- Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO 7000 Series Mobile & Desktop Platform
- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
- NVIDIA Announces Latest Ada Lovelace Additions: GeForce RTX 4060 Ti & RTX 4060
- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
Social & RSS Feeds
Latest Videos
Latest News
Tech News
Optimus Maximus Goes (Barely) Affordable
Though the prices will still be way outside the realm of possibility for most enthusiasts, Art Lebedev Studios – the makers of the incredible eye-popping $1564 Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard – recently announced that flavors of the Optimus Maximus will become available with fewer OLED keys.
An Optimus Maximus with 47 active OLED keys will still run you a cool thousand bucks, while one with only 10 programmable OLED keys will set you back $600. A third variation with only an OLED space bar will also be available, for the odd figure of $462. Though I’m inclined to wonder what use a keyboard with a programmable space bar would be.
 |
Starting February 20th, 2008, Art Lebedev comes true to his word with new 1, 10, and 47 programmable OLED key configurations for $462, $599, $999, respectively. How (almost) practical.
Source: Engadget
G4TVs “Ultimate Gaming PC” is Ultimately Wrong
“How-To” guides are popular because people like direction. This is especially true when it comes to guides for building a new PC, especially an “ultimate gaming PC”. Techgage’s Senior Editor Greg King gave me a shout earlier, after he saw a segment on G4TechTV for accomplishing just that. Of course, most of you who frequent this site don’t need a guide on which parts to purchase, but that’s besides the point of this news posting.
With Morgan Webb behind the camera, it’s hard to not listen to what she has to say. How often do good looking girls chat about computer hardware? Regardless, throughout the video, she lists various components that are needed to build an ultimate gaming rig. Some parts are great choices, such as the Antec 900 chassis, eVGA 680i (for SLI-support) and Intel’s Quad-Core QX6850 (since 680i doesn’t support 45nm). Other components include Corsair 2GB XMS3 Dominator memory, 2x 8800GT’s, CM air CPU cooler, Raptor 150GB, etc.
Though it sounds like a killer machine, there are a few problems. First, they recommend an eVGA 680i board, and then minutes later suggest $725 DDR3 RAM that will not even work in it. What I also gain from the video is that high-end RAM makes a bigger difference with gaming than GPUs do. While most components are actually “high-end”, for the GPU they chose two mid-range 8800GT cards. These are solid cards, but are far from being ultimate, and would also result in huge bottlenecks with big resolutions.
What should we take from this? Well, its been quite a while since G4 merged with TechTV and things sure don’t seem to be getting better. Oh, and don’t believe everything you see on TV.
Source: G4TV.com
EVE Linux & Mac Deployment
EVE evolves to involve Linux and Mac users.
On November the 27th CCP/WhiteWolf are deploying a patch to TransGaming’s Linux and Mac game engine. This will not affect Windows users, nor will the patch require extended downtime to deploy. If you run EVE using their Linux packages, after downtime on the 27th the client will automatically download and install a patch for the TransGaming components. Mac client users will need to download and apply a different client patch.
Linus Torvalds and the Future of Linux
It’s not too often that Linus will keep his opinions to himself, which is a great thing. It makes for interesting interviews and also makes sure that Linux progress never fails to linger. In a new interview with IT News, Linus was questioned on how Linux compares to Windows, with the simple answer: flexibility. That could not be any more true, considering you can find the OS everywhere… even a toaster. Well, almost everywhere.
As for the future, things will continue to grow at the rapid pace it has been for the past few years. I am just hoping it will soon become an actual real competitor to Windows in order to gain usage across most regular users and enthusiasts. I use Linux as my primary OS, but I will even admit that I have a Windows machine beside me for gaming and a few select apps. The good thing is that things are rapidly improving, and each new year will bring on a new set of accomplishments.
 |
One of the things I personally am really interested in is the move over to SSD (solid-state drives) disks. I’m a huge believer in reducing latency, and some of the better SSDs are changing the whole game when it comes to access latency, which in turn has potentially big impacts on the kernel — and while they are currently expensive enough to be a pretty minor player, that is certainly looking to change in 2008 and later.
