Windows XP Service Pack 3 After Vista

Microsoft has revealed plans to release a third service pack for Windows XP. "There will be a Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP," Bernard Ourghanlian, technical and security director at Microsoft France, confirmed, revealing that Microsoft's operating system is set for another major evolution.

Windows XP's Service Pack 2, which came out in September 2004, has already deeply modified the operating system and updated its security. Windows XP SP3 will be available in the course of next year, after the launch of Windows Vista, which "is the priority for the development teams", according to Microsoft France. Microsoft has yet to reveal any details about the contents of the service pack. Laurent Delaporte, assistant MD at Microsoft France said: "Historically, certain functions of new versions of Windows are integrated in the service packs of previous versions."

It's therefore likely that some of the less significant features of Vista will make an appearance in Windows XP SP3.

Guild Wars Game Update - Thursday, September 29

ArenaNet has released a huge game update that will stream to you once you launch your game client. The list of skill balances as well as new features and updates is very long so check out the full list via the headline link. A few highlights:

• Capped attack speed adjustments at 133% of normal attack speed, down from 150% previously.
• The skill monitor can now display two skills being cast simultaneously, such as a Stance or Shout plus a normal skill.
• The skill monitor now uses animations to indicate when a skill completes successfully or is interrupted during casting.
• When your pet damages another character, you can now see floating numbers showing that damage.
• The regional groups in the Quest Log will now remember their open/closed state between viewings of the Quest Log.
• The "(Completed)" tag in the Quest Log now displays correctly when viewed in French, Italian, German, and Spanish.
• Healer henchmen now prioritize healing party allies whose death would result in mission failure.
• Updated skill descriptions to more accurately describe their effects.
• Expanded in-game music.
• Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Update (KB907865)

Title: A hotfix that updates the IPSec Policy Agent is available for Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP

Overview: The IPSec Policy Agent (IPsecsvc.dll) manages Internet Protocol security policy. The IPSec Policy Agent starts the ISAKMP/Oakley (IKE) protocol mechanism. The IPSec Policy Agent also starts the Internet Protocol security driver that is available for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and for Microsoft Windows XP. The IPSec Policy Agent includes a set of remote procedure call (RPC)-based interfaces. These interfaces are used by internal Windows components.

Microsoft has released a hotfix that corrects the behavior of the IPSec Policy Agent. Install this update to address multiple issues in the IPSec Policy Agent. After you apply this hotfix, a calling program can better provide its services. This hotfix updates IPsecsvc.dll to version 5.1.2600.2760.

Nvidia ForceWare 81.33 Beta Windows XP/2K 32/64bit

My favourite driver digger website Station-Drivers (french guys by the way) have discovered new Nvidia ForceWare drivers version 81.33 which are apparently some beta release. The drivers are dated 18th of September, 2005. It appears that this driver was .inf modified.

Other download mirrors:

Nvidia ForceWare 81.33 Beta Windows XP/2K 32bit @ MyDrivers
Nvidia ForceWare 81.33 Beta Windows XP 64bit @ MyDrivers

Microsoft Investigating New IE Flaw

Microsoft says it is investigating a report of a new vulnerability discovered in Internet Explorer that stems from XmlHttpRequest, a JavaScript object used in AJAX Web applications such as Google Maps. In an advisory, security firm Secunia says the flaw affects IE6 on a fully patched Windows XP SP2 system. According to the initial paper detailing the problem written by Amit Klein, Internet Explorer can be fooled into running arbitrary HTTP requests. "IE doesn't validate some critical fields that are provided by the user," Klein said.

Input passed to the method parameter in the "open()" function in the "Microsoft.XMLHTTP" ActiveX control isn't properly sanitised before being used," Secunia explained. "Successful exploitation requires that the HTTP request is sent to a server or via a proxy allowing tab characters instead of spaces in certain parts of the HTTP request." In a statement, Microsoft said it was looking into the vulnerability, but was not aware of any attacks exploiting the flaw. As per its standard security policy, the company may issue an update as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday or provide an emergency fix.

ASUS Introduces DRW-1608P2S DVD SuperMulti Drive

ASUS today announced the DRW-1608P2S DVD rewriter that supports 5X DVD-RAM write, 16X DVD+/-R/RW and 8X DVD+/-R double layer media source. The ASUS DRW-1608P2S also adopts several technologies found only in ASUS optical drives, including: FlextraLink, FlextraSpeed, DDSS II Technology, LCT Technology.

Specifications:

• 5X DVD-RAM/16X DVD-R/6X DVD-RW/ 16X DVD+R/8X DVD+RW/8X DVD ± R (DL)/16X DVD-ROM/40X CD-R/32X CD-RW/40X CD-ROM
• Vertical and Horizontal Mounting Available
• Support DAO, TAO, SAO, Packet Write
• Support Windows XP/NT/ME/2000/98SE
• Multiple formats: DVD-ROM, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-Video, DVD-RAM, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM Mode1, CD-ROM/XA Mode2, Photo CD, CD-I, CD-Extra, CD-Text
• Bundled Latest NERO & ULEAD Software

Get DivX Create Free

The guys at DivX are celebrating their 5th birthday and are giving away free full versions of DivX Create. To receive the software you need to enter your email address and download the product. Then you're sent a serial number. Have fun.

Radeon X1K Series Pricing Revealed

Hexus has revealed the pricing details of ATI's next-generation Radeon X1K family based on the R5-series GPU. Here are the details:

• X1800 XT 512MB - $549
• X1800 XT 256MB - $499
• X1800 XL 256MB - $449
• X1600 XT 256MB - $249
• X1600 XT 128MB - $199
• X1600 Pro 256MB - $199
• X1600 Pro 128MB - $149
• X1300 Pro 256MB - $149
• X1300 256MB - $129
• X1300 128MB - $99
• X1300 Hyper Memory 128MB - $79

Even with a $200 gap between the X1600 XT 256MB and the X1800 XL and some overlap at $199 and $149, ATI looks to have a very complete lineup ready to go.

ATI R520 AGP Cancelled

We saw some earlier roadmaps that were implying that ATI plans to do R520, Radeon X1800 in an AGP variation but it turns out that the company dropped its original plan. PCIe is picking up so fast that ATI realised that not that many people will go for an AGP version of the card, or that's what appears to be the logic. Radeon X850 XT PE will remain the fastest AGP Radeon

RV515, Radeon X1300 comes as an AGP card and there is a strong indication that there will be AGP versions of RV530 cards, Radeon X1600 as well. ATI can make all of its chips AGP compliant using its known Rialto chip that can translate PCIe instructions in AGP. Nvidia already dropped out from the AGP high end market as it didn’t want to release the Geforce 7800 GTX. Its fastest AGP card still available is the Geforce 6800 Ultra

ATI R580 Is Ready Already?

