PC Gaming and Technology

9800GX2 out

2008-03-18T20:59:00.002Z

It's released today and honestly the results are not that impressing if you take the price into account.

Some reviews:
Bit-tech.net
AnandTech.com
[H]ocp.com
Firingsquad.com

Project Origin trailer#2

2008-03-15T21:47:00.001Z

G92 update

2008-03-13T17:56:00.002Z

Looks like G92 is in for a die-shrink:

"As it turns out, the Green Graphics Goblin of Santa Clara is not happy because AMD has had 55nm-build chips since last year and it wants to fix its problem not by going to a psychiatrist but by developing 55nm GPUs of its own. Set to be manufactured by the one and only TSMC the 55nm G92 shrink is said to be prepared for a late Q2 / early Q3 release with the first iterations being for the mobile segment.

The 55nm updates will probably feature a few enhancements, with at least one being DirectX 10.1 support but for now, we can only sit and wait for more info to be leaked."

Source: tcmagazine

Bioshock 2 is official

2008-03-11T20:51:00.003Z

Shacknews brings awesome news! The sequel to the great philosophical shooter will be released between august and october 2009 if all goes well.

Stardock talks about piracy

2008-03-11T15:00:00.003Z

Excellent article by "Draginol" of Stardock (Sins of a solar empire) about piracy and game sales.

"Blaming piracy is easy. But it hides other underlying causes. When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue.

In the end, the pirates hurt themselves. PC game developers will either slowly migrate to making games that cater to the people who buy PC games or they'll move to platforms where people are more inclined to buy games."

Love

2008-03-11T14:47:00.005Z

No, this isn't a late valentines post. This is about a "first person not so massively multi player online procedural adventure game" called Love that is being singlehandedly made by Eskil Steenberg. Judging from the screenshots alone I suspect this guy must be some kind of genious. Instead of being set from the start the world is procedurally created from an algorithm. You owe yourself to check it out!
It's unclear at this point when the game will be ready.

Love main site

An article on massively.com

OCZ NIA

2008-03-10T22:21:00.003Z

TG Daily reports that the NIA will have a retail price of $159, a quite reasonable price if you ask me, and if it works. It stands to see when/if it comes to europe. I'm seriously thinking of importing one if it doesn't.

Source: TD Daily

Age of Conan hardware requierments

2008-03-10T20:35:00.004Z

70 days to release. Check your rig until then.

Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800

Recommended Specifications
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

Source: IGN

RivaTuner v2.08

2008-03-10T20:13:00.003Z

RivaTuner v2.08 is now avaible on Guru3D.

Version 2.08:

Minor bugfixes:

RivaTuner no longer crashes when RivaTuner module activation launcher item is scheduled to run at Windows startup.
Fixed association between low-level refresh overrider rules and target display adapter, broken due to low-level profiles association related changes in the previous version.
Minor UI and localization fixes.

What's new:

Updated databases for Detonator and ForceWare drivers. Added database for ForceWare 169.44.
Added Catalyst 8.3 drivers detection.
Updated Catalyst 8.3 certified SoftR9x00 patch script (for Windows 2000/XP drivers only).
Updated PCI DeviceID database for ATI graphics processors. Added PCI DeviceID for RADEON HD 3850 AGP.
Improved G94 graphics processors support. Thanks to Jurgen in 't Zandt @ Point of View for providing NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT sample for testing. The list of G94 related improvements includes:
Added low-level fan control support for integrated PWM controllers of G94 graphics processors.
Improved driver-level fan control support for integrated PWM controllers of G94 graphics processors. Now RivaTuner can be used for switching between driver-level automatic and driver-level direct fan control modes on GeForce 9600GT series.

Improved RV6xx graphics processors family support. With this version RivaTuner continues tradition of providing workarounds for bugs existing in fan controller calibration routines of many reference AMD HD 38x0 BIOS images. The list of new workarounds and enhancements includes:
Extended list of tweakable automatic fan speed control rule parameters for RV6xx fan controllers. Now besides editing previously available thermal lookup and temperature transfer formula parameters RivaTuner also allows editing parameters of RV6xx fan controller's acoustic management system. Acoustic management related parameters include PWM hysteresis and PWM ramp settings, which are also improperly calibrated in certain AMD HD 38x0 BIOS images.
Now RivaTuner forcibly resets fan controller's PWM hysteresis settings when adjusting fan speed in fixed mode. This enhancement provides fine fan speed adjustment in fixed fan speed mode instead of stepwise fan speed adjustment mode on the systems affected by erroneously programmed PWM hysteresis.
Changed representation format for temperature transfer function's T slope parameter. Now the parameter is displayed and edited in percents instead of PWM ticks to simplify transfer formula readability.

Minor UI changes and improvements.