Source: IT News Australia
Gamestop Sells Demo Disc Instead Of Retail Game
These stories never cease to amaze me, but the truth is, they are not going to end. As consumers, it’s good to keep alert and not fall prey to these mega-corporations like this fellow did at the NeoGAF forums. After hitting up his local Gamestop, he picked up a fresh copy of Steambot Chronicles for the PS2. All went well, until he reached a climax in the game and then was told to purchase the full game. Yes, he had a demo disc.
To make matters worse, even though the game looks legit, there are two dead giveaways: Sharpy-doused “Demo Disc – Not for Resale” and a Rating Pending logo. Moral of the story? Don’t leave the store before checking to see if you actually have what you purchased. In other stores that sell plastic-wrapped games, you shouldn’t have to worry. But because Gamestop (and Electronics Boutique) physically open most games as they arrive at the store, there is a far greater chance of this kind of thing happening.
 |
Yeah, thats real nice Gamestop. Is this on purpose? I didn’t see any used copies but maybe jackass grabbed the wrong disc from the shelf (its always annoyed me they open up new wrapped games and remove the disc). Even then, I bought it NEW, why am I getting the fake someone dumped on Gamestop.
Source: NeoGAF Forums Via: Joystiq
WiFi Autism Study Debunked
A report surfaced last week that caught the internet off guard – WiFi signals can cause autism. Of course skeptics abound, and for good reason. There have never been official (and accurate) reports that have linked a WiFi signal to brain damage, nor has there ever been the same with regards to cell phones. This study specifically discusses the fact that autism is the result of heavy metal toxicity (metal-band System of a Down’s album “Toxicity” not related) which I assume, WiFi signals can encourage.
Ars Technica took a step forward and did some research to get to the bottom of this report. As it turns out, one of the quoted publications in the report doesn’t even exist, and neither of the authors have a profession that has much to do with their studies. Though the potential effects of WiFi are still not known, this report should at least be taken with a grain of salt.
 |
The problems don’t end there, however. The release makes clear that the study is based entirely on the hypothesis that autism is the product of heavy metal toxicity. This hypothesis is an outgrowth of the failed efforts to link autism rises to the use of mercury preservatives in vaccines. To the best of my knowledge, it has no experimental support, but it has led to a lucrative business for those who promise “cures” for autism through treatments that supposedly remove heavy metals from patients’ blood via chelation
Source: Ars Technica
TiVo Makes Its Way Up To Canada
Canada is like the big kid in gym class… always the last one to be picked. This is true… the US gets almost everything before Canada and other places of the world (unless of course a product is actually made elsewhere). Being a canuck myself, I’m also aware that we pay more in the end as well, despite our dollar being worth more at this point in time.
What I didn’t know though, was that Canadians still didn’t even have a simple TiVo. It took them this long to come up to Canada, and when they finally do, it’s an old-school Series2 (standard-def) with no option for the Series3HD versions. I couldn’t find subscription fees anywhere, but it’s likely to be right on par with what’s been seen in the US. If you want a TiVo, you can hit up your Futureshop, London Drugs (?!), Best Buy or The Brick.
 |
Every once in a while we read a mundane press release—in this case, announcing that Canada gets TiVo—and just start laughing. Poor Canada is finally getting TiVo service, “just in time for the holiday season.” But that’s not the funniest part. The only hardware available will be the TiVo Series2, standard def, last gen DVR for 199 CAD. Merry Christmas, Canada. Now I know how Koreans look at American cellphone technology.
Source: Gizmodo, Canadian TiVo Page
Hellgate: London DX9/DX10 Comparison
Since Windows Vista launched earlier this year, there has been little reason to make the move. Personally, I’ve run into so many problems with the new OS, that I’ve made it a goal to stay away from it as much as possible. However, I do admit that some new DX10-capable games are doing a good job of at least making me want to install it.