In an ATI R520 presentation, one of the slides reveals that their next generation R580 is actually in the house and working. It will be the improved version of R520 built with 24 and 32 pipelines. Two months back, it was reported that Nvidia G80 is ready and waiting for R580 to come along. In 2006, we will see both architectures start appearing.

Windows Media Player 10 Update #2

Title: The Web Proxy Auto Discovery file may not be automatically downloaded for the Real Time Streaming Protocol and for the Microsoft Multimedia Streaming protocol in Windows Media Player

Symptoms: You can configure Microsoft Windows Media Player to automatically detect proxy settings. However, the Web Proxy Auto Discovery (WPAD) file may not be automatically downloaded as expected for the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and for the Microsoft Multimedia Streaming (MMS) protocol.

Cause: A flag in the registry is not correctly cleared. This flag prevents a new download of the WPAD file.

Download the hotfix via the headline link.

Windows Media Player 10 Update

Title: The Windows Media Player process may unexpectedly quit when Internet Explorer is configured to use administrator-approved ActiveX controls

Symptoms: When Microsoft Internet Explorer is configured to use administrator-approved ActiveX controls, the Microsoft Windows Media Player process or the process that is hosting the Windows Media Player control may unexpectedly quit.

Cause: The Internet Explorer API that Windows Media Player calls does not correctly handle the parameter that Windows Media Player passes to the API. Therefore, an access violation occurs.

Download the hotfix via the headline link.

Gamespot Guild Wars Chapter 2 Interview

Gamespot has posted a new Guild Wars interview today, and the topic is the second chapter of the Guild Wars saga. Find the Q&A via the headline link.

GameSpot: What's the official name of the next chapter, if there is one at the moment? When is it planned for release, and how far along is it?
Gaile Gray (ArenaNet Community Relations): While we don't yet have a name for the next chapter of Guild Wars, we're well on our way with content development. Various members of the team have been active in startup for level design, quest scripting, programming, storyline exploration, global network expansion, and the creation of all sorts of concept art as well. The chapter will release in the first half of 2006.

Nvidia ForceWare 81.26 WHQL

Guru3D has FW 81.26 WHQL available for download. These drivers originate from Asrock who released them on their website. The binaries themselves are dated at August 26, 2005, mind you that GeForce 6 and upwards are WHQL supported in this release. Remember, although WHQL these are beta drivers.

On a sidenote Nvidia might release ForceWare 81.80 sometime soon. AMDZone used these in their "Nvidia nForce 430 and Geforce 6150 Graphics Performance Revealed" article. So it seems the 81.80 revision has been supplied by Nvidia.

iPod Nano Flaw 'Limited' - Apple Confirms

Apple's all-new iPod nano has been in the news lately, receiving rave reviews worldwide on launch and a wave of criticism since recent claims that the iPod nano ships with a faulty screen. This is not the case, an Apple representative said on Tuesday night. The allegation first surfaced on Flawedmusicplayer.com, which is no longer available. The site claimed iPod nano screens become damaged during such commonplace use as being in a user's pocket. Some customers have reported the device to fail within hours of purchase.

Apple confirmed the problem exits, saying: "This is a real but minor issue involving a vendor quality problem in a small number of units. Our figures show this issue has affected less than 1/10 of 1 per cent of the total iPod nano units that we've shipped. It is not a design issue."
Affected customers simply need to contact Apple to arrange a free replacement unit.
A second complaint has been that the iPod nano screen gets scratched easily. Apple moved to scotch such rumours, saying: "A few vocal customers are saying that their iPod nano is more susceptible to scratching than prior iPods. We have received very few calls from customers reporting this problem, and do not believe this is a widespread issue."

Steam Day Of Defeat: Source & Source Engine Updates Available

Updates to Day of Defeat: Source and the Source Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Source Engine

Fixed some video cards being incorrectly set to DX9 when they should have been DX8. This would cause a significant performance problem for affected hardware

Changed refresh behavior of server browser. Old behavior was generating too much traffic when list was not open

Fixed bug where VAC would sometimes hold onto .dlls after a game had been shut down completely

Fixed a crash which could sometimes occur immediately after launching a game

Day of Defeat: Source

Added the default mapcycle.txt to servers running Day of Defeat: Source

Fixed crash bug when using %s in your player name

Source Dedicated Server

Fixed bug in dedicated server engine that incorrectly displayed their anti-cheat status (servers were showing as insecure, but were running in secure mode)

Symantec Launches New Internet Security Suite

Symantec has upgraded its flagship Norton Internet Security platform to version 2006, making the security applications more user friendly by offering plain-language guidance on safe-computing strategies in a new "protection center."

The new products - Norton Internet Security 2006, Norton AntiVirus 2006 and Norton Personal Firewall 2006 - offer features and functions designed to make security more proactive and automatic for consumers. Internet Security 2006 combines Norton AntiVirus, Norton Personal Firewall, Norton AntiSpam, Norton Privacy Control and Norton Parental Control in a single package. The antispam component no longer is offered as a standalone application and has been updated in the new version to help identify and thwart phishing attacks.

The Protection Center aggregates and summarizes what users need to know about security issues using simple, everyday language to make security relevant to the activities consumers use their computers for, such as Web surfing, e-mail and downloading digital photos and music. Norton AntiVirus 2006, Norton Internet Security 2006, and Norton Personal Firewall 2006 are scheduled to be available within the next two weeks. Norton AntiVirus 2006 costs $39.99, Norton Internet Security 2006 costs $69.99 and Norton Personal Firewall 2006 costs $49.99. Current users of Symantec products as well as users of competitive products can upgrade for less than full retail prices.

See http://www.symantec.com for more information.

Office 2003 SP2 Released - Adds Phishing Blocker

Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2 contains significant security enhancements, in addition to stability and performance improvements. Some of the fixes included with SP2 have been previously released as separate updates. This service pack combines them into one update.

Among the new additions is a Phishing Protection feature for Outlook that filters out e-mails trying to steal personal information. Microsoft says stability improvements have been made based on feedback received from the Online Crash Analysis tool. Those running the Multilingual User Interface Pack will need to install an additional update that will be available at a later date.

Problems Surfacing With iPod Nano Screen

Some owners of Apple Computer's new "impossibly small" iPod Nano are starting to wonder if the device is also impossibly delicate. The most widespread complaint about the otherwise highly praised device seems to be that the color display screen gets scratched extremely easily. Apple's discussion forums are already holding a 567-post thread on the topic. Trouble is that a few scratches will quickly make the color screen all but useless for viewing album art and photos stored on the machine.

