I think we all agree that Apple rarely seems to get a fair shake in the press, with reporters often expressing opinions disguised as facts. Since these articles can have a wide ranging impact, I'd like to know if you feel
the credentials of the reporter should be disclosed.
I've added a Poll to the latest Devil's Advocate article that discusses the problem of a one sided anti-Apple press whose opinions are often taken as factual.
Read the article and vote on the issue.
[4:45 PM Update]
NEC has started shipping 128 Megabit SDRAM chips according to this News.com article (just in time for Windows 98). 256 Megabit densities are expected to follow.
[4:45 PM Update]
Bottom Line sent word of a limited supply of UMAX S900L machines:
"
Mike,
We have a price of $1639.99 on the UMAX SuperMac S900L 604e-200Mhz
32MB/2.1GB/8xCD. It includes a software bundle and the IX Micro 8MB video card. This system is prime for a G3 upgrade, and priced right if you are not in the market for a G3 (ie: need more PCI slots, more RAM slots, internal SCSI-2, etc...) There are only a few left at ingram, so they are sure to go fast. We have up to 20 available.
Link:
http://www2.blol.com/bld_desc.t?edp=20537&level=l
Cheers,
George"
For more questions on the S900 offer contact George Cole at: gcole@blol.com. or check the Umax S900 web page. They also sent a list of
closeout items. [2:00 PM Update]
The new Fuse video capture card from Aurora Design (http://www.auroradsgn.com) arrived yesterday for review. In the back of the board's artwork was the words
"Dah FUSE Team Rocks!" - I like that attitude! For feedback from a Fuse beta tester, see the 4/14/98 news page. I will post a review next week after I test the card, I just have to wrap up a few reviews in progress first. Please limit support/troubleshooting related mails for the next week to allow me to catch up on reviews. News and Tips are always welcome (a lot less
time consuming). Thanks.
[12:00 PM Update]
George Cole has updated benchmarks at his 20th Anniversary Mac site. [12:00 PM Update]
Ultimate Voodoo II card: Quantum 3D, famous for their Obsidian dual and quad Voodoo chipset cards [PC only, sigh :-( ] has announced a dual Voodoo II chipset card (the Obsidian2) that does SLI (Scan Line Interlacing)
with a single card. Available in 16MB and 24MB versions ($599 and $699
respectively) they are taking orders at their website now.
Their cards also feature TV out and offer the highest performance
of any Voodoo card on the market, delivering 84.4 fps at 1024x768
in Quake II's demo1 benchmark. I wish there was a way to convince them to develop drivers for the Mac. Their cards are not just used for games, they sell to many high end 3D application users. I can
only imagine the performance that their dual and quad cards provide.
I've emailed them for availability and asked about the possibility of Mac drivers in the future.
Initio Audio Fix: John Cooper reported reducing the sound sample rate fixed a audio problem with movie playback:
"
Mike,
I just added an Initio Miles adapter to my system. I updated it
with the latest software from Initio website, and connected a Seagate
39173W external drive to it. It works fantastic, no problems, crashes,
etc...except for one. When playing back Quicktime/MPEG files the sound
will skip and pop. The only way to remedy this problem was to reduce
the sound output from 44.1 kHz to 22.050 kHz in the Monitors & Sound
control panel. Then no problem. This only seems to occur from the
drive connected to the Initio and not any of the others.
This is an 8500 with an XLR8 604e/200; running at default
configuration, and MacOS 8.1.
John W. Cooper, Jr."
Reducing the sample rate also increases performance in games and other apps as well, as it cuts the amount of sound data the system has
to deal with in half. It will limit the sounds to a max frequency of 11khz, but for most apps/games that is not an issue. All Inito Miles owners should be using the recent bios update available at the Initio web site. Details, compatibility info and the download link are at: http://www.initio.com/91miles.htm. Please direct
Initio support questions to support@initio.com (I'm buried in
support mail at this time - after almost a year of 7 days a week support of other companies products I need a break for awhile!).
OpenGL on the Mac: I got a flood of mail on yesterday's post regarding OpenGL on the Mac. Parker Beeson's mail had some additional OpenGl application information:
"
I also use Hash's AM98 that installs OpenGL and it smokes...The new CosmoPlayer (Netscape Plug-in) uses OpenGL as it's rendering
engine to view VRML files on the mac. It's *very* cool, but memory
intensive [warning-Mike]. Get it at http://cosmosoftware.com
Also go to http://www.cykar.se/download/ and get their plug-in which is also OpenGL based and also pretty cool.
Look at Conix's web page for even more supported apps like the new
Strata StudioPro 2.5 and Mathmatica."
Jim Stonebrenner sent a note on the Finder Fixer/Finder Heap Fix reader feedback in yesterday's news which may explain their problems. Parker Beeson also sent a guide to changing the Finder's size resource using ResEdit (as mentioned here previously): "
1. Start your mac with a CD-ROM, ZIP, JAZZ, second hard drive etc.
2. Make a back-up copy of your usual start-up drive's Finder and, using
ResEdit (or other resource editor), open the Finder and open the SIZE
resource. Scroll to the bottom and change the preferred size to
whatever you think is good.
3. Save changes. KEEP THE ORIGINAL FINDER handy somewhere. Put the
modified finder in your usual start-up drives system folder.
