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News about PC Gaming Reviews issue #1

TK — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:43:07 +0000

Xbox 360 Review – 'Darkstar One: Broken Alliance' – worthplaying.com

07/21/2010

Xbox 360 Review – 'Darkstar One: Broken Alliance'WorthPlaying.comIf you've played the original PC game, you've already played this version and shouldn't expect anything new from it more…

PC Review: Sam and Max Episode 4: Beyond The Alley of the Dolls – vg-reloaded.com

07/21/2010

Electronic TheatrePC Review: Sam and Max Episode 4: Beyond The Alley of the DollsVG-Reloaded.comAt the end of “They Stole Max's Brain”, the museum was attacked by a hoard of half-naked Sam clo more…

Is Windows Phone 7 really a "disaster?" – networkworld.com

07/21/2010

msnbc.comIs Windows Phone 7 really a "disaster?"NetworkWorld.comMicrosoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it's out of the mobile game for good. It is supposed to ship aroun more…

Casual games growing at a not-so-casual pace – msnbc.com – msnbc.msn.com

07/21/2010

msnbc.comCasual games growing at a not-so-casual pacemsnbc.comHe shared a statistic from research firm DFC Intelligence that put the number of casual PC gamers at 340 million monthly unique users toda more…

OnLive's cloud-based game service saves on equipment costs – Merced Sun-Star – mercedsunstar.com

07/21/2010

OnLive's cloud-based game service saves on equipment costsMerced Sun-StarBut OnLive is still a work in progress and comes up short in several areas when compared with console or PC gaming. Most no more…

Reader Review: Deathspank – Kotaku Australia – kotaku.com.au

07/21/2010

Reader Review: DeathspankKotaku AustraliaYes, that's right, we're now publishing reader reviews here on Kotaku. This is your chance to deliver sensible game purchasing advice to the rest of th more…

DarkStar One: Broken Alliance Review – IGN – xbox360.ign.com

07/20/2010

DarkStar One: Broken Alliance ReviewIGNDarkStar One was an entertaining, if largely repetitive, PC game that released in 2006. Fast forward four years to 2010 and the game is …and more » more…

GamePro's September cover is Alice: Madness Returns – gamepro.com

07/20/2010

GamePro.comGamePro's September cover is Alice: Madness ReturnsGamePro.comGamePro learned about the game's development by traveling thousands of miles to Shanghai to visit the team at Spicy Hor more…

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse – Ep.4: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls … – Platform Nation – platformnation.com

07/20/2010

Platform NationSam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse – Ep.4: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls …Platform NationIt has to be said that even though the review PC used for reviewing is a high end mac more…

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Surf the Web In-Game

TK — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:20:38 +0000

With PLAYXPERT, created by former Xfire users, you can download a variety of widgets that work seamlessly with the games that are supported. The widgets include a web browser, TeamSpeak, Diagnostics Tool and more. They even have a Twitter widget in case you want to brag to the world about how many frags you’re getting!

Winamp Surround Sound 5.1 Speaker Plugin

TK — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:23:50 +0000

With the VL Sound 5.1 Winamp plug-in for Windows 7 and Vista you can get your surround sound 5.1 speaker setup working perfectly. All the other plug-ins I tried made the sound terrible, or you had to pay for them. This is completely free and actually makes the sound BETTER. Don’t waste your time with the others. VL Sound 5.1

Convert animated GIF to animated PNG

TK — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:54:19 +0000

Here is a quote directly from their website:

gif2apng is a simple command-line program that converts GIF animations into Animated PNG format. It disproves the common misconception that APNG files must be huge, as it actually creates APNG files smaller than the original GIF files. The program is very easy to use.

Simply drag and drop the desired .gif ‘onto’ the .exe and it will automatically convert the file into the same directory.

Easy Upgrade to Adobe Air 2.0 Beta

TK — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:41:11 +0000

With the release of Adobe Air 2.0 beta, you can easily upgrade to the latest version without a lot of hassle. All you have to do is download the installer and it will update your current version to 2.0. Here’s a list of new features, aimed a lot towards the developers but still focusing on the end user…

Support for the detection of mass storage devices.
Advanced networking capabilities like secure sockets, UDP support, and the ability to listen on sockets.
Support for native code integration.
The ability to open a file with its default application.
Multi-touch and gesture support.
New APIs for access to raw microphone data.
Webkit update with HTML5/CSS3 support.
Global error handling.
Improved cross-platform printing
Improved security and support for enterprise and government standards.

Most everyday Windows users should probably download the Windows Runtime .exe found on this page: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air2.html – For MAC and Linux users, here’s some installation help.

EVGA GeForce 9500 GT – Mini Review

TK — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:13:47 +0000

I just bought the EVGA GeForce 9500 GT video card from Amazon and so far I’m quite impressed. For a budget video card it is quite capable of running many of the newer games, even if they do have to be set on low to medium settings [Keep in mind, this is all based on when the game was made and how graphically-detailed it was made to be]. I got it for $65 with free shipping, so you can’t beat that. I’m playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Fallout 3 without a problem what so ever. My temperatures seem to be keeping cool, and I haven’t had to adjust fan speeds. This is a great card if you don’t want to spend a lot but are looking to play some of the newer games.

Product Features

PCI Express 2.0 Support
GeForce 9500 GT with 550MHz clock
512MB 256 bit 0.8ns GDDR2 memory
800 MHz clock with 1600 MHz effective memory rate
Full DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 support

Technical Details

GPU/VPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
RAMDAC: 400 MHz
Maximum Resolution: 2560 x 1600 (Digital)
Video Memory: 512MB
Memory Type: DDR2
Memory Interface: 128-bit
Stream Processors: 32
Core Clock: 550 MHz
Memory Clock: 1000 MHz
Shader Clock: 1400 MHz

This is definitely not a card for hardcore gamers (unless you decide to run 2 at a time), but it’s also enough for mid-level gamers to enjoy some decent graphics at a great price. Plus you can watch HD quality movies on your PC or HDTV. It will eventually be put into my media/game entertainment station.

Update: Call of Duty: World at War works with this card, but I couldn’t keep the resolution too high.

Crysis works as well, but the Optimal Settings are set as Low. It will run higher for sure, but will depend on your CPU for performance. If you have a dual-core or better, you could run Medium/High settings no problem.