^/\^ PeaK /\^/\
What's new... is old again
January to June 2000 News
June 2000 News
June 1, 2000
Its been two months since my last entry. The time
has been occupied into new research work in
the RF design area. ATI's stock took a beating
this quarter based upon
earnings that were not in keeping with past performance. The Rage 128 and derivatives are still
great chipsets for modern day 3D games but the effects
of price erosion due to competition has had it effects.
In terms of compatability, quality and features, I still
think that those "in the know" will recognize ATI
to be in the lead overall in terms of what you want
to do (it does 3D just fine). The next generation
product called Radeon was recently voted the "Most
Innovative Product" at the
Integrator Forum Europe 2000. Below is a snippet:
Munich (daf) - On the occasion of the Integrator Forum Europe 2000 at Monte Carlo/Monaco (may 17th to 20th) ATIs new grafic processor RADEON was elected Most Innovative Product by the system integrators present. The meeting was attended by 67 manufacturers and 193 leading system integrators from 26 european countries.
The Integrator Forum Europe offers a discussion platform for system integrators from Europe and manufacturers of computer components every year. Manufacturers here have the chance among other things to present their products, technologies, and strategies to a multitude of system integrators.
CHIP Background: Integrators should know - they are offered insight into new technologies as well as test samples rather early. A good sign for Radeon.
CHIP is one of the leading computer mags in Germany.
April 24, 2000
The power of "Terminator 2" on your PC is here today
in the form of ATI's fifth generation graphics
processing core chip called the
. 4 more
articles/mini-reviews can be found at the sister
ATI centric website called
Rage3D...enjoy.
Alan Dang (formerly of 3DGaming) lives on at Firing Squad. Read his report
here
It was in the fall of 1998 when the first
0.25um graphics chip was developed into the
state of the art CMOS process. The delays back then
where entirely centred on debugging random processing
defects leading to non-ohmic connections. This time
around with the the Radeon, the 0.18um process was fully characterize for such faults using ATI's own
proprietary
test development vehicle to fully verify silicon
design libraries and new design methodologies.
When the best selling Rage Pro was released in 1996,
it was also a WinHec demonstration that kicked off
the best selling and standards defining chip of its
time...the Radeon is set to repeat but with an
architecture that is scaled far in advanced of
the software kernel in terms of 3D T&L support which is
10x faster than the CPU derived rates...which are now
limiting system performance. The gestation period for
AGP was long enough that those who bought at beginning
of AGP's introduction were eventually rewarded
with game support but also interoperability
problems due to proprietary implentation of hardware
AGP chipsets talking to AGP graphics cards.
The pure software aspect of T&L will see a summer
renaissance in 3D gaming realism and performance.
One of the area's is realtime support of "facial expression" generation just recently introduced
on the BBC for Television broadcasting
in the form of Ananova.
April 12, 2000
The TV signal coming in from your antenna or Cable
is converted a shield metal tuner to a baseband signal
between DC and 6 MHz called PAL or NTSC. This signal
is a composite of syncing, colour and luma/brightness
information. At this point, any TV with S-Video input
on a composite input can display this signal.
It is the same signal outptutted by camcorders.
It is also this point where it is logical to sample
and convert the signal to a digital signal for
display on a computer.
The "Rage Theatre" chipset is a 1st generation
video decoder (TV-in) and
decoder chip and 3rd generation
playback/TV-out (encode) chip. It is capable of
displaying the output of a computer
monitor to a Televison
screen with great clarity and sharpness. A logical
use of this has been to play games on a large
screen...anyone who has been following the
Sony/Nitendo wars will realize that this sounds
reminiscent of Microsoft's
X-box proposal predicted to ship
in the 3rd quarter of 2001. A lot can change and
get cancelled in that interval.
I see a better solution in the form of "near" diskless networked
computers with keyboard input replaced by a generic
replacement remote control units and some sort of
generic Sony/Nitendo/Gravis game controller. Throw in
cordless remote keyboard and it becomes a Internet cafe station.
Cost can be a 486 based Linux system with a 420MB drive
(cost about $30 used and refurbished).) Over Ethernet,
you will be able convert the station into a TV providing your
server has something like an All-in-Wonder graphics card.
The current Rage 128 technology version comes either with 16MB
(Brooktree based decoder) or 32 MB(Rage Theatre based decoder).
The Rage II, Rage Pro and Rage 128 versions of the AIW are currently
supported under Gatos or "General ATI TV and Overlay Software".
