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In The World For August 7th, 1998...

AGN 3D Plane Crazy Shots-Update by G.A. Thrawn 2:40 p.m. Source: AGN 3D

Sega Soft sent Jeremy of AGN 3D some Plane Crazy screen shots, which supports the 3D Now! instuction set.

Dominon Preview- Update by G.A. Thrawn 2:24 p.m. Source: Johan Bengsston of Computers R Us

The pimp keeps feeding us the news!   Anyway they have a preview of Ion's Storms Dominon, they got more previews than you can shake a stick at!  Here's some of that old style lovin':

This was origanally on the 7^th level game creation agenda but they don’t exist anymore so one of their ex-employees (Todd Porter) brought it along with him to Ion Storm and it became their first game, instead of the much delayed Daikaitana. Storyline wise there is nothing new here really. 4 races are fighting on a planet called Gift 3 over some resources (Dark Reign or C&C anyone). Apart from the fact that it is 4 sides instead of 2 is the only difference really. Ion Storm that this game sports constant 30 frame per second action no matter what res your in and they also boast the cure to every RTS fans disease, the cure to dumb A.I. Let’s see if they are telling the truth.

G.A. Thrawn 1:56 p.m. Source: Johan Bengsston of Computers R Us

Those pimpz at CRus have another cool preview, this time of Wrath.   Here is some:

Your girlfriend, strip-show sensation Misty Waters, has been brutally murdered, and someone has pinned the rap on you. You’re now waiting out your last days on Death Row. But ex-Green Beret Major now P.I., Cud Savage (that’s you) is not one to wait for the Grim Reaper - he’s gonna hunt him down! Breaking out of prison, you’re now out for the blood of the corrupt pigs, dirty judge, and bungling lawyer who put you in stir - not to mention, you’re just itchin’ to grease the bastards who gutted your woman!

Your journey as an escaped convict from a remote Mojave Desert prison all the way back to where it all started back in San Francisco is fraught with danger. From high-speed chases in cars and on ATV’s, to gun battles with the mob in a supposedly ‘abandoned’ gold mine on the edge of a desert ghost-town, to death defying leaps from a crashing leer jet, to shootouts in Las Vegas casinos... the WRATH of Cud Savage won’t stop until everyone that did him wrong has paid the price. Along your journey you discover that there’s a lot more going on than just the cover-up of the murder of a nightclub stripper. You’re the pawn in a game that’s bigger than you ever imagined - but your WRATH knows no bounds!

Yet Another Klingon Honor Guard Preview- by G.A. Thrawn 9:45 p.m. Source: Planet Unreal

Yep, they keep coming in, this time from CGO, check out the article.  Here is a snippet:

At one point, MicroProse had three games in the works based on the Unreal engine. One, Star Trek: First Contact, has fallen by the wayside, but X-COM Alliance and Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard are still alive and kicking. The closest to completion is Klingon Honor Guard, and we recently had a chance to kick around a beta build of the game.

NT5 Looks to be Delayed More- by G.A. Thrawn 9:45 p.m. Source: C|Net

Well acroding to this C|Net article it looks like we've got longer to wait for NT5 :(.   Was supposed to include DX6 support and plug and play support for hardware, which means NT 5 would have been the first version of the NT OS that could be used as a gaming platform.

AGN 3D With Exclusive Wing Commander: Secret Ops- by G.A. Thrawn 7:58 p.m. Source: AGN 3D

AGN 3D has gotten some screen shots of Origin's upcoming free game, Wing Commander: Secret Ops.  I belive though that Origin or Jane's (which is the same company, but different divisons) has stated that they will not support the 3D Now! instuction set, but hey they're based in Austin like me, so I'll give em a break.

