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pc gaming

NVIDIA Boss Weeps For PC Piracy

NVIDIA's Roy Taylor is not, as you can probably hazard a guess, a fan of piracy in the PC games market. So much so that, while speaking with Eurogamer, he's made an impassioned plea, employing the language of the youth of today in order to get his point across:

I think that we've arrived at a point now where I don't know how anyone could ever possibly justify pirating a game. I just don't know how anyone could consider that a cool thing to do - it's not. It sucks.
It's not "regrettable". It's not "unfortunate". It sucks! The point of this spiel? To advocate a tightening of authentication measures, of course, such as those being employed by the upcoming Mass Effect port, as well as the idea of games being sold as a "basic service", with all future content, patches, etc, being made available only to those with authentic copies of a game.

NVIDIA bombards PC game pirates [Eurogamer]

12:00 AM on Thu May 8 2008
By Luke Plunkett
3,963 views, 182 comments

Latest by cheeseboybeans: @Heyyou27: Not the same at all. Piracy doesn't deprive the original owner. It is NOT THEFT. I get so pissed off in the cinema when it comes on - "You wouldn't steal a car" etc. It's more »

pc gaming

NVIDIA Dumbing Down Their Product Line

Anyone into computer gaming knows NVIDIA is one of the biggest names in video cards today, but imagine being new to PC gaming, knowing nothing at all about video hardware, and wandering into a Best Buy to try and determine which graphics solution suits your needs. It's like being a man sent to the grocery store for feminine hygiene products (should I get Super?), only slightly less embarrassing. NVIDIA's VP of Content Business Development Roy Taylor says that the company is working to make their products more consumer-friendly.

"It is a challenge that we're looking at right now. There is a need to simplify it for consumers, there's no question," Taylor explained. "We think that the people who understand and know GeForce today, they're okay with it - they understand it. But if we're going to widen our appeal, there's no doubt that we have to solve that problem."
It remains to be seen how exactly they'll manage this - perhaps a big white box that says "Will run World of Warcraft" on it, but it's nice to see them moving in a more consumer friendly direction.

NVIDIA to "simplify" product range [GamesIndustry.biz]

9:40 AM on Wed May 7 2008
By Mike Fahey
3,354 views, 97 comments

Latest by Chef: @Woodwater: This just makes me think that they should make a Crysis Solitaire, which may set your card on fire should you ever win a game. more »

pc hardware

New Nvidia Card "Fastest On Planet"

After first hearing about it back in January, Nvidia have today officially launched their GeForce 9-series 9800 GX2. With said launch, subtlety is straight out the window. They're calling it "bar none the fastest Graphics Card on the Planet", which, technically, it may be. Then again, seeing as it's priced at $600 and is pretty much just two $200 8800 GT cards bolted together, it's also "bar none the easiest way to blow $200 on the planet". Jargon-filled presser follows. More »

9:30 PM on Tue Mar 18 2008
By Luke Plunkett
9,431 views, 97 comments

pc hardware

New Nvidia Series Catering To The Great Unwashed

The usual strategy for releasing new graphics cards is as follows: company releases ridiculously expensive graphics card, few can afford it, then as its technology ages it gets cheaper and trickles down to the lower ends of the market. Nvidia's strategy for its new GeForce 9600 GT is a little different: it's being pitched directly into the massmarket. The 9600 GT is the first card in Nvidia's GeForce 9 series, and instead of coming in at a silly-expensive price will launch in the entirely reasonable $169-189 range. Bold new territory for a graphics hardware company, then, but it also shows Nvidia are serious about this whole PC gaming alliance deal, as it gives a good slap in the chops to the "upgrading is too expensive" argument.
[Nvidia Product Page]

9:30 PM on Fri Feb 22 2008
By Luke Plunkett
6,185 views, 87 comments

Latest by DMBainbridge: Bull. This will be more like $200 to $250 market price for at least the first few months. more »

pc

GeForce 8 Owners To Get (Free?) PhysX Upgrade

Most of us weren't certain when we'd finally see the fruits of NVIDIA's purchase of physics acceleration company, Ageia, but apparently the technologies will be merging sooner as opposed to later. Because instead of waiting for their newer, unannounced products to hit the market, NVIDIA will be offering GeForce 8 owners a software download to support PhysX. And because NVIDIA doesn't have a history of charging for drivers, we're betting it will be a free upgrade to existing customers.

