Page 4
August 1997
Been traveling back and forth from Pascagoula Mississippi, Enjoying the Southern
Style Living. The only bad experience I encountered while I was down there working
is a cellular phone incidence. I was enjoying Cellular Roaming (I have Air Touch)
and really, their service connects to roaming services just about anywhere. I got off
the plane one time in Manzanillo Mexico (just purchased my cellular phone) and
turned that phone on and pressed the button I had keyed in my home phone number into.
I received the Message "Welcome to Guadalajara Cellular, Please call back in 5ive
minutes while we verify your cellular number". In five minutes I called back and was
connected directly to my home. Folks dialing my Arlington cellular phone number would
ring me in Mexico ! Now thats service ! Anyway, I digressed. PASCAGULA...
I attempted to use my cellular one afternoon (after using roaming there for about two
weeks), and I received a strange message, "Welcome to American Roaming Network,
There is a $3.00 connect fee and 90 cents per minute charge,
Please dial your phone number".
Well this was different. I ended the call and dialed *611. I received the SAME
message. What i did next was call Air Touch in Everett Washington by telephone
(wires not air). Seems Air Touch knew exactly what had happened, and they even gave
me the phone number of the offending cellular company.
What this local cellular phone company had done, was INTERCEPT and lock out my
cell phone (number) from roaming in Pascagoula (within control/range of THEIR cells)
Anybody trying to contact me at my Arlington Cellular phone number received an out
of service message or a message to that effect.
Air Touch representatives called the Offending cellular company and discussed the
merits of allowing my phone to roam and REMOVE the LOCK. I called the Offending
Cellular company and (answering machine/leave message) Discussed the merits of
ME billing THEM for lost business and REMOVE the LOCK.
Imagine that !! Lets say I was just on vacation, traveling down Highway 10 there,
and my cellular is captured and locked into this cellular's network of high charges.
Since I'm traveling through, I might go ahead and place a couple of calls, whats
ten or 20 dollars to someone on retirement! I mean I have this expensive RV and all.
(I really don't, but it sounds good for the point I'm trying to make here)
Okay so This lurker of highway 10 detects that I'm traveling east to West, and calls
up the next shady Cellular company just to the East, and SELLS my cellular phone
number to them (ready for another lock ?) I thought not. Maybe I'm just used to
the Northwest Hospitality ?
It took about 24 hours before `they' took my cellular off capture and lock.
Never did get a call back from `them'. I never did try 611 (NOT *611)
I paid their little American roaming network `fee' and figured this is a lesson
learned about the South? or something, I didn't waste a 32 cent stamp and send them
my bill for lost business ($1000.00), maybe the next time I'm in Mississippi and they
try it again. maybe when I get enough time I'll think about that, but for now,
March 1998 update
I am playing Tomb Raider II, for the Graphics (3DFX) and it is Fantastic !
I have a STB 4meg 3D Velocity, which is supposed to NOT be 3DFX, but all I can tell
is that the board doesn't support the transparency bit. Looking around the Tomb
Raider Web Ring pages.. that have information and graphics from Tomb Raider,
I think the STB does a pretty excellent job. However; I am looking and
comparing 3DFX boards, just in case the ULTIMATE 3D board IS out there.
I have made a choice of going to the VooDoo2 by Creative Labs with 12 meg on board.
Will put this 3Dfx board along side a STB 128 Velocity for the 2D and 3D. Should
be a good combination !
I've added some Tomb Raider I and II pages to this Web Site(s).
I put Savegame patches up here simply because I was guessing others
might use them. I guess by the way the `visitor' counter has taken off,
I must have guessed correctly. Several folks have actually tried to put
the patches in.
Hurl effect:
I have to hold the shift key down because these 3D type games
(Doom, Quake, Tombraider, descent, Alone in the Dark, Ultima)
make me feel ill when played at the normal `running' character speed.
So I hack into the savegames to give me (patch in) more ammunition,
and therefore allowing me to take my time, and go at my own pace.
From what I've read, this is the dreaded hurl effect. Well.. whatever;
the dreaded hurl effect has been overcome ! Alone in the Dark was fun to patch,
I could move the character (walking) into a room and Blast away with the shotgun
until all the goul's were gone.
March 1998:
Happy that several folks have written save game editors and I offer two
for download at my Tomb Raider 1 and 2 site. The Tomb Raider portion of all
my site(s) pages gets an average of 90 visitors a day, and the `active controls'
pages just keep right in there. To bad the `active controls' thing never really
took off. I guess the e-commerce $$ was the bigger player. Never saw these folks
around when we were all doing BBS's. But thats okay to,
since it will propel us all in to fiber optics and faster cruising (excellent
data connections). {Internet 2}
reference my P.C. configurations
on the subject of AGP. Well I'm waiting for the new `local bus' (VLB again ?)
i was up to 80+ frames back in the 486 vlb days ! here we go again ?
anyway, waiting for the 100mhz agp, and the cards to mature
(proper drivers and all).
The agp can use system memory, however; if you read the tests -
whats still on board is turning in the best results.
