Ubisoft has released a new Far Cry 2 trailer, showcasing this first person shooter sequel in the works at Ubisoft's Montreal studio. Developed for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Far Cry 2 is scheduled to ship this Fall. Here are the new scenes from Far Cry 2:

It's a bit of a weird thing, but Dailytech reported that OCZ hopes to brancha new do-it-yourself (DIY) gaming notebook. End-users will be able to purchase the DIY notebook barebones and add components to the machine to build an entire system. OCZ venders, however, will be able to spec the notebooks however they see fit.

All these DIY notebooks come from OCZ standard with a 15.4" WXGA display, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512MB GPU, Intel PM965 northbridge/ICH8M southbridge, SATA support for HDDs or SSDs, 8x dual-layer DVD burner, four USB 2.0 ports, ExpressCard 34/54 slot, and a fingerprint reader. Optional components will include Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a TV tuner, and a Intel 4965AGN 802.11a/g/n wireless adapter.

OCZ's DIY gaming notebook is no lightweight, however, and weighs in at hefty 7 pounds with a 9-cell battery pack. External dimensions for the machine ring in at 14.25" x 11.25" x 1.5".

"For years consumers have wanted to build their own mobile computing platforms, but the product offerings and market simply did not serve them as they did in the desktop do it yourself segment," said OCZ Systems Solutions Product Manager Eugene Chang. "With the OCZ Do-It-Yourself Notebook initiative, OCZ empowers with the resources like validated component guides, documentation, tech support, and a warranty to allow consumers to configure and build a true gaming notebook with the exact specification that matches their unique requirements."

OCZ also plans to go above and beyond the call of duty by offering validated components in the system, toll-free support, and detailed instructions on how to complete a new system build.

OCZ has not informed us of the pricing, but this will be revealed when the system and its siblings arrive later this year.

NVIDIA re-released their Forceware GeForce 175.16 drivers, this time they carry a WHQL stamp, meaning they are tested and approved my Microsoft. Among the support is the new GeForce 9600 GSO (read our review here).

These drivers supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, and 9 series GPUs including these newly released GPUs:

• GeForce 9800 GX2
• GeForce 9800 GTX
• GeForce 9600 GT
• GeForce 9600 GSO
• GeForce 8300
• GeForce 8200/ nForce 730a
• GeForce 8100/nForce 720a

Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI

Matrox Graphics announced a new product called the Matrox Extio F1240, it's a new latest addition to its line of Extio remote graphics units (RGUs), capable of driving two 30-inch displays, each at its native dual-link digital resolution of 2560 x 1600.

A fanless device, the Extio F1240 RGU provides a quiet and secure environment by separating the host computer from the monitors and other peripherals (keyboard, mouse, and audio) by up to 250 meters (820 ft) via fiber-optic cable. Extio RGUs takes advantage of PCI Express bus extension technology to deliver a user experience that parallels working with the computer situated at the user's desk.

The Extio F1240 RGU is equipped with a Matrox-designed graphics chip, 128 MB of graphics memory, dual-LC connector for fiber-optic cable, 2 digital (DVI) and 2 analog (HD-15) monitor connectors that support a variety of resolutions up to 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 (using the digital connectors only), 6 USB 2.0 ports (4 in front, 2 in back), integrated audio hardware, an optical connector for digital audio output, and analog audio connectors for a microphone input, line input, and line output. Extio is available in PCI or PCI Express (PCIe) to meet different slot requirements on host systems.

Key application areas include financial, insurance, and commodities trading systems; emergency and transportation dispatch control systems; process control systems; security systems; command-and-control systems; and other high-reliability applications in enterprise, industrial, and government systems.

Front:

• A - 4 USB 2.0 ports
• B - Microphone, mini-jack connector with bias current (3.5 mm / 1/8")
• G - Audio-in, mini-stereo-jack connector (3.5 mm / 1/8")
• D - Audio-out, mini-stereo-jack connector (3.5 mm / 1/8")

Back:

• E - Audio-out, mini-Toslink connector (3.5 mm / 1/8")
• F - 2 USB 2.0 ports
• G - Fiber-optic, dual-LC connector
• H - 2 RGB and 2 DVI connectors
• I - Power input, lock-in, DIN-4 (12 VDC, 5 A) connector

See, now this shows that with dedication and effort you can make a lot of stuff happen. Excellent job this kid who it took a full year o put together from scratch, but a German PC modder going by the name "Froop" managed to build an elaborate PC casemod inspired by the Chernobyl theme in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The result is "Unit 4," a working PC model of Chernobyl complete with a flip-top that allows you to peer into the bowels of the destroyed power plant. The construction process is outlined in its entirety in the following links, but you can check out some pics of the early stages as well as the final product in the gallery.

