoes
head-to-head with the bootMarks, and nothing will ever be the
yourjollies by manipulating the
same again. hearts and souls of pixilated t
athletes, it's time to
ALSO:
—id's Quake II frags as one of the most anticipated games ever.
bust a move toward our biggest
—Rendition's new breed of 3D accelerators comes of age, and sports Sim roundup ever
we have two more V2200-based cards.
—Tired ofjust looking at other's 3D creations? Make your own
That's right, baby,jock itch
with Ray Dream 3D. will drive you nuts!

1'

34 Centaur's Glenn Henry

They call him Mr. Chips, and he's challenging Intel
with the WinChip 06+, a low-cost Socket 7-
compatible CPU optimized for Win95 and DirectX. Listen
to the maverick celebrate his built-in 3D acceleration while
he knocks Andy Grove and the "marketing ploy" called MMX.

54 Welcome to Speed Country

You ain't seen speed until you've seen the new 333MHz Pentium 11
processor work its magic mojo. We've got the shocking benchmarks
scores and all the info you'll need to upgrade to Intel's new CPU
architecture. And did we mention these babies overciock like a mother?

Cover System Photograph by Aaron Lauer

PlftV your cards like an
and you'll win every time.

Ml-it's all In the cards.

PDWEREDBY ATI has the winning cards. Witness the
industry's most recent awards from PC
Magazine, PC World, PC/Computing and
Boot, and ATI's partnership with the top
^ ten OEMs. ATI's ace is our award-winning
XPERT products available in both PCI or AGP Gamers go
berserk over XPERT@Play's 3D features and performance,
TV-out and video playback. Not to be outdone,
XPERT@Work delivers maximum levels of business
productivity with industry leading 20, 3D and video
acceleration. And don't forget to add on ATI-TV ATI's
TV tuner card. Everyone loves a winner - and that's ATI.
ATI is setting the new standard in 2D and 3D
performance. Now ATI is even faster with the latest
ATI RAGE PRO drivers. Check out our website at
www.atitech.com/boot
for information about ^
Airs most recent awards. 1

^PERFOHMANcJ *
3D Performance Comparison - ZD 3D Winbench98 i
I

Mah«x Millenium II
EIB
Creative Labs Graphics Blaster

3e,i3afyighr !998. ATI TcKhnrjIogtes Inc ATi. XPERTe.'Work. X°Eirrepiay, and RAGE PRO afc wattemarks
and/orregisterso trademarks of ATI Tccltnologies Inc. All other company and/o.' prorltjct n. rues are
tfaderriarks and/or fegi.\rnri'd trademarks of ttieir respective manufacturers. Features, perlo mancr.
and specifications rrwy vary by ope.'aiing environment and are subject to cnange without lotire.
Producn. may not be exaaJy as shown, Tested on PentiuiTi ii MMx.-.loOMHz/d'iMBrii I? c;ifh:e/'.?ir>dchk'S
95-OSR2/TesT Mode: 640x480x16bppp®7!jH2. Tested using fjnver Version; ATIXP£RT®Play S. tO J31D/STB
Vc'loclly 128 4.10.01.010//Matrbx Mysttquc/Milltnium 4.03.3/.OO/Diamond Monster 3D < . : ' i .
4.03.00.21Q8/1-Iefcuiev5tin^y-128'^.I.O.OO2108/Cn'a«ve.labs:S46jt; --JjiHI HPJl.Wi.L'U mpiliiW
4,03v0.(i;2M''

NowYonSeeIC Xll
www.atitech.com/boot
Product Information Number 85
boot
march 1998

EDITORIAL Jurassic Guru 3D processor. Wfll this additional 3D process

editor In chief Brad Oosland I just wanted to give a few words of praise to a ing increase rendering performance when
executive editor Jon Phillips magazine that has rekindled an old passion of raytracing images? Additionally, if the 3D
managing editor Sarah Pirch mine. I used to think of myself as a computer features within the chip support real-time 3D
news editor Bryan Del Rizzo
hardware editor Andrew Sanchez
girru. AH my friends were in awe of my knowl graphics, how will it work in conjunction
technical editor Sean Cleveland
edge ofcomputers. The only problem is that with other video cards? What APIs (if it
minister of web Daevid Vincent the industry moves so fast, it's almost impossi requires any) will it support? Is this some
contributing editors Tom Halfhill, She) Kimen, T. Liam ble to keep up. Things like AGP, MMX,3Dfx, useless processing device similar to MMX,
McDonald, Alex St. John and other terms leave my head spinning. Then or is it an entirely new CPU architecture that
contributing writers Frank Lenk, Rick Popko, Tommy Maple, I picked up an issue of hoot. I was surprised may no longer be x86 compatible?
Tara Calishain, Dan Simpson, Paula Reaume, Mike Ryan,
Bob Senoff, Tim Tully
(and delighted) at the amount ofinformation William
contained within its pages. I began to feel
A H T the stirring of a passion I had not felt in years. Senior editor Andrew Sanchez replies: AMD's K6
art director Kevin Ashburn I felt that I could once again claim I was 3D contains 24 new instruction sets specifically
associate art director Sherry Monarko "computer literate." designed to acceleratefloating-point computations,
designer Gerry "The Racecar Driver" Serrano Thank you for keeping this "dinosaur" where multiple FPCs can be processed in a single
contributing photographers Aaron Lauer, Mark Madeo
contributing illustrator Scott Peck
from becoming extinct. Your magazine is just clock cycle. This should speed up thefront end of
the thing for us "of timers" who remember the graphics pipeline, where stuffsuch as gaming
PRODUCTION COBOL, FORTRAN, and assembly, to evolve. physics, geometry transformation, clipping,
production director Richard Lesovoy Chris Hampton lighting, and even a bit oftriangle
production coordinator Glenn Sadin setup will be handled by these new
Bird Of Prey instructions. Meanwhile, the K6-f-3D
ADVERTISING
Falcon Northwest seems to talk throws in on-chip,full-speed L2
regional advertising manager Chris Coeiho
marketplace account manager Tiffany Suen
aU talk, but I would like to see its cache and other enhancements. As
marketing manager Erik "Fisherman" Filler machines put in the scrupulous far as rendering performance with
advertising coordinator Jennifer Barbeau hands of boot magazine, boot is raytraced images, that will depend
the authority in the world of on the applications—it will natural
CIRCULATION hardware, as compared to any ZD ly renderfaster due to thefaster
newsstand director Bruce Eldridge clock speeds and increased FPC
pub, whose reviews seem to Ire
newsstand manager Thea Selby
directly related to the amount of
Falcon performance, but in order to take
circulation analyst Terry Lawson
circulation manager Tina Rodlch advertising a company does. 1 Northwest full advantage ofthe K6 3D's new
fuifiiiment manager Peggy Mores find it difficult to swallow their instructions, the application must be
direct mail manager Amy Nibbi reviews. If Falcon's product really ■ seems to talk programmed specificallyfor them,
does kick ass, then let's see the just like MMX. The 3Dfeatures will
boot guys down at boot tear it up and the talk, but I work with other 3D accelerators—
150 North Hill Drive, Brisbane, CA 94005
see who the real wirmer is. remember, the K6+3D will accelerate
url www.bootnet.com
Howard West
would like to thefront-end ofthe graphics pipeline,
subscriptions phone 800.274.3421
while the 3D accelerator will take
subscription e-maii [email protected]
advertising 415.468.4684 ext. 110 Editor in. chiefBrad Dodmd replies:
see Its machines care oftriangle setup (ifapplicable)
editorial 415.468.4684; [email protected]
fax 415,468.4686
Ever since we looked at one of put to the and the pixel rendering stage. API
Falcon's systems waaay back in boot support as ofthis writing includes
IMAGINE PUBLISHING INC
02, we've wanted tofly one again. scrupulous DirectX 6.0.

publisher Caroline Simpson-Bint

Luckily, thefolks at FNWfinally And don't worry, the K6-\-3D is
director of CD-ROM development Thomas Hale consented to our repeated requests, hands of boot fully x86 backward compatible, so
new media business development manager Mary Hoppin and we have one reviewed in this you can bust out your oV copy of
creative director Laura Morris very issue. Check it out on page 74.
magazine." Ultima IV and play it till you puke.
vice president of circulation Holly Klingel
vice president/CFO Tom Valentino
president Chris Anderson
Bus Speed Limits Thesaurus Rex
Does the 440BX AGPset give a true lOOMHz Have you ever counted the number oftimes
INTERNATIONAL LICENSING REPRESENTATIVE
speed throughout the bus or 50MHz,as with "ass" is written in the magazine? Please give
Robert J. Abramson and Associates, Inc.
720 Post Road, Scarsdale, NY 10583
our current 66MHz/33MHz bus? your writers a thesatuus. Technically, boot is
Also, whatever happened to the Lockheed- great and reviews awesome computers. With
volume 3, issue 3
Martin R3D chipset.' such a high-profile magazine, please assume
boot (ISSN 1088-5439) is published monthly by Imagine Publishing Inc., Rafael Garcia a leadership role and realize that many yotmg
150 North Hill Drive, Suite 40, Brisbane, CA 94005, USA. Periodical class
postage paid In Brisbane, CA, and at additional mailing offices. Newsstand people read these mags and the writers are role
distribution is handled by Curtis Circulation Company. Basic subscription
rates: one year(12 Issues) U.S. $30.00/Canada $43.95 Canadian price
Senior editor Andrew Sanchez replies: From models, whether they realize it or not (or care).
Includes postage and GST(GST 4128220688). POSTMASTER Send changes what Intel has told us, your PCI bus will still Ray Pace
of address to boot, P.O.Box 51479, Boulder, CO 80328-1479.
run at 33MHz (for compatibility's sake), while
Standard Mall enclosed In the following editlons:A,A1,A2,A3.A4,A5, C. 0, the system bus (memory subsystem, etc.) will run Window Gleaning Tips
01. CPC Infl Pub Mall 40781029. Outside the U.S. and Canada, price is Regarding your I2-Step in boot 16;
$53.95, U.S. prepaid funds only. For customer service, write boot, P.O. Box
at lOOMHz (or 33x3=99MHz).
51479, Boulder. 00 80328-1479; Asfar as Lockheed-Martin's R3D technology, When you make a boot disk and copy
boot, 150 North Hill Drive,
Brisbane. CA 94005.
you'll be seeing a variation ofit surfacing with AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to the
Imagine Publishing also publishes Intel's i740 Auburn 3D accelerator. Take a peek startup disk, check for AUTOEXEC.DOS and
PC Gamer, Next Generation, Mac Addict, Ultra Game Players, PlayStation
at page 70for an info-packed preview and initial CONFIG.DOS instead, if running Win95, as
Magazine, a/tolhe Net. Entire contents copyright 1998, Imagine Publishing,
Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or In part is prohibited. Imagine benchmark results—they may surprise you! those would not he modified while in Win95,
Publishing, Inc. Is not affiliated with the companies or products covered In but only when booting to a previous version
hoot. PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
K6+3D=Multipie FPGs ofMS-DOS.
I have some questions about the K6-t3D. I Also, before frying your HD,boot up with
understand that the K6-h3D has an internal your nice new startup disk and make sure
CO
you can access your CD-ROM drive. Also, 68000 chip were far more elegant than their The pace of development and the money
if using the *.DOS config files, make sure Microsoft/Intel counterparts. that goes with it create software piracy. After
highscan is not on the emm386 line. Eyal Teler investing money in new speakers and a new
Ken Tope monitor, I found myself unable to buy good
In the Saint's recent column (boot 17), he games (I need a new jeans—^my only pair is
1 just finished reading your 12-Step on mentioned creating a new OS without all this not taking four washes a week very well). This,
cleaning Windows and was wondering if backward compatibility. I support him, if of course, is not an attempt to excuse warez. I
there was any way to keep my drive partition only we could start over completely. Get rid know I'm not the only one to invest hundreds
when I put my restore disk in. of the IRQs, DMAs,and 640K oflow RAM. of dollars in my computer while walking in a
Michael Gomez If we could create a new PC and OS with just ripped up pair ofjeans and shoes with holes.
Pawel Opala
Technical editor Sean Cleveland
replies: Sure,just skip Step 8. r ?| "Have you ever counted the A Case For

DirectOS = AmigaOS JCI number oftimes ass is Scully And Mulder

I have a bitch. The 24x ATAPI CD
The Saint's DirectOS (boot 17)
sounds so much like an OS I
I written in the magazine? Piease drive reviews in boot 17 are in conflict
with those in boot 14. In particular,
have been using since 1986: CT * give your writers a thesaurus." the Toshiba XM-6102B benchmarks
look completely unrelated.
AmigaOS, a multitasking OS
that can run from a floppy and Was this due to a different
machines designed so the OS can be SCSI, PCI, 3D, DVD,and all the other new testbed? Different version of CDTach? Different
bypassed by those who would like to hit the and cool technologies, then have a powerful "bus mastering" drivers? Unexplained UFO
hardwire directly. NT-style OS that wasn't a resource hog. I phenomenon? Or some other reason left out of
Dr. Larry Keller must be dreaming. the small print?
Joseph Jones Derek Blakley
While I agree that an OS could be written
better than Windows 95 is, I can't really Saint Praise Technical editor Sean Cleveland replies: You got
understand comments about pre-emptive I'm a true fan of the Saint's column—direct, it right with the different testbed. When we review
multitasking."How many times are you really hard hitting, and crammed full of insider goo comparable hardware, it's done on the same
running three or more apps concurrently and right from the frothing horses mouth! God I system. With the newer drives (in boot 17), we
being productive?" love it. It makes me wonder just how many were unable to recreate the original testbed. We
How many times are you working while :? more ofthose Microsoft monkeys secretly tried, but got different scores on the Toshiba drive
an Internet download is in the background? share his professional and personal attitudes (which won thefirst round in boot 14). It would
Have you ever rendered an image and wrote a toward Microsoft. be unfair to Sony and USDrive ifwe put them up
letter at the same time? Or perhaps you want I'm sure quite a few ofthose working in against the Toshiba with the original scores, as
to compile something while continuing to the Redmond Lockdown know in their heart they were much better, so we re-benchmarked the
work on the code. of hearts that it should and could be done Toshiba to level the playingfield. We then used
Even when multitasking doesn't actually better. But if I was getting $75,000+ for ham the bootVerdict ofthe Toshiba drive (6) as a basis
make you more productive, it at least gives mering out line-after-endless-line of code and for the scores ofthe other two drives. We apologize
you the feeling that you have some control. linking them gracefully together with endless for not clarifying this in the review.
You don't have to just sit there and stare at > i,{ and bloated Dynamic Link Libraries and
your monitor while your computer copies • calling it an OS, I wouldn't be too inclined to From D^ep In The Heart
some file. bite the hand of my feeder. Of Toshiba
The times when you're not Ukely to do any Matt Livingstone I work in a plant that produces nearly all of
multitasking are actually when you're being Toshiba's desktop computers, and I think
least productive, i.e., you're playing games (and Hack Naked your review ofthe 7260 in boot 17 was right
I'm not talking about the fortunate few whose I'm a computer science student who also holds on target. I have asked engineers why we were
job is to play games) or benchmarking your a full-time job. Why? I'm pumping himdreds bulking a machine with a 6.4GB HD and only
system, or something lilte this. I assume that's: ? of dollars into my machine every month. In the using most of it. They didn't even seem to
:where Alex's point of view comes from. past year and a half, I've blown a $3,500 hole know about FAT 32. One even laughed at me
And as for pre-emptive multitasking being!; in my savings. All that money just trying to and thought I was off my rocker. For the record
expensive, I can't understand why. The keep up. It seems no matter how much I bleed 1 have proven him wrong on this and many,
Amiga did it pretty well on a 7MHz CPU with out, it's never enough. The worst part is that many other occasions, but it sometimes gets
an OS that fit into 256K of ROM (later 512K), I'm looking to buy a 3D& Voodoo Rush card frustrating being only a technician making
and didn't need megabytes of memory to and boot 17 is already talking about Voodoo 2. tech pay, when these bozos are making
function. Sure, it didn't implement virtual Voodoo 2 ? I thought Voodoo Rush was the double the salary with half the knowledge.
memory or memory protection, but it wasn't latest gizmo! And when is Voodoo 3 coming? We also build several more computers for
much less stable than Windows 95, which v 1 Six months after Voodoo 2? many ofthe top companies. We build the
does implement them. AmigaOS also lets ;" I What really ticks me off is the freaking motherboards for Intergraph, also reviewed in
programs disable multitasking, which was ignorance of aU the DVD makers. Obviously 17. The dual-P-Il board is called "Stingray" in
perfect for games that wanted to squeeze people responsible for DVD technology have house. If you guys liked that system, you
every last ounce of speed from the system no clue what(power) freaks like me go should see one of Intergraph's other mother
(i.e., most of them). And they could, of course through to keep up. We are afraid to buy boards. This sucker has no less than four P8
restore multitasking, too. because of incompatibilities in the industry sockets and 32, yes 32, SIMM sockets onboard!
What I'm saying is—just because a leaders' products. Kartr Hi^ns
feature is problematic under Windows Thank God I'm not married. I'd either
doesn't mean it's a bad idea for an OS. It's a still have a 486 or hold divorce papers in my K6 O'clock
real pity that good technologies don't always hand after a recent trip to the computer store Ever since boot 05, I've been wanting to try
win the day. Both the AmigaOS and the (my best friend. Visa). overclocking, but have been afraid. Today I
overcame that fear. I'm running my AMD K6 that project and busted their butts to make a Editor in chUfBrad Dosland replies: Sponsorship,
166MHz at a speedy 200MHz. I have the great game. Anyone who saw the game would huh? Some grommet shredding thefloor of
feeling before this is all said and done I'll teU you it looked great. COMDEX street style in the name o/boot?
push it toward 233MHz. It's running good so Unfortunately, many times, bigger-picture Massive air over the showfloor? Backside grinds
far, with minimal "warmth." issues between developers and publishers can down the rails at the IBM booth? Hmm. It could
My IWiU P55XB2 motherboard documenta kill a project. work. Before doing the boot drill, I was an editor
tion says "The jumper mark as 'T75' on the JP7 Heinz Schuller, Lead Artist at Thrasher magfor quite afew years, so I get
is reserved for engineer used only to easy test FASA Interactive your drift. 'Course, you'll have to drop out ofschool
and change the bus dock from 60/66 to 75 bus and travel the country in a beater '64 Impala...
frequency as a over dock jumper, you are not Microsoft Versus The World And by the way, our executive editor is a
recommend to use the over dock function as it I'm eating my breakfast and watching the swingin'single, and we encourage all our younger
may unstable your system."(These aren't my morning news when who appears for an inter readers to send him photos oftheir (preferably
not typos!) How do you get this to work? Before view—none other than Ralph Nader, and the single) mothersfor his consideration.
moving my CPU jumper from 166 to 200,1 topic ofthe day was Microsoft. He whined
tried this "T75" jumper. My system hung. about vaporware, predatory pricing, web Tweaky At High Speeds
Also, my Award BIOS has an "SDRAM browsers, blah, blah, blah. Did he I have a I66MHz with MMX (I
Speculative read" option. What is that? make good points? Yes. Did he overclock it to 200MHz) and the
Patrick Coy make bad points? Yes. Do I care? 430VX chipset. It's pretty quick,
No. Let them include whatever but I want more speed. I'm
Teckniccd editor Sean Cleveland replies: You are they want in Win9x. If I don't thinking about getting a 430TX
correct. To run the system at 75MHz, you only like IE4, I'll download the latest chipset capable of83MHz bus
need to put ajumper on "T75" of}P7. When you version of Netscape and install it. speed. Is it worth getting the
tried it, you were effectively running the system at We all have our opinion of 430TX chipset, or should I just
187.5MHz. Pushing the CPU and the bus speed Microsoft (actually I think we aU get a Pentium II?
may have been too muchfor your system. Try have a common one), but enough Sonyman
running the system at 150MHz with the bus set to is enough.
75MHz. You will lose 16MHz on the CPU but As for Nader, maybe Microsoft Microsoft Senior editor Andrew Sanchez
mayfind the system to befaster anyway. It will at could build an exploding gas tank replies: The 430TX is notoriously
least prove that the motherboard and its compo into Win9x and give Nader a real could build an tweaky about running at speeds
nents can handle a 75MHz speed. Ifthat doesn't reason to go after the company. faster than 66MHz—you'll need
work, it may mean one ofthe PCI cards in your Jonathan Pilgrim exploding gas tofind a 430TX mainboard that
system can't handle the speed increase. Asfor the supports a higher bus speed and is
"SDRAM Speculative Read" option, according to Eight-Headed tank Into stable at that speed. Ifyou plan to
Award it means "The chipset can 'speculate'on a Monster win9x and stay in Socket 7, try dabbling with
DRAM read address, thus reducing read latencies. I hear that Windows 98 and NT5 a non-Intel chipset such as VIA
The CPU issues a read request containing the data will be able to support up to eight give Nader a VP2/VP3 or others—they'll support
memory address. The DRAM controller receives displays using different video bigger L2 caches andfaster system-
the request. When thisfield is enabled, the con cards. Now, I only have one PCI real reason to bus speeds. But ifyou want to
troller issues the read command slightly before it slot left and I'm saving that for a take the Pentium II plunge, gofor
hasfinished decoding the data address." 3D add-on card. Are motherboard go after the something in either the 440LX or
manufactures plaiming on 440BXflava.
m st8 adding more PCI or even more
company."
With all the news on upgrade paths for Socket 7 AGP ports in the future now that Mission: Impossibie
owners, those of us wi& Pentium Pros (Socket almost everything is going PCI (e.g., sound- I fad to see how you could possibly assign the
8) feel left out. Is there any hope for a CPU cards)? I could use a second display, since I Micron Transport XKE anything over a 5, as
upgrade, or are we left in the silicon dust? am always running out of screen real estate. the Micron system only has 2MB of video
Jim Sayer Eric Sales RAM. This is an utter sham that Micron is
trying to foist off on the unsuspecting public.
Senior editor Andrew Sanchez replies: Intel hasn't Senior editor Andrew Sanchez replies: A well- I called Micron about this. The salesperson I
totallyforgotten 'bout you Socket 8 power users out known mainboard maker recently showed us a spoke to was nice; however, he tried to lead
there—Intel has informed us that a Pentium Pro forthcoming design that'll have one AGP,five me to believe that 2MB of video RAM could,
Overdrive Chip with MMX extensions will be PCI, and one shared ISA/PCI slot,for a grand somehow, display 16-bit color at 1024x768.
available sometime in 1998, so you can rock on total ofsix usable PCI slots! But, until someone This would be physically impossible. (If you
with MMXjust like everyone eke. Other than that, gets offhis butt and designs an AGP bridge chip, add up the bbp and res, you get more than
once Slot 2 Deschutes is released, the Pentium Pro you're stuck with that one AGP slot. I've personal 2.3MB, which does not include setup and
will stroll with regular oV non-MMX Pentiums into ly asked Intel to give you more AGP slots, but as draw overhead, as well as a myriad of other
the silicon sunset. ofright now, is sees AGP as a single-slot solution. things needed by video memory.)
I made him check, and he found that it
To Kill A Mechingbird it's Not Easy Being Cheesy will only do 256 colors at 1024x768.
In regard to your online news item of12.16.97 I think boot should sponsor me... you know To top that off, he said "Well, few people
regarding FASA's giving up development of like skateboarders get sponsored and stuff? run at 1024x768" Oh really? So why does the
Mechwarrior 3to Zipper:"The development But instead of getting cheesy wheels and LCD screen run at that resolution? And this
team at FASA Interactive that dropped the ball trucks, I should get 3D cards and mother being a "Power Notebook," it's probably
on Mechwarrior 3 has, ahem, been reassigned boards. And I should represent boot at meant to replace a desktop system anyway.
to other products " COMDEX. My mom said she would make Hence, you might want to put on an external
I'd like to say that the MW3 development you guys some bomb California roUs (she's monitor at some point.
team at FASA never "dropped the ball." There Japanese) if you hooked me up. To add insult to injury, they don't even
were artists, programmers, designers, and And my mom thinks Jon PhiEips is cute... make a full docking station for this machine,
producers who worked for well over a year on James McClarty just a measly port replicator.
CO
The Gateways 9100 series machine has Boo On Voodoo reject itfor lack ofthatfunctionality, even ifit
everything the Micron has, plus 4MB of video For the past few months, the bootDisc has does have a D3D driver. D3D can't give your
memory, at the same or lower price. Top this contained Voodoo-specific software. 1 feel that hardwarefunctionality it doesn't have.
off with a 233MHz Tillamook chip, a full by this, hoot is not addressing the majority of You're sufferingfrom one ofthe biggest
docking station, a 14.2-inch screen (which readers. You cannot expect your clientele to go problems with PCsfor consumer entertainment.
Micron does not offer), and an integrated and purchase hardware for the sole purpose of There are no standardsfor defining multimedia
CD-ROM/floppy, and the Gateway blows the taking advantage of your bootDisc. supportfor a PC system. It's all determined by
doors off the Micron any way you slice it. Unless boot wishes to lose the majority of the wild-westfree market and a thousand
Josh Zerlan its readers, refrain from providing hardware- vendors all independently making different com
specific software. I hope my comments do ponents, bolting them together, and hoping they
Nem editor Bryan Del Rizzo replies: Our XKE not fall on deaf ears, and that there will be an get along. Something is always broken. I tried to
233MHz supports 1024x768@l6-bit colorjust improvement in software provided by your get a project going at MS called "Funstones" to
fine. At 800x600, you can hump up the color- magazine. create a standard support and compatibility suite
depth to 24-bit. Butfor the record, both machines Richard for all MM systems that would make it easyfor
are terrific and are heartily recommended. And consumers to identify a quality MM systemfrom
yes, thefioppy/CD-ROM combo on the Solo Technical editor Sean Cleveland replies: We realize a broken one. Unfortunately, consumers aren't
9100 is positively cool. not everybody has this hardware, which is why we high on Microsoft's priority list.
However, as good as the Solo is, the Micron put hardware-accelerated versions along with the
XKE is even better. Its overall performance beat nonaccelerated versions on the disc. Yes, a lot of Software Scam
the Solo hands down. The wavetable audio was 3Djx games have been released lately, and support Software houses are ripping us off big time. I
sweet as the pure driven snow; and the battery for it is at an all-time high. We would be doing recently sent an e-mail to Bethesda concern
providedjuicefor well over three hours (more those readers who own this hardware a disservice if - ing the "half-assed" game Battlespire. What a
than an hour more than the Solo 9100). Also, if we did not include these optimized versions. Expect piece of rhinoceros excrement! The game
you check out the review in boot 14, you'll realize to see content that takes advantage ofRendition didn't even work out of the box. I had to go to
Micron's port replicator is hardly "measly." With and PowerVR hardware as well. Also expect to see / the web site and download a patch to get it
features such as an Ethernet LAN adapter, S- the latest driversfor these cards, along with patches working. Smells like the "Daggefall Patch
Video and NTSC video-out ports, built in stereo to the latest games, boot only reviews games that Fiasco" to me. Boy! The bean counters sure
speakers, and a cool way to charge the battery, take advan- ^
we'd call it nicely robust. tage ofthe
latest tech "I am tired of software companies using
More Voodoo 2 Qs nology and
The preview of the 3Dfx Voodoo 2 was great, hardware, and tfie oid bait and switch tactic. We
but it still leaves many questions still open it only makes
(especially if you have a high-end monitor sensefor
shouid be boycotting these companies
[21-mch] and need to know what to expect)! i:!" the bootDisc to
support them
and putting them out of business."
1. What will the AGP Voodoo 2 do that the
PCI can't (other than 1024x768/16-bit)? as well.
2. When will the AGP part be available (how couldn't wait to collect that Christmas cash
long afterward?) Card-Specific DirectSD could they? What happened to the 3Dfx
3. What should people interested in buying a If a game is designed for Direct3D, shouldn't support Bethesda was claiming in its
2D/3D board and a Voodoo 2 do? it work with any 3D accelerator, provided the magazine ads? What a rip off! I waited
4. What graphics card would you suggest if • i 3D card supports the DirectX API? I own a months and paid $60 dollars for an alpha?
you have a 21-inch (or a 19-inch) monitor? : Matrox m3D and have found, much to my And Bethesda is not the only one doing it! 1
KJohn Sasitomi displeasure, that many games say they are am tired of software companies breaking the
Direct3D but require a specific 3D chipset. law. These companies are committing fraud,
Senior editor Andrew Sanchez replies: More Wasn't DirectX created to eliminate the plain and simple! They are using the old "bait
Voodoo 2 questions! Hold on to yer hats, 'cause • need to worry about hardware requirements? and switch" tactic. Companies talk about how
here we go... Wasn't it created to bring all types of hardware wonderful their game is going to be and then
1) AGP Voodoo 2 will allowfaster transfer of3D • into one scope, allowing a general path for give us a game that has more bugs than a bait
data such as vertex information and triangle . game developers to follow, thus enabling the store. Does a consumer buy a washing
data, but other than that, not too much else use of any 3D accelerator with their games? machine and have to wait for a patch to use
(besides the aforementioned resolution). Is the game company's declaration of the spin cycle? Does a consumer buy a toaster
2) As we go to press, the only vendor who's support for Direct3D wrong then? Or should 1 and have to wait until the power cord comes
announced a Voodoo 2 AGP part is California: scream at Microsoft for this? out to use it? 1 think not. The FTC should
Graphics, with its Wizard 3D. Armed with : james Addison hear about it. As part of the gaming commu
TV-outs and 12MB ofvideo memory (four per ■ nity, we should be boycotting these compa
jx2 chip), it's slatedfor Q1 ofthis year. Columnist Alex St.John replies: D3D was created nies and putting them out of business.
3) You should wait until Voodoo 2 comes out. to allow 3D games to run onjust about every 3D When Nintendo, Capcom, or Konami
Make sure you're running a utility that card. No, it doesn't often work that way in make a game for a console system, the game
allows switching between video cards such practice. Card manufacturers still have to make has to be 100% complete before it goes to car
as 3DCC. D3D driversfor their cards, and they often do a tridge or CD. Why should it be any different
4) Ifyou have a massive 21-incher and want to poorjob ofit. Game developers still need to test for PC software? It shouldn't! Because we have
run at high resolutions and refresh rates, look their games on a range of3D cards to make sure re-writable storage capabflities is no excuse.
either into the Matrox Millennium II armed - i they work properly, but many must checkfor D3D The game industry needs to realize that we wiU
with 8MB of WRAM,or Number Nine's driversfor particular 3D cards they like and only wait for perfection. We may fidget in our seats
Revolution 128 with 8MB of RAM—they may run on them, even ifother cards have perfectly a little, but I'd rather be antsy and impatient
be 3D weak, but boy can those things push valid D3D drivers. In your case, the Matrox is a than receive an unfinished alpha version that
razor-sharp high resolutions without giving particularly limited 3D card that does not support- won't have full functionality for six months.
you the 60Hz headachefrom Hell. texture mapping. I'd imagine most games would Scott T. Myers
 IJ i'i I u

What To Stick In AGP Senior editor Andrew Sanchez replies: The

I have a dilemma. My video plans are an ATI best place to start lookingfor ATX power
AU-In-Wonder Pro and the Voodoo 2. Would cases is the official ATXformfactor web site at
the AGP bus be better used for the ATI www.teleport.com/~a^cha5/index.htm.
(which supports 2x/DMA and sidebands) or From here, you can take a peek at almost every
the 70fps+ worth of textures for the Voodoo 2, ATX case vendor known under the sun.
even though it is only be with no sidebands?
Christopher Bradford Galling Blunk on Scott Tarr
I have got to say that boot is by far the best
Senior editor Andrew Sanchez replies: Oh boy, mag for Technoweenies like myself.
the Voodoo 2/AG? dilemma. Well, according However, an issue without letters from
to 3Dfx, if your game isfill-rate intensive, reader Scott Tarr is just not an issue worth
then having that Voodoo 1 hoard in your AGP buying. Please include more Scott, even the
slot will speed things up thanks to thefaster online Comm Port has a missive from the
pipeline. The bad thing about the Voodoo 2 omnipotent Scott Tarr.
AGP is that you won't be able to use dual Chris Blunk
Voodoo 2, unless someone makes an AGP
bridge chip, or more than one AGP port is engi Editor in chiefBrad Dosland replies: Does a letter
neered into aforthcoming core-logic AGPset about Scott Tarr count?
(Intel, are you listening?). The
final answer to your question is
a big... don't know. Until we
get our hands on both PCI and 'Quake II uses the
AGP Voodoo 2 and trash them
in our benchmarks, everything
DirecDraw.dll, Did
is pure speculation. Carmack change his
PCI Latency Tip mind about DirectX?"
Redux
I recently bought your magazine for the first
time and the plastic bag that it came in referred Quakepocrlsy
to a PCI latency timing tip on page 8 ofsome I noticed that when Quake II loads, it uses
tmspedfied back issue. So, what was the tip? the DirectDraw.dll. Did Carmack change his
Greg Donovan mind about DirectX?
Ken Lang
Managing editor Sarah Pirch replies: Back in
boot 10, we ran a letterfrom a reader who had id Software'sJohn Carmack replies: We have
overclocked his 166MHz CPU to 180MHz always used DirectDrawfor displaying our
but experienced a reduction ofhis bus speed to
60MHz. Then-technical editor Chris Dunphy
software rendering, ifit is available. It is not
used in the OpenGL renderer.
Introducing Audible,
identified the problem as having to do with the a new way to download thousands of spoken
fact that the PCI bus runs at halfthe speed of No Need For Speed
the system bus. So this reader's PCI bus was I don't need a 300MHz P-II with 64MB of audio programs-from best selling audiobooks to
chu^ng along at a slu^sh 30MHz and RAM to play games! Do you really think anyone cutting-edge business conferences, from great
slowing down all his peripherals. A better needs such a powerftd machine? Don't you
solution is to leave the CPU at 166MHz and think you go a little overboard in terms of being lectures by Harvard professors to today's edition
overclock the system bus to 83MHz—you'll see power himgry? My Pentium 166MMX 32MB of Marketplace, from The X-Files to Fresh Air
a noticeable speedup. Beware thatfiddling with RAM with 3Dfk and ATI Xpert® Play nms
your system bus is the most extremeform ofover- Direct3D games and GLQuake really fast. And and Car Talk, from Bill Gates to Dave Barry,
clocking, and you risk melting not only your your predictions for 1998 said you should buy Dante to Dilbert, and more.
CPU, but also your RAM, motherboard chipset, a 32x CD-ROM drive. Gimme a break! No
and PCI cards; you'll also void your warranty. software even takes advantage of16x! Every time Best of all, with the Audible player, you can take
Ifyou decide to do this, you must use an active I read your magazine I get mad because I think
cooling solution—one or morefans and a heat- my computer's a piece of crap. it with you wherever you go.
sink. Use the utmost care! Tyler Austin
To hear more, visit us at www.audible.com
Boy Seeks ATX To Editor in chirfBrad Dosland replies: Your PC's or call us at 1-888-283-5051
Accommodate Mommy not a piece ofcrap. Ifit satisfies you, then more
I constructed a modified version of your power to ya! Enjoy. Asfor anyone needing a top-
of-the-line system, many people demand the best.
Dream Machine 97 but am faced with the
problem of fitting it into a desktop case.
I'm using the same motherboard you used
'They want a steady 60fps—no dips—in the most
strenuous new games. They want to crank all
^^6
Audible

and I was wondering if there are any large the options to the max. They want to multitask Product Information Number 92
desktop ATX cases (two inner 3.5s, two massive renders in the background while down
outer 3.5s, two outer 5.25s) that will accom loading 30MBfiles offthe web and editing digital
modate that motherboard. I've looked on video in theforeground. These people are insane
the net and have come out empty-handed and should probably be institutionalized, but GET OVER
and slightly bewildered. instead, we pump out a steaming new issue of
Dan Keller bootJbr them every month. 0 $50
IN FREE
AUDIO NOW!
' ■ '^y.-'. .■ ' •
r
Mi
■
 ■ ■■ -

are to take Quake® to the next level.

The MIcrori™ Millennia® level.

Dare to take your power to where you

thrive amid peril and bloodshed. Where
the others are gibbed, fragged and
ruthlessly annihilated. Where you endure.
And where Micron dominates.