HardOCP explores a new game to actually handle DX10 well, online RPG Hellgate: London. Although a few bugs are evident and performance is hit hard, the DX10-rendered game looks far better. Shadows are more refined, motion blur is fantastic, weather looks better and there is no comparison with the smoke. For an MMO game that you are likely to play all the time, DX10 looks to be worth the time (if you already have Vista of course).
 |
The above screenshot comparison shows an area in the Lower Thames region. It shows the same effect as the previous screenshot. On the left, there are ashes blowing around in the air, and on the right, the air is clear. The blowing ash adds tremendous atmosphere and helps you believe that London is actually burning.
Source: Hard|OCP
BioShock’s Copy Protections Succeeded… More To Come
BioShock’s launch a few months ago was far from being perfect. Despite being a fantastic game (to most, not to me), the game had issues on all platforms. There were scaling “problems” for the Xbox 360, and of course, who could forget the beautiful copy protection that was SecuROM for the PC version? Though to some, SecuROM was the least of their worries. Instead, it was the install limitations, which would only allow you to install the game a certain amount of times on a single PC.
According to GameSpot, 2K Australia was quite pleased with their results. The game took a full thirteen days before being cracked and released to the masses. This doesn’t sound impressive at all, but that was thirteen days the pirates weren’t giving the game away for free. For the legit consumer, advanced protections have no end in sight. Though 2K admits their future efforts may differ from what was included with BioShock, their goal is to make sure that their title keeps away from crackers as long as possible.
 |
At the recent Games Connect Asia Pacific conference held in Melbourne, Australia, 2K Australia senior programmer PC team Martin Slater acknowledged the company received plenty of flak at launch. In a keynote speech which covered 2K Australia’s work on BioShock, Slater said while the company won’t be implementing the same launch install patch strategy for future games, it would do something “similar” as piracy remained one of the biggest problems for PC games.
Source: Gamespot
AMD Would Purchase AGEIA… If Price Were Right
If there were such thing as a physics-powered pot sitting around, it would be AMD’s Richard Huddy doing the stirring. In two separate interviews, Huddy gives his opinions on hardware-based physics (a la AGEIA). First off are mentions of GPU-based phyics, which Huddy explains is not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, he mentions specifics: DirectX 11. Considering that is far off, AGEIA could not be happier at Huddy’s coming forward.
Here’s where all of this intertwines. In the second interview, Huddy mentions that AMD would consider purchasing AGEIA if the price were right. This is something that I’ve thought about often, and it all seems to make sense. Intel just purchased Havok, so purchasing AGEIA as well would see a little out of place. On the other hand, AMD is not in a position to make another acquisition, as they are struggling to make up for their purchase of ATI last year.
What about AGEIA, though? This is a company who have been pushing their PhysX processor for well over two years, but haven’t made the mark they need to in the gaming industry. An acquisition by a financially stable purchaser would serve the company well, but again, that company is not likely to be AMD right now. Whatever does happen though, needs to happen soon, if AGEIA is to survive the long-haul. Of course, considering that there is virtually no competition for them right now (besides Havok), they should be safe for a while longer.
 |
“Physics is – physics processing has a long ways to go and there are so many companies out there. [There are] quite a few middleware companies out there that are creating technology in this area, and many games, many game developers incorporate their own physics engine. So my sense is that there’s a lot of invention still left to do in this area. I’m not sure why they bought that company, to tell you the truth. It might give them some advantages with respect to Havok, but it obviously creates negative synergies everywhere else,†said Mr. Huang.