Corsair Introduces New High Speed DDR Memory

Corsair Memory announced a joint product launch targeting the AMD enthusiasts. Under this collaboration, Corsair will release its first "ASUS Ready" XMS-3500LL PRO 2GByte-kit to support the release of the first "Corsair optimized" x16 SLI motherboards engineered by ASUS. Available in a matched pair of two 1GByte modules, the new XMS-3500LL PRO is the industry's first high-density memory guaranteed to deliver blazing-fast performance of DDR437 (218MHz) at low latencies of 2-3-2-6-1T.

Leaders in the memory and the motherboard industries respectively, this joint product development enables both Corsairand ASUS to bring the best offerings to the performance and gaming marketplace. The memory and the motherboards are optimized for maximum performance, and are validated for rock solid stability. Positioned as the highest end products for the AMD platform, enthusiasts benefit from having the latest technologies backed with manufacturer's performance guarantee.

Steam Source Engine Update Released

A small update has just been released which will correct a Source engine DirectX configuration problem. The DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime from Microsoft is required. When launching a Source engine game on Steam, users who don't have this latest version of DirectX will be directed to this page to get the installer.

Call Of Duty 2 Single Player Demo Released

Activision sends along a playable demo for Call of Duty 2, offering the first opportunity to try out the World War II first-person shooter sequel in production at Infinity Ward. This is a single-player demo that contains one mission called "The End of the Beginning" that's situated in El Daba, Egypt, where you're tasked with destroying four artillery guns.

Yahoo! Video Games
Strategy Informer
GameDaily
Worth Playing
3D Gamers
FileFront

ATI CrossFire Dual Graphics Solution Previews

ATI has just introduced CrossFire, their new multi-GPU consumer graphics solution ready to battle Nvidias SLI. To build your own latest generation multi-GPU system, start with any existing Radeon X800 or Radeon X850 graphics card and a CrossFire ready motherboard, such as those based on the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire chipset. Then add a Radeon CrossFire Edition co-processor board and plug in the external cable to unite multi-GPU power.

We have put together a list of ATI CrossFire Dual Graphics reviews from across the net for your viewing pleasure:

[H]ardOCP
The Tech Report
Hexus
HotHardware
PCPerspective
Driver Heaven
Bit-Tech
Beyond3D
T-Break

Nvidia ForceWare 78.05 Beta Released

Nvidia has released beta driver 78.05. The following are changes made and issues resolved since driver version 78.03:

• Fixed a compatibility problem with Half Life 2: The Lost Coast, and Day of Defeat: Source.

• Fixed a normalization cube map problem affecting OpenGL games.

ASUS EN7800GT Dual To Cost €999

We reported earlier on the Asus Dual 7800GT graphics card. New details have now emerged on french website Matbe.com. According to this french site ASUS will make 2000 of EN7800GT Dual graphics cards and will ship only 50 of them to France. Those who would like to acquire the most powerful graphics card will have to pay the price of €999, according to the report.

This hefty price tag makes the dual GPU card even more expensive than two single 7800GT cards. ASUSTeK Computer has not yet confirmed plans to release dual-chip GeForce 7800 GT-based graphics card officially and did not comment on the news story.

Solutions For Steam Problems After The 9/23 Update

A large user group of Valve's Source games have experienced problems after the latest Steam update which prepares for the Day of Defeat: Source activation today at 3pm PDT. These problems include lock-ups, crashes and hangs as well as performance problems. Click the headline for a few steps that Valve would like you to try.

When you start your game and it locks up at the loading screen, try the following:

For those using Firewall software, you need to manually re-add C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\username\half-life 2\hl2.exe to your exceptions list. Once the game exe has been updated on your Firewall you should no longer lock up at the Loading screen.

Full Feature List Of Nvidia ForceWare Release 80

Speculation is heating up on when Nvidia will release the new ForceWare Release 80. My best bet is that this is in a 2 weeks timeframe. Before that though we will see 78.05 released. Today we bring you the full feature list of Release 80:

NVIDIA SLI – more features and capabilities

• Ability to use graphics cards from different vendors and use with different memory sizes
• Dynamic SLI enabling/disabling
• Auto display detection in SLI mode
• Primary display switching in SLI
• Upcoming games such as F.E.A.R and Quake 4 already have built-in SLI Profile

Mobile GPUs now supported in NVIDIA.com drivers

• Mobile users can now get new features and performance with every driver update
• OEMs like Alienware, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest allow NVIDIA.COM drivers to be enabled for their new GeForce Go notebooks
• Driver updates maintain all OEM hotkeys and power management settings

New multimedia and PureVideo HD enhancements

• HDTV Enhancements such as Preview mode to determine panel capabilities, Fullscreen calibration tool, DVI hot-plugging, Japanese D-connectors, Hotkeys cycle HDTV modes
• PureVideo Quality Improvements such as Improved 3:2 and 2:2 pulldown detection and correction, High Definition spatial-temporal de-interlacing support available for GeForce 6600 passive through GeForce 7800 GTX

Brand new NVIDIA Control Panel

• Setting up and configuring NVIDIA hardware has never been easier
• Easy to use control panel ensures best end user experience with over 2500+ hours of usability testing
• Faster downloads and less system resources
• Architected for Windows Vista

Windows Vista To Boot In Under 4 Seconds

Windows Vista introduces a new level of confidence to the experience of using your computer. Beyond the design aesthetic of Windows Vista, the fundamentals of the operating system free you from worrying about security, reliability, and managing your computer. You are in control.

At least that is what Microsoft is aiming at. Personally I like my PC as lean and mean (fast) as it can get including startup and shutdown times. Vista is going to introduce:

Fast On and Off: A Windows Vista computer starts and shuts down as quickly and reliably as a television, typically within 2 to 3 seconds. Windows Vista processes login scripts and startup programs and services in the background so you can start working right away. You'll also shut down and restart your computer less often by using the New Sleep state, a simple one-click on and off experience which not only reduces power consumption, but also delivers and protects user dat.

Guild Wars Update - Friday, September 23

The update will be streamed to you once you launch your game client.

• Fixed problem with access control for beta test languages.

Steam Update Released

Updates to Steam have been released. The update will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. This release includes a number of very specific CPU and memory footprint optimizations brought over from the Half-Life 2: XBOX development codebase. The release also includes all of the engine groundwork to enable the Day of Defeat: Source launch that will happen Monday, September 26 at 3:00 PDT.

Security Fix For DirectX 8 On Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows 98 SE, And Windows 98

DirectX consists of a set of low-level Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) used by Windows programs for multimedia support. Within DirectX, the DirectShow technology performs client-side audio and video sourcing, manipulation and rendering.

There are two buffer overruns with identical effects in the function used by DirectShow to check parameters in a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) file. A security vulnerability results because it would be possible for a malicious user to attempt to exploit these flaws and execute code in the security context of the logged on user.