A recent development is the
support of
the Rage Theatre Chip under Linux. So all you owners of
the AIW 128/32MB and the AIW 128 Pro can look forward
to watching television directed by Tux.
FEATURE COMPARISON CHART
|
|
ALL-IN-WONDER
128 16 MB
|
ALL-IN-WONDER
128 32 MB
|
ALL-IN-WONDER
128 PRO
|
|
Memory
|
16 MB
|
32 MB
|
32 MB
|
|
True color 2D/3D accelerator
|
RAGE 128 GL
|
RAGE 128 GL
|
RAGE 128 PRO
|
|
TV-Tuner
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Stereo TV
|
Yes4
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Video capture
|
Yes
|
Enhanced by ATI RAGE THEATER
|
Enhanced by ATI RAGE THEATER
|
|
Hardware DVD acceleration
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
TV/Video output
|
Yes
|
Enhanced by ATI RAGE THEATER
|
Enhanced by ATI RAGE THEATER
|
|
DVD Audio output
|
Dolby Pro Logic™ Surround Sound
|
Dolby Pro Logic™ Surround Sound
|
Dolby Pro Logic™ Surround Sound
|
|
Digital Audio output
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Digital VCR
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Real-time Video Compression
|
ATI VCR1, ATI VCR2, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2*
|
ATI VCR1, ATI VCR2, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2*
|
ATI VCR1, ATI VCR2, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2*
|
Available
versions
PCI
AGP 2X
AGP 4X
|
Yes
Yes
No |
Yes
Yes
No |
No
Yes
Yes |
As you can see, the Rage Theatre only comes with
cards with large 32MB memory footprints. The advantge
in going to the 16MB version is support under Linux,
today. The 32MB Rage 128 Pro version will only be
available in AGP and will sport AGP 4X support.
April 8, 2000
A segment of the population derives its lifeblood
from critiquing equipment incessently in the hope that
they are transforming the appetites of the consumer.
After a while it gets pretty predictable, stomp on the old
and heap glory on the new. The bylines are
remiscent of those of "autopilotad men" proclaiming newer
and better soaps. So it is refreshing when someone takes
a hard look at a one year old chipset/card called the
Rage Fury and gives it the
A recent review of the Rage Fury by Scott Myer was bought
to my attention by the Rage3D site. The last two
pages provide his
overall impression and
conclusions
of the Fury as a great
video card with the goods. Namely: Very sharp high resolution
2D screen images/text, fully featured (DVD and TV-out), and
better than Nintendo/Playstation graphics.
I finally upgraded to a Rage 128 card courtesy of my company in lieu of
overtime on some recent hardware projects and upgraded (finally)
to a motherboard with an AGP slot. I am also running a more mainstream
version of Linux freshly installed on a 5.1 GB drive. The common thread
here is that I am buying about a year behind the "state of the art"
and getting some pretty decent deals. At the end of the day, I still
go back to my debian based Linux installation and VT based ATI graphics
card (2D only) to get real work done without the "hiccups" and application
faults common with new hardware and software. When I am in my
"hacker hardware" state, I'll get around to putting in TV in window,
add the CD-ROM burner, network those unused orphaned 486 Win31 machines,
and ignore the easy route to "video crack" called Time Demos running
in altered states on Pentium IIIs on 21" monitors.
The high school shootings do share a disturbing similarity to
the Quake Arena TimeDemos. The desensitization stuff does hit
you until you turn on one of man's more refined senses called
sound. Next time you run a time demo, put on a anti-vietnam
CD from the 70's (Joni Mitchell, Neil Young) and watch
the blood splatter as grenade shooting guns are lauched into the
mid-riff of an opponent to the
calls for peace in the world from
a twenty-something Mr Young. It is a small wonder that the accused
"shooters" at Columbine did not stop after the first casaulty
at the sight of real physical suffering...they were trying to
complete the level. Autopilot on full. Just some things to
remember about a very sanitize industry occupying a larger and
larger percentage of land fill.
April 7, 2000
The average life of a television set is about 14 years.
It will change in 2006 when the FCC has everyone
switch over from NTSC terrestrial broadcast
to HDTV. There are already programs in place
recyle heavy metals from CRT tubes and to ease
the precious landfill issue. In the computer industry,
the chance of having printers, monitors, CPUs,
motherboards and the like of reaching 14 years
of age would put the likes of Apple, Dell,
Compaq, and yes, ATI on a smaller growth ramp.
Here are a few articles dealing with this issue:
- "Recycle that Computer!"
