July 30th

Radeon 9700 vs. GeForce5

The ATI Radeon 9700 card has been announced, and will be available by the end of August.  It is about 50% faster than the current graphics card leader, the GeForce4 Ti 4600, and will be about the same price. NVidia has never ignored a challenge, and right on cue has leaked some details about the so-called NV30 chip, the basis for the GF5 line of video cards. 

What you aren't hearing about is how much this hurts NVidia.  They just finished rolling out the GF4 line of cards a few months ago, and distributor shelves are finally full.  That's no time for the enemy to show their improved wares, forcing NVidia to spill the beans on their next part.  Now any hope of keeping momentum with the GF4 line is dead.  Sure, kids will still buy them dutifully at Best Buy or CompUSA, but sales will wither as folks in the know hold off on purchasing, now that they know new cards are on their way. This is why graphics companies are so tight-lipped about new products.  They need to sell the old stuff first.  Expect big GF4 price drops soon, and big Radeon 9700 price drops when the GF5 debuts.

While both new cards are DX9 compatible, don't expect any DX9 capable games for at least 6 months after MS releases DX9 for download (October??).

                                 Dr. John

July 27th

Is Microsoft Starting to Lose it's Grip? (and will Bill Bribe His Way Out?)

Numerous stories have garnished the front pages of news sites recently which indicate that some analysts, corporations, and even some governments, are talking about switching from Windows to Linux. It may have started almost a year ago when the Gartner Group recommended that corporations using Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) switch to Linux Apache Server to avoid viruses. Similarly, a story at BBC News suggested recently that folks should stop using Microsoft software to prevent viruses and other nasties.  Indeed, it was only several months ago that the Peruvian government was threatening to mandate the use of non-proprietary software in all government departments, in this case to save money over Bill's exorbitant wares.  That is until Bill himself met with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and donated over half a million dollars worth of money and software. Now other governments, like that of Taiwan, are giving Linux extensive lip service in hopes of getting Bill's philanthropic attention. 

Others dismiss this pseudo-trend away from Microsoft as a..... well... a pseudo trend. Or at least an errant stray from reality.

So which is it?

                                 Dr. John

July 25th

Radeon 9700 Driver Deficiency 

ATI has never been known for great quality video drivers, but with the release of their new "Catalyst" driver set, many had hoped ATI was on the road to driver recovery. But for those of you who have dealt with ATI drivers, you will know that ATI has distinct drivers for different operating systems (check their driver page; link below). NVidia, on the other hand, has long had a unified driver file that detects the OS, and installs the correct files.

The reason I bring this up is that ATI has announced they are not planning on writing a Windows 98SE driver. Not a big deal for Windows 2000 and XP users, but there is still a large base of users who are happy with 98SE, and it's lack of "Windows product activation" annoyances. This means that ATI will either limit their potential customer base right off the bat, or will force more people to upgrade to a newer OS.  My guess is a little of both will happen.  In either case, it makes it hard for ATI to convince customers that they have finally gotten the hang of writing high-quality drivers that cover the existing operating systems on home computers.

                                 Dr. John

The Inquirer

ATI Driver Page

July 24th

Mindless IP Kills JPEGs!

It seems almost too demented to be true.  But after years of JPEGs being a free web standard for compressed web images, the company that holds the patent says it wants money from all folk who make products capable of displaying JPEGs.  Or as Mike Magee would say... "All your JPEG are belong to us". Considering the patent runs out in a year and a half, "Forgent" (which sounds suspiciously like fraudulent) had better put it's litigation cap on and get to work. Another day, another law suit.  

Are these bozos related to Rambus???

                               Dr. John

The Register

Forgent

Killer Meteor Due to Hit Earth

If it's orbit can be confirmed, asteroid "NT7" is set to hit the earth at 28km/sec, causing vast destruction.  Fortunately, we have until 2019 before the ultimate whammy arrives.  Of course, it could miss the earth too, predicting orbits that far away is a tricky business.  But the orbit of NT7 does cross earth's orbital path, and at 2 kilometers wide, it's a doosey!

So get your affairs in order folks, you may only have 17 years left to write your will.

                               Dr. John

BBC

July 21st

Radeon 9700 50% Faster Than GF4 Ti4600!