An attacker could seek to exploit this vulnerability by creating a specially crafted MIDI file designed to exploit this vulnerability and then host it on a Web site or on a network share, or send it via an HTML email. In the case where the file was hosted on a web site or network share, the user would need to open the specially crafted file. If the file was embedded in a page, the vulnerability could be exploited when a user visited the Web page. In the HTML E-mail case, the vulnerability could be exploited when a user opened or previewed the HTML e-mail. A successful attack could have the effect of either causing DirectShow, or an application making use of DirectShow, to fail, or causing an attacker's code to run on the user's computer in the security context of the user.

Asus Introduces Two New Motherboards With 32 PCI Express Lanes

In accordance to the release of Nvidia's nForce 4 SLI X16 chipset, ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (ASUS) introduced the A8N32-SLI Deluxe and P5N32-SLI Deluxe motherboards, which support dual PCI Express x16 slots running at full speed to liberate graphics cards from the narrow bandwidth platform of x8 speed only.

With exclusive technologies - dual x16 PCI Express SLI graphics, the 8-Phase Power design and fan-less cooling, the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe and P5N32-SLI Deluxe motherboards deliver superior video performance, cool and quiet computing and stable and efficient power supply.

8-Phase Power Design
8-Phase Power Design reduces input ripple current and output ripple voltage, keeping the CPU and power modules from high power stress to increase component lifespan. Furthermore, it has the advantage of quick transient response. It acts faster than 4-phase power designs to stabilize output current and voltage. This is especially critical when the CPU requires immediate current support when under heavy workload.

Fanless Design – Stack Cool 2 and Copper Heat Pipe
The Fanless Design brings effective and noiseless cooling to counter the heat generated by components. Watch movies, listen to music and play games, and enjoy the peace and quiet. System damages from fan failure is also a thing of the past.

The copper Heat Pipe directs heat generated by the chipsets to the heatsink near the back I/O ports, where it can be carried away by existing airflow, while Stack Cool 2 effectively transfers heat generated by the critical components to the other side of the specially designed PCB (printed circuit board) for fast heat dissipation.

A8N32-SLI Deluxe

• AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64 X2/Athlon 64/Sempron
• NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI X16 (NVIDIA nForce SPP 100 and NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI)
• 2000/1600 MT/s System Bus
• 4 x DIMM, max. 4GB, DDR 400/333/266
• 2 x PCIe x16 (running @ x16 speed), 1 x PCIe x4 (Support PCIe x4 or PCIe x1 card), 3 x PCI 2.2
• Dual Gigabit LAN
• 6 x Serial ATA 3 Gb/s ports including 1 external port
• 2 x IEEE 1394a

P5N32-SLI Deluxe

• Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition/Pentium D/Pentium 4/Celeron
• NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI X16 (NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition and NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI)
• 1066/800/533 MHz Front Side Bus
• 4 x DIMM, max. 16GB, DDR2 667/533
• 2 x PCIe x16 (running @ x16 speed), 2 x PCIe x1, 1 x PCIe x4, 2 x PCI 2.2
• Dual Gigabit LAN
• 2 x IEEE 1394a
  

PowerArchiver 2004 v9.26 Final Release

PowerArchiver 9.26 is an award-winning archive utility for the Windows family that provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools through an easy to use interface that seamlessly integrates with Windows Explorer.

Version 9.26, released on Sep 22, 2005 is the last update to PowerArchiver 2004 as development of the new and improved version 2006 are already underway. Changes include:

Final release of PowerArchiver 2004

Minor improvements and bug fixes

Possible security issue resolved

Nvidia ForceWare 78.05 Coming Soon

It looks like Nvidia is going to release another Release75 driver before we hit Release80 in October. Already on their FTP is a new folder for the 78.05 graphics card driver. Expect it to be released in the next few days.

Also a new release of ForceWare drivers for Windows XP Media Center Edition is being prepared. It's called 77.79. Watch out for it here: ftp://download1.nvidia.com/Windows/mce/77.79/

Guild Wars Game Update - Thursday, September 22

The update will be streamed to you once you launch your game client. Fixes include:

• Fixed problems with random positioning of locked chests.
• Improved distribution of rare items in locked chests so that most players will get more rare items.

ASUS N7800GT DUAL Card Final Design - A Limited Edition

This is how the final design of the ASUS Extreme N7800GT-DUAL box and card will look like. Apparently ASUS chose to use a red PCB and a nice cooling solution with a fan in the center to cool down the two GPUs. This card uses 1.6ns GDDR3 memories with a total of 512MB onboard. The overclockability of this card is pretty decent reaching 489Mhz core and 1389MHz memory and scoring 27203 in 3DMark03 and 11138 in 3DMark05 using Athlon 64 4000+ processor. Interestingly ASUS only produce 2000 of such cards.

ATI Radeon X1800 To Be Unveiled In Twelve Days

ATI Technologies is set to introduce its much-anticipated next-generation product lineup in twelve days, according to a counter at its web-site, which presumably counts time to go till the formal introduction of the products. ATI has promised that the first graphics cards based on the new chips would come to store shelves in late September. The countdown on the web-site of ATI Technologies points to the 5th of October, 2005. At press time it was about 12 days to go until the introduction. Officially, the countdown does not explain its predestination.

WinMX & EDonkey P2P Networks Shutdown

Popular file-sharing site WinMX.com ceased operating and the New York office of another, eDonkey.com, appeared to be closed, in the continuing legal fallout among underworld peer-to-peer music services, industry sources and users said on Wednesday.

The turmoil among file-sharing networks follows the landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in June that held anyone who distributes a device used to infringe copyright is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by others. In the wake of the decision, the trade group Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last week sent out "cease-and-desist" letters to seven file-sharing groups. A spokeswoman for the RIAA declined to name the targets. Popular file-sharing sites BearShare, eDonkey and WinMX were reportedly among the targets.

"There's certainly a big realignment of networks going on after the RIAA letters. Everyone is going to see a fallout since the ruling is making it tough for these companies to exist," said Marc Morgenstern, vice president for Loudeye, during the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica. An eDonkey executive with a Boston phone number was not immediately available to comment. Industry sources said the phone in the New York office had been disconnected.
A spokesman for Frontcode Technologies, developers of the WinMX application, could not be located to comment. Users in both Europe and North America complained that the WinMX site (http://www.winmx.com)) was unavailable throughout the day on Wednesday. Free Peers Inc., backers of BearShare, did not respond to attempts to contact them via e-mail.

Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast Benchmarked

Bit-Tech have posted yet another preview of The Lost Coast with a few more examples of what to expect when Valve finally gives the Lost Coast to Half-life 2 owners as well as comparisons using various mid to high end graphics cards:

Despite what the rumour mongers might say, Valve is very much independent of either company. Some say the millions ATI spent on bundling Half-Life 2 with their graphics cards last year (the infamous Coupon Experiment) means the Red Army will get favourable treatment. This is, of course, total rubbish: through the Steam System Surveys carried out, Valve know exactly what technology their customers are using, and it certainly makes no sense for them to alienate 50% of their userbase.

