Red 5 CEO, Mark Kern confirmed to Shacknews that “Red 5 Studios is joining Reddit in protest of SOPA by going dark on January 18. We will be taking down our website, community site and Firefall beta for 24 hours on the 18th.”

“We are extremely disappointed in this misguided legislation. We are also ashamed of the ESA for supporting a bill which is clearly not in the best interests of gamers or the game industry. This bill, and it’s sister bill, Protect IP, will shut down live streaming, shout casting, user generated content and have a chilling effect on game innovation and social media,” he added.

On Twitter, Notch has mentioned that Minecraft.net and Mojang.com will go down next Wednesday in protest.

Nvidia voiced their opposition to SOPA on the Nvidia blog with this statement: “NVIDIA wasn’t consulted by ESA in formulating their position on SOPA. Our position is this: we oppose piracy, as it hurts our game-developer partners. However, we do not support SOPA. We don’t believe it is the right solution to the problem. We remain committed to working to address this problem in a constructive and fair manner.”

Good Old Games are also against the bill. “Will SOPA/PIPA stop piracy? No. SOPA works in a fashion similar to DRM, if you ask us: it only will have an effect on people who are, by and large, honest consumers. Pirates who torrent via P2P methods will not be inconvenienced in the least by SOPA and PIPA; people who post “let’s play” walkthroughs of video games on YouTube, though, may be.”

Runic have posted their statement on their forums. “It is clear that the scope of the proposed legislation would give unnecessarily broad power to large corporations while reducing the rights of individual citizens — and it won’t even stop software piracy,” they say.

Trine 2 developers, Frozenbyte, have also announced their opposition to SOPA in this video.

The names above join a growing list of companies opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act, including the MLG, Epic, Trion, Riot Games, 38 Studios, Nival and more. We think it will be a disaster for gaming communities, the games media and beyond. If you’re based in the US, you can show your opposition to the bill by contacting your local representative.

Zotac, Inno3D, EVGA, Palit, Gainward, ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI will all have their own spins on the 560Ti 448 for sale, with prices starting at around £240/$289. That compares to about £180/$240 for a standard GTX 560Ti, the likes of which we recommend in the current PC Gamer Rig.

Should you grab one while you can?

Your first impression might be that NVIDIA isn’t doing itself any favours with the naming conventions here. There’s already at least three different versions of the 560 out there, namely the GTX 560, GTX 560Ti 1GB and GTX 560Ti 2GB. What’s a ’448 Edition’ when it’s at home any way?

The extra suffix refers to the number of shader cores on the chip: a standard GTX 560 Ti has 384 unified shaders, and this new limited edition has 448. The default clockspeed on the new card is slightly slower, 732MHz compared to 822MHz for a 560Ti, but the extra processing grunt means that the 448 Edition should be a bit faster when it comes to high resolution displays, anti-aliasing and DX11 effects like tessellation.

The key difference, however, is that the 448 Edition is built using NVIDIA’s GF110 chip rather than the GF114. The GF110 is the same core that’s used on its highest end GTX580 cards, which has 512 shader cores. The GTX 560Ti 448 is, like the 480 core GTX 570, simply one of those chips that has had a number of cores disabled, because they didn’t meet the grade for the highest performing boards.

This is standard practice for all types of chip, not just graphics cards, and is likely a sign that NVIDIA has built up a large stockpile of these processors which it wants to clear before it’s next big launch, codenamed Kepler.

It’s been stressed to us that the new 560 Ti 448 isn’t a replacement for any existing chip, hence the high price point compared to a standard 560 Ti. Unless a customised BIOS which allows you turn on some of those disabled cores becomes available, it’s unlikely that the 448 will change our recommendation for the PC Gamer Rig.

Here’s what the web has to say about the new chip:

Ryan over at Anandtech quite likes it, but reckons you’re better off with the cheaper Radeon HD6950.

Dave at TechRadar gives an ASUS special edition 3.5/5, arguing it’s not bad if you’re prepared to overclock it manually.

At Hexus, Parm can’t quite get over disappointment with the name, but thinks that prices will drop soon to around £200. Which would be nice.

As ever, I’ll fill in our thoughts once I’ve had chance to review a GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Edition thoroughly.

The Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 ambient occlusion settings can be turned on via the Nvidia control panel. You’ll find instructions on how to enable the advanced shadowing effect on the Nvidia site where the new beta are now available to download. You’ll find the full release notes below.