Another Klingon Honor Guard Preview-by G.A. Thrawn 6:14  p.m. C.D.T. source: Voodoo: Unlimited Power

Those pimpz at Voodoo: Unlimited Power have scored once more (lucky bastards! ;) this time on Klingon Honor Guard, which, in case you don't know uses the Unreal engine.  Here is some of that lovin':

"Phaser on stun! Ahaha! Take that you tart! Gnnnarrgghh!" We cry during the perennial game of pretend Star Trek, which tends to occur only after meal times. For you see, the only strange life form likely to be found round here is that which can only be in Al's bathroom, and that tends to have a half-life similar to that of nuclear waste. Enough said on that matter, I think. Back to lasers, tasers, phasers, strange new worlds and enthralling new civilisations. Oh, and blokes in suspicious leather/metal suits, with hideous pasty-shaped head mutations. Naturally. I ventured boldly forth in search of the truth behind Microprose's exciting new title, to seek out new civilisations, to boldly go…. Stop it.

www.amdzone.com To Be Reality!-by G.A. Thrawn 3:48  p.m. C.D.T. source: Me, Myself, and I

My pimp ass bro just called me and told me he registered the domain, amdzone.com and www.amdzone.com.!!   Don't go there yet, as there is nothing there, I still need to recive the pass word login, etc.  He also will be helping out on updating the page, this will be a big help since I start school in 5 days, and I am not able to get to my computer to update the site, he however can and will be able to update on and off during the day!  Also I'm still working on my article titled, "Which Game is the Best First Person Shooter?" as of now I'm done with the introduction, which is 1,500 words! 

Tom's Hardware Guide on K6-2 Performance Issues by G.A. Thrawn 1:28  p.m. C.D.T. source: Tom's Hardware Guide

Yep, Tom's at it again with more on the K6-2, if you are thinking of, have, or well just read his article ;)  Here is some to get you warmed up:

The first thing to consider is the memory question. Motherboards based on the ALi Aladdin V chipset usually are slightly faster than MVP3 chipset boards when equipped with 512 KB L2 cache. However, equipped with 1 MB of L2 cache, boards with the VIA MVP3 chipset currently represent the top of socket 7 performance. And they have another nice feature: The SDRAM clock can be either synchronous to the system clock or asynchronously, at the same frequency as the AGP bus. As you can imagine this allows more independence from the memory: On the one hand you can still use your tried and tested EDO which certainly was all but cheap still some years ago or 10/12/15 ns SDRAM memory. On the other hand you don’t necessarily have to go for PC-100 memory just to achieve an overall performance gain of approximately 3% which hardly anybody will notice.

Theif: The Dark Project Rebiew by G.A. Thrawn 10:20  p.m. C.D.T. source: OGR

OGR has a review of Thief: The Dark Project up, I'm not sure if this is new or not, but I'm going to post it anway.   Here's the intro:

Through recent years, Looking Glass may be known more for their flight simulators than anything else. If you're fairly new to the world of computer gaming, then Flight Unlimited 1 & 2 may be all you know of them. However, long ago, Looking Glass created some of the greatest 3D adventures in gaming history, including System Shock, Ultima Underworld, and Ultima Underworld 2. Now, Looking Glass is returning to their roots, creating an entirely new world of adventure called Thief - The Dark Project.

Seed Interview by G.A. Thrawn 7:05 p.m. C.D.T. source: Voodoo: Unlimited Power

Those pimpz at Voodoo: Unlimites Power have scored another interview this time with Seed (side note:They made Super Street Fighet 2 Turbo for the Amiga WTF? that doesn't sound right), they have a new first person shooter coming up here's some of the lovin for yeas:

From what we gather Seed is the first entry into the first-person shoot 'em up genre for Human Soft, was there anything in particular that inspired the team to make this move?

Yes, from what was publicly known about SEED to-date, it indeed looked like a first-person shooter. However, SEED will in fact be a first-person platform game. We do not think that a fist-person platform game has ever been done. Human Soft hopes to be the first developer to do this. I hope it is going to be a trend-setting game. The reason for doing a platform game is very simple: that is the team's favourite game genre. Mind you first-person shooters come a close second!

