ToC Gaming News Blog : All The Latest PC Gaming News

The world of high demanding games widens every day. While the level of realism of games rises at a constant rate, graphics card manufacturers have to keep up with providing the powerful hardware support which can enable users to fully enjoy the game play. Both game developers and graphics solution makers have difficult tasks to fulfill in order to raise the performance bar with each and every new release. 

N4G.com : Running Crysis WarHead on 14 Graphics Cards - A GeForce GTX 280 delivered more performance than a Radeon HD 4870 X2

Well, it looks like the good times that are the Ubuntu alpha testing process hit a bit of a snag recently, as one of the latest kernels apparently had the nasty side effect of irreparably damaging some users' hardware -- specifically, certain Intel network cards. So far, it seems that only laptops have been affected by the bug, which corrupts the NVRAM used to store data like MAC addresses, but folks don't seem to be ruling out the possibility that it could affect desktops as well. What's more, while a warning has been added to the ISO download, it hasn't been pulled altogether, with the only explanation given being that it would delay the 8.10 release schedule too much. Not entirely surprisingly, that has prompted at least a few folks to give up on testing alpha versions of the OS, at least until this whole thing gets sorted out.

Ubuntu alpha apparently breaking hardware, shattering dreams - Engadget

Treyarch has revealed details about the Call of Duty: World at War Limited Collector’s Edition, due to ship alongside the game when it launches on November 14th.

The Limited Collector’s Edition comes packaged in a metal storage tin big enough to store multiple games. So if you were ever looking for a solution to transporting all of your Call of Duty’s together, here it is.

The only other physical item included with the limited edition is a branded steel canteen. The other bonuses are all digital items to use in game, including the powerful FG 42 Machine Gun being unlocked from day one, a VIP status tag for use in the online multiplayer modes, and an exclusive double experience week.

So far we’ve only seen shots of the Xbox 360 and PC Limited Collector’s Editions, so it’s unclear as to whether it’ll be available on other platforms. Check out the first pics below.

D+PAD » CoD: World at War Limited Edition Revealed

And you thought the Spore DRM Issue was finally at an end, eh? Hardly, since a bunch of Spore owners have banded together and have filed a class-action lawsuit against the game’s publisher, Electronic Arts.

The lawsuit claims that the DRM program, SecuROM, actually interferes with the standard operation of the computer’s operating system. For those of you who don’t know what an OS is, I’ll translate: It breaks Windows (or OS X, whatever). The suit claims that the program is installed without the permission of the user, and that once the program is installed it cannot be removed — even if the user uninstalls Spore.

From the Courthouse News Service:

Consumers are not warned about the program, which is installed without notice and cannot be uninstalled, even if the uninstall Spore, the complaint states. The secret SecuROM program is “secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer (Ring 0, or the Kernel), and surreptitiously operated, overseeing function and operation on the computer, preventing the computer from operating under certain circumstances and/or disrupting hardware operations,” the complaint states.

I usually have an opinion about these kinds of things. But then I remember that I refused to buy Spore until the DRM complaints have been dealt with, so rock on with the lawsuit.

EA Sued Over Spore DRM

ThermalTake introduced Xpressar - world's first computer case with a DC inverter type micro refrigeration cooling system! According to ThermalTake, the Xpressar RCS100 case keeps your components 20°C cooler than a liquid cooling system.
The Xpressar RCS100 is a quite big supertower case, it measures 605 x 250 x 660mm and weighs 22.2kg. There's support for micro ATX and ATX motherboards, seven 5.25" devices, five 3.5" devices and 10 expansion cards. The case is made out of 1.0mm SECC steel and features an aluminum front door, the design of the case looks a bit like the Xaser VI and it has several nice features such as a removable motherboard tray, cable management, a sliding hood and an adjustable PSU bridge. Furthermore, the front also features a compartment with I/O ports, this includes 2x e-SATA, 4x USB 2.0, 1x FireWire IEEE 1394 and HD audio.
The most interesting thing about this case is the phase-change cooling system, the Xpressar features a micro vapor-compression refrigeration system, which is a method similar to the one used for air-conditioning. It has a compressor, condenser, expansion valve, evaporator and intelligent IC controller. The cooling system uses a circulating liquid refrigerant as the medium which absorbs and removes heat from the space to be cooled and subsequently rejects that heat elsewhere. The refrigeration cooling system is compatible with Intel LGA775 and LGA1366 (Nehalem) sockets and the compressor uses a max of 50W.