Anandtech has the review posted, and the results are devastating for NVidia.  The new ATI Radeon 9700 card is literally 50% faster than NVidia's best in Unreal Tournament 2003. Typically, new video cards beat the best of the last breed by 15% or maybe 25%.  Adding 50% to NVidia's benchmark scores is a massive coup for ATI, and is certain to make the 3D graphics wars heat up big time. Expect NVidia to take notice, and act.  They have many tricks up their sleeves that they can pull out for the next round of graphics chip, but my guess is, they are still several months away from being ready to release it.  So if you haven't bought a GF4 yet, don't.  Either get a new ATI card, or wait for the GF5! Or, if you are bargain hunting, expect Radeon 8500 and GF4 cards to drop dramatically in price over the next month!!!

                               Dr. John

July 20th

"Let Them Eat DRM"

And you thought this was a free country, governed by the people?  Think again.  This is a corporatocracy. Bill Gates has much more to say about what legislation gets passed than you ever will.  The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has controlling tentacles all throughout Washington DC, in places you can only stroll between the felt-covered ropes as a tourist. 

Who cares? You should, if you use a computer.  "Digital Rights Management" is a euphemism which really means "Total Copy Protection" for all digital content on computers, and the government and Hollywood are working tirelessly to implement it as soon as possible, before the public can respond. And if the latest DRM workshop is any indication of their intent, they don't want to hear one peep out of the public on this topic.

As I have mentioned before, the ramrod in the government for this move is Senator Fritz Hollings.  So if you have any objections to the government legislating the mandatory disabling of computers from copying just about anything, a quick letter to Fritz might be in order.  Not that he will listen to you over Hollywood execs, but if he gets enough negative feedback from the public as we approach the elections of 2002, you just might put the fear of "election defeat" in the old boy.

                               Dr. John

NewsForge

The Register

Fritz

July 18th

MS Longhorn to be Incompatible with Windows

A story by Arron Rouse at the Inq discusses Microsoft's upcoming successor to Windows XP.  His reasoning is rational, and his conclusions disheartening for Windows users.  Microsoft and Intel have announced that "Longhorn" will not be backwards compatible with Windows, or Windows applications.  Indeed, to avoid further legal complications, they will probably name it something other than Windows XX.  Maybe Billowns? All the court remedies against MS refer to the Windows operating system, so if they come up with a different, incompatible OS with a different name, they circumvent the remedies.

But to me the really risky part of this move is that many Windows users feel compelled to stay with Windows, in part because they have a large base of Windows software.  If all that software becomes incompatible with the new OS, a major disincentive to leave the MS camp has been eliminated.  A move to Linux at that point would be just as easy, and much less expensive and proprietary. As business becomes more and more dependent on computers and software, proprietary file formats become riskier and riskier.  How do you open your old Office files with the new system?  Perhaps pay Bill for a file translator utility?

Part of this push isn't directed at the legal problems MS is having with the DoJ.  Part of it is wrapped around the new "secure computing initiative", which will lock down PCs and prevent much file copying, and of course CD or DVD backups.  So the OS will be locked down, the applications will be locked down, and the files that the applications generate will also be locked with encrypted security features. The good old days of computer freedom are numbered.

How many of you would buy a new MS operating system, and all new games and software, if the new OS were no longer backward compatible?  Remember, no new updates for the old OS, and no new drivers for new hardware!

With this move, Bill gets to see how much control he really has over the PC operating system, and how many users are basically addicted to MS software, for good or for ill. 

                               Dr. John

The Inquirer

July 17th

Is There a Direct X 8.1/AMD Bug? (Ask Microsoft)

A report at the Inquirer, and a support page at Microsoft say that there is a bug in the Direct X 8.1 optimization code for AMD processors.  I am not sure if this means 3D Now! extensions, or what, but it apparently only applies to Windows XP. 

The MS support page says that the problem occurs in some Windows XP installations when the "DrawIndexedPrimitive" function is called, and stops responding.  Microsoft admits that it is a problem with their optimization code, not a problem with AMD processors. Makes me wonder how much Intel paid MS to include the bug. :)

I have seen several different problems with Windows XP on AMD systems, but because an error code is not generated with this problem, there would be no way to know what had gone wrong after a machine crashes, or drops to the desktop. So if you have an AMD system with Windows XP, and it is doing funny things with some Direct X 8.1 games, get the patch, and you should be fine.