Source: X-bit labs, Custom PC
Huge Gabe Newell Interview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun
There’s no such thing as a shortage of Gabe Newell interviews, but that’s a good thing. Gabe is not your typical development studio head-honcho who is bound into ultra-strict deadlines by those who require a great financial quarter. Like it should be, he believes games should be well-polished and enjoyable to play. Because of this, we’ve seen delays with Half-Life episodes in the past, and it’s good to know that it’s not all for nothing.
One thing I can respect is that he doesn’t look just to the future, but reflects on PC gaming of the past. He brings up a few notable games, including Quake 1, which he played on the launch day of Team Fortress 2. This once again brings me back to the point that games do not have to be system boggers in order to be fun. I’m stoked to see other classic PC games that might head on to Steam. Descent, Star Wars: Dark Forces and Duke Nukem are a few I wouldn’t mind seeing on there.
 Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun |
Now it’s the opposite extreme: we can put something up on Steam, deliver it to people all around the world, make changes. We can take more interesting risks. Retail has a kind of filter function: people hate to send boxes back, and if the boxes go back you’re wasting all this money. If someone doesn’t download something on Steam, we don’t lose any money. If someone sends back a box, you’re throwing money away. In this new world we can do things that weren’t previously possible.
Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Toshiba UK Offering Free Movies with Notebooks, Amazon “Get 10 Free” Deal
Is Toshiba UK joining in on the holiday spirit? I’d like to think that they are instead, just cluing in. For months and months, Toshiba’s HD-DVD players (even the Xbox 360 add-on) qualified for free HD-DVD flicks, but their laptops that included the advance player didn’t qualify. The extent of how much sense this logic lacked is not important. What is important is that if you are a bloke who had intentions of picking up a Tosh notebook, your deal just got sweeter.
So where is the North American love? A deal at Amazon might be the best out there. Purchase the HD-A3 player for $199 and pick up three HD-DVD movies immediately. Bourne Identity and 300 are both included with the player. That makes five, and thanks to Toshiba’s “5 for Free” deal, you get a total of 10 movies for free. Or, you could just consider it as getting the player for free. Who cares? That is one bargain.
So why isn’t this deal available in Canada? Quite the vicious circle I seem to be trapped in.
 Source: Toshiba |
Toshiba UK is giving away five free high definition (HD) DVDs to anyone who buys one of its new range of laptops that come with built-in HD DVD players. Anyone buying a new Toshiba HD laptop will now be able to kick-off a high definition movie collection with a choice of titles including Children of Men, Full Metal Jacket, Chronicles of Riddick, Hulk and The Prestige.
Source: Toshiba UK
AGEIA PhysX UT3 Mod Now Available
For all those out there who have an AGEIA PhysX card and Unreal Tournament III, you will be pleased to know that two downloadable levels are exclusive to you. I had an opportunity to test out these levels a few months ago at DigitalLife and had a blast, although it’s hard to tell just how much fun these levels will be online. AGEIAs reasons for not allowing these levels to be used without PhysX cards is that the added physics makes the game more difficult (hence, more realistic), so those without the card would have an immediate advantage.
AGEIA also sends a note that Warmonger will be available on November 28 in full form. This is a game that was due out last month, but due to some rather blatant bugs that a few beta testers found, they had to hold off and patch those up before release. Whether or not this was really an attempt to avoid two other huge FPS releases, we are unsure. It’s just good to know that PhysX card owners will soon be able to put their card to some good use. For those without one, there are a few e-tailers (NewEgg included) who are offering them for $99 after MIR. Not too shabby.
 Source: AGEIA |
To showcase the power of the PhysX UT3 Mod-Kit and the PhysX processor, AGEIA Technologies is rolling out a series of Extreme PhysX Mod Levels for UT3 available as a free download starting today. The first set of PhysX mods includes the “Tornado” and “Lighthouse” levels. The AGEIA Tornado PhysX Mod, which was first revealed at the Leipzig Games Conference earlier this year, features incredible physical realism and revolutionary new environmental impact powered by the PhysX processor.