Get the Micron Millennia Xku, the addictive

machine combining the latest technology and
killer multimedia capabilities. Lock and load
our Fusion 3D™ option, and you get DVD, 2D
and 3D graphics and a speaker system that will
make your ears bleed. And, you'll get a blistering
■Y
3D gaming bundle for more multimedia pursuits.
Micron systems powered the QuakeCon '97 competition. There, chief organizer )im (HzH)
Elson said; "Among the hard-core Quake fans on the Internet, it's long been established rape'
that Micron machines are peerless when it comes to performance and reliability."
Cyberathlete Dan (RiX) Hammans took first place at that QuakeCon '97, where
Micron systems ruled, if you're serious about gaming, face real competition like
RIX at www.cyberathlete.com. And if you're serious about computers, Pe ntium®]!
dare to call Micron or visit our Web site today.

MICRON MILLENNIA Xku FUSION 3D OPTION PAK

Intel 266MHz Pentium® II processor DVD-ROM," DVD software
(features MMX™ technology) DVD PCI decoder card
32MB SDRAM AWE 64 ISA sound card
6.4CB Ultra ATA hard drive Cambridge MicroWorks-2 speaker satellite
Cyberathlete 17" Micron 700FGX, .26dp (16" display) with subwoofer stereo system
Dan (Rjx) HAfflffl^s STANDARD FEATURES
Fusion 3D game pak: Mech Warrior 2: Mercenaries
D3D version, AH-64D Longbow,
82440LX chip set U.S. Navy Fighters '97, Command £
512KB internal L2 cache, 2MB BIOS Conquer, Formula 1 D3D version
Integrated looMB Iomega Zip Drive, 3.5" floppy drive MS Sidewinder® Pro joystick
32X EIDE variable speed CD-ROM drive
32 voice wavetable stereo sound. Advent 009
speakers with subwoofer
3Com/US Robotics 56K X2 telephony modem*
Diamond Viper V330 128-bit 3D video with 4MB SGRAM
Microsoft® IntelliMouse™, USB connections
Microsoft Windows® 95 and MS® Plus!
Microsoft Office 97 Small Business Edition
Choice of Micron Software Solutions Pak
5-Year/3-Year Micron Power"
'Winner ef QuakeCon '97 limited warranty '2,249
Quake® is a registered trademark and the Q™ logo is a trademark of Id Software, Inc.

Call for ioformation on our Software Solution Paks. Other Millennia configurations also available. Call now to order.
To purchase a copy of Quake II, call Micron Additions at 888-8-MICRON.

MICRON
800-776-4523
POWER
A R R A N T Y
Micron Sales Hours: Mon-Fri 6am-iopm, Sat yam-spm,
Sun ioam-5pm (MT) Technical Support Available
www.micronpc.com
5-y8ar timilgil warranty on micraprocessor and main memoiy
3-y8ar SmitoJ psrtj-onfy sys^ wrnmty 24 Hours A Day-7 Days A Week. Toll-free from Mexico:
1-. 2- or 3-yEar optional on-^ sarwco agraomont for Micran desktop and server s]
30 days of free Wcron-suppfed software support for Mteran desktop systems; 3 o( 95-800-708-1755 • Toll-free from Canada: 800-708-1758
ao-daymofwybackpflfey Toll-free from Puerto Rico: 800-708-1756 ■ International
24-hBur.tEchnieai support
The fBreffiing is subject to and qualified Ijy Micron's standard iimited war Sales: 208-893-8970 • International Fax: 20B-893-7393
' Condons of sale. Terms and conditions of sale may' vaiyvaiY for specific confiqurations.
CopiB Ed the iiiiS«t waian^ may be obtained on our'WeB site or by cailing Microa

, 'Maximum transmission speed of up to 56Kbps when downloading data and 33.6Kbps when uploading. However, actual performance is dependent upon numerous factors and observed
v.tii'i'u ' Stes miy be less than the maximum potentials. "The CD-ROM drive will be removed upon the purchase of the OVD upgrade.

I': • M;' ton Elecbpnics, inc. All rights resewed, Micron Electronics is not responsible for omissions or errors in typography or photography. All purchases are subject to availability. Prices and speciflcafions may Information Number 2325!u
U. I ' . ■witrioulrK3tice;pricssdon«hTCiud8ShfeAt9ar^handi!rt9andanyapplicablBtaxes.3(>daymoney-backpclicydoesnotinciuderatumfreighlarKloriginaishipping/handlingcha^es,appli8Soniy
to MiCitoh rirand pioducfe and f^ date of shipment All sales are subjed to Micron Elecbonics' current terms and conditions of sale. Lease prices based on 36flionth lease. The Intel
TV. ill . ■ ■^PefriiumaeregBteredtrademarksaiKl MMX is B^denmrK of Intel Corporation. Microsoft Windows, Windows NT and toe Windows logoare registered bade-
1,1(1.) v.'crcsoftCw^lion.ftoductnamKOfMiGKflf^uctsafe trademarks orregistered trademarks of Micron Eiecbonics, inc. or NeffRAME Systems. !(W, Conf For Your life."
i • OUtor piiv'jitd names us^ in diiS put&atSciflfareiN IdsrifiratlOT purposes rwly and may be trademarks of their respective companies.
bootDISC
Used to be that when the Superbowl was
ON THIS MONTH'S DISC: over, the Stanley Cup and NBA Final were
still months off, the racetracks were still
drying, and baseball was months away—
/> every MONTH, there wasn't a whole lot to do, unless you
\ / BOOT DELIVERS owned a computer, toof sympathizes
with true hardcore sports fanatics and
has put together some of the best sports
the hohest Sims currently available. Just move your
DEMOS AND mouse over the corresponding profes
sional athlete to sample the sports
COOLEST APRS
demos on this month's bootDisc.

SOFTWARE DEMOS:

W/JViUM'l

3Dfx City Website boot brings you Andretti Racing Looking for a CART Precision Racing Compete Daytona USA Deluxe You're rac F1 Racing Simulation Ft Racing
the first glimpse at 3Dfx City, 3Dfx reaiistic Indy experience? Then against CART cars in this white- ing a Daytona stock car that's Simulation features the real dri
Interactive's 3D extension to its check out Andrew Racing, knuckled race that takes you to thundering down a straightaway at vers, the real cars and true-to-live
web site. This eariy preview of 3Dfx designed with help from Mario, speeds in excess of 200mph.The 250mph. Take a turn too low and renderings of ail 16 circuits from
City will give you a good idea of Michael, and Jeff Andretti. This tracks in this game were re-created your car flips, take it too high the 1996 Grand Prix season along
what the final city will look like game brings an accurate stock-car from GPS-based source data and you'il eat the wall. This is Daytona with the Official Formula One
once it is avaiiable for downioad physics model to the PC with are accurate within 10 centimeters USA Deluxe. Think fast! Features license from FOA / FOCA. Race on
from 3Dfx. Direct3D graphics, virtual cockpit, of the real thing. And with Direct3D, include six high-res courses and ail 16 tracks from the 1996 Ft
and force-feedback support. the ride is all that much better. eight stock cars. World Championship.

MADDEN
898

LapLink /.api/nk for Windows 95 is Legends Football '98 Legends of Madden NFL 98 Experience the NBA Action 98 NBA Acbon 38 NHL 98 A brand-new engine pro
the remote-access solution for the Football '98 includes 3D graphics gridiron with the intensity that only delivers full-court, 5-on-5 basketball vides smoother graphics and fast,
on-the-go computing professional. with on-the-fiy zooming effects and John Madden can heighten. Madden in an intense, action-packed atmo fluid, NHL hockey that will get you
Designed expressly for Windows 95, multiple camera angles, control that UFL 98 uses V-Poly technology for sphere. Features include all 29 NBA off the bench. 3Dfx support, eight
LapLinKs nem 32-bit features pro allows you to spin or dive to avoid fast and fluid polygon-enhanced teams, over 340 NBA players, full gameplay cameras, new player and
vide you with everything you need defenders, over 1,300 1997-1998 sprites. Play in 30 authentic 3D NFL team rosters from 1996-1997 sea goalie animabon with 500 real NHL
to work effectively from the road, NFL stars, and 1,000 legendary stadiums with over 120 current and son, smooth texture mapping and players' faces make this a truly
home, or the office. players with real-iife attributes. historic NFL teams. 10 different camera angles as well realistic ice experience.
as Free-Cam.

2 PCs share
one Internet
connection!

Research a
Remote DeskLiNK Getting more Sega Worldwide Soccer soccer Spouse.Net Spouse.Net, the con Timbuktu Pro This powerful network Turok; Dinosaur Hunter Prepare
work done used to mean spending fans—get ready. Worldwide Soccer nectivity tool for the domestic PC remote-control software has an inte yourself for gut-wrenching game
more time at the office. Well, not is here with smooth 3D animations, user, allows two PCs to share a sin grated remote node that's ideal for play and terrifying combat. Turok
anymore. Remote DeskLinkto! 360-degree instant replay and on- gle Internet connection over one workgroups, remote workers, and includes 14 high-tech weapons: the
Windows 95 lets you leave the the-fly commentary, and includes modem using a LAN network. Both help-desk administrators. Access simple knife and Tek-Bow to a
office when you want to and finish polygon-based characters and six PCs can browse the World Wide corporate network resources,trans grenade launcher, pulse rifle, quad
your work at home, it's one of the modes of gameplay: exhibition, Web, manage separate e-mail fer files, and remotely control other rocket launcher, and atomic fusion
easiest ways to connect to your World League, World Cup, cup tour accounts, downioad data, and use computers over LAN,WAN, Internet, cannon. Are you ready for the
office PC from your home or another nament, penalty shoot-out, and link Newsgroups and Telnet. or dial-up lines. primeval jungle?
location, all at a price that puts game.
remote control within easy reach.

12 boot MAR 98
 DAYnmUSA b 0 o t DIS C
^[RnSCet.^'rn step into the cage that holds
^UhimEn . ., your machine, strap on the
seatbelt, and get ready for
^ No CD? We Can Help
^ ^ Andrstti bails-out speed.The racing
Sims in this month's Jock itch wKr
Fear not if you're holding a naked edition of
boot with no bootDisc CD-ROM. You can sub
sports feature offer a sample "of scribe to the full magazine/CD-ROM bundle, and
different types of racing with even order individual copies of the bootDisc, by call
different levels of realism and ing customer service at 800.274.3421. Each month, the
required skill. Not into racing? bootDisc is stuffed with game demos, application
Check out the football, basket- demos, utilities, and patches-so don't miss this treasure
bail, baseball, and soccer trove of valuable software.

demos instead.

VIDEO DRIVER MADNESS

Looking for the newest drivers for your video needs? Look no further than this month's bootDisc. On
it, you'll find all the newest drivers for all the newest and hottest cards. Unfortunately, there's no easy
way to get your current video driver version, although some manufacturers list it in their section of the
Display Properties in the Control Panel. The installation directions are located on the bootDisc within
the cards directory; however, we recommend that you check out your manufacturer's web site for a
complete set of instructions (the shortcuts to each web site can be found in the manufacturers direc
FIFA Road to World Cup 93 G-Police you solve a muroer mys tory). These files are here to save you download time—don't install them without knowing exactly
Conquer fierce defenders and tery while serving as pilot for the what you're getting yourself into.
defeat entire nations on your quest G-Poiice, patrol the skies of the
to qualify for World Cup 98. domed cities of Callisto. and enforce
MANUFACTURER
Includes "one-toucti" passing for law using 1000kg bombs, industrial
player and ball control, motion cap lasers, and hyper-velocity missiles.
tured players and moves, and a Features include outrageous support
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Microsoft and SGI ed until sometime in the
nVidia Update
Recently,bo t has
Team Up to Deliver year 2000,
Yet Another API
Manufacturers ATI Buys Assets A boot SPECIAL REPORT
Can Develop from Tseng Labs
Broken Drivers For 5 Tseng hit the PC since its inception, and
I As reported Labs has been bombarded we [nVidia] have always appreciated
in fiooM8, announced boot for its frank and factual per
with letters about
Microsoft the sale of our reviews of spective and analysis."
I announced its graphics nVidia's Riva 128 boot recently met with nVidia to
I it was for- design assets to ATI chipset. Many loyal discuss its next-generation technolo
maiiy piedg- Technologies. Included in readers have turned gies, and more importantly, recent
ing support for OpenGL the sale to ATI are equip and complained that strides in driver development. Both
deveiopment, but oniy for ment,tools, and certain our criticism of the chipset's sacrifice nVidia and boot agree that driver
fiigti-end appiications. rights to intellectual proper of visual quality for speed (which we maturity issues are part of a 3D
"Direct3D and not OpenGL," ty. Approximately 40 described as "pushes the speed accelerator's natural growing pains,
Microsoft pundits claimed, members of Tseng's 30 limits of what and to its credit,
"was still ttie API of ctioice graphics deveiopment we've seen") was nVidia has made
for games." team, including engineering unduly harsh. drastic improve
About a week after we and marketing personnel, Bear In mind ments. Many of
went to print with that have accepted an offer of that all three the problems we
bombshell, Microsoft and employment with ATI's U.S. cards—from STB initially encoun
SGI lobbed another incendi subsidiary, ATI Research Inc. (reviewed in boot tered—such as
ary on the development Tseng Labs will continue 16), Diamond weird palette
world in announcing a to support its current prod {boot 16), and shifts in Incoming,
strategic alliance that aims ucts and is in discussion Canopus {boot graphical glitches
to "define the future of with various entities 17)—scored a in Moto Racer, and
graphics technologies." regarding ongoing rights bootVerdict of 8 the missing trans
So what will the future to these products. on a scale where parencies of led!
hold? For starters, nothing "Tseng has weathered a no video card has ever picked up Knight—have now largely been fixed.
from the metric system. difficult time, but we believe a coveted 10. We knocked one But the visual fidelity issue hasn't
The new project, strangely we have found a positive point off the verdict for the visual- been fixed—and won't be—until
resolution that benefits our , nVldia introduces Its next-gen prod
entitled the Fahrenheit quality issues. We knocked the
Project, is really nothing shareholders," said Jack second point off for substandard TV uct. The Riva 128, like all 3D acceler
more than a glamorized Gibbons, president and CEO output specific to the card manufac ators including Rendition's V2000
new set of deveiopment of Tseng Labs."The sub turer's implementation. and 3Dfx's Voodoo, employs a
APIs for use with Windows stantial eamings to be Many readers also took us to task dithering algorithm to dumb down
and tJnix-based operating derived from these cash for not updating the video drivers texture palettes to a lower color
systems. Fahrenheit will assets together with the during our review of Gateway's G6- count. In the Riva's case, the dither
incorporate ail facets of cash flow from the lease of
233 system {boot 17). it is boots ing algorithm results in a very spotty
DirectSD, DirectDraw, our facility to ATI will fully policy to review systems as they are or speckled effect on textures,
OpenGL, OpenGL Scene support Tseng's acquisition shipped. Updating drivers or tweak noticeable In almost any accelerated
Graph, and OpenGL strategy and eliminates ing the system to coax additional game, ranging from Rage's incoming,
Optimizer for a fuii-fea- the need to utilize the
performance isn't allowed, except in to id Software's Quake II. This is
tured, tri-leveied API. The company's working capital.":: cases of absolute necessity (e.g., the something boot has noticed in
low-level portion will The deal will cost ATI system doesn't work at all). In this almost every 3D accelerator in one
become the primary graph $3 million. specific case, however. Gateway form or another, but in the Riva's
ics API for both consumer However, as the 30- shipped first-revision drivers with its case, it is readily apparent when
and professional applica accelerator war continues
machine (a fact verified by nVidia), compared with the almost spotless
tions on Windows-based to rage at an astonishing and newer drivers—fixing the noted dithering done by other processors.
platforms, with the Scene rate, ATI's acquisition may transparency problems—weren't offi Yes, the Riva 128 Is a fast-as-
Graph API and the Large signal a redoubled effort on cially released by STB until after the lightning 3D processor capable of
Model Visualization its part to speed up video review was completed and submit locking down almost arcade-quality
Extension more suited for processor deveiopment. ted. Remember, boot works with a frame rates. And its overall perform
high-end, graphics-rich With its Rage 4 already three-month lead time. ance is head-and-shoulders above
applications, and SGi's IRIX well into development, ATI "The Riva 128 is a milestone most all-in-one solutions. But, the
operating system. may have decided to have product for the PC industry and the chip isn't perfect—and visual prob
But if you think this the Rage 5 spec'ed out and first mainstream chip to deliver over lems do exist—whether you're willing
spells an end to DirectX, started on by the Tseng one million 3D polygons per second, to admit it or not.
think again. The low-level Labs team, in an effort to as well as outstanding 2D, video, Look for the first preview of
API, which will be backward parallel development of its VGA, and high-speed RAMDAC in a nVidia's next-gen chip and an exclu
compatible with 030—but next-gen product. single chip," said nVidia's Michael sive, no-holds-barred Lip interview
oniy functionally compatible Hara. "3D graphics is the most with nVidia's technical geniuses in
with OpenGL—isn't expect > IB dynamic and exciting technology to an upcoming issue of boot. 0
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WlSCMi

> 14 decoder chip targeted for

HDTVs, converter boxes,
The Death Of The
Japanese Coalition and DTV add-in cards for
Deveiops Way to
Shrink Chips
the PC. The hard-wired
silicon is the industry's first
High-End PC
A coalition consisting of
Kyoto University, Fujitsu
Laboratories, and Japan
Science and
Technology
Corp. has
developed a
new process
single-chip device that can
decode and dispiay ATSC-
specified DTV signals in
native video formats or in
down-converted formats,
The work normally
performed by two video-
decoder ASICs and one
Ifyou've ventured into your
SUB-$1,000 OR GO FOR BROKE
local computer store recently
looking for a boof-callber,
high-end computer system,
serie s was the fourth-most popular
Compaq model sold last November,
accounting for almost 10% of all
Compaq sales. "Almost 40% of our
, that allows display processor can now you may have discov computers sold last year
I chip makers be completed by a single ered an alarming were to first-time buyers,
I to cut HDTV chip, but Panasonic's trend. who were attracted not only
smaller and smaller grooves chip goes one step further There aren't any. to the low price, but also to
into the silicon wafers that by simultaneously offering Oh sure, there may be a the compelling features,"
are used to produce chips a down-conversion capabil couple of machines mas said Gruzen, citing such com
(a process known as ity to translate all ATSC- querading as such, but the ponents as AMD's K6 proces
doping). speclfled video formats truth Is, many manufactur sor, 3GB hard drives, and 20x
The current doping into 480i and 480p, while ers, including such industry CD-ROMs (all of which can be
process yields 0.25 the Mitsubishi/Lucent heavyweights as Toshiba and NEC, found in Compaq's new $799 Presario
microns. But the new chipset displays video only no longer view the high-end PC as a 2240).
process—known as cluster in 10801 and 720p for profit-Inducing, shareholder-increas And despite the cancellation of the
ion-heam Implantation— HDTV receivers. ing viable market. Thus, the high-end company's 7000/8000 high-end series
will allow semiconductor The chip decodes any dream machine has become an (which has been replaced by the
manufacturers to cut MPEG-2 video bit streams, endangered species. 4800 series), Gruzen insists that
grooves, or trenches, that Including MPEG-2 video The culprit? Compaq has no plans
Main-Profile @ High-Level. Unprecedented con to exit the high-end
are a mere .05 microns In
size into silicon wafers. The same chip also acts as sumer demand for Impressive market, as did com
low-end machines— petitors Toshiba and
The coalition indicated
that the technology would
a video display processor
and can display images in the infamous sub- sell-throug h [of NEC, who eliminated
$1,000 PC. This their high-end lines
he available within four
years and could he the
various raster formats,
including 10801, 720p, 4801, burgeoning product our low-end sys- late last year.
"We were pleas
cornerstone of a series of
technoiogy advances that
and 480p.
The single-chip digital-
category accounted for
less than 4% of the tenns] is causing antly surprised at the
market a year ago, but strong demand for
would reduce chip sizes
by almost 300% while
TV video decoder uses a
0.35-micron process. today, thanks in part
us to revise our our BOOMFIz Pentium
Increasing the performance
of some semiconductors by
Per-chip pricing is expected
to be less than $100, or
to dipping processor
prices from Intel, AMD,
expectations as II machines during
the Christmas sea
as much as 64x. twice as much as current and even Cyrix, these
popular PCs (accord
to how weii our son," says Gruzen,
"and this impressive
MPEG-2 decoders.
Panasonic The chip made its first ing to National
Semiconductor), are
high-end systems sell-through is caus
ing us to revise our
Develops Single public appearance at the
Chip DTV Silicon winter Consumer Electronics poised to command
upwards of 40% of
will do throughout expectations as to
how well our high-
Show in Panasonic's new
set-top box. the entire market. As 1998," end systems will do
a result, most, if not throughout 1998."
IBM Breakthrough ail computer manufac —Compaq's Alex Gruzer Unfortunately,
Doubles Hard Disk turers have jumped on Toshiba's future
Capacity this budget bandwagon in the hopes prospects aren't anywhere near as
IBM researchers of rekindling some of their dwindling rosy. Declining unit sales and profit
„have profit margins and end-unit sales. margins forced the company to
lonce "The overall incremental growth abandon its high-end Infinia line in
again of our business", said Alex Gruzen, America, as the company found itself
broken Compaq's director of Desktop woefully unprepared for the
Panasonic AVC American their own record Marketing, "is being fueled by -«i sub-$1000 explosion.
Laboratories—the North for cramming data onto the demand and growth of "The market has radi
American digital-TV hard drive platters. Their lower-cost PCs. cally shifted during the
research facility of previous record of five in fact, according to market- I ■ n i past year," says Van
Matsushita Electric billion bits (5GB) of data on research firm Computer I Andrews, Toshiba's vice
Industrial—has developed a Intelligence, Compaq's $799 -r ^ '■ president and general man
single-chip DTV video 17 > Cyrix-based Presario 2200 ager, "and our [Toshiba's]
 WIRE

spective even
of its forth
> 16 Redmond nervous, Intel
coming, high and Sun Microsystems
ly anticipated a single square inch of have announced a deal
K6-r3D. disk drive space was that'll bring Sun's Solaris
"If you shattered with the operating system to
look at the announcement that it has Intel's IA-64 processor
offerings from successfully doubled that (a.k.a. Merced), making
AMD or Cyrix to 11 billion bits of data Solaris—a flavor of
today," says per square inch, "With this Unix—a bonafide alter
Compaq's laboratory demonstration, native to Windows NT
Gruzen, "the we're on track to provide 4.0.(Version 5.0 is
performance products with 10GB expected sometime in
equation puts density by the year 2001 mid-1998.)
them, for us, said Robert Scranton, IBM Solaris and Merced
in a $999 or Storage Systems division will ship sometime In
a $1,299 sys vice president. 1999. Pricing, as usual, is
tem." And The demonstration yet to be determined.
Toshiba's Infinia PC line, featuring a cooi monitor-mounted LCD display is now
even though yielded data rates of 14
history. May it rest in peace.
companies million bytes per second California
may ultimate with an almost flawless Graphics Joins
business strategy was to focus on ly not be religious about what (or on-track data read.(IBM Voodoo 2
the higher-end consumer that valued who) is actually inside the PC, he conjectures that with data Bandwagon
seamless integration of multimedia, notes that "Intel has great performing correction codes, errors
not the sub-$l,000 segment." products that naturally fit into that would be reduced to less
Still, Toshiba isn't out of the PC [high-end] space." than one in a trillion bits
consumer space completely. But after its market share dropped read). These leaps in tech
According to Andrews, "the almost 8% during the last nology can be accredited Joining the growing
company is currently evaluat quarter of 1997, Intel can't to IBM's earlier invention Voodoo 2 rank and file
ing all facets of the home PC C0AfP4a i , afford to be complacent. of the magnetoresisitive (which already includes
arena and plans to re-enter ^000/8000 The company was severely (MR)sensor for reading such industry heavy
the market with a compelling '996-(997 aggressive in its pricing last data on hard disks in weights as Creative
product—sometime in 1999." year, and that trend Is 1991. It's this MR sensor Labs, Guillemot, Jazz
So where does this leave expected to continue well into that allowed hard drive Multimedia, and
aggressive price competitors 1998. And with good reason manufacturers to increase Diamond) is California
Cyrix and AMD? Well, Cyrix's too—Intel won't be introducing data density leading to Graphics' new Wizard 3D.
as many new proces drives that are smaller However, one thing sets
sors as it did last year, and lighter, consume less the Wizard 3D apart from
The market has radically and the company was energy, and deliver faster the rest of the pack—
late in acknowledging reliable data all for mere it's the first Voodoo 2 :
shifted during the past year, the existence of the pennies per megabyte. board to include TV-out
sub-$1000 market. And So when will you see ports.
and our business strategy with all those new these new behemoths? The Wizard 3D will
Socket 7 chips from IBM officials said they come equipped with a
was to focus on the higher-end Cyrix, AMD, and expect the new density to bunch 0' memory—12MB
Centaur/IDT hitting become available on the to be exact—with one
consumer." the streets this year, market within four years. 4MB pixelFX2 chip and
Intel's Slot 1/Pentium II More importantly, IBM two 4MB texelFX2 chips.
—Toshiba VP Van Andrews combo may not be surmises that the And like with ail other
that attractive to sys average storage costs Voodoo 2 parts, you'll be
MediaGX processor has found a tem OEMs hoping to capitalize on the (currently at $.10/MB, able to harness even
happy home in Compaq's low-end first-time or incremental buyer. In fact, down from a staggering more power by adding
desktop and sub-$2,000 notebook Pentium ll's accounted for less than $5.23/MB in 1991) would another card to activate
lines and is currently being show 20% of Intel's sales this past fall (In be cut by more than two- ScanLine Interleave mode,
cased in a reference design called comparison, run-of-the-mill Pentiums thirds in the process. Or bringing the total local
the Cyrix Media Center, a sub-$1000 with MMX represented more than in other words, that video memory to a
TV-set-top box that includes a moth 60%). As such, its stranglehold on 100GB hard drive you'll whopping 24MB.
erboard implementation of NEC/ OEMs may loosen this year. be eyeing in the year A PCI part will be
VideoLogic's PowerVR 3D accelerator. Finally, if you thought the sub- 2002 may set you back introduced first (in
And even though AMD met its goal $1,000 PC was a bad idea—it gets only 300 greenbacks! Q1/98),withan AGP
of shipping 1.5 million K6 chips last worse. The dumbest of them all—the Ix/DMA part promised
quarter and is doing well in moronic WebTV—underwent a minor Intel's Merced later in the year. Expect
machines from Compaq, IBM, and facelift late last year, and guess Sees the Sun the retail price of the
Acer, many see AMD forever lan what? Consumers gobbled them up In a move that should Wizard 3D to fall some
guishing in the low-end market, irre in large numbers. Scary. 0 make the lads from where around $299. 0

MAR 98 boot 17
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©Enorex. Inc. All rights reserved. 518-7 Old Post Road. Suite 301, Edison. N] 0S3I7. Sales Hours: M-F. 9am - 9pm. All sales are subject to Enorex's limited warranties and terms and conditions of saie. : wnte or call us for a copy of our
warranty. System prices quoted do not include shipping or sales tax and are subiea to change without notice or obligation. 3CM3ay money-back-guarantee does not include return freight or shipping diarges. All returned items i orlgmai packaging and software must be
unopened- Enorex is not responsible for enors in type or photos. Products may differ from images shown,Pentium.Pentium Pro,and Intel are registered trademarks of Intel Corp. Microsoft, Windows,andWindows
NT are registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. AlphaPowered is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. All other brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective fS'fjfS#'* ^
ccmp»,es,™dng„dw™:yv«i,.usA»i,. Product infotmation Number 13 Im HdEx
 ■ ■ ■

HIGH-TECH TOYS
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tion services including news,sports, and entertainment Woodtech; 435.723.2355;
headlines. MTX Paging Products; www.beepwear.com www.brigham.net/-woodtech

EVERGLIDE MOUSE PAD Before you recite your rodent's last rites, a quick
autopsy may reveal it's your mouse pad causing that control consternation, ifso,
slide your mouse onto EverGLiDE, a new mouse surface with built-in traction con
trol technology.
The EverGLiDE mouse pad is precision crafted from high-density polyethylene
resin, and according to the company, will never wear out. The washable, durable
stone-textured finish provides constant, clean traction control for pixel-splitting
accuracy, and since there are no foam cores or fabrics, you won't have to worry
about the EverGLiDE eventually cracking, peeling, or fading, in
addition, each pad comes equipped with a GripNet Non-
Skid surface, so it'll always stay in place, no matter
how hard you scroll and click. Custom colors
and special designs, including a lap-based
gaming surface, are also avaiiahie.
Blooming Tree Productions;
800.962.1873; www.evergiide.com
 H IGH PERFORMANCE 3D/2D/VI DE0 GRAPH ICS BOARMS

E FOR SECOND
3D GRAPHICS?

There's a certain company in Siiicon Valley famous

for advancing the capabilities of the PC platform with
the industry's best microprocessors, in fact, it's far
and away the worid ieader. They stake their business
and reputation on the quality of the technology they
put "inside"(so to speak)the PC. Naturally, when this
company decided to develop a graphics chip, it's no
surprise they partnered with Real 3D to help take
graphics performance on the PC to a new level. Will
you see a dramatic change in the graphics quality
and capability of your computer? You bet. And faster
than you might imagine.

Product Information Number 117

REAL 3D and the Real 3D logo are registered trademarks of Real 3D, Inc. ,

1-800-393-7730 ■ www.real3d.com
 /

W
SHARP CL-981ID
Why spring for some Ma
/'G Bell monkey to come
C" out and install a
G bunch of phonejacks

%
all over your abode
when Sharp's CL-981ID i
% will let you gab in every
room, from the boudoir to
the pantry, for a mere
$150? This digital cordless
phone transmits at 900MHz, with
Adaptive Delta Pulse Code
,
Modulation,so signals are clear and
static-free, even through walls and lur
niture. And the digital technology scram
bles the signal across many channels and
frequencies fo protect you from electronic
eavesdropping. In addition to this rock-solid per
formance, the CL-981ID comes with a bevy of bells and
whistles, including 20 speed-dial numbers,Instant call-back
key, seven hours of talk time(seven days in standby!), a spare battery charger in the base,
and a caller-ID function that works with call waiting to identify parties trying to buzz Into
your conversations. The caller's number appears in the phone's two-line backht LCD
screen, which also works with a Call Log that keeps track of the last 50 incoming
calls for handy call-backs, even when you're not there to answer. ■ m|
Sharp;800.237.4277; www.sharp.com ■ ^

SONY ICD-70
RECORDER Is
your memory bad? Are
all those sharp blows to
the head starting to make
an impression? Does your hand
cramp when taking memos? Ifso,
Sony's got the perfect little companion product
for you. The $200(MSRP)ICD-70 digital recorder lets you store up to 495
messages complete with random-access retrieval, alarms, and recorded
date and time stamps. Add In an oversized speaker, earphone and head
phone Jacks, and a cool LCD window, and the ICD-70 is a winner. And with
optional software, you can even download the messages to your PC using
the nifty I/O port.
And lest we forget, there's something undeniably cute about this digital
device. It's small enough to fit snugly into the palm of your hand, and the
entire unit weighs less than two, count 'em, two ounces (!) making it perfect
for those covert operah'ons as well, Sony;941.788.7009; www.sel.sony.com

CARDSCAN PLUS 300 Before that stack of business cards teetering on your
desk toppies and covers your body in vicious papercuts, consider this small invest
ment in the paperless office. The $299 CardScan Plus 300 is a combination of hard
ware and software that allows you to scan all the info from those cards and store it in
a convenient database. And if you've ever heard the faise promises of previous card
scanners that crapped out if the card wasn't laid outjust so, never fear! This new
CardScan churns through a menagerie of fonts, colors, graphics, and lay outs, and
spews the name, company, address, phone, fax, e-mail, and URL into the appropriate
database field. This electronic roiodex can be shared over a network and allows one-
click sending of e-mail and faxes. Using the telephony API, the voice number can be
SEIWA DIGITAL autodialed direcUy from the database. Web sites can even be
MICROSCOPE Fourhundred launched with a single click.
years of technology culminates in Seiwa And when you want to take it
Optical's and Inabata Corp.'s new line of digital to the streets, the
microscopes, combining a regular microscope, a digital database can be
camera, and an LCD screen. Zoom (0.75x to 4.5x magnification) and synchronized with
quadruple nosepiece (4x, lOx,20x, and 40x magnification) models are ! , 3Com's PalmPilot
available. They use no eyepieces; Instead you view through the 2-Inch LCD / PDA via a new con-
screen. With a resolution of040x480 and 16.7 million colors, the unit can f dult that instantly
hold 60 to 120 JPEG images in 4MB of flash memory. Hook It up to your PC updates contact
via the included connectors, cable, and software, and you can store info. Corex
images and even send images over the Internet. Show your friends what Technologies;
you're really made of—down to the cellular level! Both units are currently 017.492.4200;
priced at S2,000. Seiwa Optical; 800.890.3333; www.vision1.cam/seiwa www.corex.com

boot 21
Just exactly how much advanced
display technology do you need?