- Computers and Landfill
Many people know what happened when Win95 came out
and when they attempted to run it on a 486 computer...
the "snap and response" of Win31 was gone. The only
way for a lot of people to regain it was a new
computer. If the OEMs in the world invented USB because
the average user cannot replace a add on peripheral
card, you can imagine the amount of orphaned computers
finding their way to the street corner.
Win2000 requirements for 128MB will probably cause
similar hardware angst. One elegant solution is
to migrate to Linux...you can be sure the world will
be witness to an interesting experiment in seeing whether
Linux can salvage a good percentage of the systems
as secondary networked computers.
I have recently upgraded my system to an
ASUS P5A-B (AGP slot with PC100 DIMMs and a
AT compatible form factor...recyled by case).
Linux is running beautifully in the system under
Red Hat Linux. I have been able to finally use
AGP video cards and can report that the Rage 128
cards run very well under the
3.3.6 XF86_SVGA
server. To get your Rage 128 cards to
run under Linux, click here
March 8, 2000
ATI's next generation graphics chip is just one
of several chips being developed in 1.8V 0.18 micron
feature size.
ATI will be at the Game Developer's
Conference.
ATI's in-house capability to define and develop
proprietary low voltage analog building blocks provide
a definite advantage over competitors who rely on outside
providers. These providers are only now prototyping DAC, PLL, and
op-amps. ATI was the first company to release a 0.25um
graphics chip a year and a half ago and is again set
make this claim with 0.18um technology. Coupled with
their traditional strength of buidling large complex
ASIC designs, you can look forward to a level of
features and integration that give shape to
new possibilities on the PC. Read
about ATI's next generation
Feb 23, 2000
Linux Expo ran with the sounds of Quake 3 Arena
on ATI graphics cards. It has been about two months since
the register spec for the 3D interface for Rage Pro and
Rage 128 was opened up to
the Linux community. Click
here for more information on this, the talk
by David Johnson of ATI, Scott Draeker of Loki Entertainment,
and the Linux OpenGL port called Utah-GLX
ZD Net's article on Linux picking up its game
Feb 17, 2000
Much has been said of the Rage 128 DVD quality when
it was first introduced in August 1998. Here we are
16 months later with a quantitative measure
in the form of the Video2000 .
Indepedent test at SharkyExtreme and Hot Hardware
confirm the industry leading result
(over Nvidia Ge256, Matrox G400 and VooDoo 3500),
benefiting from embedded hardware
IDCT algorithims within the Rage128
Support...whether it be for new operating systems,
new graphics chips, or older hardware is a very demanding
process. The recent release of 4.11. driver for the Rage 128/128 Pro family of cards
and features (DVD, TV-out, TV-in) have worked around
numerous application issues with game developers, DX7,
benchmarks and Internet Broswers. Enjoy.
For those of you with enough memory (>64MB) and disk space
ATI now has Beta drivers
for you
to try out.
The Microsoft Windows 2000 CD will include drivers for RAGE 128(TM), RAGE XL(TM), RAGE XC(TM), RAGE Pro(TM), RAGE LT
Pro(TM), RAGE IIC(TM), RAGE II+(TM), RAGE II(TM) and Mach64/VT(TM)
Now that is what I call support.
For many of those who come to this page seeking
information on drivers, 3D, and dare I say ....Linux.
I suggest
you go to one of the many excellent links
found on these pages, instead. I'm looking at discontinuities
in this information age that impact
the broader realm of social context. This means
looking at how technology can improve and knit a more
secure, teaching/learning, and
locally autonomous (small is beautiful) environment.
For a consistently timely and excellent site on
ATI/3D related news go to Rage3D site.
Now all of this does not preclude Linux, 3D, or driver
downloads but you will not find stuff like:
- My 3D benchmark is better than theirs/yours
- Pentium IV in 700MHz,800Mhz, 900Mhz and XXX GHz
flavours
- This slot is better than that slot
- The higher moral ground...I've seen this in
high end audio magazines since I was 10.
As Robert Pirsig put it, I am emabarking on
"An inquiry into Values".
Feb 3, 2000
One of the things we take for granted is the exitstence
of "textmode". The 6845 CRT controller was the common thread
in the IBM PC architecture and has been exploited by
Linux kernels based on the i386 processors and Pentium
Derivatives. What happens when Linux is ported to
Motorola 68000, Dec Alphas and Amigas ? How do you
support graphics. Some of these details were discussed at
the LiuxExpo 99 with a presentation on
Linux Frame Buffers.
