Sharky Extreme's exclusive preview of the Metabyte TNT SLI has the scoop on plans to offer SLI-mode TNT accelerators (two cards used in tandem) to offer increased performance, and from the report it sounds like this is a breakthrough that will offer SLI mode for any card they choose to implement this with. Here's an excerpt to give a feel for what this is all about:

Metabyte's engineers have been working on an undercover technology that allows not only nVidia chipsets to be SLI'ed in tandem, but virtually any future chipset from any vendor that hits the market.

The internal code name for the Metabyte project is "Wicked3D Stepsister" (don't ask us, no one we talked to remembers where this name originated from) and it heralds a new dawn as far as linked high-powered video options go. Our Metabyte sources answered "Yes, yes, and yes" when asked if it was possible for the Wicked3D Stepsister program to be adapted to work with the S3 Savage 4, 3Dfx Voodoo3, TNT2, or another brand new chip architecture. Although it's unlikely in Metabyte's mind that they'll do a Savage4 or Voodoo3-based SLI product, the TNT2 is a whole different enchilada. Later in this article we'll break the news on two possible TNT2 SLI solutions, but for now let's look at the Step Sister technology itself.

Here's the way the system will work:

Metabyte is going to sell both PCI and AGP versions of their TNT SLI capable cards separately for between $125 and $150 for each 16MB card. Much like the Voodoo2 SLI setups that we all know and love, the Metabyte TNT SLI system works similarly but differs with two possible SLI combos: 1 AGP TNT + 1 PCI TNT 1 PCI TNT + 1 PCI TNT

The AGP + PCI version of the Metabyte SLI rig will offer slightly faster performance (about 5 to 10%) than the 2 TNT PCI cards when linked together. This is due to the way that Metabyte has chosen to implement SLI, to maximize their driver's capabilities. Instead of rendering each 3D image's odd or even lines in succession the way 3Dfx's SLI system works, Metabyte's process separates the entire 3D image into two halves: The top half of the on-screen image, and the bottom half of the on-screen image. This supposedly reduces the CPU overhead versus the odd/even 3Dfx approach while making the whole operation smoother and more seamless.

The Coming has posted an interview with Michael "Saxs" Persson talking with this Shiny programmer (as opposed to the grubby type) about their upcoming third-person action adventure, Messiah.

There are a few new screenshots from Drakan: Order of the Flame on Drakan.Net, and two more new shots on The Flamelands.

Gangland.org has posted six new screenshots from Kingpin:Life of Crime, Xatrix Entertainment's upcoming gangster-inspired Quake II-engine game.

id Software's Tim Willits made a rare .plan update with word on how to order hockey-style Quake III Arena Jerseys like you can see the id guys wearing in the photos in the recent print edition of Next-Generation.

A chunk of new Quake III Arena footage was unveiled as part of a piece on the Pentium III launch. Verbatim sent along this copy of the Quake III Arena footage (3.9 MB) in QuickTime format, FTP mirror courtesy of Walnut Creek CDROM, and it can also be seen with the accompanying report in this ZDNN Silicon Spin report (in RealPlayer format), where the Quake III Arena footage begins just past the 1:30 mark. Thanks fRy.

Two cool new screenshots from Activision's Charlie Hill showed up in my mailbox, both from their upcoming Heavy Gear II. I'll thumbnail them here, and if anyone is concerned about the spoiler aspects of posting thumbnails on the news page, I'm interested in hearing from you, otherwise I'm going to assume it's okay to post shots occasionally like this. These 32-bit color shots are from one of the game's outer space levels, "asteroid shipyards" showing off a new weapons effect on the Light Particle Accelerator:

Ritualistic has word from Ritual programmer Scott Alden that barring any unforeseen problems, they would be releasing a 1.03 patch for Sin sometime this week. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

3DNews.Net continues its big ole interview with a bunch of folks in the industry, asking the panel of Adrian Chmielarz from Metropolis, Scott Herrington of Shiny, Robert Stevenson of Interactive Magic, Paul Steed from id Software, Raven's John Scott, Paul Butterfield of Monolith, Legend's Glen Dahlgren, and ElectroTECH's Alan Gassanov their opinions about 3D sound, and eye candy.

GameFan Online has posted an Aliens vs. Predator feature that offers 65 screenshots, as well as mpegs and artwork showing off each character class.

Soldier-of-Fortune.com has a new screenshots section up with all the known shots that have been released from Raven's upcoming Quake II-engine game, with a couple more new shots thrown in to get the whole thing kicked off right.

