In a new CineFX architecture whitepaper (PDF) on the NVidia Developer site, some specs of the upcoming NV3X architecture are mentioned. Looks like NVidia will follow ATI with 128-bit internal color precision, and the amount of vertex and pixel shader instructions has been significantly upgraded. There's more in there but you need to know your buzzwords. Thanks zeroprey.

More nForce 2 previews today, all of them giving us an overview of all the improvements in NVidia's newest AMD motherboard chipset. Again no benchmarks, just based on what NVidia has told these sites. Take a look at articles on HardOCP, AnandTech, VIA Hardware, Hardware Accelerated, Deviant PC, Tech Report and GamePC. NVidia has also issued an official press release on the new chips. DDR400, USB 2.0, FireWire, dual networking, its all there.

A preview of the Nvidia nForce 2 is up at Bjorn3D, mostly based on Nvidia information. Nvidia should be announcing their revised motherboard chipset today.

Tweakers Asylum and Guru of 3D are both offering Detonator drivers for NVidia cards, with version number 30.30. There's a Win98/ME version as well as a Windows 2000/XP version.

According to The Inquirer, the new nForce motherboard chipset from NVidia will launch July 15. There will be a version with and a version without an integrated graphics core, the one without being significantly cheaper. It'll have support for DDR 400.

Following yesterday's leak of the news, NVidia today officially announced CG. This is a new programming language specifically for graphics. It's been developed with Microsoft and "gives developers a new level of abstraction, removing the need for them to program directly to the graphics hardware". You can find an interview about this on Hot Hardware. The guys at the FiringSquad have an article as well.

HardOCP has a translation of this French page which has some info on a new SDK that Nvidia is sending out to developers. This SDK will allow developers to recreate CG movie effects on Nvidia's upcoming NV30 chip.

The Nvidia.com driver page now lists Detonator XP drivers v29.42. Release highlights include "GeForce4 Ti 4200 support", "Full Acceleration and support for the GeForce4 and Quadro4 families" and a few other things. The drivers are available for Win9x, WinXP, Win2k, and WinNT. Thanks Shadowdane.

A report on TheInquirer is saying that it looks like the next NVidia chipset being called the NV30 right now is looking at some possible delays. Mean while things on the ATI side are looking good for the upcoming R300 release. Perhaps an actual moment in time where NVidia isnt the fastest chip on the market?

The Inquirer is doing some reporting about the next-gen ATI parts. The R300 and RV250 should be out sometime late this summer, supposedly a few months before NVidia's next GPU (October or November is what they say). NVidia's NV30 has taped out though. As for the ATI 300 part, it's expected there will be a $399 loaded version of the videocard along with a cheaper Light version. ATI has come pretty close to NVidia in performance lately, think they'll finally have a card that beats NVidia?

The ATI 300 will support DirectX 9.0, will have as many as 107 million transistors, and have eight pipes with 16 textures. It will include 4 vertex shader engines, and use 256-bit DDR memory, and use a technology called HyperZ III.
We also expect that the R300 will support AGP8X, be out before Direct X9.0 and support it, include both MPEG 2 encoding and decoding, video acceleration and the rest. <snip> It will support 128MB of DDR, VGA, DVI-I and VO, but we believe that ATI will introduce an R300 Light (LE) which will be aimed more at the meanstream market.

Some pics can be seen at Legion Hardware.

According to Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, we'll be seeing NVidia's latest GPU in August. The new graphics unit will use a different architecture than the current GeForce 4 chip. Not much else was announced at this time. This GPU comes rather fast after the introduction of the GeForce 4 though, seeing how that was announced in February with Ti cards only shipping since March.

The new chip will be manufactured on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s latest 0.13-micron manufacturing process, Huang said. Huang did not reveal the name or specific features of the chip, but did say it was a fundamentally new architecture from the GeForce 4 Titanium introduced earlier this year.
"It is the most important contribution we've made to the graphics industry since the founding of this company," Huang said, speaking at the Merrill Lynch Hardware Heaven Technology Conference.

The NVidia site has been updated with new nForce drivers for all you people with nForce powered motherboards. Version 1.05 of the nForce drivers has rear stereo support, compatibility fixes and international language support. Thanks Carnivac. Drivers are available for Win98 SE, WinME, Win2k and XP.

CNet is reporting that Nvidia is in arbitration with Microsoft over the pricing of the Xbox chips Nvidia provides. Though Nvidia says their relationship with Microsoft is "wonderful", they want to see more money for one of their custom processors.

Following up on to this story in February, when NVidia was hit by a SEC probe. NVidia will now restate financial results for the past three years. Nothing out of the ordinary though, with just a million or three in net income difference. The company also expects to deliver good first quarter results.

ZDNet has an article interviewing NVidia asking some fairly good questions. There are a couple of fluffy answers in there but you also get a good general idea of what NVidia's plans for the future are.

Did Nvidia's philosophy change with the purchase of 3DFX?
Not too much--we still want to be profitable and we still want to stay in business--so they haven't influenced us in that. What we did though was to mix the development teams up completely. I didn't want 3DFX people vs. Nvidia people--I wanted to have us all learn from each other and make different products.

NVidia has released new Detonator drivers for all their video GPUs. The drivers are available for Win 9x, XP and 2000. Thanks VE. Update: looks like the only difference is WHQL certification.

FiringSquad has a good article looking at the GeForce4 4200 and overclocking capability. Seems like this is absolutely the bargain card to go after for most people.

HardOCP is also putting the GeForce4 Ti4200 through the paces. They have pretty pictures and benchmarks. Brent makes prettier charts than Kyle.

The Tech Report has a quickie Q&A with NVidia. The questions are about the GeForce 4 Ti4200 and the differences between that card and the Ti4400/4600.

Tech-Report has a darn good ATI & NVidia article taking a look at several of the latest offerings from the two companies and checking out the performance. ATI has allegedly been improving their driver support lately. Good read.