Dan Kuraisa just sent a note that IXMicro's web site has info
on their 3dfx Banshee Mac graphics card the Game Rocket. The list price is $249 and no official release date is shown (it was first shown at MacWorld as noted here months ago).
This card appears to be identical to the VillageTronic MP850 card which as noted today had prices lowered to $269. For more on VT's NexGen 3dfx banshee cards, see my Interview with Villagetronic posted several months back
and there are some links on performance and tips in the sidebar and 3D Game News page. VT promised to send a review card once the Rave drivers were complete.
George Cole of Bottom Line says they have one 8MB Game Wizard left for $89.99 (my Game Wizard review used a 8MB version). If you want it better call to order (800-347-0052, ext#625).
Gene Steinberg sent a note that Arizona Mac Users Group (AMUG) has given his 'iMac in 24 Hours' book a top rating. He's posted the full text of the review at his web site.
I'm still waiting for official word from XLR8, but I've had a reader
say that he was told that XLR8 no longer warranties CPU Cards that are overclocked. (Not many companies do anymore.) I've twice changed reviews to reflect policies and just wrote for the 2nd time to XLR8 for an official answer on the current policy. I don't think there is any way to really tell what speed the card was run without perhaps a failure analysis on the CPU chip itself but since older reviews often noted the policy in effect at that time I'd like to know what the current policy is. A reader just commented in mail he was getting another card brand due to this (he figured if OC'ing was not covered he may as well get a Newer Tech card). Personally I would not let this determine which card I'd buy.
Ruffin Bailey sent an update to the earlier post on Quake 2/3Dfx drivers, this time including the text of a newsgroup post from Nate of Logicware:
"I've played Action Quake 2 on the Mac just fine. I don't know of any multiplayer mods that require client-side DLLs off the top of my head.
Quake 2 _does_ support InputSprocket, BTW. Writing the code was a
pain in the neck, but it does.
Activision QA actually spent a fair amout of time downloading a bunch
of different PC mods, slamming the data files in the Q2 mac
installation and testing them out connecting to PC servers. It works
very well. As has been said above, even if a mod's code does not get
ported to the Mac, you should still be able to play by installing the
data files and connecting to a PC server. You just can't _serve_ a
game unless the mod is recompiled for the Mac (which isn't that hard,
unless people diverge from the id codebase and write crappy code :-)
As for Voodoo support, that's not in our court. As an unsupported
option, people will be able to get the MesaQuake libraries to work
with Q2, and it should work on par with Q3test. Hopefully we'll see
Voodoo drivers from 3dfx before the Y2K bug kills us all ;-)
We are still waiting to see some bugfixes from ATI on the Rage 128
drivers. All my 3d games will lock up after several minutes of play
on my G3/400 unless I disable AppleShare. Not acceptable. :-)
Q2 is hovering very close to mastering now. Barring any last-second
show stopper bugs that pop up, the holdup is we don't want to master
until GL is solid, otherwise we'll get lots of customer service calls
and people will tell us we suck and we want to try and avoid that.
:-)
Nate Trost
Logicware"
The 3D Game News page has today's update from Frank. Too many items to list, including notes on Rage128 release and Brian Hook's comments on leaving ID software.
A reader sends a note on new drivers posted for Formac's graphics cards:
"Hi Mike,
I'm an owner of Proformance 40 lite. I was quite amazed to see that even
Bugdom works with it. The only cosmetic(?) issue I noticed, is a single
flickering scanline on the monitor when I see the game options page.
(The one with the spider).
Here are the links:
ftp://ftp.formac.com/public/updates/GA/
ftp://ftp.formac.com/public/updates/beta/Graphics/
The beta directory always has the latest release. It is now 5.4.4 beta
10.
Schaller Joachim
"
Site sponsor Other World Computing sent a note they have limited quantities of the XLR8 CarrierZIF card in stock:
"OWC now has limited stock of the XLR8 Zif Carrier. Selling price is $189. We are offering 2 Apple G3 ZIF pulls, as well as new ZIFs compatible with this carrier.
Z233IBM 233mhz G3/512k - $95
(Apple Pulls)
Z266IBM 266mhz G3/512k - $125
(Apple Pulls)
Z300IBM 300mhz/1024k - $199 (new)
Z366APL 366mhz/1024k - $299 (new)
All ZIFs sold by OWC are warrantied for 2 years.
Best Regards,
Larry O'Connor
Other World Computing, Inc."
Bottom Line just noted they have 22 CarrierZIFs in stock as well and indicated it has run well in their test S900 (among other Macs).
Marc Schmitt of Village Tronic sent a note on lower pricing on the MP850/MacMagic Pro and MacMagic (8MB 3fdx voodoo1 reviewed here):
"
I saw you mentioning an outdated price for MP 850 and MacMagic pro. The
current suggested retail price for both products is USD 269.
Besides that please note that we have a new price for MacMagic: USD 69.
Greetings
Marc Schmitt
Marketing Manager
VillageTronic Marketing GmbH
"
Alex Fuller sent a note that a a UK site called the Register has
an article on MS Unique IDs to reappear in Win2K. The article details info on W2K and the PC99 spec.
John Bachir wrote to say that not only was there a speed bump and 2nd video card option on the new Blue and White G3s (noted in yesterday's news) but the long awaited dual channel U2 SCSI card option and wider array of hard drives as well. See my First Look at the Adaptec 3950U2B Dual Channel 64-Bit Ultra2 SCSI Card for info on the DC U2 option. As noted back then, this card is only available from the Apple store (Mac version is not to be offered at retail I was told).
