Mac Rainbow 6 Single/Multi-Player Tips: Issue 6 of the Mac Rainbow Six column covering tips and strategies to help you stay alive.

Barney Buoy sent today's list of Other Net News and Software Updates (listed at the bottom of daily news)

3Dfx Comments on Mac Models/Status: As I cautioned earlier on the Macnews.de CeBit show comments, Brian Speece of 3dfx (Mac product manager) again tells me that final models (SKUs) for the Mac have not been determined. Here's Bryan's comments just received on the matter:

" No SKU's have been announced. No one can claim to quote SKU's authoritatively.

I'm not at CeBIT but I can tell you we're showing PowerMacs with PCI-based dual-chip VSA-100 boards in a press room there. Clearly - since we announced that Mac VSA-100 products won't be shipping until sometime in CQ2 - no one should be jumping to conclusions regarding the configuration of these early Mac proto boards. We realize a lot of users are anxious to get news of the exact nature of the SKU's and we're asking that they be patient a little longer.

I think the things that are more important to take away from the CeBIT showing - and that in Macworld Tokyo last week - are these:

1) Anti-aliasing is very, very cool and to see it is to want it. Experience 3D with AA and you'll never go back

2) The effort to bring the VSA-100 to the Mac is on-track

a) Quickdraw is running
b) Glide games are running (evidenced by Unreal and Fly!)
c) OpenGL games are running (evidenced by Quake3 and Pod Racer)
d) a, b & c are being demonstrated on the more technically challenging Voodoo5-class dual-chip board with SLI and 4-sample AA fully-enabled

They're coming... they're good... and they've got so much power it's practically ridiculous.
-Bryan "

Dual/Quad Chip 3Dfx Card Power Connections: A reader asked about the power connections on the dual and quad VSA100 cards. As shown in the early press photos, 3Dfx apparently is providing for additional power for the dual and quad chip cards to avoid the issue seen with Nvidia's GeForce in some motherboards. (The GeForce uses up to 6 Amps of 3.3v power in 3D games - a problem in some PC AGP slot motherboards which I saw personally with a friend's 1 Ghz Athlon that required a MB brand swap to get it running reliably.) As far as I know, all voodoo5 (dual chip) cards will have a power supply connection (HD power connector, etc.) to avoid any possible issues. The 6000 (quad chip/128MB) card has its own power supply based on a picture I saw. For more info on the VSA100 chip cards, see my previously posted Q&A/Press release page.

Clarification on Past IXmicro Driver Comments: A reader sent an update to the previous post here that commented on the hopes that the drivers for their cards could be released open source:

" I recieved this reply from a person connected to ixMicro regarding an earlier question regarding what will become of ixMicro's technical information and driver code. He apparently saw the previous post (but wasn't certain where he saw it, unless someone copied it off your site). He also makes mention of a new company. Here's the reply.

"I have sent all of your correspondence to Jack Lii, the former President of IXMICRO. I really hope that he does something for all of you guys. I also saw your correspondence on one of the Macintosh sights on the web where you took my response to you and made me either internationally famous or infamous depending on how you look at it.

Hopefully you would be so kind as to e-mail them... and at least tell them that the ATM Intellectual Property of IXMICRO's was purchased by a group of investors and will continue to market ATM NIC's for the Macintosh (the only company with such a boast).

We are also in Beta test with the world's first CardBus ATM 25M NIC that will work on Mac's and PC's. Just an FYI and hopefully you can use your contacts to help me with evangelizing our new company."

Best Regards
Richard Piotter "

OpenGL 1.1.3 on Firewire PB: Jeremy Hansen wrote that in addition to DVD player v2.1, OpenGL v.1.1.3 is installed on the new Powerbooks. I assume other new builds also ship with these versions.

PB Firewire DVD Image Quality: Here's what Jeremy had to say about the quality of the new Powerbook's DVD playback compared to a Sony Vaio PC:

"Mike,
..I can say that I did a side-by-side with a coworker's Vaio, and the 500 MHz Pismo looked way better - the Vaio had a lot of artifacts and noticable pixels around people during fast sequences. Jeremy Hansen
High Speed Logic Design "

Mac Voodoo5 (dual chip) PCI? A post in my 3dfx forums noted that Macnews.de has photos of the PCI Voodoo5 (dual VSA100 chip) 3dfx cards. These may be just PC models however, since as of this date, I have not seen official confirmation of a dual chip PCI model for the Mac. I've written to 3dfx to verify this but there are some nice photos of the card from the show at Macnews.de's Cebit 1 link, page 2. (No english version of the page that I could find)

Apple Game Exec Joins Nvidia: Muri Arnason wrote that IMG is reporting that Apple Game Technologies Product Manager Jim Black has left Apple to work at Nvidia as Senior Product Manager. Speculation abounds if this could mean an OEM deal/Mac support for their graphics cards or if it's just a career move for him. Jim had sent me a final copy of OpenGL 1.1.2 before the official release and based on talks with him, I think he will be sorely missed. Let's hope his move to Nvidia has other benfits to the Mac market.

