The arrival of Windows 7 also annonces the arrival of a new updated DirectX to serve the PC gamers’ community. We already knew that Vista did not have the favour of the gamers (who often stayed with Windows XP) and that had (among other things) some significant impact on DirectX 10 that required Vista. Will gamers now run to Windows 7? It’s possible, but if you want to see the real progress brought to video games (here, to the very popular Crysis FPS) by the various version of DirectX, check the video below:
I consider that the most useful and often the most interesting wallpapers for your computer desktop are images that are relatively feature-less. A picture full of little details continuously grabbing your attention is a major nuisance. It’s much better to have either a very smooth image or a photo containing a lot of continuous tones.
Windows 7 official wallpapers
Look at the full set of the Windows 7 wallpapers. This is the upcoming version of Windows (after Windows Vista, it seems that Microsoft intends to switch back to a numbering scheme). Most of them may be colourful, but with very smooth surfaces where your icons will be appearing quite neatly and they offer a nice contrast.
Fresh Impact Crater Formed between February 2005 and July 2005 Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
So, I was quite interested when I stumbled upon the collection of pictures taken by the HiRise (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera installed on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter). Shooting photos of Mars surface, this photo camera brings extraordinary color images that provide nice patterns to be used as background for your Windows desktop (or even Linux or Mac desktop) and can be renewed quite regularly: Their catalog is available on the University of Arizona web site.
Furthermore, they provide an enormous resolution for their images which is a very good way to extract any size you may need for your extra-high-resolution background or to cover your 2- or 3-LCD display. Or even more. If you feel that there own selection of wallpapers is not enough:
800×600
1024×768
1152×864
1280×960
1440×1080
1600×1200
1920×1440
2048×1536
2560×1600
You can still stick to the original size (JPEG-2000 format images range between 0.5GB and 3GB).
And the good news is that there is no copyright restrictions, so you could do pretty much what you want with them: Really free desktop wallpapers.
you merely change the size of the Windows desktop and all your desktop icons are forcefully moved around against your will. After one or two of these, you’d be ready to cry, while backing up the position of the icons would be enough, before connecting a new screen, or attaching your laptop to a video-projector, etc.
Up to now, you could only cry and reposition the icons. But here comes DesktopOK. What can I say? It does exactly what you want and what you need: a mere backup, a simple restore and your icons come back where you wanted them.
It is always more pleasant to work with a nice wall paper on your PC (or Mac) desktop. Here are two interesting source sof beautiful wallpapers based on photographic quality images:
dozens of nature-oriented images (including some cartoons) on UsingMac.com;
It is now official: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be available in our stores on September 5th (very soon, eh!)
This should be the reason to go through a last minute list of all the recent screenshots and videos displaying the best images of this FPS game coming from Russia.
Crysis Warhead is a sort of complement to Crysis, the FPS PC video game that shocked the FPS game world last year. For my own part, I’ve drawn pleasure from the mere act of replaying the solo game campaign, for its realistic combat scenes, its pleasant images, and its great playability.
But EA is preparing a kind of follow-up. It’s all about following the deeds of a character already found in Crysis. this time, in Crysis Warhead, you are Sergeant Sykes (”Psycho”). It is not a sequel to Crysis (even if everybody was disturbed by the abrupt end essentially opening to the following two episodes in the series), but a a parallel approach to the same part of the scenario.
Nevertheless, what PC configuration will be needed? EA told us that software optimisations will help a lot the users with relatively small PC configurations, who were unable to play Crysis correctly (EA said that a 400€/$620 PC would be enough for the “High quality” settings).
Minimum requirements
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E6550
Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
Graphics: DirectX 9.x on GeForce 66xx or Radeon X16xx
Recommended requirements
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
These days, I received a number of news in preparation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky launch. This is an FPS video game for PC that should attract many players already in love with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be shown by GSC Game World in Los Angeles for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (with probable availability in the stores around the end of August)
We already knew that AMD-ATI had succeeded to frighten nVidia with its new graphics cards, Radeon HD4850 and HD4870 (the latter are able to do as well as the nVidia GTX260, for less money). But the nVidia GTX280 graphics cards were left without real competition… up to the arrival of Radeon HD4870×2.