There are some new screenshots on The Wheel of Time site. Thanks Tal Rhen.

There's a preview of Oni, Bungie's upcoming action game on MacAddict. Thanks Scandalon.

If you missed it yesterday, here's my Voodoo3 Preview. There's an ATI Xpert 128 review at Fast Graphics. Thanks Tzeng.

The link was down quite a bit yesterday, presumably because of heavy interest, but there's still time to enter that 3Dfx contest where you can win a Voodoo3. This year's ACM Quakefest has been announced, the event formerly known as the Purdue Quakefest.

• Version 1.1 of Wadtool, the texture management tool for the Mac is now available...
• Heatsink-guide.com can help you cool your burning Celeron. Thanks Tzeng...
• Birdman's Lair has files to support Turok2 and Blood2 on the SpaceOrb 360 controller. Thanks 3dAddiction. Word there is that Thief Sporb support is a possibility in the future...

Happy belated birthday to Raven's Jake Simpson, subject of a special birthday Q&A on Raven-Games. I'll be out during the day today and tomorrow, today's absence due to what is hopefully the last lengthy visit to my Dentist, the able Dr. Toothy, so expect some of those special pain-killer influenced postings from me upon my return.

As soon as I said it was no longer a beta, it turns out there are a couple of bugs in Blammo, most vexing is that the link to "previous 2 days" is skipping the previous day (or at least is was yesterday). If the problem persists, hopefully you can use this stuff to find what you need, conveniently located under today's LoD, provided by Lithium:

Link of the day: Apparently at one time this was an actual e-bay ad.

or enter a date: Day: Month: Year:

or enter a search phrase:

First off, here's that contest dealie where you can win a Voodoo3, good luck to all who enter. Also, the promised rush of reviews has begun. In additions to my Voodoo3 Preview, now online are: the Preview of 3Dfx’s Voodoo3 Chip on Tom's Hardware, Sharky Extreme's 3Dfx Voodoo3 Review - Almost, VE's Voodoo3 preview, AGN Hardware's Voodoo3 Preview, and The RIVA 3D Voodoo 3 Review (or "Blank 3D" as they're humorously listed on the Voodoo3 On-line Reviews page).

The Aliens version of the Aliens vs. Predator demo is up on GameSpot. The demo is about 30 MB, and as the name implies, allows you to play the game from the alien point of view. Thanks AvP Network.

Arcadia has posted an Eric Biessman interview playing ten questions with Raven's Prime Minister (hey, that's the description listed in his .plan) about Raven's upcoming Soldier of Fortune game.

The A3D Downloads page has new Win95/98 drivers for Vortex 2 (AU8830) based sound cards only. Thanks Randy Perry.

After a brutal weekend of battering the Voodoo3 around in the Blue Labs, I have completed my Voodoo3 Preview, which actually pretty much takes on the tone of a full review, the hedge of calling it a preview is outlined up top. Having said that, I'm comfortable that this is a good rundown of the upcoming accelerator's pros and cons.

Wake the kids, phone the neighbors, the new loonygames is off and running. Here's the schedule for the coming week:

Oy, my back. Hey, is that issue twenty six? Go figure. Whining this week:

• - Two Programs, Two Dimensions: Rick Grossenbacher, a professional 2D game artist, and graphic designer teaches this tutorial on using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create seamless 2D game artwork. [Monday]
• - From the Mouth of Madness: Jason "loonyboi" Bergman gives his list of the most overrated games of all time. From Zelda 64 to Myst, to Rampage? [Monday]
• - Guest Editorial: Russian developer Sergei Klimov gives his account of the ups and downs of the Russian game industry, and the development of his still in production RTS/RPG title. [Thursday]
• PLUS: Whole bags of User Friendly [DAILY], Penny Arcade does FFVIII...or at least tries to [Wednesday], a look at Fallout 2 in Pixel Obscura [Tuesday], a dual review of Fallout 1 *and* 2 in The Top Shelf plus lots more! And then some more, because we just kick it that way, dammit.
• Note: This issue of loonygames is dedicated to the living memory of Gene Siskel (1946 - 1999).

ICQ 99a is available for download on Download.com. Thanks mACK.

There are a pair of new Soldier of Fortune screenshots on GameLinks.Net as part of their Soldier of Fortune Week, dedicated to Raven's upcoming Quake II-engine game. There's also an interview with Kenn Hoekstra, talking about the game, and a Soldier of Fortune Contest that will give a free copy of SoF (when released) to a pair of random recipients.