Where do you get the patch?  Good question.  Microsoft is atypically keeping this one close to it's vest, and insists that afflicted users call their support number.  How convenient. Microsoft's "preferred" fix according to the support page is for victims to wait for the next Windows XP service pack, which may just be released any month now.  Thanks Bill!  You're quite a guy.

                               Dr. John

NVidia Beats Moore's Law!

My favorite writer over at EBN, Jack Robertson, has a very neat story on NVidia's conquering of "Moore's Law", which states that integrated circuit processing power doubles every 18 months or so. NVidia's Vice President of marketing, Dan Vivoli, says that NVidia has been able to double performance every 12 months, thus undoing poor Moore.  Dan also says that because console technology only doubles every four years or so, consoles will never replace high-end PC game machines.  (Duh!).  But I am glad someone involved in making Xbox consoles actually admits this!

                               Dr. John

EBN

July 16th

Microsoft: Do the Wrong Thing

Is it just me, or does Microsoft almost always seems to "do the wrong thing" when offered a choice between good and evil?  I can't think of a single thing they have done recently that would give me confidence in their corporate behavior.

Many of you may not know that even the new Mac operating system, Mac OS-X, is made by Microsoft (only kidding!).  But the scuttlebutt is that Bill is very miffed that only a small number of Mac users have upgraded to the new Mac OS, and is downright angry that most of them haven't ponied up $400 for Mac Office X.  Awww. Don't you feel bad for Billy? As you might expect of immature brats, Billy now says he's going to take his ball, and go home, which you can read about here.

And what else is Bill up to?  Don't forget the do or die deadline for signing up for "Microsoft Licensing version 6.0" is July 31st (what happened to versions 1 through 5???).  Pay less now for software that may not even exist later this year, or, if it does materialize, pay more for it later. As some reporters have noted, this will affect Microsoft's really big customers, with thousands of licensed copies of their monopolyware.  Ready to dig yourselves in deeper guys?  Then just buy into Bill's licensing scheme.  Don't forget, all your "new" licenses will be software leases, you will no longer own the software you use.  You can read about that here.

What else?  Well, Bill is trying to undermine MPEG-4 with his own (proprietary, of course) digital media project, code named Corona. This will form the heart of the new media player, which of course will be free at first, until Bill has a monopoly there too, and then you'll most likely be forced onto the "Licensing 7.0" bandwagon.

Is there more?  Much more, but I'll end by just mentioning my own personal knowledge that Bill is working very hard with friends of mine to infiltrate the storage and dissemination of patient's hospital records (BizTalk for HIPAA). Just what they are planning to do here is anyone's guess, but it doesn't make me sleep any better at night.

                               Dr. John

Down Jones Average?

It seems that recently, every time George Dubya opens his mouth, the Dow Jones becomes the Down Jones.  Now the Senate is putting in their two cents with a corporate corruption bill, and the results are predictable. Down Down Down Jones goes.

If you go to any Dow Jones tracking website (e.g., BigCharts), you'll find that each time you hit the refresh button, the average is... you guessed it, DOWN.

I guess what they say about things that go up is really true.

                               Dr. John

Pentium 4 Overclock Woes?

Rumors are spreading on the web that overclocking Intel Pentium 4 Northwood CPUs can be risky, especially if you boost the core voltage too high.  Some speed freaks have managed to get their P4s to 3GHz with a core voltage of 1.8v and mongo cooling, but much to their consternation, the chips seem to fail after awhile. Some just don't overclock anymore, others appear dead.  But the culprit seems to be voltage (above 1.7v), not speed per se.  As trace lines in integrated circuits get smaller, movement of metal ions (electromigration) becomes a larger problem.  And it is certainly true that higher voltages can push more atoms around. So if you are overclocking your P4 Northwood (0.13 micron), don't go above 1.7 volts! OK?t 

                               Dr. John

July 12th

Rambus vs. DDR... Two Years On

A couple years ago, when Intel was pushing Rambus DRAM for all it was worth (actually, for more than it was worth), it was highly debatable which PC memory standard would become the preferred architecture.  Well, here in the middle of 2002, it seems clear who the winner turned out to be.  According to reports, over 90% of all motherboards sold in the next few months are expected to be DDR-capable motherboards.  No one is sure how many Rambus DRAM boards will be sold, but it's definitely less than 10%.  That is a niche market, not a major player.