Thanks James for pointing me to this news.

Point of View GeForce 9600 GSO 384 MB review

NVIDIA replaced the GeForce 8800 GS with the GeForce 9600 GSO. The 9600 GSO is still based on the same G92 core with 96 stream processors that the 8800 GS has, but NVIDIA gave card makers a bit more freedom in their designs in terms of own PCB design to and determine their own clocks.

This 'old' card will still have 384 MB of GDDR3 memory over a weird 192-bit memory interface. Cards like these will sell for less than 99 Euro, and considering the performance you get returned for that, you'll love it. Guru3D peeks at Point of View's offering.

Click here to read the review

Being obsessed with gadgets doesn't equate to hardware handiness. In fact, some of us at Crave are loath to remove the back of a computer for fear of the havoc we might wreak--a sorry state for upgrades.

Creative Technology has a solution in at least one category, sound cards. It has just released its "Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1," which allows dolts like us to upgrade audio quality by just plugging the device into a USB port. The small box, which goes for $60, could be a good solution for casual gamers and music lovers who don't want to mess with the innards of their desktop or laptop.

Codemasters has released a playable PC demo of Race Driver: GRID, offering 3 events to compete in. Word is: "Charge a Ford Mustang GTR muscle car through the iconic streets of San Francisco, race a BMW 320Si in the Jarama Touring Car Race and drift around the docks of Yokohama in a Nissan Silvia S15. Race against 11 friends on your favourite track and test your mettle online or prove yourself in the single player game."

The demo is 893MB.

Things went a bit off chart when popular video website gametralers started sparked a massive, internet-wide flame war with its PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 comparison video of GRID ... but not quite.

GameTrailers.com has become infamous for their comparison videos of multiplatform titles spread across the PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360, but they've seemed to decide to take it one step further. After the entire Devil May Cry 4 debacle that left a lot of gamers displeased on both sides of the spectrum, one would expect a similar situation from not taking place later on. They've recently released their side-by-side comparison of the latest demo, GRiD, produced by Codemasters. We've included the video below.

Now, what you just saw was a straight comparison between both formats, but it leaves you wondering as to why GameTrailers decided to pull this comparison video from their website. You might be able to find the answer out as to why in the video below.

The question we're trying to have answered much like a lot of other gamers are is, "How many other times has this occured?" In a world where gaming journalism has become heavily influenced by money, free swag, free games and press kits, we find ourselves disconnecting with the love we once had for honest-to-god unbiased journalism and replacing it with a tinted view of the dollar. Leave your impressions below.

In the end, you should leave it up to your own opinions on which you feel looks better by viewing credible sources of media. Do this by visiting the official homepages of games or by just checking the title out side-by-side on your own.

 

Ubisoft has sent out a trailer of the HD WMV version of Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway. Take a look at the latest trailer of Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway, Gearbox's upcoming shooter.

This trailer is two weeks old, yet we now received the high-def version. The game was announced with a Holiday 2006 release date, which was later pushed back to Q1 2007 before being postponed to sometime this year. This trailer concludes by narrowing that release window to August 2008, generously allowing us to once again roll out our joke about release dates paving the highway to hell with good intentions. The WMV file is zipped.

Download

A new NVIDIA ForceWare driver appeared on the web which is being served on-line by one of NVIDIA's partners. This driver set is commonly distributed and it is receiving pretty good feedback.

Bare in mind this to be considered a beta driver, use it at your own risk.

There are several discussion open on these drivers in the Guru3D NVIDIA driver forums, check them here. Driver wise, pretty much any GeForce graphics card build in the last 3 years is supported. We have virus & pest checked these drivers and they are scanned as clean.

  ForceWare 175.70 Vista (32-bit)
  ForceWare 175.70 Vista (64-bit)
  ForceWare 175.70 XP (64-bit)
  ForceWare 175.70 XP (32-bit)

HP 2133 Mini-Note PC- models

One note: Genuine Windows Vista Business installed but downgraded to
Genuine Windows XP Professional.

[url]http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-321957-64295-321838-306995-3687084.html[/url]

[IMG]http://h10003.www1.hp.com/digmedialib/prodimg/lowres/c01368682.jpg[/IMG]

Watcher

I'm just not sure how much amrket there is for this product but still. Arctic Cooling has released a new aluminum memory cooler called Arctic RC.

'High clock speeds and raised voltage lead to increasing temperatures

Now that's a cool skin man ... Here

What an uber-classic, fantastic.

A tech-savvy White Plains woman whose apartment was burglarized solved the crime herself after she was able to log on to her stolen laptop, photograph one of the suspects with it and get photos of another, police said. Edmon Shahikian, 23, of 13 Cobbling Rock Road, Katonah, and Ian Frias, 20, of 1609 E. 174th St., the Bronx, were picked up at their homes Wednesday night after the victim turned the pictures over to police. The police said they recovered most of the $5,000 worth of electronics stolen in the burglary.