Source: AGEIA
Sony Launches Playstation Store for PC
Who is with me in saying, “It’s about time!”? Up until now, if you wanted to purchase and download a PSOne or PSP game to a PSP, you needed to have a PS3. Highly inefficient, since most PSP owners don’t own a PS3. That’s now changed though, as Sony has unveiled the Playstation Store for the PC, which allows people to download classic games (at a price of course), trailers and other fun things, directly to their PSP.
For games, the process works like this: You purchase the game, download the official PSP installer tool, click “Download” in the shopping cart and Windows will take over and automatically download the full game and install it to your PSP. Being a Linux user, I wanted to see how the process went there, and I can confidently say that it’s a hassle. I am not doubting it can be achieved if you have some time on your hands though. I was at a point where the PSP was detected, but when the time came to connect to the server to download the game, it would time out. Wine error logs tell me that the specific feature needed for that functionality is not yet implemented.
One thing I do like about the service though, is that games you’ve purchased are kept in a download list, including games you purchased with the PS3. So, should you delete the game later on (which can be backed up easily to begin with), you can go ahead and redownload it later on. So far the service is solid, but more PSP-specific (including PSOne) games would be great.
 |
PS one Classic titles will be available from Day 1 on the PlayStation Store for the PC including favorites such as WipEout and Crash Bandicoot, with many more on the way. PLAYSTATION Store for the PC users will also find add-on game content, trailers for forthcoming titles, promotional videos and PSP themes.
Source: Playstation Blog
The ‘Ring Record Taken By BMW M3 CSL – 7:22.8
Last month, I posted about a fresh Nordschleife record that was taken by the Pagani Zonda F… a car that those with the cash could actually acquire. Other records are more impressive, but the cars to accomplish them wouldn’t be deemed street legal and have been modified beyond reason. That’s why the Zonda, to many, had the #1 real record for the ‘Ring.
Well, it hasn’t even been a month and that record was also smashed (by six seconds!). I am also not sure what’s more exciting, the fact that it was done with my favorite car or the fact that the entire video has been posted online for all adrenaline junkies to glue themselves to. For you curious which non-road car actually holds the record, it would be the Radical SR8, with a lap of 6:55. That video is here.
 Source: James Lipman |
The incredible thing is that the car puts out 532.7 rear-wheel horsepower and weighs 3,139 pounds with thirty liters of fuel. That means it has 70 fewer HP and weighs 400 pounds more than the Pagani Zonda F it dethroned. The car can’t be faster down the straights, so this must be all in the corners. We wouldn’t mind seeing videos of the two laps side-by-side to find out where the BMW leaves its Italian competition behind.
Alienware m15x/m17x Official – Includes NVIDIA 8800M and Intel Extreme CPUs
The rumors can finally end, because both the m15x and m17x are now officially official. As we posted earlier today, NVIDIA have just announced their 8800M GTS and GTX cards, which Alienware has already thrown into these notebooks. Pricing is not known, but for those who want to be kept notified, you can hand over your e-mail address to Alienware and they will hook you up with that info once it’s found.
Aside from the killer graphic cards, the new notebooks feature Intel Extreme processors, 667MHz DDR2 (is mobile RAM ever going to speed up?) and support for at least two hard-drives, which can be used separately or in RAID 1 or 2. The m17x supports room for three, which makes sense because that model is also targeted towards content creators, not only gamers. If there is one thing that’s certain… it’s that these machines look amazing.
 Source: Alienware |
The most advanced notebook Alienware has engineered to date, the Area-51 m17x was designed for the serious computer enthusiast. Content creators render out 3D models, edit digital video and audio and encode music all in a real-time environment. Hardcore gamers can rip through the latest DirectX 10 games in full 1080p quality.
Source: Alienware m15x/m17x Product Page
Adobe Lightroom 1.3 Should Have Been 1.0?
