A small review of 3DMark Vantage. 3DMark Vantage is a gamers benchmark for the DX10 platform. Its primary purpose is to help gamers evaluate their system performance for gaming use, and through online services relate the tested system to other available hardware. This should provide true value to gamers by enabling them to make better purchasing decisions, and to compete against each other in system performance.

There are new screenshots available from Mafia 2, the sequel to the 1930's open world crime action game from developer 2K Czech (ex-Illusion Softworks) and publisher 2K Games. The action is set in a fictitious late 1940's-early 1950's scenario, in a mob underworld with believable characters and beautiful cars. Mafia 2 is being made for unnamed next-gen consoles and the PC.

I really liked the first Mafia game, from the developers of the groundbreaking action game Mafia comes Mafia II, a dark and seductive story about one man

» Read full story

Rockstar has just updated GTA 4 official website with Niko's character introduction.
This video places a focus on Niko's troubled past and his personal struggles of morality, always fun:

» Read full story

Great story on TGDaily via the Inquirer today. Quite honestly I've met Roy Tayler a couple of times already, and the man is just really outspoken, he's going a little far this time though.

See first we had NVIDIA CEO Jen Hsun-Huang saying to "open a can of whoop-ass" on Intel, by touting its new sub-$45 integrated platform as far superior to Celeron-based systems. But now we have good old Roy here who is a VP of Content Relations saying that "a war has started" and pronouncing the Intel CPU "dead."

According to Roy Intel is "panicking" because CPUs have "run out of steam," and that they "no longer make anything run faster." The only thing that needs to get faster is the GPU, and NVIDIA's going to make it happen, say Roy. 

From: Roy Taylor [mailto:-----@nvidia.com]
Sent: 10 April 2008 23:36
Subject: The best job in the world.

Guys I have the best job in the world. Official. I cant tell you how much fun we

» Read full story

Over the past days here at Guru3D.com we have been implementing a series of software updates. We worked on an improved commenting system and SEO optimized URLs.

Effecitvely immediately the old style URLs will no longer work. So if you click an old article link or got here linked from somewhere else forget it, please enter our articles and hardware reviews and select the article you wanted to read.

Example old URL:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/518/

Example new URL:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/bfg-geforce-9800-gtx-512mb-ocx-review/

There are still a couple of things that will be updated early this week, we'll keep you posted on that.

» Read full story

Matrox TripleHead 2 Go Digital Edition (DVI) review

Exactly two years ago we reviewed the analog (VGA) Matrox Triplehead to go. And although a little rough around the edges when it came to graphics card support, times have changed for the better. In fact last year they released a digital (DVI interface) version of the product and we figured it was about time to check out how this small box of magic has developed, and we where pleasantly surprised I might add.

Full article here:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/matrox-triplehead-2-go-digital-edition-dvi-review/

» Read full story

3DMark Vantage Has Gone Gold, and the countdown clock is ticking. Futuremark has just announced that 3DMark Vantage is ready, and the countdown indicates that it will launch on Monday, 28th of April 2008. Downloads should be available at 16:00 EET (13:00 GMT, 09:00 EST, 06:00 PST).

The definite DirectX10 benchmark will ship in four editions:

• Trial (free)
• Basic ($6.95)
• Advanced ($19.95)
• Professional ($495)

The Professional version is intended for business and commercial use, while Basic and Advanced are limited to private use. A Free Trial key allows you to test the benchmark with a single run. Full details on the differences between the available versions will be available at launch, but to give a rough idea, Basic (6.95$) version allows you to benchmark as many times as you like with the "Performance" preset, and you get a score with all the ORB features available. Advanced ($19.95) unlocks all four presets, six additional feature tests and allows you to customize all the settings.

The final system requirements to run 3DMark Vantage Trial are:

Minimum

• x86/x64 single core CPU with SSE2 support. Performance similar to Intel Pentium D 3.2GHz or better
• Fully D3D10/SM4.0 compliant graphics card, 256MB
• 1024MB Memory
• 2GB of free disk space
• Windows Vista (Server editions not supported)

Recommended

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or equivalent AMD CPU
• Fully D3D10/SM4.0 compliant graphics card, 512MB
• 2048MB Memory
• 2GB of free disk space
• Windows Vista (Server editions not supported)

Additionally, following requirements must be met to run each of the four available presets with the Advanced and Pro versions

• Entry - 128MB DX10 Video Card and a monitor capable of displaying 1280x1024 resolution
• Performance - 256MB DX10 Video Card and a monitor capable of displaying 1280x1024 resolution
• High - 512MB DX10 Video Card and a monitor capable of displaying 1680x1050 resolution
• Extreme - 512MB DX10 Video Card and a monitor capable of displaying 1920x1200 resolution

Custom preset can be used to run the benchmark at an user-selectable resolution for individual subscores, but the 3DMark score is displayed and saved to ORB only when using one of the pre-defined presets. In other words, to get a score using the "High" and "Extreme" presets, a widescreen display is required. You probably also need a system that exceeds the recommended setup to get a reliable score at these settings - "Extreme" might be a bit too much for even the fastest systems available today.

For benchmarking older hardware and operating systems 3DMark06 is still around, and remains as the definite DX9 benchmark.