OCZ NIA

2008-03-10T15:24:00.009Z

There are tons of pics and info from CeBit 2008 circulating but I only found one product that intrigued me: OCZ's NIA.

Although I feel a healthy amount of scepticism about this thing, I can't help to feel just a little bit excited too. I'll be watching this closely.

The state of the GPU

2008-03-10T14:20:00.009Z

There has been widespread dissapointment over leaked benchmarks from NVIDIA's "new" 9800-series. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to have realised by now that this series is not the true next gen cards from NVIDIA but simply a repackaging of the newer 8800's (GT & GTS512). While the 9600 shows a lot of value, 9800GTX and GX2 doesn't seem to be a huge (if any) step up in comparison with the older 8800GTX/Ultra. True, the cards is not out yet and the drivers are not optimized. But if you're hoping for a Crysis-cruncher, this will not be it. Why?

Because there is no pressure on NVIDIA to release their true next gen yet. Although it seems that the G100/GT200 (naming ambiguity all over again...) seems to be ready, the competition for now is ATI's 38xx-range. I think that all the angry fuzz around the "new" G9x stems from the misconception that the 9800 would be the Next Big Thing. It's no wonder though since the rumors around the 9800's since last summer or so have been so diverse and wild to say the least. No, it's when the summer comes that things will get interesting with ATI's 4xxx (R7x) and NVIDIA's answer to those cards.

In the future things could get a bit more interesting since Intel is showing interest in participating in the GPU race. It would be an interesting twist to the market, and I hope they can give ATI and NVIDIA a fight. Competition is a good thing.

In other news NVIDIA recently bought Ageia. NVIDIA is also working on physics software to be compatible with their ordinary GPU lineup. So it's possible that we will soon be able to use part of a card to handle physics or even dedicating one to the task. Interesting since physics is an area where lot's of numbercrunching is required and the use of "real" physics is something that's slowly working it's way into games. I'm thinking primarily of upcoming games like Alan Wake, Alone in the Dark and Far Cry 2.

Third attempt

2008-03-10T12:23:00.003Z

I'll start updating again today or tomorrow. Hopefully work or other pointless distractions won't be an issue this time around...
I feel that the blog need a revamp so I'll probably change the esthetic feel of it and maybe give it a slight tweak in direction.

Bioshock 2

2008-01-01T01:01:00.012Z

Release: Aug-oct 2009
Official site - not yet...
Wikipedia page - not yet...

Developer: 2K Marin
Publisher: Take Two Interactive

Spore

2008-01-01T01:01:00.010Z

Release: Sep 7 2008
Official site
Wikipedia page

Developer: Maxis
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Project Origin

2008-01-01T01:01:00.009Z

Release: TBA
Official site
Wikipedia page

Developer: Monolith Productions
Publisher: Warner Brothers interactive entertainment

Far Cry 2

2008-01-01T01:01:00.008Z

Release: Sep 2008 (rumored)
Official site
Wikipedia page

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft

Mirror's Edge

2008-01-01T01:01:00.007Z

Release: TBA
Official site - TBA
Wikipedia page

Developer: Digital Illusions CE
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Fallout 3

2008-01-01T01:01:00.005Z

Release: Nov 2008 (rumored)
Official site
Wikipedia page

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda, ZeniMax media

Aion - The tower of eternity

2008-01-01T01:01:00.004Z

Release: Sep 2008 (rumored)
Official site
Wikipedia page

Developer: NCsoft
Publisher: NCsoft

Age of Conan - Hyborian adventures

2008-01-01T01:01:00.003Z

Release: May 20 2008
Official site
Wikipedia page

Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Funcom, Eidos Interactive

Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800

Recommended Specifications
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

Yet another Crysis preview

2007-08-26T14:53:00.000Z

The people at hexus.net have gotten some playtime with crysis at GC07. The game was running DX10 with graphics cranked up on a modest C2DX, 4 gigs of RAM and 8800Ultras in SLI...

New Crysis trailer

2007-08-26T10:00:00.000Z

A new really nice trailer from GC07 has found its way to Gametrailers.

The Witcher screens + GC nomination

2007-08-25T15:12:00.000Z

Six fresh screenshots from the game can be found at Fz.

The official site reports that The Witcher has been nominated for Best PC Game at GC07!

Crysis update

2007-08-25T10:33:00.001Z

Crytek are in the last two months of polishing Crysis right now and I'm sure you are are anticipationg this game as much as I do. There are lots of Crysis goodies trickling down from GC07 so you should head on to Crysis-online to check them out. Plenty of videos and a snippet or two of info such as these:

"I think we will announce in the next two weeks a min spec, which will be the official min spec."

"A sequel is already planned for production... but we'll wait and see how well Crysis does."

