AMD Holding Up Their End Of The PC Gaming Bargain

When the PC industry's big guns high-fived as they broke from a warm, gushy group hug, they high-fived with a pledge: that they'd do what they could to help give traditional PC gaming a kick in the pants. We've seen what Nvidia are doing, so what about AMD? They're...well, they're going to start putting little badges on their PCs. If a computer's got a badge that says "AMD Game", it'll play more than just Freespace. If it says "AMD Game Ultra", it'll even manage something like Crysis. You can see an example of the badges to your left. I don't know. It's not that its necessarily a bad idea, just...we were kinda hoping for a little more than just (likely ineffectual) badges, you know?

AMD launches "Good Housekeeping" stamp of approval for gaming computers [VentureBeat]

Crysis Patch Doubles Framerates, Remains Unplayable

Crysis' 1.1 firmware patch was touted to improve framerates across the board, but after TechSpot ran the benchmarks, they've found the update to be a pretty large disappointment...except in the highest end. You know what we're talking about, that 1920x1200 setting that was melting computers and stuff. ATI Crossfire setups saw their framerates nearly double in this range—an amazing feat, until you realize...even after such improvements, not one tested setup is breaking the 30fps playable threshold.

Crysis 1.1 patch performance with Multi-GPU testing [techspot]

Video Card Buying Advice From Someone Who Matters

In Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War for PC, there is a significant gain in having 512MB of video memory rather than 256MB. So, first and foremost, get at least a 512MB card if you can afford it. If you haven't maxed out your budget, then go for the maximum single-card performance that doesn't require extreme cooling, e.g. buy an entry-level GeForce 8800 over a GeForce 8600.

Consoles Are Not Enough For ATI & NVIDIA

It's important to not forget the PC side of the business to innovation. The PC provides the revenue stream every year for the team. If it was only a console business, we [AMD and NVIDIA] would not be here...

Xbox 360 "Jasper" is Coming Next?

According to The Mercury News' Dean Takahashi, having successfully unrolled the Falcon chipset in the Halo 3 Edition Xbox 360s, Microsoft is looking to further cut costs (and heat) from their console. The next project is codenamed 'Jasper.' And where the Falcon shrunk the Xbox CPU to 65nm, the Jasper will continue the shrinkage, miniaturizing the graphics chip to 65nm to match. And memory chips will become smaller as well.

Takahashi also claims that Microsoft engineers feel like the heat problem is under control with both the recent Falcon's and older Zephyr's heat sink solutions, so buyers shouldn't beware when picking up new machines. While we're not waiting until the new chipset hits next August to buy a machine, we're not so certain the Microsoft has solved all their manufacturing issues just yet.

Xbox 360 secrets: After Falcon comes Jasper [via mcv]

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