Two RV770 GPUs (identical to the one on the AMD Radeon HD4870 card and able to bring the raw power of a GTX280 card), this is the solution found by AMD-ATI. They did it before, they intend to win again.
The announcement arrives with two information bits important for potential purchasers and for nVidia: The price will be identical to the nVidia competition ($499) and the card will be sold starting 2nd August 2008.
nVidia reply? Maybe a “super GTX280″ that is still undescribed.
Absolutely not surprising news for people who read my post of yesterday about Radeon HD4870 performance: nVidia just announced a general price reduction for its new line of graphics cards in the GTX200 family. The GTX260 go under 300€ (still a little expensive to confront the Radeon HD4870 at 250€ and at a slightly higher performance point). The GTX280 fall under 450€.
Sapphire announced that its Radeon HD4870 would be available in France in the coming days at 249€.
3Dguru has a nice review of the upcoming Radeon HD4870 graphics card. It’s supposed to be the fastest offering from AMD and it is stacked against the GTX260 from nVidia, cheaper Radeon HD4850 and older nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX.
The conclusion is that the HD4870 is going to be a tough competitor for the much more expensive nVidia GTX260 (expect nVidia to cut down prices quite quickly to compensate).
You loved seeing the arrival of AMD’s Radeon HD4870? Here comes her stronger sister in graphics cards: Radeon HD4870.
The first one was available for a measly 150€, what makes it a nice little entry point for the powerful 3D graphics cards (understand: “for video games“). The Radeon HD4870 has been spotted in France at 250€, with the first available boxes showing the Sapphire brand and logo. Your usual reseller should already have them.
This is the question asked by ArsTechnica in a confrontation between the latest of the fast-running graphics cards from nVidia and a few older cards. The conclusion is hard on them: The price is not right. It’s better to purchase a Palit 9800 GX2 for 150 dollars less. They even insist that all is in the price. You’d have to admit that 500+€ or $600+ cards could difficultly attract more than the most manic gamers.
We have been used to receiving one update of Crysis, the PC FPS video game of the year, for a long time. But it seems that there is now an upcoming change: No update, just a new extension named Warhead or Crysis Warhead.
Crytek was a little imprecise on this, but there is one major advantage to it: It will bring enormous performance increases. It is ssaid to be able to run Crysis at high-quality settings on a $600 or 400€ budget PC. Probably nearly any PC a gamer could buy will be able to get max quality.
Unfortunately, all photos I could find are just plain bad.
“When hell freezes over“. This expression has been replaced by “When Duke Nukem Forever is ready for launch” in some circles of PC gamers, of FPS gamers. This video game has been 12 years in the making. Announced about once per year for more than a decade, but never really seen, nobody really expected it to be delivered to the market. But, this year, there is something totally wacky: In a video, the game itself seems to be appearing. As if it existed in alpha or beta status…
As if the guys had really been working on it all these years.
3D Realms may finally be able to launch such a game. But when? Will the game play reaching the level expected by hard core gamers of today? Will the graphic design have stayed back in time with a disappointing quality? Only time will tell…
I was very troubled by the initial annoucement of Far Cry 2. This FPS game, taking after the exceptionally good Far Cry, was not really a sequel and not even done by the same team. So, what would you expect? Probably a major failure merely re-using the name of a previous hit. But, months after months, news after news, we discovered that the development team was really working to make it nice and big. An enormous area where you will be able to move around, a Wild African landscape with lots of efforts put in making the changes to the environment as credible as possible (some day-to-night effects that should make it interesting even after STALKER similar effects).