New Genesis 3D Screen Shots-Update by G.A. Thrawn 5:16 p.m. C.D.T. source: Voodoo Extreme

Looks like the people over at Ga Games have 5 new shots from Eclipse Entertainment's Genesis 3D game engine.  In case you don't know the Gensis 3D engine supports the 3D Now! smack instuction set.   Here is what else it does:

Genesis is a 3D graphics engine built for high performance real-time rendering. It offers advanced lighting features, 3D modeling support, soft-skin polygonal characters, and many other features. Feature summary :

* Exceptionally fast rendering
* True RGB colored lights that mix properly in the environment
* Fog
* Mirrors
* Dynamic shadows
* Animated textures
* Real time water surface distortion
* Real time light diffraction
* Vertex morphing
* Fully animated seamless, soft-skin polygonal characters
* Dynamic mesh manipulation for realistic character motion
* Traditional hierarchical polygonal characters
* Supports any 3DS MAX animation file format.
* Translucent textures
* Texture morphing
* Level of Detail technology allows for smooth frame rate on any machine
*Character morphing
* Software rasterizer, 3DFX Glide, and D3D support
* Benefits from MMX but does not require it
* Open scripting API

Check out the Genesis 3D website for more information and a demo.

New Messiah Screen Shots-Update by G.A. Thrawn 5:16 p.m. C.D.T. source: Voodoo Extreme

The  Team Ego/Shiny Messiah page has been updated with some new Messiah Screen Shots.  As I said before Messiah will have support for the 3D Now! instruction set.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Preview-Update by G.A. Thrawn 5:01 p.m. C.D.T. source: Computers R Us and e-mail from Johan Bengston

I missed some news looks like, playing Starcraft, nothing AMD related, but you've probably already read it by now.  CRUs has a preview of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, this should hold you for now but check out the full thing, its got Sid Meier's name on it after all, it can't be bad :)

I canīt forget those days when I sat playing Civilization all day and I never wanted to go to bed when my mom told me to because I wanted to play Civilization ( hey I was kinda young then). I know people that still play Civilization and thinks that itīs the best game ever released.

The Storyline for the game is very detailed and there is currently 10 chapters of it so I think you better read the full story instead of some sum-up?
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri  is a turn-based game of exploration, discovery, empire-building and conquest, set on an alien planet in the early 22nd century.

Gameforge Engine Supports 3D Now!-Update by G.A. Thrawn 1:51 p.m. C.D.T. Source: Cyrellis

Check out Cyrellis for some more screens and the lay down, I'm not going to steal the whole thing, plus I don't have time to down load the screen shots. Ahhh, I need to update the game/video 3D Now! support, why me! :)

Please note that the latest drivers for voodoo2 and voodoo graphics based boards can be found at http://www.3dfx.com/download/download.html - you'll need Glide3 installed to run the demo.

More Herectic II and 3D Now! Support-Update by G.A. Thrawn 1:35 p.m. C.D.T. Source: Me, Myself, and I

Ever have 2 dates at once ;)  Hey, I had to try more than one after those Prey guys didn't respond, I was getting discouraged.   Anywho, here is what he had to say:

We would like to support the 3dnow instructions in Heretic2 (even tho it isn`t a FPS). However, the vast majority of our users use Intel based
machines, and that is what we develop on. If you could send us a motherboard and chip, I`ll see what I can do.

Cheers
John

What I think (like you give a sh1t):   You heard the man send him a mother board and K6-2!  AGhhhh doesn't anyone want to fight this what could be/is a hardware monopoly?  Do you like the OS situation, if you said yes then you're on smack!  I guess send it just to Raven Soft.   Well, I'm a poor student, so I don't got no money, and I need my computer, what does that lead to, advertisements! 10 or 12 of em, 4 at the top 3 at the bottom, a couple in the news, and the rest are pop ups.  Yup, I'll get that man a K6-2 and a Super 7 board.  Hehehe kidding about the advertiesments ;) Don't leave! Oh, god no! Please no no don't go anywhere else I'm sorry stay stay! What do you want from me! (in an Adam Sandler Voice ;) Really though this is kinda cooky if I had a spare board and a K6-2 I'd send it in a second if it meant one more game not going with The Man.  What next?   Flame AMD! Hell, I live in Austin I could go up to where they make K6-2's in north Austin and walk in casually, put one of them K6-2 in an electrical bag and then stick it in my  pocket, suckers! They'll never know what hit em' muahahahhaha!  Or, I guess I could e-mail em' or go byatch at them directly.  Or the advertiesments could work.... kidding kidding, don't leave!