Thad Brown sent issue 42 of our Mac Audio Column titled
Price Cuts and GUI Ruts where
he notes a very special offer for Mac Audio fans - here's the opening comments of the article:
"Last Thursday I found an email from the Opcode press mailing list about massive price reductions in their software line. The gist of it is that Studio Vision Pro will not have a suggested retail price of $499, Vision DSP in a retail store will cost $199, and in the U.S. there will be a downloadable, .pdf manual only, no telephone support version of V-DSP for, get this, $59. I was sufficiently surprised that I personally contacted my man at Opcode to be sure that somebody from MOTU hadn't hacked their mailing list. Vision DSP is the app that I gave a fantastic review to and called the biggest software news of my first year at xlr8, and now you can have it for less than the cost of Peak LE. It was a value at something like eight times that price..."
Speaking of Audio, Ezra Klein wrote to ask readers to mail Diamond to ask for Rio (MP3 Player) support for Mac. He listed csmultimedia@diamondmm.com as the address to use. Sometimes an email flood is not welcome, and perhaps a petition would be better if anyone would like to start one (I'm too buried to handle it at the moment).
Ruffin Bailey of our Games section has posted an editorial on the closing of Microconversions. Ruffin also sent a note on Mac 3Dfx driver support (more details to follow);
"Here's some good news from Nate at Logicware... Looks like 3dfx is going to be writing our drivers from now on for Voodoo cards:
As for Voodoo support, that's not in our court. As an unsupported
option, people will be able to get the MesaQuake libraries to work
with Q2, and it should work on par with Q3test. Hopefully we'll see
Voodoo drivers from 3dfx before the Y2K bug kills us all ;-)
The attached USENET post also contains good news for Quake II on the Mac.
It seems that popular mods like Action Quake are going to be client-side
compatible with the Mac versions immediately upon Q2's release!
I'm excited. ;^)
Ruffin Bailey"
As noted here last year - I was able to get most of the PC Quake mission packs to work on the Mac by moving over the PAK files from a PC. I suspect the same should work on the Quake 2 mission packs as well.
Jonathan Ames sent a note on Iomega's PCMCIA slot Clik drive and I see there is a press release dated today on it. Here's a clip from the press release:
"
The Clik! PC Card Drive fits into a PC card slot, common in most notebook and sub-notebook computers today. Using 40 megabyte Clik! disks, the Clik! PC Card Drive offers unlimited back-up and expandable, portable storage options for mobile PC users. Iomega anticipates worldwide shipments in the third quarter. The Clik! PC Card Drive will be available for an estimated street price of $199.95 (U.S.) and 40MB Clik! disks are available at an estimated street price as low as $9.99 (U.S.) each when purchased in a 10-pack.
"
The note at the bottom of the press release indicates an expected 3rd Quarter release and othe disclaimers on pricing and compatibility.
Adam Dluzniewski (a Men in Mac volunteer)' posted a page on his frustrating experience getting an ADSL connection for his Mac. (There are other ADSL articles linked in the sidebar.)
A week or so ago I posted a note on a press release from HP on their announced DVD+RW drive which uses discs compatible with std DVD readers (not fragile like current DVD RAM drives). PC World has a new article titled Sony, HP Push Rewritable DVD talking about their DVD+RW drives that will begin shipping this month, priced at $700 or less.
PC World also has a new article on Apple's faster B&W G3s.
If you don't check every day's daily news (updated several times a day normally) you might miss something valuable. Check the summary list below for highlights of the last two days news and the archives page for older new page links. For a blast from the past, read what was on the news page here exactly a year ago.
Other Net News:
- Knowledge Workers Unite Microsoft initiative aims to make information available anywhere, in any format. (PCWorld)
- HP Goes Direct Web site will sell PCs to small and midsize businesses. (PCWorld)
Tuesday's News Summary
- 3D Game News updated
- Clarification on TrueX booting CDs
- More on UltraDMA HDs and data corruption (beige G3/IBM HD report)
- Interesting page on new Powerbook concept designs
- Audio dropouts not the fault of Turbomax card
- Enabling VM or disabling UltraSCSI can help audio issues
- Sonnet lowers prices on PCI Mac G3 upgrades
- Reader sees TrueX drive fro $99 after $30 mail-in rebate
- Apple speed-bumps Blue and White G3s, more options offered
- Readers report problems with 128MB FPM DIMMs in older macs
- Note on fake PC100 DIMMs (remarked PC66)
- Performance tests of OS 8.6 vs. prev. OS versions
- Quantum's complete explanation on Atlas3/Viking II AV drives & data integrity
- Note on company offering freeware office suite/mac developement halted?
- G3 CPU Upgrade Ratings database updated
- Other Net News
Memorial Weekend News Summary
- Review of the Kenwood 52X TrueX CDROM drive updated w/Beige G3 Minitower tests
- TurboMax/9600/Truex CD - can't boot
- CarrierZIF running 450/225/60Mhz bus in my 9600/350
- 3D Game News updated
- Formac Permedia3 chip based graphics card comments
- Discussion on Newer Tech PB 1400 G3 upgrades and VM/Ramdoubler
- More data corruption stories on WD Expert drive in B&W G3
- Table of IDE DMA Modes and max transfer rates per spec
- Reader report on ATTO U2 card and 3 U2 SCSI 18GB cheetahs
- Comments on MW article on hackers to blame for failures
- More on Yamaha 4416S CDR problem waking from sleep
- Comment on Cable lengths and WD Expert data corruption
- IDE ORB owner comments on disk changes in B&W G3
- TurboMax review updated for U2 Cheetah comparisons
- Frequently Asked Questions Updated
- Rate Your G3 Upgrade database updated
- Other Net News
For other recent site news/features links, see the Sidebar to the right and the Recent Site Features page.
