Fraps is a universal Windows application that can be used with all games using DirectX or OpenGL technology to record movies in-game or measure it's framerate.

Fraps is a universal Windows application that can be used with games using DirectX or OpenGL graphic technology. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as:

• Benchmarking Software - Show how many Frames Per Second (FPS) you are getting in a corner of your screen. Perform custom benchmarks and measure the frame rate between any two points. Save the statistics out to disk and use them for your own reviews and applications.
  Screen Capture Software - Take a screenshot with the press of a key! There's no need to paste into a paint program every time you want a new shot. Your screen captures are automatically named and timestamped.
• Realtime Video Capture Software - Have you ever wanted to record video while playing your favourite game? Come join the Machinima revolution! Throw away the VCR, forget about using a DV cam, game recording has never been this easy! Fraps can capture audio and video up to 2560x1600 on dual-core CPUs (1152x864 single-core) at up to 100 frames per second.

The latest Fraps 2.9.x releases add support for Vista and DirectX 10 games. With games starting to appear using DirectX 10 graphics we are happy to report that benchmarking, video capture, and screenshots are now all fully supported for these titles.

Added

• Stereo & Multichannel recording options for Direct Stream audio in Vista
• Support for many DDRAW games running in windowed mode
• Support for games that use multiple swapchains in D3D9
• Large size icon for Vista

Fixed

• Slow video capture speeds recording many older DDRAW games
• Capture crash for DDRAW games in XP SP3
• Misaligned audio with Vista Direct Stream when sound was silent
• 64-bit OpenGL apps not being detected
• Long delay starting video capture on some Vista configurations
• Crash in Fraps if video capture key pressed quickly in succession
• Fraps exit dialog appearing at random intervals
• "This program might not have installed correctly" error in Vista
• Corrupted volume slider in Vista when Fraps loaded
• Scrambled colors when recording in 8-bit and 16-bit from some older games
• Crash loading levels in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Download - Click here

According to Microsoft the X8 wireless mouse is considered by the company to be one of the quickest and most precise mice yet through a combination of technologies. It uses the same BlueTrack blue LED sensing as the new Explorer mice to properly track over more surfaces but also boosts the sensitivity to as much as 4,000DPI, twice as much as the corded SideWinder X5 and enough to match faster gaming or those with very large displays. Guys you got met at 1600 DPI really ..

The X8 still has an adjustable sensitivity toggle that scales back to as low as 250DPI and uses 2.4GHz RF wireless to eliminate much of the latency that would affect Bluetooth or older RF connections. In a rare touch, the new SideWinder also has a special USB cable that lets it charge from the attached PC while it plays. Normal battery life is estimated at about 30 hours of continuous use from a built-in lithium-ion pack.

Ergonomics are still similar to the X5 and include the signature vertical side buttons and replaceable feet that change the friction of the mouse for different surfaces. All seven buttons are programmable for different functions; in Windows, the mouse can also be used to jump to the Vista Games menu or to record macros in-game and use them later.

The SideWinder X8's announcement comes a little rpemature, you won't see it ship until February, when it will be available for oh eh .. how's $100 ? And no, that isn't a joke.

Early Tuesday a lawsuit was filed against NVIDIA. IT alleges that the graphics card maker not only knew about a serious flaw that caused some of its graphics chips products to overheat but also kept it hidden from the public for at least eight months, says a Wednesday report.

When the company did acknowledge issues with its products back in July, its shares fell by nearly a third and the company pledged to put away $200 million to cover warranty costs. The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, claims NVIDIA violated US securities laws by making false and misleading statements to the investing public.

While no specific dollar amounts for damages are yet disclosed by the lawsuit, which was filed by New York-based law firm Shalov, Stone, Bonner and Rocco in California, it could have disastrous effects on the company and its image. The lawyers point out to PC maker Hewlett-Packard issuing BIOS updates back in November of 2007 that would have a PC

The two fans included in the F3 chassis feature automatic failover and produce are "whisper quiet", according to Sonnet. A power supply is also contained inside the chassis, operating from 110-240V and 50-60Hz. Each drive is shock isolated inside the aluminum and steel case.

A rack mount can be used, with the possibility of two systems being placed side by side across one spot. For users without racks, it can placed or stacked on a flat surface and held on edge with an included stand. The blue LED indicators can be dimmed to match darker installations.

A new Bond trailer is out dudes .. this is the Quantum of Solace trailer out and it's well le me do it Bond style, quite charming. This is what a James Bond trailer should look like.

Reports from Gamespot confirm that Ensemble Studios, famed throughout the industry for RTS games like the Age of Empires series is closing down. Kotaku reports that Microsoft corporate VP Shane Kim broke the news to employees at Ensemble today. That confirms rumors that have been swirling around the industry the past few days. Halo Wars, a strategy game based in the well-known universe of the Halo first-person shooters, will still release but Ensemble is reportedly done after that.

With the closure of Ensemble, the MGS portfolio now consists primarily of Lionhead, which is releasing Fable 2 shortly, and Rare - responsible for the Viva Pinata franchise among others, as well as work on the new Xbox Live avatars.