So, before the full availability (sometime in September according to our latest information), it is important to try and check the PC requirements for the FPS gamer willing to run Far Cry 2.
Minimum requirements
Processor: Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz, Pentium D 2.66 Ghz, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or better
Memory: 1 GB of SDRAM
Graphics: GeForce 68xx or Radeon X1650
Recommended requirements
Processor: Dual core CPU (Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD 64 x2 5200+, AMD Phenom or better)
Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
Graphics: GeForce 8600 GTS or Radeon X1900 series (Shader model 3.0 and 512 MB of graphic memory)
After some searching, it seems possible to announce the very probable prices of the upcoming cards from nVidia and AMD-ATI:
GeForce GTX 260: $449 (or maybe $399) in the US, 399€ (maybe 349€) in Europe
GeForce GTX 280: $649 in the US, 599€ in Europe (street price at 575€)
Radeon HD 4850: $249 in the US
Radeon HD 4870: $349 in the US
It is worth noticing also that the performance of the nVidia GeForce cards starts to be evaluated by some web sites. It seems that -for the first time- it will be possible to buy a card able to run Crysis in its highest settings (there was none up to now). The nVidia GeFroce GTX280 should be capable of 30+ fps in High quality settings, 1920×1200 resolution (no AA). Of course, this shows that two GT 280 will be able to run Crysis to Maximum settings, on an enormous screen configuration of 2560×1600 with FSAA4x. That should make a blindingly fast and nice configuration, but power dissipation (heat! burning heat!) will still be enourmous.
At a lower performance level, people want to compare the HD4870 with the GTX 260. But we do not seem to have figures for the best AMD Radeon parts. Only for the Radeon HD 4850. The board should be roughly equivalent to a GeFroce 9600 GTX.
Last minute correction (via The Inquirer): There is a Turkish web site outting details and the Radeon 4870 will shoot the existing nVidia 9800GTX out of its water (performance improvements between 38% and 48%), while the Radeon 4850 is aiming at the 8800GT (performance improvements between 36% and 48%).
All in all, this is going to really create the anticipated earth-quake. All fans of the Green Goblin (nVidia) will find reasons to rejoice about the stratospheric performance point reached by the GT280. The fans of AMD-ATI (and some stock market investors) will remind us that performance is not all; The AMD products are perfectly aimed to grab the central market of most users (around and over $200) in the coming months.
The newest graphics cards from nVidia are upon us. In less than a week, they should be officially launched, but nearly everybody seems to know what there is to know about this new generation of cards targetting both avid video gamers and lovers of cinema-on-the-PC. Let’s do a small summary.
First, there will be a very large line of different cards. There will be a GeForce 9300 and GeForce 9400, both based upon the previous generation of technology, but hitting the market at very low prices – 120$. Higher in the range, there will be first the GTX 260 then the superb (and probably expensive) GTX 280. Performance figures start to flow onto the Internet (apparently many people have difficulties complying with the confidentialty clauses of the NDA signed with nVidia). Both cards will be VERY powerful, but the GTX280 seems to be longer than usual (and so, may not usable in some PC).
Finally, let’s not forget that nVidia should launch all this on June 17th June 16th. Only a few days to wait before every web site will show us all the details.
Previous Entries
Crysis Warhead is a sort of complement to Crysis, the FPS PC video game that shocked the FPS game world last year. For my own part, I’ve drawn pleasure from the mere act of replaying the solo game campaign, for its realistic combat scenes, its pleasant images, and its great playability.
You loved seeing the arrival of AMD’s Radeon HD4870? Here comes her stronger sister in graphics cards: Radeon HD4870.
So, before the full availability (sometime in September according to our latest information), it is important to try and check the PC requirements for the FPS gamer willing to run Far Cry 2.
At a lower performance level, people want to compare the HD4870 with the GTX 260. But we do not seem to have figures for the best AMD Radeon parts. Only for the Radeon HD 4850. The board should be roughly equivalent to a GeFroce 9600 GTX.