The other interesting outcome of these facts is that DDR DRAM prices are rising.  The reason is at least twofold.  First, the high demand is putting the pinch on supply. Second, the switch from PC2100 to PC2400 to PC2700 to PC3000 DDR memory is fragmenting the manufacturing capacity.  The result is always the same... increased prices.

The irony of all of this is that Rambus Inc is doing just fine, because they managed to con 7 or 8 DRAM makers into paying Rambus royalties for DDR DRAM just before Rambus Inc lost it's court case against Infineon.  As such, Rambus is pulling in big royalty bucks on a technology they did not invent, but rather that they misappropriated from the JEDEC memory standards committee while they were an active member. So DDRs success is Rambus' success.  It's really quite sad to see despicable behavior so rewarded.

                               Dr. John

July 11th

How Much Will the Opteron Hurt Intel?

There has been a lot of speculation on the impact that the upcoming AMD Opteron will have on Intel's Xeon CPU sales. I hadn't really given it much thought until I happened to glance at Xeon prices recently.  Server-class CPUs from Intel have always been the company's big cash cow, yielding massive profits compared with desktop CPU sales. 

So just how much is Intel charging for Xeons these days (as they wait for anyone.... please anyone, to buy an Itanium II)?  I hope you're sitting.  Here is the price on Intel's newest 1.6GHz Xeon with 1MB of cache (source, Tech Data, 7/10/02): 

INTEL - BX80528KL160GE (TD#:277463) 9 Available

BOXED XEON 1.6GHZ 1M 400FSB S603 MP (UPC735858152631) (Active): $3,785.12

I just love the 12 cents at the end, it reassures me that they worked the price out to the nth degree. But one thing is obvious to me, if the Opteron cuts into Xeon sales even slightly, Intel's cash cow won't keep mooing. This has got to be a major concern to Intel, considering they have never had an X-86 compatible competitor in this high-profit market.

A lot is riding on AMD's ability to produce a corporate-accepted server platform, to get it to market in a timely fashion, and to coordinate the proper motherboard and software support, and ensure everything is in place at launch time. The server version of the Opteron (code named Sledgehammer) should be available early next year. It will be very interesting to see how well AMD can pull this off.

                               Dr. John

July 9th

Hollings vs. Boucher... To CD, or Not to CD...

Many of you may know that Senator Fritz Hollings has been working tirelessly with your tax dollars to make sure you can't burn music CD's, share any kind of software content, or in general, do many of the things computers were developed for.  This is Fritz's "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA)" which will ensure that the only code that  software firms will be able to distribute in the future must have embedded copy-protection schemes approved by the federal government. Sounds really special, doesn't it?

Well along comes Democrat Bill Boucher, with his move to strengthen the "fair use" provisions in existing copyright law.  That would allow users to make backup copies of their software and music, without violating copyright laws.  So it looks like we have a battle of the titans brewing here, with Hollings and Boucher on opposite sides of the ring.

We all know how irritating copy protection has gotten in recent years.  You can't make copies of computer game CDs, but you need to put the CD into the CD drive every time you want to play the game.  This is not only time consuming and irritating, it is hard on your master CD disks, which you can't make copies of.  Here, we have a LAN with 4 to 5 computers, and it's very hard on game CDs to keep moving them from machine to machine, day after day.  Many of our original game CDs (often costing as much as $50) are getting scratches and marks that will eventually make them stop working.  Sorry folks, you can't make a backup copy and use that... this software is copy protected to keep evil game players from pirating the disks.

Well this type of protection is now moving to music CDs, and will eventually cover all forms of digital data (which is the primary form of data in the modern world).  So if you are getting a little irritated with the meddlings of the likes of Fritz and his entertainment industry backers, maybe it's time to write Fritz a polite, but forceful note.

                               Dr. John

The Fritz Line

Wired

America's Army, Ops Recon Problems? You're not alone.