The preview also has a three minute video showing off new footage from the Lost Coast which is well worth checking out. The Lost Coast is looking alot cooler than I was expecting - that is more than some tech demo.

Asus Ageia PhysX Card

Here's a picture on how the PhysX card using AGEIA PhysX processor from ASUS will look like. In comparison with the reference card, there are some differences in the PCB and components layout. Now the PhysX card looks more like a graphics card with 128MB onboard GDDR3 memories, a heatsink fan to cool the PPU and also a 12V Molex connector for additional power source. The PPU is made on 0.13 micron technology and contains 125M transistors. Upcoming game titles like Unreal Tournament 2007 featuring Unreal Engine 3.0, Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport, Dogtag, Sacred™ sequel will be able to support AGEIA physics technology. BFG will be making the PhysX cards too and is slated for this Christmas release.

Serious Sam 2 Demo Released

The Croteam has released a 250mb demo from their upcoming Action-packed first person shooter, Serious Sam 2. Including the Seriousopolis Uptown level, you can play this puppy solo or online with friends. Hit one of the following mirrors to get downloading:

FileShack
3DGamers
WorthPlaying
Gamer's Hell

ATI Catalyst Drivers 5.9 Released

This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. The ATI CATALYST software suite is the ultimate in performance and stability. This download includes the Display Driver, Control Panel or CATALYST Control Center, and WDM Capture driver as well as a few other gimmicks. New features and issues resolved include:

• Driver Message Events: Catalyst™ 5.9 introduces Display Abstraction Layer (DAL) activation of driver message events for notification of controller configuration changes. This feature will apply to all supported operating systems.
• Directional Motion Adaptive Deinterlacing Algorithm: Catalyst™ 5.9 introduces directional motion adaptive deinterlacing algorithm through the 3D shader. The algorithm will detect edges in 5 different directions. This reduces artifacts, and improves the overall detinterlace video quality.
• Battlefield 2: The game no longer exits to the Windows desktop after the game logo is displayed
• Endorphin: Running the application under Windows XP no longer results in hesitation being noticed during simulation or playback
• Max Payne 2: Erratic mouse pointer behavior is no longer noticed within the game's menu after a short time period of game play
• MU: Opening a chat window and playing the on-line game no longer results in Hesitation being noticed when pressing the Enter key
• Silent Hunter 3: Enabling all video options within the game and setting the particle density to 100, along with setting Anti-Aliasing to 6X and Anisotropic Filtering to 16x, no longer results in display corruption on the left portion of the display
• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: Running the Dantoonie level of the game no longer results in hesitation being noticed
• Terminator 3: The game no longer fails to respond and a VPU Recover message no longer occur after loading the game character

Civilization IV Preview @ Gamespot

You may have heard that Civ IV is a big step for the franchise, as it rewrites many of the underlying rules of the series. At the same time it's also a blend of the familiar and beloved turn-based strategy that has made Civilization one of the biggest names in strategy gaming. Check out the full preview at Gamespot.

Firefox Web Browser 1.07 Released

The wait is over. Firefox empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Firefox 1.0.7 is a security and stability release.

Film Studios Unite To Beat Piracy

Six major Hollywood studios have formed a joint venture to protect their movies from the threat of electronic theft. Motion Picture Laboratories will research and create new technologies to stop the unauthorised distribution of films, particularly via the internet. The company, also named Movielabs, will have offices in Los Angeles and a $30m (£16.6m) budget in its first two years.

Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said the non-profit company would "help the entertainment industry adopt new means of fighting piracy and protecting copyrights". Planned projects include devising ways to jam camcorders being used to record movies in cinemas illegally, and developing methods of detecting illegal content sharing on peer-to-peer networks.

The studios pooling their resources are Walt Disney, Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros, Universal and 20th Century Fox.

Nvidia 1.0-8XXX Driver Series Preview (Linux)

Phoronix has published a preview on Nvidia's upcoming Release80 driver for Linux but is also giving away some hints for Windows users. Particular interesting is the multithreading support:

Among the Windows features that are expected to make their way into the next official driver release is improved TV-out/HDTV support, vertical sync capabilities, and multi-threading support. Of course what all of you have been waiting to hear, NVIDIA SLI (Scalable Link Interface) Linux support. On top of that, there are some additional features we expect NVIDIA to further develop and bundle into future revisions of its proprietary Linux drivers.

They (Tech Report) had exposed NVIDIA's intentions on creating multi-threaded drivers and with their Windows internal build at the time had experienced between a five to 30% improvement in performance compared against their single-threaded counterpart.

With the ATI R520 cards going to be available immediately upon its early October release, similar to the GeForce 7800GTX initial availability, we suspect NVIDIA will be publicly releasing their Forceware 80 and Linux 1.0-8XXX display drivers a few days prior to ATI's big launch in hopes of hindering ATI's sales.

New ATI Radeon Chips Reach Store Shelves This Month

ATI Technologies on Tuesday said that its highly-anticipated visual processing units (VPUs) produced using 90nm process technology at TSMC had been delivered for the company and are in full-scale mass production. The company also disclosed names for the new chips that will be available in weeks.
"TSMC is currently processing thousands of 300mm wafers for ATI, with many more already delivered. At this aggressive pace, ATI has already become one of our major 90nm customers," said Jason Chen, vice president of corporate development for TSMC. "The ATI products produced with TSMC’s 90nm process show a tremendous clock speed improvement and power reduction versus earlier generation technologies," Mr. Chen added.

ATI’s highly-anticipated VPUs code-named R520, RV530 and RV515 will officially be called RADEON X1800, RADEON X1600 and RADEON X1300, respectively, which is inline with the company’s typical nomenclature. ATI expects the latest cards to begin arriving on store shelves by the end of September, which means that the formal launch of the products with immediate availability of the novelties may be scheduled for early October.

ArenaNet Testing Language Pack For Guild Wars

ArenaNet yesterday released a beta language pack for the award winning MMORPG Guild Wars:

We added preliminary support for new languages that will soon be offered globally to Guild Wars players. The addition of these new languages foretells the opening of Guild Wars in additional regions of the world. We are excited about the opportunity to offer Guild Wars to players from new areas, and we look forward to welcoming those players into the game. The expansion of Guild Wars into these new regions will further demonstrate the global nature of the game, and will add even greater significance to the Guild Wars World Championship, details of which will be provided in the future.
In the short term, the additional languages are in limited testing, and they will not be available for selection by players. Eventually, these languages will be offered as a choice to all players via the language selection interface option.