The Rate Your CPU Upgrade database had another entry today from an iMaxPowr G3/466 upgraded iMac (in this case a rev C/266). I encourage all owners to enter their comments and ratings as well. (There are more than 3,350 entries in the database currently on literally every upgradeable Mac and upgrade brand.). There's also several entries from iMaxPowr owners with Game Wizard cards in the searchable Mac Game/Video card performance database.

$64.95/128MB Generic PC100 Dimms: A post in the forums noted a very low price at asr-online (but $18.95 shipping to the lower 48 US states) on generic PC100 128MB Dimms. They should work in Beige G3 and later systems but I've not tested generic SDRAM (mfrs may vary by day at some large volume dealers). [A reader asked if these dimms are taller than 1.25 inches (for Beige G3 desktop use), but I don't know.]

Final Cut Pro Capture to Plus40 in Firewire Case: A reader sent word that his Maxtor Plus40 drive mounted in the Clubmac Firewire/IDE case worked fine for Final Cut Pro capture:

" I was most likely the first to find out about the maxtor 27 gig drive not working in the clubmac external firewire enclosure. I got an RMA to return the clubmac firewire case yet held onto it long enough for the success story "here" regarding the Maxtor 40 gb and was able to purchase the drive at a local Costco (seattle) for $279+state tax. (doubt any are left!). Anyway... without much work at all i was capturing via Final Cut Pro to the 40gig clubmac firewire combo....

After capturing a 20 minute clip I am pretty confident all is well. I made a few cuts and tried to get it to drop some frames.. but couldn't make it fail. So I think we are safe to assume this drive in conjunction with a bridge to firewire is fine for DV editing -in my config :-) Its not to say that one of the smaller partitions (of four that I made) would behave differently... but considering the density and speed of this drive... and that the limiting factor is the firewire to ide bridge being the bottleneck... I think all is well.

config. OS9, FCP 1.2.1, QT 4.1 on an imac DV SE with 196mb of ram.
waiting for my new G4/500 :-)
cheers,
Jake Danilchik "

I believe DV is only about 3.8MB/sec rate, but good to know the drive works well. As I noted the other day - I saw 14MB/sec writes that were flat as an ironing board (no sags/spikes that could cause dropped frames).

Due to a reader's request, I've added a few pictures of the ClubMac Firewire/IDE case to the article as well as graphs of performance with the Plus40 drive installed.

Audio Capture with Plus40: The following is a post from a forum thread on IDE vs. SCSI from someone in professional audio field that notes good performance with the Plus40 Maxtor drive:

" ...10k Cheetahs and Atlas are a real pain in the recording studio because of the high-pitched whine that interferes with proper mixing. Really, I could care less about the Maxtor's 40GB size - audio drives rarely need to be larger than 18GB, at the most. Anything beyond that is luxury. What impresses me about the Maxtor is what I've said below: no errors, quiet operation, and massive throughput. Last night I put both the PT session AND the DV movie files and played them back together, and had no problems. Try that with a PCI-based SCSI disk.

And about reliability and craftsmanship - all drives fail; it's inevitable. I've watched helplessly as Cheetahs spin down in the middle of a recording session with clients hovering over my shoulder with that sort of blank look on their faces. Internal or external, no drive is completely reliable.

As I said below, the only reason that many in my profession continue to buy SCSI disks is interstudio compatability, i.e. taking your disk to work in different studios, etc. SCSI disks are fine for servers and ultra high-end Avid video, but for everyone else... Forget about it...
DJS "

Sam's Club WD Expert 20GB Drives $114.98 After Rebate:

" SAM'S Club has Western Digital 20.5GB Caviar Expert 7200RPM ATA/66 Drives on sale for 164.98. $50 SAM'S rebate is available through end of March: end price is 114.98. Jennifer at ClubMac says that Western Digital is more compatible than Maxtor with the ClubMac Firewire/IDE enclosure. [ See the Firewire/IDE case article here for more info - Maxtor 6800 series 27GB and Plus40 drives seem fine-Mike]

ClubMac still has them in stock and tech support says that they work fine with PCI board firewire (as opposed to built-in).
Regards, Cal"

See the ClubMac Firewire/IDE case article for price-matching info I posted here recently. (I got the ClubMac case for $112.95 plus shipping from Jennifer at ClubMac - they may still match the Buy.com price.)

More Firewire PCI Cards (3 and 6 port):

"Hi Mike
www.firewiredirect.com/products/adapters.html

3-ports adapters for $89.95.
6-ports for $10.00 more.
2-port USB + 2-port Firewire for $129.95.