Multiscan w900

Muitiscan200PS
 Whatever your answer, there's a display from Sony designed to meet those needs, and then some. Choose from six high-end

models, in CRT sizes that range from 17"(16" VIS*) all the way to 24" (22.5" VIS). Each gives you the quality, reliability and

compatibility you're looking for, never mind some technology you should be looking for. Like award-winning Sony Trinitron®

and Multiscan® technologies. Or new breakthroughs like our flatter CRT, Active Signal Correction (ASC") and Enhanced

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24"CBTW900

• 22.5" viewable image size Advanced Trinitron technology 16:10 aspect ratio
• 30% more horizontal delivers superior image New tungsten-infused CRT
screen real estate** On-screen digital controls for over improves picture clarity
30 image adjustments and sharpness by reducing
Supports resolutions up to beam spot size by 30%
1920 x 1200 @76Hz
21 CRT OOPS

19.8" viewable image size Short neck CRT design tor reduced
40-50% flatter Trinitron CRT cabinet depth
Resolutions over 1600 x 1200 @ 85Hz Designed tor Windows NT® and
Enhanced Eiliptlcal Correction System technology Windows® 95
Active Signal Correction (ASC) technology 3-year limited warranty tor
20" CRT aOSEI
Dual input capability parts, labor and CRT

19" viewable image size • Resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 @ 751-lz Dual input capability
0,25 aperture grille pitch • 300SFT20"CRT(19"VIS) Designed tor Windows NT
display also available and Windows 95

19" CRT 400PS

• 18" viewable Image size • Active Signal Correction (ASC)

• 40-50% flatter Trinitron CRT technology
• Enhanced Eillptical Correction • Dual Input capability
System technology Improves • Designed tor Windows NT and
beam spot shape over 35%** Windows 95
17" CRT 200PS

• 16" viewable image size Active Signal Correction (ASC) 3-year limited warranty
• Elliptical Correction System" technology tor automatic tor parts, labor and CRT
technology Improves beam screen sizing and centering Designed tor Windows NT and
spot shape up to 35%** Windows 95
 #If:
msSL.
.r -i
;i-zaCS'^
^ WANDERING
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS,
ONE DEAD, LY DISTURBING
THE OTHER POWERLESS
ADVENTUR
TO BE BORN.
JHE Grande Chartreuse
J'* i-' !:■> nt Venture No.1 ©1997 Amencan
AGES 13 + a tradernarR of Aitienqan oouwoms ouipoiaiian. Sanitarium is developed by
'95 is'a registered lraciernark;6f-:fVlicrdsoftGorporation. The ratings icon isa. .
re Association. .All rights reseh/ed,.
2 wvvvv. ascgaraea. com
 E SAINT
WITH ALEX ST. JOHN
rivers are always broken. have home-grown, custom-tweaked (but
I'm not going to devote still busted) drivers. But it's not a big deal
another column to when they blow up because not many They don't understand that the
explaining why. But as people have them. The few who do have 3D API isn't the problem. It's the
a guy who spent almost them pay for massive support contracts. driver model. And demanding a
five years at Microsoft What happens if you lose that quality of change in the API only worsens
up to his elbows in product in the consumer space? Several the problem. The purity and per
driver issues, I'm million angry support caUs. formance ofan elegant API is
telling you beyond any shadow of a doubt Many of D3D's limitations, such as corrupted by a limiting OS and
that it's true. Betcha didn't know 1 was lack of extensibility, are intentional, by IHVs competing to one-up
originally hired as Microsoft's publishing designed to limit the opportunities IHVs each other in performance and
evangelist to try to bring Windows up to have to screw up the drivers. Many ofthe features, without consideration
par with the Macintosh in printing tech other problems with the D3D API are for stability. These forces result
nology. You know what the major obsta associated with flaws in the OS itself. The in a "horribly broken API," to
cle was? Drivers. The damn things are seemingly unnecessary complexity of page quote John Carmack, no matter
always broken. The slightest change in locking DirectDraw surfaces is a "feature" what you start with.(This is one
the OS,the blink of a DDK,the addition of backward compatibility with Winl6 ofthe reasons I think Java is
of a little feature, a new generation of apphcations. Most ofthe performance dif such a fantasy. It walks right into
hardware with slightly different perfor ference between 3Dix's D3D driver and this beauty-and-the-beast trap of
mance characteristics—and BLAM!The 3Dfx's Glide driver can be attributed to the technical purity vs. the market
drivers go to hell and nothing works again. fact that Glide doesn't bother to be reen forces ofcormption.) ALEX ST. JOHN From Els

What's this have to do with OpenGL trant, so it can crash at any time. Whoops! Back when I was hired at position as Microsoft's game

vs. Direct3D? It's actually what the real But that's the kind ofthing IHVs conve Microsoft, Bill wanted to eat tecfinotogy evangelist, Aiex St.
John was responsible for the
debate is all about. Microsoft can't make niently overlook when they roll their own Apple's lunch something fierce. controversial DirectX APIs that
even one 3D driver architecture work. In "amazingly fast" drivers. We had people going after Apple's have either taken PC gaming to

fact, none ofits multimedia driver archi Microsoft doesn't have an OGL driver developers and its OpenDoc initia the next level or were horribly
broken, depending on your point
tectures really work. model suitable for mass deployment. If it tive, and teams of engineers of view.
D3D evolved on Win95 because ever made one, the driver would either devoted to beating QuickTime.
The lawsuits
were flying; it was

The Ihith About OpenGL

almost as much fun
as competing with
Netscape today.
And that's the point.
OGL CANNOT SAVE YOU FROM THE LIMITATIONS OF YOUR OWN OS Microsoft is driven
by its competition. My
Win95 was designed to be a consumer suffer from the same limitations as D3D dark secret is that DirectX was originally
OS. Microsoft expects gamers to play on or it would be forced to hide them with a formulated as a perpendicular strategy to
Win95. WinNT is the server and worksta slow abstraction level. knock Apple out of multimedia. The fact
tion OS, and that's where OGL evolved. This is a very practical problem of try that it was useful to DOS game developers
What's the difference? Not the API, but ing to support OGL for games, and you was incidental. If DirectX hadn't been a
the implementation. Demanding OGL is can see this clearly reflected in Microsoft's thom in Apple's side, we'd never have got
as clear a specification as saying,"I want recent OGL announcement. Paired with a ten to make it. Support for OGL and the
a carl" Really? Would that be a Yugo or a reiteration of its positioning of OGL as a acquisition of Softimage was part of a
Ferrari? They both
have four wheels and
an engine. Simply
My dark secret is that DirectX was originally formulated as a
saying "OGL" doesn't perpendicular strategy to knock Apple out of multimedia, The fact
imply a driver model.
What happens when that it was useful to DOS game developers was incidental,
folks such as ATI and
nVidia, who never manage to make a high-end API, is a commitment to grander strategy to set NT up to take SGTs
working driver—even when they are sup attempt a new DDK for it along with a market. I know Microsoft will only focus
plied with a DDK,sample code, and a certification process. Sounds like a step on targeting OGL at the high-end because
testing procedure—take it upon them in the right direction. I know why Microsoft supports OGL to
selves to make up their own OGL drivers? But it also means parallel 3D driver begin with. The day Microsoft encounters
BOOM!That's what. models for every card and another driver to a major competitor whose strength arises
So why position OGL as a high-end write for those IHVs that can't even make from the community of game developers
solution? Because in the high-end, 3D one work. Most developers know how bad is the day game developers will get
cards cost a few thousand dollars, and their driver problems are but have no idea Microsoft's fuU, undivided support and
only a handful are sold. Sure, they all how they get that way or whose fault it is. attention. Don't forget that. 0

MAR 98 boot 25
 w

MM

It happens in a heartbeat.
You're commanding an AWACS aircraft through 2.5 million square
miles of astonishingly detailed battlespace. Or you're mixing it up
with bandits and bogeys in your own F-22 Air Dominance Fighter.
jSm DOMINitlCe FIOHTtm
But it only happens with DID's F-22 Air Dominance Fighter, the
flight simulation Denny Atkin of Computer Gaming World calls,
"the most advanced F-22 sim out there."

Believe it. DID's F-22 Air Dominance Fighter is loaded with features
you won't find anywhere else.

■>■<■ iSS^ S! So strap in and prepare to lead, fight, or get out of the way.
It's your choice, but make it now. There's a war to win...
'free 194edit
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Dia
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www.dld.com INFOGRAMES

DID F-22 AE)F™ and © 1998 CXgitallmage Dedgn and Ocean of Americctinc,Ocean is a recpstered trademark
IGffTEl of Ocean Software LimtedAII rights leservedAII othertrademaritsarethe propertycfthdriespectiveawnas.

Product Information Number 261

Lastmonth'swhingewas
about publishers being
held accountable for the
way they portray the fea
A-IO and Civil War Generals II wouldn't
even run on many systems.
Do they miss these bugs in testing?
No, they simply opt for the bottom line
knew well enough in advance to
print it on the box, why didn't
tures of their games (i.e., over consumer satisfaction, and who they hold the product until it
they tend to he). That was a gets screwed? was ready? Second, why make
relatively bug-free column, You do. consumers jump through hoops
so instead of offering a Bugs have always been a problem, but to get what they deserve when
"patch" with some fixes, I'll just go ahead the blight of outright missing features has they pay $40 for the game?
and do a full-blown sequel. Nowadays, you reached epic proportions only recently. The Third, where is the frigging
can call almost anything a sequel, even a most common casualties are multiplayer patch three months later?
glorified level pack such as Tomb Raider II support and 3D acceleration. Sometimes And who gets screwed?
or a lame rehash such as F-22 Raptor. multiplayer features are added in patches, You do.
Which brings us to the point. To wit: put into upgrade packs, or, in games such Last but far from least are
You are being ripped off in dozens oflit as Skynet, turned into entirely new games. those games that are so feature-
tle ways. It's like the death ofa thousand Few games ship with stable multiplayer crippled or so behind the curve
cuts. Alone each cut is small, but collec support, but many promise it in the feature that one wonders ifthe develop
tively they whittle away at the respectabili set and then don't even attempt to put it ers simply dozed off, woke up,
ty ofcomputer games, contributing to a into the finished package (a la JetJighter III). and wrote "ship" on the nearest
loss in consumer confidence that could Why? Because it's expensive, time-consum disk at hand. Why did Dungeon
kUl this industry in its adolescence. As ing, and tricky to execute, and requires tons Keeper come out with a fatal AI T. LIAM MCDONALD is
with most problems in a free market, the ofexpensive tech support. So it's dangled in bug? Why did iF-16 and MS the ali-knowing god of

two bugaboos are greed and incompe front of gamers to get them excited and Flight Sim 98 clock about lOfps? gaming. His mother still
can't believe that he plays
tence. Neither is fatal on its own, but then snatched away at the last moment. Why did D-Day: America Invades games for a living.
together they form a deadly brew. 3D cards have become ubiquitous have no installation routine?
The problems are aU part ofthe same enough so that any game released from Test Drive 4 no dashboard
cluster—incomplete products. This is winter of1997 on should have support speedometer? Age ofEmpires no unit AI?
manifested in many ways: buggy games; out of the box. Of course, this has not Streets ofSimCity no entertaining ele
ments whatsoever? And for the love of
God why does Lara Croft continue to van
ish into walls up to her scantily clad ass?
Caveat Deluxe Pro The fact is that both developers and
publishers know the solutions to every
single one ofthese problems. They simply
MULTIPLAYER SUPPORT AND 3D ACCELERATION do not care.
Fixing frame rates, preventing clip
games released without promised or been the case, resulting in two types of ping, creating a decent AI, adding multi
crucial features; and "enhanced" games, consumer hosing; the patch and the player support or 3D acceleration: these
which are usually, but not always, a rip-off. "deluxe" version. It's annoying enough are all things we know how to do. Some
"Buggy software" is a redundant term. to have to wait three to four months to developers even do it right. But it takes
AU new PC software has some bug at download a very large 3D patch that time, testing, and skdl. Some program
some level. This is known and accepted. should have been in the game to start mers may indeed lack these skills and
What is not accepted are those bugs that with. Far worse is having that patch put should be canned. But it's more likely
are so clear and so egregious as to make into a "deluxe" version and then being they're not given enough time to do the
even a novice

wonder how
they got through
You are being ripped off in dozens of little ways, it's like the
QA. Patriot, death ot a thousand cuts, Alone each out is small, hut colieotiveiy
Da^erfall, and they whittle away at the respectability of computer games
Battlecruiser
became legends because they were charged full price after buying the non- job right. Far too often, marketing depart
released in what essentially was an deluxe version. Was there really any other ments are determining when a game
alpha state. A-IO Cuba had the rudders reason for Needfor Speed II SE aside should be released and how it should be
reversed. Front Page Sports Football 98 from the 3D patch? Or MechWarrior 2: represented, regardless of whether that
had disappearing players, screwed-up Mercenaries JDfx? game is done and whether that represen
kickoffs, and countless other problems Sega even had the unmitigated gaU to tation is accurate.
(and this for a fifth-gen iteration of a produce and ship the iiber-lame Daytona And who winds up taking it in the
gaming system). ABC Monday Night Deluxe with a line on the box saying "D3D shorts?
Football required a double install to run. support coming soon onlinel" First, ifthey I think you know who... 0

MAR 93 boot 27
 IflBHHHMIIIIIIII^

freeBflard DEamBr FreeBoard'^Disk FrEeBoard'" Remote FrEEBQarii"'lraEkbBli FreeBoard " 'B5

Absolutely wirelEss. AbsDlutely FreeBoartl™ Sit, stand, lie. down, move anywhere, anytime. Look for genuine FreeBoard p n r r n n n n n"'
technology in leading Web W", Network computer and PC/TV products. Call today: 1-888-373-3272. Dr visit www.sejin.com. FnEEDOnnD
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Product Information Number 30
 HE LINE
WITH SHEL KIMEN
peaking ofthe evil Reuters, I/PRO, TIBCO, and Global
empire, Microsoft recent Center on the Yahoo list.
ly annotmced its acquisi If you look at the clients and partners
tion of Hotmail, the free ofthose corporations, the family tree gets Excite mail offers the most
e-mail service, which is daunting. Off the I/PRO arm you get user protection by stating that
now Hotmail, a wholly American Express, Allstate Insurance, the company needs approval
owned subsidiary of NBC, Playboy, Prodigy, Hotmail {!!!), in writing to distribute your
Microsoft. NetCravity (advertisement management personal information to third
I find it especially interesting that the software), Neilsen Media Research, parties. It does not, however,
annoimcement was made the last week in CondeNast, USA Today, Warner Brothers specify whether "in writing"
December, with minimum news coverage. New Media, National Geographic, Forbes, signifies postal or electronic
Hotmail generates revenue from adver Turner Broadcasting Systems, Hearst, mail. Excite is also the only
tising banners. Users fill out a "confiden Time Inc., and Johnson and Johnson. service ofthe five I looked at
tial" profile used to help advertisers target Dangling off the TIBCO branch, you'll that guaranteed in its Terms
appropriate customers. Hotmail guaran find half a dozen banks in the United of Agreement not to "edit" or
tees in its Terms of Agreement that user States and Canada, Chevron, and "censor" user's e-mail, in addi
name and identification is not given to Motorola. Global Center connects you tion to a no-monitoring pohcy.
third parties; however, how much ofthis to Intel, iCat, Microsoft, Pitney Bowes, Juno has been offering free 'ftUS
wiU change with its new owner.' Hotmail SCI, Sun, 3COM,and Cisco, which con e-mail for a long time, though it
also has a user directory in which any nects you to Bell Atlantic, CTE, British doesn't offer a web-based inter
other users can get information about Telecom, Ericsson, CE Capital, and face. Juno claims the right to SHEL KIM EN is traveling the world

your likes and dislikes, as well as your real Hewlett-Packard. And this is an incom monitor mail going through its (real time, not virtually),so e-mail
response may be slower. But as
name and location. This service is a clear plete list! Potentially every aspect ofour public mailing lists if it deems always,try her at [email protected].
ly marked option in the sign-up process. consuming life—from banking to insur it necessary (!?). And it requires
But when I encoimtered an error during ance to telecommunications to tooth your consent to use your name
sign-up and had to go back and fill in an paste—can be touched by the information and user ID. There's a catch, though:
incomplete section, it reset this option— on your Yahoo "free" e-mail account. "Such consent shall be presumed if Juno
and only this option. If I hadn't noticed, I While Lycos doesn't have the corporate- provides (electronic or other) notice to you
during the account creation process
that Individual User Information
and/or Identifier Information may

Not-So-Free Speech be disclosed to an advertiser or

other third party in the event that
you continue the account creation
PAYING THE PRICE EOR "FREE" E-MAIL process (regardless of whether such
notice does or does not contain a
method by which you may explicitly
would've been added to the directory networking clout of Yahoo, it does provide such consent)." This means if
against my will. It's "accidental" ghtches encourage you to try one of its commer you miss a checkbox in the registration
like this that hurt the end user. cial e-mail accounts before doling out process or if they don't offer the option
For the sake of comparison, I investi the free one. For $14.95 you can get a but just pohtely tell you (in small, small
gated a few other "free" e-mail programs: cool vanity domain like Doctor.com or print), then you ain't protected.
Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, and Juno. These are Worshipper.com or even 2die4.com AU this shouldn't necessarily sway
among dozens of
services that offer
free e-mail in
Juno requ ires your consent to use your name and user ID.
exchange for demo There's a catch, though, If you miss a checkbox in the
graphic information.
Word to the wise: registration process, then you ain't protected.
Read the Terms of
Agreement closely. The little box labeled (sheeshi). And for $23.95 you can get anyone from trying free e-mail,('cuz we
"Agree" or "Disagree" can be extremely POP access (which sort of defeats the all know free stuff kicks). And I don't
important. point of web-based e-mail now, doesn't encourage using fake sign-up informa
Yahoo discloses information only to it?). While Lycos promises not to monitor tion, as a few ofthe services have clauses
its partners, so I did some research on your e-mail, it says nothing about what to actually prosecute for such shenani
Yahoo's partners. Besides the obvious it wiU do with your profile information. gans. I do, however, encourage you to
affiliation with Ziff-Davis (the publishing You're required to add your street think carefully about who you're trusting
monstrosity under the Softbank aegis— address and daytime phone number— with what information and not to pick the
expect regular pitches for Seybold even for free-access accounts, but Lycos quickest and easiest sign-up process.
Seminars and PC Magazine), you'll also makes no statement about the protection And keep an eye on Hotmail. I'm
find Intel, Compaq, Sequoia Capital, of this information. suspicious. 0

MAR 98 boot 29
 Unlimited Access.

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I Product Information Number 135
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 Afterthre long years,
I can finally see the
light at the end of
the tunnel—the
fast some minor wrist pain could lead to
a serious injury.
My downfall was the Pentium Pro.
(Hey, it's fashionable to bash Intel or
ORWARD
WITH TOM HALFHILL

longer to recover from serious

RSI than from an amputation.)
carpal tunnel, that Microsoft for everything these days, so I Many people don't realize
is. Yep, that's how might as well blame my RSI on them, too.) that RSI affects more than your
long it has taken me In early 1995,1 got a chance to write the ability to type. For over a year, I
to fully recover first in-depth article on the new chip. I had trouble opening jars, tuming
(well, almost) from a repetitive strain taped hours oftechnical talk with Intel doorknobs, using saewdrivers,
injury that nearly ended my days in front engineers and product managers. My eager writing in longhand, and holding
of a keyboard. editors cleared 11 pages in the next issue. a steering wheel for long periods.
Occasionally I'll meet a knuckle-drag- To make the deadline, I had to transcribe I couldn't read books, magazines,
ger who still thinks RSI is a phantom ail my tapes, write a 7,000-word manuscript, or newspapers without resting
ment. "I've been typing on keyboards for and draw the figures in only four days. them on a surface. Businessmen
years and it's never happened to me," Pretty soon my wrists were hurting. I with "power handshakes" inflict
they declare. Based on that scientific had experienced some minor aches before, ed spasms of pain. (Lesson #4:
data, they conclude RSI is some kind of but they always went away in a few days, Wear a fake bandage so you have
mass hysteria. It never occurs to them so I didn't worry. I figured there would be an excuse to avoid power hand
that injuries and diseases don't automati time to recuperate after the story was fin shakes. Or threaten to kick their
cally strike everybody who's at risk. Most ished. Surely a few days wouldn't matter. inconsiderate butts if they
people who smoke cigarettes never get Big mistake. The story got done, but squeeze too hard.) TOM HALFHIU Is a senior

lung cancer. I've been driving cars for my tendons felt like frayed dental floss. I've learned other lessons, editor at Byte magazine and t
author of two computing books.
over 20 years, yet I've never been hurt in Every finger movement triggered bolts of too. Nothing helps you heal
He first became interested in
a car accident. And I was typing on key pain that shot through my hands and faster than not typing. Chilly computers during the disco era.
boards for over 20 years before I suffered wrists, all the way up to my elbows. Soon rooms shrink your tissues and
from RSI. I could type with only two fingers, and I increase the fnction on your ten
It's probably a form of denial. If you had trouble grasping small objects. dons; to keep warm,cut the toes off a pair
really enjoy an activity (computing, bicy (Lesson #1: If it hurts, stop!) of athletic socks and pull them over your
cling, dancing, sex), the last thing you By coincidence, a colleague had suffered wrists. For the same reason, don't wear
any bandage or brace that tight-
ens your wrist. Buy a "wave"

The Long Dark Itinnei keyboard and prop up the front,

not the back. Don't rest your
wrists on a wrist pad while typ
ing. If the mouse is causing
RSI IS REAL AND PAINFUL AND IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU your pain, try a wave keyboard
with a built-in touchpad. Invest
want to think about is a health problem a similar injury a few months earlier when in a good adjustable chair and learn how
that could stop you from doing it forever. he had pushed himself through an enor to adjust it. Avoid using notebook comput
Too bad. If you want to keep using mous CD-ROM project. He urged me to ers, especially on airplanes. Open doors by
your computer for the rest ofthis year see a doctor: "Not next week. Now!"(Lesson pushing them with your shoulder instead
and next year and the year after that, don't #2: Get help immediately. It's serious.) of with the doorknob, which has probably
turn the page. My advice could save you Fortunately, my doctor works in Silicon contorted your wrist into a weak position.
years of gnawing pain. It might even save Valley and sees many cases like mine. Not The frightening thing is that I'm still
your career.
You've probably heard
it all before: Take regular
If you want to keep using your computer, don't turn ttie
breaks, get up and stretch, page, My advice could save you years ot gnawing pain,
blah, blah, blah. I never
took that advice too seri It might even save your career.
ously either, until the day
I tried to pick up a floppy disk and kept aU doctors are so enlightened. He soon not 100% recovered, even after three
dropping it because my fingers stopped diagnosed the severity of my injury and pre years. I'm about 90%. My doctor says I'll
working. scribed a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory probably never be able to revert to my old
My case, I learned later, was typical: I drug. My doctor also prescribed a pair of habits-typing as much as I want, as fast
was an experienced, rapid touch-typist; I steel wrist braces that I wore every night for as I want, with any keyboard or chair I
bulldogged my way through a project the next two years. And I found an excellent want. Like a football player with a rebuilt
that demanded an uncommon amount book: Repetitive Strain Injury by Emil knee, I'll have to pay attention to my body
of keyboarding in a short period of time; Pascarelli and Deborah Quilter (John 'Wiley and work within my limitations.
and I ignored the early warning signs & Sons, ISBN: 0471595330).(Lesson #3: Final lesson: Don't let this happen to
because I didn't realize how unbelievably Don't expect a quick recovery. It can take you. It's real, and it hurts like hell. 0

MAR 98 boot 31
 [•KM*]
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. CHP^T eWENTS
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Product Information Number 131

LIP the boot interview

Chances are you haven't heard of Centaur Technologies.And for good reason—they don't want"
you to. All they care aboutis whether or not your PC happens to use their latest progeny—the ^ "
WinCMp C6+, a low-cost Socket 7/x86-compatible CPU optimized for Win95 and DirectX.
Sure,Andy Grove and his Intel minions could squpsh this llliputian challenger with one, aptly tin\ed
patent lawsuit, but Centaur's founder and president isn't worriedi-^With his crack team of engineers "
and the financial backing ofIDT, an international integr0dchuit manufacturer,.Glenn Henry is^\ -x-.

34 boo
 boot How did you build an x86 from scratch?
Henry It is very, very difficult. We started
two years ago literally with no space, no
equipment. We were using my home
PC. We had meetings in my kitchen to
deliver a working Pentium-compatible
200MHz processor. AMD had hundreds
of people, spent hundreds and hundreds
of dollars, and produced the K5, a total
industry failure. All of AMD's previous
attempts were literally lifted, they just
copied the transistors.
We really did an impossible job, which
was one of my goals originally to show
Intel it could be done. No:one but Coke :
can make Coke by definition because they
have the formula in their vault. Pepsi may
taste the same, but it's not Coke. So Intel
would like to leave no one but them to
build an x86.
So obviously my team is really special,
really good—but if I can do it, other people
can do it too. We're not the only good engi
neers in the world.
boot Why butt heads with Intel?
Henry I love processors. I have for 46

"For me it's a personal thing. >

years. In the early 80s, I was an IBM
Fellow, the manager of all of IBM's RISC
processor activity here in Austin. I was the
guy that went aroimd IBM saying "RISC is
king. x86 sucks." That literally was my
mission. And in '84 and '85 I was doing a
RISC product that came out roughly at the
same time as the PC. Eveiy week, I'd have
to explain why my costs vyere twice what
this PC thing was. And my performance
wasn't that much better.
mmm So, when we finished that, I decided
PCs were the way of the world. I switched
allegiance—which was a big deal—and
started working on PCs,,even though they
were considered some substandard form
of life.
I wanted to build an x86 PC processor,
and in those days Intel didn't own the
world. As a matter offact; IBM had
invested in Intel to shore them up—Intel
was actually on the verge oflosing money.
So I came up with a project inside IBM to
build a low-cost, high-performance x86. My
strategy at the time was: We[IBM] don't
need Intel. Why would we, considering we
had all this technology?
Unfortunately, it became unbelievably
political. I had to go to New York every
week to argue why we should be doing
this. It vyasn't a'technical issue—it was
"Our MMX performsjust as bureaucracy. Hell, I spent a lot of time
fast as Intel's, even on Intel's arguing with the President of IBM. After
a great deal of frustration, I finally quit
own lying, cheating, stealing 1 out of principle.
benchmark. The Intel media I went to Dell, but in the back of my
mind was the project I never got to do—
benchmark is really horrible."
 u'j
building a low-cost x86.
Intel would have you believe that it takes
hundreds of people and years upon years I—

and a secret formula locked in the vault to

do an x86. I've always liked doing things
that can't be done. For me it's a personal
thing. This may sound sdly, but I believed a
PC in every home would change the world.
It's easy to build a $500 or $600 PC
with modem technology that does a lot, but
the problem is: sitting in the middle of that
thing is an Intel chip. When I started this
project, Intel was charging $400 or $500
for their chip, which was ridiculously out of
line. The chip costs $30, and Intel's
charging $500? I don't mean to sound
righteous, but that's bad. That's hurting the
industry. People could make a profit seUing
it at $100, and sales would grow exponen
- Ldp-JAt
tially. Microprocessors shouldn't cost more
than $100, and part of our theme here was
to build something, price it really low—the ../a
cost of our WinChip is significantly under
$50—and defy conventional wisdom.
boot A consumer walks into a local store and m
sees an Intel system and a WinChip system.

What's the incentive to buy a WinChip system?

Henry A processor ought to be a commodi
ty just like the chipset or the keyboard
controller. You walk in there and there's
two PCs. One's got an 8049 keyboard con
troller, one's got an 8051... whatever. But
no one knows, no one cares, right? What is
the modem chip that's in there? What PCI
controller? No one cares about any of that
stuff, and they shouldn't.
But Intel has made a big deal out of
the processor, and their "Intel Inside"
campaign. AU our chips are compatible;
they perform well; they're roughly equal.
The difference is a few percent at most
between the faster thing and the slowest -m:
thing in the world. It just doesn't matter.
So if it weren't for the "Intel Inside" adver "I don't think processors
tising, no one would care about the chips.
They would buy the system that has the
features and the price they want. The key
difference between our system and the
Intel system is a couple himdred bucks, but
ours performs exactly the same, except for
maybe MMX and 3D. So if you're not a
heavy-duty gamer—and by the way, heavy-
duty gamers by and large don't buy $1,000
PCs—then our system will do everything
the Intel system wiU do and be a couple
hundred bucks cheaper.
boot OK. Sojust what is the current WinChip
capable of?
Henry Well, we made some fundamental
trade-offs. We've been very open about
what its focus is.

"Socket 7is dearly viable. Unless AMD fails to deliver. AMD is our competitor—but'every night I

boot M AK
 The cxirrent WinChip has been opti
mized for the Windows and business
applications that most people use. What the
current chip is not so good at is heavy-duty boot Where did the name WinChip come from?
floating-point or MMX compilations. We're Henry We made it up. Everyone else, including us, has a number (we're C6). In fact
a lot faster than chips without MMX,but we picked the C6 because it sounded just like a K6. But we said "This is a consumer
we're not as fast as the K6. And Intel still marketplace that we're going into. We need a name, not a number. And the name
has the best floating-point operation. should have some meaning." So we optimized the chip for Windows, thus we're
boot But your second chip is geared toward WinChip. We just thought it was better to have a branding name than an abstract
3D appiications, right? number in the marketplace we're going after.
Henry Six months after our first chip
ships, we're going to ship our second. In
this market, you win by responding quicker I'm not sure that's a good approach Henry No, we're targeting games. I make a
than others. And the 3D market is so fast anyway, but it's certainly not a good distinction. There are gamers and there are
that those who move quickest are going to approach for us. We're going to add these people who casually play games. But we're
win. The new chip is basically our current instructions, and we're going to work with not really going after the heavy-duty
chip with substantially improved MMX and Microsoft and for Direct3D I'll write the gaming marketplace because we really
floating-point performance. It's at least code myself. don't think that's a very high volume in the
twice as fast as our current chip. Microsoft and Centaur then have to sub-$l,000 PC category.
boot How win you guys tackie the floating count on people using Direct3D. So what boot What's the optimal system for the C6?
point problems that plagued AMD and Cyrix? I'm counting on is the inevitable force Henry A good low-cost 3D chip on a
Henry Cyrix sucks and so do we today. of Microsoft APIs swallowing the world. board. By low cost, I mean $80. I believe
With our new chip, we threw floating I think a high-level interface to graphics that there are several good 3D cards you
point away and rebuilt it twice as fast. Our is a good idea. I don't want to argue D3D can get today for S80, and three months
approach—and I believe AMD's approach— versus OpenGL—they're both okay, but from now it will be twice as good. A 3GB
is let's not spend a lot of money and make since Microsoft is readily supporting EIDE drive. The usual stuff—generic 3D
the x86 architecture floating point go D3D—even though it's not very good (at sound card, 20x GD-ROM, and probably
faster. Let's spend the silicon doing things least today)—it's going to be the winner. 32MB of memory. EDO versus SDRAM
where the people use these instructions But it wiU get better in time. And the is an important issue to us. We're opti
and give you a 5x improvement in graphics. concept is good. I'm a believer in a high- mized to minimize bus traffic, but when
That's a much better approach. Almost no level API; that the more we can make it we started, fast memory versus slow
silicon can speed-up 3D graphics by 3x to easier for an application to do complex memory was a cost item and there's still
5x, but it requires that people use those things, the more applications we're going a significant difference between EDO and
instructions. That's the big risk. to have—and that's goodness, right? asynchronous DRAM.
We've doubled our x86 floating-point Now, putting religious differences aside, We have two philosophical approaches:
performance and now we're about the we're agnostic on this; we don't care. Speed up the CPU or speed up the bus.
same as Intel. Doubling that again would boot if Microsoft started endorsing OpenGL, And it turns out it's easier and actually
take a monstrous amount of silicon. It would you do the same thing there? more cost-effective silicon-wise to speed up
would take almost no silicon if you double Henry Sure. In fact, it's trivial. With the bus. So that's what we did. That's why
it by including new and different instruc OpenGL—^when it gets down to the we do particularly weD with EDO memory.
tion—a new MMX-like floating-point geometry and transforms, there are subtle boot Weil then,just how fast is "fast"?
instruction, which is what we've done. differences only a 3D expert would notice. Henry Our MMX performs just as fast as
boot So what are some of the new instruc The calling sequence is slightly different, Intel's, even on Intel's own lying, cheating,
tions you've got built in? but it would be trivial to add that. stealing benchmark. The Intel media
Henry Fast reciprocal square root for one. boot if you added AMD's instructions, they'd benchmark is really horrible—it's opti-

matter to customers and it shouldn't be a household name. We're a semiconductor part; we're >
Doing a reciprocal square root on a be added to DirectX or DirectSD? mized perfectly in Assembly language for
Pentium today takes about 130 clocks. Henry If 1 had AMD instructions I'm now Intel's own product line. It's actually faster
Doing a square root on our chip takes a clone of AMD,and 1 can sit back and do in business applications.
less than 20 clocks. It's pretty basic stuff: nothing. I'm not going to argue with In addition, we added our own special
fast, floating-point integer conversion, AMD's strategy, and I'm not going to 3D graphic instructions. The interesting
fast reciprocal, fast reciprocal square agitate the industry—^AMD is already doing thing is that AMD and Cyrix also had their
root, very fast multiply. that. 1 just get it for free. That's the advan own instructions and all roughly do the
boot Those instructions are compatible with tage to me,the advantage to AMD of doing same thing differently. So quite a lot of
DirectX? this deal is of course that it looks much people were asking us why don't we get
Henry No one is going to use our instruc stronger if several people are banded together. By the time this interview comes
tions specifically. So we'll write a routine to together against Intel. You have to work in out, we'll probably have done that.
go into Direct3D. Our strategy is to be concert. I think AMD understands that, we boot So you're planning on joining forces with
totally transparent. AMD and Cyrix are understand that—and it's a win/win for us AMD and Cyrix?
going out and talking to id Software and all and a win/win for the industry. Henry Of course. We don't benefit by
the other developers out there saying "Here boot Aren't all these new instruction sets tar having our own instructions. We added
are our instructions—use them." geting gamers? them because it's better, for almost no
size—remember we're
focused on small size. For
have to pray for their success. Without them, there won't be Socket 7."

MAR 98 boot 37
 sophisticated audio effect, simulating syn
%ying with the hig hoys thesizers and things, it is useful.
boot But since peopie aren't running
boot What's it going to take to get a Gateway or a Dell to switch? Photoshop and things iike that on your sub-
Henry I don't think they ever will—they need very high volumes. Intel is the only one Si,000 WinChip-based PCs, why worry about
that can guarantee their kind of volume. Plus, Intel has a full product line. If Dell MMXataii?
started buying non-Intel chips, they'd get less access to Intel's good stuff. They Henry The people who make PCs need to
wouldn't get specs as early—it's a well-known phenomenon. And that's a big deal. I hype technical features—"our thing is
shouldn't say they'll never switch, but they're not going to switch until someone else bigger than their other thing." But the
can offer them everything Intel can and with a substantial cost reduction. WinChip is a very small chip, and for very
boot Are you talking to any top-tier companies? little cost, we can double the MMX perfor
Henry Yes. But we're not even trying to seU to them because we couldn't supply their mance. The PC industry is driven too much
volume demands today. We can sell all we can make for a while without fooling with by marketing and hype. I don't think MMX
those guys, so why take on the heartache? There's heartache on both sides of a guaran has much use. I think it was totally a ploy
teed contract that says we'll deliver a million. by Intel to charge more money. So it's a
That's always been Compaq's problem. Compaq consumed so many chips, that marketing ploy and, in this case, rather
even though they've occasionally made it clear that they're not that great a fan of Intel, than buck the tide, we just did it too.
no one has been able to supply their volumes except for Intel. boot So you've joined in the pioy?
boot So, who are your customers? Henry Why would I argue against it? But
Henry We're going after the local Mom and Pop down the street, who buy a mother we did spend more energy on things we
boards from Taiwan and buy processors from us. Pop puts it together and Mom does thought were important—speeding up
tech support and the son delivers it—that type ofthing. Because they can gross $30 or business applications and speeding up 3D
$40 more, it's a big deal, and for those people our chip is perfect. The local guy has no graphics, which I do think has some real
strategic interest. use. Where are the good games that use
3D? They're all over. But where are the
good games that use MMX? Those are not
less than a square millimeter of chip size, Centaur isn't going to make any dent on a great games.
we added instructions that speed up 100 million marketplace. boot Weli, what about AGP? How wiii AGP
geometry and lighting transforms by about One of the things I learned at IBM was affect the WinChip?
2x to 5x. to spend little and promise little. We have Henry It won't, other than raise sales. AGP
But the industry would be better off if all spent very litde on this, and we'd laugh all just totally trashed out. It's just another
the alternatives to Intel banded together the way to the bank if we could just sell a bus. Sitting in back ofthe processor we
and shared the same specs. So we have
publicly said,"We wiU throw away what we
did and use AMD's or Cyrix's," but AMD's
"Intel has spent$100 million on running ads convincing you
the better choice if they'U work with us.
And all I can say is we're working with million ofthese things. Secretly, our dream don't see any of that. We see a Socket 7 bus
them, but we're not ready to announce is to sell a lot more than a million. A that goes out to a control chip. God knows
anything yet. We're very happy to clone million might be a big deal to us, but to what's on the other side of it. It has zero
AMD,if you want to put it that way, Intel it's nothing—they won't even notice. affect on us.
because I think that's the best thing for the They'll just think someone stole those boot Do you see this trend continuing?
alternate marketplace, which is the best chips. Henry Intel's got a real problem. They
thing for the PC industry. boot is MMX a sham? have to sell 80 million chips this year, 90
boot So Centaur can't dent Intei's armor Henry Intel has spent $100 million on million the next year, etc. And the world is
without help? running ads convincing you that if you already saturated with PCs. How are they
don't have MMX you're not a real man. But going to convince people to throw away all
go and try to find a real MMX application, those old PCs and do something new?
not God's answer to anything." particularly one that runs. You can't. The That's a major problem. Dell and Gateway
only games that use MMX are trashers. All would die if the average life of a PC wasn't
Henry Of course not. That's ridiculous. the good games don't use MMX. And the two years, right? The PC lives longer than
Even if you could do it technically, which is business applications that use MMX (such that, but people turn them over faster. So
very, very difficult because Intel is techni as Photoshop) aren't applications people what Intel tried to do is to create a brand-
cally competent, you can't because oftwo run on sub-$I,000 PCs. The 3D stuff does new application doing things you never
other factors. First of all, Intel's marketing make us substantially better at games, but heard of. This year it will be something
muscle is like Microsoft's. They are more it's a real marketplace rift. But as much as different. No one knows what it is, but it
powerful as a marketing company than anything, it's a marketing knock-off. has to be something that a PC can't do
they are the technical company. boot Do you think there's a reai incentive for today because for existing applications
Second, their manufacturing prowess. people to use MMX? Is it ready worth your time PCs do a pretty good job. There's a limit
This'll be a lOO-million-chip year. If Intel to incorporate it into your new specs? to how fast you need to run business
died tomorrow and said,"We give the Henry For certain applications, yes. For applications on a PC.
market to Centaur," what are we going to image processing it is a big deal. But it's boot is there a speed limit? Do consumers
do? No one else could make 100 million relatively useless for writing 3D pipelines. care about 400MHz and 500MHz parts?
chips. Intel probably has ten or twelve It is useful for sound and classic DSP Henry Only for the new emerging media
foundries. This is AMD's problem applications. But those are specialized applications. There's a limit in any given
today—whenever Intel lowers their price, applications. If you're going to write a application of how much technology you
AMD will lower their price, but they can't business application, it's useless. For most can use. And for classical business PC use,
make enough of them. So little old games it's useless. For a Photoshop or a we're approaching that limit relative to