New Worm Hijacks Google Requests

PandaLabs has announced the emergence of a new worm that spreads via peer-to-peer networks including Shareaza and iMesh, which hijacks visits to Google.com and redirects users to a spoofed page that inserts third-party advertising. The browser's start page is also modified to show ads.
Panda says the worm attempts to spread by copying itself using the name "Knights of the Old Republic 2," which refers to a Star Wars related video game. When users run the file, an error message pops up and the computer is then infected with the worm dubbed P2Load.A.

P2Load.A is able to re-route users by editing a system's HOSTS file that overrides actual DNS settings for a Web address. Although the current iteration of the worm only hijacks requests to Google.com along with 17 languages and variants, it could be used to spoof other sites as well.

"Its aims are none other than to increase visits to the pages linked by the creator of this malware or earn an income from companies that want to appear in the first few results in computer where the identity of Google has been spoofed: in both cases, the motivation of the author of this malware is purely financial." Panda says is contacted the ISP hosting the fake Google site and Google itself. The web page was shut down late Friday, reducing the potential damage caused by the worm. But Panda warns that variants pointing to other Web hosts are likely to crop up.

ATI Introduces AVIVO Technology

Today ATI has published details on their patented AVIVO technology that will be featured on the upcoming Radeon X1800, X1600 and X1300 graphics cards, as well as many video add in cards from ATI. AVIVO seems like a similar but enhanced feature of Nvidia's Digital Vibrance. Here are the details.

Avivo includes hardware and software technologies that refine video capture and playback, and greatly improve display quality. Computers with Avivo provide much more accurate color reproduction than other PCs - they can display 64 times as many colors - and so are essential for anyone editing photos or viewing video. In addition, Avivo makes PC games look stunning on any current display and the superb image quality gives Avivo users the gaming edge.

All digital photo and video files are processed through a series of steps before being displayed on PC monitors. A flaw in any one of these steps will produce a less accurate video or image. ATI's Avivo refines all of the steps to ensure the best photo and video experience:

• Using today's current computer architecture, Avivo delivers flawless video playback by supporting hardware MPEG-2 compression, hardware assisted decode of MPEG-2, H.264 and VC-1 video codecs, and advanced display upscaling
• 64 times the number of colors currently available in current PCs for amazingly vibrant images that are more accurate with higher color fidelity with unprecedented 10-bit processing throughout Avivo's display engine
• Extreme resolutions, such as 2560 by 1600 or higher, on the latest digital displays using dual-link DVI, as well as high color depth support over DVI
• Industry-first advanced up or down resolution scaling for high quality viewing on any flat panel display using ATI's unique solutions never before implemented on the PC
• Accurate video capture with features like 3D comb filtering (a feature previously limited to high-end televisions), front-end video scaling, and hardware MPEG video compression
• True-to-life image reproduction for TV programs with hardware noise reduction and 12-bit analog-to-digital conversion for high-quality video capture
• Universal connectivity to support standard TV, HDTV, video input and all PC displays via digital (DVI, HDMI™) and analog (VGA, Component, S-Video, composite) ports

"ATI's Avivo will revolutionize the PC in the same way that high-definition revolutionized television," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, PC Business Unit, ATI Technologies. "As the world's leading supplier of reception and display solutions for high end digital televisions, ATI is delivering the world's leading video and display technologies to the PC. ATI's Avivo benefits anyone who edits digital photos, enjoys a home theater PC, or plays PC games."

Avivo will be an integral component in all of ATI's upcoming desktop, mobile, chipset, workstation, and software products. For more information about Avivo, please click the article headline. Or visit the following websites for a technology preview: Beyond3D ; Hexus

Nvidia nForce Driver Package 8.12 Windows 32/64bit

My favourite driver digger website Station-Drivers (french guys by the way) have discovered new Nvidia nForce drivers which are apparently WHQL certified. I couldn't find this release at any Nvidia download site so consider this a beta release. Here are the details:

Driver Package version: 8.12

Package 32bit contains:

• Ethernet NRM driver version 50.09 (WHQL)
• Network management tools version 50.09
• SMBus driver version 4.50 (WHQL)
• Installer version 4.89
• Win2K IDE SATARAID driver version 6.21 (WHQL)
• Win2K RAIDTOOL application version 6.21
• WinXP IDE SATARAID driver version 6.21 (WHQL)
• WinXP RAIDTOOL application version 6.21

Package 64bit contains:

• Ethernet NRM driver version 50.09 (WHQL)
• Network management tools version 50.09
• SMBus driver version 4.50 (WHQL) with updated uninstaller files
• Installer version 4.89
• WinXP IDE SATARAID driver version 6.21 (WHQL)
• WinXP IDE SATA_IDE driver version 6.21 (WHQL)
• WinXP RAIDTOOL application version 6.21

Official: No - WHQL: Yes - Windows 2000/XP: 32/64bit

Download nForce driver package 8.12 Windows 2000/XP 32bit

Download nForce driver package 8.12 Windows XP 64bit

ATI Radeon 1800XT To Go Faster Than 600/1400 MHz

Most of our colleagues have already reported that the Radeon X1800XT will be shipped at 600MHz core and 1400MHz memory, but we have to say that we always used 600+ and 1400+ numbers. It turns out that there is a headroom to clock this chip even faster. ATI still hasn't made the final decision of the speed of its flagship Radeon X1800 XT card but it will be faster than the anticipated 600MHz core and 1400MHz memory.

Such cards might not be in the stores at launch date. The plan is to have them two to three weeks after the launch, but ATI will have X1800XL cards at the time of its announcements.
Nvidia Release80 driver should increase the speed for the current G70, Geforce 7800GTX generation and will put some more pressure on ATI. So ATI kind of can clock faster and we already reported that ATI chip can work at even 700+ MHz clock but we don't think that yields will be good at these speeds.

Whatever happens, it has to end up faster than G70 - that is the plan but as usual Nvidia will do something to respond. It won't be the G70 Ultra but it might be a new card at 90 nanometres. We don't think Nvidia will announce that card in Q4, it's more likely that we will see a card to top the Geforce 7800GTX sometime in 2005. Things are heating up.

LCD Monitor Makers To Push Models In 20-inch Range

BenQ recently unveiled a 20-inch LCD wide-screen monitor (FP202W) with an 8ms response time, with the company claiming it is the world's fastest 20-inch model. The model will be one of several LCD monitor models in the 20-inch range released by vendors in the near future, as makers make a push into the higher-margin multimedia segment. The BenQ FP202W features a resolution of 1680×1050 and a contrast ratio of 600:1, while maximum brightness for the FP202W is 350 cd/m2. BenQ also claims that the wide-screen design (43cm) makes it easy for users to display and comfortably read two pages of text side-by-side. The product will be available worldwide in the fourth quarter.

