VR-Zone has done up a quick comparison of the newly released Detonator 40.41 against the last Detonator 30.82. Benchmarks like 3DMark2001SE, Quake3, Comanche 4, Serious Sam SE and RTCW are used. The performance improvements are pretty remarkable especially for 3DMark2001SE where scores imcreased by over 1000 3dmarks!

The new 40.41 Detonators' Control Panel doesn't work if you had installed a localized older Detonator before. To solve the problem, simply delete the 2 obsolete Files nvrsXX.dll and nvcpXX.hlp in your windowssystem32 folder , where XX is your language code. Additionally the file nvqtwk.dll from older drivers isn't needed anymore so you should also delete it to be sure.

I have started a new column called "Digital Rage." This will be a podium for myself (and pretty much anyone else with an opinion - just email me) to express our views on things in the digital world that we see as a problem. My first column explains my issues with CD/DVD Copy protection, what I think is wrong with it, and what I see as possibilities to make it right. Please, check it out.

RipNet-UK have posted a new guide: Creative Audigy Installation on Windows XP Pro! if you've been having problems with Creative Audigy Drivers I suggest you read this guide! Here's a snip.

Okay, start your system and boot into Windows XP. XP will detect the new hardware; and as the installation blurb from Creative states click 'Cancel' for each device and then insert the drivers and program installation disk. The disk should auto run, if it doesn't double click the icon on your CD-ROM drive entitled SB Audigy. Select your language and then select 'Audigy install'.

Just got word from TechSpot.com that they have posted a new guide to Windows security! Here's a snip

This guide will cover some of such tips and tricks for different applications which should make your system more secure as well as less prone to viruses. Although the guide is mostly aimed at Windows 2000/XP users, people using older version of Windows should also take note as much of the content here applies to those earlier versions in addition to the Internet Explorer and Outlook Express tips.

3DCenter made an awesome article about GeForce3 /Ti + Radeon 8500 + Parhelia + GeForce4 Ti under Anti-Aliasing and anisotropic Filter You HAVE to check this out LOTS of benchmarks and infos. This one is in german but I think you can understand mostly everything about benchmarks. Read more ...

XtremeSystems.org has a Vcore and VMem volt mod guide for the popular AMD Abit boards written by staffer MrIcee. Detailed pics are included, and the guide is laid out and explained so even the most casual modder will understand the concepts and be able to volt mod/his or her own board.

Just got word that Subzerotech.com have posted a new Windows XP tweaking guide. Here's a snip:

You have just spent your hard earned money on the latest OS out there. You format, install, and fire it up. Good eh? But without some optimization and tweakage it certainly isn't running at optimal performance and definitely not customized! If this sounds like a problem you have then this is the article that is for you! We here at Subzerotech have went through a whole lot of tweaks found throughout the web and compiled The Ultimate Windows XP Tweak Guide which contain tweaks we have found to work, we did not add tweaks that did not work or are just myth's. From Booting up to Shutting Down we got it all.

Just got word that Neoseeker.com have posted a new tweaking guide for all you multi processor freaks out there. Here's a byte from their article.

In this article we are going to look at improving the performance of the AMD's 760MP/MPX chipset which is designed for multi processor use. We have been digging into the white papers on this chipset over the past week to try and find out every last thing we could about this chipset and then figure out how all of you power hungry madmen with the duallies can make it run even faster! If you've been around this site for very long you know all about chipset registers by now.

Epox's 4G4A+ based Intel 845G motherboard is one of the most popular Pentium 4 motherboards on the market today. Users in our forums and others have been asking how we managed to obtain DDR333 support from the motherboard. By popular request, TweakTown wrote this short guide which shows how to enable DDR333 from the Epox motherboard.

This was posted in our Forums by +P4r4No1D+ where he's tested the latest Leaked and official drivers from ATI using Athlon XP 1800+ Soyo K7V Dragon Plus 512 Mbs Corsair - Cas 2 Radeon 8500 - LELE OEM 230/230 - Mem Hynix 3.6 ns - Flashed with Original Retail - 275/275 ATI RADEON BIOS.

ATI Leaked Driver 6118 for DirectX 9
ATI Catalyst V 02.2
ATI Leaked Driver 6118

Want to see his 3Dmark scores? Then hit Read More.

Just got word that Hardwarezone.com have posted a comparison that investigates the performance gains to be found in AGP8X compared to AGP4X! Here's a byte from their article.

