Hardware

Tim Allen wasn't precisely the same flavor of hardware guy that we are, but his Tool Time mantra, "More Power!" certainly resonates with a lot of computer enthusiasts. Not only do the games we play and the applications we use require more and more computational chutzpah to perform well, but the silicon bits themselves are not shy about sucking down the wattage to do it.

If you're considering an upgrade or a new build, you're going to need to feed that beast. Onward, to the supplies of power!

It became a laughing stock of the gaming industry a few years ago. We are talking about the Phantom Game Service, announced as a way to bring a console-like downloadable game service with a device featuring PC hardware guts. After spending tens of millions of dollars the company decided to change its tactics. It began to promote its wireless Phantom Lapboard keyboard-mouse hardware for PC gamers. It only began to be sold a few months ago.

Now comes word that the Phantom Game Service might actually come about (and we have a bridge to sell you but we will get to that another time). According to a new press release Phantom Entertainment (the keyboard company) has agreed to sell off its game download service assets and technology to the new Phantom Game Service company so that Phantom Entertainment can concentrate on its keyboard business. There's no word on who is behind the new Phantom Game Service and a link to their web site states that it's still under construction. In other words, everything old is new again.

Nvidia continues to promote the use of their PhysX game physics support (which it purchased early in 2008) for its GeForce graphics chips. Today the company announced that All Points Bulletin (better known as APB) is the latest to add support for PhysX tech to its game. The upcoming urban action MMO, developed by UK based Real Time Worlds, is due to launch sometime in 2009.

According to the press release, APB will use the PhysX tech "to enhance the game's free-form combat and real-time driving environments." The game recently has been ramping up for its upcoming beta test but so far there's been no word on when that will occur.

When Crysis Warhead was first announced we were promised that the next game in Crytek's shooter game series would run better on PCs. Well the EA online store (which is selling the game for just $24.95 at the moment) has now posted up the system requirements for the game. Can your PC run Crysis Wahead? Take a look.

Last month, graphics chip maker Nvidia warned that it would miss its planned financial targets for the second quarter of 2008 due to various factors. Now the company has released its final official numbers for that quarter that ended June 30 with revenue numbers of $892.7 million, down from $935.3 million for the same period a year ago. Nvidia had a loss of $120.9 million for the quarter compared to a profit of $172.7 million for the same period a year ago.

As previously announced, Nvidia is taking a $196 million one time loss to cover warrenty and repair charges on older notebook computers. However its the revenue loss that seems to trouble the company's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, calling the loss "disappointing." Nvidia has been feeling more pressure lately from its main rival AMD who just launched their new flagship product the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2

Eidos has announced their participation as the latest publisher to support the Novint Falcon, a controller that claims to give gamers a greater advantage in three-dimensional video games by applying tactile control.

What sort of touch sensations will the Novint Falcon offer Eidos titles? "Simply imagine the feel of sandstone in your palms or the weight of a gun in your hand, and you've got the general idea," writes 1UP. Eidos plans support for Tomb Raider: Legend, Hitman: Blood Money, 25 to Life, Just Cause, BattleStations: Midway, and Kane and Lynch: Dead Men by the end of 2008.

In June, developer Valve announced future Novint Falcon support for The Orange Box, a collection containing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Falcon will reportedly allow gamers to feel the weight of holding different objects with the gravity gun, the recoil of guns, and more.

AMD's launch earlier today of its new ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics chip was previewed in a press event in New York City on Monday night and our sister site Joystiq got to see a demo of what might (and we emphasize "might") be seen in PC games in the next few years. AMD's "Cinema 2.0" graphics program helped to create the image you see above you; that's not a photo but a 3D CGI model.

Joystiq goes into more detail on how AMD was able to create such a realistic looking 3D image (basically a real woman was photographed in a room full of cameras and the data from the photos was translated to the 3D image) and while it's not exactly gaming related it's very possible such realistic looking human models could find themselves into CGI cut-scenes in games in the next few years.

As promised last week, Nvidia has now released new official drivers for its GeForce 8, 9 and 200 series of graphics cards today. The 177.83 drivers are the ones that enable those chips to have hardware game physics support for PC game that support the PhysX software that Nvidia bought early this year (although its likely that there will be some framerate loss with that support).

Nvidia's new drivers are not the only thing the graphics chip company has available for download. You can also download the previously released PhysX enabled free multiplayer shooter Warmonger from developer Netdevil, the Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX mod, the Folding@Home support and several tech demos (some interactive, some not) that show off various PhysX effects.

AMD's efforts to bring back hardcore gamers to its ATI branded graphics chips just went into overdrive. Today the company announced the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, a new graphics card that it claims is the fastest made yet (based on 3D Mark Vantage benchmarks). The reason? It has not one but two graphics processors on board and 2 Gigs of memory that bring a whopping 2.4 teraflops of proccessing power to your PC gaming rig.