38 boot MAR 98
 processor speed. the Pentium Pro, and the Pentium II are aU that's necessary to be successful. Who is
3D graphics are useful and important, different. the household name in memory chips?
but once you hit 60fps, it doesn't need to With a Cyrix chip or a K6, you have We're a semiconductor part; we're not
go any faster. You're dealing with human to have a BIOS upgrade because of the God's answer to anything. We'll make
interaction. There's a limit to how fast machine-specific registers. We do too. money selling parts, and we can sell plenty
things need to go. However, on a large number of boards we without being a household name—plus,
boot What speeds can we expect with your don't even need a BIOS upgrade. You can we're doing this for the joy of it. It's a
new parts? plug our chip into a motherboard that has mission that's fun to do.
Henry We're shipping 180s and 200s Award BIOS on it and we run. Of course, Intel spent $100 million last year adver
today. The new chips will be 300MHz it will identify funny, returning a message tising MMX,right? And if you ask common
and up. A year from now we're targeting that says "this is a 286 running IMHz" or people,"What the heck is MMX?" they
500MHz. something silly like that, but we run fine. think it has some thing to do with space
boot Speaking of speed, WinChip is optimized So we actually put more energy in the people disco dancing. They've seen the ads
for Windows, correct? compatibility than Cyrix or AMD because but they don't know what they're touting.
Henry Yes, but it mns everything. Linux we knew no one would ever do anything boot How about Siot 1? Are you guys pianning
lets us do things with virtual memory that for us. on iooking at that?
Windows doesn't do, so we support those boot OK, but what happens with appiications Henry Of course we've already looked at it.
things, even if they're not the fastest. that specificaiiy iook for an intei chip or simpiy We don't want to do it unless we have to;
Our chip is very heavily tuned. We did iook for MMX extensions? Slot 1 has no technical merit—it actually
extensive analysis of what PCs do from a Henry There are a couple of applications has technical demerit. But Intel's on a
processor's viewpoint: What instructions, that read the CPID string for a genuine campaign to make you go proprietary for
what sequences, bandwidth. And where we Intel chip. This is a crime against humanity. Intel—and is going to spend a biUion
had to be fast, we put hardware; when we Intel has convinced developers they should dollars on it. Ifthey can convince the world
didn't have to be fast, we used microcode, read for their CPID string, but the only that you have to have a Slot 1, then we'll
because that's the smallest transistor people they've convinced have been con have to do it.
known to man. So we have more microc vinced by paying them money. But that's I don't think they'll be successful.
ode than other processors. On Windows 95 just my cynical opinion. Anyway, there are In 1987 I was heavily involved in IBM,
we're equally as fast; on Windows NT, some programs that look for a genuine Intel fighting against IBM's decision to go propri
we're about 4% slower. chip and refuse to work if it doesn't see one. etary. I don't know if you remember, but
boot As NT becomes a iot more popuiar, do But we have a way around that which I they did the thing called the MicroChannel.
you foresee NT optimizations? think is very clever. Soon thereafter I quit IBM. I said it was a
Henry Sure. Our next chip fixes that 4%. When you execute CPID, it returns its stupid thing. I spoke out in public forums—

that if you don't have MMX you're not a real man. But go and try to find a real MMX application >
boot Are there any apps you know of that character string. We have a feature that I used to be the guy who debated the IBM
don't work with your chip? allows you to dynamically change that char guy. It was the same thing: a proprietary
Henry No. I can teU you how to write one, acter string to anything you want. thing. It had no value other than some
but I can tell you to write one that wouldn't boot Wiii Centaur and WinChip ever be a esoteric multiprocessing and it was going
run on Intel chips too. All modem chips househoid name? to cost more. In that particular case the
have machine-specific registers; very low- Henry I don't think we'U be a household industry rebelled—led by Compaq, who said
level things that are handled by the BIOS. name and I don't care. I don't think proces "we're not doing that." And all the Dells and
Applications don't use those because the sors matter to customers and it shouldn't Gateways clustered under that umbrella and
machine-specific registers of the Pentium, be a household name. And I don't think the market split and of course MicroChannel
is in the Hall of Shame and
isn't made any more, and
IBM's share ofthe market
A boy named Sue went from 80% to 9% or
something. At the Fall
Does Intei give a hoot about about Centaur? Microprocessor Forum, I
' I don't know. The standard question we get asked isj "Wiii Intel sue you?" And of course, we was on a panel session and
have no idea. when asked about the advan
Weii, what would the basis for a lawsuit be? tages of Slot 1, the Intel guy
Oh, patent infringement. Intel's position has been clear: If you develop an x86, you must had a hard time and finally
infringe their patent. They sued Cyrix. AMD has a patent cross-license, but they sued AMD On other choked out, saying "Well, I
issues. We don't believe, of course, we infringed any patents, but in this country you can sue anyone. personally think it is, but
/ But they haven't done that, which is actually a surprise to most industry analysts because historical- it's a very subjective thing."
Ty, if you dared to enter the marketplace, they'd try to step on you. Right. There is no advantage
Personally, I believe they should welcome Centaur. In fact, Intel should be paying us money. Guys to Slot I. Intel's clearly doing
like me are actually good for Intel, given all those monopolistic suspicions. it just to drive everyone else
And besides, I'm not going to take business away from Intel. If I take business away from someone, out of business.
it'll probably by Cyrix and AMD. Heck, Intel should send money to encourage me. Unfortunately, they By the end ofthe year
haven't yet [laughs]. we'U do a backside L2 on
Again, I don't think we're really a threat to Intel. In our first year we might ship a million systems. the chip. Our chip's so
That's round-off error to Intel, but a big deal to us, I think our existence is much more important in small, we're doing 0.25
the marketplace than our volurne. micron technology and

MAU UU boot »»
 adding L2. You do those things and there's
no technical advantage on Slot 1—it just Runnin' with the devil
adds cost. So we looked at it and said we're
not going to do it unless Intel forces us. : What about Microsoft? Have they contacted you?
boot If you are forced to do It, can you? f i We actually are working quite closely with them on our 3D graphics instruc 'mmi
Henry We're back to the old argument of tions. They reviewed the specs, gave us hints, and said they would work with us in
intellectual property. It's not trivial, but supporting Direct3D. So at the technical level, the guys in their D3D group have been
neither is a lOOMHz Socket 7. For that very cooperative. Tliere's also a guy in the NT group we've been working with on the
matter, neither is building a Pentium chip. 3D instructions. But by and large, since we're not going to be leading the pack adding
Can we do it.' Technically, yes. Do we have new features, we don't have much reason to talk to Microsoft.
a cross-platform license with Intel? No. I'm the epitome of cloneness and proud of it.
boot What do you think of the Super 7 Our engineers feel they control our destiny. Every decision was made here. We
Initiative? didn't even send a spec to IDT. They just sent money and trusted us. Every feature of
Henry You have to make Socket 7 more the chip that makes it sell or not sell is totally engineering-driven. We needed no help
competitive. Making it faster and cheaper, other than from manufacturing to build the thing. And that's an engineer's dream,
and adding support for high-speed L2s, are Most engineers who've been around any period of the time will tell you they did this
all good technical things. brilliant work of art and the stupid salesmen couldn't sell it or the stupid marketing
From a marketing viewpoint, bundling guys got it in the wrong marketplace, etc. So we intentionally avoided all that.
those together—putting them under a This is the best job I've ever had, and it's fun. But to make it that way I had to
name—is a good idea. I hate this stuff per remove my dependencies on everyone else. I don't mind being dependent upon myself
sonally, but it's a good idea. I'll be a Super and my guys. If we fail, we fail; but we fail because we couldn't do it. Which is a good
7 member, arm-in-arm with AMD. We're environment for an engineer.
all doing the same thing; but it's just a
marketing ploy.
boot How long do you realistically expect cache and a processor into a Socket 7; the save $30, but we would be twice as fast
Socket 7 to last on the Windows platform? bus will easily run lOOMHz. As long as with more flexibility. And if you want to
Henry In a year and a half, the world will AMD is there, the chipsets will be devel put in a 3D card, put it in. That thing
be in one oftwo different places: One oped to run on lOOMHz and motherboards. has integrated the world's lousiest
scenario has Intel with 100% of the market It's a good solution that's cheap. The only graphics adapter.
place, AMD will be out of business, and I'U reason that wouldn't work is because Intel And so next year they're going to do a new
be living on my Dell stock, trying to do is going to threaten, push, cajole, and chip with a better graphics adapter. And
robotics or something like that. If Intel is spend hundreds of millions of dollars on three months later it wiU be obsolete. I'm
just not a big believer in
integrating things like
< that runs. You can1 It was totally a ploy by Intel to charge more money." graphics. Memory con
troller, bus controller—
successful with moving the world to marketing—and they may be successful. fine—because they don't change. Audio and
Pentium II, and Slot I, etc., they may very The only reason Intel didn't raise the bus particularly video change every three months.
well move the whole world there, whether frequency beyond 66MHz for years is boot Almost everyone we've talked to during
it makes technical sense or not. Such because they wanted to do Slot 1. Intel these interviews agrees that Andy Grove is the
things have happened and Intel has wanted to convince the world Socket 7 is smartest guy in the industry. Do you admire his
tremendous power to sway the user. substandard. That's technical bullshit. famous paranoia?
The other scenario says both AMD and We're building our strategy around the Henry No. Having worked for Michael
Centaur are successful in an alternate mar idea that Socket 7 is clearly viable out until Dell for five years, I think Michael is the
ketplace where Intel maybe has 70% ofthe well into '99. Unless AMD fails to deliver. smartest guy in the industry.
market. Probably by then the alternate mar This is terrible—AMD is our competitor— boot OK, we'll bite. Why?
ketplace has 30%. This is what happened in but every night I have to pray for their Henry First off, he's just intellectually
the PC world. And in that case, that 30% success. Without them,there won't be an smart. But he really understands the cus
will be Socket 7, and it'll be very viable. It's infrastructure to do Socket 7. tomers and their buying proclivities. Dell
not a technical thing. Socket 7 has a long boot In the worse case scenario, how long can started from nothing and right now it's an
life span to it. It's going to lOOMHz this Centaur survive? $8 billion company. Intel has a monopoly
year with the 0.25 micron technology, it Henry We are in business to sell. The lock—^they have patents, they have their
will innovate L2 cache. Slot I's got nothing, worst case scenario is that we can't sell, but processor, and they have a factory. If you
other than multiprocessing, but I don't there appears to be no evidence of that. I inherited Andy's job tomorrow you'd do
think multiprocessing will be important for think we'll survive forever. very well because you've got everything
a volume marketplace, even then. boot is Cyrix stealing any of Centaur's thunder rolling. Michael started with nothing. It's
A lOOMHz Socket 7 is as fast or faster with their alternate architecture? a lot harder to be successful by under
than a lOOMHz Slot 1 in any processor envi Henry A little bit, but not a lot because standing marketing and support and what
ronment and it's a heU of a lot cheaper. MediaGX has two big deficiencies and only people want in PCs then when you own a
Now,in most places in the world that's the a minor advantage. Those two big deficien technical monopoly. That's taking nothing
definition of a good deal, and there's no cies of course are performance—it's really a away from Andy, but I saw Michael go
reason you can't put L2 cache on top of dog and its quasi-unique motherboard from nothing to building a multibillion
Socket 7, just like they do. They've got a design. dollar business without any technical
bus, and there's an L2 cache living inside The only product that uses one of those secrets, without any better technology,
their slot thing. Whether or not you do it as things today, the Compaq Presario, is not without any better fabs. Just by cleverness.
a module or you do it on the chip is irrele terribly competitive. If you look at price/ And I think that's difficult—not taking
vant, right? You can plug the thing with L2 performance, it's really poor. You might away from Intel again, but they do have an

40 boot nrrrr
"There is no advantage to Slot 1. Intel's clearly doing Itjust to drive everyone else out of business."
edge because of that quirk offate. It didn't more responsive to what the real customer because they wanted them to look that way.
matter whether the 286 was a piece of cow needs are. By "customers," I don't mean They spent billions of dollars on high-end
shit or actually very good. individual customers, but what the market things. If Intel would've sold a good proces
boot If you could run Intel for one day, what place is. Intel has acted with technical sor for $100, the marketplace would have
would you do differently? arrogance. I have no complaints about their expanded, right? So what 1 would do for
Henry I would try to make them much products. But they have built products one day before the board of directors
caught me for lowering gross profits
(because that's been the problem)? I'd try to
expand the marketplace by getting Intel to
focus on what it is that people want to buy
and not try to force them to buy what Intel
boot What's the next big processor RISC, CISC? A combo? wants to sell. 1 believe Intel hasn't built the
Henry It isn't classic RISC. The time has passed for that. RISC designs are now as right products. A $500 Pentium 11 in a Slot
obsolete as x86 designs. If you want to buUd the fastest thing in the world, ignoring 1, is a perfect example. People didn't want
software hype, the new architecture approaches are derivatives, a combination of some that. Intel just decided, "We're going to fix
RISC and a thing called VLIW. AMD." And if they have their way with the
Modern RISC machines take a serial set of instructions and try to improve them so Pentium 11 and Slot 1. we'll once again see
they can execute four or five at once. But they're starting with the serial string. That's the return oflow-end $500 processors,
very inefficient. The VLIW architectures take four or five instructions and pack them which is horrible.
together and say, "That's one big instruction." It just tells you how to do four or five boot If there's a catch phrase for Centaur,
things in parallel, and that's much more efficient. Some of the stuff Intel is doing on what would it be?
their new Epic architecture is good, but it's not classic RISC. Henry 1 actually wanted to call it the Volks
The x86 is continually speeding up. So 1 actually believe that x86, as an external Processor—a processor designed for what
architecture, is going to live for a long time. people do. But PR said no. H]

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Thn Many Fanns of Pentium II

Here's the quick-and-dirty 411 on the Pentium II family members—Vanilla P-ll Baby Bear, Slot 1 Deschutes IVtama Bear, and Slot2 Deschutes Papa Bear.

Category Vanilla Pentium II Slot 1 Deschutes Slot 2 Deschutes (Estimated release date Q3/98)
Core CPU Speeds 233, 266,300MHz 333, 350, 400,450MHz 350,400,450MHz
System-bus speeds 66MHz 66/IOOMHz 100MHz
L2 cache size OK, 256K, 512K 512K, 1MB, 2MB* 512K,1MB, 2MB'
L2 cache speed 1/2 core CPU speed 1/2 core CPU speed core CPU speed
Core-logic chipset 440FX, 440LX, 440BX 440LX, 440BX 440BX,450NX
Fah width .35-micron .25-micron .25-micron
# of processors supported 2 2 4
PRICING** 233MHz $268 333MHz $919 300MHz $739
* estimated L2 cache sizes
266MHz $530 350, 400,450MHz $TBA 350, 400, 450MHz $TBA "as of 01/07/98

NEC Direction SPL 333

Fastest gun in the bootLab
it's not the best about drowsy reads and writes while your able of motherboards, with PCI and DIMM
gaming machine, processor is buzzing along. And the score slots sitting unobstructed. And please
but the Deschutes- of 3682 in the CD-ROM read test easily note the three CPU fans (one is lodged in
drlven NEC SPL 333 busted the roof of our just-revised bench a massive aluminum heatsink). NEC said
still throbs with marking scale, so you can rest-assured the two fans would have sufficed in most
supreme PC power, 32x NEC A810SM CD-ROM drive Is a 333MFIZ computing environments, but
kicking ass across all sub keeper. You also get a Zip drive to handle decided to go with three because most
systems and setting new all the run-off from your projects. hardcore PC nuts permanently remove
bootLab records in three of Exquisite Altec Lansing speakers their cases, thus reducing the airflow nec
our most telling benchmarks. round out this superfast, low-priced essary for optimal heat dispersal.
If you can't muster the package. Of course, if you simply must Imagine that: a system expressly
remarkably inexpensive keep spending, you're given the option to designed for power users. You'll only find
direct order price, you buy a 19-inch Flitachi CRT-based monitor it via direct order, but that's a good thing.
should at least use this for just $750. Can you do much better? Keeps the novice riff-raff away from this
system as a model for your own upgrad Well, yes. The lack of any real audio purring muscle machine.
ing exploits. hardware—c'mon NEC, Yamaha 0PL3?—is —Jon Phillips
The dream centers around the 333MHz a problem. We've also seen
CPU. Sitting purdy in a 440LX Intel Atlanta much faster Direct3D
motherboard and teamed with 64MB frame rates from the
SDRAM, the processor chalked up a gaudy same Rlva 128-based
157 in our basic bootMark test, breaking AGP card (this issue's
the previous high of 145, which was Micron machine scored 11
achieved by a 300MHz part. Even more frames faster in the
shocking, the SPL 333 scored a chart- Foresaken benchmark
destroying 429 in our SYSmark32 test— using the exact same
that's 125 points higher than our previous video card and a slower
top markl SYSmark32 uses kernel code CPU).
from eight Win95 business apps to gauge Nonetheless, the
how well systems crunch algorithms and SPL 333 Is a kick-ass
draw screens. The SPL 333 got particularly machine. If you don't
freaky while peeling through CorelDraw, realize this as soon as
Lotus Freelance Graphics, and Microsoft you boot—the desktop
PowerPoint, suggesting the combo of the color Is preset to a
CPU and Diamond Viper V330 AGP video stark, let's-get-down-to-
card might be the best battery you'll find business black—you'll
for consumer-level design tasks. learn your lesson when
The 6.4GB IBM DeskStar 5 UltraDMA you pull off the sliding
hard drive keeps pace with wicked fast side panel. Inside you'll
performance, so you don't need to worry find the most upgrad

44 boot M.AR 9 8
Warm Springs* ..jC ^AshwoGd
Lain Austin /
 Hampton

CPU/MOTHERBOARD Even faster speeds are expected in the Slot 1 realm, although
bootMark
157.2 Intel has yet to officially armounce them. As Deschutes contin
ues to pump up the megahertz, that old 66MHz system-bus
WIN95 APRS speed will have to give. Slot 1 will eventually get a lOOMHz
SYSmarl<32
system-bus-ready processor (to be teamed up with Intel's
440BX core-logic chipset). By applying typical bus multipli
DIRECT3D
Terramark ers—3.5x, 4.0x, 4.5x, etc.—to that lOOMHz spec, you can
expect 350MHz,400MHz,and conceivably 450MHz parts to
HARD DRIVE appear in the Slot 1 scenario. "The true game aficionado wiU
Adaptec ThreadMark vl.O drool over a system with a 400/100 processor plus AGP in the
second half of'98," says Richard Dracott, Intel's Director of
CD-ROM Marketing."The fastest processor around for desktops will be
CD Tach/Pro v1.6S
the Pentium 11 450MHz processor, running with a lOOMHz
system bus."
mm5 VIDEO On the notebook front, Intel plans to unleash a .25-micron
% piayed
VidTach vl.52
100 Mobile Deschutes at 233MHz, 266MHz,and 300MHz within
the coming months, marking the first time notebooks wiU
DOS GAMING
Quake v1.06
move beyond the tired Pentium with MMX realm. Following
all the design parameters of the current Slot 1/P-ll paradigm,
DIRECTX GAMING
the biggest difference between Mobile Deschutes and its
MDK PerfTesI vl.4 desktop brother will be a smaller formfactor cartridge.
But even with core processor speeds running up to
MMX PROCESSING 450MHz,two performance bottlenecks stand in the path of
DeBabelizer Pro Slot 1 Deschutes CPUs. The first obstruction is the L2 cache-to-
CPU bus speed—it nms at half the speed of the core proces
CPU/DISK sor. The second obstruction is the inability to host larger
Microsoft Visual C''compile
amounts of L2 cache—^the current SEC formfactor is already
maxed out at 512K of BSRAM,and Intel knows it.
Price $2,200 (add $500 for So what do you do when your evolving CPU technology
17" monitor; $750 for 19") outgrows your Slot 1 formfactor?
Company NEC
Phone 888.863.2669
Simple. You make a new slot.
URL www.nec.com
2:"pted Sficeel /i^eeid
A complete breakdown of benchmark results is avail^le
By Q3 of1998, Intel will likely ship what many consider the
on the bootNet. Point your browser to www.bootnet.com true heir to the Pentium Pro throne—Slot 2 Deschutes.
For those of you who missed our preview back in boot 14,
expansion map Slot 2 is Intel's forthcoming processor interface. It wiU live
THE BRAINS
ABP DiamondATyjer.. alongside Slot 1 in the grand Pentium 11 scheme of things.
Intel Pentium II 333MHz
12 CACHE 512K BSRAM (internal)
PCI Free Resembling an elongated Slot 1 bus, the larger interface will
64MB SDRAM accommodate a larger processor footprint, which in turn wUl
Motherboard Intel Atlanta 440LX
PCI Free house a larger, faster L2 cache. Intel has yet to confirm L2
THE BRAWN PCI Free/shared
cache sizes, but it guarantees they'll be "bigger than 512K."
AGP Diamond Viper V330(Riva 128 Chiset,
You shotdd expect 1MB to 2MB of tightly coupled L2 cache.
The L2 cache-to-CPU bus speed will also finally meet the
Hard Drive 6.4GB IBM Deskstar 5 Ultra DMA33 HiWK
CD-ROM 32x NEC A810SM Pentitim Pro's spec of running at fuU core CPU speed, so a
Expansion Bus One AGP, three PCI, one ISA, one shared PCI/ISA 400MHz Slot 2 Deschutes wiU have L2 cache running at a fuU
Fax/Modem US Robotics 56.6Kbps
I/O Ports Two USB, two serial, one parallel 400MHz straight on through.
While Intel hasn't etched in stone the entire new speed line
THE BEAUTY
up, you can expect Slot 2 processors to at least match the faster
Display NEC C700,17-inch,0.27mm dot pitch,
1280x1024@60Hz
Slot 1 CPUs: 350MHz,400MHz,and 450MHz."In the server-
Sound Yamaha 0PL3-5A3 workstation world, the fastest one wiU be a Slot 2 450/100 with
Speakers Altec Lansing ACS410s with ACS251 subwooler
Otber Zip drive, Microsoft intellimouse
up to 2MB offiiU-speed L2 cache," says Dracott, discussing a
CPU with four 512K BSRAM cache chips onboard.
"The bigger cache doesn't come without a price. With
THE BUNDLE Microsoft Windows 95 I Microsoft Office current Slot 1/P-ll processors, there's no problem getting large
Small Business Edition

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Biley

quantities of inexpensive BSRAM to fill from AMD, VIA, and SiS.

those L2 caches. But by upping the L2 If you're looking to immediately play But the 440LX has two big bottle
cache size, Intel will be forced into the footsies with Slot 1 Deschutes proces necks for extreme bootBoyz and
Pentium Pro-mode of manufacturing its sors, the Intel 440LX is your core-logic bootGrrlz—a two-CPU maximum and
own L2 cache memory—a process that chipset-du-jour. This two-chip setup offi the dreaded 66MHz system bus.
will bump the price of Slot 2 Deschutes cially maxes out on a 66MHz system Throughput gets logy when you couple a
well over the $1,000 mark. bus, although many motherboards we've 2x sideband AGP card with lOOMHz
Despite the high price, expect aU your seen (including Tekram's P6L40-A4 and SDRAM and aU those frothy high-res
favorite OEMs to begin selling Slot 2 Abit's LX6) have the option for 75MHz AGP textures have to be squeezed
Deschutes machines arotmd August. and 83MHz system-bus speeds—for through a slower 66MHz system bus.
And with the introduction of these testing purposes only (yeah, right). Intel's forthcoming 440BX core-logic
badder beasts, expect price cuts around Current 440LX specs include support chipset win fix the 66MHz bottleneck
the same time frame. Intel is aiming for up to 1GB of system RAM (512MB and give Slot 2 users aU the support they
Slot 2 at the ultra-elite crowd, and with a SDRAM or 1GB EDO), USB, Ultra need. You'U be able to get wet with a ftiU
little help from the appropriate core-logic ATA/DMA devices, and PG98 stan lOOMHz front-side bus and lOOMHz
chipset, you'U be able to put as many as dards. A lower-cost, stripped-down SDRAM support (although there wUl be
four processors into a system. version of the 440LX may be released issues when attempting to match up
But which core-logic chipset should alongside cacheless P-II processors in an older 233MHz and 266MHz GPUs with
you go with? attempt to combat the Socket 7 AGPsets the newer lOOMHz bus speeds and mul-
tipUers). Manufacturers expect to begin
engineering sample parts by the time
you read this, which means you should
How Does Your CPU see motherboards armed with the
Compare to Deschutes? 440BX around July or August.
Face it: Slot 1 Deschutes makes your system look like an Easy Bake Oven. But just how powerful EDO DRAM owners, sadly, might be
have Intel CPUs become? Below, we've listed the highest boot!\/lark scores we've ever seen generat out of luck, as the 440BX wUl most
ed by the various Intel processors. Please note each CPU was tested In a different system configura likely support only SDRAM—so get
tion, and the scores aren 't necessarily the highest possible for each CPU and core clock speed.
The bootl\/lark, designed by Symantec, simulates a typical real-world workload, taking Into those DIMMs ready. Also, AT case
account more than 100 factors that affect system performance. The benchmark puts major stress owners may have to fork over the ducats
on the CPU, Including Its bus Interface, the transfer rate between memory and the CPU, the mother for an ATX case and power supply; The
board core-logic chipset, and the memory cache—both the bullt-ln (LI) 440BX requires an ATX 2.1 power
cache and the secondary (L2) cache. The bench
mark emulates the processing Instruc Pentium supply (a reqmsite of Microsoft PC98
tions Windows 32-blt applications power management specs). If someone
PENTIUM 200MHz MMX
commonly use. decides to do an AT 440BX mother
Because the benchmark empha board, it wUl most likely be armed with
sizes how effectively the system PENTIUM 233MHz MMX an ATX power supply connector, forcing
uses the CPU In conjunction with
system memory, It doesn't take Into
61 AT case ovraers to pony up for another
account factors such as disk drives, PENTIUM PRO 200 power supply.
mZw/256k cache
the video display and other periph 87.2* If you yearn for quad-processor
erals. The big performance jump power, look no further than Intel's
you see when moving from a PENTIUM II 233MHz

Socket 7 Pentium MMX to the Slot

450NX. Appearing sometime late this
113
1 Pentium II Is primarily due to the year and handling up to 1GB of SDRAM,
PENTIUM II 266MHz
Pentium ITs close-coupling of the the 450NX core-logic chipset will
12 cache, faster SDRAM memory In 122
support and use the new PI 1X6 South
many P-II systems, better core-logic PENTIUM II 3QQMHZ Bridge chip (which, by the way, the
chipsets, and other factors.
While Pentium owners might 145 440BX will support). This new South
find some of the numbers disheart DESCHUTES/PII
Bridge chip wiU offer cool features such
ening, they shouldn't freak out. A 333MHz
157.2
as IEEE 1394/Firewire and dual USB
Pentium 200MHz MMX teamed with support (for quad ports), and may
a 3Dfx card still makes a damn fine FUTURE SLOT 1/
gaming machine, and no one needs a DESCHUTES 400MHz possibly come in ready for the forthcom
19r*
333MHz processor to surf the Internet ing Ultra DMA 2 specification.
FUTURE SLOT 21
With four processors in tow, how will
score from Intel's web site DESCHUTES 450MHz
"score derived by overclocking a 333MHz to 416MHz 250*^ all that silicon fit on a standard ATX or
"*projected score widi 2MB L2 cache
AT motherboard? Simple—^it won't. In
fact, it was a labor of love trying to fit

46 boot
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The Dark Art of Overclocking

How to turn up the heat in your surging Pentium il
Deschutes county is home to majestc benchmarking plateaus and breath If you just have simple
taking code-crunching vistas. But ifyou probe deeper into the seemingly speed settings (233MHz,
pure Pentum li outback, you'll find a foreboding underbelly—the quasi- 266MHz, etc.), configure
mystcal realm where PC alchemists practice the dark art of overclocking. the speed up only one bin.
Imagine increasing your core processor speed from 333MHz to If your motherboard uses
416MHz with just a few motherboard jumper tweaks, it seems like the multiplier method, it
magic, yes—but it can be done. While Intel doesn't officially deny the should be currently set to
existence of the dark art, it does adamantly, vehemently, zealously 66MHz X 3.5 (that is, the
discourage its practice. To wit: The extra heat generated by over- speed of the system bus
clocking can destroy your CPU. Neither Intel nor any equipment times 3.5). To go up a bin,
manufacturer on the face of this earth will honor your warranty should set it to 66MHz x 4 (you'll
you fry your system while attempting to increase the speed of your hit 264MHz). If you have "soft jumpers," set the BIOS for either
processor. Likewise, boot will assume no responsibility for any fried, or 66x4.
fused, or melted lumps of silicon. We are simply providing insight into Initially go with a modest .5x bin jump to stay on the safe
overclocking so that you may learn more about the mysterious world
around you. step 5)Power up your system and note the CPU speed during
if you haven't run off yet, then let's descend into the dark realm. boot-up and POSTing. It should report that a P-ll running one bin up is
installed. If not, power down, double-check your settings, and try again.
Step 1)Rid yourself of destructive static electricity. This is a no- If the system refuses to POST or can't boot into Win95, something's not
brainer, so crack open your computer case and discharge those stray elec right and you should return your system to its original settings and call it
trons by touching your power supply casing (with the plug still connected). a day.

Step 2)Consider your cooling scenario. Most P-lls already have Step 6)Are you in Windows 95? Great! Run your benchmarks and
some type of cooling system installed, it can be either passive (a favorite applications to check for stability. Look for anything out of the
heatsink attached to the processor) or active (a fan directed at the norm: lock-ups, crashes, and visual glitches (cursor trails, icons dropping
processor or a fan installed directly in the heatsink). If you successfully out, or patches of corrupted screen real-estate), if you're experiencing
overclock your P-ll, pay close attention to the stability of your system more grief than you did before your overclocking escapades, then you
and start thinking about ways to improve air circulation inside your case. may need to take off your wizard's hat and restore your original settings.
This may involve installing more fans. And always keep your case tightly
closed—the vacuum helps ensure more efficient air flow. Step 7) CPU Clock Ratio
Explore other bus
Step 3)Locate the speed venues— 1" i 80MHz 76MHz(•

X3.5 iiiSx4.5 MxS.S

jumper settings for your 75MHz and m
SeMHz Q3MHZ I*)
motherboard. Regardless 83MHz. Check to
of whether your mother see if your moth
board uses physical erboard has the
jumpers, DIP switches, or ability to use higher system bus speeds, if not, then you're ass-out. But
"soft jumpers"(adjust if you are granted access
ments found in your to faster realms, pick a
Here's a little chart for those of you
system BIOS), you'll have speedier system-bus
who do have 75MHz and 83f/IHz
either a single setting speed and go back to Step
system-bus options and need a
that sets overall speed or two separate settings: one for system-bus 2. Repeat the process
quick reference ofspeeds.
speed and the other for the multiplier. By multiplying your bus speed by using your faster system
the multiplier setting, you can determine what type of speeds you can bus as your basis of over-
Bus speed x multiplier CPU speed
squeeze out. Before you make any adjustments, write down your current clocking.
75MHz x 3.5 262.5MHz
settings configuration. If some act of nature causes your system to crash Pay close attention to
75MHz X 4 300MHz
after adjustment, you'd better have your original settings ready. your system if you have an
75MHz x 4.5 337.5MHz
AGP card, as it will be
75MHz X 5 375MHz
Step 4) Bust out your motherboard's instruction booklet and find affected by this particular
83MHz X 3 249MHz
the jumper settings for CPU speed. You may also be able to find your overclocking method, if
83MHz X 3.5 290.5MHz
settings written on the motherboard. Now adjust your jumper settings to 3D-acceierated games
83MHz X 4 332MHz
go one "bin" up from your processor's rated speed. that take advantage of
83MHz X 4.5 373.5MHz
For example, if you have a 233MHz P-ll, set your jumper configu AGP start acting weird, 83MHz X 5 415MHz
ration for 266MHz. How you do this will depend greatly on which your AGP card isn't happy
motherboard you have. with the speeds.

MAR
,^43!^ilovvdate Baker City
Warm Springii'^ yjf As) Kimbefiyi i '*^:%5a,«PleasSf
Kings1 inhn H
 bURCiii; S.P. » ItArLHi,
oshen «fr. swww h7 Harpeh
Dexter .V,oc-rti AfSo
M'TtR Brothers
Lorane Pine ^n.
5S» ft. Hix Arf!.i
Ik I''•'<1 «< SS09 ft
.

Daknift)-' ■"•■„, '■■'<■ ;/

.rlsPlOSPasli
:% cMj&mk
HaniDtD

just two Slot 1 processors onto either protection into its processors by not once again the system booted and
formfactor. With the increase in CPU bonding one of the multiplier pins adowed us to run amok. bootMark
size, many motherboard makers plan on during the manufacturing process. This scores edged closer to the magical 200
testing their parts in large tower cases. would allow the processor to effectively mark by posting an average score of 198.
The boards will most likely be OEM-type ignore higher clock speed settings, At these speeds, however, the proces
server units. urdess you overclock by pushing up the sor heated up and the stability of the
Intel's offerings won't be the only system-bus speed. system was compromised. If you do
core-logic chipsets in Deschutes country. Wed, some protection seemed to be in decide to tread these grounds, you must
VIA's VT82C680 ApoUo P6/97 is almost place when we played with a good old cool down your processor in a serious
ready to buddy up with Slot 1 processors, 233MHz Pentium 11. Although we were way, as wed as observe your system for
but it won't support AGP, making it able to push it up one speed to 266MHz long-term reliabdity. If you encoimter
more of a competitor to Intel's 440FX (66x4), when we pushed it up to 300MHz intermittent lock-ups, crashes, or graphi
than anything. SiS, meanwhOe, is prepar (66x4.5) it refused to recognize it was set cal glitches after pushing your CPU up
ing its own Id' surprise with the SiS 5601 that way and reported that we had a one bin (the industry term for overclock-
AGPset. Exact specifications on the SiS 266MHz processor instaded. However, if ing), you'd best ease up and rethink your
5601 are stdl cloudy, but it should share we jumpered the puppy up to 291MHz optimization strategy. While we discov
sister chipset SiS 5602's attributes, (83x3.5), the system fired up fine and ered protection wasn't in place in the
including support for up to 512MB of benchmarked appropriately. parts we tested, we know first-hand that
system memory. Ultra ATA/DMA, USB, So how woidd a newer CPU perform? Intel frowns upon overclocking and will
and at least a 66MHz system bus. Other With a 333MHz Deschutes, Tekram not honor any warranty if your CPU
core-logic chipsets—such as Micron's P6L40-A4 motherboard, and 4MB ATI takes a dump during system-bus
own Samurai PGlset and Reliance XPERT@play AGP card, we decided to speeding exploits.
Computer Corp.'s proprietary chipset go jumper-crazy and overclock away. We
seen in Compaq's workstations—^wdl stdl first configured the motherboard to "Do- '^euc 'Wcutt
be players in the game, but expect Intel 366MHz (66x5.5), and the system to. ^omomotU'7
to dominate the Slot 1/Slot 2 realm with booted and ran just fine. Our bootMark while the majority of 333MHz proces
an iron fist. posted an average score of 176.5—^wed sors wid go to the big system manufac
above the average bootMark posted by turers, you should stdl be able to order
'^mdco'ined the 333MHz Deschutes-fueled NEC individual CPUs from online stores or
Direction reviewed in this issue. your friendly neighborhood computer
'pcM' Gcet 0^ (^'P7{a7 We next pushed the envelope to mart by the time you read this. Prices
With AMD hinting at 500MHz of 412.5MHz (75x5.5) and the system wdl open at $919, but expect the usual
screaming glory in the K7 processors seemed to be stable enough, posting an price drops as Intel manipulates its
due out in 1999, Pentium 11 ovraers incredible average bootMark score of pricing structures.
might get jealous. So is there room to 195.2. Pushing past 75MHz and into the Slot 2 paraphemada won't hit the
overclock extra oomph from Intel parts? 83MHz realm, we reconfigured the streets untd the third quarter of this year.
We've ad heard reports that Intel has system again, this time for 416MHz, and And the parts wdl be expensive as hed.
recently engineered So what minimum level of CPU per
formance should you accept in 1998?
Intel seems to know what you want. As
Dracott says, "Eor the boot reader, the
power monger, 333MHz in Ql, 400MHz
in Q2, and 450MHz for Q4."
If you were hoping for MMX2, Intel's
much-badyhooed 3D-extension instruc
tion set, you'd have to wait untd the
next-generation Katmai processor
rears its head sometime in early
1999—if you're lucky. Until
then, Deschutes is where the
power party is at, and it's up
to you to grab an oar and
shoot the rip-roaring
rapids. 0

boot
Granite
Warn Springs Ashwood Kimberiy:
SHi'f Alijahf tit JsHomM
Mm D&y Atiefhi
 i

1m by 3Dfx.
pssra mmEB p®ber pcsber powe

Raw number crushing In physical form.

More polygons, more frames per second,
more pixels on screen. Blast software
straight from your monitor and into your brain
Absolute power - no consequences. ,

Power-

Best Hardware. Best Software.

