The Haus

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

3dfx: Hurtin' for Certain

3dfx issued a press release detailing their financial results for the second quarter. Revenues were down a tidy $40 million compared the first quarter this year and the second quarter last year. Combine that with the hit they took acquiring Gigapixel and they lost $100 million last quarter. Ouch. The Shugashack, the source of this information, also reported that 3dfx is considering selling their board manufacturing business. Good thing I don't have any of their stock (although I probably could buy a share or two with the lint from my pocket).

PHP 4.0.2 released

Zeev of Zend has announced the release of PHP 4.0.2. You can get it on the PHP website. Good stuff, highly recommended.
PHP 4.0.2 has been released. This is a maintenance version, with no big revolutions. It mostly features many bug fixes, some new functionality, and increased performance under certain circumstances. Users that are happy with PHP 4.0.1pl2 that aren't experiencing any of the problems that were fixed, and don't need the new functionality, don't necessarily have to upgrade - even though 4.0.2 is a recommended upgrade.

As for PHP 3.0 users, well, time to sync in :) I'd like to take this opportunity to strongly urge people to upgrade to PHP 4.0. The number of reasons to do this is too long to be listed here, so I'll only say that PHP 4.0 is superior to PHP 3.0 in *every* aspect, be it performance, stability or features. The only reasonable reason to stay with PHP 3.0, temporarily, is if your applications require porting to PHP 4.0 (and then too, my suggestion is to try and make the necessary fixes when you get the time). Otherwise, staying with PHP 3.0 makes no sense

Bleh

Been reading Tom Clancy's newest Jack Ryan novel, The Bear and The Dragon. Excellent book, easily one of his best ever. My only complaint is his editor and reviewer over at Putnam need to be shot for their obviously awful editing of the book. I've not seen this many gramatical errors in a novel since the Wingman series I used to read in High School. I'd recommend using more than a spell check to catch errors guys.

Also been this close to finishing Deus Ex the past week or so. Unfortunately there seems to be a gigantic bug in the save/load game functions in the final game level. You can't save games there. If you do they get corrupted and you have to start over. My fair warning to those who need to save/load a lot in games.

3dfx fires shot of their own

According to this press release, 3dfx has fired a salvo at NVIDIA in retaliation for their recently announced patent infringment lawsuit (story). You go kids, mudslinging on the PC hardware front is so much more fun to watch than the political kind we're getting to suffer with the US Presidential race going right now.

Ubi Soft aquires Red Storm Entertainment

Blue has gotten a press release indicating that Ubi Soft has aquired Red Storm Entertainment, Tom Clancy's computer game company. In addition, Tom Clancy has entered into a licensing agreement with Ubi to continue development on games based on his properties. Guess RSE wasn't turning enough profit.

Return to Wolfenstein Interview

Gamespot UK has posted part one of their interview with Gray Matter's Jonathan Knight, the producer behind the upcoming 3D shooter, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. This is the first interview I've seen that goes into detail on the plot behind the new Wolfie. Thanks Blue.

M$ Loves Alternate OSs?

An Infoworld rumor column is reporting that many networks run or owned by Microsoft use operating systems other than WinNT or Win2K.
For the most part, according to our ex-Microsoftie, the company's money-making Web properties are all based around Unix, with Hotmail 99 being 99 percent FreeBSD, MSN using some Apache on Solaris, bCentral ad servers on 100 percent FreeBSD, and WebTV pretty much entirely Solaris.

"Internally when Windows 2000 was announced, people were told not to even think about using it for production because it was too unstable," says this ex-Microsoftie.
It's enough to make an AltOS fan smile quietly to himself. Thanks Slashdot.

Micron Sues RAMBUS

In the "what's good for the goose, is good for the gander" department, Micron is suing RAMBUS, claiming that:
Rambus violated antitrust laws and is seeking to invalidate some Rambus patents.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Micron said in a statement. Further details were undisclosed, and a spokesman was not available to comment.
It'd be nice if this suit would be successful or at least give RAMBUS a scare. If they get away with forcing all the DRAM manufacturers to kowtow to their wishes, memory will get mighty expensive. Thanks Shugashack.

Monday, August 28, 2000

NHL 2001 Screenies

Gamespot got their hands on EA's latest NHL offering, NHL 2001, and posted some screenshots. I just wish they'd let my patch NHL 2000 to add the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets and be done with it. Oh well. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

Updated FAKK2 Demo

Ritual has updated the Heavy Metal: FAKK2 demo to version 1.02, giving it all the fixes they made for the full version. You can download the demo patch (2.8M), the full 1.02 demo (72.4M), or the full demo in six 13M chunks. Thanks Blue.

1.13Ghz Pentiums Recalled

CNet is reporting that Intel is recalling 1.13Ghz Pentiums (Pentia?) because they suck due to some stability problems (to put it mildly). Sites like Tom's Hardware, HardOCP, and others have reported major problems with the chip's stability. I guess this is one case where it pays to be poor. Thanks Slashdot.

J.t.Qbe comments: "Pentiums". "Pentium" is Latin, clunia mea.

A.T. Hun comments: Pentiim? Pentiot? Them thar chips?

NVIDIA Sues 3dfx

Ahh, calling out the lawyers (shudder). NVIDIA has decided to sue 3dfx, claiming that their Voodoo3/4/5 line violates some of NVIDIA's patents. As bad as 3dfx' revenue stream has been lately, coupled by their plummeting stock price, you have to wonder how many legal assaults they can fend off. Thanks Evil Avatar.

Elite Force goes GOLD

Blue has received a press release indicating that Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force, has gone GOLD. Heh-another game I'd love to pick up, if I had 3 $20's to rub together. Oh, well... Enjoy all you mega ST game junkies-this one looks like a winner.

Past Two Days' News

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