Adobe conveniently released a Lightroom update a single day after I last checked, which brings the application to 1.3 status. Numerous aspects of the application have been improved, including faster performance, easier tabbing and more sensible scrolling. As this article points out though, the 1.3 update should have been what we saw when the application was first released.
According to a few reports around the web, some features are actually slower with the new update, and this doesn’t surprise me. For those who read our processor reviews, you know that I use Lightroom as part of our testing. In months past, I have found that 1.1 was the speediest of them all (for the export/resize process), however once 1.2 came out, the speed decreased about 10%. I haven’t tested 1.3 yet, but I am hoping the speed we saw in 1.1 returns.
 Source: Adobe Systems |
When a product goes on sale–even a version 1.0 that one might reasonably expect to be somewhat rough around the edges–a certain level of maturity is implied. In contrast, Adobe’s Lightroom approach has felt to me more like that of Google’s Gmail and Yahoo’s Flickr, whose Web sites were in widespread use for years even while their sponsors left “beta” tags affixed.
Source: CNET News.com
NVIDIA Takes The Lid Off Of 8800M GTS and GTX
On the desktop PC side of things, it’s not much of a surprise to see a new GPU be unveiled that totally blows away its predecessor at least once or twice a year. The notebook market is slightly different though, since we’ve seen NVIDIA’s Go 7950GTX hold the top position in terms of performance for the past two years. According to a new article at HotHardware, NVIDIA is finally releasing a proper successor – one that delivers both high-performance with DX10-support.
Although all of the benchmarks were NVIDIA-provided, the new 8800M GTX looks to surpass two 7950 GTXs in SLI mode. Compared to that setup, the 8800M GTX improved on 3D Mark 06 scores by 7.5% and when compared to a single 8700M GT, the 8800M GTX improved on a FEAR run by a huge 240%. More impressive is that the machine with the 8700M GT had a faster processor, which FEAR tends to love. If performance matches up all around once these hit the market, DTR fans are going to be pleased. Very pleased.
 Source: NVIDIA |
Another piece of good news is that notebooks equipped with GeForce 8800M series graphics cards will be shipping very soon. In fact, several manufacturers begin shipping 8800M equipped notebooks today in both single-card and SLI configurations. The GeForce 8800M GTX and GTS certainly cleaned house in NVIDIA’s benchmarks, but just imagine what a pair of these could do when configured in SLI.
Source: HotHardware
AMD Unveils Phenom Processors
Apologies all around for not being able to post this yesterday (when it was actually news). For those sleeping under a rock (and thank you, since this news post is not for naught), AMD released their Phenom processors yesterday, after months and months… and months of waiting. It would be great to be able to report that the wait was well worth it, but AMD was unable to churn out a Phenom-enal processor this time around.
Anand took a hard look at the new processor and found that clock-for-clock, Phenom was about 15% slower on average over Intel’s Core 2 series. Performance aside though, could AMD make up for the performance loss with some competitive pricing? They could, but apparently that will not be the case until early next year. However, despite being slower than Intel’s current line-up, and despite Phenom being more power-hungry, and despite a late arrival, it’s finally good to see something out of the AMD camp. It’s just too bad it didn’t sweep us off of our feet like we hoped.
 Source: Anand Lal Shimpi |
To make the CPU more attractive AMD desperately needs to drop the price, and from what we’ve heard, that will happen in Q1. From what we’ve seen, AMD needs to be at least 200MHz ahead of Intel in order to remain competitive – that means bringing out a Phenom 9900 that’s cheaper than the Q6600, at least. If AMD can do that, it’s quite possible that in early 2008 we’ll have the first sub-$200 quad-core part as the 9500 drops in price.
Source: AnandTech
Is Game Copy Protection Ever Going Away?
I’ve often made known my thoughts on copy protection and the inconveniences of, but I feel compelled once again to step up and ask, what the heck? Specifically, when will companies learn that copy protection only inconveniences legal customers? One could argue that game crackers themselves are also inconvenienced, but I am willing to take the chance of assuming that the state of euphoria after successfully cracking a game well makes up for all of the hassle.