Spore hands on @ IGN

2007-08-25T10:15:00.001Z

Spore is still months away, with any features on the game far in between. But IGN got to spend an hour on the cell, creature and tribe part of the game at Games Convention. Read it here.

BioShock DRM to be removed in the future

2007-08-25T10:08:00.000Z

There has been some controversy regarding BioShocks online activation wich on the release was quite limited. 2k recently upped the number of installations from 2 to 5. However now Ken Levine promises that online activation will be removed at some point in the future.

"At some point we'll move back from online activation," Levine stated. "If people want to play BioShock ten years from now, they'll be able to play it." Based on his wording, it's presumed that SecuROM activation will be disabled when retail sales of the game are no longer a pressing factor.

Shacknews

Download the BioShock orchestral score

2007-08-24T20:03:00.000Z

Remember the art book that 2k gave away (hey that rhymes!)? Of course you do. Well now they give away the orchestral score (23MB zip) as well!

Cult of Rapture

nVidia G92 rumors roundup

2007-08-24T19:12:00.000Z

I have lurked around the net in search of something to report on nVidia's upcoming line of graphics cards, the G92. While there isn't much of any official specs and so on out, there's quite a lot of rumors and guessing going on.

First of all, there's the name. Early speculation suggested "9800" however newer rumors favor "8950". The latter sounds better to me since there is an old ATI card called Radeon 9800.

Then there's the specs... The following list can be found on various sites:
- 65nm process technology at TSMC
- Over one billion transistors
- Second Generation Unified Shader Architecture.
- Double precsion support (FP64)
- GPGPU native.
- Over one TeraFLOPS of shader processing power
- MADD+ADD configuration for the shader untis (2+1 FLOPS=3 FLOPS per ALU)
- Fully Scalar design
- 512-bit memory interface
- 1024MB GDDR4 graphics memory
- DirectX 10.1 support
- OpenGL 3.0 Support
- eDRAM die for "FREE 4xAA"
- built in Audio Chip (?)
- built in tesselation unit (in the graphics core)
- Improved AA and AF quality levels

As stated above, it will supposedly have the capacity of 1TFlop, compared to 8800GTX's 330GFlop and R600's 450GFlop. There are also rumors of a GX2 model, in other words two G92's in one brutal monster of a card. 8950GX2 SLI anyone? There will also be PCIe 2.0 support.

The prices are guessed to be in the range of 549-649 USD for the GTX and 399-449 USD for the GTS. If this turned out to be true, expect a nice price drop on the 8800's. Couldn't find any hypothetical price on the hypothetical GX2.
The most reliable info is the release date, wich will be in November this year.

That was that, and remember to take this information with a pinch (or a sack) of salt.

IGN reports from Games Convention

2007-08-24T18:55:00.000Z

Firstly, IGN has talked to Bill Roper from Flagship about the current alpha testing of Hellgate: London. You can read it here. It's not much but it has been a while since I reported something on this game.
Second, they have taken a look on the siege battles in Age of Conan, here.

Bioshock release and update

2007-08-24T12:35:00.000Z

BioShock is released today in europe! Happy happy, joy joy!

In other news, 2k responds to some of the issues that have come up regarding activation and the problems players have had with widescreens. A patch is on the way.
Technical FAQ here.

Crysis preview @ IGN (GC)

2007-08-24T12:32:00.000Z

Short preview.

New Quake Wars trailer

2007-08-23T14:04:00.000Z

The trailer ws released during Games Convention and can be seen at Fz.

The Witcher added to Games in Focus list

2007-08-23T12:18:00.000Z

By some strange reason I haven't been writing about this game on the blog even though I've followed it's development quite closely. But I think it's a given on the list.

The Witcher is a single player RPG that plays out in the world of Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski (the books will be avaliable in english spring-08). It's a rough and grim world wich means the game will be of a more mature nature. The player will be confronted with difficult choices with no black-or-white solutions and the consequenses of actions may not be evident until several gameplay hours later.

The official description:

"Welcome to a world that knows no mercy – none is received, and none is given. Only physical and mental agility can keep you alive, though they are by no means a guarantor of life. You play the role of Geralt – an already legendary monster-slayer, but this, my friend, is not a gift and is certainly not given lightly. “The Witcher” is an immense computer game. Within its realm, you will have to assume the burden of choice. And this burden of choice, as light as it may appear, is the very thing that will both permit you to wield influence over the fate of the world, as well as get you slain prematurely.

