Buzzkill: the GTX 480

BitTech.net has reviewed Nvidia's GeForce GTX 480, and it looks pretty disappointing.  Their conclusion:

Having waited over six months for Nvidia to deliver a DirectX 11 graphics card we can’t help but feel shocked by the GeForce GTX 480. While offering performance superior to the HD 5870 in some situations, most notably Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Dirt 2, the GTX 480 is unable to conclusively claim the title as fastest single GPU graphics card, with Crysis a dead heat and the Radeon HD 5870 cards offering much better performance in STALKER.

Even when ahead, at the high resolutions and demanding settings this kind of top-of-the-range card should target, the GTX 480's performance advantage is rarely more than ten percent. Considering the six month wait since the release of the HD 5870 this is deeply disappointing, and we certainly hoped and expected more.

It’s hard to back the GTX 480 elsewhere though as it brings with it incredibly high power consumption, high running temperatures and a noisy stock cooling solution which really spoil the party.

The bad news continues. Nvidia has chosen to launch the GTX 480 quoting a price thirty per cent higher than that of its direct competitor. While you can find a HD 5870 1GB for around £310 in stock without too much effort, the GeForce GTX 480 1,536MB will hit e-tailers shelves on April 6th at an MSRP of £420 ($450). Even if you value the Nvidia exclusive features like PhysX, 3D Vision and CUDA support, such a high price will be tough to stomach.

Yes, the GTX 480 offers great performance in our test games, especially in Dirt 2 and Bad Company 2, but compared to the competition, it doesn't make a strong enough case for itself, especially when you consider that there are just so many caveats involved with buying this card. The higher price, the 100W of extra power consumption, scorchingly hot temperatures and a much noisier stock cooler are all extremely detrimental to its desirability. The HD 5870 remains a far better choice if you're a gamer; while we've yet to see how the GTX 480 performs with CUDA apps and Folding, at this stage Fermi looks like a flop. 

Tali unmasked

This again?

Dolby Axon VOIP

From Blue's News:

The Dolby Axon Website now offers free downloads of the Dolby Axon Desktop Client, a stand-alone voice chat client designed specifically for games. The desktop client is free, and there is also a premium upgrade called Dolby Axon Surround Pass, which allows players to create surround sound chat rooms, offering visual chat, larger chats, and permanent rooms. Details on the premium version are here, and new users are entitled to a 30-day free trial. There is an interview about the program on YouGamers discussing the advantages Dolby feels they are offering over similar programs.

Software updates

+ Microsoft has released Version 12.00 of the free Process Explorer utility which is a more robust replacement for Windows Task Manager. 

+ CPUID has released a new Version 1.54 of the CPU-Z information utility. This update provides support for new chipsets and introduces "validation rooms."

+ Nvidia has released the WHQL 197.13 drivers for Windows XP, Vista and 7. They're identical to the beta 197.13 drivers released earlier this month; the only difference is the Microsoft certification. The package also contains the 9.10.0129 PhysX drivers.

+ ATI has released the Catalyst 10.3 graphics drivers for the HD2000 series and newer GPU's. The drivers are supposed to provide performance improvements for a few games, including AvP, Crysis, Dirt 2, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, STALKER and HAWX. The drivers also include several new Eyefinity features, support for 3D Stereoscopic gaming, and a number of fixes.

+ Google has released Version 4.1.249.1042 of its Chrome browser. 

+ SiSoftware has released a new 2010 SP1 Build 16.36 of the free system information utility, Sandra.

Nvidia GTX 480 due out today

I think. A few sites received the GPU's specs, but the information was subject to some kind of non-disclosure agreement. Some of those sites published the information, Nvidia threatened them, and the information was pulled (for example).  

Hexus.net confirms that the release date is today, March 26.

Mass Effect 3 development underway

Via Twitter, BioWare's Christina Norman wrote that she has started work on "Project Wombat" for ME3, whatever that is.

Don't get too excited just yet. The final game in the trilogy probably won't be released until the end of 2012, at the earliest.  In the meantime, a premium DLC package - with a new team member and new missions - should be released in the next few days.  Of course, by "premium," I mean that the DLC will set you back $7.00 American.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier trailer

The future takes us back to 2007, as ultranationalists once again seize power in Russia:

Still, it's a pretty cool trailer.