So technically 1st gen. PCI-Macs could use an EIDE drive w/a Firewire case, right? Think this would solve the A/V issues (as seen w/the Turbomax w/the EDIE's? If so, would this make more sense than the Turbomax or ACard? I wonder if this setup could somehow exist internally... [ I'm not sure if the Firewire/PCI Cards wouldn't have the same issues as the PCI IDE controllers-Mike]

A 9600 or Genesis w/internal EIDE-drives that don't suffer from those A/V problems would be great.
thanks,
Ryan Tanaka "

Note that their specs/compatibility page lists OS 9.01 as a requirement (?). If anyone has tested a Firewire PCI Card with one of the Firewire cases for A/V capture or playback please contact me with specifics (card model/mac model/drive/OS, etc.).

More Info On B&W G3 Striped RAID Boot: The reader that reported the bootable B&W G3 RAID (when other drives were unavailable) in yesterday's news sent more info on his configuration:

"Hi Mike.
My Raid is set up as striped with two 9.1 GB, 10,000 rpm drives forming a single 18 GB volume. I am using a Cheetah and a Western Digital. I know for best results the drives should be the same, but I had the drives and decided to try it. I'm using Softraid 2.2 for the raid and Apple's driver for the two IDE drives. I suspect that there may be some problems with using a raid for the boot volume, so Apple intentionally disabled that option. I did not have any problems, but I only had it running for three reboots after which I was able to resurrect my IDE drives (about 30 min. total). Then I was back to booting from the other drives.

In the Startup disk control panel the raid array is always dimmed and unelectable. It was only when no other drive was available that it booted from the raid.
Regards,
Simon O'Donovan"

As noted in yesterday's news, both Apple and Softraid mention the issue of bootable striped RAID arrays, so this was an interesting story.

More USB Mic Info: The latest reader comments in reply to the recent thread on USB microphones and headsets:

"I haven't used one, but have come across online shops that sell them:

http://www.microphones.com has a mac section under their microphones page, and also sell a USB mic.

http://www.speechcontrol.com/microphones/ sells a USB adapter that sounds like the iMic (but is more expensive).

Thanks for keeping the site going!
Sacha Brostoff"

See yesterday's news for previous reports of USB mics.

Other Net News/Software Updates:

NEWS
• How much power do we need?
• The future is DV (Techweb)
• CNets 10 most popular desktops computers users are looking for right now. - 4 are iMACs
• Another Seagate 15,000 RPM Cheetah official press release

  SOFTWARE

• Eudora Pro Email 4.x Updaters
• Civilization: Call to Power 1.2b Update

For a blast from the past, see what was on the main news page one year ago today and two years ago.

The recent features page also lists articles posted (most recent first) as does the sidebar links here. The site topics pages (systems, cpu upgrades, etc. - see top and sidebar links on this page) also are places to check as well as the FAQ.

Thursday's News Summary

• News links, TIL and Software updates
• New PowerBook DVD Feedback
• Roger Wilco Alpha Download
• USB Microphones
• Bootable Firewire Info
• Western Digital Firewire Drives
• Ricoh DVD/CDR Combo Drive in B&W G3
• More Info on Mac SoundBlaster Live Driver Release
• Firewire/IDE CDR Info
• iMaxPowr G3/466 w/iMac Game Wizard Quake3/Quake2 Performance
• IBM ViaVoice and Headsets
• Wanted: PB (Firewire) DVD Playback Reports
• B&W G3 SCSI RAID Booting?

Wednesday's News Summary

• Maxtor Plus40 Performance in Clubmac Firewire/IDE Case
• Comments on Clubmac firewire case
• Rumor of OEM Soundblaster Live Deal
• Newer iMaxPowr 466 & iMac Game Wizard A-OK
• Pismo PB G3/500 Game/MacBench Performance
• U2 Cheetah vs IDE
• More B&W G3 Rev 1 Drive Upgrade Reports
• Ricoh DVD/CDR Combo Drive at Computer City
• Pioneer 10X DVD in B&W G3 Report
• WD 10GB/Platter Caviar IDE Drives
• Another Headhunters Quake3 Mod Tip
• Future of IXMicro Graphics Card Drivers
• Quake3 Smoke Tip for Voodoo3 Cards
• The Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews and Mac Game/Video Card Performance databases were updated with new entries.

Tuesday's News Summary

• $99 128MB SDRAMs (222 code)
• $112.95 Firewire/IDE Case
• $100 Initio Miles Ultra2 Cards
• Maxtor 40GB Drives & Firewire/IDE cases
• Newer Tech Lowers Prices
• PC 39160 Controller Flashed To Mac ROM
• $369 18GB Atlas 10K RPM Ultra160 HDs
• PowerBook Firewire G3/400 MacBench Scores
• 6800 vs Plus 40 Maxtor Drive Models
• Another Mac IDE ATA/66 Controller
• Q3A HeadHunter Classic 1.0 Tip
• Top Selling Mac Games
• Blue Label PC Emulator 1.6SE
• Other Net News/TIL Updates/Service Manuals

For links to older news pages see the Archives page.

The recent features page has a lists reviews/articles you may have missed.

For a guide to finding answers to questions - see my Site Guide page.

Considering a CPU Upgrade? Search the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. The current database has more than 3,300+ reports and growing.