You can download PDF documents from the
homepage of
the presenter. The standardization of the memory map
for the frame buffer in PCI/AGP based video cards
has enabled development of the
VESA framebuffer specification
allowing for almost universal PC Video Card support
when running X11 graphics. It is currently being
exploited to support the Rage 128 based cards
under Xfree86 XSVGA serever in Release 3.3.6.
Some software patents are definitely frviolous
and border on being obvious and detrimental to
the whole progress of society. That famous
on line book ordering operation called Amazon.com
has filed for a patent essentially equivalent to
the notion of "cookies" used in Internet Browsers.
The seminal Richard Stallman offers his
two cents on the matter.
Show corporations that such practices
are a detriment to society and
as Stallman suggests.
HDTV made its presence known in North America almost
two decades ago in 1981. Conceived in Japan as providing a 16:9
film format along with improved resolution.
The proliferation
of computers and digital encoding resulted in the
proposal for an all digital broadcast system by General
Instrument in 1990. Beginning with the CBC, the first North
American 13-hour mini-series was shot called Chasing Rainbow.
A recent roundtable of experts
from the fields of broadcast,
postproduction and cinematography discussed the near future
of HDTV. HDTV equipment has successfully been used to
make films
with the most significant >20x savings in the cost
of raw film stock. In the transition from conventional
film to digital tape, one of the facts not mentioned
is the incredible amount of shadow detail found in
CCD sensors found on HDTV cameras compared to regular film.
The flipside is the lack of exposure latitude for whites.
Directors will need to begin metering their environments to make
sure the whites are not overexposed and let the shawdows
take care of themselves and in post production.
Steven Speilberg would probably scream "Arrrrgh".
Jan 31, 2000
Audio Ideas is
both a highly respected Hi-Fi magazine and web site offering
reviews of traditional stereo equipment (its roots) and
, more recently,
Home theatre equipment and setup. The transition to
digital broadcasting/HDTV in the TV industry continues
the convergence between the PC industry and the TV media
industry. Affordable DVD playback could be found for about
1/3 the cost of traditional dedicated players by running
software decoders on "accelerated DVD" video cards
such as the Rage Fury. HDTV seems to be on a similar fast
track.
HDTV made its debut with Star Choice and Bell Express Vu
this week in Canada with the broadcast of NFL's Superbowl.
More info can be found on their offerings at
this link
ATI has already announced cost effective decode of
these transmissions via the Rage HDTV
chipset shown at the Western Cable Show.
Linux can have a potential Y2K problem with motherboards
that rely on BIOS clock routines to translate date/time
from the hardware clock chip. Since Linux accesses the hardware
directly, these BIOS "fixes" will not be seen. The Debian
Linux Kernel writes back the to the time to correct for
systematic offsets in the time base and this caused a
problem with my motherboard. Disabling this "write back"
during the system bootup sequence fix this.
Jan 21, 2000
The AMD K6-III with integrated cache is a superb
chip to run under Linux. William Henning of
CPU Review does superb orginal
benchmarking of motherboards. His
results suggest
that the AMD K6-3 is a giant killer/sleeper of a CPU
compared to the Pentium II and Celeron chipsets.
The really good news is that my current
Acer AP5T can be modified to accept this $150 chip
at the following page.
Jan 9, 2000
The search for a new motherboard just got easier with
motherboard.org.
One of the most configurable boards are the ones
from SOYO in the form of the
SY-6BA+III
It looks like the end of the road for my ancient AT case
and a move to the ATX format. The boards from SOYO are
very similar to the ABIT boards which replaced
"jumpers" for CPU voltage/frequency and memory frequency
to the realm of the BIOS. Newer boards from ABIT exist
which support the 80 wire hard drive connector called
UDMA-66 but I think I'll stick with good ole 40 wire
IDE.
Jan 7, 2000
The best sounding speakers per dollar in the world with
response down to about 30 Hz and the most amazing mid-range
and high-end would have to come from nowhere else but
in Canada with a world reputation for speakers that
listen well with the likes of PSB, Energy, Mirage, Totem,
Camber, Angstrom and Paradigm can now add a company based
in a small Northern Ontario city of Midland called
Newform Research.
I hope to purchase a pair sometime this year.
