On May 17, 2008, I built a new gaming PC, and arguably the most integral component of that build was my Geforce 8800 GTS 512mb graphics card from EVGA. In addition to being the most expensive component in my build, the GPU has more affect on gaming performance than any other single piece of hardware, and therefore I put much consideration into its selection. It was a great card and it got me through some really great games (Bioshock, Mass Effect, CoD4, TF2). However, this summer saw the introduction of the new Nvidia Geforce GTX200 series of graphics cards and since “90 day step-up program” was printed right on the box of my already outdated 8-series……I really didn’t have much choice in the matter did I?

So what is the EVGA Step-Up Program you ask? Basically, if you bought an EVGA graphics card in the past 90 days and would like to upgrade to a newer one, you can send in your “old” card and pay only the difference in price for the “new” card, which EVGA will then mail to you.

I of course was skeptical at first. From their list of restrictions on their website, I expected them to find some minor flaw in my returned GPU (scratch on box, manual page wrinkled, HDMI cable not wound properly, etc.) and deduct 15% from my buyback price (which would have been their legal right). My fears were unfounded however, since the process could not have gone more smoothly. Three times I contacted their support department with questions ranging from shipping to program restrictions and each time, I found their staff to be extremely helpful, polite, and even humorous at times. 

I have a small list of companies I’ve dealt with who have always provided exceptional products and support, and a much larger list of companies I’ve dealt with that make me want to burn down their headquarters. But I am pleased to say that EVGA definitely belongs on the former list, and hopefully they’ll stay there for many years to come. Read the rest…

Now that I have my very own EVGA Geforce GTX 260 courtesy of the EVGA step-up program, I decided that it was finally time to play the only game out there that could truly test my new behemoth of a GPU…Seriously it’s a monster. Performance was what I expected (which in this case is a good thing), but what really surprised me was how great the actual game was. There has been so much hype over the stunning visuals and lofty system requirements that the excellent gameplay seems to have taken a back-burner. In this post I’ll review both the performance of the GTX 260 and the great gameplay of Crysis.

The GTX 260

My GTX 260 is the standard model (no overclock), and I have it paired up with the following system:

• Intel Core2Duo E8400
• 2 Gig Gskill Ram 800MHz
• Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Motherboard
• Corsair 550W Power Supply (85% efficiency)
• Antec 900 case
• 500 Gig Seagate Hard Drive

Read the rest…

When Vista came out it was buggy and annoying: programs were not compatible, popups to “allow” your programs to run appeared every 2 seconds, etc. So people decided that Vista was no good and stuck with XP. I however did not. I continued to use Vista and after a few months of updates and patches, Vista and I had become quite good friends. Of course by this time rumors had spread that Vista was a load of crap and now even people who had never even used it would rather die than ‘upgrade to Vista’. Here’s my message to you: “Stop acting like you’re 90 years old and open you mind to change and progress.” Remember when browser tabs came out and we thought it was annoying and weird…imagine living without tabs today. Change is good, and progress will never come without troubleshooting the bugs (of course, this should have been done by Microsoft, but that’s in the past)…… Anyways, Vista provides support for DirectX10, looks amazing, and has many useful features that after a few weeks of useage you won’t be able to live without. If you’re a PC gamer and have avoided Vista because of the rumors, it’s time to reconsider.

As the title would suggest, AndersonGaming.com is publishing a list of game development/publishing companies who have turned there backs on PC gaming. When the going got tough, these companies got going…either by giving up on PC game development altogether, not porting games to the PC, or by switching their focus from the PC to the console platform. These companies deserve a good shunning in my opinion.

Important information about the list:

1. The list begins with the worst of the bunch and ends with the least worst.

2. The list probably isn’t exhaustive since these are just the ones that I’ve noticed in the past month or so. I’ll need your help in tracking down the rest. (Leave Comments)

3. None of these companies are written-off by any means. They will be welcomed back to our good graces the moment they return to their “roots”.