NVIDIA Ambient Occlusion

• Adds NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
• Adds NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

 
NVIDIA PhysX

• Updates PhysX System Software to version 9.11.1107 for the best PhysX experience in Batman: Arkham City.

 
NVIDIA Surround

• Enables NVIDIA Surround support for Intel X79 SLI-certified motherboards.

 
NVIDIA SLI

• Added or updated SLI profiles for Crysis 2, Heroes and Generals, Inversion, Stronghold 3, and Syndicate.

 
3D Vision

• Adds support for 3D Vision over native DisplayPort 1.1 connection – available on BenQ XL2420T and BenQ XL2420TX monitors.
• Added or updated the following 3D Vision game profiles:
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Rated Good
  • Cang Sheng – Rated Good
  • Diablo 3 – Rated Good
  • Fei fei – Rated Good
  • Final Combat – Rated Good
  • L.A. Noire – Updated Rating To 3D Vision Ready
  • LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – Rated Fair
  • Qian Nv You Hun Online – Rated Good
  • QQ Xi You – Rated Good
  • Sonic Generations – Rated Good
  • Xian Tu – Rated Good
  • Yong Bing Tian Xia Online – Rated Good

   

HD Audio

• Updates HD Audio driver to version 1.3.9.0.

 
Bug Fixes

• Fixes random flickering as Windows boot logo is loading or fading away.
• Fixes corruption in Crysis 2 with SLI and lower quality shadow settings.
• Fixes ability to set Surround resolutions to 5760×1080 using custom resolutions.
• Fixes some random instances of triangular artifacts when playing Battlefield 3.
• Fixes corruption and flickering of some objects in Battlefield 3 in the New York single-player level when anti-aliasing is enabled.
• Fixes corruption seen in Settlers 7 with the NVIDIA 275.33 drivers.
• Fixes playback of videos or live TV using Window Media Center resulting in a black screen.
• Fixes the issue where 1920×1080 @60Hz PC resolution mode switched down to @59Hz.
• Fixes mouse cursor flickering and shaking in Crysis 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Deus Ex and Civilization V when SLI is enabled when using 3DTV Play.

Of course, it also helps that a lot of new PCs were sold to first time buyers in China and other emerging markets, but things are looking good for a company which many had thought would be threatened by the ubiquity of hybrid CPU/GPUs. Interim Chief Financial Officer Karen Burns made a point of the fact that growth in discrete card sales has more than compensated for loss of business in integrated chips.

With rumours starting to appear that the company is hoping to have it’s next GeForce revision – codenamed Kepler – in shops in time for Christmas it could be a very happy new year for executive bonuses in Santa Clara.

Before booting up Battlefield 3, you’ll also want to make sure that your Origin client is updated. For more on getting your PC ready for Battlefield 3, check out our guide to the tech you’ll need to run it smoothly.

The current crop of 3D Vision cards and drivers are already more than competent at adding a second camera angle to games, and work with pretty much any DirectX game. For 3D Vision 2, then, NVIDIA have focussed on the supporting hardware.

For starters, there’s a new set of active shutter glasses, with larger lenses for larger screens and a new, apparently more comfortable, frame. The new lenses are also better at blocking out light, which should make it less likely that you see left eye pictures in your right eye and vice versa.

Perhaps more interesting is a new feature for monitors called 3D LightBoost. This ups the brightness and contrast levels, in order to overcome the fact then when you look through the dark lenses of a pair of 3D glasses, everything goes, well, a bit dark. The new spec also covers better antighosting.

I’ve unknowingly tested one of these screens in the last week, on the Toshiba X770 laptop which was sent in for a group test appearing next month. While I’m still not personally sold on 3D, it is probably the best laptop screen I’ve ever used for 2D – especially on a 17inch machine.

Other screens which will support 3D Vision 2 and 3D LightBoost include the 27inch ASUS VG278H.

Is 3D there yet? NVIDIA’s general manager of 3D Vision, Phil Eisner, reckons that people who have the hardware use it stereoscopically about 50% of the time, and that there are 60 plus screens and laptops which support 3D Vision on sale.

My concern is that the new 3D Vision 2 spec doesn’t cover graphics hardware – and Eisner says there are no plans to in the future either. In his place, I’d consider that just as important as getting the screens right.