Also I'm waiting for the two or three slot agp. {maybe 4 slots}
imagine one STB 128 velocity (8 meg) agp, and two VooDoo2's
(12meg each for 24megs) !
Of course by the time we can purchase motherboards with 3 agp slots,
it'll probably be VooDoo10.
Its looking good for decent frame rates again, maybe 80-100 this time.
Socket 7 has some things happening to it on the horizon, the agp slot
has migrated to that choice in motherboards. If not, then our next upgrades
will be to the slot 1 or 2 and agp whether we're ready or not.
May 1998:
Well I spent the month of April in Brooklyn New York. Life was good there,
I had a dataport and my P.C. (desktop) in my Hotel room.
I've discovered several ego building things out about this site and my
Tomb Raider site. This independent Internet agency sent my a site report
I imagine hoping that I would like it and pay for more reports.
Well I might ! What the report said was that in a very popular Internet
search engine site My site was 133 out of 200 in my category !
Well further on down the report it narrowed the exact page which was
receiving all these visitors, Page6 !
That happens to be my Helpdesk page, the URL to this page is:
http://www.smokeypoint.com/page6.htm if you wish to look
*be warned* someone is watches these visits you make, everywhere; I guess.
At least they're not getting your email address from me. What is that famous
phrase I should use here ? Build it and they will come
okay, so I also went to a search engine site that offered a 'spider' of your
site and any site statistics that might be lurking there. Well `they' returned
a site counter of 67,000 +. I didn't think I had my counters on the incorrect pages
I had them where I expected they would be of the most interest to visitors,
well I should guess again !
Right now this site is around 6400, and Tomb Raider: Shotgun city is 46000+
might I add the second part to buildit.....Great, but what if they really show up ?
Imagine if 67000 folks paid me the $35 a phone call some of the `you know who'
OEM P.C. dudes helpdesks !! yeah imagine that......well if you've ever submitted a
question to me from page6 you know different (about the charge that is).
Well I'm coming up on my second year, back from New York, and all the wiser
about Internet visitors, If you folks are going to take me seriously here, I better
get busy and really give you something of interest to cruise -- you are really
showing up !! and that for now is a little scary, so please bear with me.
June 1998
e-mail received and sent:
So it is true that p2 can support bilinear filtration even
without a D3d video card!!! Then have you any idea what AGP does,
is it something that you can slot your normal VGA card
(like a pci slot) and that boast your normal VGA card to 2 times!!!
I can't figure out a way if i should upgrade my Mainboard to a AGP
unless i fully understand what it does.
<!-- Stephen --> well depending on what kind of agp main board
[asus is good] you purchase the agp does nothing better-- to doing-- completely great!
The first agps ran at 33 mhz and no-one wrote to the agp specification
like no-one writes to the MMX so there wasn't much of a marked
difference between the PCI and agp.
Now the new agp main boards (bx) run the agp at 133mhz (sidebanded) and/or 66mhz
and the new P100 memory simms (sgram) run also at the 100mhz system.
This my friend is worth upgrading to -- in time. I think they're TO new.
A PCI to agp bridge chip has to be put in place to get the full functionality
from the main board and all the devices you can plug into it.
{of course I haven't checked that in several weeks so there might be one already}
If they don't put three or four agp slots on the main board then the Voodoo 2
will have to go in the 33 mhz PCI slot, now the agp 3D3 video is running faster ?
None of your (or my) games will be supported yet (to soon)
so with the expense of memory, main board, agp video -- requires a new ATX power supply also
so you have to purchase a new $70.00 ATX case !
you get a really fast word processor but not a fast game machine (yet).
In fact i'm waiting for the Voodoo 2 patch in Tomb Raider,
so i can go from 30 fps to 60 or more fps.
So what do i hear about agp ? how about 120 fps + !
8 meg agp video cards seem to be what most folks are buying.
P100 memory is about twice as expensive as sgram for the PCI mainboards.
So the PCI bus becomes the like old isa bus.
Then what happens if firewire and usb ports really take off and thats where every one goes ?
We get to upgrade all our main boards again!
I am going to wait a while and see what happens to the gaming world and which direction they take.
I really think that for the near future everyone is going to go after the 3Dfx and compete
with that graphics API. d3d can't compete, it can only just get faster, then all we have
to do is plug in another 3Dfx card for sli !! and double the fps. Let me know what you
decide on the mainboard. I'm sitting here at 233mhz ($124.00 for the new 233 mhz cpu)
64 meg sdram, Voodoo 2, and that is fast (30fps) and will be faster (60fps+)
once the game industry puts out there 3Dfx Voodoo 2 drivers. I guess i'm trying
to skip the 33mhz agp nitch.
Rite now i am still stuck with Forsaken by Acclaim, very cool game and
the graphics is the one that sucks me into playing it until i completes the game.
I should finish that game soon and i will be buying new game, i guess my new game
would be incoming by rage software. or maybe Unreal!!! seem like it was the best 3d
engine every created, wanting to see how it is...
