The weekend is upon us, summer is fading and like a breath of foul-stenching LA air (the stuff you can't get on Woody's restaurant menu), some of you younger folks are going back to school/university/college. Since we're into phase two of this column (phase one was last week when the stupid thing was new and so I could get really long-winded and write a pompous intro), I can now spare you all the introductions, explanations and excuses. If you've joined in late, missed last week's edition or simply clicked on the wrong link don't worry (Looking for www.sharkysextreme.com again? You naughty boy!). Basically, just read on for the latest addition to our time tripping fetish and either enjoy it or complain at the end to yours truly, madly deeply…
NVIDIA TNT “Hands-On/Pockets-Full” Preview
In the top drawer for this issue let's take a step back in time to the NVIDIA Corporation of two years ago. The then "small" company was trying to rise out of the doldrums of NV1, RIVA 128 (not a bad 2D/3D card then) and attempting to steal some of 3Dfx' thunder with a 2D/3D product, the NVIDIA TNT, targeted at the Voodoo market. Back in those days before NDA's and the like, we were the first site (along with Tom's Hardware I think?) to do a full-blown piece on the TNT.
Not just any-old TNT, mind you. No sir, this TNT came from a small company know as “Canopus” (which still exists but which no longer makes graphics card products), who took NVIDIA's reference design and tweaked it to such an extent that they “overclocked” the core frequency too high. So high in fact, that because of our findings the product's (called the SPECTRA) final the clock speed was toned down to a more sensible “90MHz” (whoo!) before going on sale.
This was one of those days when saying it like it was won out, I feel. Not being afraid to stick your hands in your pants and grab the truth was the order of the day. However, parental discretion is advised on this one…get it here.
NVIDIA TNT Scaling on a Mid-Range System
We're not done with 3D video cards just yet, ok? For seconds, we took a later revision of the TNT and investigated just how well/poorly the card would scale on a mid-range system, which at the time was a Pentium II 300MHz and a socket 7 based AMD K6-2 300Mhz PC. We compared it to a whopping great Voodoo Banshee right here.
3dfx Voodoo Banshee Scaling
And just because the competition for the then best 2D/3D accelerator was so stiff, we did the very same thing for the Voodoo Banshee. And if you don't like the bubble backgrounds on the graphs, then don't click on the thumbnails, you panzy! Get your joy right here.
Microsoft Sidewinder Freestyle Pro Review
Finally, on the hardware-side of the fence, we take a journey via the Tardis (that blue phone box Doctor Who used) to a time when Microsoft had just released Windows 98, X-Box was but a flicker in someone's eye, the company wasn't in too much legal hassle and everybody hated Bill Gates almost as much as they do now. The company had just embarked on some fairly zany new and innovative ideas where peripherals are concerned. We're talking maaaaajor force feedback on Joysticks, Wheelie Dealies and this new contraption called the “FreeStyle Pro”. It was one of those touchy feely game pads that used “Tilt” technology or something. Basically, it was an idea that was upside down to begin with. It died almost as fast as it came on to the scene. Our managing editor, Joan Wood, was lucky enough to spend a week with the said “FreeStyle Pro” toy and gave us the low-down. You can get it too, right here.
Savage Arena Preview
How does a futuristic sports game, loosely based on the James Caan classic, Rollerball, sound? In fact, it was so futuristic back in 1998 that it never actually came out in the future on the US shores. Never mind, it seemed like shameless fun at the time…Rage Software, who developed Savage Arena, had plenty else to shout about anyway. Click here.
Buggy Preview
And speaking of ghastly games that never actually came out, here's some further proof that seeing a beta that looked ok at the time doesn't mean you need to buy into the hype when doing a preview (I learned that the hard way with Trespasser). Gremlin Interactive's “Buggy” game was not only “Buggy” by name but it was also “fuggy” (work that one out for yourselves) by nature. Figure it out right here.
Two points for anyone that spotted the “Mel & Kim” reference right at the top of this piece and a couple of extra brownie points for those of you that were either too young or fortunately missed out on the dynamic musical duo. And to those of you that knew who they were and even back then thought they were about as “funky” as Pepsi & Shirley, my hats off to you. You're dead trendy.
I hope you've enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I know I have. A healthy dose of “boy were you so wrong” is also a requirement in this job. So give me your feedback and hit the forums. Let us all know if we've changed for the better or worse. Cheers for tuning in all this time. And if you're new to all of this and have not a bloody clue of what I'm talking about, don't fret. Just join the rest of the queue…
A new feature? What? No sarky (“sarky” is used in the East end of London as colloquial term for sarcastic you little blighters) comments about the title/theme of this either… The weekend is once again upon us and even after two years of doing this thing we do, I still can't believe how much the industry has changed. Thus the thought of dedicating a new weekend feature to see just what we were saying back in the day, I felt, would be fitting. You'll see where we/I went right, where we got egg on our faces and where we went so far off road that we ended up southeast of Pluto.
Two years ago we were a slightly different outfit. Language was a little more risqué (parental discretion is advised), testing methods were very different, system specs were by today's standards a snails pace and best of all we had those charts with the bubble background!