Be assured, my friend, combat with all its attendant viciousness and brutality will not let you pass by, unchallenged. However, the path before you isn’t simple; you are about to be entangled in an intense and intricate plot, which will constantly require instantaneous decisions on your part. Decision-making, therefore, is the real challenge here, so get ready to confront it. For, regardless of the choices you make, the path you choose to tread, and the infamous sang-froid of your character, it will all take its heavy toll on your moral conscience. You shall quickly discover that the difference between Good and Evil, provided it even exists, is as thin as the edge of a blade, if not more so. And it is you who ultimately decides what path Geralt, the White Wolf, shall walk.

The story of “The Witcher” is set in the realm of bestselling fantasy saga by the same title, conjured to life by Andrzej Sapkowski – one of the most acclaimed Polish contemporary writers. It is into his unique world of pervasive magic, bitter conflict, and occasional dark humor, that you will be immersed. Bare in mind, however, that your voluntary entry into this world will most definitely not allow for any trace of compassion or leniency – esteem and the right to live are hard to come by."

As far as I know there is no official release date at the moment. IGN states Oct.26 for Europe.

Shacknews recently published a preview that you can read here.

The Witcher official website

Two reviews and an interview

2007-08-23T11:49:00.000Z

As you know, BioShock is released tomorrow friday and has been out in the US since tuesday. It has gotten some quite amazing reviews, here is two of them:
IGN
Shacknews

Shacknews have also published an interesting interview with Ken Levine from Irrational.

Hellgate: London subscription fee announced

2007-08-23T09:35:00.001Z

Flagship's game is due in a couple of months and they have now announced that the subscription fee will be € 9.99 (£6.99) a month. The fee is optional although subscribers will get lots of extra goodies.

"[...]Flagship Studios will deliver exciting new ongoing content including new character classes, areas, monsters, items and raid content, new game modes (including Hardcore, Role-Play and PvP mode), and additional character and stash slots. Subscribers can found guilds, select to nominate an officer and will have access to guild and player housing. Other features include in-game email for items, web access to characters and a place in future beta lotteries."

Hellgate: London press release

Far Cry 2 preview @ IGN

2007-08-23T09:08:00.001Z

"Speaking of NPCs, not all of them are bad. During the demo, we were introduced to Marty. This is one of a several "buddies" that can be found in Far Cry 2. These guys will go about their business as you play the game, occasionally crossing paths to team up. The more you're around them, the more likely they are to help you. It's what friends do. They not only fight with you, they'll also save you in a pinch. During the demo we saw the player die once, only to have Marty rush in and drag him off the ground. This was done with a bloody filter on as the player only caught a glimpse of the saving moments before being revived in a safe place, sans weapons. No buddies and you'll flat out die. It's good to make friends."

Awesome!
Go read it

Far Cry 2 Screenshots

2007-08-22T15:24:00.001Z

I have added Far Cry 2 to my watchlist. The release is still too far off to make it as a "game in focus" but I trust that Ubisoft knows what they are doing.
When you have marked Q2 2008 with an extra fat red marker you can check out these screenshots (Shacknews).

Spore movie X2

2007-08-22T12:37:00.000Z

Check out these two new movies (Fz.se) published during the Leipzig Games Convention.

Crysis Special Edition

2007-08-21T18:27:00.000Z

In paralell with the regular box Crysis will also be released as a bling special edition package.

"This 3-disc set contains a tremendous amount of extras including behind the scenes looks and interviews with the minds behind Crysis at Crytek, and some of the breathtaking art that has kept people buzzing since the game’s debut. Beyond getting one of the year’s most anticipated PC games and first person shooters of 2007, the special steelbook box will contain:

“Making of Crysis” featurette taking you inside the making of the epic game
A unique in-game vehicle*
“Meet the Developers” vignettes with the lead designers at Crytek
The initial Crysis concept video that started it all, along with key trailers
A show reel of original concept and production artwork from the team
32 page concept art book
Official soundtrack of all original music by the award-winning composer Inon Zur (past video game credits include Baldur’s Gate II, Prince of Persia and Everquest II"

Crysis-online

Bioshock PC demo out

2007-08-21T18:22:00.000Z

The Bioshock PC demo was released yesterday. It can be found on these sites among others:
Fileshack
Fileplanet
Fz (swedish)

The whole game was also released today in the US.

Rage interview

2007-08-17T22:10:00.001Z

Shacknews interviews id Software's Todd Hollenshead and Tim Willits about Rage.

Bioshock demo tomorrow Friday 17th

2007-08-16T18:29:00.001Z

According to Shacknews, the Bioshock demo will be avaliable tomorrow on Fileshack.

Sites to host the Bioshock demo

2007-08-14T19:52:00.000Z

Sites that will host the demo (that I have found so far):
Fileplanet
Nvidia Nzone

The release will of course be posted on The Cult of Rupture, with further details I guess.

Athlon's last death twitch

2007-08-14T18:23:00.000Z

AMD announces Athlon 64 X2 6400+ "Black Edition" @ 3.2GHz

But who will buy this 90nm freak with Barcelona barely weeks away?