Lara Croft and tier likeness are courtesy of Eidos Entertainment Tomb Balder, Croft and her likeness are trademarks of Edos Entertainment. © 1997 Eido^Entertarnment. Copyright
© 1997 3Dfx Interactive. Inc. The 3Dfi( Interactive logo. Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo? are trademarks of 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. www3dfx.com
. Product Information Number 372
 L
I
So you got a bum knee. So what
A little ACL damage doesn't
mean you can't stick your giutes
in the angle of a comfy desk
chair, fire up the old PC, and
throw a few Hail Mary's to the
hoys in the end zone. Thats
right, hahy, you've got the Jock
itch, and if you don't scratch it,
it'li drive you nuts. Luckiiy,
spring is the season of
sports Sims, and we've
got scouting reports on
ail the hig-name players
you've been hearing
about. Foothali, hasehail,
soccer, racing, hoops. So
go ahead, manipulate the
little guys. Boss'em around.
Show 'em the meaning of
discipiine. Sports sims are for
armchair quarterbacks, not
sniveiing wimps.
—Michaei Ryan
>

MAR 98 boot 51
MADDEN NFL 98
Seahwks
The Madden 1998 campaign includes more CHECK
coaching and management options than Madden NFL 98
ever, but is still an arcade-style game to Version: 1.1
the core. Gameplay is a bit quirky, and the Maximum Resolution/Color
code seems somewhat sloppy in spots, but 640x480/8-blt
Madden NFL 98 is clearly the best overall Wln95 Native
football game in this year's pack. 3D Acceleration
Fully licensed by both the NFL and DIrectSD
Players' Association, Madden uses 2D Native 3D Hardware Support
sprites and 3D polygon-based stadiums. The 3Dfx Glide
player animations DirectX
are the best in this DlrectDraw DlrectSound

roundup, with ball DIrectPlay DIrectlnput

Player animations and field art are easily the best in the category.
carriers hurdling Multlplayer
LAN Modem Direct/serial
would-be tacklers, mouth dimen often referred to as incomplete passes and
Specialty Controllers
high-stepping into sion. Unless receivers often go from being wide-open to
Gravls Grip
the end zone, and you're an old being surrounded by as many as seven
Win95 compatible
crumbling dramati- Madden veteran. defenders in seconds. EA's action is far from
caliy when they're passing can be dangerous on anything but perfect, but given the competition.
hit. The 3Dfx patch Rookie difficulty, as your receivers will rarely Madden is still the best football
doesn't add all the catch the ball. The Ai remains suspect in title you'll play this season.
Without the 3Dfx patch, bells and whistles some areas. A typical glitch; There's 15
Madden's weather effects
are pretty plain.
you might expect, seconds left in a tie game, and the '•rtiet
but the filtering computer has the ball on your 16-yard line Prlca $50
helps clean up the player and field graphics. with no time outs. But instead of kicking a Developer Stormfront
The 3D stadium rendering is also sped up, game-winning field goal, it runs right up the Publisher EA
resulting in better frame rates. As always, the middle and you go into OT. Phone 800.425.4525
Madden sound effects add a realistic smash- The game has other flaws. Fumbles are URL www.easports.com

LEGENDS FOOTBALL '98

m
Iftheideaof
matching up the
1997 49ers with
the 1968 Packers
makes you drool, The weather effects in Legends 98 are pretty coot—
you'll get a kick out of except for the occasional glitch in field tiles, that is.
Accolade's Legends Football '98.
With more than 80 teams from ail the players in the game have the same
four different eras. Legends has number (it looks vaguely like 88).
the potential to be a niche Running the bail is straightforward, but
favorite among die-hard gridiron passing is poorly implemented: You must
treaks. Unfortunately, even hard remember each receiver's pattern from the
core Lombardites won't be able play selection screen.
to look past the game's anti League play and management options
quated graphics engine and are Legends only saving graces. The career
These teams look something like the Seahawks and Raiders, hut it's
poor gameplay. hard to tell through the sea of pixels. mode is something Madden has always
Using a single difficulty level, lacked, and the ability to draft is very cool,
the game is fully licensed by disappointing or just plain in fact, it's these features—combined with
CHECK
the NFL and the Players' awful. The graphics engine— the old-time teams and rules—
Legends Footbaii '98
Association and includes each Version; 1.2 which uses chunky, 2D that protect Legends from an
of the 30 current NFL teams. Maximum Resolution/Color sprites—is the worst of even lower score.
You also get 50 classic teams 640x480/8-blt the roundup. Although the bpoi
from 1932, 1950, and 1968. The Wln95 Native stadiums are fairly well- 'fftlet
opportunity to line up teams rendered in 3D, the player; Priee $40
DirectX
from different eras is intriguing, DlrectDraw animations are has-been and Developer Saffire Corp.
as is the option to use old-time Specialty Controllers glide over the turf like Kenny Publisher Accolade Inc.
football rules. Sadly, most of : Gravls Grip and Kyle glide through an; Phone 800.245.7744
the game's other aspects are Win95 compatible episode of South Park. And URL www.accolade.com

52 boot MAR 91
FRONT PAGE SPORTS: FOOTRALL PRO '98
FPS Football Pro 98, tike Its are poor. The
predecessors, is ttie best gameplay itself CHECK USJl
Football Pro '98
title for simulating tlie strate is slow and
Version: 1.02
gic maneuvering of coacties boring, and
Maximum Resolution/Color
and GMs. The game's only while the
640x480/8-bit
real problems are poor game's controls Win95 Native
graphics and gameplay—it are easy enough WinNT Compatible
simply isn't any fun. to master, DirectX
Unlike previous versions, you're better DirectDraw DlrectSound
Football Pro '98 is a full off letting the DirectPlay
screen application. The 2D computer run Multipiayer
plays for you. LAN Modem
League play Direct/serial TOP/iP
and management
options are the title's strength, but even
The player animations in FPS 98 are good, but the gameplay isn't these features are hampered by layer after
layer of menus and dialog boxes that stand
graphics are crisp and clean, with good between you and a simple trade.
player animations. The game's only near-perfect
Unfortunately, they pale in comparison feature is the play editor,
to Madden, and players glide over the field which remains unsurpassed.
almost as poorly as those in Legends '98.
D The playcalling menu is confusing, and
unchanged from the awkward menu system ?flea $30
that Sierra has used for years. You can cus Company Sierra On-Line
tomize camera angles during play, and you Phena 800.757.7707
almost have to since most of the defaults URL www.sierra.com

■^m

uficnr
Ml W///
Qiii&mY tpiatiry
by3Dfx.
(paatY QBasrr

We don't compromise, we don't lose

features, we don't sacrifice framerate,
and most importantly, we never ever
stop working to be the best
With Voodoo^, we've
upped the ante - again

I' •«: Quality

risl: L-lE.L'( BesLtL-Softwa re

of Eidos Entertainment, Final Fantasy Vil, Cloud and his likeness ItBjtademarks of Eldos Entertainment. © 19^7 Eldos Entertainment.
T The 3Dfx Interactive logo, Voodoo Grapfiics and VoodooZ are trademarks Interactive, Inc. Ail Rights Reservi

Product Information Number 372

 FIFA ROAD TO WORLD CUP 98 STcheckLISTI FIFA Road to World Cup 98
Version; 1.0
ttmsismssam.
Electronic Arts has tacular—easily the best yet FiTAJhtCEV
Maximum Resolution/Color

j given us a number of from EA Sports and light 640x480/16-bit

great sports games years ahead of Worldwide Win95 Native

this year, but FIFA Soccer. Even without 3D Native 3D Hardware Support
SDfx Glide PowerVR
Road to World Cup 98 blows acceleration, the game looks
DirectX
them all away. This gorgeous title great and plays smoothly on
DirectDraw DirectSound
has the gameplay, graphics, and depth to a P166. With 3D acceleration
Directlnput
please any sports fan. enabled, FIFA 98 is without
Muitipiayer
FIFA 98 Includes a staggering 189 teams equal. The stadiums are well LAN Modem Direct/serial
from around the world and lets you play a rendered, the field looks Specialty Controllers
full-blown World Cup tournament from the realistic, and player anima Tfle Irish juggernaut rolls on. Gravis Grip
qualifying round on. The 3D engine is spec- tions are exquisite. Win95 compatible
Moves such as bicycle special plays.
kicks, volleys, and slide There simply isn't much to dislike about
tackles look perfect. Post-goal FIFA 98, except maybe the skimpy camera
celebrations are particularly controls on the replay feature and the fact
impressive—especially when that about half of the gameplay camera
scorers gyrate before falling angles are poor. Still, these are minor com
on their backs. The game's plaints. If you have any interest at
Scottish color commentator all In a soccer game for your
can also be very humorous. PC, this is the only one to get.
You might expect the game to booi
fall flat on gameplay, but even
here FIFA 98 is without a peer. Prlca $50
Most commands are single- Dewslopar EA Sports
button affairs, but the game Piibllshar EA
also lets you use more intri Phona 800.425.4525
The detail level In the held, the animations, and the players are astounding. cate controls to perform URL www.easports.com

WORLDWIDE SOCCER
Despite the cheesy, arcade-style atmo
sphere and lackluster look and feel, Sega's CHECK
Worldwide Soccer is a decent game. But Worldwide Soccer
Version: 1.0
it's not half the game FIFA 98 Is, and this
is a problem. Maximum Resolution/Color

Worldwide Soccer isn't licensed by FIFA 640x480/1 e-bit

Win95 Native
(the Federation Internationale de Football
WinNT Compatible
Association), but does include 48 generic
DirectX
international squads. The original release
DirectDraw DirectSound
didn't support 3D acceleration. While the
DirectPlay Directlnput
game's software 3D engine ran smoothly on
Muitipiayer
a moderately equipped P166, it crashed LAN Modem
constantly and looked amateurish. In Direct/serial TCP/IP
December, however,
Sega released a , bilinear filtering. But the Worldwide Soccer's "radar" window can be very helpfui for keeping track of
Dlrect3D patch that patch also added visible your team's positioning.
eliminated the crash texture seams
bug and helped and players who become orphaned decent soccer game. But since Worldwide
smooth out the against the sky when the camera Soccer doesn't execute better than FIFA 98
art with rotates to field level. The game's / in any category, it's difficult to
music and menus are terrible, but despite give It a passing grade.
all these problems, gameplay Is solid and
the controls can be learned in minutes. The-
player animations are excellent, especially Price $40 liCMJct
the fake Injury acts that accompany each Bavelcper Sega of Japan
dirty slide tackle. You can customize Publisher Sega
your team's field alignment and Entertainment
tactics, as well as make player substi Pheae 800.872.7342
tutions. With the patch installed, this is a URL www.sega.com

54 boot MA
 NBA LIVE 98 CHECK nST
NBA Live 98
Version: 1.1
Maxim um Resolution/Color
NBA Live 98 isn't as perfect as EA's FiFA, top-notch, particularly the elabo
640x480/16-bit
but It's the best thing going in computer rate dunks, which number more
Win95 Native
hoops. The excellent 3D engine is similar to than 30. Other great animations
Native 3D Hardware Support
the one used by NHL 98. The 3D-rendered include complex fade-aways, SDfx GLIDE
stadiums are Identical to each other, but layups, and leaning jump shots. DirectX
each team's home-court floor is incredibly The graphics engine has one DirectDraw DirectSound
i
detailed. The polygonal players don't look glitch that's been plaguing NBA Direct!nput
quite as polished as their NHL 98 and FIFA Live since 1995: Players seem to Multiplayer
98 cousins, but the player animations are float over the surface of the floor. LAN Modem Direct/serial
This is especially Specia lty Controllers
noticeable in 3Dfx Gravis Grip
mode. We were also Win95 compatible while the
disturbed by the closest
insanely grinning players' real- computer-controlled team
life league photos over their averaged only three. Regard
polygonal blockheads. less, this is the best basket
Though the game runs fine ball game around. The GM
on an unaccelerated P166, the draft alone may be reason
3D6( mode adds bilinear filter enough to buy this title.
ing and a higher frame rate.
NBA Live 98's only major koot
flaw is suspect Al. Even on the
3rd quarter hardest of four difficulty levels, Prieo $50
we were able to beat the Dovalaper BA Sports
computer almost every time PabUsher Electronic Arts
DQ'Od
by 15 or more points. We Pbaao 800.425.4525
Holy absent AH The 76ers ahead by 19 in the second half?! averaged 17 steals per game. URL www.easports.com

\m by SDfx.
stitidu:; LmEBl r^EED

60 frames per second. Ducking and

weaving becomes an Olympic event.
You'll have to develop a new set of
reflexes just to keep up.

Speed.

Best Hardware. Best Software.

FIFA Road To World Cup '99 Images are courtesy of Electronic Arts. FIFA Road To World Cup '99 images are trademarks of Electronic Arts. © 1997 Electronic Arts. FIFA Official license product of the FIFA World Cup France 98. ©The France 98:Emblem •
and Official Mascot are copyright and trademark of ISL. FIFA Road To World Cup '99 is a trademark or registered trademark of Electronic Arts or its wholly owned,subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. © 1997 Electronic Arts. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright ©1997 SDfx Interactive, inc. The SDfx Interactive logo, Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo2 are trademarks of SDfx Interactive. Inc. All Rights Reserved, www.3dfx.com-
Product Information Number 372
NBA ACTION 98
NBA Action 98 is a solid game US—you don't want to play
with decent graphics and low-res. Even at high-res,
good gameplay. While it's not the graphics are just chunky
as good overall as NBA Live enough to hinder gameplay.
98, It doesn't miss by much. It's often difficult to judge
The game your player's
didn't support 3D accel
eration at the time of
CHECK LTST position in relation
to other players,
, m-
Iver^on
NBA Action 98
this writing (a patch Version; 1.0 which makes it easy
3 HLLENIUERSON
should be ready by the, Maximum Resolution/Coior to miss plays and
time you read this), and run out of bounds. FGs Assists Steals
640x480/16-blt
6/8.
its graphics, while good, Win95 Native Player graphics are
just can't compare to a DirectX fairly well-detailed
BDfx-enhanced NBA Live DirectDraw DirectSound and the animations The courtdetains very goodin NBA Action 98—definiteiyon par with NBA Live 98.
98. The game runs at DirectPiay Directlnput are good, but the
320x240 and 640x480 Specialty Controllers players tend to blend together on you've lost Tim Hardaway in a pile of
in 8- or 16-bit color at Gravis Grip screen. The court and crowd art pixels?
either resolution. Trust Win95 compatible are good, but who cares when The Al, however, is impressive. We were

But even with hardware behind

VR BASEBALL It,; VR Baseball comes up short
in the graphics department. The
players are cobbled together
With a supposedly revolutionary out of poorly sculpted
graphics engine and a polygons—each one looks like
hardware acceleration require a tall hunchback. The player
ment, VR Sports' VR Baseball texture maps are average at
comes to the plate with plenty best, and the faces look awful.
of swagger. But if you think this Thankfully, the stadiums are
-—■ — _ is the Next Big remarkably well rendered, and
CHECK I I S I Thing in simulat the field looks great, with nicely
ed baseball, filtered grass and dirt borders.
think again. / Most player animations are
Maximum Resolution/Color You'll need a excellent, but the transitions
The stadium art is fantastic, but the
640x480/16-bit 3D accelerator
piayers are not neariy as impressive.
between them are harsh or just
Win95 Native to get busy, plain missing. For example,
3D Acceleration and we're not Voodoo players who strike out swinging actually look
DirectSD talking ViRGE. T Rendition VIOOO the part—they lose their balance or step too
DirectX Compatible and V2200, and far into the swing. But then they erupt into
DirectDraw DirectSound /chipsets ATI 3D an awkward, crouched run toward the
Directlnput | are 3Dfx Rage Pro. dugout that ruins the realism.

ANDRETTI
RACING
EA's latest racing game is a
lot of fun and offers great
visuals, but it tries too hard to provides nicely filtered
straddle the line between textures and lens flare
arcade and simulation. effects. The frame rate
Andretti Racing doesn't appear Increases, too, but since
to be licensed by anything other than the the game runs smoothly m
Andretti family, but it does have 16 authen
tic tracks, including Indy Car courses and a mL^nl'ShVutTce'ta- offers a good ievei of detaii and some niceiy modeied cars.
handful of NASCAR-style ovals. The graphics tion, the improved rates will be most fogging effect can help mask flaws. The
engine is strong, though not quite as eye- noticeable on slower systems. Distance ren- game also lets you adjust the target frame
popping as F1 Racing Simulation. Andretti dering, which is so important in driving rate, which can vary between 15 and 30.
supports Direct3D acceleration, which games, is average, though the optional The tracks are challenging, well rendered.

56 boot MAR 98
ISMi
hard-pressed to beat the computer at the highest of three
difficulty levels, and even the lowest level offered a decent
challenge. The computer sets up effective defenses and
makes passing difficult.
NBA Action 98 revealed a few annoying bugs during
testing. The game refused to let us call a timeout—the option
was grayed out despite the fact that the NBA rule book was
on our side. Nor would the game let us sub players during Al i Id
timeouts. Nonetheless, NBA Action 98 is
an inspired effort to topple EA's hoops
champ. With a few tweaks and some
graphic enhancements—bilinear filtering
is a must—this game could
become a serious contender.

friee $40
Bewelefiss' Visual Concepts
TabSlsbsr Sega
Entertainment
'9 i
JSS 800.872.7342
How can he dunk like
that with no legs? www.sega.com

Gameplay is decent, but not

up to Triple Play 98 standards
(see review in boot 12). Pitching, %
fielding, and batting controls are
extraordinarily easy to master.
The camera angles are lousy,
however, and that makes hitting
a challenge. Though the game
boasts numerous viewpoints, the
camera only tracks a handful of
the action. The rest of the time The game does, mciude some nice -■r-TVVARt SDFTWABE SORTWl 3E
touches, like the shadows and
you're staring at an inactive the bottom of this guy's cleats. Not only can you play the
games you currently own, but W':
fielder or, even more puzzling,
the stadium roof. VP Baseball isn't a
bad game, but if
you want a cool- they will perform even better
looking, arcade- Prls9 $40
Bev&lfi'pgr Digital VooDoo
Over 150 games are already
style baseball
game you should Pubik'Tj'?!' VR Sports/ working on Voodoo^ with
go with Triple Play
98, the best of the
interplay hundreds more in development
Pii-er.:- 800.468.3775
baseball brethren. ffitf www.vrsports.com PC gaming comes of agd
'i '

and just as detailed outside the course as they are on the Software.
road. For example, the track in Rome, Georgia, is bordered
by elaborate columns and arches.
Andretti has solid Al, but it's
CHECK nsn nothing you can't defeat with a
Andretti Racing little practice. Your biggest chal- :
Version: 1.0
lenge will be to keep from
Maximum Resolution/Color
spinning out; the car physics :
640x480/16-blt
could be much more forgiving. If
Win95 Native
you approach Andretti as an
3D Acceleration
arcade racer, you'll almost
DirectSD
certainly enjoy it.
DirectX
DIrectDraw DirectSound
DirectPlay Directinpul
s $50
Muitipiayer
LAN Modem Direct/serial
EA Sports
Specialty Controllers EA
Force feedback Gravis Grip a 800.425.4525
Win95 compatible Throttle www.easports.com
 ji

CART PRECISION RACING

With good gameplay, nice smooth textures,
graphics, and tons of customiz but if there was CHECK nsT
CART Precision Racing
able features, CART Precision ever a game in Version: 1.0
Racing could be one of need of fogging,
Maximum Resolution/Color.,,
Microsoft's best games to date. this is it. The
640x480/32-bit
Fully licensed by Championship objects popping Win95 Native These idiots, don't they know they're
Auto Racing Teams (CART), Precision into view on the WinNT Compatible i going the wrong way?
Racing offers 17 authentic tracks from the horizon are an 3D Acceleration
CART World Series circuit. You'll need a especially ugly DirectOD pressed to keep
Direct3D accelerator to see it at its best. sight—even Native 3D Hardware Support your car on the
Unaccelerated, the game ran sluggishly on with distance 3Dfx GLIDE road. It's very easy to
a decked-out P166. Using 3Dfx acceleration, rendering set to DirectX spin these babies out—
the game looked and ran much better— maximum. DIrectDraw DirectSound especially when the game
with at least double the frame rate. Precision The game DIrectPlay Directlnput throws rain at you. The game
Racing makes effective use of filtering to offers some Multipiayer also includes a Racing School,
P<ac«: I5/5E unique effects, LAN Modem Direct/serial ' and a multitude of stats and
tap Info: l/S
tap Time QiOO.DO such as a head- TCP/IP driving analysis tools. It's quite
Current; Q: IS.SI
Best: O;a0.OQ panning feature Specialty Controllers an impressive package for anyone interest
that shifts your Force feedback Throttle
ed in a good-looking, realistic driving sim.
Win95 compatible
viewpoint to Just make sure you have a 3D
Steering Wheels
either side when accelerator and a good
you enter a curve. The detail level is nice, controller handy.
with an exceptional cockpit graphic and
well-rendered cars. The tracks themselves
are challenging and car physics feel true- Pries $50
to-life. Fortunately, novice CART drivers can Bsveleper Terminal Reality
adjust the realism. You can also customize Publisher Microsoft
CART'S head-panning feature siides the camera angle your car to improve handling. Even with Phone 800.426.9400
siightiy on curves. adjustments, however, you might be hard- URL www.microsoft.com

RACING SIMULATION
if you're looking for a real logos. Each course is ® ASIiiP ® AS)"1P
istic racing sim with killer rendered with painstak- '
graphics, look no further ing finesse, with trees '
than F1 Racing Simulation. overhanging the roadway
Despite the uninspired and shadows covering the
name, this game has all the track. Most of the tracks are
right ingredients to please extremely complex and some
novice and hard-core racing fans alike. F1 range up and down hills as well
includes 22 real drivers and 16 authentic as through narrow streets. The
tracks, and requires a 4MB 3D accelerator. rain effects are great, though
The cars disolav not quite as impressive as
an amazing level Psygnosis' Formula 1. Fogging,
CHECinjST
F1 Racing Simulation
of detail, from distance rendering, and filtering
F1 's attention to detail is staggering, as this cockpit view iiiustrates.

Version; 1.05
the glowing tail are all well-implemented and the game flies cut off the top of the dashboard (patches
Maximum Resolution/Color
lights to the along on a P166. The tracks are tough to will be native in the Yankee version; they
640x480/16-blt
racing team master. Even in easy mode, you'll have a should address the bugs). Also, the back
Win95 Native tough time handling some ground art was inconsistent, with some
3D Acceleration of the curves. The computer- buildings and .trees looking sloppy. These
Dlrect3D controlled cars are intelli are minor points,: however, and
Native 3D Hardware Support gent, hanging back until F1 Racing Simulation easily
3Dfx Glide you do something stupid, takes the checkered flag in
DirectX
DIrectDraw DirectSound
then zipping past you in
alarming numbers.
this roundup.
'
boot
We#
Directlnput Unfortunately, the version
Multipiayer 1 reviewed (European Price $45
Direct/serial TCP/IP release 1.05) locked up my Gompsisy Ubi Soft
Specialty Controllers system a few times and had Phone 415.547.4000
Even spm-outs look great in Ubi Soft's
Force feedback latest racing game. a bizarre graphics bug that URL www.ublsoft.com

58 boot MAR 98
 V:SUAi.S VISUAL£ VISUAL.

Benchmark this. A full suite of visual

effects: tri-linear filtering, per-pixel MlP
;-v mapping, transparency, fog, alpha blenjding
texture animation, Z-buffering and a host of
other dynamic features - all without impairing
performance. Death never looked so pre
W
Visuals.

i :■

•A

Best Hardware. Best Software.

Elexis andSiN Images are courtesy of Activision, Inc. Elexis and SIN images are trademarks of Activislon, Inc. ©1997 Actlvlslon, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Copyright ©1997
3Dfx Interactive, Inc. The 3Dfx interactive iogo. Voodoo Graphics and VoodooZ are trademarks of 3Dfx interactive, Inc. Ali Rights Reserved. www.3dfxxom
Product Information Number 372
 Abandon All Setting Your
Hope Ye Who Baseline For
Enters Comparison
Before you even think Before you start experi
about subjecting your 3D menting with your 3D
' processor to the intense accelerator, now would
heat of overclocking, we be a good time to get
^ I
S"" I have to give ye olde stem waming: some baseline frame-rate scores to
Overclocking anything will greatly increase see how much improvement you can
the operating temperature ofthe processor squeeze from your cards. This is accom
in question. This not only may result in plished by running each game's appro-
intermittent lock-ups or visual glitches, riate benchmark or frame counter.
IL but could destroy the processor outright. Testing should be done at 640x480
And to add insult to injury, overclocking full-screen, with no status bars visi-
voids your video card's warranty—if you ile. If you wish, try setting your gam
melt your accelerator, you're up the ing display at higher and lower resolu
: creek without a paddle, Skippy. tions (800x600 and 512x384) and take
We at boot take no responsibility frame counts from there. We'll use
for any sub-molecular mayhem over- 640x480 for this mn-through.
clocking may create. For CLQuake, use our own boot-
You have been warned. mark.dem file (located on the
ve dal, bootDisc) and invoke the benchmark
by typing dmedemo bootmark at the
console. Make sure you hit the tilde
>^iipr^ overclOmKfm^u Getting Your key ("■) to clear the console from
Software the screen.
CPU,
Straight For GLHexen 2, use the demo2.dem
magic be cast on ^^Svh Make sure you're file included on the final shipping
accelerator? Read on and armed with the latest version. Just as in CLQuake, invoke
versions of drivers and the benchmark by typing timedemo
learn the secrets of getting Irm games. This may sound demo2 at the console. Make sure
the extra performance you ivial, but many people forget about you hit the tilde key (") to clear the
such details. console from the screen.
so rightly deserve. But he
Jfarned—whatyou're 3Dfx
Rendition
www.3dfx.com
www.rendition.com
• For Quake II, the logistics for bench
marking are a bit different. We'U use
hout io learn may get the: Diamond Multimedia www.diamondmm.com the denio2.dm2 file as the bench
Orchid www.orchid.com mark. To start benchmarking, you
BDfx Inquisition after you, Guillemot www.qulliemot.com must pull down the console by hitting
Hercules www.hercules.com
so watch your step! RealVlslon www.deltrontech.com/
the tilde key, type timedemo 1, and
s -^Andrew Sanchez f3d.htm hit return. Now, type in demomap
demo2.dm2 and hit return. If the con
Also, make sure you're running sole is still active when the bench
the latest version of Glide (2.43). mark starts, stop the run immediately
by pressing the tilde key. Type in
demomap demo2.dm2 and press
j enter—this should clear the console.
Nudge-Nudge, Or, you can type map demo2.dm2,
Yank-Yank and that will work, too.
We all know this one—
Record aU your scores.
power down your sys For our example, we used Orchid's
tem, disconnect the
Righteous 3D slapped inside our resi
y.
necessary cables, and dent reference Pentium II 300MHz
discharge any static Micron Millennia XRU system, but any
Sectricity by either grounding yourself Voodoo card will work.
or discharging on the power supply. Here are our initial results based on
R Now, depending on your cooling situa-
R tion, you can go one of two routes.
4 the default 50MHz setting.
If you're hell-bent on slapping a ; GLQuake II 640x480 22.5fps
GLQuake 640x480 29.1fps
heatsink on your 3D chip, remove the
GLHexen 2 640x480 21.8fDS
video card and go to Step 5.
If slapping a heatsink directly on Once you're done with that, grab
your 3D processor gives you the wQlies your Phillips screwdriver for a
ii^a ■ but you stiU warma chill, go to Step 6. -little hardware surgery.

if
 nf Gotsta Feeling The
^hill Cool Breeze
t of all, locate the proces- Installing the 3DfxCool fan
or in question. There are is a snap—all you need to
veral ways you can go about do is remove the screw
coolif.g your overdocked 3D holding your Voodoo card
accelerator. One way is sim- and pixelFX chips with thermal glue. in place and position the
)attach a heatsink to your processor. There are two major problems with fan in the following manner.
this method: 1) Slapping a heatsink on a
3D accelerator that didn't ship with one
will void your warranty—you've been
warned. 2) If you own a tower case,
you should not use a heatsink. Why.'
Simple physics. Warm air rises, and
since the PCI card sits upside-down
when installed, all the heatsink will do
BlEiiSei is trap the heat, which will rise back
Getting a mini heatsink is easy—just through your 3D accelerator's proces Now, put the screw through the
go to any electronics hardware supply sor, raising the temperature even high hole and screw down the fan and
store, which should have something in er than without the heatsink. your Voodoo card back into position.
stock to suit your needs. If you're really cra2y and have a &ee
Measurements for a Voodoo's texelFX ISA slot situated next to a PCI slot, you
chips are 1 '/g-inch square, while the can get a massive PC fan cooler system
pixelFX is 1 '/4-inch square. A heatsink that will drculate air inside your case.
should be about '/s-inch bigger than the These twin-fan configurations run about
processor in question and should not $20 and push about 24.72 cu. ft./min
Stick out any more than Ys-inch. worth of airflow. Or, go to Step 6 for
Attach the heatsinks to the texelFX an easier cooling solution.
The fan should now be placed
right above both processors, sitting at
a 90-degree angle.
Jrf Ya Wanna Blow, Just Let Me Know
^pFhat about if you want something simple, yet effective?
Aft lil' 3DfxCool, a company out of Edmonds, WA,has solved the cooling prob-
■I Ji :m by custom-engineering a fan and bracket combo that bolts onto Voodoo
Hr add-in boards. It also makes fans for Voodoo Rush-based boards and wiU
feven custom-make fan/bracket combos for your own specific setup. Take a
peek at the goods at www.3dfxcool.com for more information and ordering.
Here are two of 3DfxCoors offerings—the longer one is for Voodoo-based boards; the
rsmaUer one with the red rubber coating is for Voodoo Rush boards. Oh, the Voodoo fan The fan comes with a pass-thru
wiU work with the Diamond Stealth II S220 for those of
molex power connector, so plug it
Y you who wish to dabble in overclocking your V2100.... into a nearby power cable and you're
set to go.
Don't put that case back on just
Overclocking: The yet—^you'll need to make sure the
^'Manual Method fan is working and the heat is being
' 3Dfx made it easy to overclock an dissipated.
5: add-in Voodoo-based board. Look
|at your AUTOEXEC.BAT file—
■
you should see the following lines:
SET FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=1
SET SST_GRXCLK=50
The magic command in question is SST_GRXCLK=, which sets the Voodoo clock speed.
For most Voodoo cards, 50 is the default setting, but you can change this to a higher speed ■
in an attempt to squeeze that extra fps. Type in a higher number that doesn't exceed 60
and save your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
If you don't want to overclock your 3D card all the time, you can either do a multi-boot
with different autoexec settings or make your own batch file that simply has the new set
tings. For our tests, we made two batch files, 55.BAT and 57.BAT. The only difference
between the two are the clock values. You can use Notepad Q S5.bat - Notepad
or Edit to make them. 55.BAT contains the following lines:
SET SST_SCREENREFRESH=60 SET SST_SCREErffiEFRESH-60
SET SST GRXCLK-55
SET SST GRXCLK=55
 Overclocking: It's
Adjust
The Point- Time To Settings;
And-Click
VIay
. A variety of Win95-native
■ apps will allow you to
tweak your Voodoo per-
I Test
Now that
you're back
in Win95, it's
time to start re-
Re-test
To Verify
Break out the
Pepsi and start
pumping those
I formance via a simple GUI interface. benchmarking yoru system for any fpolygons. Are any of your applica
For the 3Dfic user, GLQ+ is one option. performance improvements. tions locking up, experiencing
This program is specifically designed Make sure you're testing at the weird visual glitches, or simply
for boosting performance for GLQuake proper resolution and record your not working? Your 3Dfx card may
: and GLHexen 1. results. not be able to handle the faster
Here are the new results based on clock speed. If you encounter
D ||Ultimate fps a clock setting of55MHz. •problems, you may need to set
Setup ] Quet^e ] OpenSL
your clock speed back a megahertz
or two by going back into your
; Semen
batch file and changing the num
Refieshrate •* j
r Sync buifeiswap ber. Reboot your system and try
I V Sync to fefte^ r^e 17 Texturemapping
running your apps again with the
: |~ Set gamma P Lens flare
; |~ Show 3Dfx logo
slower setting. Also, check on your
fan or cooling system—is there
//anAvam
Overdock Voodoo ch'p ienough air moving across the
17 Fasl memory(^stKKi
17 fast PCI read
{sOlrxamal) processors? How hot are they
mrntmamm
running? Many things can affect
your system stability, such as
GLQuake II 640x480 25.0fps (+2.5fps)
video memory speed (the faster
From here, you can monkey around with GLQuake 640x480 31.9fps (-i-2.8fps)
all sorts of options. GLHexen 2 640x480 23.1fps(+1.3fps) the memory, the lower likelihood
of shearing), cooling, and others.
There are coimtless others out By the simple act ofchanging one The Righteous 3D has the slowest
there, such as Tweak Quake II and lyariable, you've accomplished a per- EDO DRAM among the Voodoo
Tweak Rush. |;formance boost that's usually associ- cards, while the Deltron Flash 3D
Take a walk to web sites such as pated with a faster processor. has the fastest.
Voodoo Extreme (www.voodooex- Wasn't that simple.' Now, to the Benchmark and compare
treme.com). I really fun stuff...
Some Voodoo vendors actually
give you the option to overdock your
card within their control panels,
including Canopus and Quantum3D. Your Risk
Once you've discovered the magic of overclocking, it's hard to
say no. But remember, the faster you push, the hotter your 3D
accelerator will get, so proceed with caution. Your upper limit
TVOulpUi— should be 57, but you can try 60 and see if your system is stable
i |640*4ro [ioHz 3
r 0« r ML NTSC
enough. You'll be entering extremely dangerous territory if you
ff Compotie C S-Vfideo
r WaiirotVefticalfletiace
^ Ovencan ^ Undntcan
decide to forge
ahead, as the Voodoo
OefaiJt I Test TV Dttciay Ac^bnenU

6ldaSettino« : SanmCaiecton
processor wiU heat
r Ovetnde AppiiMton Settmg r OveindeAppfecationSeUng up like heU and your
BeliwhRete |. iw « r t
performance will go
up only marginally,
making the risk less
inviting.
Also, don't think
Voodoo has the over-
clocking cartel—
Rendition's V2100
and nVidia's Riva 128
can also be over-
clocked to get better
performance.
—the Voodoo fan also works on a Rendition V2000 board! But, that's
to start overclocking. another story...
 Z .*-

My Linux Can Beat Up Your Linux to either a 75MHz or

IRQS mm UP? VIDEO DRIVERS GETTING
Your Linux 12-Step (boot 15) was great for 83MHz system bus. But,
those who haven't taken the plunge, but why according to the manual, it
YOU DOWN? 3D CARDS HAVE YOU CAUGHT
did you decide to use Debian? Debian is cer looks like the Tigercat moth A CONUNDRUM? BOOT EDITORS ANSVi/ER
tainly not the most popular distribution (that erboard only supports a
would be Slackware) or the overall best (that 60MHz or 66MHz bus YOUR TOUGHEST PC QUESTIONS,
would be RedHat). Debian isn't really great speed. Unless you want to go
at anything. RedHat wotild be my choice, down to a 60MHz bus speed
because of the abimdance of users, as well as and go with a 60x5 setting, you're out ofluck. old Surround or discrete, center-channeled
aU the nicely written graphical administration ProLogic), the receiver will take those signals and
tools for X that come widi it. My Hard Stuff Is Too Slow decode appropriately. The best way to checkfor
—Dolocke Using the Adaptec Threadmark from your proper decoding is to try any number ofSurround
bootDisc, I got 1.25MB/sec and 11.31% CPU uti Sound-encoded games, such as recent NovaLogic
Keith Beattie, author ofthe Debian Linux J2-Step, lization. Compared to the systems you review, flight sims and Wing Commander 111, IV, and
replies: RedHat is certainly an excellent Linux dis this seems pretty lousy. How do 1 get faster Prophecy. You can even use the Interplay sound
tribution and could have easily sufficed as the dis performance? 1 have an onboard Ultra Wide testfor games such as Redneck Rampage. I'm a
tribution to use on the hootDisc. Keep in mind, Adaptec SCSI system and a SCSI Quantum strong advocate ofthis type ofsound system sce
though, that the overall goal ofthe article was to Fireball hard drive. According to your product nario and use a similar configurationfor my own
distribute an operating system that is a viable— reviews, this should be speedy. What can 1 do? home computer system. Gofor it!
did someone say "superior"?—alternative to the It makes me sick to see my roommate with a
ubiquitous WinBlows OSes. This being the highest normal HIDE hard drive get 3.5MB/sec (with Faster 3Dfx Frame Rates
priority, any Linux distribution, or even FreeBSD, 50% CPU utilization, however). 1 can't figure out why I'm getting bad
would have been an acceptable candidate. In my —Christian Cuirreri Voodoo frame rates. Here's my system; Asus
opinion, choosing among different Linux distribu P2L97, P-11 300MHz,64MB 10ns SDRAM,
tions is splitting hairs. The Debian organization Technical editor Sean Cleveland replies: That is Sierra Screamin' 3D, Orchid Righteous 3D,
most closelyfollows the model offreely available indeed a very lousy score. The CPU utilization is SoimdBlaster AWE32, Win95 rev 2.
software development and has been one ofthe in the right range, but the throughput should be 1 have all the latest and greatest drivers for
greatest sources ofsoftware innovationfor more at the least three times your score. The Threadmark the Sierra, Orchid, and SoundBlaster. 1 have
than two decades. It gave birth to Linux and test is a benchmark that thrashes the hard drive, DirectX 5.0 installed. 1 have the latest Glide
deserves all the support it can get. In the end, doing small reads all over the drive to deliver "real runtime installed. But the problem is that
though, all thefree Unicies and their distributions world" performance scores. A test such as the anything using the Orchid performs like a
are better served by supporting each other. Little Physical Read test in the bootMark suite (it's on Pentium 200: FastVid Quake, 28.3fps; MDK
can be gained by arguing which is "the best." the bootDisc) will give you a balls-to-the-wall pure Perf test. 111; GLQuake, 28.5fps.
What the hell am 1 missing? I'm running
His Tiger Won't Purr my timedemo in 640x480 with no particular
1 just bought a P-11 266MHz In som'mPU runs, Intel decided not to " tweaks. It seems 1 should be getting much
with the fan included on it better rates in GLQuake. Many other people
and a Micronics Tigercat P2 bond one of the multiplier pins during on the 3D£x newsgroups are experiencing the
motherboard. Is the fan effi same low frame rates with Pentium 11-based
cient enough to keep a 266 the rhanufacturing process, thus robbing systems. 1 know you fine lads at boot are very
overclocked to 300MHz run busy, but do you have any ideas, oh wise and
ning smoothly? When run you of any overclocking potential. benevolent ones?
ning at 266MHz it purrs like —Gregory Domeier
a kitten and spits out a 130 bootMark, but speed indication ofthe drive. Ifthe Fireball is a
when 1 tried to overclock it to 300MHz, it Wide/Ultra Wide drive, make sure it's using a Technical editor Sean Cleveland replies: I have
wouldn't boot (it powers on, the hard drive 16-bit pathway (40MB bus instead of20MB). the same setup as you except I'm using the
fires up, but there's no video). What's the Also, make sure Disconnect is enabled. Use the Number Nine Revolution 3D paired with
deal? Does Micronics have some kind of Fail shortest possible SCSI cable you can and make Diamond's Monster 3D. I get thefollowing
Safe Detect or something? I'm at my limits. sure your termination is properly set. Also ensure scores: MDK Perftest (Win90), 122; GLQuake
I've overclocked for two years now, but I'm the Win95file system is working properly (go (Timedemo Demol), 41.4Jps; GLQuake
stumped, and there isn't much support for under the Performance tab in System Properties). (Timedemo bootMark): 46.7fps.
this kind of problem. It should be 32-bit and not using MS-DOS-com I run with optimized settings. Adding thefol
—ghent patibility mode. Ifit is, you have a driver prob lowing environment settingsfor your 3Dfx card
lem. Check this under the Device Manager tab. can give you aframe rate increase of up to lOjps.
Hardware editor Andrew Sanchez replies: Ifyou see an exclamation point next to the SCSI Put these settings into your Autoexec.batfile.
Provided that your ATX power supply'sfan is controllers device, your drivers are screwy.
pointing toward your CPU and you're using active SET FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAI^O
cooling (that is, afan and heatsink combo on the Cracking The ProLogic Puzzle SET FX_GLIDE_NO_SPLASH=l
CPU), then you're good to go. Actually, we've over- Is it possible for me to connect my current SET SST_FASTMEM=1
clocked P-IIs using the passive cooling method computer to a ProLogic receiver. 1 know that SET SSTJASTPCIRD=1
(heatsink only) and have had no problems. With somehow Gateway does it. Do I need some SET SST_GAMMA=2.0
regard to your second query, congratulations, it thing special, or do 1 just connect it directly to SET SST_SWAP_EN_WAIT_ON_VSYNC=0
seems you've stumbled upon Intel's new protection the soundcard (1 have a Soundscape)? SET SST_SCREENREFRESH=60
against overclocking! In some CPU runs, Intel —Michael Narayan SET SST_GRXCLK=54
decided not to bond one ofthe multiplier pins dur SET SST_VIDEO_24BPP=l
ing the manufacturing process, thus robbing you of Hardware editor Andrew Sanchez replies: You
any overclocking potential—at least, when you try don't need any special soundcard. As long as the The SST^GRXCLK line overclocks your 3Dfx
to go up one bin via the 66MHz system bus speed. signals generated by your computer are indeed card. Look to this month's 12-Step on page 60for
You can bypass this little protection by upclocking some type of Dolby Surround Sound (either plain the whole story.