Print vs. Online Gaming Media on Avault-Update by G.A. Thrawn 12:50 C.D.T. Source: Avault

This is a nice article on Avault that discusse online vs. print gaming media read and it refers to us and every online news site. 
Here is some to tide you over with:

Being a computer gamer used to be so simple.

Just last week, or so it seems, my gaming regimen included an unassuming pre-Pentium computer, DOS, a local shareware-filled BBS, and a subscription to PC Gamer. It was a small world, but it was paradise. Great games were plentiful, the technologies were uncomplicated, and the farthest my modem traveled was about ten miles down the road, where it would shake hands with a friend and commence a long night of slaughter and humiliation. Once a month, I would hasten to the mailbox and extract a beautiful, shining beacon of gaming news. Contained within its folds was all the goodness I needed, including reviews, previews, and lustrous ads. The reviews were all right, but the best part was reading about upcoming games, and soaking up the glistening enticements for my gaming dollars. The most caustic piece of mail I received was not a flame for a harsh review, but the annual subscription notice.

Sentinel Returns Review on Avault-Update by G.A. Thrawn 12:42 C.D.T. Source: Avault

Avault has posted a review of Sentinel Returns.  Its one Psygnosis games, so its got to be good :)  Expanding our news coverage? Yes! (In   a Marv "bite me" Albert Voice ;) Here is the introduction:

Have you ever noticed how conditioned we are to expect a certain kind of introductory sequence in a computer game when we first play it? After we put the CD in the drive, install the software, and have the game actually running, we have come to expect three things to occur in order: the credits for the game's designer and distributor; an opening video showing the background of the game or a snippet of its action; and a menu screen (sometimes preceded or followed by an instruction screen). Only then are we truly psychologically prepared to actually play the game, as the stage has been perfectly set for us. We have come to anticipate eagerly viewing these introductory pre-play phases of the game for the first time, even though after we see them once we usually skip through them in subsequent play sessions.

I had not realized the extent to which this opening sequence was important for my comfort zone until I played the full release version of Sentinel Returns.

Herectic II and 3D Now! Support-Update by G.A. Thrawn 12:07 a.m. C.D.T. Source: Me, Myself, and I

I e-mailed Pat Lipo, of Raven Software about 3D Now! support in their upcoming game, Herectic II, here is what he had to say:

We like the idea of 3Dnow support, but our development schedule is growing short. It still could happen, but AMD said they were going to send us some systems for development a few weeks ago (during that "grass roots" email campaign), but we've seen nothing as of yet...

Pat

My thoughts:  Looks like some developers want to support 3D Now!, but AMD is getting a little lazy, which means some times its not the developers's fault, but AMD's,come on guys get it together.

G200 and K6-2 Benchmarks-Update by G.A. Thrawn 11:49 p.m. C.D.T. Source: AGN 3D

Just saw this off of  AGN 3D, he has some news on the K6-2 and G200 benchmarks.  Here's a snip, its seems that DX6 is helping, anyway here's a snip but check out AGN 3D for the full treatment.

The MURC Forums had some benchmarks and other info that Joel posted with the G200 running the new DirectX 6.0 drivers, and AMD 3DNow! instructions.

Anand Tech on Abit BX 6-Update by G.A. Thrawn 11:37 p.m. C.D.T. Source:  Anand Tech

Check out Anand's Abit BH6 review, its not Intel related, but its a great read.  Here's a bit to get your juices flowing:

The first wave of BX motherboards hit the market, and with lightning fast speed they were quickly swept up by performance hungry users.  Those with large budgets immediately flocked to the popular Pentium II - 400 BX Motherboard combo, while those with sights set a bit lower found comfort in Intel's extremely overclockable Celeron.  The first wave of BX boards showed us that performance is no longer the top differential among like products, stability and reliability do play a much more major role with a motherboard's feature set being the final decision maker.  With such a well outlined algorithm for comparison among BX motherboards it was quite surprising that very few manufacturers took it upon themselves to go above and beyond the call of duty to construct the "perfect" BX motherboard. 