Last weekend, before Crytek’s masterpiece Crysis was released, a friend told me that he found the game uploaded on a variety of torrent tracking websites. I quickly scoured a few myself, and found that to be the case as well. I have no interest in downloading pirated games (I paid my hard-earned $49.99CAD the day of release), but it’s interesting to see the state of things. The fact: Crysis was fully cracked near a full week prior to the official launch.
 |
SecuROM is designed to verify that the actual game CD is inserted into the drive. This flawed design attempts to void backup discs as well as the ability to play if you do not have a disc at all. The problem with this is that game crackers already have the knowledge they need to reverse engineer the game client. SecuROM does not change drastically between versions, but that’s almost besides the point. Crackers don’t crack SecuROM itself, but rather insert their own code into the client in order to bypass protections. Regarding inconvenience though, SecuROM is one of the more tame copy protections out there, although it did cause a lot of problems for BioShock players when that title was first released.
I am a firm believer that if a person purchases a product, they should not have to put up with protections that are installed to protect the game from piracy. If you purchase a game, you’ve supported it. Why do you need to put up with the bloat? Considering the fact that the game was cracked a full week prior to official release, isn’t it about time to drop this foolishness? I’m all for protecting content, but it’s obvious that copy protection is not working. Do the game publishers care? Nein. This is why we will likely not see an end to an instrusive form of copy protection for quite some time.
AGEIA Unveils PhysX APEX Development Components
Since AGEIA first stepped onto the scene, we’ve obsessively covered every move they’ve made in hopes that they would finally leave their mark on the gaming landscape with their physics processor. To date, that has not yet happened, but things are looking good for the near-future. Following the recent acquisition of Havok by Intel, AGEIA know that they need to push harder than ever to get into developers code.
The APEX platform is designed to help them achieve that goal. APEX consists of three components that give developers total control over the scalability of PhysX capabilities in their games, regardless of platform. At current time, APEX is included as a standard feature with Unreal Engine III, but is currently unavailable in other engines at this time. In the future, AGEIA have plans to market APEX separately, likely to be bundled with the PhysX source code, which can all be added to an engine of the developers choice. Whether this will help AGEIA is yet to be seen, but I’m fairly certain it won’t hurt.
 |
Santa Clara, Calif. – November 15, 2007- AGEIA(TM) Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced the introduction of the AGEIA Adaptive Physics EXtensions(TM) (APEX(TM)) Development Platform. AGEIA APEX provides game designers, developers and modders with a series of PhysX asset libraries and tools which help streamline the implementation of best-in-class in-game physics.
Source: AGEIA Press Release
BMW 128i and 135i Pricing Announced
When BMW made the announcement a few months ago saying that they were bringing their 1-Series to North American shores, there were mixed reactions. BMW fans overall were impressed and excited, while the rest thought the car was uglier than your first blind date. Who cares though, with a freaking 300HP (0-60, 5.3s) under the hood? Well, despite the critics, the cars smaller frame and youthful design did a great job of invoking immediate desire to tear up the road while behind the wheel.
The deal-breaker of course, would be the pricing. With the 3-Series Coupe starting out at $35,000, how low could it possibly go for the 1xxi? After all, BMW is not going to sacrifice their quality-associated name (Porsche Cayenne anyone?) to bring a few new customers on board. Well, that information is now known: $29,375 and $35,675, for the 128i and 135i, respectively. Not exactly the poor-mans Bimmer after all. Add on your options and the 135i would cost at least $45K including taxes and delivery. At that point, you might as well splurge another $5K and get a slightly more feature-rich and larger 335i Coupe…
 Source: BMW |
The small coupe made its North American debut at the 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show this week. It will be sold in 3.0-liter inline-6 form as the 128i, making 230 horsepower, and – with a twin-turbo 3.0-liter six that makes 300 hp – as the 135i. The 128i will cost $29,375, while the 135i will be priced at $35,675. It’s “Year One of the One,” BMW says, claiming that the 1 Series coupe “will reinvent the niche that the legendary BMW 2002 created.” The company’s microsite offers prospective buyers an opportunity to sign up for the chance to pre-order.