MAR 98 boot 63
 _

Two Versions Of MMX? at Legacy except IRQ9, and that has been You want to disable it until you're done
I currently own a Pentium II 266MHz. I working fine for me. Is there a better scheme? FDISKing the hard drive. You can get into your
recently got ahold ofthe Multimedia CD-ROM —Randy Zimmer BIOS by hitting F1 or the DEL key when booting
provided by Intel in its retail box version of your machine (you are usually prompted to do
Pentium MMX chips. When I tried to use the Hardware editor Andrew Sanchez relies: Ifyou either). That particular option is usually located
so-called "MMX-compatible" disc on my P-II, have old DOS-legacy parts that don't show up as in the Settings section. The Virus Warning option
the damn thing accused me of not having an Plug-and-Play devices, then it's best to set your PCI detects when a write is occurring in the Master
MMX machine! What the heck is going on configuration in your system BIOS to manual,put Boot Sector (that is, your hard drive). Sometimes
here.' Is there different MMX coding for the that one IRQ on Legacy, and keep it out ofthe it means a virus is invading, but the warning can
Pentium and Pentium II? way. Plug-and-Play has long been known as "Plug- also spring up when FDISK is running its course.
—Kenny Lim and-Pray"—for good reason. So unless all your
devices are Plug-and-Play" you're better offwith And Dnce Again, We Must Blame
Hardware editor Andrew Sanchez replies: As your current schemefor PCI PnP BIOS tweaking. The Drivers
far as we know, there is no difference between I have a P-II 233MHz on an Asus P2LN7
Pentium 11 MMX and plain old Pentium MMX. Another Dream Deferred motherboard, a Diamond Viper V330 AGP
The disc may by using an older CPU identifica I recently built my dream machine: P-II card, and a Quantum Fireball hard drive. Not
tion in which it looksfor the "Intel Genuine 266MHz,Asus P2L97,64MB SDRAM, the Dream Machine, but it puts a lusty twin
Pentium" ID on your CPU. Some games, such Diamond Viper V330 AGP, LS-120 a:drive, SB kle in my eye. The problem is I'm running
as Sega's Virtual On, refuse to run on AMD K6 AWE64.1 want to overclock it to 300MHz. Do Win95 0SR2 and the frigging thing is buggy.
processors, despite thefact they are MMX-compli- I just change the multiplier on the mother The people at Asus say I'm getting a "memory
ant parts. It all comes down to CPU identifica board to 4.5? I tried this and my machine didn't conflict with AGP controller" error when I
tion code. Considering it's an Intel disc, it's some power up right—nothing showed up on my install an AGP VGA card under Win95 0SR2.
what ironic, don't ya think? monitor, although I could hear the system pow Here's their long answer: "This problem is
ering up. Also, when I try to turn off my com caused by a buggy driver provided by Microsoft
Where's My Weakest Link? puter, the power button either resets my com in Win95 0SR2. Under Windows 95 (OSR2
I just went through your 12-Step on benchmark puter or puts it in sleep mode. I read that versions), there is a VgartD.VxD virtual device
ing 3D accelerators (boot 17). My newer chips from Intel are not driver which is handling the traffic between
2MB ATI Expression-t and Matrox able to be overclocked, but I local VGA RAM and system memory through
m3D did OK,but I want more! "I hope bought mine a while back. Do the AGP bus, and it's producing some 'side
What can I do to directly increase you have any suggestions? effects.' Microsoft has removed the bug in the
frame rates? I thought upgrading you've got the —B. Encina driver in the beta version of Win98. Please
my Expression-t to 4MB would make a proper adjustment to your system."
answers
help, but a friend says that it will Hardware editor Andrew Sanchez Excuse me, but "adjust your system" does
only increase colors and resolu because I'm not - replies: For bumping your CPU up not constitute an answer. To the best of my
tions. What does directly affect one bin, yes, a multiplier of4.5 is knowledge Microsoft is not handing out free
frame rates? CPU speed? System paying those the correct setting(66MHz x 4.5 = versions ofits latest bug-ridden bloatware. And
memory? L2 cache size? Drivers? 297MHz). You may he encounter a search of their sewer—er, I mean site—
How can I tweak these to the max? goose-stepping ing the much maligned "non-pin- revealed no patch. I may be wrong, but I'm
—Scott Wilkins bonding" Intel instigated in its assuming the card and system are not working
jackals at MS a ^ CPUs to combat overclocking. at peak with this conflict still going on. I hope
Hardware editor Andrew Sanchez You may want to try playing with you've got the answers because I'm not paying
replies: Frame rates, in general, are stinking red the system-bus speeds—try going those goose-stepping jackals at MS a stinking
affected by the things you listed. 75MHz X 4(300MHz) or 83MHz red penny for advice. Despite your vaUd criti
Most important is the 3D accelera penny for x3.5(290MHz). Ifyou have the cism of the Viper V330, it's still a wicked card.
tor itself. The mJD (based on NEC's P2L97 with the softjumpers via Too bad I can't use it to its fullest.
PowerVR) does a decentjob with
advice." BIOS, adjust the settings there. If —Steimer Greer
Direct3D games, as does the ATI they are motherboardjumper-hound,
chipset sitting inside your Expression-\-. In terms of just set yourjumpers to the proper settings and go! Technical editor Sean Cleveland replies: I'm using
increasing performance with the 3D hardware you the same CPU, motherboard, and hard drive, and
already have, I'd say the most profoundfactors are I Want To Feel Clean Again only noticed problems with the ATI Xpert@ Play
CPU speed, system-bus speed, and drivers—followed Regarding the boot 16 12-Step on Stripping and Photoshop 4.0. The system works stellar in
by everything else, including system RAM and and Refmishing Win95: Can I do it with just every other way. I don't think your problem is
cache (both LI and 12). Unless you're willing to get the upgrade version? I've already removed with OSR2. The VgartD.VxDfile you refer to is
afaster 3D accelerator, the only way you'll be able Win3.11 and don't have the discs to re-install it. supplied by the video-card manufacturer and not
to tweak your petformanceforfasterframe rates is —rayranl Microsoft. Your problem may be cleared up by a
to indulge in a bit of CPU overclocking—bump simple driver updatefrom Diamond. Using 0SR2
your current CPU speed up and see ifyour system Technical editor Sean Cleveland replies: No, you build 1212, we tested that motherboard thoroughly
can hang. You'll need major coolingfor this, and can't do it with the upgrade version of Windows with thefollowing chipsets: nVidia Riva 128 AGP,
you mayjnzzle-fry your CPU,so watch it! You 95. The problem is that it requires Windows 3.11 or Rendition V2200 AGP, and ATI Rage Pro AGP.
can also download the latest driversfrom the Windows 95 to be installed before it will even run. (The motherboard wasfeatured in boot 15 and
respective video card manufacturers andfiddle with got a bootVerdict of9 as well as a Kick Ass
PCI latency settings in your system BIOS. Finally, When A Virus Isn't A Virus award.) We did not test the Viper V330 AGP on
you can always drop down to smaller resolutions. when I used FDISK on my hard drive, it the Asus P2L97 as we did not have one handy at
reported "Bootsector Write!!! Possible Virus". the time ofthe review. If we do have problems,
IRQs—Automatic Or Manual? I've never seen this before. Can you help me? though, we'll let you know. For now, try updating
If you were putting a machine together for —Vinh To your drivers. Also make sure that you're running
the first time, how would you place the PCI build 1212 of0SR2. Ifnot, run the USB supple
cards—automatic or manual, or what particu Technical editor Sean Cleveland replies: You have mentfound on this month's bootDisc in the
lar IRQ? Lately I've been putting all the IRQs the Virus Warning option enabled in your BIOS. Workbench section. 0

w
 The biggest, baddest, ugliest toy on the block.
And you can be the first one on your block to get one. Find the five Voodoo2 ads from
3Dfx Interactive within this issue (only) and identify the game each character represents.
Write the game titles in any order in the appropriate space on the attached business
reply card and mail in to enter."

5 FIRST PRIZES: A 3D graphic accelerator board featuring the incredible

new Voodoo^ chipset - the Demon Speed has found a home. This board will play the
3Dfi(-compatible games you currently own faster and smoother than you thought possible.

4 SECOND PRIZES: Four complete Voodoos-optimized games from four of the top
game publishers - Electronic Arts, Activision, Interplay and Eidos. These titles take advantage
of VoodooS's phenomenal speed and breathtaking visuals. Whether you run these titles on
VoodooS or first-generation Voodoo, the gaming experience is unmatchable.

100 THIRD PRIZES: A Voodoo T-shirt direct from 3Dhc.

The exclusive 3Dhc Interactive T-shirt for the Voodoo family of
3D graphic accelerator chips.

www.3dfx.com

Ask your retailer for a 3D graphic accelerator featuring SDfx's Voodoo^ chipset - the new turbo-j
i-Oi'M.'i-l accelerator in SDbt's Voodoo family. You can find the Voodoo^ chipset on Diamond Multimedia's Monster
" 3D 2 and Creative Labs Blaster 3D Voodoo^. Or visit our website at www.3Db{.com for more information.

*Follow the directions below to send without the pre-printed business reply card.
Sweepstakes Rules: 4. Eligibility: Contest open to residents of United States and Canada. Void in Rhode Island and Quebec. Non-
1. No Purchase Necessary; To enter, mail a standard size postcard containing name, address, and phone num compliance with the time parameters contained herein or return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable
ber to Voodoo^ Sweepstakes. 3Dfx Interactive, Box V2boot, 4435 Fortran Drive, San Jose, CA 95134. No pur will result in disqualification and an alternate winner will be selected. Winners or their legal guardians shall sign
chase or payment of any money is necessary to enter. One entry per household. All entries must be handwrit an affidavit of eligibility/release of liability/prize acceptance within 30 days of receipt or forfeit prize. By accep
ten. Mechanically reproduced entries will not be accepted Entries must be received by April 30, 1998. All entries tance of prize, winner(s) agree to the use of their name and/or likeness for purposes of advertising, trade, or pro
become exclusive property of Sponsor and will not be acknowledged or returned. Sponsor assumes no respon motion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law. Employees of 3Dfx Interactive, Diamond
sibility for lost, mutilated, late, illegible, incomplete, postage-due, or misdirected entries. Only one prize per family, Multimedia, Creative Labs, Electronic Arts, Activision, Interplay, Eidos, Imagine Publishing and their respective
organization, or household. Please allow 6-8 weeks delivery. affiliates are not eligible. Neither 3Dfx Interactive, Imagine Publishing nor their respective affiliates, subsidiaries,
2. Prizes: 5 First Prizes. First Prize winners receive one (1) 3D graphic accelerator board featuring Voodoo^ divisions, or related companies are responsible for any damages, taxes, or expenses that consumers might Incur
chipset. First Prize has an approximate retail value of $300.00. 4 Second Prizes: Second Prize winners will as a result of this contest or receipt of prize. Winners accepting prizes agree that all prizes are awarded on the
receive four (4) different PC software titles published by Electronic Arts. Activision, Interplay and/or Eidos all condition that 3Dfx Interactive, Imagine Publishing and their agents, representatives, and employees will have
optimized for Voodoo^ gameplay. Second Prize has an approximate retail value of $240.00.100 Third Prizes: Third no liability whatsoever for any injuries, losses, or damages of any kind resulting from acceptance, possession,
Prize winners will receive one (1) 3Dfx Voodoo T-shirt. Third Prize has an approximate retail value of $20. Winners or use of the prizes.
will be determined by a random drawing from all valid entries received by 3Dfx Interactive whose decisions are 5. Winners List: For a list of winners, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to "Voodoo2 Sweepstakes
final. Drawing to be held on or about May 15.1998. All prizes will be awarded. All prize winners will be notified by Winners List", 3Dfx Interactive, Box V2boot,4435 Fortran Drive, San Jose, CA 95134. Requests for winners lists
mail. Prize(s) are non-transferable. No substitutions of prize(s) are allowed, except at the option of Sponsor should must be received by May 30,1998. Allow 4 weeks for delivery of winners list.
the featured prize(s) become unavailable. 6. Restrictions: Void where prohibited or restricted by law. All federal, state and local regulations apply.
3. Odds of VVinning: The odds of winning will be determined by number of valid entries received. 7. Sponsors: This sweepstakes is sponsored solely by 3Dfx Interactive, inc.
Copyright © 1997 3Dfx interactive. Inc. The 3Dfx Interactive logo and Voodoo^ are trademarks of 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved.
All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.
 EACH MONTH, BOOT
EDITORS GATHER THE BEST
PRODUCTS IN A SPECIFIC
CATEGORY AND DEEM THEM:
BOOTWORTHY

Aural Pleasures
Of the five senses, hearing may be the,
one most taken for granted. We read i
e-mail, playgames, compute spread-
sheets, and type reports, but we rarely Best Multi I/O Card
realize Just how important hearing is to our
daily activities. Would Quake be as fun if it
Event Electronics Layla
were silent? Would your work commute
Layia is another cross-piatform PnP (using only one IRQ for both audio
be tolerable without the car and MIDI functions and no DMA channels) PCI bus-master host card
stereo? We think not. that connects to an external rack-mount audio interface with eight
Whether you are inputs and ten outputs (balanced 20-bit analog and 24-bit
S/PDIF stereo digital I/O), it also has massive onboard DSP
; an accountant or a (via Motorola's latest generation 56301, a 24-bit chip run
musician, audio plays ning at SOMiPS), word clock (for sync and expansion), a
24-bit signal path, and MIDI in/out/thru. The bast part of this
'a big role In our digital lives, and the better system is the software, or rather lack of. Layia looks like a coi-
product info
the quality, the more enjoyment you'll get lection of five stereo sound cards to your PC,so most any mul
tipart sequencer will work with it. Easylrim automatic-gain- Price $999
from it. We're gonna open your ears to
adjustment circuitry automatically sets the input gain for maxi Company Event Electronics
some of the sweetest-sounding boards mum possible dynamic range. Multiple Layia's can be used Phone 805.566.7777
your hard-earned green can buy—span in conjunction in the same system. URL www.event1.cam

ning six different categories from pro- \ 'III

audio production to game-enhancing 3D- - - - > Best 3D Audio Card

sound. We bet there's an audio solution y y
here for your budget and your PC. Diamond Monster Sound
—Daevid Vincent
f^ur-speaker surround sound and PnP PCI is the defining attribute of this sonic
loiution. The Analog Devices DSP takes on the processing task of up to 24
independent 44KHz audio streams,freeing up the CPU to do other things.
jUnfortunateiy, there's no DOS support, but then again, who really needs it?
||:The APIs of choice are Microsoft's DirectSound 3D and Aureai's A3D,so
there should be no compatibility issues. Onboard are 32 voices of hard-
'- ware wavetabie, but for best results,
%;yye suggest you plug this monster
alongside a trusted legacy board
product info
SjSUCh as an AWE32 or AWE64.
^ Monster Sound also provides Price $149
an accelerated gameport Company Diamond
under Windows 95 for Multimedia
llarnpraved joystick Phone 408.325.7000
performance. URL www.diamondmm.com

FOUR INDEPENDENT
DUTPUTS PRODUCE
STUNNINGLY IMMERSIVE
SURRDUND-SDUND
EFFECTS.

boot
Best Gaming Card \
Max!Sound Game
Theatre 64 m.
m
An all-around excellent choice for gamers and musicians alike, the ISA-
based Game Theatre 64 is essentially a scaled-down Home Studio Pro. It
has the same 64-volce wavetable sound engine and SOMIPS Dream RISC DSP
chip. An onboard 72-pin SIMM slot can bump the sample RAM to a total of 20MB
and a WaveBlaster header connector allows for even
more expansion. Most impressive Is the addition of
DirectX 5 and DirectSound 3D-compatible surround
product info
sound. The Game Theatre even supports Sound Font
technology. The only drawback Is that It's a resource Price $199
hog, requiring two IRQs and two DMAs.And for lega Company Ubi Soft
cy support, DOS Is supported, although the card Is Entertainment
usually always auto-detected as an SBPro rather than Phone 800.824.7638
an SB16/AWE32. URL www.ubisoft.com

DIGITAL OUT SOUNDS FABU, BUT

QUAD OUTPUT TURNS ANY GAME
WHAT CONSUMER/GAMER IS GOING TO
INTO AN EXPERIENCE.
HAVE AN S/PDIF D/A CONVERTER?

AWE64 Gold
Why didn't we Include the AWE64 Gold? Its price is steeper than the Game Theatre 64, with few advan
tages. The excellent EMU8000 wavetable synthesizer, along with the mixer, DAG, and Vibra 16 chip (FM
synthesizer) integrated into one core-logic chipset, are great additions, but Creative Labs is beating a
dead horse. ISA and SoundBlaster legacy compatibility are tired technologies. This card offers only 1MB
of ROM-based 32-voice wavetable and another 32 voices in SoundFont software(4MB of onboard RAM
is included, expandable to 28MB via proprietary daughter-
cards). The male 1/8-Inch jack on the supplied male RCA-to-
1/8-inch Y-cable should also have female to better facilitate
product info
multimedia speakers. Creative Labs apparently couldn't decide
whether it wanted its card to be pro- or consumer-oriented; Price $250
this mixture of features gives the card a split personality. Company Creative Labs
A PCI-based AWE64D, utilizing the EMLI8008 chip and designed Phone 800.998.5227
specifically for the OEM market. Is slated for 01^8. URL www.creativelabs.com

MAR 98 boot 67
..i^RivriiTTr]
Best Professional Audio Solution

Ensonlq Paris
Paris is the only card of the bunch that has a tactile control sur
face. This PnP PCI card has six custom ESP-2 VLSI chips that
scream at 26MIPS each to process up to sixteen 24-bit, 48KHz
real-time effects, depending on the algorithm. A maximum of 128
simultaneous tracks are selectable from a pool of 999 virtual
tracks, all streaming out of two 8-channel output cards within
and up to 20 physical ports when combined with a Modular
Expansion Chassis (MEC). Paris comes with its own cross-plat-
form digital-audio software with hooks to sync any additional
sequencer desired,
such as Cakewalk or
Cubase. A variety of analog
product info
and digital I/O options are
currently availatile and Price $3,400 as reviewed
more are In development Company Ensoniq
for almost any configura Phone 610.647.3930
tion desired. URL www.paris.ensoniq.com

MEAN AND LEAN, ALL CONNECTIONS ARE

MADE VIA AN EXTERNAL BREAKOUT BOX.

Digital Audio Labs V8

A runner-up professional audio solution would have to be the V8. Although it's more
expensive than the Paris and is currently ISA-based, Its many benefits overcome the
price tag.
Famous for the CardD+, DAL's multicard ISA solution Is capable of 16
physical I/O tracks {32 with the PCI version slated for 03/98) and
Incorporates up to eight 300MIPS Motorola 56002 Supercharger
DSP chips for real-time effects processing and mixing. In fact, the
CardD+ can be linked In for an additional two Ins/outs.
Several vendors, such as SEK'D {Samplitude Studio), MInnetonka
Software {MxTrait) and Cal<ewaik, have special natlve-V8 versions
of their software that take full advantage of the V8's hardware
capabilities. Conversely, other software sees the system as
up to four stereo-wave devices, and third-party develop
ers are creat
ing V8 plug-
product Info
Ins such as
Waves, Price $4,580, average system
Q-Sound, LR Company Digital Audio Labs
Sound, and Phone 612.559.9098
Antares. URL www.digitalaudio.com/v8

DON'T BE MISLEAD, NOT ALL OF THESE CARDS

ARE REQUIRED FOR AN AVERAGE SYSTEM

68 boot MAR 98
 THE PINNACLE'S MIKE INPUT DOES
DOUBLE DUTY AS THE S/PDIF I/O PORT
VIA A 1/8-INCH-TO-RCA Y-CABLE.

Best Home Studio Card

Turtle Beach Pinnacle/

Project Studio
Turtle Beach provides the perfect all-around ISA solution for the home musician who demands
professional quality at an affordable price. This board is ultra-quiet (with an S/N of <-97dB), can
be expanded to 48MB of onboard sample RAM using two 72-pin SIMM slots, incorporates the
Kurzweil MA-1 MASS Synth Engine with VAST Architecture, and has S/PDIF digital I/O. For those
who love to tweak sounds, an included editor librarian
allows for severe manipulation of the timbres with full
non-zippered MIDI control. Built-in reverb and chorus
product info
can be Individually assigned on each channel. The
WaveBlaster header is occupied by another 32-volce Price $500 (with digital i/0)
Kurzweil MA-1 chip daughtercard. Included In the bundle Company Turtle Beach
is Voyetra's Digital Orchestrator Plus and Wave SE-II, so Phone 800.233.9377
you can be off and creating in no time. URL www.tbeach.com

Best PCI-Based Sound Card

S3 Sonic
S»j3.&®QO
Q.Q£>e«0
Vibes
With up to 4MB of
onboard ROM for 32
voices, SB Pro legacy compat
ibility, FM synthesis, general MIDI,
DIrectSound, DirectMusic, SRS 3D-
audio enhancements, DOS support and
InfinlPatch (downloadable samples using
system RAM)—all for a C-note—the Sonic
Vibes Is the clear winner. Unfortunately, It Is also a
resource hog; fully configured. It robs two IRQ's, one
DMA, and an unbelievable eight memory addresses! Also,
despite Its PCI-based architecture, a substantial CPU load is ?
still required. One nice feature Is the Automuting, which reduced
hissing during periods of
digital silence, a built-in
product info A SIMPLE AND
COST-EFFECTIVE
chorus and reverb effects
DSP enhance the output to Price $100 WAY TO ADD SOUND
give even more depth to Company S3 TO ANY SYSTEM.
this already sweet-sound Phone 408.588.8000
ing board. URL www.s3.com/products

MAR 98 boot 69
Intel 1740
Guess who's
coming to 3D?
They laughed when Intel got Into
the core-logic chipset business.
But whose PClset appears In
almost every modern motherboard
today? So, the same naysayers
who question Intel's jump into the
video card industry with its i740
(a.k.a. Auburn) had better step
back and take a look at Intel's
past accomplishments and tremble
appropriately.
Lets start off with i740's logistics
and statistics. Designed from the
ground up as a full-featured AGP 2x
part with sideband addressing, 1740
is a complete 64-bit video processor
aimed at the likes of ATI, nVidia,
and Matrox. This 2D/3D accelerator
is the product of three vendors'
engineering expertise. Chips and
Technology, recently acquired by
Intel and better known for helping
light up notebook LCD panels, The heat Is on, and Intel's 1740 Is going to make other video card chip
helped out on the 2D side. Also makers who don't support all those cool 3D features such as bilinear
Integrated into i740 is a dedicated filtering and the such think twice.
video engine pipeline for DVD/software
MPEG-2 support, and flash BIOS guaran When it came time to spec out i740's 3D rasterizer allows parallel processing of
tees i740's BIOS will never go out of 3D texel-pushlng capabilities, Lockheed polygons (up to four fully textured, shaded,
style. The architecture is flexible, with Martin's Real3D division was chosen. fogged, and Z-buffered pixels per clock).
vendors having the option to add hard Why? Take a look at Sega's jaw-dropping By formatting this data in parallel, 1740
ware DVD (via a card's VMI port), TV- Virtua Fighter 3 to glimpse the raw poly claims to maintain polygon vertex and tex
in/out, and more. gon-pushing power Lockheed Martin's 3D ture calculations with subpixel accuracy,
i740's 64-bit spilt memory archi technology developed. At 640x480, it resulting In less texture jumping or "shim
tecture uses lOOMHz SDRAM or ' runs at a solid 60fps. mering" and polygon popping. Intel claims
SGRAM for frame-buffer and texture A 32-bit floating-point accurate set interpolation will happen on every pixel
storage (up to 800MB/sec band up engine takes care of set-up and with up to 32 bits of accuracy (a process
width for this tiled local memory rendering duties, leaving the it calls Precise Pixel Interpolation).
system), with maximum RAM host CPU to perform Your favorite 3D visual enhancements
specifications changing depend geometric calcula are supported, including flat/gouraud
ing on which system bus is tions. i740's shading, bilinear filtered mip-mapping,
employed. Although Intel stippled transparency, per-pixel perspec
will tell you that 1740 Is tive correction, color alpha-blending,
AGP only (where it'll use fogging, anti-aliasing, and more.
up to 8MB of memory), Ranging in size from 1x1 texel
some vendors are to 1024x1024, up to 11
designing PCI parts levels of detail (mul
that can take tiple copies of the
advantage of up same texture map
to 16MB of tex jn different resolu-
ture memory. ?)tions) are support
The Integrated ■' ed, and 1740 can
205MHz RAM- store non-square tex
RealSD's Starflghter Is
DAC can get you resolu among the many 1740-based tures on the integrated
tions up to 1600x1200, video cards vying for your cache located in the
depending on memory attention. Intel plans a massive processor. And since
configurations. motherboard Invasion as well.
1740 Is an AGP part, it
 REVIEWS
HARDWARE ON THE HORIZON
Insifiti Intftl's 1740 AND SOFTWARE SOON TO SHIP
AGP

_L
AGP Interface
The boot Tracking Sheet

I2C
I I
2D/3D Pipeline Preprocessor TV
TITLE

Monster 3D 2
Renegade 3D
DEVELOPER
Diamond Multimedia

Jazz Multimedia
DATE

Mar-98

Mar-98

Video Port 3D Engine 20 Engine 3D Blaster Voodoo 2 Creative Labs Mar-98

Host Port Pipeline Pipeline RAMDAC Display Intel Pentium II 333MHz/Slot 1

Intel Mar-98
Baldur's Gate . Bioware/lnterplay Mar-98

^ 7
Local Memory Interface
Unreal

Powerboat Racing
Digital Extreme/
GT Interactive
VR Sports
Mar-98
Mar-98
SIN RItual/Actlvlsion Mar-98

r
Local Memory
Dark Vengeance
Daikatana
Reality Bytes
Ion Storm/Eidos
Mar-98

Mar-98
Interstate 76 Nitro Pack Activism Mar-98

The Intel 1740 consists at dedicated multimedia engines executing In parallel to deliver high- Adrenix Digital DIalect/PIE Mar-98

performance 3D, 20, and video capabilities. Outwars , Microsoft Mar-98

Engineered to match the performance of its own Pentium II processor, i740's use of Direct AMD KB 300MHz AMD Apr-98
Memory Execution (DME)allows boards to come with as little as 2MB and still promise perfor Half-Ule Sierra Online Apr-98
mance comparable to larger memory-armed boards. Battlezone Activism Apr-98
1740 Is optimized for a batch-process mode of triangle delivery, which allows the CPU to place Falcon 4.0 MIcroprose Apr-98
a "batch" of triangles in memory and begin on another batch of triangles without needing to per
Red Line Racer Crlterion/Ubl Soft Apr-98
form handshaking with the 3D processor.
Trespasser DreamWorks Apr-98
While Intel's official party line Is that 1740 Is a strict AGP 2x/sldeband part, companies such
as Real 3D (the designer of the part) will come out with a PCI version of the board. Baseball 3D Microsoft Apr-98
The Dark Project Looking Glass Technologies Apr-93
Anarchy Microsoft Apr-98
F22 Total Air War DID/Ocean Intl. Apr-B8
can store textures in system Starfighter board will be available in
Ultlm@te Race Pro Kallsto/Mlcroprose Apr-98
memory and execute them either AGP or PCI.
Redllne Beyond Games/Accolade Apr-98
straight from system RAM to All this power comes with a price-
Intel 440BXAGPset Intel 02/98
the 3D processor, bypassing local memory current i740 preproduction/reference
KB 3D AMD 02/98
and the possibility of texture thrashing. boards run hot compared to other
SIS 5591 Socket 7AEPset SIS 02/98
1740 will support DirectX, DirectBD, video processors and often sport mas
Reguiem 3DO/Cyclone Studios 02/98
and OpenGL (both MCD and ICD). OSes sive heatslnks or fans. If Intel cannot
conquer the heating problems, OEMs Extreme Warfare Trilobyte/Red Orb 02/98
under I740's usage domain Include
may be forced to add cooling solu Grand Prix Legends Papyrus/Sierra Online 02/98
Wln95 0SR2.1, Win98, and NT 4.0 and
tions, driving up the cost of the final Reno Air Racing Papyrus/Sierra Online 02/98
5.0. Under a P-ll 300 AGP system and
MechCommander MIcroprose 02/98
a 2MB 1740 reference board. Quake II product.
The Dark Project Eldos/Looking Glass 02/98
coughed a cool 40fps under the tlmere- Once 1740 rears its head, main
Riot Microsoft 02/98
fresh benchmark. Unfortunately, the ver stream 3D may never be the same.
Intel's promising Voodoo performance Grim Fandango LucasArts 02/98
sion Intel had didn't have timedemo
in a cost-effective all-in-one package Dark Vengeance Reality Bytes 02/98
enabled, so no scores were taken from
has fast 2D as well. Intel's mighty fabs Descent: Free Space Interplay/Volition 02/98
that benchmark. Jedi Knight was able to
and intense marketing muscle will help Pentium II OK cache Intel 03/98
run at 1280x1024 at an average of lOfps
1740 meet its expectations, so every Kings Quest Mask of Eternity Sierra 03/98
to 16fps, but dropping the resolution
10th Planet Bethesda 03/98
down to 640x480 boosted speeds to an one else had best pick up their 3D
pace—or get out of the way. Messiah ShinyAnterplay 03/98
average of 60fps.
—Andrew Sanchez Windows 98/Memphls Microsoft 03/98
Even with a bare-minimum configura
Duke Nukem Forever 3D Realms 03/98
tion of 2MB, the 1740 is capable of up to
20Kpolys/frame, and the sheer variety of Star Trek: Kllngon Honor Guard
MIcroprose 03/98
configurations will make OEMs jump for product info Descent III Interplay/
joy. Intel has already landed deals with Outrage Entertainment 04/98
ASUStek, Diamond Multimedia, Leadtek, Prey 3D Realms 04/98
Number Nine, STB, Real3D, and others Available Q1 1998
Starship Troopers MIcroprose 04/98
to produce 1740 video cards. Expect Price $199 and up (depending on Windows NT 5.0 Microsoft 04/98
motherboards to carry i740 onboard as configuration) KB+3D AMD 04/98
well, although none have been formally Company intel
announced. While the majority of OEMs Phone 800.548.4725 'These dates are subject to change
will cater to the AGP crowd, Real3D's URL www.intei.com,www.real3d.com "Bold indicates hardware

MAR 98 boot 71
(GoZjNieT) PlaySite is a property of go2net. Inc. WhO*S talking abOUt PiaySlte?
1/SM . .
Yahoo! Internet Life, The Web Magazine, PC
Games, Game Revolution, CNBC, WebCrawler,
CNET, P.O.v., and Family PC all agree;
when it comes to multiplayer games and chat,
PlaySite is the place to be.

Chess, backgammon, reversi,

checkers, chat, and more!

viniifw.playsite.com

pQAnsllTii
people playing people
i

copyright 1997 go2net, Inc.