Many of you that have downloaded and tried to play AA Ops Recon may have experienced problems.  Me too.  But there are some solutions.  Did you get an error message when you tried to install the game?  Most likely that's because you haven't upgraded to Microsoft's Direct X 8.1. If you can't get past the first training mission, it may be because you haven't set up an account, and gotten an email reply from their server that let's you proceed. Want to start a LAN game? Forget it.  You'll need to wait for the "server pack" to be released before you can do that. Right now you're pretty much stuck playing on overloaded servers that will not even let you continue after completing a mission, because the information can't be sent to the server.  I can't say I much like this odd way of structuring a game.  It seems as though the army is keeping track of everyone's progress, which makes the prospect of Big Brother seem almost tame. It could be a fun game, but it sure is hard to tell with all the hoops they make you jump through ("Git yer big fat butt through that hoop Soldier!").

                               Dr. John

AA FAQ

July 4th

America's Army, Operations Recon Released!

You may have heard that the US Military has been working on a multiplayer first person combat simulator called "America's Army, Operations Recon". Well, it's been released, and it's available for download.  It is based on the new Unreal Tournament 2003 engine, and is therefore the first title to be released using the new engine. If you have the bandwidth, you can get it here.  Happy Fourth Folks!

                               Dr. John

July 3rd

Does Abit Have a High Failure Rate?

An interesting story over at the Inquirer suggests that Abit motherboards may have a higher-than-normal failure rate.  From our experience over the last 5 years, it seems that Abit has good batches and bad batches of motherboards.  According to one web site, most failures can be traced to bad capacitors. 

One thing is clear. As computer parts prices drop lower and lower, manufacturers will cut costs wherever they can, even if that means using sub-standard capacitors.  You can't stay in business if you don't make a profit (Enron and Worldcom aside). 

We have had our share of bad Abit boards (and we have the "corpse pile" to prove it too), but Abit is not particularly good about replacing bad boards. However, now there is an alternative.  The guy with the web site that complains about Abit's failure rate has a vested interest in the problem.  For $40, he'll fix any bad Abit board you have.  Not a bad deal, considering the description of the work he does, including replacing all the capacitors with higher quality parts.  So if you have some special attachment to your dead motherboard, now you have a good solution to your problem.

The Inquirer

Homie's Motherboard Service

July 1st

Microsoft Is At It Again: Part II:

I have no idea where the truth lies in the story I just read, but it sure is interesting.  According to the Swedish PC game developer, "MindArk", Microsoft has prompted Swedish officials to raid MindArk's offices looking for illegal copies of Microsoft software.  The really scary part is, MindArk says it has licenses for all of it's MS products, and that Microsoft is actually trying to delay the release of MindArk's new online game, "Project Entropia". MindArk goes on to say that when their website went online, they kept careful track of where the traffic to their site was coming from.  They say the most frequent visits have come from Microsoft itself.  

We are entering a new age where Microsoft can even get foreign governments to intercede on their behalf, perhaps based on false testimony given to the officials by Microsoft representatives.  We can hope that if MindArk's allegations are true, that MS ends up with large legal bills, and a large damage settlement leveled against them.  Money is the only thing that Bill understands.

PC Gameworld

Microsoft Is At It Again

If reports I've read are true, Bill isn't waiting for the next edition of Windows (Longhorn?) to implement the beginnings of his "non-functional, secure computer initiative" or whatever it is called. The computer industry is under severe pressure from the government and industry groups to take many of the copying and recording capabilities out of computers, in order to protect "copyrighted content". 

Toward this end, Bill is offering a new Windows Media Player patch, which is intended to fix the 3 large security holes in the player.  But when you look at the end-user license agreement, you'll see a notice about "automatic (compulsory) future patches" that reads like this:

"You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management ('Secure Content'), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use reasonable efforts to post notices on a web site explaining the update."

So there it is in print, straight from Microsoft.  Just like the introduction to the Outer Limits, they can now take control of your system.  They can install debilitating "patches" that will "secure" your system from "digital rights infringements", meaning no more MP3 ripping. 

Want Windows security?  Give your machine over to Bill, and he'll take care of it.  Permanently.

My question is, how long can Bill keep this kind of crap going before he starts to drive significant numbers of users away from Windows.  He is hoping you're addicted, and that you can't or won't switch to Linux. Let's hope that he has overestimated his stranglehold on computerdom.

                                Dr. John

The Register