"Our victim did a phenomenal job," said Lt. Eric Fischer, commander of the Detective Division. "She knew her computer, and she let us know as soon as she obtained the information. We rolled on it immediately, and the result is the arrest of two burglary suspects and the recovery of most of the stolen property."

The burglary was reported April 27, when three roommates returned to their Ridgeview Avenue apartment about 10 p.m. to discover that it had been ransacked.

Among the items taken were two laptops, two flat-screen televisions, two iPods, gaming consoles, DVDs and computer games. Police found no sign of force.

On Tuesday, police said, one of the victims, who works at The Apple Store in The Westchester mall, received a call from a friend asking her if she was online.

The victim said no, and was told by the friend that his computer showed her as being logged onto the Internet.

At that point, police said, the victim signed onto another computer and used the "Back to My Mac" program to determine that her stolen MacIntosh laptop indeed was signed onto the Web and that someone was using it to shop online. She then activated the stolen computer's camera, allowing her to "see" what was in front of the laptop.

At first, police said, she saw only an empty chair. But a short time later, they said, she was able to photograph a man, Shahikian, sitting in front of her stolen laptop. The victim then was able to find photos of Frias using the computer after it had been stolen, police said.

Fischer said the victim did not know either man but showed the photos to one of her roommates, who recognized them as having attended a get-together at the apartment a few weeks before the burglary.

Police said Shahikian and Frias apparently are friends of a friend of the victims.The computer-savvy victim contacted police, gave them the tell-tale photos, and the arrests were made a short time later. Shahikian and Frias are charged with second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, both felonies.

Bail and court information were unavailable. Frias and Shahikian were arrested last year on charges of criminal possession of marijuana, a felony, after police recovered 3 pounds of marijuana worth about $7,500 in a Jeep they were in. The dispositions of their cases were not immediately available.

Powned !

nVidia's own control panel is not always very intuitive to use. Especially the 3D rendering settings are very cryptic and difficult to navigate. Even the new control panel introduced with the 9x.xx line of Forceware drivers isn't a real improvements for these problems. nHancer is a tool to improve the usage of these features.

New features in version 2.4.1:

• New graphical design for the logos, the splash window and the about window, made by Eberhard Klauke.
• Completely redesigned user interface for the profile management:
  • Search for profiles by their name (just enter a part of the game's or the application's name while nHancer's window is active)
  • Filter the list of profiles with the new filter menu (the icon on the top right corner of the profile list) using their type or properties. Most useful is the filter that shows only the profiles for actually installed programs
• Support for all GeForce 9x00 cards and all GeForce (formerly Forceware) drivers up to 175.x
• Even the fixed settings in nVidia's predefined profiles can now be altered, including the "forbidden" flag used in some profiles to disallow anti-aliasing. All profiles can also be reverted to their original state just by clicking on the "delete" button.
• Added additional anti-aliasing modes for GeForce 8x00 and 9x00 cards. The mode "8xSQ" is especially interesting, it gives 2x2 supersampling and 2x multisampling
• Added new SLI modes for triple and quad SLI
• Added support for Hybrid-SLI
• Added anti-aliasing compatibility flags for DirectX 10
• Added OpenGL multi monitor and multi GPU options
• If nHancer is started with full administration privileges, it runs fine even without the nHancer support service. It's possible to deny the installation of the service altogether during nHancer's installation procedure.
• A load of minor improvements and corrections. More dertails can be found in the Readme file

Download - click-here

Cheers to James our server guru for spotting this one. Remember the Matrox TripleHead 2 Go we recently tested ?

SoftTH - Software Triplehead is a tool that allows allows using three monitor "triplehead" with Direct3D 8 and 9 games without special hardware. You need three monitors attached to PCI Express video cards. Only one card does all the rendering work, so secondary card can be a low end card, only Direct3D support is required. SoftTH works by rendering the whole scene on one display adapter, which then gets split into three parts to be displayed on each monitor. While it is technically possible to use it on a AGP/PCI card, only PCI Express has the required bandwidth to get good framerates.

For download & info: click here

 

Massive Entertainment released a new theatrical trailer of World In Conflict: Soviet Assault.

World in Conflict: Soviet Assault will feature a brand new campaign, new units (chronoplane), as well as the option to call the reinforcements or new units to the battlefiled by using the context menu or voice communication via the headset, same as in Tom Clancy's EndWar. World in Conflict: Soviet Assault for consoles is in the works at Swordfish Studios with Massive Entertainment supplying only new content.

This expansion pack will be released in Q4 2008.