A new beta of the free Crystal Space 3D Engine is now available offering several fixes, including a whole bunch of OpenGL changes. Thanks BetaNews.

New version 1.0.8 of the Fast Card overclocking utility of the RIVA TNT and 128 is now available. Thanks again BetaNews.

This 3Dfx press release announces support for AMD's 3DNow! technology through the entire Voodoo family. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme. According to the announcement, "The optimizations will particularly benefit the new Voodoo3 product family..."

There's an Industry Interview on 3DNews.Net asking questions about current trends in gaming of a panel of experts consisting of Adrian Chmielarz from Metropolis, Scott Herrington of Shiny, Robert Stevenson of Interactive Magic, Paul Steed from id Software, Raven's John Scott, Paul Butterfield of Monolith, Legend's Glen Dahlgren, and ElectroTECH's Alan Gassanov.

This week's edition of 10 Questions With SamHell is a Q&A with Cail, lead programmer of the famed Action Quake2 mod, and its upcoming Half-Life sequel.

There are three new The Glyphs Screenshots on GA-Source showing off this game from Coil that uses the Quake II/Heretic II code.

The Rainbow 6 Retreat has a Rainbow Six mod called Nato 2.0 for download that adds new weapons sounds and missions to the game, as well as tweaking AI, weapons, and other details. Thanks Online Gaming News.

A new beta of Terror Quake2 is now available offering new weapons and gameplay changes for Quake II including bleeding, limping, and bullet holes.

Solar Eclipse has posted a Solaris port of Gloom version 1.0e.

There is now a 3 Team CTF version of Expert CTF running at 171.64.206.97:27920. Expert is described as being "all about combat. That 'other stuff' - heavy armor, mega-powerups, big fookin guns - it's all been reworked, replaced or removed." Also, Charles 'Myrkul' Kendrick, the creator of the Expert Quake mod for Quake2 is featured on the latest edition of Scum Radio.

There's a new official AMD K6-III FAQ giving the latest on AMD's latest. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

• Da Valkyries (Women Gamers Online) are holding what is described as a "just for the fun of it" monthly Quake II tournament called DaV. The first tournament will be Thursday March 25 at 9:30 PM EST. To participate you must be a DaV member (they are not a clan), "any game playing women and interested men may join."
• The results have been posted for what is called a highly successful season of the QIL2 along with demos of some matches.
• Last Clan Standing is a Quake (1) tournament setup for teams of four, high or low ping (but not mixed).
• The first version of the Clan World ranking system is online.

• Sharky Extreme's Kryotech Cool K6-3 500 MHz PC Review is up looking at this super-cooled, over-clocked machine that's been reconfigured in response to the early reactions to the first version they reviewed six weeks ago.
• Aureality reviews the Xitel Storm Platinum, a new Vortex2-based soundcard.
• AGN3D reviews South Park, the PC port of the first-person shooter where, believe it or not, you don't kill Kenny (those bastards!)...

• Hey Jeff! The 3D Guy answers reader questions, "To kick things off, Jeff discusses Triple Buffering, how it works, and how it can make your frame rates considerably higher in certain games:"...
• The TF Sniper page offers hints and tips TeamFortress' deadly long-range class...
• The use at your own risk link of the day is Hansis Homepage where you can find the Maxclock utility for overclocking the RIVA TNT and RIVA 128. Thanks Viper 3D and Dimension 128...
• Zip & Jaz Drive Click Death page on the Gibson Research Corporation home (wow, I remember using SpinRite well over ten years ago!) that offers a utility to tell if your Jazz or Zip drive is on its way to a premature death. Thanks John...

My monitor tan is even on both sides from the glow of the second machine running benchmarks all weekend. After I post my Voodoo3 dealie (sometime after 3:00 PM Eastern time today) I will also have some new benchmarks to post, which will include some Pentium III results for the V3 and the TNT as well. As a follow up to the recent recommendation for SyGate, I've received recommendations to check out both NAT32 and WinRoute, both of which are said to overcome problems (that I have not experienced) that can manifest themselves with SyGate. It will probably be some time before I can check them out, so I'll just pass the word on them along untested. Thanks Chris Hodge for the source of today's quote:

Quote of the day: "Upstairs, junior's playing Quake XXII online, complete with real-time audio heckling."
From CNN - What will the Internet of the future be like.