BenQ is also reportedly planning to introduce a 23-inch model this year, while CMV will launch a 20.1-inch LCD monitor and Acer will launch 20-inch and 24-inch models in the fourth quarter. Korea-based Samsung recently announced its 20.1-inch SyncMaster 204t LCD monitor. Prices for the over 20-inch segment are expected to drop 20% in the fourth quarter, according to local Taiwan channel sources.
According to iSuppli, the 23- and 24-inch widescreen market represents one of the hottest growth opportunities in the second half of 2005, with Dell's aggressively priced entry into this space spurring price competition. Prices in the segment have dipped below US$1,500, the market research firm stated.

Ascaron To Support AGEIA PhysX In Sacred 2

AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that German game developer ASCARON Entertainment GmbH will support the AGEIA PhysX™ processor in the sequel to its World Wide hit Sacred™ as well as future game titles. Based on a license agreement with AGEIA, ASCARON will use the AGEIA PhysX SDK to incorporate extensive real-time physics into its games, which players can experience with exceptional depth on PCs equipped with the AGEIA PhysX processor.

Quake 4 Preview

After last year's highly-anticipated but perhaps a little underwhelming Doom 3, id is looking to rock gamers' faces with the return of its other legendary blockbuster franchise, Quake. To the surprise of many, this task will not be handled in-house but rather by the crew at Raven Software, known for the Hexen and Heretic franchises as well as the more recent X-Men Legends games. The two studios are working closely on the project, however, and are making a conscious attempt to draw from what they consider the strong points of the Quake bloodline in developing Quake 4.
What this means is that the single-player component of Quake 4 is set in the Strogg-centric world of Quake II, and the multiplayer is reminiscent - to an extraordinarily high degree - of Quake III Arena's breakneck deathmatches. The game certainly feels like well-traveled ground in that respect; it's not going to reinvent the first person shooter genre in any particular respect, but it will deliver a good solid action experience.

Microsoft Introduces New Security Tool

Microsoft on Monday introduced the final version of a new security tool for locking down computers that operate in shared environments. The Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP enables administrators to restrict users from changing system settings and running unauthorized software. The toolkit, which is specifically designed for Internet cafes, school computer labs and libraries, can also keep out viruses and spyware by resetting a hard drive to a "clean" state each day. By removing advanced features, the desktop is also simplified to improve the end-user experience, Microsoft says.

The three primary features of the program include: User Restrictions, Windows Disk Protection and Profile Manager. Changes in the 1.0 release include new restrictions added to the User Restrictions tool, which has been renamed from "Windows Restrictions." Customers with Active Directory domains can also now apply the toolkit's user restrictions to domain accounts with a Group Policy template. In addition, many international issues have been resolved and the user interface of the toolkit was improved based on usability feedback, Microsoft says.

Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP 1.0 has been released as a free download, with a hard copy book and CD set to be available for purchase starting October 1.

Crytek Shows Off DirectX 10 In-Game Footage

Despite the fact there are currently no cards that support DX10, Crytek managed to pull off a demo at PDC 2005 using software layering to show what to expect when the DX update & cards are out. The video is shaky-cam footage running for 1 minute playing time. They used the Farcry environment to show:

Dynamic Day/Night Cycle

Fully interactive environments

Sunrays + Diffuse transmissions

Real-time soft shadows & soft particles

Interactive/destructive environments

Volumetric clouds

Advanced shader technology

Click the headline to download the video! (Hosted at RapidShare. So please be patient. The download starts after 15 seconds. Therefore its free.
Alternate Link: Download original version 33.5MB - Slow server)

Valve's Half-Life 2 Content Strategy & Aftermath

Episodic content seems to be picking up steam (ha! ha!) in the industry lately, with the first episode of Telltale's Bone adventure series just released, Ritual's SiN Episodes on the way, and Valve getting ready to ship Aftermath. Gabe Newell was very firm about Valve's devotion to delivering more content to players by way of a tighter development cycle than Half-Life 2's epic five-year journey. He explained how demotivating it can be to ship an enormously ambitious project, only to start right up again on another. It was much easier to get team members excited about smaller projects such as Lost Coast, Day of Defeat: Source, and Aftermath that it would have been to say, "Well, let's get started on Half-Life 3." The teams are smaller, the development cycles are shorter, it's easier to implement feedback, there's lower risk to the developer - essentially, Valve thinks it's the way to go.

Aftermath will be the first big test of that philosophy. The game will ship over Steam this year, most likely in November, and will have an incredibly reasonable purchase price of $12.95. Valve hopes to analyze customer feedback (of which there is always plenty, they note) and incorporate that feedback into their design decisions in the next piece of episodic content, which will clearly come out much sooner than another Half-Life Game would.

New Security Flaw Discovered In IE

Security firm eEye released a notice on Thursday saying it had discovered a new flaw within Internet Explorer on both Windows XP and XP SP2. According to the notice, "A vulnerability in default installations of the affected software could allow for remote code execution."

Windows XP SP2 was touted as a much more secure version of Microsoft's flagship operating system. However, hackers have still found ways around the new security features, and flaws continue to pop up. Microsoft has been alerted to the problem, but as standard practice eEye will not release details of the vulnerability until it is patched or publicly acknowledged by Microsoft.

Mapping Spam - Disposable Email Account

The Mailinator is a service that provides throw-away email addresses you can use for web registrations. So the system ends up getting lots of spam. Now here's the cool part: they've created a realtime map using Google Maps to actually show you where the spam is coming from.
Or actually it shows the location of the proxy - ie. the grandmother whose home computer was taken over by Mydoom, Bagle, Mytob or any of the gazillion other viruses that install spam proxies as their payload.

Welcome to Mailinator™. It's like super-instant, always-ready, any-email-you-want email. Right now. It's your personal disposable email account. Here is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or talking to your favorite insurance salesman. Wherever you are, someone (or some webpage) asks for your email. You know if you give it, you're gambling with your privacy. On the other hand, you do want at least one message from that person. The answer is to give them a mailinator address. You don't need to sign-up. You just make it up on the spot.

Later, come to this site and check that account. Its that easy. Mailinator accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No signup, no personal information, and when you're done — you can walk away — an instant solution to one way spammers get your address. It's an anti-spam solution for everyone. Your temporary email account will be automatically deleted for you after a few hours.

Fable: The Lost Chapters (PC) Review

PC.IGN has published their review of Lionhead Studios' RPG Fable, which was a big success when first released on Xbox. It didn't quite live up to the promises made on its behalf early in its development but the action-RPG format and the importance of your choices in the game made it a real treasure on the Xbox. The competition's a bit stiffer on the PC, of course, but the PC version of the game is still a worthy addition to any action or RPG gamer's library.