BioShock: Breaking the Mold

2007-08-14T11:37:00.000Z

Cult of Rapture has put together an artbook about Bioshock avialable for anyone to download. Be warned though, the foreword by Ken Levine contains spoilers, so you might want to skip that part until you've played through the game.

BioShock: Breaking the Mold

Reasons behind Conan delay

2007-08-14T11:32:00.000Z

The new combat system is the reason fo the five month delay of Age of Conan. The dev understandably doesn't want unpolished combat in the MMO.

Read all about it here

Bioshock demo avaliable... Part 2

2007-08-13T17:53:00.000Z

"Currently, the PC demo in its final stages of testing and approval. We are pushing to get it out to you as soon as possible. It will be out during the month of August, and everyone is working at full capacity to deliver it to you before the game hits store shelves on August 21st. I will also let you know as soon as I have an exact date for the demo's release, so please stay tuned."

Cult of Rapture

Bioshock demo avaliable... if you have a 360

2007-08-13T17:14:00.000Z

Posted yesterday on the official Bioshock site:

"The BioShock demo, announced after the world premiere of the BioShock launch trailer on Spike TV, has just now gone live on Marketplace. Boot up your 360s and get downloading. Rapture awaits.
For those of you who are looking for a BioShock demo on the PC, it is in the works and will be out later this month. I'll give you more details about it tomorrow."

CoD4 Multiplayer preview

2007-08-10T20:57:00.001Z

Check this out.

Age of Conan postponed

2007-08-10T20:56:00.001Z

Age of Conan have pushed forward its release date to 30th of March 2008.

Hellgate : London @ Nov 2

2007-08-06T14:25:00.000Z

Flagship Studios reports that Hellgate : London will be released in Europe on Novemeber 2, two days after the US release.

FZ (in swedish)

id Software announces Rage

2007-08-04T20:51:00.000Z

id Software have released a trailer (fileshack) and some info on their upcoming game Rage. It will use John Carmack's latest engine called Tech 5.

"We want this game to be fun. We want fun first person shooter stuff, fun vehicle stuff with combat involved in it, and fun racing."

Sounds fun, right!

Firingsquad

It's official!

2007-08-02T19:27:00.000Z

Crysis will come out on November 16!

"We're thankful to our fans for their support and patience, and we're excited to bring them Crysis this year," said Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli. "It's going to be worth the wait."

From Shacknews

Crysis release window

2007-08-02T13:20:00.000Z

According to EA, Crysis will be released sometime in November. While this is not written in stone, it's getting closer.

Crysis set for November release date (Firingsquad)

Oh right, the technology part....

2007-08-01T22:00:00.000Z

Funny how things can change in half a year!
Or not... Intel's Core 2 CPU's still kicks ass and Nvidia 8xxx-series beats ATI's cards. AMD's roadmap is really promising though... if they don't go broke in the next year or so.
The only really interesting thing that's happened is the advent of DDR3 RAM. Megahurtzes seems to be no sweat for these kits.

Here's the deal

2007-08-01T21:30:00.000Z

Age of Conan is still a few months away.
Bioshock is at the moment of writing 22 days 8 hours 23 minutes and 41 seconds away.... can't wait! It looked awesome six months ago and I can't say it seems worse today. We'll see in 22 days 8 hours 21 minutes and 49 seconds. It's on my pre-order list anywhoo.
It seems the Crysis-hype is cooling down if you follow the major gamesites. Although my confidence in this game is still rock solid. It's gonna rock (Enough with the rock superlatives...), I'm convinced of it! It will ship this year!
Enemy Territory : Quake Wars is the only game in my list that I'm feeling less and less impressed about. I am thinking of dropping it from my list of games in focus. If Unreal Tornament was my cup of tea I'd put it here instead, but it isn't... so.... we'll see.
Hellgate : London feels more and more like one of those games that you really have to try out before you know... I'll have to think about (read: play) that one too.
Seems like we won't play Spore before earliest next summer, although there's no chance I'm taking that one off my list.

Better late...

2007-08-01T21:19:00.000Z

It's been about six months since I wrote here last, I blame work and stuff. Damn you work and stuff! Thing are changing though and I will pick this blog up again, with some changes. Stay tuned you crazy people!

Crysis trailer

2007-01-27T14:06:00.000Z

New DX10 trailer on IGN. Giant aliens, soldier-throwing and jungle madness.

Check it out

IGN predicts 2007

2007-01-27T14:03:00.000Z

Saturday afternoon reading.

"So now is the time when we stick our necks out and say some things that we'll probably come to regret later this year when we look back. Either way, we've made ten predictions, in no particular order, about several topics in the wide and wacky world of PC gaming in 2007."