Fear is a good emotion..-Update by G.A. Thrawn 7:36 p.m. C.D.T. Source: Patton, thanks for cheeing me up ;)

Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, bat man."

I think someone should have had the decency to tell me the luncheon was free. To make someone run out with potato salad in his hand, pretending he's throwing up, is not what I call hospitality.

I guess we were all guilty, in a way. We all shot him, we all skinned him, and we all got a complimentary bumper sticker that said, "I helped skin Bob."

All Preview News Lost-Update by G.A. Thrawn 6:15 p.m. C.D.T. Source: :(

:( I've lost all previous news when I just updated the page :(  I thought I saved it, but clearly I did not :(  If some one can search for main.html to see if they can find I will be more than grateful, this really sucks, because I was already feeling bad for another reason :( Oh well, guess the little guy with the faster mouse click loses :(  Please, if anyone can find this there is probably nothing I could do for you if you do this for me other than that you'd have my gratitude.  I feel really bad especially with all the news I found and just well, the start of the site is gone, along with all the times I got my "breaks" with AMD Zone.  :(

New Voodoo Reference Drivers-Update By G.A. Thrawn 2:35 p.m. C.D.T. Source: Voodoo Extreme

There are new reference drivers for the 3Dfx Voodoo Card, this includes GLide 3.0 support!  Which is supposed to have support for 3D Now! instruction set.  I can't remember where I read that, but some where, may have been boot.

Voodoo Graphics (Win95/98) Release 3.0
Run-time drivers for Voodoo Graphics including: Glide 2.46, Glide 3, Direct3D, and DirectX.

Site Redesign,  What Do You Think?- Update By G.A. Thrawn   2:15 p.m. C.D.T.  Source: Me Myself and I

Its not much of a site redesign, more of a now broader interest to include reviews and editorials.  I'll try to get the guest book up as well for you guys to sign so game developers and hardware companies to know that there are people out here that demand 3D Now! support and that games and hardware no longer be optimized for intel processors and to support the Cyrix and AMD processors.  Centaur is just to slow  with its floating point performanced, although I belive that their next CPU will have the 3D Now! instruction set on them, not literally speaking so I don't get people b1tching at me.  Also I encourage all readers to write articles or reviews and I will post them here if they make the cut, which I think most have a good chance of.   So send them in!

S3 Savage To Support 3D Now!! Update by G.A. Thrawn 2:15 a.m. C.D.T. Source: Cyrellis

I just saw from Cyrellis That there is an interview with Paul Crossley of S3 on some one's xoom site called 5-D, more specifacally there is information on 3D Now! support. Here is the part about 3D Now! support.

Q: What about 3Dnow! support? A: We plan on having an initial 3DNow! driver by early August that should add a nice performance boost to the Savage3D architecture. In particular, we should be able to feed transformed, clipped, lit triangles to our hardware at a rate closer to what Savage3D can render. Currently, the CPU is by far the worst bottleneck for triangle rates. We have been working very closely with AMD to get this done, and if you take a look at the current 3DNow! supporter page on the AMD website, you'll see that we've recently added our logo as well.

Direct Sh1t Update by G.A. Thrawn 1:15 a.m. C.D.T.

I got DirectX 6 a couple hours of ago and it keeps crashing Explorer ever few minutes, and I just formated my hard drive, and didn't get a chance to down load Netscape 4.5, which I hear is very reliable. Also word, and text files seem to crash suddenly, I was wondering if anyone else has had this problems or just me? I'm running a K6-2 266 over clocked to 300 with 96 MB of PC 100 RAM, Windows 98, Pure 3D, Matrox Millenium 2, and a Quantum Fireball UDMA hard drive. I'm not sure about the mother board, as I'm borowing my bro's computer until I get my Photon 100 HC in. If any one has had problems, contact me.

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