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Incredible! HD Gaming to the Extreme!

Click the following link to view the pics. Prepare yourself.

http://ve3d.ign.com/...6/786253p1.html

April 2007

Finally making use of this blog I created almost a year ago. What a busy year it's turned out to be, from the inception of the Alky Project to the creation of Falling Leaf Systems and the Sapling Program.

As a fitting start to this blog, I'm proud to release a preview of our DirectX 10 compatibility libraries. These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Microsoft Vista, and increase hardware compatibility even on Vista, by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it. No longer will you have to upgrade your OS and video card(s) to play the latest games.

The current preview allows you to run a number of examples from the DirectX SDK on Windows XP. They're not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but we want to whet your appetite. We hope to release builds in the coming months progressing from demos to fully functional games. We also plan to post on this blog from time to time with screenshots and videos of what's to come.

The preview build is available here. Inside this zip is a README.TXT file with complete instructions on where to install the files (don't worry, we'll have an installer in the near future) and how to get and run the examples from the SDK.

We at Falling Leaf welcome your feedback, and we're committed to giving you the best high-end gaming experience possible, regardless of OS.

Enjoy,
- Cody Brocious
Lead Alky Engineer

News Source: Alky Project

A.k.a. Cube 2

An updated version (Spring Edition) of Sauerbraten is now available for download, allowing you to play this free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of the Cube FPS. Much like the original Cube, the aim of this game is not necessarily to produce the most features & eyecandy possible, but rather to allow map/geometry editing to be done dynamically in-game, to create fun gameplay and an elegant engine.

Download: here
View all: Screenshots

Microsoft shows off rival to Flash, QuickTime


Microsoft on Monday showed video pros at NAB Silverlight, a new Mac and PC-compatible Web browser plug-in that provides interactive Web capabilities similar to how Adobe Flash works with streaming video capabilities superior to QuickTime, according to the company.

Microsoft will provide a beta of Silverlight later this month with plans for its general release to follow. A “technology preview” is available for download.

Silverlight lets content creators incorporate video and animation into their Web content. It provides a method for displaying vector-based graphics, text, animation, media and overlays. Silverlight doesn’t require any special back-end Web environment to deploy — it integrates with existing infrastructure tools such as Apache and PHP, JavaScript and XHTML.

Formerly code-named WPF/E, Silverlight is targeted at content providers who want to distribute video and rich media on the Web and designers and developers working with interactive applications. The software works on the Mac using either Mozilla Firefox or Apple’s own Safari Web browser. On Windows, it also supports Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7.

Already Microsoft has signed up some major players to distribute Silverlight content, including Akamai Technologies, Brightcove, Eyeblaster, Major League Baseball and Netflix.

The company has developed a companion toolset called Expression to help develop Silverlight content. Expression — Windows-only — has been positioned as an alternative to Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 software, and is expected to be released in June. Preview releases are available for download now.

Microsoft has previously positioned Silverlight as able to match Adobe Flash in more traditional rich media ares, but a recent statement from Forest Key, a director of product management at Microsoft’s server and tools division whose bona fides include a senior management stint at Flash developer Macromedia, suggested that Silverlight is superior on the video front.

Flash has “some video capabilities, and some success in that market,” Key said. But Silverlight offers “better video quality than Flash,” while the Expression tools will be “cheaper, faster and better” than Adobe’s offerings, he claimed.

Silverlight can play video at 720P high-definition quality — the same 720-line resolution used by DVDs. Depending on bandwidth, videos start playing either immediately or after a few seconds of caching. That ensures that picture quality doesn’t degrade, Key said.

Silverlight employs the VC-1 video codec originally developed by Microsoft as Windows Media Video 9, now available as an open standard. VC-1 is technically superior to other codecs such as MPEG-4, which is used by QuickTime, especially in the area of digital rights management (DRM), according to John Bromhead, vice president of marketing at Tarari, a San Diego-based maker of high-end video hardware that is supporting Silverlight.

Those content protection features make VC-1-based systems such as Silverlight and Windows Media Video more attractive to movie studios and others conscious about protecting their content and/or making money from it, said Kathleen Maher, an analyst at Tiburon, Calif.-based Jon Peddie Research. And while Microsoft is aggressively going past the PC to get cable set-top boxes to run Silverlight, she said, “that’s a race that Apple is just starting.”

System requirements for Silverlight call for a G3/500MHz or faster (Intel included) and Firefox 1.5.08 or later or Safari 2.0.4 or later.


View: Microsoft Silverlight Homepage (Some cool Wide/Standard screen wallpapers available)

News Source: Yahoo News

Since 1996 PC WIZARD is among the most advanced system information programs on the market.