Legit buyers, screwed again

From Eurogamer:

Command & Conquer 4's requirement of a permanent internet connection is causing problems, with some purchasers unable to play properly since the game's release last Friday.

One reader wrote to Eurogamer describing numerous crashes after "unexpected loss" of internet. Repeat failures were met with the message, "We will contact you with a solution." Crashing loses in-game progress. 

This apparently occurred on both Saturday and Sunday. And this experience doesn't appear to be isolated; the game's forums are awash with complaints. 

EA community manager "EA_APOC" Tweeted that Russian and French clients have been patched. But they seem to be the only ones. 

I should note here that one of the purported reasons for the downtime was a DDoS attack on EA's authentication servers, in addition to (predictable) firewall and crashing problems.  The same thing happened to Ubisoft, which uses a similar DRM solution.

A stupid DRM scheme does not justify an equally stupid response from hackers that oppose such measures "on principle." But there are better solutions to piracy; ones that don't subject paying customers to this kind of inevitable nonsense (Steam is one example).  

Then again, no one that bought C&C4, Assassin's Creed 2, etc. - knowing that a constant internet connection is required - has any right to complain.  Until a substantial majority of gamers refuse to support companies that use heavy-handed DRM schemes, we're all going to have to live with this crap in one form or another.

This is your brain on hacks

From Sankaku Complex:

Cheater's Brain Stabbed in Wallhack Brawl

A gamer accused of cheating in a net café game of CounterStrike narrowly escaped death after irate players skewered his head on a knife.

The incident began in a net café in China’s northern province of Jilin, when a group of youths apparently noticed a 17-year-old boy they had been playing CounterStrike with had been cheating by using a “wallhack” to allow himself to see through walls.

An argument began and a fight broke out outside the café. During the fight the cheater had a 30cm knife thrust into his left temple, with the blade only being stopped by the other side of his skull.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

A work in progress

DICE's Joe Grant posted a semi-comprehensive list of reported issues/glitches with Bad Company 2 on EA's UK forums, and the developer's responses.  It's long.

A few of the more important entries below the fold:

BC2 update

From Steam News:

Updates to Battlefield Bad Company 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

• Server browser downloads 100 entries instead of 500 in a chunk this makes the Cancel button more responsive
• Fixed crash during server browser refresh
• Low-level networking library switched back to the optimized version (the game client was temporarily running with one that had more debugging logic in it)
• Localization fixes in the scoreboard
• Server browser ping handling code modified

It's foolproof

ATI Catalyst 10.3 Windows 7 Driver Analysis

TweakTown has a list of the new features and performance improvements ATI GPU owners are supposed to get with the 10.3 drivers.

Nerdgasm ahoy

ArsTechnica reports that Jonathan Coulton, the composer behind Portal's "Still Alive," will make another musical contribution to Portal 2.  In case you've forgotten the genius:

Details on L4D2 DLC: "the Passing"

From 1UP:

Valve writer Chet Faliszek appeared on the latest episode of GameTrailers TV to talk about their upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 DLC called "The Passing," and if you want to stay completely in the dark about what twists it'll throw your way, stop reading now -- because Faliszek revealed a pretty major one.
Still with us? Then you probably won't mind finding out why "The Passing" is called "The Passing" -- and it turns out it's a very figurative title. "Someone passed," Faliszek explains bluntly, referring to the fact that one of the four survivors from the first Left 4 Dead -- Francis, Bill, Zoey, and Louis -- will no longer be a survivor in the L4D2 DLC. This is why Faliszek revealed The Passing's tagline is "Nobody Survives Forever."

The plan is to have the original group of survivors from the first game meet up with the new group from L4D2 in The Passing, but only three will actually still be alive by then. Faliszek of course didn't reveal which character will die, but he did explain L4D1 players will get to find out first-hand: After The Passing is released, new DLC will also be released for the original that actually has gamers play through the events that ultimately claims the life of the doomed character -- and one of the players has to literally make the sacrifice within the game.

My guess is Bill is the one that dies, since it's rumored that Valve couldn't get his voice actor, Jim French, to commit to the project. In fact, they couldn't even find him for Crash Course.