Source: Inside Line
AMD Unleashes HD 3800 Graphic Cards
In an effort to fill the mid-range void in their line-up, AMD today announced their latest HD 3800 GPU cards. Recent launches haven’t been that great to either AMD or their ATI division, but that changes today as the HD 3870 is a surprisingly solid offering. Although it falls slightly behind NVIDIA’s 8800GT performance-wise, the HD 3870 costs $50 less.
Our friends at the Tech Report have taken a hard look at both new GPUs and found them to be a worthy revamp of the R600 architecture. Although performance was not vastly improved over the 2900 series, the power usage was. Their HD 3870 cut over 100W off the entire power draw… incredible. It shows how inefficient the previous 2900 cards were. You can read Scott’s review here and the full press release below.
 Source: The Tech Report |
SUNNYVALE, Calif. – November 15, 2007- AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the introduction and immediate availability of the ATI Radeon(tm) HD 3800 Series of graphics processing units (GPU). As the world’s first series of graphics processors to deliver Microsoft’s DirectX(R) 10.1 support, 55nm process technology and tri and quad multi-GPU support with ATI CrossFireX(tm), the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series ushers in a new era of enthusiast gaming performance at mainstream price points.
Source: AMD Press Release
SteelSeries Announces High-End Gaming Keyboard
To be a professional gamer, you need to have the right equipment. Well, it’s more likely the fact that you need more than half of your life worth of free time for practice, but that’s besides the point. SteelSeries is a company which promise to deliver what pro-gamers want, while telling the world what other companies are doing wrong. Is it safe to assume that SteelSeries does no wrong, then? We will have to reserve judgement until we have their gaming peripherals in our labs.
The 7G “Professional Gaming” keyboard is comprised of high-quality components and long-life promises that gamers are after. What do you get for your hard-earned dollar? 18K gold mechanical switches, for one, and also an enhanced PS/2 buffer-system that allows the highest possible actions-per-minute. While some keyboards crap out when you push four or five keys at once, the 7G is supposedly able to handle all of the keys being pushed down at once. I am not sure I’d want to see the result of doing that, though! The 7G will be available next month for $149.99 (MSRP).
 |
The combination of the powerful PS/2 buffer-system and 18K gold-plated mechanical switches, means that the SteelSeries 7G offers more Actions-Per-Minute than any other keyboard in the world. The keyboard was built specifically to offer gaming grade response times as well as an unmatched durability with a switch lifetime of 50 million operations.
Source: SteelSeries Press Release
Canadian Music Retailer Music World To Close Shop
While purchasing some music at popular Canadian music retailer Music World earlier, I was told that all sales were final due to the companies plans to go out of business. The exact date is not known, but it should be between Dec 31 and the first week of January. Music World has 72 stores across Canada, falling just behind HMVs 126.
Reasons cited for closing were simple: “Wal-Mart”. That’s an easy answer, however, as the bigger problem could be that music sales have been declining at an alarming rate in Canada for the past decade. A Reuters article published earlier this year noted a 35% drop in hard-copy music sales in the first quarter, compared to Q1 of 2006.
 |
The rapid decline doesn’t look to be slowing down, and with a 72-store outlet closing shop, it’s not too reassuring on the state of things. The good news in all of this, if any, is that HMV will be gaining all of Music Worlds customers, which will better help them keep strong, although their stability is greater to begin with due to a much larger backing and loyal customer base.
Due to the closing, it’s to be expected that “fire sales” will occur before the final light switch is flicked off, so if you are a music fan, you may want to keep an eye out at your local store the second half of December.