From the mouth of the Ubisoft CEO himself: “it’s easy to pirate PC games. So what do we do? Well, it’s better not to invest a lot of money on that particular platform…we prefer to focus on platforms that maybe have less piracy and where more customers are actually paying for the content they consume…We greatly reduced the number of people working on PC games…” I am ashamed of Ubisoft. They made some of my favorite PC games (Battle Realms, Far Cry, Prince of Persia…) and now instead of standing behind their loyal fans and working on a solution to game piracy, they have turned their backs on us and fled to their comfortably unchallenging consoles. For shame, Ubisoft, for shame. ~shakes head in disappointment~

Read the rest…

Three pretty cool new developments I’d like to share with you:

Instant Action

Instant Action has done a great job creating free, browser-based games. Not the 2 dimensional Flash games you’re used to seeing online, but genuine 3D games that are on par (graphically) with PC games released a few years ago. Yeah, it’s no Crysis, but definitely worth checking out, and if they continue to develop this idea, we might be on the doorstep of a new gaming revolution.

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JACT

Hey, anyone out there wanna get payed to play games? And not crappy games either. I’m talking CoD4, WOW, TF2, etc. Well JACT is doing that right now. The catch is that they pay you in JACT BUX, which can be used to buy things from the JACT MALL. Not to worry though, the JACT MALL is filled with plenty of good stuff like video games, pc components, and much more. How can they afford to do this you ask? “JACT service is funded through its initial investors and traditional site-based advertisements as well as a new, innovative product placement method in the JACT Mall”.

Nvidia: The Force Within

Apparently, the Geforce 8-series GPUs came with special physics processing abilities called PhysX that I (and many others) were unaware of. Fortunately, drivers have now been released that can take advantage of this new technology and they are available for download here. Even more exciting is that Nvidia is also distributing (for free) a bundle of games, demos, and other media that showcase the new PhysX technology.

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On August 19 of this year at the GC Developer’s Conference in Leipzig, Germany, Randy Stude of the PC Gaming Alliance will be giving a presentation outlining the challenges facing PC gaming and the steps being taken to counter them. Among the topics presented will be the possibility of having a standardized set of minimum system requirements for PC games. If you’ve been waiting for the big event that would greatly impact the future of PC Gaming…this could be it.

“PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to drive worldwide growth of PC gaming.”  Their members include Microsoft, Intel, AMD, .Nvidia, Activision, Antec, Dell, Epic Games, and Acer.

Grand Theft Auto IV will be released for the PC on November 18th in the U.S. and on November 21st in Europe. Many are complaining about the 7 month delay between the console and PC release dates, and although it does bother me, lets not forget that many games don’t even make it to the PC at all. So let’s concentrate our rage on that issue……for now.

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Expect this game to be a real hardware hog. I’m guessing it will surpass Crysis as Sys Req king (unless someone else does it first). Even more important to us is that the pc version of the game will “support significant visual improvements over the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions” according to an article in Wired Magazine. So yeah, I just want to say a big thank-you to our friends over at id software.

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At the end of every month (I’m a day late this time), I’ll post a list of the next month’s most anticipated PC games being released. This will not be a comprehensive list (sorry, but “Nancy  Drew: Ultimate Bundle” will probably not make it) but I’ll try to make sure that I mention any game you would be sad if you forgot about. Of course you’re welcome to use the comment section to add your selection, and if any particular game causes substantial commotion, I will add it to the list. So without further ado, here it is, in order from most anticipated to substantially less anticipated:

August 1st 2008

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The Legend: Hand of God website shows a quote which states: “Legend will make you as addicted as Diablo, it is as beautiful as Prince of Persia…”

Somehow I doubt it…I was pretty addicted to Diablo…but I guess we’ll see.

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August 29th 2008

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Stalker: Clear Sky — Well, all I can say is “let’s hope it’s as good as ‘Shadow of Chernobyl’  !!!!”

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Read the rest…