But how can this possibly work?

More »

6:00 PM on Fri Feb 15 2008
By Mark Wilson
11,128 views, 73 comments

Latest by AceClover Justice: I hope this will also available in the 9 series i`m planning to buy one of those 9600gt if the price right lol more »

rumor

Microsoft & Hardware Manufacturers To Form PC Gaming "Alliance"?

According to Dean Takahashi over at the San Jose Mercury News, a number of the PC world's biggest names - inclusing Microsoft, AMD (so ATi), Nvidia and Intel - will at GDC announce a PC gaming "alliance", targeted at promoting the PC as a gaming platform. They'll be hoping to lure big-name developers and publishers back to the PC, many of who have walked away from the platform due to piracy concerns and the lure of the console market, and here's hoping they succeed. Millions of dollars in revenue from MMOs and casual, ad-supported games are great for those in on that action, but a lot of us just want to play better - and more - good old-fashioned PC games.
Gaming Alliance stumps for PC [Mercury News]

8:20 PM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Luke Plunkett
4,393 views, 107 comments

Latest by Zeuxis: I know I probably get flamed but I hate PC gaming now, and I played most of the biggest PC games out there, spend thousands of dollars on upgrades. Reason I hate PC gaming is because it became too expensive and more »

pc

NVIDIA Buying AGEIA for Bouncy PhysX Tech

NVIDIA today confirmed rumblings that they were looking to buy physics-centric AGEIA Technologies. NVIDIA said today that an agreement to acquire the industry leaders in gaming physics, though the acquisition still remains subject to some closing conditions.

More details about the deal will shake out during NVIDIA's upcoming quarterly conference call, set for Feb. 13.

While AGEIA appears to continue to struggle breaking into the mainstream PC market, they've made significant in-roads into the console market with 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC. The company has more than 10,000 registered and active users of their PhysX software development kit as well.

"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience," said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Full release on the jump. I wonder if NVIDIA would try to come up with a way to incorporate the PhysX engine into a graphics card, instead of requiring two pieces of hardware? Maybe that's not possible, actually.

More »

3:19 PM on Mon Feb 4 2008
By Brian Crecente
5,150 views, 74 comments

cryyyytek

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]

1:20 PM on Mon Jan 14 2008
By Mark Wilson
10,977 views, 136 comments

Latest by GrimaceXL: @Witzbold: My vidcard is on top of my northbridge fan and theres nothing i can do about it lol. the 8800gtsoc I recently upgraded to is unreasonably big. more »

ces08

Zalman Wins Kotaku's Least Worst 3D Gaming Display CES Award

Congratulations to the team at Zalman for walking away with this year's coveted Least Worst 3D Gaming Display award, which I suppose will now have to be a yearly tradition when we cover CES. Of all the companies demonstrating custom 3D solutions for PC games, Zalman's caused the least eyestrain, generated the lightest amount of nausea and required players to suffer the least dorky eyewear. Playing Unreal Tournament 2004 was actually quite fun in simulated 3D. What made the experience even better was that crowds had thinned on the fourth day of CES 2008 to the point where we don't think anyone but Zalman reps saw us wearing dainty polarized glasses. Kudos to them and the team at Nvidia for making a nearly interesting experience!

7:40 PM on Thu Jan 10 2008
By Michael McWhertor
5,010 views, 41 comments

Latest by mgdRAEBer: check out: [www.3d.wep.dk] if You want to get an idea of what 3D looks like. more »

pc

GeForce Gamers Get Free Cake From Valve, No Lie

OK, so I lied. The cake remains a lie, but a free copy of Portal doesn't. Effective immediately all NVIDIA gamers can download a free copy of Portal: First Slice, a special version of the game we all know and love, for free direct from Valve.