The reason is that there’s a trend with gaming laptops at the moment for manufacturers to kit out machines with expensive screens and glasses, and then use a second tier GPUs to keep the price down. Like putting a GeForce GTX 560M in a £1,500-ish laptop, when AMD’s Mobility Radeon HD6990 is available in competitors for the same price. In my experience so far, the GTX 560M is not a chip which can produce playable framerates consistently in native resolutions with 3D on. The worry would be that if anyone is buying a laptop specifically for 3D gaming (does such a person exist?) they’re going to find it hard to get games running smoohtly, and be put off the technology for several more revisions.

At this stage, where the technology is way ahead of consumer demand, it would make more sense to ensure the best possible experience at the expense of getting the 3D Vision logo onto everything. That’s my two penn’orth, anyway.

Like it or not, though, 3D is here to stay and with near ubiquitous hardware and software compatibility it’s likely just a matter of time before everything is 3D compatible. And if things like 3D LightBoost benefit us all, maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

NVIDIA says there are over 550 current PC games compatible with the 3D Vision and 3D Vision 2, by virtue of the fact it works with almost any DirectX software. They’re doing all they can to ensure new releases are supported at launch too, so Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and LA Noire will (should) all work with your 3D specs straight away.

No? That’s what we thought—but we, and the good folk at Corsair, are here to make sure you never have to endure the shame of admitting that you’ve never been to a BYOC LAN event on an aircraft carrier ever again. Read on to find out how!

Update: Winners have been drawn!

On October 14 to 16, Nvidia will hold its GeForce LAN 6 event aboard the USS Hornet, anchored in Alameda, California. 10 lucky readers will board the ship (standard BYOC admission, $80 value), armed with their gaming PCs, and play to their hearts’ content.

Regardless of whether our 10 LAN warriors win the raffle they’re automatically entered in, they’ll all walk away with their choice of three Corsair Vengeance gaming headsets: the Vengeance 1100, 1300, or 1500.

To enter, email contests@pcgamer.com with “All aboard!” in the subject line, and include your full name in the body. This giveaway is US only – but if you’ll be visiting California next week, feel free to enter! We’ll draw 10 winners at random on Wednesday, October 12, and notify winners by email. You’ll be able to pick up your tickets at the event, and you’ll leave with your headset.

Good luck!

Update: To clarify, travel and accommodations are NOT included. Winners will receive free admission and the perks that come with it, but you have to get there on your own.

Congratulations to our winners
Chris Cardonne
Hudson Shires
David Marlene
Jayson Garner
Nathan Mastrocovo
Jon Shirey
Ryan Veach
Jack Gallagher
Chris Larson
Stephen Austin

While not at all game related, it is has been interesting to look at techniques involved in one experiment for 3D storytelling that’s taken place in Spitalfields Market, London, this week. Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), an NGO which sponsors doctors and hospital workers in crisis regions and the developing world, teamed up with NVIDIA and one of the best photojournalism outfits around to create a short piece of 3D photojournalism about one of their midwives in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Why I think this is important for PCG readers is that it’s about what 3D can do to improve an already great story. From a film making perspective, we’re still waiting for 3D movies to have their ‘Hitchcock moment’, when the technology is used to create a more compelling narrative than could ever have done before. Right now, the common complaint about 3D movies is that story has become subservient to the effect rather than the other way around: in many big budget films plot mechanics often seem to exist purely for something to be thrown dramatically out towards the audience.

The argument takes a slightly different form in games production. Games are created in fully 3D worlds, so applying stereoscopic camera angles is technically trivial. But should more effort be spent making sequences that are designed to be watched in 3D, rather than simply letting the graphics card drivers do their bit and let the ‘moments’ come from being in a more immersive world?

Sony made the bold claim a couple of days ago that gamers can improve their scores by using 3D screens. Others reckon that the effect often looks forced and distracting, like cardboard cutout scenery at the local am dram panto. Personally, I struggle with 3D because its unreliable and has innately high barriers to enjoyment – cost of kit and the necessity of wearing glasses being the obvious ones.

So the question is, how does 3D move beyond gimmickry and become an integral part of the storytelling mechanic?