 VIEWS
boolab Policy ibKlN"^mc imcs uiM
THE LMEST HARDWARE
boot isn't like any other computer magazine,
and neither is our product-evaluation AND TAKIN'THE NEWEST
process. We don't test equipment in the SOFTWARE OUT FOR A-SPIN
cold, sterile environment of a warehouse- C PU/MOTHERBOARD
bootMark
sized lab, and we don't write our reviews 100
based on the test scores that MSSM
iabcoat-wearing technicians scribble WIN95 APPS
SYSmarkSZ WiTM
on clipboards. 300
Our review scores are based on
a combination of objective bench
mark testing, reai-worid perform
DIRECT 3D
Terramark composite
iH' 1
60
ance, and our subjective evaluation
of features, performance, and the HARD DRIVE
many less tangible characteristics Adaptec ThreadMark vl.O

that go into a product. Ail our eval

4 m, i
uations are based on hands-on use CD-ROIVI
K/sec
of the product. CD Tach/Pro vl.65
2000 iBi ViCam
Color Ditti
WIN95 VIDEO
mt -
VidTach V1.52 % played A
■?/7 Rnnnhmarkf: 50

Final Reality and X DOS GAMING

We've added two new tests to our 3D
Quake V1.06
wil ft
NT
benchmarking bag of tricks. X is an
upcoming DirectSD space-combat and DIRECTX GAMim Pi mi
DT
trading game from EgoSoft. The demo MDK PerfTest v1.4 M
runs through a scripted series of scenes 125
and reports an average frame rate. Final Syquest SparQ . . . ,
Reality, a comprehensive 2D/3D bench
MMX PROQ^SING Platinum Sound SWX-160
DeBabelizer^m sees
rnSSm Hercules Thriller 3D
mark developed by VNU European Labs, 300
is based around a game engine from Jazz Outlaw 3D . . .
Remedy Entertainment's upcoming Max CPI^SK Micron Millennia XKU 300 '
Payne. It tests several flythrough scenes, Visual C" compile -j gQ ViCam Color
as well as some abstract performance Digital Video Camera
tests. Look for both new tests on the
bootOisc.

THE GOODS
This is what you get out
of the box, with a brief
REAL-WORLD BENCHMARKING description of what to
The new meter has the precise scores for each expect from this system.
category benchmarked. Plus, the color bars to the
right give you a quick idea of how well Hie system
performed In that category.
It's simple; The farther right the bar reaches, the
better the system scored. Green means the system
performed on par or beyond what we expect of a
current system. If you see nothing but red, the system
performed below expectations.

1GB maximum RAM w/ VESA 2.0 incompatible

PLUSES AND MINUSES ; four free SIMM slots FM-synth sound
Here's where we list the best
S-vldeo and composite No free PCI slots
and worst a system has to offer.
video outputs

CONTACTS
Look here for price and the company's
phone number and URL if you want Price Here fjCfSSmf]
more information.
Company Here |
Phone Here 1 flTrif'®*!
''URL www.Here.com

lb '4 Duake IT. r-

Turok Dinosaur Hunter.
Lego Island :
Red Baron II
BOOT VERDICT
Only the best earn enough Flying Corps Gold . . . .
The one that really matters. This score reflects how we feel
Wing Commander Prophec§.
respect to be worthy of our about a system, taking into account the benchmark results,
quality of parts, usability, overall performance, and our G-Police
editors'-choice i intense, under-the-hood scrutiny. Ray Dream 3D

MAR 98 boot 73'

 CFL EXPANSION TEAMS
You won't find much room inside
the case, but it doesn't really
matter—the MachV is already
chock full of valuable nutrients.

Falcon Northwest MachV

Cutting-edge conundrums
The made-to-order MachV's Products all worked flawlessly, but we ran
a literal who's who of com into problems with other dedicated digital
puter components. With a controllers. Thrustmaster's new Millennium
aOGMHz Pentium II (nes 3D joystick and Rage3D gamepad wouldn't
tled nicely on an Asus work in either mode, and we could only
440LX motherboard), 128IV1B SDRAM, a use four buttons on Logitech's eight-button
SCSI RAID controller card (with two 4.5GB digital gamepad. Worse yet, the toggle
Ultra Wide Cheetah 10,000RPM hard drl- switch is hardware-mounted on the ISA
vesl), DVD-ROM, a Zip drive, and a superla card, making it a pain to access if you
tive video subsystem consisting of a Viper placed your MachV under your desk.
V330 and an Obsidian lOOSB, the MachV The Altec Lansing ACS500's are impres
simply screams power! sive, but Altec has other offerings that
Regardless of all that testosterone, we're sound better. And although the Sound
forced to admit that sometimes too much Blaster 16 and Yamaha MIDI daughtercard mmmm
of a good thing can be a bad thing. are good, a PCI audio solution (such as
Not that the MachV is bad. With per S3's SonicVibes or even Diamond's
formance already besting one of our tough MonsterSound) would be even better.
CABLE READY
new benchmark standards, the MachV is As expected, the MachV knocked off Thanks to the 2D/3D
one hell of a macho beast. Manly yes. But most of our benchmarks without breaking a card, a dedicated 3D
kick-ass? No. sweat. Notable benchmark killers were the card, and an MPEG/
This system, in all its glory, can be had Plextor UltraPleX SCSI 32x CD-ROM (with a DVD decoder card

for a mind-numbing $8,000. We're not com transfer rate of almost 2,900K/sec) and any you'll use a fair num
her of pass-thru con
plaining about the price, mind you—that thing that took advantage of either the nectors. TV-out ports
DTP 2144 SCSI RAID controller card, two nVidia or Obsidian video cards {Forsaken are dutifully Included
hard drives, and 21-inch Viewsonic monitor was a giddy blur at 126fps!). as Is a terrific control IIIIH»i
don't come cheap—but for that level of The best thing about the MachV is panel courtesy of miHH
IIIMII*
Investment, we'd expect the system to work that it's completely customizable. Falcon Quantum 3D's
hihim.
Obsidian card.
flawlessly. And It doesn't. Northwest will build to your specs. Cool. pfMISV
The biggest offender was the hard drive —Bryan Del Rizzo
.MH»*
setup. Although the inclusion of a RAID MMMII
controller card is dubious at best (for a THE BRAINS
gaming machine), we're pretty sure •MMM
Intel Pentium 11 300MHz
Falcon Northwest threw it into the
L2 Cache 512K internal
mix just to demonstrate their temer 128MB SDRAM (384MB max) MPEG Decoder
Asus P2L97 with Intel 440LX chipset itmM
ity. But when it came time to
High-End Video
benchmark, we noticed a couple of
THE BRAWN PCI/ISA SCSI RAID Controller
strange things. First, performance
wasn't up to snuff (see sidebar), Diamond Viper V330 with 4MB SGRAM;
QuantumSD Obsidian 100S8 12MB SLI
and secondly, the software for the Hard Drive
RAID setup isn't pre-installed with DPT 2144 PCI to Ultra Wide SCSI RAID
(although the diskettes—to boot's, Caching Controller with 64MB EDO RAM
CD-ROM Plextor UltraPleX 32x SCSI CAV with 512K cache
and Falcon's, surprise—are includ Expansion Four PCI. two ISA, one PCI/ISA shared, one AGP
ed). To its credit. Falcon Northwest Fax/Modem Diamond SupraExpress 56.6Kbps K56-compatlble
realizes RAID 0 is not "technically (external) 1640x480 2J |60H2 ^
I/O Ports Two serial, one parallel, two USB, digital
the smartest thing in the world to MIDI/gameport r~ Wait for Vertical Retrace
do." But if you're spending the ^ Enable SLI Mode
extra $2,500, you'd probably expect THE BEAUTY
Default 1 Test
it to be optimized for every type of Case Three 5.25-Inch bays; two 3.5-Inch bays
application you can throw at it (such as Display Viewsonic G810 21-inch:.25mm dot pitch; Invar Glide Settings
video-editing apps) and not just for "typi Shadow Mask; 1600x1200 max resolution; 89KHz \ Override Application Setting
max refresh rate Refresh Rate
cal game accesses," as the company Sound Creative Labs Vibra 16 with Yamaha Waveforce XG 3
claims. Instead, the drives delivered mid MIDI daughtercard
Speakers Altec Lansing ACS500 with two 16-watt satellites I Wait for Vertical RetraceE
dling performance.
and one 25-watt subwoofer
The second offender was the Lightning Other Creative Labs DVD-ROM kit, with MPEG decoder
P
4 digital game card. With two game ports, board; Iomega 100MB Zip drive Gi -CHEATS
a digital/analog toggle, and support for up Joystick CH Products F-16 FIghterstick, Racing Wheel. Let's face It—50fps+ In GLQuake Is
Throttle, and Pro Pedals mighty fine. If you turn off the "wait
to 8 four-button, four-axis controllers, the for vertical retrace" setting you can
specs sure sounded hot. An assortment of THE BUNDLE None BDH bump up past 70fps. But beware!
included analog-only controllers from CH [QbiI You run the risk of tearing and
other visual defects If you do.

74 boot MAR 98
 Falcon Northwest

Prinari Tn finll CPU/MOTHERBOARD

bootMark
Falcon Northwest only builds custom-ordered 145
PCs, so if the $8,000 price tag of this
machine scares you off, drop the OPT RAID WIN95 APRS
with twin Cheetah drives and save yourself a SYSmark32
cool $2,500. Swapping out the Obsidian for a would not run*
vanlila Voodoo card wili save you another
$600 or so, and if you opt for a 19-inch mon DIRECT3D
composite
itor instead of the 21-inch behemoth, you Terramark
126.1
can pocket another four hundred green
backs. Total savings:$3,500! 'Course, you'd
HARD DR VE
still have to put In a hard drive. Adaptec ThreadMark vl.O
JO ao 3W0H d
5.38
OOd u:

CD-ROM
K/sec
CD Tach/Pro v1.65
2892
I 'Jl
WIN95 VIDEO
% played
VidTach v1.52
100

DOS GAMING
IPS
Quake v1.06
31.6

DIRECTX GAMING
MDK PerfTest v1.4

FAN APPRECIATION NIGH

The MachV does a terrific job of keep
log those hot components cool. The
processor has a dedicated fan.hagging
■
in the corner of the h'eatsink, while the
entire case is chilled by a secondary
fan located near the top. i
If you have the money to spare
the MachV offers just about
everything your little heart
desires. However, this partlcula
orbital configuration still needi
some serious tweaking.

Funky RAID configuration , ;

and performance
jHhart-busting performance Only one free slot
Hentium ll-300MHz No software bundle
^igh-end components DVD-ROM visual quality
^LQuake is fast as hell a No ergo keyboard

These Chaatos Lack Bite

^ood flight-sim controller ^ No multlplayer gamepads
Completely customizable to ^'a Far-out price point
As indicated, the RAID 0setup didn't perform up to expecta F^duce pnrp an Gamecard doesn't work with
tions. According to Seagate, both drives shouid've proffered a digital controllers
physical throughput rate of up to 175% of a single Cheetah
(which rated between SfViB/sec and BMB/sec using Adaptec's
2940 controller card). Unfortunately, our initial score of Falcon Northwest
3.6MB/sec was nowhere near that. Our usual Threadmark test
(which tests random access) was also low, posting a measly
4.4MB/sec transfer rate (Seagate claims it should be closer to
7.0MB/sec In Wln95). Perplexed, we contacted Falcon's presi
dent, who conjectured it may have been a heat issue (a good
guess considering these were first-generation Cheetah drives),
but we weren't convinced. We then contacted Distributed
Processing Technology, who after about an hour of helpful sup
port, suggested modifying the cache configuration, which they
a
claimed was incorrectly set. We did, but it didn't work. Only
after boosting the PCI burst(to 128 Long Words), turning on
the Extended PCi Request, and changing the termination from
"auto" to "on" were we able to see a modicum of performance
increase. But even though our Threadmark scorejumped to
5.38IVtB/sec and the physical benchmark rose to 7.7IAB/sec,
we still couldn't reach the levels Seagate told us to expect,
leading us to believe the lack of performance is linked to the
overall system and controller configuration.

MAR 98 boot 75
MediaStudio Pro 5.0
Video Capluie • Pieview
All things to all people File Conbol View Setup Capture Paie"e jjeip

MediaStudio Pro is a robust, more fully y S

featured application than Adobe's
Premiere. When you combine the sheer
number of features, such as the new
Video Paint application, the audio editor,
and the well-developed character genera
tor, you have all the fixings to satisfy any
budding multimedia producer.
MediaStudio's video-editing interface is
similar to Premiere's. Its feature set
includes 101 video tracks, 101 audio
tracks, 99 levels of undo, 109 transitions,
real-time previewing, and "changes only"
rendering, plus virtually everything Is
keyframable. And while MediaStudio now
has plug-In support for MetaCreation's
Powertools, Synergy's HoiiywoodFX, and
Artel Software's BorisFX, what separates
this app from Premiere are the value-
added minl-applicatlons included In the
base sticker price.
The most welcome addition is Video 1s ►M- REC -^1 [> l-s i(p i": "M

Paint, which is worth the price of the fPjB

package Itself. This stand-alone applica Capture any video source (ours Is a PC running hardware-accelerated Macej directly into MediaStudio Pro.
tion lets you import AVIs and perform
such rotoscoping tasks as wire removal
and/or bluescreen/color correction. To do aren't as well-rounded as Photoshop, but
this with Premiere, you'd have to save TN$ program has performed an illegal opaialion
what Video Paint lacks in features it
your movie as a filmstrip, then Import that makes up for in speed and ease of use.
© and will be shut down.

If the problem persists, contact the program

into Photoshop, which will set you back Also included Is an audio editor. While vendor.

another $600. Once you import your video it's not as comprehensive as Sonic
VCAPTUHE caused an invalid page fauln xn
clip, each frame appears in chronological Foundry's Sound Forge, it does let you dule MFC40.DII at 0i37:7de812b6.
Registers: "
Data Rate Analysis
do some basic EAX>=0000003a CS=0i37 BIP=7de812be KPLCS=00010206:.' .
editing. You can drag BBX=OOOOOOOi SS=0i3£ KSP=04ab£bb8 KBP''04abfc04 --r
BCX=00000000 DS=0i3£ BSI=000003aO FS=2i97 - -v.)

Atttibules: 24 Bits. 320 x 240 - and drop WAV files BDX=»00000000 HS=013£ lDI=Oi78aebO GS=OebS ^ 1
Bvtes At CS:EIP:
Compression: miroVIDEO DC30 plus savea,,, I ! onto the timeline, While MediaStudio's video-capture features are hardy,
Flame late: 14.921 Flames/Sec . I add reverb and when things get ugly they get very ugly.
r otal keyframes:
Tola! frames:
328 Frames
338 Frames
I I pitch, adjust your
Data rate: 730.50 KB/Sec Help I j pan controls, and
Video data rate: 719.91 KB/Sec j fix sync issues. You shadows, transparency, edges, and color.
Audio data rate: 10.59KB/Sec can zoom in, high CG is fully anti-allased and supports all
Maximum data size; 59.02 KB [00:00:01:04)
[00:00:00:00 50.18 KB
light a segment that TrueType fonts.
ate graph needs work, and While MediaStudio has made a spectac
perform insert edits. ular leap from the previous 2.5 version,
Most importantly, constantly toggling back and forth between
there are plenty of all of the mini-applications can suck up
shortcut keys. The your RAM. We'd like to see them all incor
bad news is that porated into the main program. Still, this
Powerful tools allow you to pinpoint your video-capture performance.
there's only one level minor annoyance doesn't over
of undo. shadow all the pluses.
order on the bottom of the screen. The Another added bonus to the —Rick Popko
first frame appears larger In the work area
above the timeline. At your disposal are a
MediaStudio package Is the incorporation
of CG Infinity, a highly refined character
boot
'•rtlct
clone tool for doing quick repair work and generator. CG Is an Intuitive vector-based
an onion-skinning feature that lets you character generator for creating titles and Price $595
view a dimmed version of the previous motion graphics for video overlays. It Company Ulead
frame. This is ideal for frame-by-frame ani Includes the ability to apply motion to Phone 800.858.5323
mators. The image-editing capabilities your text or objects, and adjust drop URL www.ulead.com

76 boot MAR 98
Quake II
Premature e-quake-ulation
Quake II is pure unadulterated sex gliding Besides the
across your 3D accelerator. Enticing you increased detail
with an intricately modeled environment in the texture
mapped with 8-bit textures, the game maps. Quake II
dazzles with an astoundingly realistic boasts higher
physics model and plies you with enough polygon counts
colored lighting to make you giddy. Then it than the ori
heaps on the intense first-person action at ginal, bringing
mind-blowing frame rates. more graphic
Like any good sex, Quake II is a little realism to
sloppy. A host of bugs plague the the enemies Quake II's BFG lights up the enemies with devastating effect.
shipping version, with sticky walls and (around 600
incomplete multiplayer code being the
most offensive. While many of the bugs
have been addressed with subsequent
polys each).
The graphics
engine furthers
flfcHEcin^TST
Quake 2
Version: 1,0
patches, it'll be a while before Quake II the realism by
Maximum Resolution/Color
is as robust as its predecessor. Perhaps interpolating
1600x1200/1 B-bit
Activision should modify the Quake II ads the ten frame
Wm95 Native
to read, "It's done enough." animations into
WInNT Compatible
New to the game Is an Inventory system smoother
3D Acceleration
that allows selective use of items such motions. Each
OpenGL
as quad damage and powered armor, as enemy has a Multiplayer
well as a mission-based storyline with CG distinct attack TCP/IP Oh my God, they killed Kennyl You bastards!
cutscenes that upgrades the single-player pattern and
Quake experience with an actual plot. Of reacts when fired upon, either by ducking, Great attention has been paid to
course the cutscenes would've been even running, or firing back. The Al is far from Quake ll's sound effects, and the 22KHz
more impressive If they were done with the perfect, but it's a step in the right direc samples (they can be lowered to llKHz
game engine. tion. Enemy death scenes vary from the for better performance) enhance the
With a graphical environment surpassing mere faceplant, to the flop to the ground game's immersiveness. Particularly
anything seen on the PC, id could easily be and struggle to get back up, to the uncon notable is the hum from the BFG and the
forgiven for releasing Quake II early (espe trollable release of random gunfire before metallic ricochet of bouncing grenades, as
cially since they're working so diligently to they fall, although the gibbed chunks well as the ambient sounds of the torture
patch It up). Particle and transparency thrown off by exploding bodies are defi chamber (it hurts, make it stop) and bone
effects are put to good use in explosions as nitely not as cool as they were in Quake. crunching of the human processing plant.
well as in power shields, and come together A well-designed physics model coaxes But the relentless female voice announc
beautifully in weapons' fire such as the realistic reactions out of the enemies, ing "computer updated" is annoying and
railgun's devastating corkscrew. Radlosity depending on where damage is inflicted. unnecessarily repetitive.
lighting brightens dark corridors with 16-bit Explosions produce knockback, the railgun Multiplayer is limited to TCP/IP, and
colors, and procedural textures map bloody blows enemies off their feet, and close- performance Isn't as consistent as in
wounds across the enemies with each hit range shotgun blasts cause them to spin. Quake. Co-operative play and capture the
they take. With a 3Dfx card, the frame rate Weapons animations are better also, and flag were dropped in order to make the
rarely dips below 22fps. For those of you each weapon exhibits its own quirk, such game's targeted ship date, and they're
sadly denied an OpenGL-capable 3D card, as the recoil caused by a heavy spray of sorely missed.
the software renderer pulls off everything machine gun fire and the long pause while Despite the few small shortcomings, id
but the colored lighting, but it does so at another rocket or grenade is loaded Into has once again produced the ultimate first
the cost of playable frame rates. the chamber. person shooter engine that'll run beneath a
whole new generation of games. Flopefully
they'll also produce enough bug fixes and
enhancements to allow the game to reach
its full potential.
—Sean Downey

boot
'•rttet
Price $40
Developer id Software
Publisher Activision
Phone 800.477.3650
The gibbed chunks are not as dazzling as Quake's. Meet and kill exciting new enemies in this installment. URL www.activision.com

MAR 98 boot 77
Turok Dinosaur Hunter s I
Dead dinosaurs need not apply
True to the original N64 Turok, texture-
mapped dinosaurs and motion-captured
bad guys try in vain to 187 poor Turok,
0 CHECK USJl
Turok Dinosaur Hunter
Version; 1.0
but darn that guy if he doesn't pack the Maximum Resolution/Color
most awe-inspiring firepower. 640x480/16-bit
The engine driving Turok renders Win95 Native Destroy those saurian terrors in this fine conversion ofTurok Dinosaur Hunter.
texture-mapped terrain with frame rates 3D Acceleration
ranging from 24fps on up—but at a price. DirectSD flies fast and as the collection of force gems to gain
Like its cartridge-based counterpart, Native 3D Hardware Support furious, with additional lives, similar to Sonic. And
Turok's fog bank hides terrain hlt-in. At 3Dfx Glide fatal arterial how about the "find-the-spot-to-save"
least the terrain that is visible looks as wounds proce nonsense? Thankfully, the control is tight
good as its console cousin, even better dural texture-mapping the scenery, while and responsive; the mouse/keyboard
with the right 3D accelerator. Running in monsters killed underwater tint the water combo works best.
a higher resolution than the N64 version crimson. Most excellent. Unfortunately, First-person shooter purists may scoff
makes this Turok look sharper. The blood your fallen foes dissolve" in an unrealis at all the jumping and collecting Turok is
tic Tron-esque effect (no forced to endure, but when the dust
doubt to keep on-screen settles, Turok Dinosaur Hunter is a top-
Bannhmark is Rnrn
polygons to a minimum). notch conversion of the N64 classic and a
This month's bootDisc demo ofTurok has a built-in bench The weapon animation refreshing change of pace from the dark,
mark that spews out and alpha-blended weapon corridor-bound worlds Quake and
an average fps score. effects are well imple its children are spawning.
Accessing this benchmark mented. Swimming under —Andrew Sanchez
is simple: after installing
the demo, create a shortcut, go to the
water and climbing are
handled more realistically
boot
shortcut's properties, and under the
here than in Quake II. Price $50
filename add the command -benchmark
after the Turok.exe. Unfortunately, many Developer Iguana Studios
Fire it up, and you'li get your average of Turok's gameplay Publisher Acclaim
fps listed in the top-center of the screen. mechanics reek of a Phone 516.656.2456
console birthing, such URL www.acclaimnation.com

scales itself to

Lego lslan(J CHECK

Lego isiand
Version; 1.0
nsTi your machine,
but even on
P200 MMX with
Leggo my Lego Maximum Resolution/Coior
640x480/8-bit
a Voodoo card
and all options
Win95 Native
Remember Saturday afternoons turned on, we
3D Acceleration
building Lego cities? You'd build didn't see
DirectSD
hospitals, cars, skyscrapers, anything to
DirectX
computer stores (OK maybe DirectSound DirectPlay write home
that was just us). Mindscape Directlnput about. The
remembers and has brought Legos game doesn't
to the PC. But with the steep look awful; it just doesn't measure up to
requirements, your five year old just Your Journey into Lego island starts at the Information Center. today's standards. The music and sound
might start screaming "upgrade." effects are fun, with DirectSound 3D
Lego isiand features an entire 3D Lego doesn't have the same appeal as a big support being one of the few aspects
world rendered in real time for your little bucket of Legos. of the game deserving high praise.
power-user-in-training to explore. There are There's no justifiable reason for the Although this game can be mildly
building activities, high requirements this game carries. The amusing at times, a big tub of
vehicles to race. 3D is primitive at best and runs only in real Legos is a much better
Lego people to 8-bit at 640x480. There is no dynamic investment.
interact with, and
even a bad guy,
light sourcing, Gouraud shading, or anti
aliasing—all of which would have helped to
—Paula Resume boot]
'.fll'etX
the "Brickster," to make the world nicer to look at. As you get
catch and put in close to objects, giant pixels appear; maybe Price $40
jail. While all this each one is supposed to be a separate Company Mindscape
Ladies and gentlemen, start sounds like fun, Lego. Texture mapping is used, but only to Phone 800.287.3800
your engines please. the game just animate the faces. The game automatically URL www.mindscape.com

78 boot MAR 98
Elsa Victory Erazor
A close shave
Elsa is the latest to fall under the Riva and TV going at the
128's benchmark breakin' ways with its same time like
Victory Erazor board. you can with the
Sporting all the characteristics of Total3D 128V.
nVidia's Riva 128, the Erazor's pint-size Installation is a
PCI formfactor sports 4MB of nonupgrad- snap, with Elsa's
able lOOMHz SGRAM, a 230MHz RAMDAC, WINman desktop util
integrated triangle set-up engine, and ities allowing you to tweak your
onboard texture cache. A Ix AGP part is desktop as you see fit. The Elsa
also available. As expected, the Erazor Victory Erazor has
spewed out those incredibly I/O ports aplenty-so
fast Direct3D frames rates many that they had to be
npRnfil OuakB n-rama
you'd expect from a Riva put on a separate plug.
Quake/GL Performance
128—armed video card, with
GLQuake (512x384) 33.8fps scores ranging in the high 50s
(640x480) 29.9fps to low 60s on 640x480 X and our
DirectSD
(800x600) n/a ForsakenMark. DOS/VESA 2.0 performance
GLHexen 2 (512x384) 13.5fps Is also pretty fast. Curiously, 512x384 Guantlat
(640x480) 13.4fps frame rates were slower than 640x480 in
(800x600) 11.2fps our Turok and ForsakenMark tests. We DirectSD Performance

GLQuake II (512x384) 33.8fps ran the benchmarks three times, but the ForsakenMark (512x384) 44.92fps
(640x480) 14.3fps scores remained. As a rule, Riva 128 ForsakenMark (640x480) 64.35fps
(800x600) 12.7fps cards scale with a faster processor, but ForsakenMark (800x600) 55.13fps
you still get good performance on a P200 ForsakenMark (1024x768) failed
•GL mini driver version Aipita 2 Build 258. This rev, at the X (640x480) 58.21fps
time of writing, is stili in an alpha stage. Expect optimizations CPU. The Visual quality, like all Riva 128
to occur as time goes on. boards, is an acquired taste: you either X (800x600) 49.31fps
•OEM file used: GLauake=boolmari<.dem: GLHexen
don't notice the speckled dithering X (1024x768) 38.92fps
2=demo2.dem; GiQuake il-demo2.dm2
textures or you don't care, so we won't Turok(512x384) 59.2fps
beat you over the head with this subject. Turok(640x480) 53.9fps
In a bid to outdo Canopus's excellent With the latest drivers In tow (v2.02), Turok (800x600) 39.3fps
Total3D 128V, the Erazor comes with a that accursed transparency problem in Final Reality 25Pixel 208.70Kpoly/sec
single S-Video and composite input, and JeiJi Knight has finally been solved — Final Reality Fill Rate 60.87Mpixels/sec
dual composite and lone S-Video nVldia is aware of this, and other Riva
outputs. This massive bundle of I/O con 128 boards should also have newer to optimize for
nectors is wired into a 15-pin connector drivers available to fix this problem. better performance.
Quake ///Open
that in turn hooks up to the Erazor. Like Alpha-blending problems In Forsaken The Riva 128
the Total3D 128V, the Erazor's BIOS is result in semi-transparent boxes showing market is getting
tweaked, so If you have only the TV up around weapon effects and objects— crowded, and Elsa's
hooked up, it'll automatically bump your this shouldn't be the case with most D3D sub-$200 feature-
Win95 resolution down to 640x480/60Hz. games, but they were noticeable. rich and bench
The SVideo/composite output is clean — The mini-GL drivers currently available mark-blasting video
unfortunately you can't have the monitor as of this writing are in a late-alpha stage card is compelling.
of development and far But, when you ForsakenlmO
from final, but nVidia was compare it with
Faatura Sat anrl 21) Parfnrmanr.p. kind enough to put those Canopus's Total3D
drivers out for the 128V, the Erazor
Max 24-bit resolution/refresh :1152x864/75Hz'32-bit hordes. Changing your comes in a close
Max 16-bit resolution/refresh 1600x1200/75Hz entire Win95 driver set to second.
VESA 2.0 Support/BIOS fiashable? YESAES * VESA 3.0 nVidia's reference drivers —Andrew Sanchez
Virtual Desktop Support No gains access to GL games
DOS Quake (320x240) 72.3fps such as Quake and its
Tfff STATS;BIOS: 1.47.01 I Win95
DCS Quake (640x480) 30.3fps ilk. Performance under
drivers: 2.02 THE BUNDLE;
DOS Quake (800x600) 21.7fps Quake II, GLHexen 2, and
Win95 Drivers
MDK PerfTest v1.4 (DirectDraw) 125 GLQuake are above
Firai Reaiity Radiai Biur (DirectDraw) 29.77fps average, although the
Finai Reaiity Chaos Zoomer (DirectDraw) 46.97fps dithered visual quality Price $199
Note:Ail performance results were obtained under the foiiowing system configuration. leaves something to be Company Elsa
COMPUTER: Micron Millennia XRU; CPU:Intel Pentium il 300MHz: 0/S: Windows 95
0SH2.1 Build 1212b; Motherboard: Intel AN440 440LXAGPset(1 AGP,2PCI, 2ISA, 1
desired. Again, as time Phone 800.272.ELSA
PCI/ISA shared progress, expect nVidia URL www.elsa.com

MAR 98 boot 79
Red Baron I I CHECK CTSTl
Red Baron II
Version; 1.0

The Fokker flies again Maximum Resolution/Color

640x480/256-bit
After years on the drawing board, Red Win95 Native
Baron II Is still a work in progress. This 3D Acceleration Red Baron II's virtual-cockpit view tracks enemies. The instruments are
update of the classic World War I simula OpenGL functional, but iow-res.
tion has good gut-level design but is DirectX
implemented using spit and baling wire, DirectDravj DIrectSound Microsoft's cool virtual-cockpit view, but omits on
just like the propeller-driven crates DirectPlay DIrectlnput Sidewinder screen attitude indicators, so when you
featured in the game Multlplayer Force Feedback enable the free-looking enemy-padlock view
Visuals look sharp, thanks to the LAN Modem Direct/serial Pro warns of it's even money whether you rip the wings
3Space graphics engine. Aircraft use 200 TCP/IP impending off before you actually hit the ground.
to 250 polygons each and feature intricate Specialty Controllers stalls and jolts Luckily, Dynamix knows that ail is not
textures. You can import your own bitmaps Force feedback
nicely when well. A patch is impending to squash the
to jazz up your craft. Throttle Rudder
tracers hit you bugs and add a more realistic flight
Given the historical locale, terrain is in the back. Unfortunately, you can't model. A 3D accelerator update is
mostly fiat. However, the view is enlivened reconfigure your controller. expected by spring.
by a few roiling hills and well-crafted Too bad ail this good stuff is sabotaged With just a bit more hangar time, Red
texture effects, based by awkward elements. The Baron II could easily become the sim that
on 256x256 tiles. You'll most immediate downer is lack WWI aviation buffs have been
see lots of big square of 3D acceleration. With ail the waiting for.
pixels when you get up graphic options maxed out, —Frank Lenk
close, but from as little nothing less than a serious
as 100 feet up the Pentium 11 is likely to coax
effect is likable. frame rates into double digits. Price $55
The Win95 DirectX Subtler but more deadly Developer Dynamix
implementation problems arise from the incom Publisher Sierra On-Line
includes support for Action is fast when Fokker DR-1 meets plete viewing and control facili Phone 800.757.7707
force feedback, and its nemesis, the Sopwith Camel. ties. Red Baron ii gives you a URL www.sierra.com

Flying Corps Gold CHECK

Flying Corps Gold
Version: 2.0
nsTi Although 3D acceleration pushes
color depth from 8- to 16-bit, it does
more for frame rates than for aes
Sputtering into the wild blue yonder Maximum Resolution/Colcr thetics. On an aging P166 armed
with a Canopus Pure3D accelerator,
800x60G/256-bit
Even after a rebuild. Flying Corps Gold still are two more aircraft MS-DOS Executable frame rates blasted from under Ifps
seems like the work of talented amateurs, and a mission editor. Wln95 Native to a flyabie ISfps with acceleration
a rickety DOS-based WWI simulator that Unfortunately, the 3D Acceleration enabled.
sabotages its own flashes of genius. sim's creaky DOS DirectSD Aircraft textures were excellent
Flight models are particularly sharp, heritage remains DirectX to begin with and look spiffy with
allowing fancy maneuvers like spins and painfully apparent. DirectDraw DIrectSound
accelerated smoothing, despite the
snap roils. Battle damage is also well sim Catastrophic system DirectPlay fairly limited number of polygons.
ulated, and campaigns range to authentic crashes are as much Multlplayer But the terrain looks like one big
possibilities. of a danger as enemy LAN Modem Direct/serial polygon: a rectangle with a blurry
A floating wireframe in the virtual-cockpit TCP/IP
aces, and the game aerial photograph pasted on it. The
view shows your attitude when your head Specialty Controllers
runs smoothly only few hills are so low that you'll notice
Force feedback
is twisted, and a joystick button instantly after a complete them only during an off-field landing.
Tfirottle Rudder
centers the view. Enemy-pilot Al has been system restart. Last- Obviously, enough would-be WWI
tweaked and is downright vicious. Also new minute texture loading often brings your flyers enjoyed the original Flying Corps to
campaign to a fiery conclusion. justify the minor Gold update. But until
Some glaring faults of the original Flying this sim gets a ground-up Win95 rewrite,
Corps remain in the Gold edition. Most it will appeal mainly to the hardiest of the
obvious is the gruesome installer, which hard corps.
lets you enter an alternate game directory —Frank Lenk
then issues a nasty error message if you
dare try it.
Manual joystick calibration is another Price $40
iSSi/et
throwback. Force feedback is supported Developer Rowan Software
only on the outdated CM Force FX. How Publisher Empire
ever, a proper DirectX 5 driver for the interactive
Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro should be Phone 800.610.4847
Flying Corps Gold's virtual cockpit is smoothly done. available soon. URL ww.empire-us.com

80 boot MAR 98
 Jl

PRODUCT PRODU(
COMPANY URL/PHONE # PAGE INFO COMPANY URL/PHONE # PAGE INFO
NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBE

3Dfx www.3dfx.com/ 49 372 Diamond Multimedia www.diamondmm.com 15

3Dfx www.3dfx.com/ 55 372 Electronics Boutique www.ebworld.com 33 131

3Dfx www.3dfx.com/ 53 372 Enorex Microsystems wvw.enorex.com 18 13

3Dfx www.3dfx.com/ 57 372 ForeFront Direct (800)475-5831 95 134

3Dfx wvw.3dfx.com/ 59 372 Franklin Electronic Publishers vww.franklln.com 30 135

3Dfx wvw.3dfx.com/ 65 -
go2net wvw.metacrawter.com 72 ~

American Institute for Jazz Multimedia wvw.jazzmm.com C3 187

Computer Science www.aics.com 91 —

MediaOn/Artek vww.mediaon.com C2-1 236

Animagic vww.animagicarts.com 91 88 Micron Electronics, Inc. wvw.mei.micron.com 10-11 232

ASC Games vww.ascgames.com 24 93 Ocean of America wvw.oceanltd.com 26 261

ATI vww.atitech.com 4 85 Real 3D www.real3d.com 20 117

Audible, Inc. www.audible.com 9 92 Sejin America, Inc. www.sejin.com 28 30

Creative Labs wvw.creativelabs.com C4 96 Softman Products www.cheapsoftware.net 95 313

D.I.C.E. wvw.dice.com 91 106 Sony Electronics, Inc. wvw.sony.com/technology 22-23 —

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www.bootnet.com
Syquest SparQ </- attach the
drive, then
s Insert the
Non-combustible provided Starter
cartridge. Now run
SyQuest, veterans of the removable-media And don't , the Setup app off a
wars, are back with the Jaz-klller they plan to run apps off floppy. This detects
hope will turn the tides in the battle for the SparQ. the SparQ drive and
The
1GB cartridges drives. The SparQ empha Adaptec's external SparO runs the installation
sizes inexpensive portability and delivers Threadmark rates does not use a pass- software from the
on both grounds. Unfortunately, the the drive's real- thru connector. However, it does Starter cartridge. To use
parallel port interface delivers a potent world performance include an outgoing parallel port on the drive on another machine,
the back of the drive itself.
performance hit, especially compared with at only .66MB/sec. the process must be repeated.
the SCSI-based Jaz. And CPU utilization There's no doubt the SparQ
Using the EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port) hovers at 88%! has definite advantages over
protocol, the SparQ promises "hard drive" With numbers like these, the SparQ should Iomega's ubiquitous drives (whose huge
spees of 12ms, but delivers 22.9ms access be used only for backup purposes. installed base is an advantage when it
times. Read and burst speeds fell dramati But take the promised 1GB capacity comes time to share files), price being
cally short of the promised 1.25MB/sec read with a grain of salt. Tossing a full gig foremost. With a price half that of the Jaz
and 2.0MB/sec burst rate, with both averag into the SparQ proved fruitless, as the and cartridges that can be bought in a
ing 850K/sec. Although parallel port perfor cartridge filled at 690MB, due to file- three-pack for the cost of a single jaz car
mance varies with processor speed, we system overhead. tridge, the SparQ has appeal as an expand
tested the SparQ on a 266Mi-lz Pentium II. Although the SparQ comes with a car able offline storage device. SyQuest also
On a lesser system, you should expect even tridge, this media is nearly full (728MB), offers an internal IDE version of the SparQ,
lower scores. with required installation software which raises the performance level
|and utilities to format, duplicate, somewhat, but at the cost of portability.
ParR tn nnmpam Iback up, configure, and You'll have to decide if the
mount/unmount cartridges. trade-offs work for your needs.
SparQ Jaz And we had problems getting —Sean Cleveland
Interface EPP SCSI I the utilities to even run on our
Access Time 22.9ms 20ms 'test systems.
Read 850K/sec 5.2MB/sec Also be aware that the SparQ Price $200 (additional
Drive (ext.) $200 $400 is not PnP. It requires a pro cartridges $40, 3/$100)
Cartridges $40 $100 At$40 each, or three for prietary device driver that Company Syquest
Capacity 690MB 734MB $100, SparO cartridges must be installed through an Phone 510.226.4000
Fill Time 23min 21mln are a bargain. elaborate process. First you URL www.syquest.com