PC WIZARD 2007 is a powerful utility designed especially for detection of hardware, but also some more analysis. It's able to identify a large scale of system components and supports the latest technologies and standards. This tool is periodically updated (usually once per month) in order to provide most accurate results.

PC WIZARD 2007 is also an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, Cache performance, RAM performance, Hard Disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance, Removable/FLASH Media performance, Video performance, MP3 compression performance.

PC WIZARD 2007 can be distributed freely (ftp, archives, CD-ROMs ...).

Hardware Information

[#]Mainboard / Bios (Connectors, ID String, MP Support ...)
[#]Chipset (FSB Frequency, Norhtbridge, Hub, Direct Media Interface, XMB, NSI, ...)
[#]Main Memory (FPM, EDO, SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, DDR-2 SDRAM, RDRAM, FB_DIMM, Timings ...)
[#]Cache Memory (L1, L2, L3, Size, Frequency ...)
[#]Processors (Type, Speed, Multiplier coeff., Features, Model Number, Vanderpool Technology ...)
[#]Coprocessor
[#]APM & ACPI
[#]Busses : ISA, PCI, AGP (2x, 4x,8x), SMBus/ i2c, CardBus, Firewire, Hyper-Transport ... )
[#]DMI / SMBIOS
[#]Mainboard Sensors, Processor, Hard Disk & Battery (Voltage, Temperature, Fans)
[#]Video (Monitor, Card, Bios, Capabilities, Memory, Integrated Memory, Frequencies ...)
[#]OpenGL & 3Dfx
[#]DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound (3D), DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput, DirectX Media)
[#]Keyboard, Mouse & Joystick
[#]Drives (Hard Disk, Removable, CD-ROM, CDRW, DVD ...)
[#]SCSI (Card, Controller, Adapter, Devices ...)
[#]ATA/ATAPI & S-ATA (Devices, Type, Capabilities, S.M.A.R.T. Features, RAID)
[#]Ports (Serial, Parallel, USB, IEEE-1394)
[#]IDE & SCSI Devices
[#]Twain & WIA Devices
[#]PCMCIA (PC Card) Devices
[#]Bluetooth Devices
[#]Sound Card (wave, midi, aux, mix, AC'97 codec, High Definition Audio)
[#]Printers (Local & Network)
[#]Modem (Features, Speed ...)
[#]Network (Server, Connexion, Firewall ...)
[#]Security (Scan Ports ...)
[#]PocketPC & SmartPhone Devices

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System Information

[#]MCI Devices (mpeg, avi, seq, vcr, video-disc, wave) & ACM
[#]SAPI
[#]Passwords (Outlook, Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Dialup ...)
[#]MSN Password Recovery
[#]DOS Memory (base, HMA, UMB, XMS, EMS, DPMI, VCPI)
[#]Windows Memory
[#]Windows (Version, Product Key, Environment, Desktop, XP Themes ...)
[#]Windows UpTime (Boot, Shutdown, BlueScreen, System Restore Points ...)
[#]TrueType & OpenType Fonts
[#]WinSock (Internet), Telephony et Remote Access
[#]OLE (Objects, Servers ...)
[#]Microsoft® Applications
[#]Activity (Process, Tasks, Threads)
[#]Modules (DLL, DRV, 32 & 16-bits) & NT Services
[#]Internet Navigator (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox)
[#]ODBC
[#]CMOS/RTC
[#]Resources (IRQ, DMA, E/S, Memory)
[#]System files (.ini, .log, .bat, .nt, .dos ...)

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System Benchmarks

[#]Processor (Dhrystone (MIPS), Whetstone (MFLOPS), Mandelbrot fractal ...)
[#]L1, L2, L3 Cache, RAM (Bandwidth, Latency ...)
[#]Main Memory (Bandwidth, Latency ...)
[#]Hard Drives
[#]CD/DVD Rom
[#]DirectX 3D
[#]Video
[#]Removable/Flash Support
[#]MP3 Compression
[#]VISTA Experience Index

MEMORY and CACHE: These benchmarks measure the maximum achiveable memory bandwidth. The code behind these benchmarks method is written in Assembly (x86, SSE, SSE2, SSE3). Memory benchmarks utilize only one processor core and one thread.

PROCESSOR : These benchmarks measure performance in terms of Integer Millions of Instructions Per Second (Integer MIPS) and Millions of Floating Point Operations Per Second (MFLOPS). The code behind these benchmarks method is written in Assembly (x86, x87, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW!). Processor benchmarks are HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.