4. Restart -- wabaam! More Finder memory. Totally stable and without
an external app, patch etc."
Dealer Comments on 8500 Speed Limits: I've gotten several mails from owners of 8500 machines looking to upgrade to a fast 604E or G3 card, yet are worried that it will not work due to dealer comments that
the 8500 can't run faster than 200mhz CPUs. That's totally false - as I've proved many times here. See my CPU card reviews list for many examples that prove these comment are false. I've run the Powerlogix PowerBoost Pro 233 at 263mhz in my 8500, as well as running most of the faster G3 CPU Card upgrades (as have many readers - I can't count the number of 8500 owners running faster than 200mhz CPU cards now). The one limit 8500 owners will often find with any CPU upgrade is the stock L2 cache dimm - it will need to be removed (G3 cards) or replaced (604E cards) in many cases since the stock 256K cache dimm in most 8500's is not reliable at faster bus speeds or with most
G3 CPU cards even at 40-45mhz bus speeds. For 604E upgraders - see my Cache Crop page for options and for removal or upgrade instructions see my 8500 Cache Upgrade Tutorial for a illustrated step-by-step guide. Please try to limit support mail on this, I'm buried in mail now and it's impacting my
ability to add reviews and content that benefit thousands of readers.
Read the cpu reviews, search the site, check the FAQ and check the links page and forums for answers before you send mail for help until I can catch up. I was up all night answering mail again so if you could limit support mails for a few weeks I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
ByteMark DR3 Crashes: Uri Keich was one of many people experiencing problems with ByteMark and reports he found the cure:
"
Mike,
Good news! Persistence pays after all. In a final act of desperation I
decided to check whether the culprit (or at least the accomplice) in the
Bytemark crashes is the video system. Usually I use two monitors connected to my 7300/180 so I tried disconnecting them one at a time. It turns out Bytemark doesn't get along well with my IMS twinturbo 128M2 (this is Bytemark DR2/Motorola and DR3, as I mentioned in the earlier message DR2/CW runs fine). Once I ran the tests utilizing only the internal video everything went fine! ":
I've asked him if he was using the latest v4.02 Twin Turbo drivers from IXMicro. I had problems with both ByteMark versions crashing with a stock PTP 180 cpu card
and a different video card. However with the PowerForce card installed it passed. Go figure.
VPC 2.0 and RPC 1.03 Using Ultima Online: Jay Brewer writes with his experience with the game under the latest PC emulators: "
After an entire weekend of playing one of the most engrossing games I've
ever played - Ultima Online - I have this to say about compatibility of
RPC vs. VPC with respect to this game.
My machine:
266 g3 mt
96 megs ram
80 megs allocated to VPC and RPC
6megs vram
Ultima Online installs fine on both VPC and RPC. The typical install is
around 266 megs and this will fit on a WIN 95 disk that is 500 megs
easily. However for the best performance a 496meg install is required.
This can be accomplished by making the D: disk on both RPC an VPC a
separate 500 meg disk.
With this done On both emulators I of course started with VPC and Ultima
ran great - at first. After playing for about 25 minutes. The emulator
froze up and I could still switch between the mac and VPC. However I
couldn't shut the task down so I was in effect hosed in VPC.
I quit VPC and then restarted the mac to ensure VPC hadn't done anything
else. After restart I tried the whole thing again - logged into my
service provider - launched Ultima Online - played for about 20 minutes
- then it froze up again. I run windows in 1024x768 so I thought -
"Maybe it's the auto switching to 640x480 and it's causing some
problem." Well I tried this whole fiasco about another 5 times and
decided even though the performance was great - the crashing wouldn't do
with a Game so dependent on staying alive online like Ultima.
Thus I tried it on RPC. I logged into Ultima and the program's video
part ran poorly. VPC had run this great. It also seemed about 10%
slower. However after logging into the game - performance was about the
same (though a little slower - not much). After 20 minutes of playing I
expected a crash or something - none came. I played from 6pm Saturday to
3am sunday morning (I know - I am geek). Initially I was a little mad
the VPC wouldn't be the preferred emulator - the control click (left
mouse thing was better than having to press = on the keyboard) but after
learning more about the game this frustration was taken care of by using
macros within Ultima Online itself.
In a nutshell - RealPC is the winner here. It is much more stable than
VPC though the performance is a little less - but I'll take stability
over performance. I would appreciate any feedback from others who have
successfully played Ultima with VPC.
Thanks."
Jay requested I include his email address for feedback. I never do that except when specifically requested. Write him at: J.Brewer@handsontoys.com with your Ultima experiences on the Mac under the PC emulators.
For info on RealPC/Virtual PC check out the MacPC. Kevin has added some feedback from Connectix
on the finder quit/replacement tricks that you might find interesting.
Misc News from the Net:
I've been getting a lot of returned mail recently - so if you don't get
a reply it's not that I didn't try to answer it.
Need Help? Before you send email for tech support, please check the Help page or try searching the site (use quotes for exact matches! i.e. "mach 5" vs mach 5 which will match machine, 5, etc.) and to check the FAQ, Performance Basics, Links, and Forums for solutions to your problems or answers to tech support questions. They have a lot of good info and are a great source of help.
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