Platinum Sound SWX-1600

Where's the bass?
Building a speaker system is more than tion of being overdriven,
just slapping cones into a high-tech box explosions and anything
and claiming massive power ratings, and low-frequency-related
the Platinum Sound SWX-1600 is a were not impressive at
picture-perfect example of that. ail. Even with the
The SWX-1600 is a three-piece sub- volume turned up, the
woofer/sateilite combo consisting of a sub could not do any
single 5.25-inch woofer housed in a damage, lacking deep
single-reflex bandpass box made of half- punch or snap.
inch high-density particleboard. The inte The mids also
grated amplifier claims 160-watts of suffer, sounding Despite the low price
"peak" power (yeah right), while all your muddy and lacking and compact size, the Sound SWX-1600 is not
inputs and outputs are located behind Platinum Sound SWX-
brilliance or treble one of them.
the box. Inside each sealed satellite 1600joins the ranks of
sparkle. While —Andrew Sanchez
other substandard
(raised via metal stands) lives a 3-inch left/right stereo sepa speakers out there.
midrange speaker. ration is good, UUfct
As expected, the SWX-1600's bandpass center-channel imaging is weak. To add Price $99.95
box excited bass energies around a to the trouble, the satellites take way too Company Platinum Sound
specific region, from 70Hz to about 90Hz, much bass energies. Phone 800.408.4084
with output rapidly rolling off either way. The low-end market is filled with URL www.piatinumsound
While the woofers hardly gave any indica awesome speaker sets—the Platinum .com/plat.html

82 boot MAR 98
Wing Commander Prophecy
A solo saga CHECK
Wing Commander Prophecy
In Wing Commander Version; 1.0

Prophecy, you'll dish out Maximum Resolution/Color

I that can of intergalactic 640x480/16-bit
^ whip-ass with authority, Win95 Native
i and you'ii do it with the 3D Acceleration
^ best graphics ever seen DirectSD

in a first-person space- Native 3D Hardware Support

3Dfx Glide
combat simulator. 1
"Awesome" is too mild a word
to describe Prophec/s lush visuals. How And those cap
does "supercaiifragiiisticaiiy spectacular" ships are huge—
sound? Origin's aging ReaiSpace graphics your own super
engine (last seen powering many of carrier, the TCS
Origin's flight sims) has finally been put Midway, is one
in dry-dock, in its place stands the Vision massive starship,
engine—a 32-bit SVGA engine capable of complete with
rendering some animated poly
of the most gon turrets. Wing Commander Prophecy- I object lesson to LucasArts on how to make a real sequel.
intense visuals Everything looks
ever seen in a like it was ripped from an episode of (or not) with fellow pilots will also deter
space-combat Babylon 5 and made fully playable. While mine which cinematic plays.
sim. Texture- smaller fighters hurtle out of control to a While some may call bunk on Prophecy
mapped, fiery death, the capital ships unfortunately for not shipping with its promised multi-
light-sourced don't die as spectacularly as in Wing player capabilities, we're not holding that
polygons adorn Commander iV. It's not as bad as X-Wing against
the starscape, vs. TIE Fighter, but we've seen better. Origin. After
Prophecy uses the Shockwave all, the Wing
explosion to full effect—Is It
with alien ships Despite Origin's talk of getting back
live, or Is It Memorex? turning and to sweat-inducing gameplay and moving Commander
burning. While away from a muy grande cinematic experi experience
Origin tossed in a software renderer, it's ence spanning five CDs, there is still a has always
only when you pipe Prophecy through great deal of FMV In Prophecy (enough to been an epic,
DirectBD or Glide that it truly shines. fill three CDs). In fact, you spend almost Wagnerian
Many of the special effects, such as the as much time watching FMV antics as saga starring
shock wave explosions, lens you do jockeying you as the
flares, colored lighting, and around In space main charac
alpha-blended sprite glows lighting up alien Syd Mead provided his artistic vision ter, and mul-
and shield effects, scream starfighters. And when It came time to conjure up tiplayer in
unfortunately, the new alien llfeforms to destroy. The this game
for attention but the details
capital ships look suitably organic.
make themselves known pixelated, lossy would have
only after you've played a cinematics have cheapened the experience. You want mul-
few missions. The polygon taken a step back tiplayer Wing Commander! Demand a
cockpit that shakes violently in visual quality— sequel to Wing Commander Armada using
when hit, the Glide-specific the FMV in Wing the Vision Engine and wait, 'cause you're
nebulous starfields, and the Commander iV not getting it here.
color Communications video Line these aliens up and tear Into them with a looked a helluva Although the FMV looks grainy when
(a first for the series) are blast of hot plasma death. lot cleaner and compared to previous cinematic venture's.
among the many cool more colorful than Wing Commander Prophecies killer combo
nuances. The Vision engine this drab mess. of joystick-breaking dogfights, drop-dead
is capable of on-the-fly Veteran Wing gorgeous graphics, and compelling story
detail-level adjustment, Commanders will telling makes this prophecy
resulting in silky smooth notice the lack worth fulfilling.
24fps on a 3Dfi(-enhanced of binary Q&A —Andrew Sanchez
throughout the boot
P200. Even with a massive
capital ship and a couple
of bogies in full view, the
m. FMV—decisions
made on the bat Price $50
'•rttet

frame rate hardly wavers— tlefield will deter Developer Origin Systems
the only time it chokes is mine the FMV that Publisher Electronic Arts

when many visual effects The TCS Midway, In Its entire texture-mapped follows. Also, the Phone 800.245.4525
are active at once. polygon glory. choice to interact URL www.ea.com

MAR boot 83
Hercules' Thriller 3D and
Jazz's Outlaw 3D
Rendition's V2200 hits the big times
You tasted Rendition's next-generation Verite 2000 series 2D/3D processor a couple of months ago with Diamond's \/2100-
powered Stealth II 5220. Finally, after some silicon delays, the V2200 makes its appearance.
Differences? Well, the V2100 is designed as an entry-level part clocked at 40MHz and using a slower 170 RAMDAC compared
with the 2200. They all share the same characteristics as the V2000 TruMedia Accelerator, such as its highly programmable RISC
core, integrated set-up engine, and full-featured 3D set. Among those features is the ability to perform single-cycle rendering of 12-
attribute Direct3D pixels, 8-bit precision for bilinear filtering, trilinear filtering, and hardware-assisted anti-aliasing. All V2200 boards
come armed with flash BIOS to upgrade when you see fit.
DSD and OpenGL (via mini drivers for all you Quake-heads), as well as Rendition's own RRedline and SpeedySD APIs are the V2200
APIs of choice. The V2100-powered Stealth 11 impressed the hell out of us with an all-in-one 3D video card that anyone can afford—
let's see how Hercules and Jazz Multimedia handle its bigger brother.
—Andrew Sanchez

Jazz Multimedia Outlaw 3D Jazz Outlaw 3D

Sporting a cool cobalt blue circuit board,

Jazz's Outlaw 3D Is a no-frllls Rendition I Quake i^Open GL
Jazz Outlaw 3D Hercules Thriller 3D
V2200 board armed with 4MB of non-
GLQuake upgradable lOOMHz SGRAM coupled with
(512x384) 37.1fps 40.1fps a 230MHz RAMDAC. Available In 4MB or
(640x480) 27.2fps SO.Ofps 8MB bus-mastered PCI or AGP Ix/DMA
(800x600) n/a* n/a* configurations, the Outlaw 3D sits between
GLHex8n2 the Liber-cheap Stealth II and the Thriller
(512x384) 16.2fps 23.8fps 3D In terms of features, so don't expect Forsaken/u3u
(640x480) 12.8fps 19.3fps anything extra.
(800x600) 9.6fps 14.3fps Drivers for Wln95 and WlnNT 4.0 are
GLQuake II
i promised, but as of press time, only the
Wln95 drivers are available. While some
(512x384) 26,3fps 29.6fps .„p
(640x480) 20.2fps
may scoff at the lack of a game bundle,
23,5fps
(800x600) 14.2fps
jazz does provide the latest GL mini
17.6fps ■M
• Refused to run on bodi cards drivers for Quake-based gaming—expect a
• GL mini driver version 0.1.1. full, optimized ICD from Rendition by the
• This rev, at the time of writing, still had some graphic glitches
when coupled with Quake II. ftjrGLQuake II, we had to use the
time you read this. Impressive DOS Quake frame rates. Even
gijlashblend 1 command In order to get the particle effects to Under our battery of video-card bench at the low VGA ranges, where the Verite
appear correctly. Rendlb'on promises a full-featured, optimized iCD marks, the Outlaw 3D rode a seesaw of family has historically had poor perform
driver for the V2xOO processor by the time you read this.
• OEM file used: GLQuake=bootmark.dem; extremes. Under good ol' DOS, ance, the Outlaw 3D tore things up In a
GLHexen2=demo2.dem; GLQuake the Outlaw 3D easily out big way, posting a whopping 75.8fps at
ll=demo2.dm2
performed the Thriller 320x240 compared to the Thriller 3D's
3D, posting good (but not great) 46.7fps. Under
» extremely Wln95, our slew of DlrectDraw tests also
gave the Outlaw 3D the thumbs-up,
edging by the Thriller 3D at every turn.
But, when the
pedal hit the
polygon metal
under Dlrect3D and
OpenGL, the Outlaw 3D
finally got caught. While
It may look the board posted an excel
fashionable lent 63.7fps at 640x480 X and
decked out in pumped out faster Final Reality
blue, but Jazz's
25Plxel scores. It could not keep up
Outlaw 3D needs
more eflicient
with the Thriller 3D under our other
drivers in order to benchmarks. From the ForsakenMark
keep up with the rest through our slew of OpenGL/Quake tests.

84 boot MAR 98
 llTIffiffl
DirRnt.in Purfnrmanr.R

Jazz Outlaw 3D Hercules Thriller 3D

ForsakenMark (512x384) 62.60fps 58.00fps
ForsakenMark (640x480) 48.13fps 54,67fps
ForsakenMark (800x600) 35.75fps 41,21fps
ForsakenMark (1024x768) failed 22,37fps
Hercules' X (640x480) 63.70fps 55,90fps
nritlerSDwill
X (800x600) 47,36fps 51,76fps
come in two
configurations—if
X (1024x768) 33.00fps 39.54fps
money's no object, go for Turok (512x384) failed 49.5fps
the TH2218SG SMB version. Turok (640x480) 24,7fps 46.5fps
Turok (800x600) 18.0fps 28.2fps
Final Reality 25Pixel 208.37kpoly/sec 197.40kpoly/SBC C
Final Reality Fill Rate 17.80Mplxels/sec 17,80Mplxels/sec
«the' took a look at the 8MB
Outlaw TH2218SG Thriller 3D, which
3D could not is armed with all manner of I/O connec found its calling. Under the slew of Quake-
keep up with the tors, including S-Video/Composite TV based benchmarks, the Thriller 3D edged
faster Thriller 3D, at output, a lone composite input, and a a few of frames past the Outlaw 3D on
times falling as far as DIN plug for stereographic shutterglasses. every test. With D3D, this board managed
Zifps under the 640x480 Turok While the Thriller 3D uses a 230MHz to keep a healthy lead on almost every
Dinosaur Hunter test. Also, the Outlaw RAMDAC coupled with a 8MB of 125MHz benchmark, with its 54.67fps at 640x480
3D, like all V2200 boards, it seems, is SGRAM, Hercules claims it has a lock ForsakenMark and excellent 46.5fps under
ll-llmited, with this board maxing out on all the grade "A" V2200 processors 640x480 Turok. Visual quality remained
at 17.80Mplxels/sec (the V2100 Stealth (V2200F-B), which have been screened by high throughout. Even MPEG-1 playback
peaked at 16.34Mpixels/sec). And to Rendition to run faster (60MHz) than the was smoother, with the Thriller 3D keep
add insult to Injury, under 512x384 lower-grade 50MHz V2200 chip (V2200-B). ing up frame rates even at 1024x768/
Turok, the drivers exhibited massive This, in theory, should result In faster 16-bit. Only when forced into 1280x1024
Z-buffering errors, resulting in flickering overall performance. did the board choke—hard.
polygons galore—this also occurred under Win95 installation proved uneventful- Despite this, the Thriller 3D comes
Jed! Knight. like Jazz, Hercules promises both NT4 strapped and ready to take on all your
MPEG-1 playback fared best at and Win95 drivers for its board, but only D3D or OpenGL needs—it is the fastest
800x600, with 16- or 32-bit color depths Win95 drivers were available. In order to V2200-based board out there to date.
maintaining a smooth, clean 24fps. At run amok In GLQuake and Its ilk, we had
higher resolutions, the video starts getting to use the current Verite mini GL driver,
a hair pixelated and choppy, dropping as which is still experiencing growing pains. THE STATS:BIOS: 1.04,132 1 Win95
low as 17.6fps at 1024x768/32-bit color.
It's a clean little board, and its DOS
Hercules put its look and feel on the
Rendition reference drivers, with options
Drivers: 0,69,3446 THE BUNDLE:
Win95 Drivers I Incoming SE
tool
performance is pretty darned impressive, for TV output and refresh all within reach.
but jazz needs to pump those drivers a But TV output has been relegated to Price $249
bit harder if it wants to compete. Let's Wln95 640x480/60Hz output only, thanks Company Hercules
hope it does. in large part to the Brooktree 865 encoder Phone 510.623.6030
chip—any other resolution or refresh is URL www.hercuies.com
out of luck.
THE STATS;BIOS: 1,04,132 1 Win95 On the DOS per
Drivers: Rendition Reference drivers formance tip, the FRaturn URt A 2D PrrfnrmannB
THE BUNDLE:Wm95 Drivers 1 GL Thriller 3D was sur
mini drivers prisingly lacklus Jazz Outlaw 3D Hercules Thriller 3D
ter—while its
Max 24-bit resolution/refresh 1024x768/75Hz (32-bit) 1152x864/75Hz (32-bit)
Price $149 46.7fps is decent 1280x1024/75HZ 1600x1200/75Hz
Max 16-blt resolution/refresh
Company Jazz for 320x240 Quake,
VESA 2,0 Support/BIOS flashable Yes/Yes Yes/Yes
Multimedia the Outlaw 3D
Virtual Desktop Support No No
Phone 408.727.8900 spanked It hard by 71.8fps 46,7fps
DOS Quake (320x240)
URL www.jazzmm.com posting 71.8fps. 13,8fps
DOS Quake (640x480) 24.3fps
Even in Win95, the 10.5fps
DOS Quake (800x600) 9,6fps
Thriller 3D's MDK
MDK PerfTest v1,4 (OirectDraw) 124 111
Hercules Thriller 3D PerfTest of 111
Final Reality Radial Blur
failed to catch the
TH2218SG 124 posted by the
(DIrectDraw) 29.76fps 29,54fps
At the other end of the V2200 feature-set Final Reality Chaos Zoomer
Outlaw 3D.
spectrum lies Hercules' Thriller 3D. This (OirectDraw) 46.82fps 46,42fps
But, when you Bold indicates better performance
board is available in either a 4MB feature
start pumpin' D3D
less "Basic" version (the TH2204) or an or OpenGL games, Note:Ait performance results were obtained under the foiiowing system configuration: Computer: Micron
8MB feature-rich version (the TH2218SG), Miiiennium XRU: CPU:Intel Pentium ii 300MHz: 0/S: Windows 95 0SB2.1 Build 1212b; Motherboard:Intel
watch out, 'cause AN440 440LXAGPset(1 AGP,2PCI, 2ISA, 1 PCi/iSA shared): Soundcard: Creative Labs AWE64 ISA;
both in AGP Ix/DMA or PCI versions. We this board has Monitor: Hitachi 19-inch

MAR 98 boot 85
WlTnma
Micron Millennia XKU 300
No sell-out, no compromise FRIENDS
CALL ME
SNOW
Micron's latest gaming And so we turn to the two component
MISER
machine flips a brazen categories that typically get short-shrift from Pentium lls
bird at all the system stingy OEMs: the sound card and monitor. tend to get hot
. manufacturers pimping Sure, Micron could have gone the laughably and sweaty, so
$800 appliance com ubiquitous Yamaha OPL-what-the-hell route, Micron is blow
ing a cruel wind ~A^ns_ai^
puters. The XKU 300 is a zero- but instead you get a Creative Labs AWE64
from the north
compromise muscle car that says for the best in old-fashioned ISA-style poly (off the power
, power users do matter—and as phony. The 19-inch Hitachi monitor uses the supply) as well
i a follow-up to the first desktop same Hitachi tube that every other 19-inch as a chilly gale
]system ever to receive a display used in 1997, but it's a bright, true from the west
1 bootVerdict of 10 {boot 13), CRT that perfectly complements the XKU's (from a second
auxiliary fan).
1 Micron's beefiest computer multimedia experience. Most importantly. Mongo heatsinks com
proves the Millennia line is Micron sells you the 19-incher for $600, more
staying the kick-ass course. than $200 cheaper than the least-expensive
plete the weather report.
Watch your head as you '-Uu
-"nil
Killer parts + killer performance = happy 19-incher we've seen on store shelves. get off the chair lift.
bootBoyz. It's simple mathematics, so why If this configuration doesn't suit you, the lUv
do so many manufacturers make conces XKU 300 can be built-to-order directly from
sions to mediocrity? Teaming a 300MHz Micron's web site. A dizzying array of
Pentium il processor with the Diamond upgrading and downgrading options will OPTIMIZED FOR Hrr^i
Viper V330 video card is a no-brainer—and help you save money or ramp up to a work SPEED
The Diamond Viper V330
that Riva 128-powered Direct3D juggernaut station-level configuration, if you decide to
rides the AGP bus, no less. Both pieces of upgrade components yourself, you'll have
2D/3D AGP video card is a
screaming-fast Direct3D
fffrrr
silicon fit nicely into the ATX Intel Atlanta no trouble removing the single thumbscrew machine, but its Riva 128 nrnr
motherboard. The 440LX core-logic chipset and sliding off the side panel. chipset sacrifices a bit of
means you're confined to Slot 1 Deschutes As an update to the Millennia XRU, the visual quality by generat
if you decide to upgrade CPUs, but if you're ing low-res mipmaps for
XKU ditches a ViRGE/Voodoo video combo
games that don't already
not happy with the ample 64MB of SDRAM for nVidia's hybrid Riva 128, and moves for have them. At least nVidia
that comes stock, you can easily ramp up ward with AGP and the 440LX core-logic has cleaned up the 128's
to 384MB by dropping some new DiMMs in chipset. These aren't transgressions, so how poor transparency produc
those wide-open slots. can we deny the top Millennia another 10 tion via driver updates.
The CPU and video card produced stellar The card is limited to 4MB
verdict? Simple: No Deschutes processor or
(no memory upgrades),
benchmark scores across-the-board, but PCI sound card. Fine points, sure enough, so you can't get true color
what really impressed us was the 69.7fps in but the bar of perfection has been raised. at anything higher than
the Foresaken D3D test and the 30.5fps in —Jon Phillips 1152x864.
the nonaccelerated Quake test. The XKU
300 is a whip-fast gaming machine, and its
D3D visual quality appeared better than THE BRAINS EXPANSin
many other Riva 128-based systems ^^^SlcpiL Intel Pentium II 3dOMiiz' PCI Chromatic E4 MPEG-2 Decoder
we've reviewed (it's the drivers—it's L2 Cache 512K (internal)
always the drivers). You'll be ready RAM 64MB SDRAM f384MB max) PCI Free
Motherboard Intel Atlanta 440LX, ATX formfactor
to gun down bogies out-of-the-box PCI Free
with the Microsoft Sidewinder joy THEBRAWN PCI Free shared)
stick and cranking Cambridge Cb
Video AGP Diamond Viper V330(Riva 128 chipset,
Soundworks Microworks speakers. 4MBSGRAM)
The Hitachi GD-2000 DVD-ROM Hard Drive IBM Deskstar 5.6.468 EIDE Ultra DMA/33. , /,
drive posted a solid 2114K/sec DVD-ROM Hitachi GD-2000 witii
Chromatic E4 MPE6-2 decoder
score in the CD-ROM read test, and Expansion One AGP,three PCI. one ISA,one shared PCl/lSA
the Chromatic E4 MPEG-2 decoder Fax/Modem US Robotics 56.6Kbps Sportster {X2)
produced clean DVD movie output I/O Ports Two USB. two serial, one parallel
sans shearing. Unfortunately, the E4
THE BEAUTY
lacks vldeo-out for playing DVD
movies on your TV set. Display Hitachi CM751U; 194nch;0.26mm dot pitch;
1600x1200@75Hz
The 6.4GB IBM Deskstar hard Sound Creative Labs AWE64 v;
drive performed admirably, transferring Speakers Cambridge Soundworks Microworks
a sturdy 4.33MB/sec in this age of Ultra2 Ottier Iomega Zip Drive, Microsoft Intellimouse, Microsoft
Sidewinder Joystick
SCSI and fibre-channel hard drives. You
also get a Zip drive, as well as a free 5.25- THE BUNDLE Microsoft Windows 95 PlusI MechWarrior 2;
inch bay and another 3.5-inch bay, should Mercenaries I Ckimmand and Conquer Gold I Jane's AH-64D
Longbow I Jane's US Navy Rghters '97! Formula 11 Silent Steel
you decide to install every other media for (DVD) I Blockbuster Guide to Movies(DVD)
mat known to bootKind.

86 boot MAR 98
 CPU/MOTHERBOARD
bootMark
142 y
FOR YOUR
TRUNK
WIN95 APRS
SYSmarl<32
Multimedia speakers or offen 304
sive weapons? The Cambridge
.4 Soundworks Microworks will
DIRECT3D
accommodate any Quake frag- Terramark
composite mi- .- -
ger viftio wants to piss off his 69.7 L,. s
neighbors. Ifhe-subwoofer emits
bass that you feel in your bones, HARD DRIVE
and the satellites handle the Adaptec ThreadMark vl.O *"00
sweeping mids and high of
your most demanding jazz CDs.
We love these speakers! DVD-ROM
K/sec
CO Tach/Pro v1.65
2114
n
WIN95 VIDEO
VidTach V1.52 Yqq
DOS GAMING

€ Quake Vl.06 nn c
oU.D

DIRECTX GAMING
MDK PsrfTest v1.4
127

MMX PROCESSING |
iiiirWmtili DeBabelizer Pro 203 S "
CPU/DISK
Microsoft Visual C'* compile gy

ill
1
f-

with 32MB of
memory in this age of dropping
RAM prices? The XKU ships stan
Price $2,848 (as configured);
dard with a single 6AMB DIMM.
Give It a few buddies; The most
$3,448 (with 19-inch monitor) fpootl
accessible memory slots we've Company Micron ftrtffcM
ever seen can accept three 128MB Phone 800.209.9686
DlMMs for a total of 384MB. URL www.micronpc.com

[cdmpiete breakdown eR ^^ultsjS;available

bootNetPointyouro 3t,com.

mE, KHAKI,
^UPE, CREAM,
DR OFF-WHITE?
A forward-thinking
company like Micron
should come up with
zanier color schemes.
Where are the blues,
blacks, and purples?
Sigh.

MAR 98 boot 87
 TTnTTI
ViCAM Color Digital Video Camera
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe
Probably the only thing cooler enough, this AVI^WAIN-compliant device Did we
than a still digital camera is a has the option to swap out its multi mention the one-

motion digital video camera, and element glass lens from the Included touch button that will grab a
TWAIN snapshot or start/stop an AVI?
we're hard-pressed to find one 6mm/f:2.0 to an 8.0mm/f:2.5 or f:2.0 in
. that performs as astounding as either 12.0mm or 3.6mm. There are six and a demo of Facelt PC biometric face-
1 the miniscule ViCAM camera resolutions, ranging from 160x120 up to recognition and en/decryption program
does, In any price range. a staggering 1280x960 (Interpolated). with a $30 rebate coupon. The base is
Connecting to the parallel port Automatic White Balance (AWB), less than solid and provides for a wide degree of
(and providing a pass- 1 lux sensitivity, 4Hz swivel, and yes, the LED can be turned
thru) via a 9-foot cable to 60Hz scanning, and off via software. The focus control was
and completely shutter controls of too sensitive; we would prefer a dial
powered by a PS/2- 1/4 to 1/30,000 of a that advanced in incremental clicks, but
style keyboard port, second make the for the amount of detail it allows we're
this camera picks up ViCAM superior to all not complaining.
where the popular other cameras in low- Yeah, it's a keeper.
Connectix Quick-Cam light conditions. —Daevid Vincent
leaves off. The picture Included in the
quality is sharp, bundle are a compre
detailed, with bright hensive video/still-
colors responding up This close-up of my eye reveals that I wear blue image grabber and Price $200
to AOfps in black and colored contacts. Notice also the reflection of my ($50 for 3 lens kit)
camera-tweaking tool
finger and the camera In the shot. We tried to get
white and 30fps in an Image of the inside of my retina but couldn't get named ViView, MGI Company Vista Imaging
color mode on an EPP a light source directed Into It without the pupil PhotoSuite SE and Phone 650.802.9685
port. As if that weren't closing. Damn. VideoWave SE Plus, URL www.vistaimaging.com

G-Police
Symphony of destruction
The first AGP title, G-Police delivers some of sions, as well as
the most lavish graphics ever to hit your FMV billboards, a
Direct3D card. Glowing weapons slam into la Blade Runner.
aircraft that spiral down to a fiery explo Advanced
sion, casting ambient hues on the sur sound support is G-Pollce's brilliant explosions light up the night sky as well as the surrounding buiidings.
rounding cityscape. However, while G-Police offered through both Q-Sound and Dolby Unfortunately, extremely difficult
is a showcase of state-of-the-art hardware surround modes. While it's nice to experi missions with unclear motives are the
acceleration, several design flaws keep it ence intense firefights with the advanced only way to enjoy the game's intense
from becoming a truly great game. stereo effects, the cacophony of weapons visuals, since multiplayer support is
Presented for your viewing pleasure are barrages and explosions drowns out your absent. The game follows a linear story
oodles of semi-translucent Shockwave instructions from headquarters. line, allowing passage to the next level
explosions, dazzling dynamic G-Poiice's arcade-like only when you've beaten the one before
lighting effects, and highly physics model doesn't It. It's easy to get stuck in mission-
detailed texture maps.
Aggressive use of alpha-
checklist allow many advanced flight repeat purgatory.
G-Police maneuvers. Your anti-gravity While G-Police pays intense attention to
blending confers upon every Version: 1.18 helicopter is limited to graphical detail, difficult missions and
thing—from the white afterglow Maximum Resolution/Color linear movements. No lateral control problems move compelling
of missile trails to the red and 1600x1200/32-bit movement is allowed, even gameplay off the scope.
blue flash of police sirens— Win95 Native though strafing would come —Sean Downey
the eye-pleasing subtlety of 3D Acceleration in handy. You can't loop,
real-world radiance. On a DirectlD and you're curiously locked
Rendition or 3Dlx card the DirectX
out of attitude controls 'MClct
frame rates consistently DirectOraw DIrectSound
when your nose Is pointed Price $50
hover around the mid-20s at Directinput
at a target. Force feedback Developer Psygnosis
640x480. AGP ups the ante Specialty Controllers
Is supported, but for some Publisher Psygnosis
Force feedback
with more frames of animation reason it slows frame rates Phone 800.438.7794
Win95 compatible
and higher-resolution explo to a crawl when enabled. URL www.psygnosis.com

88 boot MAR 98
 liirnriTe
Ray Dream 3D
Baby's first 3D steps
Ray Dream 3D is a great launching pad for easy as dragging
your 3D dreams. For less than a C-note, a behavior—such
this beginner's 3D modeler/renderer/ as "Bounce" —
animator/texture editor wiii prep you for from the Browser
hardcore, pro-caliber 3D applications, such palette onto the
as RD3D's big brother, Ray Dream Studio 5. target object.
In fact, RD3D's rendering engine is the Still, while
same as Studio's, minus a few models you can create
and shaders, and without symmetrical cookie-cutter
processor support for speedy rendering of scenes using the
mega-poly models. But these limitations SceneWizard,
result in a simpler interface that lets don't start
anyone create the next Babyion 5, or at bidding against
least the next Tron. ILM for the next
The SceneWizard provides step-by-step Star Wars trilogy
guidance to help you create your first 3D just yet. Thinking With practice, you can create fabuious 3D scenes iike this and impress your friends.
scene, based on one of four types of basic and creating in
scenes: 3D logo design, indoor scenes, 3D—via the free-form modeler—is much light and camera presets. When you get
outdoor scenes, and a PhotoStudio mode. harder than living in it. And creating ambitious, you can tweak the render
Not 30 seconds after the simple installa- custom textures with the shader editor is controls, such as adding atmospheric con
ditions such
Einarssi
as fog and
OlialBl a?) t ^ iPl
ambient
^ 1 , light.
.1. ..... .
When
TTiuJi .. ... 1. . . .1 1
you've
created your
iKcakl
Shadsrt
Mtlaiil
fr«h»n»
SdiMi.
polygon
.
• Owo 0>m PoiM Saatal Ten..
Picasso,
# » fJ RD3D
imports
! ■ ■ ■
and exports
The Current Shader Editor aiiows controi over You can customize the layout of your workspace formats such
The Free Form modeier used to create 3D objects
invoives manipuiation of geometric shapes on the eight different properties of any given shader. It as JPEG, TIP,
so that ail the tools you might need are at your
Cross Section piane and the Sweep Path piane. comes with over 400 custom shaders. fingertips. AVI, TARGA,
DXF, 3DMF,
tion, we were rendering our first 3D mas an equally taxing task. BMP, GIF, RIF, PCX, Corei Photo-Paint, and
terpiece without even cracking the spine of To make matters easier, RD3D comes Photoshop files. And vector-based files
the manual. And in a few hours, the with 400 custom shaders and over 100 from Adobe iilustrator or CoreiDraw can be
included tutorial will brief imported directly into the free-form
you on positioning your modeler, perfect for converting the
objects in a 3D world, free- company logo into a rotating 3D gif for the
form modeling, texturing corporate web site or warez front.
objects with shaders, Despite a few missing features, RD3D
lighting your scene, and is a steal at a hundred bucks. The
positioning your camera SceneWizard alone is worth the price of
correctly. Invest a little admission and will have you churning out
more time and learn the art 3D masterpieces from the moment you fire
of key-frame animation. this baby up.
Right from the get-go, —Erik Pillar
you'll be dragging-and-
dropping objects from boot
the Browser palette's 700
animation-ready models
to your scene, applying Price $99
textures and other attribut Company MetaCreations
When working on your scene, you'll create it in a working box, which has
es from the same palette. Phone 805.566.6200
three gilu iJiaiica tor X, Y, and 1. You can choose from various view
And basic animation is as options to view your scene on the fly(shown in Fast Preview mode). URL www.metacreations.com

MAR 98 boot 89
 fSv -
id
M ^

* '

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if -- ■■'- i

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T
Us! •lllll* 1 lililiUI: Jt

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Vol.2, No. 3 Vol. 2, No. 4 " Vol. 2, No. 5 Vol. 2, No. 6 Vol. 2, No. 7 Vol.2, No. 8 bOOtBAGKlSSI
APR 97 JUL 97
MAR 97 MAY 97 jun97 AUG 97 I North Hill Ohive, Surrf!4(if
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mow TO CONTACT US
I For questions regarding editorial content, advertising, subscriptions, back issues, or reprints:

1 REPR ISMK
Juanita Nessinger
boot
Regional Advertising
Imagine Publishing, Inc.,
Manager
150 North Hill Drive, | (415) 468-4684, Ext. 152
Brisbane. CA 94005 I
Subsoyrsnsafid customers:
subsCTtBe^bootnet.com Chris Coelho

Letters to the editor: ii® Regional Advertising

Manager
[email protected]
(415) 468-4684, Ext. 170
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Tiffany Suen
' itorial: (415)468-4684».».. i
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(415) 468-4684, Ext. 429

iaxes only: (415) 656-2483 Jennifer Barbeau

Advertising Coordinator
(415) 468-4684, Ext. 110
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 WITH JON PHILLIPS

The Glitch Chronicles:

The Glitch Comedy Hour has been entertaining the
masses since its first broadcast in 1962. But what
has become of ail the troupe members? Here's an
update on your favorite back-page personalities.

THE THIRD &IY • boot 01 FRAMCIS • boot 05 JACK KELLMORE • boot 06

Previously employed When we last left Despite protests from sur
by Five Guys our parsimonious rounding townspeople, the
Software, the Third computer novice, billionaire industrialist Is
Guy is now chief Francis had just proceeding with his plan to
technology officer for purchased a PDA lift his entire Feedbag,
Six Dudes With Play that was to fulfill Nebraska, chip fab plant
Money, a Silicon all his computing three feet off the ground
Valley start-up that needs. and move it 90 degrees
specializes in strip Unfortunately, clockwise so he can get a
ping naked and Francis was perfect view of the setting
rolling around In piles rohhed and heat- sun when he smokes cig
of venture capital. en to death out ars on the factory's back loading dock. In other devel
The Third Guy side of the computer store, and his PDA is opments, Kellmore is changing his first name to
replaces the Fourtn uuoe, who was forced to now being used by a crack dealer to keep "JackBenet" because It
resign after sexually harassing the Only Hot Chick. track of his Inventory. makes him feel pretty.

CHIEF BAGOGO • boot 07 THE CLIP ART GIRL • boot io SILICON

Our beloved Little Linda Collins, who "JACK"
news editor helped draw worldwide
has taken attention to the horrors APOLLO •
to locking of child labor In clip art boot 11
himself In sweatshops, has broken Having lost the
the bootLab free of her shackles and crown of World's
where he is now just a normal, Number One Fully
practices a healthy 4th grader. Her Decked Cyber-Dude to
multicultur favorite subject is a human-cyborg half-
al melange Computer-Assisted Arts breed, Mr. Apollo Is now
of Santeria and Crafts. "I still got training diligently to win
rites and It," says Collins. "And back the top seed. This
traditional Canadian cooking rituals. "Don't when Mrs. Reynolds summer, he will upgrade his
worry," says Bagogo when he emerges asks for a picture of a bunny rabbit, I give her a bunny liver with a 4.5GB Seagate
from the lab with a boiling cauldron of rabbit. None of that 'l-can't-color-between-the-llnes' Cheetah hard drive and
indeterminate stink. "This time I made It crap that the 3rd graders are pushing." undergo surgery to
withoutthe mojo." remove another 20lbs. of
unnecessary muscle mass.

MR. BROWN • boot 13 JACKIE AMICO* too/74

boots latest hire The purveyor of all cards ISA
was accidentally has added a new hardware cat CODY CAMARO • boot 18
electrocuted alog—Jacqueline Amico's The lead
during an over- Gentle Living—to his spring developer of
clocking exercise line-up. Sale Items include ISA Timmy Got
at the bootCamp tea dollies, ISA porcelain fig Popped lost
facility in New urines, and ISA manger scenes. the libel suit
Hope, Kentucky. "We've found old ladies prefer against himself
We are currently the ISA bus because it's more and now just
09/26/97 11/03/97 looking for their speed," says Amico, hangs out at
another young adding that his delicate ISA col the half pipe
buck who's ready to jumper his way into lectibles "actually run a lot slower If you put them In a and sells him
popular legend. hutch Instead of a motherboard." self fake pot.

96 boot MAR 98
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