Indie Game Developer Earns $250K in Two Months with iPhone Game

It might seem a little odd to some people, but mobile gaming is an extremely hot niche right now, and in some regards, it's much more successful than typical PC/console gaming. Less money is generally made as well, since the games don't sell as high as full-blown productions, but sometimes they can even make more, if the game is successful enough to push that much volume.

The good thing about mobile games is that it doesn't take massive developer teams to create them. Some of the best are created by a single person, and if you are that single person, the potential to earn a good amount of cash fast is easy, as long as you can create a game people enjoy. In the case of Steve Demeter, creator of an iPhone game called "Trism", sometimes the cash can roll in really fast.

This puzzle game took a few months to build, and even though it's priced at a modest $5, it earned him $250,000 through the iPhone App Store in a mere two months. That's the upside. The downside is that these results are not typical, and unless your game is near-perfect, it's not going to sell as well as this. It's made worse by the fact that the arena is becoming much more crowded, with many developers clamoring to the mobile segment... not surprisingly. Still, if you have a good idea, can code and don't mind sinking your time into development, it might just pay off. Big time.

"A single one of these titles can be turned around for pennies by comparison in just weeks by a single hobbyist working in their off-hours," said Scott Steinberg, publisher of DigitalTrends.com and author of "Get Rich Playing Games." "The overhead and barriers to entry are so low that virtually anyone can afford to take a crack, if not several, at hitting a home run."

Source: CNN

AMD Boasts 4GHz Air Overclocks on "Phenom II", 6GHz on LN2

With Intel's Core i7 processors now available, and kicking ass through most benchmarks, one has to wonder what's up with AMD. How will they be competing anytime soon? It's true... lately all we've heard from them has been related to their business practises, but there's no need to worry... they definitely look to have some tricks up their sleeves.

Our friends at the Tech Report attended a press briefing this morning where AMD showed off their latest and greatest... 45nm "Phenom II". While benchmark results weren't revealed, raw clock frequencies were, and if you've been waiting for AMD to give people a great reason to consider them again, this might be it.

Stock speeds were not disclosed, but on an air cooling setup, one of their processors clocked to 4.0GHz with 1.55v, which is around what we've been expecting. Make no mistake, that's a lot of voltage, and it's too bad that it has to go so high, but if these CPUs are better-designed to handle such voltages (compared to Intel's offerings), it might be alright. We'll have to wait and see on that one.

While we are used to seeing massive overclocks on Intel's processors when using liquid nitrogen, we've never seen anything major on the AMD side... until now. At this event, the same CPU as mentioned above was clocked to 6.0GHz... something that's sure to excite many of the more hardcore overclockers out there. It took -185°C temperatures to accomplish it, but that's not the point!

This is a very exciting time for AMD, and enthusiasts alike. For a while, Intel has dominated the desktop space, especially where enthusiasts are concerned, but AMD is looking to improve that situation, and fast. "Phenom II" isn't a major architectural upgrade like Core i7 was to Core 2, but by moving to the 45nm node, we'll have lower power consumption and overall improved efficiency, lower temps, and as we can see, far better clocking-abilities. We should be learning more about these CPUs very soon, so stay tuned.

The slowest system-cooled with a heatsink and fan-managed to reach just under 4GHz with a 1.55V core voltage. With liquid cooling, AMD successfully pushed a 45nm Phenom II in another machine just over the 4GHz mark. That required kicking up the CPU voltage to 1.6V, however. For the other two systems, AMD took out the big guns.

Source: Tech Report

GeForce 180 Driver Brings Multi-Monitor SLI, Dedicated GPU PhysX

I posted yesterday about Mirror's Edge becoming the first PC game to fully utilize the PhysX physics engine, but what I somehow forgot about was the new 180 driver that brings some great new functionality to the table. Two major new features include multi-monitor SLI support and the ability to dedicate a GPU for PhysX use. This is also the first driver that allows SLI support on Intel X58 motherboards.

The ability to run PhysX on a dedicated GPU has been a desire shared by many gamers ever since NVIDIA first released support for the technology to run off of the GPU. In order to take advantage, you will need to use an 8, 9 or 200-series GPU. Anything older is not supported, sadly. The cards also have to include at least 256MB of memory, but that's a rather simple target.

For those with an ATI card as their primary, you might be able to still dedicate an NVIDIA GPU for PhysX, but only if you are using Windows XP. Because of how Vista handles display drivers, it makes it virtually impossible to accomplish, but XP is much more lenient. In addition, NVIDIA doesn't recommend dedicating a GPU if using an SLI setup, as performance will be hit. It works, but they said improvements are definitely en route.

The new driver has also been tweaked a great deal to offer performance to a handful of games, including Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, GRID and others. Overall, this is one of the most important driver releases from NVIDIA in a while, so if you have one of their GPUs, it's definitely worth the time to upgrade.

Enables NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Learn more here. (Note: GPU PhysX is supported on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory. This driver package automatically installs PhysX System Software version 8.10.13).

Source: NVIDIA Driver Download Page

Tech Roundup - November 20, 2008

Motherboards & Processors
• ASUS P6T Deluxe - Bjorn3D
• ASUS Rampage II Extreme - t-break

Displays & Video Cards
• GTX 260/216 vs. HD 4870 1GB - Five Game Shootout - Bjorn3D
• GTX 260/216 vs. HD 4870 1GB - Five Game Shootout - Overclockers Club
• NVIDIA ForceWare 180.47 Analysis - XP & Vista - TweakTown

Memory & Storage
• Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC3-12800 - XS Reviews
• iStarUSA xAGE-902 Dual HDD Docking Station - techPowerUp
• Walton Chaintech APOGEE 2.5" Solid State Disk- TweakTown

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Ikonik Zaria A20 Case with SIM Fan Controller - TweakPC

Cooling
• Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler - Legit Reviews
• Vantec AeroFlow FX 92 CPU Cooler - DragonSteelMods

Chassis & Power Supplies
• be quiet! Pure Power 350W - Technic3D
• Cooler Master HAF 932 - Elite Bastards
• Cooler Master UCP Ultimate 700W - Pro-Clockers

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Blackberry Bold - Digital Trends
• Exciting Features For Ubuntu 9.04 - Phoronix
• The Best Free Software Programs - Digital Trends