NVIDIA ForceWare 67.02 (HL2) PowerColor releases an X700 XT MSI releases two boosted GeForce 6600 Serial ATA PX-716A 8 GB compact flash card

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NVIDIA ForceWare 67.02 (HL2)   Posted on 16/11/2004 at 19:24 by Marc

	NVIDIA has discreetly released on line the new ForceWare, the 67.02 (not yet WHQL certified ). You can download the download the drivers here. Here is the list of new features included to these drivers: Added new Performance and Quality option-Negative LOD bias: This control lets the user manually set negative LOD bias to "clamp" for applications that automatically enable anisotropic filtering. Applications sometimes use negative LOD bias to sharpen texture filtering. This sharpens the stationary image but introduces aliasing when the scene is in motion. Because anisotropic filtering provides texture sharpening without unwanted aliasing, it is desirable to clamp LOD bias when anisotropic filtering is enabled. When the user enables anisotropic filtering through the control panel, the control is automatically set to "Clamp". Unified Compiler optimizations Bugs Fixed: - GeForce FX 5950 Ultra: Operating system failure with the game Flat Out. - GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, Windows XP: Shadows in the game Angel of Darkness render incorrectly in a room with two light sources. - GeForce 6600, Windows XP Media Center: HDTV 1080i display corruption occurs when underscan mode is enabled. - GeForce FX 5200, Windows XP: Character model shading in the game Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is rendered red instead of gray - GeForce 6 series, Windows XP Media Center 2005: Live TV audio stutters when viewed in Clone mode using the NVTV Tuner card. - GeForce 6800, windows XP: Video smears once you toggle WMP10 to fullscreen mode while playing a WMV HD clip It also has to be said that the main reason of this driver release is the release of Half Life 2. In practice, we noticed performances gains of 8% with the GeForce 6800 GT in 1600*1200 with anti aliasing 4x and anisotropic filtering (from 51 to 55 fps).

PowerColor releases an X700 XT   Posted on 16/11/2004 at 19:06 by Marc

	Tul has just announced a new Radeon X700 XT graphic card, the PowerColor SCS X700 XT. This card is equipped with a fanless cooling system called “Silent Cooling System » based on gold-plated copper heatpipes. Frequencies are 475 MHz for the VPU and 475 MHz for the GDDR3 memory (128 or 256 MB). This card is slightly slower than ATI’s reference card clocked at 525 MHz. The PowerColor SCS X700 XT is sold with Hitman Contracts and a « Thermal Detector » to monitor the graphic card temperature. We also noticed the presence of a fan in the bundle. Tul however doesn’t specify the fan size or how it comes to be here. So, is the SCS X700 XT a real fanless graphic card?

MSI releases two boosted GeForce 6600   Posted on 16/11/2004 at 18:56 by Marc

	MSI has just announced the release of two new GeForce 6600 PCI Express. These cards specificity is to have different frequencies compared to the original GeForce 6600. So the Platinum version is announced as 10% faster thanks to an overclocked GPU (exact frequency yet unknown) and a memory 10% faster. The Diamond goes even further with GPU and memory 33% and 60% superior to the standard 6600. Frequencies reach should be : - NX6600 : 300/275 - NX6600 Platinum : ?/300 - NX6600 Diamond : 400/440 - NX6600 GT : 500/500 Sold with Ground Control II: Operation Exodus and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell : Pandora Tomorrow, these cards are announced as silent (= low level of noise).

Serial ATA PX-716A   Posted on 16/11/2004 at 18:32 by Marc

	Plextor has just announced the release in December of the PX-716SA. This version is a Serial ATA declination of the PX-716A, and burn dual layer DVD+R at 4X speed, and single layer DVD+/-R. For rewriting it is possible to reach 8X for DVD+RW and 4X for DVD-RW. Writing speed for CD is 48X and rewriting 24X. Like with the PX-712SA, the PX-716SA shouldn’t be compatible with the chipsets VIA managing Serial ATA (cf. this page).

8 GB compact flash card   Posted on 16/11/2004 at 13:40 by Vincent

	Sandisk has announced the release in December of 4 and 8 GB Compact Flash cards. These cards will be able to reach a write and read speed of 20 MB per seconds. They are also announced as highly dependable with an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) of 3 million hours instead of 1 million on average for standard CF cards (according to Sandisk). 4 and 8 GB cards have a 7 years warranty.