New Classes

• New sound-playing classes in the Game Kit.  Much simpler than the classes in the Media Kit, the Game Kit classes are ideal for applications that simply want to play sounds and soundfiles without the fuss of dealing with media nodes.  See BGameSound et al.

• The Media Kit has a number of new classes.  Notable of these is BMediaFile, which lets you read and write media files.

• New C++ object-oriented networking API based on the popular Nettle library.  Read all about it here.

• New ScreenSaver preference and add-on API, as documented in Screen Saver.

• New Deskbar API lets you query for the location of the Deskbar, get its frame, and add and remove items from the Status View, as documented in Deskbar.

Tools

• BeIDE.  The BeIDE is greatly improved since 4.0.  Some highlights:
  • The BeIDE editor can look up terms in the Be Book.
  • External editors are supported.
  • The Find panel has a regular expression formula palette.
  • Drag and drop is widely supported.
  • and much, much more... click and read.

• bdb. 
  The new Intel-only bdb source code debugger can be launched from the command line, and it's integrated into the BeIDE. 

• Leak Checker. 
  The new Intel-only Leak Checker tools helps you find memory leaks in your apps.

Apps and Preferences

• NetPositive supports PNG.

• Tracker. 
  • New ZipOMatic add-on creates zip archives.
  • A draggable icon represents your new query in the Find panel.

• The Devices preference can configure and disable devices.

• New media apps and preferences:
  • The new MediaPlayer, Camera, CodyCam, SoundRecorder, and TV apps.  Read about them in the Applications section of the User Release Notes.

  • The new 3D Mixer demo application has an interface like no other.

  • The new Media preference app lets you control audio and video streams.

Hardware Support

• For a complete list of hardware devices supported in Release 4.5, see Hardware Compatibility.  This list is kept up-to-date on the Be Web site at http://www.be.com/products/beosreadylist.html

Networking

• PPP.  Auto-dialing is supported (again), and has been improved.

• New CIFS client support lets you browse the network for printers, machines, and "workgroups." 

• The Tulip driver now supports Dec 21143 Lan controllers.  This includes supports for Addtron and Farallon cards.

Kernel and Kernel Drivers

• USB is supported.  The API for the USB driver is in <drivers/USB.h>. 

• An experimental PCMCIA driver is provided.

• High-end 4 Pentium II Xeon servers (with the new IO APIC with 64 interrupt lines) are supported.

• Improvements to IDE driver reliability and chipset support:
  • DMA is disabled for all OPTi chipsets (these chipsets are bad).
  • DMA is disabled on drives that don't report a selected DMA mode.
  • Aladdin V chipsets supported for CD-ROM DMA.

• Improved SMP support, including a new dumpmpct command line program that dumps the MPC table -- great for debugging.

• Miscellaneous improvements:
  • Reduced memory footprint.
  • Improved boot loader.
  • Improved PPC compiler and linker.
  • Improved, more reliable kernel debugger (Intel).
  • More accurate timing for snooze(), timeouts, and the like.

Graphics and Graphics Drivers

• New or improved graphics drivers for:
  • Intel i740 chipset cards.
  • nVidia RIVA TNT chipset cards.
  • Matrox G100 and G200.
  • ATI Rage II, Pro, LT Pro, and Turbo.
  • Sis-5598, -6326, and -620.

• The cursor-doesn't-move bug was fixed for the Riva 128 and TNT, and the Matrox Millenium and Mystique cards.

Some models of the ATI Rage IIxx chipsets are not supported properly.

OpenGL and 3D Hardware Acceleration

• OpenGL software rendering is now 20% - 30% faster.

• Some experimental offerings:
  • A driver for 3DFX Voodoo 2 OpenGL cards.
  • The Glide 3D programming language (for use with Voodoo 2 cards).
  • The OpenGL library, optimized for the Pentium III.

Printing

• The new transport layer architecture dramatically increases the number of printing configurations that are supported on the BeOS.

Copyright © 1999 Be, Inc.  All rights reserved.