To get the game you just need to hop onto the Steam site and run a bit of auto-detection software. If it finds NVIDIA hardware it will give you the game free of charge. The link to the freebie will also be included in all NVIDIA drivers moving forward.

"More Steam gamers, including myself, play on NVIDIA hardware than any other GPU," said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve. "That's a testament to the company's long history of innovation and quality. By working together with NVIDIA to expand our development, distribution, and marketing efforts, we're increasing our ability to serve the millions of NVIDIA customers logging onto Steam and help us prepare for our next generation of content."

The First Slice version of portal is just a taste, Lombardi said, the first third or so of the full game.

NVIDIA Steam [Steam Games]

More »

12:00 PM on Wed Jan 9 2008
By Brian Crecente
17,278 views, 111 comments

Latest by Dudemeister3: So the first slice is one third?! THAT'S A FUCKING HUGE SLICE OF CAKE. more »

mmorpg

LotRO Gets Prettier With Nvidia and DX10

Turbine is extremely pleased to announce that their relatively successful MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online is the first MMO to fully support DirectX 10 and Nvidia's Geforce graphics processors. Utilizing the combined forces of the two, the MMO is now sporting upgraded water shaders, better particle effects, and more far-reaching lighting than ever before, along with a DX10 exclusive dynamicshadowing system. In layman's terms, if you got the right parts, the game just got a lot prettier.

"The FPS genre has long dominated the race to better graphics but with this major update from Turbine, The Lord of the Rings Online players can enjoy graphics as good as or even better than many FPS games. This is an outstanding achievement and the whole Turbine team should be rightly proud of what they have produced," said Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA
Right. In my world, high-end graphics and MMO games equals lag city, but who knows? Maybe Turbine and Nvidia have some sort of genie imprisoned somewhere. Since I don't have an active account for the game, it is all up to you folks. Is it prettier? Is it secret? Is it safe?

Update: Turbine sent me a lovely comparison shot, seen above, that really highlights the differences between the two versions. Thanks!

More »

9:20 AM on Mon Jan 7 2008
By Mike Fahey
6,427 views, 40 comments

Latest by r1chard: Damn the lack of an edit button. I meant to mention that the DX10 support in LOTRO has been in for a month and a half and that I really like the extra details it provides. I guess my post more »

pc

Meet the New GeForce Graphics Card

Hardocp have gotten their hands on specs and pictures of NVIDIA's not-yet-released GeForce 9800 GX2. The new card will launch in late February or early march and replace the 8800 Ultra single GPU card. The card is supposed to be 30 percent faster than the 8800 Ultra, has a 65nm GPU and will support Quad SLI, yes Quad.

Other technical tidbits from Hardocp:

More »

9:00 AM on Fri Jan 4 2008
By Brian Crecente
13,080 views, 136 comments

Latest by otaconnachos: Quad SLI... Christ. more »

craziness

$1800 in Video Cards Still Doesn't Max Crysis

We know Crysis is all about the high end, pushing the PC platform to its max. But I had no idea it went this far. PC Games Hardware magazine created a beefy system with NVIDIA's latest and greatest video card...err...video cards. Their brand new Triple SLI, a combination of three NVIDIA geforce 8800s, should make short work of any PC game on the planet. But it couldn't crush Crysis. Running on "very high" settings, the system reached a respectable (but far from mind-blowing) 37.9 FPS. In the words of a Gizmodo staffer, "I don't know how these fuckers developed it." In the words of this Kotaku staffer, "If you can't see a game's graphics on one of the world's most powerful consumer setups, they don't actually exist yet."

The Setup [via gemaga and digg]

1:40 PM on Thu Dec 13 2007
By Mark Wilson
24,319 views, 197 comments

Latest by killa44: Considering that the last post on here is over a week old, not many people will read this, but here is what is actually happening: (I'll do like I do at work when I have to explain to old people more »

gphone

Will Google Phone Be Good For Gamers?