If you have the money that is. You can go ahead and order one of these puppies now but it will cost $549 for the effort. If you want a somewhat slower clocked card, you can wait until next month with AMD plans to release the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 for a "mere" $399.

While we wait for the release of the downloadable game Bionic Commando Rearmed later this week (at $5 more than its console counterparts), Capcom and graphics chip maker Nvidia have announced that the PC version of the full-fledged retail action game Bionic Commando will feature full hardware physics gameplay via Nvidia's PhysX game physics software.

According to the press release, PhysX support for for the GRIN-develop Bionic Commando will enhance the game's debris, smoke, dust, and weapon effects. "Walls can be torn down, trees bend in the wind, and water flows with body and force." Nvidia plans to release new official drivers on Tuesday that will enable PhysX support for its GeForce 8, 9, and 200 series of graphics cards. Meanwhile the press release seems to confirm that Bionic Commando won't make a 2008 release date as it states it is now due out in early 2009.

We are getting close to the fall/holiday season and that means hardware companies are making plans for their final push for new products before the end of the year. Today, Intel announced that their next-generation processor now has an official name, Intel Core. The first products in that processor family, previously code named Nehalem, will be released late this year.

Intel Core's high end processors (the one that hardcore gamers will likely want to get) will be identified with the "i7" sub-title and the black-labeled version will identify the "Extreme Edition" which as Viper might say is, "the elite, the best of the best" of the family. Intel Core chips will have support for "simultaneous multi-threading" which can handle " eight software "threads" on four processor cores". Pricing for the new processors have yet to be announced but expect them to be on the high side.

It's been a week since QuakeCon but quotes from id Software's John Carmack continue to pop up on various web sites. The latest is Tom's Hardware where the co-founder and lead programmer of games like Doom, Quake and the upcoming Rage has stated that the PC platform is no longer the main platform for id's upcoming titles.

According to Carmack, "We still think the PC is a market worth supporting, but we're not making decision around the PC. It's probably more of the junior partner in the cross-platform strategy, although obviously, our day-to-day development is predominately on the PC." He added that they are "contractually obligate" to release Rage for the PC and Doom IV, id's other in-house title, will almost certainly show up on the PC as well, with Carmack saying, "Even if it was a marginal business case, we would still do it because it's the right thing to do."

Here's a question that many of you have been wondering about? "Can Ubisoft's upcoming first person open world shooter Far Cry 2 run on my PC rig?" Well, we can't go about answering that question for every single one of you but we have the next best thing; the official system requirements for the game as presented on the Far Cry 2 message boards.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

CPU: Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz, Pentium D 2.66 Ghz, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or better
RAM: 1 GB
Video card: NVidia 6800 or ATI X1650 or better
Shader Model 3 required
256 Mb of graphic memory
Media reader: DVD-ROM
Hard drive space: ~12 Gig of HD space. (TBD)

RECOMMENDED:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Family, AMD 64 X2 5200+, AMD Phenom or better
RAM: 2 GB
Video card: NVidia 8600 GTS or better, ATI X1900 or better
512 Mb of graphic memory
Sound: 5.1 sound card recommended

SUPPORTED VIDEO CARDS:

NVidia 6800, NVidia 7000 series, 8000 series, 9000 series, 200 series. 8800M and 8700M supported for laptops.
ATI X1650 – 1950 series, HD2000 series, HD3000 series, HD4000 series.

It looks like the minimal requirements will be higher than the 2007 title Crysis which "only" needed a 2.8 Ghx Pentium 4 or an AMD Athlon 2800+ for its processor and either an GeForce 6800 GT or an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro for its minimal rig.

Nintendo's Wii console has been a massive hit and part of the reason is it's wireless motion sensing Wiimote controller. Now PC maker Asus has announced plans to release what they are calling the Eee Stick, their own wireless PC game controller that physically looks an awful lot like the Wiimote.

The controller itself, which will be bundled with certain models of Asus's popular Eee PC and Eee Box products, consists of a navigation stick and a activation stick along with 2.4 Ghz wireless dongle. The press release claims that the Eee Stick will also come bundled with a selection of unnamed games designed specifically for use with the device. There's no word when the controller will be made available or if Asus plans to release the Eee Stick as a separate product at some point.

If you're eyes glaze over with delight when you consider the purchase of a brand new Nvidia graphics card, you might want to sit still another week before dashing to the nearest Best Buy. According to Tech Report, Nvidia will be adding PhysX support to its existing GPUs beginning August 12. The initial line-up of Nvidia cards planned for the added support are all GeForce 8, GeForce 9, and the entire GTX 200-series.

After expressing interest in PhysX, Nvidia purchased the technology from creator Ageia earlier this year. Adding PhysX to Nvidia's GPUs garnered more interest in the technology, which was slow to gather support due to most users not wanting to pay for yet another card to add to their machines.