AGP for PowerPCs? Ricky Leong sent a notice that the latest EE Times (Electrical Engineering Times) had a small note about AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) for PowerPCs. Since about last October, the Intel motherboards and Windows 95 systems have shipped with this capability and AGP video cards are now plentiful on the PC side. AGP is a dedicated bus just for the graphics card, with a direct connection to the CPU and main memory (it requires SDRAM for best results).

I get EE Times at work but spend all my free time (breaks, lunch) answering mail and have not read them lately, but thankfully Ricky sent the URL to their online version article. (Thanks Ricky!)

Vision 3D Pro II Review: I retested with the latest beta drivers (5.1.2.1) from MacTell but saw identical 2D and 3D performance as the final Formac GA 5.1.2 version. I noted this in the review.

Upcoming Reviews: Next reviews in the queue are the PowerForce G3 233mhz, ATI RagePro VR and 3D cards, MacTell G3 PowerJolt 266mhz CPU card (looks exactly like the XLR8 card I reviewed) and Mactell's $99 Vision 3D S3 based video card. I'll work them as soon as I can. Later this coming week I also want to upgrade to Virtual PC 2.0 and report the results. I'd like to start a VPC version of the new RealPC Tips page as well.

PC's without Windows:I meant to post this earlier, but C/NET has a "Alternate OS" story showing other options for Intel based PC owners. BeOS, Linux, OS/2 Warp, and FreeBDS. They even have a personality test online to help match up a OS for you.

Wintel Game Tips: If you're running a PC emulator and are trying PC games now, check out GameCenter.com's Gamer's ToolKit page for some tips on getting the most from Windows 95 games. Beware that their tips on "Display Doctor" may not be good advice for emulators. It's best for Pentium Pro/Pentium II chipsets to enable PCI video write posting, and enable Vesa support which is already in VPC.

Also be aware that Display Doctor is shareware and will timeout after a short trial period. In general, beware loading up too many shareware/time limited programs in Win95, you'll end up with a mess of installed programs that are useless, and even their remove programs often leave traces behind (so they can't just be reinstalled again to extend trial periods). Just a word of warning based on years of Win95 experience.

Voodoo2 in a Mac with VPC/RealPC: I suspect it may be possible to run a Voodoo 2 card in a Mac using Virtual PC 2.0 or RealPC 1.03 and installing the supplied PC Voodoo2 drivers, but be aware that with slower CPUs (as would be the case in emulation) that the Voodoo 2 card would not perform to it's capability, and would likely show little better than performance than the original 3Dfx cards. That's a guess based on the reports of Voodoo 2 card performance in P120's (only about 30% or so performance improvement seen in many games). Also be aware that some older games don't work, and others have problems due to older copies of drivers being resident in the game directory (folder). If anyone has tried a Voodoo 2 card under VPC/Real PC I'd like your comments.

Overclocker's Beware - Warm Weather is Back Last summer I commented on the effects of warm weather on clock chippers and CPU cards. Your card that is running fine in cooler weather (on the ragged edge) may suddenly start having problems when the ambient temperature goes up in summer if the room is not cooled. Jay Levine writes that this recently happened to him:

" After telling you how rock solid my PowerCenter132 with PBP 233 at 250/62.5 was, the machine started crashing randomly. After several hours of unsuccessful software troubleshooting, it suddenly dawned on me that because of the arrival of spring/summer it was now 80 degrees in the room instead of 70, and the CPU was probably overheating. I backed the machine down to a conservative 240/60, and the machine is its old reliable self again. Once the taxes are done and the AC is running I'll crank it back up."

I had one company tell me this is why they stopped making clock chippers. People would run them at the max during the cooler weather, and in the summer they'd get a ton of tech support calls. The support cost was too high for such a low cost device, so they stopped making them.

HDT 2.5.2 Question: I've not updated my copy yet, due to all the review work but George Jorgenson has a question that maybe one of my readers can answer:

" I have a question. Do you know if the latest version of FWB HDTK 2.5.2 gives you optional block sizes to select when formatting a HFS+ drive (ie, 512, 1K, 2K, 4K) of is it just the Apple standard size - 4K?"

If you've tried HDT 2.5.2 and can answer this question please contact me.

I've got several readers that have offered to help on the G3-ZONE pages. One is working on a tutorial of adding a Cheetah drive and fans in the Desktop model and another is accumulating a list of hardware/software problems and solutions for pages on the Zone. You can help too - if you see G3 specific info on the net, or have experienced problems with certain software or hardware in a G3 (or something that worked well), contact me.

Guest reviews are welcome on hardware and software. You write up the text, include any images (if appropriate) and I'll create the HTML page if necessary (your choice) and post it here. Share your experiences and get some recognition while performing a service to the Mac community. It'll make you feel good.

ZD/NET has a story on how Windows 98 will be the last appearance of DOS, at least from Microsoft's perspective. There are lots of users that think otherwise and have avoided the bloated replacements.

The linked article for details of the death of DOS seemed to only have info on NT5 and MS's coming "Chrome" Multimedia standard - which requires a 350 Mhz Pentium II and AGP video. Ready for another hardware upgrade?

A reader has made a hacked PC flasher that IF you have a flash bios version of a 2940UW card (note many cheaper PC 2940's are OEM versions, with only an EEprom, not a flash rom) - you can flash the card on a PC with the Mac bios and then use it on the Mac he says.

There was a long thread on this in the Upgrades Forum (Link removed after forums no longer at avsim) recently. I've not verified that it works since the only PC 2940 card I have does not have a flash bios, but it is said to work with the flashable PC 2940 versions.

I can't answer questions on the utility or provide the software so please don't send mail about this. Thanks.

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