The kick-ass action RPG

2007-01-26T20:14:00.000Z

Computerandvideogames have posted a small preview of Hellgate : London.

"[...] having announced to myself that the dungeon trawl is dead, I'm pleased to confess that I'm a slavering visionless moron, and it's Hellgate: London that put me in my place. Hellgate sets up its stall in 2038, after mankind's neglect of rituals and prophecies - in favour of stupid science, no less - has left us wide open to demonic attack. The ravens have left London Tower and a massive gash has settled onto London. Again: Flagship Studio's choice of words, not mine."

Read the article here

Via Hellgate guru

Enemy Territory to be released in fiscal year 2008

2007-01-26T12:55:00.000Z

Enemy Territory : Quake wars is to be released in fiscal year 2008, wich means we will play the game earliest in april.

Activision Announces Record Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2007 Preliminary Results

Via quakewars.se (swedish)

Age of Conan release date

2007-01-26T12:52:00.000Z

The game will come out on the 30th of october this year according to publisher Funcom.

Hellgate video

2007-01-25T14:08:00.000Z

Also from IGN (and there's sound in this one). Lots of monsters and bright colours...

Helicopter hunting in Crysis

2007-01-25T14:03:00.000Z

Short clip of shooting at a helicopter @ IGN. No sound, but neat anyway.

Podcast with Ken Levine

2007-01-24T19:05:00.000Z

"This week’s guest is Irrational Games boss Ken Levine, who tells us all about much fancied shooter Bioshock as well as sharing his views on the business of pitching games, originality, the hardware wars, outsourcing, story-telling, online gaming and why some great games never quite attain the commercial success they deserve."

Podcast episode 17 @ next-gen.biz

GPU or CPU?

2007-01-24T18:05:00.000Z

If you're the least interested in hardware you have to read this educational article at [H]Enthusiast:

Real-World Gaming CPU Comparison with 8800 GTX SLI

"AMD and Intel head-to-head. With NVIDIA's 8800 series GPU supplying a big jump in performance over the last generation of video cards, we revisit just what these CPUs do for you when you are gaming. Is one truly better?"

One of those Crysis-moments...

2007-01-24T17:42:00.000Z

Had to share this one.
Blam blam! ... screeeech ... BOOOM!

From crysis-online

Age of Conan video and screens

2007-01-24T15:02:00.000Z

Some new goodies on the official Conan site: a video & some screenshots

Quake Wars screenies

2007-01-23T13:05:00.000Z

Goodies at FZ

BioShock due June + podcast

2007-01-23T12:55:00.000Z

From The Cult of Rapture:

"I've been getting quite a few questions concerning when BioShock is coming out. Here's the official word: BioShock will come out for both the PC and 360, in North America and Europe, in June of 2007. I don't have an exact day yet, but you can mark down the lovely month of June for BioShock goodness."

I've painted the entire month green in my kalendar...
On the same site you can find an interview with 2kproducer Melissa Miller where she talk a lot about the funny (and not so funny) situations she's encountered in BioShock.
Download the podcast here

Bio-shock.com

2007-01-22T22:53:00.000Z

BioShock fansite:

bio-shock.de (in german)

bio-shock.com (in english)

BioShocker @ CVG

2007-01-22T18:54:00.000Z

Comuterandvideogames have posted an interview with Ken Levine. Definitely worth a read.

"The scariest parts in Bioshock are the quiet moments, when you're all alone in a deserted corridor, with some 1940s love song playing in the distance. And then you hear the sounds of a Splicer talking to his long-dead child, telling them to get ready for school and wash their hands because they don't want them to miss their bus..."

Read the whole article here

More R600 speculaton

2007-01-22T13:36:00.000Z

New rumors about ATI's R600, due march 8-9.

The lineup should look something like this:

X2800XTX: 750MHz core-1GB/2,2GHz gDDR4mem.-512bit mem.bus
X2800XTX: 750MHz core-512MB/2,2GHz gDDR4mem.-512bit mem.bus
X2800XT: 650MHz core-???MB/1,9GHz gDDR3mem.-512bit mem.bus

Another revision (R680) will be released Q3-4 this year.

From Sweclockers (swedish)

VR-Zone

BioShock QandA

2007-01-22T13:19:00.000Z

Small QA at Cult of Raptue

Happy Sunday Magic Roundup

2007-01-21T18:18:00.000Z

Nothing spectacular this week. Some graphic card rumors, more graphic card rumors and something about Brian Eno.
LocalCooling deserves another push.

And oh, The Cult of Rapture started up, hopefully more juicy Bioshock news soon.

Bling bling.

Video interview with Cevat Yerli from CES 2007

2007-01-20T12:57:00.000Z

IGN has posted a video interview with Cevat Yerli from CES 2007.