Tools

[#]Can save, print, e-mail a report
[#]Can save a TXT, RTF, HTML, PDF or CSV report
[#]Can export any graphics as BMP file
[#]Can export text and graphic with the clipboard
[#]Web update Wizard
[#]Communicate with Motherboard Monitor
[#]Dump (Hardware registers, System BIOS, video BIOS ...)

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Multi Languages

[#]English
[#]French
[#]German
[#]Serbian
[#]Slovak
[#]Russian
[#]Greek

Use this 100% free software to learn more about your computer and its components, detect/diagnose any problems in your computer, and increase your computer's performance.

Directions for use

Install

[#]ZIP package : PC Wizard 2007 can be run directly from removable support (CD/DVD, USB Key, ...) Options are not saved.
[#]self-installing EXE package : To install PC Wizard 2007 directly on your hard drive.

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Commandline Parameters

[#]Launch PC Wizard in silent mode : no interface appears, the report is automatically created.
[#]Example : PC Wizard.exe /R T1 C3 c:reportsreport.txt /D
[#]Result : Save plain text report for Hardware Tab and Processor category only into the c:reports folder, with detailed information.

[#]To learn more, see the readme.txt file into the PC Wizard folder.

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Special Keys

[#]The F5 key allows to refresh information.
[#]The F10 key copies the current page in the clipboard.
[#]The F11 key allows to save a screenshot as a .bmp file.
[#]The F12 allows to save current benchmark results to the database.
[#]The Right Click allows to display a context menu (on graphic benchmark it allows to save graph as a bitmap).

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Special Extras
PC Wizard supports the Logitech G-Series keyboard LCD screen. To activate this function go to menu Options (Monitoring Tab )and check it. When you minimize PC Wizard window, CPU information will be displayed into the keyboard LCD screen.

Security
PC Wizard 2007 shows passwords only for your personnal goal. No sensitive data is transmetted. No sensitive data is included with any kind of report.

Remove
Go to Control Panel - Add/remove Programs and choose PC Wizard 2007. Click on Add/Remove button and follow the instructions.

Debug Mode
If PC Wizard freezes or crashs your computer, please try to :

[#]Launch application with Debug Mode (hold down the ESC key until the SplashScreen appears). A new file will be created (C:pcwdbg.log).
Please report it by sending an e-mail with this file (see Contact the authors).
[#]PC Wizard Settings shows and you can disable the detection of some components, which may cause problems.

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Some computers may have problems especially during:

[#]IDE/ATAPI device direct-access scan.
[#]SMBus scan.
[#]GPU i2C device direct-access.
[#]SuperIO/LPC sensor detection.
[#]...

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Contact the authors
If you encounter problems, bugs or incompatibilities, please report it by sending an e-mail at pcwizard@cpuid.org with a brief description.
Please try to include a Report (use Save as... or Send a message - choose Text Format) and a Dump Hardware Registers (menu Tools) when you have a problem.

New support and improvements :

[#]Chipset : nVidia nForce 520, MCP61 (P/S/V), VIA CN400-CN700-CX700-VX700.
[#]Monitor : Aspect ratio (16:10, 4:3, 5:4, 16:9) detection.
[#]Disk : Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ) and Trusted Computing features detection.
[#]HDA Codec : Conexant CXT5045, CXT5047.
[#]Internet : Anti-Phishing Filter.
[#]Operating System : CLR version, Firewall status (Domain, Standard, Public).
[#]Microsoft Application : Microsoft Windows Live OneCare.
[#]Sensor : NSC PC87365/PC87366.
[#]On Screen Display (OSD) : Processor Multi-core temperature and Processor load.
[#]Power support : UPS information.
[#]Benchmark : SSE3 instructions and "MandelBrot" fractal for Processor and MultiThreads.
[#]Language : Greek.
[#]Report : CSV (comma-separated values), and silent mode with CommandLine arguments.

Preliminary support :

[#]AMD Processor : SSE4A instructions.
[#]Intel Processor : Core 2 Duo (Merom) X7800, T770, T7500, T7300, T7100, L7500, L7300, U7600, U7500.
[#]Intel Processor : Pentium E2140, E2160 and Celeron 520, 530.
[#]Intel Processor : Core 2 Duo (Conroe) E6850, E6750, E6550, E6540, E6420, E6320, E4500, E4400.
[#]Intel Chipset : 965M (Crestline), P35/G33/G31/X38/Q35/Q33 (Bearlake).
[#]nVidia Video : Geforce 8 (G80).
[#]Sensor : ITE IT8726F, EPox EP1308.

Special support :

[#]Microsoft Vista : 64-bit.

and more...

Get it here: PC Wizard 2007

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Personally, I like it better than Everest Ultimate Edition 2007.