The full email from Phil Spencer to staff reads as follows:

"Today, we shared with our employees at Ensemble that we have plans to close the studio after Halo Wars RTM. Such a decision is never easy. Like any business, we

HIS technology today launched their HIS Multi-View Adapter. A little USB based multi-monitor device that can come in handy in certain situations.

Imagine you can browse a webpage on your primary monitor, doing word processing on second monitor, while playing a DVD on the third screen. HIS Multi-View introduces that experience. You plug in the HIS Multi-View and after a few clicks, you get the multiplied workspace.

Specification

• Add-on monitor, LCD or projector through a
  single USB 2.0 port
• Supports up to 6 Multi-View adapter to work
  simultaneously
• Easy plug and display
• Add or remove monitor without system reboot
• Up to 1600 x 1200 or 1680 x 1050 resolution
• Windows Vista compatible
• Smooth DVD playback

Dang - that's nice. The Sony full-frame

Here is a new video from Pure, an upcoming off-road racing title from developer Black Rock Studio. These days, it seems that if you've played one ATV racing game, you've played them all. That trend looks to be broken in a big way with the upcoming Pure from Brighton, UK-based Black Rock Studio (formerly known as Climax Racing, the folks responsible for the MotoGP series) and Disney Interactive. We recently sat down with Black Rock's Jason Avent, game director on Pure, to get a feel for how his team is bringing a slightly skewed approach to the typical ATV game.

The game will be released this fall for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

MS08-052: Critical - Vulnerabilities in GDI+ Could Allow Remote Code Execution (954593) -  this bulletin affects all supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 when installed on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006, SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services Service Pack 2, all supported editions of SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Report Viewer 2005 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package, and Microsoft Report Viewer 2008 Redistributable Package. It addresses the issues detailed in CVE-2008-5348, CVE-2008-3012, CVE-2008-3013, CVE-2008-3014, and CVE-2008-3015. Microsoft says these vulnerabilities "could allow remote code execution, if a user viewed a specially crafted image file using affected software or browsed a Web site that contains specially crafted content."

MS08-053: Critical - Vulnerability in Windows Media Encoder 9 Could Allow Remote Code Execution (954156) - this bulletin affects all supported and affected editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista, as well as supported and affected versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. It addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2008-3008. Microsoft says the vulnerability could "allow remote code execution, if a user viewed a specially crafted Web page. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system."

MS08-054: Critical - Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution (954154) - this bulletin affects all supported and affected editions of Windows Media Player 11. This bulletin addresses the issues detailed in CVE-2008-2253. Microsoft says there is a "vulnerability in Windows Media Player that could allow remote code execution when a specially crafted audio file is streamed from a Windows Media server. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system."

MS08-055: Critical - Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (955047) -  this bulletin affects supported editions of Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 and supported editions of Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2003, and 2007 Microsoft Office System. This bulletin addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2008-3007. Microsoft says "if a user clicks a specially crafted OneNote URL...an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system."

AMD's ATI today unleashes the Radeon HD 4670. A nice little card that packs some decent punch in the value minded consumers. The Radeon HD 4680 will roughly offer you last year's mid-range performance at 79 USD.

With that amount of performance the card will allow you to flick on 4xAA and 16AF and still play modern games at 1280x1024 and maybe even 1600x1200. And for you as a gamer on a budget, is an immensely interesting fact for your feature and framerate budget.

We have a full review on this product. You can find this Guru3D article here:

Thanks go out to our colleagues from Techpowerup for spotting this one on SanhaoStreet. Apparantly ELSA was showing some slides at a meeting in the headquarters in Shenzhen, China reveals what look like NVIDIA's future graphics processors (GPU).

During a press event where its consumer graphics plans were discussed, ELSA published a slide that shows two future GPUs from NVIDIA, codenamed GT206 (55nm) and GT212 (45nm). These GPUs are positioned to succeed current flagship GPUs GTX 260 and GTX 280 respectively. The slide shows a graph with launch time on the x-axis and performance projection on the y-axis.

Time scales show that GT206 comes out towards the very end of this year, and GT212 comes out sometime in Q1, 2009.

Well, we can't wait for sure, bring them on.

1. Vista WHQL Supporting: ALC882, ALC883, ALC885, ALC888, ALC889, ALC861VD, ALC660, ALC662, ALC663, ALC260, ALC262,ALC267, ALC268, ALC269, ALC272
2. Windows 2000/XP WHQL Supporting: ALC880, ALC882, ALC883, ALC885, ALC888, ALC889, ALC861VC, ALC861VD, ALC660, ALC662, ALC663, ALC260, ALC262, ALC267,ALC268, ALC269, ALC272
3. HDMI Device WHQL Support: ATI HDMI Devices
4. OS Supporting: Microsoft WindowsXP, Widnows2000, Vista x86/x64
5. Pack with Microsoft High Definition Audio UAAV1.0a(5013)

Add/Fix Driver:

• Customizations.
• Fix the potential risk that audio driver can't be installed completely under Vista

Download - Click here.