The scheme below explains how it works and more info can be read over here.

ThermalTake claims the Xpressar cooling solution performs significantly better than air cooling and liquid cooling. The firm ran tests on a Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor and found the Xpressar kept the processor at a relatively chilly 35°C at full load with a noise level of only 20dBA. According to ThermalTake, that's 20°C better than liquid cooling and more than 40°C better than air cooling but I have some serious doubts about these results. It strikes me odd that a non-overclocked Core 2 Duo E8400 with a decent air cooler would reach over 75°C and shut down.

Phase-change cooling for computers isn't exactly new, but AFAIK this is one of the first cases that integrates it nicely. Besides the refrigeration cooling, the Xpressar also supports a 140mm front intake fan, 140mm top exhaust fan, two 140mm bottom intake fans and a 140mm VGA intake fan but those are all optional.

In short, XPRESSAR, this world first DC inverter type micro refrigeration cooling system customized for PC chassis, has minimized the compressor widely applied in air conditioners and refrigerators commonly seen in our everyday lives, and placed it inside the computer case to cool the extreme heating sources of your systems. The built-in intelligent IC controller, the part making this news valuable, will then be keeping the temperatures constant and stable to preventing condensations at the same time.

More details and photos can be found at the Xpressar website.
Unfortunately the case isn't compatible with all motherboards. Here's a list of compatible motherboards from ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI:

MSI: P45 Diamond / P45 Platinum / P45D3 Platinum / P7N Diamond (Only for one VGA card plug in 4th slot) / P7N2 Diamond (Only for one VGA card plug in 4th slot) / X48C Platinum (Only for one VGA card plug in 4th slot)

Gigabyte: EP45-DQ6 / EP45T Extreme (DDR3) / EP45 Extreme (DDR2) / X48T-DQ6 (DDR3) / X48-DQ6 (DDR2)

Asus: Blitz Formula / P5Q / P5QC / P5Q Pro / P5Q Deluxe / P5E Deluxe

ThermalTake Xpressar is the first micro refrigerated case

Yahoo!: Playstation 3 is in trouble

In the November 08 edition of the Subscribers magazine PCGamer, was a great article, with some interesting news mainly revealing the buddies !!
In addtion to the Buddies, PCGamer voted Far cry 2 a "Wild" 94% quoting its pros were Beautiful, Free roaming and Utterly Absorbing, and its cons were, its not a linear shooter, its not a prescibed story and its not going to let you go !

The basis of Far Cry 2's story telling: Characters and situations are swapped via a software author, its responding to choices made by you the player. Its something that's been on the cards for some time - mostly in research projects - but this is the first high-profile game to use it.
Its nothing less than a revelation. What makes this procedural storytelling cool isn't that you get to play the game lots of times, and see new things happen, or do things in new ways, Its not even that it gives you stories to share, situations to compare with your friends. Its that the game just works and responds to your successes, failures and fuckups.
If you don't like what a guy is asking you to do, then don't do it... If you really like one of your buddies, you stick with him. When the situations force choices on you... By God, its incredible

You can now meet the main 9 buddies for the first time, exclusively to Farcry 2 World

In addition you can preview the entire magazine scans courtesy of PCGamer

I will be updating the characters page soon !

Exclusive PCGamer Article | News | Farcry 2 World

A customer was shocked to find pornographic images on a mobile phone she had just purchased, even more so when she discovered they were of employees from the store where she had bought it.

The Australian university student was given an ex-demonstration model as it was the last in the Dick Smith Electronics shop, but it later developed a fault with the speaker. It was when searching through the menu options trying to fix the problem that she discovered that 49 images had already been taken on the handset.

The first was a harmless shot of a female employee outside the store in her uniform, although things soon took an adult turn. One image featured the same female employee, naked from the waist down, performing a sex act.

"It's sickening to think I've been using this phone near my face when it was used to take all of these photos," said the startled customer, speaking to the Australian Daily Telegraph. "What would've happened if that phone was bought for a child?"

The store has asked to see the images, and is investigating the matter.

"We take any incidence of this nature very seriously and we will investigate it fully," says a spokesperson. "We've asked the customer to bring us the phone to ascertain the nature of the images."

pcpro

lol, oops!