<!-- Stephen --> sounds like forsaken is cool, I'll try a demo on unreal.
had to pass on incoming. Have you tried Longbow 2 ? Are you into flight sims at all ?
I tried the demo of FF7 last night and the Dominion, and Commandos,
have you tried these ? I think i'll look thru Thief tonight. All these were bundled
with the Diamond Viper 330 (4 meg) I went to put in this PC last week.
I have my intention on this one dun know if it's cool anyway this is the model:
Asus P2 97L without the SCSI (What is that???) that cost only US$135.00 Plus the
32 100 MHz SDram that cost US$58.00 and a P266 that cost US$203.75 What do you think,
worth considering??? Yap it is a AGP. Can my G.Blaster Exxtreme fit into that AGP???
<!-- Stephen -->
I've just built some P2 LX 97 asus P.C.'s and I'm ready for the 440bx main board.
Which is the P100 memory board.
the board you specify requires just the 60ns EDO Sdram chips. The price of that
P266 is $300.00 here. I've attached the two different mainboards you discuss in your
email. Is your current P.C. case a regular P.C. at case ? If it is NOT ATX then to use
either of these main boards you'll have to change the case also.
Sorry, your PCI G.Blaster Exxtreme won't fit into that AGP, unless I misunderstood you
and your G.Blaster Exxtreme is an AGP ! If it IS an agp then you'll have to check the
manufacturer's spec to see if it can run 66mhz with 133mhz sidebanding ?
If your GBEx is PCI, then if you have to use it in a PCI slot
you'll choke you're new fast main board.
I had to use a PCI ATI Rage2 with the LX agp main board Friday
and that P.C. is slowwwwww.
SCSI is another way to have i/o devices connected to your P.C. it is in competition
with IDE, you can connect 7 devices to a scsi controller. Its debatable on which
is faster scsi or IDE, the specs keep getting changed as they compete.
The one that i was thinking of is the P2 97L series not the 97B series.
I think the L ones has got 5 PCI slots and 2 ISA slot. I guess more PCI
slot the better as even Sound cards are believe to perform better in PCI
slots (i read this from Creative Web site where they came out with their
new soundcard call PCI 64 Enqsonic) I guess i would only use 1 ISA slot
for Modems. Do you think that the L series can support the 100 MHz Ram?
So you think that the B series is better than the L series is it???
<!-- Stephen --> no thats what i was saying, only the bx main board supports the
P100 sdrams. The LX supports the 33 mhz EDO, FPM, and sdrams (60ns),
the LX agp, PCI runs at 33 mhz on an LX also. The bx agp runs at 66 (133mhz sideband)
with the bx PCI running at 66 mhz also. The system clock runs at 100 mhz on a bx main board
so requires the P100 sdrams (8-10ns).
Gosh, i think the GBex is not a AGP!!! Looks like i want to sell this baby away already!
2 major questions:
1) Beside AGP having a doubling of the Fps (Is it got to do with the amount of flinking
and pausing and slowing down of movements when turning a 3D character???)
Does AGP surpasses Voodoo 2 Ability? Which would be Better.
<!-- Stephen -->
the agp is designed to enhance the 3D -- not 3Dfx. a Voodoo 3Dfx will always be different
better and most likely faster. The 3D will be boosted by DirectX, but not enough, like the
new starfighter Intel agp 3D board, just not quite there.
I've had a chance to see what happens when you have to use the PCI slot with a fast ATI
Rage2 2D/3D Graphics board (the agp is left empty)
and to compare to the same main board with a Diamond viper 330 agp 2D/3D graphics board.
The ATI PCI has bogged down the P266 II so bad that my P233mmx is faster.
while the P266 using the Viper agp is really fast, noticably faster than my P233mmx.
FPS has to do with the eye ball and perceived animation. TV is 20 to 24 FPS.
Games appear very `animated', smooth, fluid, at around 30 FPS. Most flight sims
don't start really becoming realistic until about 60-80 FPS, due to dropped frames
when the P.C. can't keep up with the screen action. This is one reason why someone
who thinks they can shot (dogfight) appears that they can't hit anything, his frames
that would of hit the enemy plane get dropped in the middle of the dogfight action !
so you have to (among other things) insure you get the fastest frame rate also !
2) Is it possible to connect Voodoo 2 to the AGP Cards???
<!-- Stephen --> From what i've read -- no you can't you can only connect two voodoo's
together for SLI mode (twice as fast as one Voodoo). So you can't put a agp Voodoo
together with a PCI Voodoo yet either. Someone has to build the bridge chip to connect
the agp to the PCI bus. (but maybe thats happened in the last week or two).
3) There is no software that uses AGP but Voodoo 2 rite at this moment???
<!-- Stephen --> Right now i don't know, my cards came with a software bundle
but they could of been written for the Voodoo 1, Tomb Raider has 3Dfx but thats for the
Voodoo 1. I haven't read any advertisements for software that is written for the agp slot,
or the Intel agp Starfighter. (maybe a few if they bundled them with the Starfighter purchase).
Cheers,
Stephen