» Read full story

Pretty good news for NVIDIA as Forbes has an positive article on NVIDIA and cites data from Jon Peddie Research that team green had a marketshare of 71% in the discrete graphics card market in Q4 2007:

"Nvidia's CEO, Jen Hsun-Huang, was talking some serious smack on Intel at the company's analyst day, dropping several choice lines," notes Mowrey. "First, he mocked Intel's claim of 42% market share in PC graphics in Q4 2007, versus Nvidia's 33% and AMD's 18%. Intel's figures count its 'integrated' on the motherboard graphics business, which Mr. Hsun-Huang called 'a joke.' So what's he gonna do? He's gonna 'open up a can of whoop-ass!' Really. He said that."

Mowrey chuckles at Hsun-Huang's colorful talk, but he notes that he is talking from a position of strength.

"Research firm Jon Peddie Research pegged Nvidia's Q4 2007 share of the add-in graphics board market at 71% of all units shipped, up from 64% in the prior quarter," he says. "As Nvidia continues to build its Tesla CPU business, focused now on supercomputing applications, it may well begin to take an interest in lower-level computing tasks, encroaching on Intel's home turf."

Mowrey and Buckingham have a 12- to 24-month price goal of $47 for Nvidia. It's going so well for NVIIDA that you almost start feel like the bubble has to pop at on point eh ?

» Read full story

BFG Technologies announced today the BFG ES-800, an enthusiast level 800 watt power supply which has won numerous awards for its high efficiency and unique Frequency Conversion technology.

Exclusive in the industry, the ES features Frequency Conversion technology which allows the ES-800 to emulate virtually any size power supply. This makes the unit at least 80% efficient, even with loads as low as 10% of the unit's maximum capability. The ES-800 has the lowest minimum load requirements and the best +5VSB efficiency on the market. This best-in-class unit also features all Japanese made capacitors for longer life, and gold-plated pins for improved conductivity.

» Read full story

Exactly two years ago we reviewed the analog (VGA) Matrox Triplehead to go. And although a little rough around the edges when it came to graphics card support, times have changed for the better. In fact last year they released a digital (DVI interface) version of the product and we figured it was about time to check out how this small box of magic has developed, and we where pleasantly surprised I might add.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 All Language Standalone (KB936330)

Screenzilla Samsung unveiled a new line of "Touch of Color" (TOC) LCD displays today, pretty interesting design:

Delivering industry-leading performance to design-conscious markets, these ultra-sleek monitors advance Samsung

» Read full story

A small booboo from a reseller in Germany. The masked Zorro that'll be called GeForce 9600 GSO (previsouly known as 8800 GS) has been spotted in an XFX model at bestseller-computer.de

The card is costing 99.90 Euro, this G92 based card features a 192-bit memory interface comes with 384MB of GDDR3 memory and 96 Stream Processors.  GPU, Shader Processors and memory clocks then, the XFX GeForce 9600GSO 580M is clocked at 580, 1450 and 1400 MHz respectively.

- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GSO
- Bus Type: PCI Express
- Memory: 384MB GDDR3
- Core Clock: 580 MHz
- Memory Clock: 1400 MHz
- Shader Model: 4.0
- Connectors: 2 Dual-Link DVI-I, HDTV + TV Out
- HDCP Enabled: Yes

» Read full story

Atari and SimBin Studios AB have released four new screenshots of GTR Evolution, an upcoming racing game which will be available as both a standalone product as an expansion for RACE 07. The game takes GT and WTCC Extreme cars to the Green Hell of Nordschleife, said to be the holy grail of racing. The circuit was dubbed The Green Hell by racing legend Jackie Stewart and is considered the most difficult track ever built. GTR Evolution will feature 22 GT car models in three different classes, plus a seclection of exclusive production cars. SimBin is also including WTCC Extreme tuned concept cars based on the FIA WTCC cars.

The GTR Evolution standalone game will also feature all the RACE 07 content. This means players will have access to 49 unique cars in 12 classes and 19 tracks in over 40 different layouts. An expansion for exisitng owners of RACE 07 will also be availble. GTR Evolution is scheduled for release in 2008 for PC and will be distributed across Europe by Atari.

» Read full story

On the Microsoft TechNet forums, a handful of users began reporting (in early April) that after installing Windows Vista SP1 various applications would stop launching and instead gave the error "Not a valid Win32 application." Users found that Excel would often spit this message out and if they tried running it under administrative rights, the error would change to "Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service."

Most often it would be Microsoft Office applications crashing, but reinstalling the suite did not fix the problem. The issue, which does not occur every time the application is launched, happens to a select number of users regardless of whether Windows Vista SP1 was rolled out on a fresh install of Windows Vista or not.

Victims of the problem tried to find a workaround and eventually concluded that it is a resource leak that could only be temporarily fixed by logging off and back on every time it occurs. Almost three weeks after the problem was first reported, a moderator posted the following message in the topic:

Microsoft is aware of this issue and is working on a fix. As several people have observed, this is konwn (sic) to affect Excel 2007, Access 2007, Snipping Tool, and Windows Media Player on Vista SP1. The fix is to either exit as many apps as possible that you are running (e.g. Outlook), and then load the app (and then you can reload the apps you had running), or a logoff/logon will clear it up for a while (days/weeks). The error messages are confusing, but the problem is neither an invalid application file nor insufficient system resources. It only affects certain applications, and typically only after the user has been logged in for an extended period of time.

It is impossible to say how many users this problem is affecting. Thankfully, it does not happen every time and the suggested workaround is simple, although a bit time-consuming. If you're experiencing the problem and have new information, I'm sure Microsoft would appreciate if you posted in the thread linked below.

Watcher
» Read full story

Core Temp is a compact, no fuss, small footprint program to monitor CPU temperature.