Guess what just arrived in the mail? Another driver version from MacTell for the Vision 3D Pro II card .Great timing, and it's number five since I started the review. I just finished another day of testing with yesterday's beta.

The review is posted guys! (But they know I'll check them out anyway). Maybe the problem with shadows in Rave Quake has been addressed. On the bright side, at least they seem to be updating at a frantic pace. It's just this cost me several days of testing on my vacation.

BTW - Mactell says the latest update boosted RaveBench scores by almost double. I'll have to verify that tomorrow. [5:35 PM Update]

Vision 3D Pro II Review: It's posted, finally. With the XLR8 G3 card at 322/214, it broke 1000 in the MacBench Graphics test, even at 1152x870, millions colors. 3D was not as good as I'd hoped however. Read the full review. [4:30 PM update]

Apple G3 drivers: Several readers asked if any of the new ATI drivers would work with the Apple G3 onboard RageII+ chip, so I asked ATI. They said no, and that drivers for it are controlled by Apple.

RealPC Tips/Gripes Page Posted: Since my news page changes every day, I decided to start a RealPC Tips permanent page. This way the page will accumulate reader tips, tricks and also specific gripes and bug reports. It's added to the Reviews/Features (site contents) page as well. Check it out! (A Virtual PC version will be started very soon as well - I just received the upgrade.) Thanks to Kobie Horne for sending info for the initial post.

I've also added a link on the RealPC Tips page to Microsoft's Windows 95 Tips page, which may be of help to new users of the OS. You can also try out there latest email client Outlook 98 here (but it's huge - 15 to 32MB, so the offer it on CD for a fee). Some of the magazines say it redefines the genre for features and ease of use (on the PC at least) and a "strong encryption" addon for US and Canada will soon be available.

Virtual PC Speed Script: Since I've gotten a lot of requests for it, you can now download the Applescript that quits the finder to speed up Virtual PC here. A premanent link is on the site contents page as well.

ATI PC graphics card in a G3: You probably aleady saw this in the forums, but it appears the ATI PC model Xpert@work has a jumper on the card labeled "VGA INT" which I think allows you to set the card for use as a 2nd video card in a PC. Here's "Mikes" message:

"want a cheap second grafic-card in your apple-g3? buy a cheap (always cheap, cheap, cheap...) pc-oem-ati xpert@work, set the jumper near the rom-chip to vga-int. enable and plug it into your g3. that's it! it works because of the g3 has its own ati-bios on-board. everything works (mpeg-accel./qd3d/res from 640*480 up to 1600*something) cool!"

My only question is since the card has the same chip and memory design (RagePro, SGRAM) and now that the white box (OEM) RagePro 3D card is selling for $159 (at Bottom Line) I wonder what the real savings are, unless the 8MB version of the Xpert@work is in the same price range. In fact, go to http://www.atitech.ca/products/features/ and compare the Mac Xclaim 3D to the Xpert@work, they appear identical in features (except the Mac card has both Mac and VGA monitor connectors).

Just a note about recent postings in the forum from some childish types. Please ignore them, as replying to their incitements just gives them satisfaction. Notify me of such posts and I'll erase them. Thanks.

Quake II demo: ID recently made a demo version (11MB exe file) of Quake II available. Beware it's much more demanding of hardware than the original Quake version. Jeff Melrose wrote in with these comments on running the demo in Virtual PC 2.0:

" I d'loaded the Quake II demo last night and gave it a run this morning. It's definitely a CPU hog, and runs fairly choppy at anything above 3/4 screen even with the Power 3D card running. If I shrink the screen size and minimize the sound, it's very playable though. I'm running VPC 2 on a G3/266 with 45M for VPC (Windows actually gets 32 M)"

Hard Disk ToolKit 2.5.2 Feedback:So far nothing but good reports! Anthony Cardinale wrote:

"I installed the update to a clean installation of FWB 2.5. The update went without a hitch. After restarting I formatted a Quantum Fireball 2 gig drive under Mac OS Extended. No problems there either. It seems to be working great!"

In case you missed it, the free upgrade to HDT 2.5 is available at: http://www.fwb.com/dc/hdt/hdt2.5to2.5.2updater.html

Apple 24X SCSI CDrom Drives: If you're looking for a genuine Apple 24X SCSI CD drive, ICNI has them listed for $189.

Noticed a new Apple TIL lists the Apple TV Tuner as not compatible with the Apple G3 Systems.

Mach 5 CPU card Overclocking: One reader who has chipped his 8600/300 CPU card to 350mhz reports all is well so far:

" It has now been more than 24 hours w/o a crash and the benchmarks are still right with the factory 350. (a little faster actually, 1% or so more) I don't know what to write but, if you will give me an idea of what is appropriate and edit it for me I'll try. As for pictures I used the info published on your site around the 16 or 17 of March. I may have access to a factory 350 that I can try to run at 400. I really need to get a better magnifier as my eyes are not what they used to be. (over 50 and all!) I'll start writing a step by step on what I did with the 300 this weekend and if you are interested send you a draft next week. "

I've asked him to write a tutorial with photos for posting here.

News.com has a story called Students rank tech employers which might help you find that dream job.

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