In terms of the interface, Fable: The Lost Chapters works really well on the PC. Though you can rebind the keys to suit your needs, I found the default WASD setup to be relatively convenient. The mouse is used for fighting; the left button attacks, the right button blocks. Shift keys allow you to use the mouse to cast two slotted spells and cycle through to more spells using the mouse wheel. Potions, items and expressions can all easily be mapped to a variety of easily accessible hotkeys. One of the most significant improvements over the Xbox version is that you can now use spells and weapons at the same time.

I definately look forward to play the game...

DirectX 9.0L Is The Next DirectX?

TheInquirer.net reported earlier that Microsoft plans to introduce a new DirectX 9.0 version. This time they claim to have managed to get the name and the company plans to call it DirectX 9.0L.

You will remember that Nvidia was pressing Microsoft to call its last revision of DirectX, DirectX 9.1 but MS decided to simply add a letter c to its existing DirectX 9.0 name. This currently available DirectX 9.0c features support for ShaderModel 3.0 and Nvidia thought that upgrade from ShaderModel 2.0 would deserve at least a 9.1 suffix.

Now the Vole plans to do the same thing. It will call its next generation DirectX featuring ShaderModel 4.0, DirectX 9.0L. They don't know when the company plans to make this new API architecture available but expects that this will happen sometime trough 2006. It's still too early to shift to ShaderModel 4.0 as Nvidia and ATI won't have ShaderModel 4.0 hardware until the middle of 2006.

Nvidia ForceWare 81.26 Beta

A new ForceWare driver has surfaced this morning. This is beta release 81.26. The details are as follows:

Driver dated: 08/26/2005
Language support: Multilanguage
Installation: With Setup routine
WHQL: No

This driver adds support for the following Nvidia chipsets:

NVIDIA_NV40.DEV_0048.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6800 XT"

NVIDIA_NV41.DEV_00C0.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GTS"

NVIDIA_NV43.DEV_0147.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6700 XL"

NVIDIA_C51.DEV_0240.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6150"

NVIDIA_C51.DEV_0241.1 = "NVIDIA C51"

NVIDIA_C51.DEV_0242.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6100"

NVIDIA_NV44.DEV_0169.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6250"

Half-Life 1: Engine Update Available

Updates to the Half-Life 1: Engine have been released. The update will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Half-Life 1: Engine

• Fixed MOTD crash when viewing HTML pages with iframes

Guild Wars Game Update

ArenaNet has released a new game update to Guild Wars. The updates will be streamed to you once you start the game client and log in to the game:

Update - Friday, September 16

• Fixed monster item drops so that in the future Uncommon (purple) and Rare (gold) items will always have at least one bonus attribute.
• Fixed bugs in the following quests: "Defend Denravi," "Last Day Dawns," and "Defend North Kryta Province."
• Fixed a bug introduced in the Sorrow's Furnace Update that was causing unequal loot distribution among party members.
• Fixed a bug that was placing some players in incorrect districts.
• Fixed several rare crash bugs.

New Nvidia Release80 ForceWare Information

NvNews managed to get some new information on the upcoming Release80 ForceWare drivers from Nvidia. From what they have learned it will contain a lot of SLI specific enhancements:

TV-out / HDTV-out support for even higher resolution gaming support

Mix and match vendors - for example, pairing an SLI supported graphics card from MSI with one from BFG or XFX

Mix and match framebuffers (via Coolbits) - pairing a 128MB graphics card with a 256MB graphics card

Ability to enable vsync for all Direct3D and OpenGL games

Dynamically enable/disable SLI - rebooting is eliminated!

Primary Display Switching

Auto Display Detection

Linux Support

Also, the number of SLI Optimized games will increase to around 150.

F.E.A.R. Gone Gold

Vivendi Universal Games today announced the October 18th 2005 global street date for F.E.A.R.™ (First Encounter Assault Recon) from Sierra Entertainment. Additionally, VU Games unveiled plans to release an all-new F.E.A.R. multi-player demo in late September.

Developed by Monolith Productions, F.E.A.R. is an intense first-person close-quarters combat experience with rich atmosphere and an engaging, paranormal horror storyline. Already named ‘Best Action Game of E3 2005’ by the E3Critics, F.E.A.R. has been called ‘Vivendi’s classic-in-the-making’ and ‘the PC’s top shooter’ by PC Gamer (September 2005). In August, the game earned the “Best PC Game” award at the 2005 Leipzig Games Convention in Germany.

ATI's Crossfire Limitation - Mountains Out Of Molehills

Rage3D really broke the news on the possible limitations of the Silicon Image Sil 1161 receiver that ATI's CrossFire utilized. The receiver can handle a max of 1600x1200 at 60 Hz (or essentially receive 60 1600x1200 frames per second), and runs at a maximum of 165 MHz. At first this limitation looks like a huge disaster waiting to happen to ATI with the release of CrossFire, and many are screaming that the engineers fell down on the job and should all be sacked. When this information was given first, I originally thought that ATI had made a big blunder... but upon further investigation I believe that it really isn't that big of a limitation at all.

First off the Sil 1161 receiver simply receives the pixel data from the slave board. That data is sent to the compositing engine, which then takes the final frame/s and sends it to either its built in TMDS transmitter or the RAMDAC, both of which can handle 2048x1536 @ 85 Hz. The Sil 1161 has NOTHING to do with the refresh rate of the screen that is connected to the master card. So, at the very least, CrossFire users can enjoy refresh rates on CRT monitors greater than 60 Hz at resolutions above 1600x1200 because that is based on the transmitters on the master card, which are essentially identical to every other standalone, high-end ATI card.

Xbox 360 Store Dates: Nov. 22 North America, Dec. 2 Europe & Dec. 10 Japan

Fueling global anticipation for the arrival of its powerful new video game and entertainment system, Microsoft yesterday announced that Xbox 360™ will arrive on store shelves Tuesday, Nov. 22 in North America, Friday, Dec. 2 in Europe, and Saturday, Dec. 10 in Japan. The announcement, made on the eve of Tokyo Game Show 2005, marked the first time that a game console will be launched in three territories in the same time frame. In preparation for what is expected to be massive worldwide demand for the new system, Microsoft also announced that Xbox 360 manufacturing is under way, with state-of-the-art facilities producing millions of units ultimately bound for frenzied gamers’ homes from Osaka, Japan, to Oxford, England, and Orlando, Fla.

Promising to capture the imagination of gamers, new titles and established franchises such as “Dead or Alive® 4,” “Ridge Racer 6,” “NINETY-NINE NIGHTS™,” ”Dead Rising” and “FINAL FANTASY® XI” will be available on Xbox 360 in the months to come. With support for high-definition output with anti-aliasing, and Dolby® 5.1 surround sound, all Xbox 360 games will deliver smooth, cinematic experiences that scream off the screen.