Higher resolution at Crysis-online

IGN

Ask Ken Levine

2007-01-19T13:57:00.000Z

At The Cult of Rapture you can email a question wich hopfully will be answered by lead designer Ken Levine in the near future.

The Cult of Rapture

Local Cooling - Save energy

2007-01-19T13:44:00.000Z

The rampant energy consumption and global climate change is something that concerns everybody. Uniblue Labs have created the free app Local Cooling wich allows you to customize the level of activity in your computer when it's idle (wich should be as little as possible) thus saving power (and money from your elecrical bill). Local Cooling displays how much energy you save in kilowatt-hours, gallons of oil and trees. You can also register an account and join a group in the same way as Folding@Home and the likes.

Local Cooling

Via Nordic Hardware

Hellgate : London mini feature @ IGN

2007-01-19T13:38:00.000Z

IGNrpgvault posted a peek yesterday with two new screenshots. One of them shows the UI wich looks really clean and distinct.

Hellgate : London peek #9

R600 rumors

2007-01-18T19:00:00.000Z

The inquirer has posted an article about the R600 and that it will come in four variants. The high end model will supposedly be 30cm (!) long and sport 1GB/2,4GHz gDDr4 memory and a 512 bit bus.

ATI R600 is Radeon X2x00 series @ The Inquirer

Via XtremeSystems

BioShock: The Cult of Rapture

2007-01-18T14:34:00.000Z

2kgames have launched their own community/news site. The first article is about the design process of the shotgun that will be featured in the game.

The Cult of Rapture

Mid-budget hardware optimization

2007-01-18T12:54:00.000Z

Toms hardware has published a very informative article today were they push a mid-prized system to it's limits. Using an Intel e6300, a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, an Asus X1950 Pro graphics card and OCZ 2x1GB PC2-6400 System Elite Dual Channel memory kit they cram all possible power out of the system step by step. The performance gains charts speak for themselves. A must read.

Read the article at Tomshardware

Hellgate Q&A

2007-01-18T11:19:00.000Z

Gamespot have posted an interview with Flagship CEO Bill Roper. The article is mostly about the singleplayer/mmo semi-controversy.

Read it at Gamespot

Conan fly-by video

2007-01-18T11:06:00.000Z

IGN have laid their hands on a new fly-by video from Conan. The environment looks really organic and packed with atmosphere. We get to see a few NPC's as well, unfortunately their animation seem to be suffering from the ice skating phenomena. The way the walk (and jump) around just doesn't look very realistic. But then there is still a lot of development left on this game.

You can find the video here

Graphics talk @ IGN

2007-01-18T10:50:00.000Z

There is an quite interesting article on IGN today about graphics and gameplay. They have interviewed artists and designers from developer Pandemic.

"I think that [photorealistic graphics is] a carrot on a string - and there's this idea called the uncanny valley, and it says that the closer you get to making it look real, the further away you actually get. And if you look at films like Pixar's The Incredibles, they don't actually try to pull off photo-real humans, and it's for that reason."

ET : QW one minute preview at Gamedaily

2007-01-17T14:11:00.000Z

Gamedaily has posted a "one minute preview" of Enemy Territory. Nothing really new or spectacular, but worth a look.

Keep your memory cool... and cool

2007-01-17T10:04:00.000Z

In the last months hardware companies have started pitching different products that are supposed to cool down memory sticks. Thermaltake recently unvielded their Spirit RS, Thermalright have the HR-07, Corsair have shipped a 2048MB/1111MHz Dominator kit with a fan system for some time. OCZ have a couple of fan systems, such as the XTC memory cooler, and even a 1150MHz memory with a built in water block; FlexXLC Edition.

Now, let's be honest with ourselves, you wouldn't just buy something like this because your insanely overclocked rig would melt your memory without a flashy memory cooler. The bling factor is at play here. And there is nothing wrong about that.
But it would be interesting to compare these different solutions. I want reviews! Exactly how effecient are these things?
I want some stats ...so I can pretend that there actually is a good reason to buy one (besides the looks).

Intel 45nm moving on - AMD 65nm finally out?

2007-01-17T09:08:00.000Z

Intel seems to be progressing nicely with their 45nm Penryn cores expected to come out later this year. They have confirmed a production start Q3-4.

"Paul [Otellini] said we have working samples of the Penryn processors -- and in a short period of time have already booted 4 operating systems (Windows Vista, XP, Linux and Apple Mac OS-X)."

From DailyTech

Meanwhile AMD's 65nm cpu's finally might be hitting the shelves about now. Writing this on a AM2 based system I look forward to see how the updated cores will scale. The 90nm ones overclock a bit sluggish compared to the C2D.