Remember the joy of talking into a walkie-talkie
to your buddy hidden around corner of a house and
planning an ambush on your favourite neighbourhood
nemesis ? For about $10.95, it was possible to purchase
a unit from Radio Shack. These units had a range of about
a block or 200 yards. Recently, FCC allowed part
of he FM spectrum centred around
469 MHz to be used
for two-way radio communication called
Family Radio Service or FRS. The advantages are
better fidelity and a communications distance of up
to two miles (3500 yards) or about 15 times the distance
of a conventional low cost unit. For more
information on what to look for in
a FRS radio and a chunk of reviews. It has all the low power features such as auto-power down,
standby, and even speaker-phone technology in the form
of handsfree operation. Amazing stuff...camping may never
be the same except that it is not leagl in Canada.
I bought a nice new three button mouse (the type
you will want to use with X11 and Linux)
for about $6. The defacto
use of the middle mouse button is for pasting in
Linux/Unix land. Six months earlier,
such units could not be found, a victim of the force
upgrade path pioneered by Microsoft with Word, Excel
and then Win XX based operating systems. Unbeknownst to
many, the same strategy was also forced upon the lowly
three-button mouse championed by Mouse Systems.
When upgrading from Win3.1 to Win95, the mouse will be
detected correctly and supported so as to not get too
may ex Win3.1 users running out to the 24-hour
computer store to pick up a 2 button (microsoft standard)
mouse. But....if you do a fresh install, the support
for Mouse System mouse is nowhere to be seen. This is
the competitive nature of Microsoft who's foray into
the mouse business has also forced them to deal
with Mouse Systems in this underhanded way to gain
their market share of mice. Do not despair, you can
always download the Mouse Systems
Win 95 driver. The interesting thing is that as Linux
offers Word Processing applications
that WORD compatible and also
office suites that are
Microsoft compatable. To read more about Win95 to Linux
woes, read Tony Baer's
Linux/Win95 mouse experience
under Unix and Win95
What do you do if you are feeling under the
weather with a common flu or cold for which there is
no cure ? How about a upset stomach that just saps
your energy ? I usually pack one vial of stomach
medicine with me when I go camping (along with
the aspirin) called
Po Chai pills.
They were instrumental in recessitating "Gordon" from
a nauseating morning of "waiting it out" cramps that
did not go away until 10 minutes, when he
relented, after he took the
pills. The other medecine is for the "chills" and fever
you get when you caught something nasty at work.
My sure fire remedy is to take a day off at the onset of
flu symptons and wrap a towel around the neck,
get into house clothes, drink lots of warm liquid,
take a couple of Chieh-Tu-Pin, jump under
a blanket and cook my fever. I'm usually almost myself
the very next morning.
"Small is Beautiful"...truer words were never spoken
by E.F. Schumacher. Ever long for the days when running
out of milk meant a nice walk to the corner store
instead of get in the car, drive to the mall, pick up milk
and the drive back home. My home page was run by a very
decent "small" outfil called Angelfire as is
my remote email. The recent acquisition by LYCOS has
to me meant slower response, server downtime, and no
email access. Globalization ugly side rears its head again.
The Rage 128 chipset and all the associated
graphics cards (Rage Fury, Xpert 128, etc) is now in the official X11 driver
distributed by the
Xfree86 organization. Read the release notes
for more information. Strange thing is that the page
has removed reference to the lastest pre-release driver
3.9.17 and you must know the ftp download link or click
on the following ftp link for FTP Rage 128 Linux X111
driver.
Things to do this week are to consolodate links
for Rage Fury Pro reviews and the Rage 128 MAXX.
When the dual card SL1 Voodoo configuration became
available way back when, I never blinked but the
media frenzy was hard to ignore. Boy have we come
a long way in a year and a 1/2. Technology like
this has a way of filtering its way down and up to
the newer generation of chips. Still living with
our heads in the sand but some wonderful partnerships
and developments are underway.
Picture a low powered burgular alarm system possibly
powered by a long term battery system (possibly with
a tricke charge from the AC outlet) with no wires connected
to the various motion detectors. This could be a hub with very
little intelligence but communicating via the ether
to your home computer (answering machine, temperature control,
home lighting) via Bluetooth.
Picture if you will the tripping of a burgular alarm
that calls you on your cellphone via alarm/computer dial-up.
You can then listen remotely to the disturbance via
mikes and decide to talk to the intruder via speakers
and say nice millenimum grettings like "take a long walk
on a short pier" or the like. Turn on a hidden video
camera remotely and then call the cops. So much for
having a outside company monitor your home. I linke the sound
of Pentooth, my self but then I've have a thing for
penguins.