For those of you who don't follow the gadget world as closely as my alter ego who writes for Gizmodo, there have long been rumors of a Google Phone (as in cellphone) hitting the market and revolutionizing life as we know it. Today the Google Phone was officially announced, not as one particular phone, but as a software platform (like Palm or Windows Mobile) that will run on Sprint and T-Mobile phones produced by big companies like LG, HTC, Motorola and Samsung when launched in 2008. So why should gamers care? More »

10:20 AM on Mon Nov 5 2007
By Mark Wilson
5,203 views, 29 comments

Latest by AllKindsOfRalph: i dont think that this is necessary .. i havent found mobile games to be that great, they usually just drain the battery very quickly on my phone ... and with the great portable like my Nintendo DS i don't more »

ea

Crysis Demo Now Available

At long last, the much anticipated demo for Crysis has finally hit the internets. The demo is single player only and downloads at a hefty 1.77 GB. Also available on the same site are the NVIDIA driver updates required to play the game. Now, go out there and kick some alien ass.

Crysis Demo [nZone]

11:00 AM on Sun Oct 28 2007
By fdemarco
7,916 views, 97 comments

Latest by Cashatoo: I install the demo and everything seemingly goes well, but I have no way to actually start the game. Rather important step here. Any tips? more »

shopping

Video Card Buying Advice From Someone Who Matters

You don't listen to us. It's OK, we've known for some time now. As long as our moms are reading and appreciating our cock allusions as much as we are, things are going pretty well on the old Kotaku. But if you plan on buying a videocard for your computer in the near future, you should listen to Epic's Tim Sweeney, the number cruncher behind the Unreal 3 engine. Here's his advice:
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.
More »

10:40 AM on Tue Oct 16 2007
By Mark Wilson
5,324 views, 70 comments

Latest by rennyf77: @theovercoatthatsgogol: you're right but there's always more to the story. the 512 frame buffer is only useful if the gpu is powerfull enough to take advantage of it. example; towards the eol of the 6600gt, card makers released more »

money

Consoles Are Not Enough For ATI & NVIDIA

With all of the advanced engineering that the consoles promise, they are a technology on a budget that simultaneously needs to promise a long lifespan. That's why during a panel on processing technology, NVIDIA VP and engineer Jonah M. Alben. had this to say about partnering in console design...speaking for both his own company, and putting words in the mouth of his biggest competitor:
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...
More »

12:20 PM on Mon Oct 15 2007
By Mark Wilson
5,860 views, 69 comments

Latest by rennyf77: @GabooN: thats total bull. fx 60 came after the entire x2 line of cpu's. you could have opted for a 4800+ which was a good 3-400 dollars cheaper. you could have spent a little over $100 for more »

cheap as free

NVIDIA 7200 GS - Better Than Nothing

How do you top announcing the world's fastest GPU just a week ago? Apparently you take it to the opposite extreme, as NVIDIA announces cards based off of their new 7200 GS processor hitting the market today. Priced as low as under $50, the cards are pretty much the perfect solution for people who don't want to settle for onboard video but can't justify spending hundreds on the top of the line cards. In short, better than nothing.
As always Ujesh Desai, NVIDIA's GM of desktop GPUs, adds his two cents:
"Windows Vista, which benefits greatly from additional 3D performance, is gaining market share and mainstream applications such as Microsoft Maps, Google Picasso and iTunes are also starting to take advantage of 3D graphics. By making a small investment in graphics performance, customers buying Vista PCs can go from an underwhelming experience to one that delivers exceptional performance and features."

Actually I have a friend who is just getting into PC gaming, and I was trying to figure out what to suggest for him that wouldn't break his bank, and bam, here comes another NVIDIA announcement. Hit the jump for stats, figures, card partners, and other assorted tidbits. Michael Fahey More »

2:20 PM on Tue May 8 2007
By Mike Fahey
6,244 views, 17 comments

Latest by Karlott: @DeadPlasmaCell: You can get a 7800 card for AGP, but it's probably too expensive to be worth it. A 7600GT isn't very expensive and I'd say is the best bang for the buck, especially from a good hardware supplier more »