Paul Wedgewood interview - part two

2007-01-16T16:23:00.000Z

Cgonline has posted the second part of their interview with Paul Wedgewood, owner and lead designer of Splash Damage. There is among other things talk about the ranking system and the role of teamwork in the game.

"For the persistent military ranking, and unlike other multiplayer combat games, you will not gain significant promotions without playing a combat role effectively with your team. The game doesn’t reward playing XX hours, or endlessly ‘griefing’ the enemy: a higher military rank is a valid reflection of team-playing ability. A high military rank in ETQW is something a player can be really proud of, rather than a reward for bloody-minded persistence."

Read it at cgonline

Brian Eno putting music to Spore

2007-01-16T14:21:00.000Z

Musician Brian Eno will provide the soundtrack for Spore. Eno was a member of 70's rock band Roxy Music and a prominent figure in modern ambient. It's gonna be a treat!

From Shacknews

Interview with Jack Mamais

2007-01-16T14:12:00.000Z

Pretty interesting reading on Shacknews. Among other topics Mr Mamais talks about the multiplayer power struggle mode:

"'What you have to do to get the alien technology is get to the alien ship on the map, [obtaining] an alien capacitor and drawing on the alien power to allow your factory to generate alien weapons.' Eventually, one side will obtain a tactical tank, capable of launching a nuclear weapon. At this point, the existence of the tank will be announced to all participants, and its owner must maneuver the slow-moving vehicle into a position from which it can take out the opposing base.
"

Sounds great to me.

Complete article at Shacknews

Via crysis-online

Intel multicore demo

2007-01-16T13:30:00.000Z

Futuremark has developed a game technology demo that is to show the capability of Intel's multicore cpu's. You can get a fps readout but it seems to be more of a demo than a benchmarking app. Where is 3DMark07?

Ice Storm Fighters

ET:QW indoor screens

2007-01-16T13:26:00.000Z

Two new indoor screenshots have popped out. Take a look at Firingsquad

Carmack talks...

2007-01-16T13:15:00.000Z

DailyTech has published an interview with games industry guru John Carmack where he talks about dx10, multicores, Vista and consoles. He doesn't seem overly impressed with the current dx10/Vista hype.

"Nothing is going to help a new game by going to a new operating system. There were some clear wins going from Windows 95 to Windows XP for games, but there really aren’t any for Vista. They’re artificially doing that by tying DX10 so close it, which is really nothing about the OS ... They’re really grasping at straws for reasons to upgrade the operating system. I suspect I could run XP for a great many more years without having a problem with it"

Read the whole article at DailyTech

Interview with Splash Damage lead game designer Paul Wedgewood

2007-01-15T19:23:00.000Z

Mr Wedgewood speaks about the ranking system and the impermanent unlocks rewarded during a campaign. There is also talk about the maps (twelve divided over four campaigns) and the objective based gameplay.

"[...] the benefits to gameplay are immense. As a player, you don’t disperse with your team across the map as you would do in flag-based capture-and-hold, finding yourself constantly hunting for someone to fight. Instead, in ETQW you head to the next objective where a front-line occurs naturally between the opposing teams. Even inexperienced players suddenly find themselves fighting as a coordinated team. It’s our belief that this coordinated team effort is much more satisfying than simply capturing flags."

I really hope it will play like he says. Games like the Battlefield series have tried to lean away from the random-bunnyhopping-shooting-in-all-directions-gameplay(tm) towards a more tactical fps experience without really doing it in a consistent way. Time will tell...

Read the interview at cgonline

New info on GeForce 8600/8300-series

2007-01-15T13:04:00.000Z

Beareyes have posted information about nvidia's yet to come low-to-midrange graphics cards based on the G84 GPU. Rumors has it that these cards will be unvieled about the same time as ATI's R600, i.e. at the CeBit trade show 15-21 march this spring, giving nvidia an even bigger head start with a full lineup of dx10 number crunchers.

8800GTX: 128 shaders-575MHz core-768MB/1800MHz mem.-384bit mem.bus-$599
8800GTS: 96 shaders-500MHz core-640MB/1600MHz mem.-320bit mem.bus-$399
8800GTS: 96 shaders-500MHz core-320MB/1600MHz mem.-320bit mem.bus-$299
8600Ultra: 64 shaders-500MHz core-???MB/1400MHz mem.-256bit mem.bus-$179
8600GT: 48 shaders-350MHz core-???MB/1200MHz mem.-256bit mem.bus-$129
8300GT 32 shaders 500MHz core ???MB/1200MHz mem. 128bit mem.bus $??
8300GS 24 shaders 500Mhz core ???MB/1000MHz mem. 128bit mem.bus $??

Sources: VR-Zone, Nordic Hardware (swedish), Beareyes (chinese)