Now that AGP bandwidth is doubled to 8X, the clock frequency will increase to 533MHz which means that it will transfer at about 2.1GB/s. This increase in bandwidth will directly help to improve the overall performance of the graphics subsystem. By how much? We'll investigate this further in this article. Currently, there are not many chipsets that support this new AGP 3.0 interface. One of the first manufacturer to demonstrate AGP8X was SiS with their SiS648 chipset along with the all-new Xabre400 GPU. Other chipsets which will have support for AGP8X transfers include NVIDIA's nForce2 and VIA's P4X333/P4X400 and KT400.

Just got word from TweakTown.com that they have posted their new guide for reformatting Windows XP. Here's a byte from their guide...

You've just reformatted your hard drive and are installing Windows XP. You may be new to XP, or you may be a veteran and system slowdowns, instability or problems have lead you to reinstall. Now comes the installation of all the applications and games. Then all the drivers. Finally, there's the dreaded job of going through all the settings and tweaks all over again to optimise your system. Welcome to what we are certain is the most comprehensive collection of tweaks collected and published on the Internet today in this walkthrough style tweaking guide for Microsoft's Windows XP operating system.

The DDR convention is used to mention the speed of the RAM is running. The PC convention is used to denote the bandwidth the RAM provides. Okay, enough is enough; let's have a look at the candidates. There are now 11 sticks of DDR RAMs in this guide.

FSB Speed DDR Ram speed Name(s)

100 Mhz 200 Mhz PC-1600 or DDR-200
133 Mhz 266 Mhz PC-2100 or DDR-266
150 Mhz 300 Mhz PC-2400 or DDR-300
166 Mhz 333 Mhz PC-2700 or DDR-333
200 Mhz 400 Mhz PC-3200 or DDR-400

VR-Zone has a article up on how to get the highest 3DMark2001SE score out of your current system and set the world record: 17230 3DMarks. An ASUS P4T533-C i850E motherboard and MSI GeForce4 Ti4600 graphics card were used and modified to increase the voltages for better overclockability. Instead of conventional cooling, LN2 cooling was employed to the CPU and GPU to push their frequencies much higher than default.

Big thanks to Atul Fatpie for noticing that SimHQ have posted a Windows 98SE, WinXP and Win2K Pro Shootout. Here's a byte from the article:

Two of the contenders were easy to decide on ... Microsoft Windows 98SE, the reigning "king of the (sim performance) hill" and Microsoft Windows XP Home. After much consideration, Windows 2000 Professional and 98 Lite were also selected. If you are not familiar with 98 Lite, check out their web site here. 98 Lite doesn't include the browser or mail client, so there is a difference in it verses the other three OS's, but its reduced overhead makes some good points in our testing. While Microsoft has never encouraged users to make Windows 2000 Professional a game OS, there have been some decent results reported. For gamers Windows 2000 Professional seems like the best of both worlds: less overhead like 9x, better memory management from NT. We'll see.

With the launch of every new generation of graphics chips, video cards performance steps onto a new level and the quality and quantity of various special effects grow in an explosion-like way. But however perfect present-day game graphics may be, however realistic the characters and the environment, the main feature of the display picture remains the same: the picture consists of pixels - Picture Elements. And it means that polygon edges are displayed as "jaggies" (stairstep-like lines) made of these pixels and it's not possible to reach an ideal picture quality until the "jaggies" are done away with.

Just saw this @ OverclockersAustralia:

Would you like to transform your LG 32x10x40 CDRW into a 40x12x40? Of course you would. I did it to mine and it works like a charm. Burns 16x rated Akai CD's at 40x without a problem. Nero and other programs recognise the drive as the GCE8400B (40x LG drive), as does the BIOS. It's really easy to do and here is how to go about doing it yourself ...... All you'll need is WinACE!

Just saw this @Accelenation.com:

Although our site is based in the U.S., I personally hold up our European end. As a matter of interest I thought I'd post up some U.K. price comparisons. I have converted U.K. prices using an exchange rate of 1.53 dollars to the pound. On top of this, I have also included the additional 17.5% VAT (Value Added Tax) that all U.K. consumers have to suffer. In the following list U.K. prices are in pink and U.S. prices are in blue.

Just saw this @ TvTool's website:

When looking for a new graphics card more and more people take the TV chip into consideration which should be used on the card. In graphics cards comparisons in PC journals you can find the type of TV chip in the specifications more frequently. A very nice trend as the chips have significant differences. So it's time to throw a little light on this matter!