Which is why, even though it’s not about games, NVIDIA’s latest application of its 3D Vision technology is worth looking at – it’s a story in its purest form. The MSF installation was shot by a photographers from duckrabbit (one of the best multimedia/editorial agencies in the world whose blog is required reading if you care at all about photography) using a Fuji W3. NVIDIA has donated PCs, screens and glasses for public showings of the film, and for the last six days MSF volunteers have been encouraging passers-by at Spitalfields Market in London to view it. 2D and 3D versions of the pics are being hosted over on NVIDIA’s 3D Vision site, and there’ll be a 3D version of the film up there soon too. In the meantime, you can watch the same film in 2D over at MSF’s pages.

What I found interesting is that it was the scenes directors and producers would expect to work well in 3D which felt a bit flat – cars splashing through water and people standing looking at the camera feel a little bit artificial. Where the 3D was most powerful was where it added something to the drama – forcing you to really focus on the baby or face which was closer to the camera than the team of surgeons behind it, for example. Where the stereoscopy brings out an element of the story that might otherwise be missed – and that’s a lesson anyone working in 3D can learn.

It reminded me of something mentioned at a recent round table hosted by Alienware on the subject – that there’s an art to 3D which is waiting to be mastered by someone, but no-one’s sure who just yet.

Which is exactly why you should look at the best examples of this emerging form where ever they come from.

Plus, it’s a great film and a worthy cause, of course.

So will a top of the range Nvidia GTX580 do the trick? Apparently not. Matros revealed that we’ll need two 580s in SLI to make the most of the Frostbite 2 engine. The minimum system specifications may not be too punishing, but for those who want to see Battlefield 3 at its very best, a hefty upgrade may needed. Battlefield 3 may well be worth the expense. Would you be tempted to upgrade?

That’s according to a report over at Techgage, which says that the claims were made during a conference call with analysts yesterday.

The figures come from research firm DFC Intelligence, and appear to relate to the US only – a couple of weeks ago the same firm produced a report which said global online sales alone are worth $19.3bn in 2010, compared to the $15bn total for PC software in the graph above.

Before we get too excited, though, a lot of the money that’s being talked about isn’t from retail sales or even digital downloads – PC gaming in the traditional sense is not going to be a bigger market than all the consoles combined any time soon. Rather it’s a reflection of booming growth in free-to-play models and microtransactions for Facebook games et al – which won’t sell many graphics cards.

It doesn’t include smartphones and tablet games, however, but does reflect DFC’s belief that by 2013 online games sales and new business models will surpass sales of retail software.

The one thing that is worth taking away from this is that publishers might want to reconsider creating unique IP for PC games again.

(Via PCPer.com)

What makes this interesting is that many commentators – myself included – have speculated on NVIDIA’s future in the PC market. With AMD and Intel bundling GPUs onto their CPU silicon, the question over what happens to specialists in discrete graphics cards has hung heavy over their heads.

According to NVIDIA’s statement, though, it’s had a particularly good quarter because of Sandy Bridge. There’s a lot of demand for machines with a second GPU that can switch on to power games, apparently.

This could change in the future, of course, as hybrid chips get better over time. But then there’s NVIDIA’s own Project Denver, which will see it produce a desktop CPU and GPU hybrid itself, probably in time for Windows 8.

There’s more figures at EE Times, and the report itself can be downloaded here.

Both are pretty high end processors: the 580M is slated to make its first appearance in Alienware’s giant M18x and is the company’s fastest current mobile chip. It has 384 unified shaders and a base clockspeed of 620MHz, while the 570M is slightly lower power with 336 cores ticking over at 535MHz – although actual speeds can be tuned by the laptop manufacturer.

They don’t look like a massive upgrade to the older GeForce GTX 485M and its ilk, although NVIDIA is claiming a 20% increase in framerates across the board. Worth keeping an eye on though.

PCG: If you were to buy a graphics card right now, what would you get?

John Carmack: Let me caution this by saying that this is not necessarily a benchmarked result. We’ve had closer relationships with Nvidia over the years, and my systems have had Nvidia cards in them for generations. We have more personal ties with Nvidia. As I understand it, ATI/AMD cards are winning a lot of the benchmarks right now for when you straight-out make synthetic benchmarks for things like that, but our games do get more hands-on polish time on the Nvidia side of things.

Nvidia does have a stronger dev-relations team. I can always drop an email for an obscure question. So its more of a socio-cultural decision there rather than a raw “Which hardware is better.” Although that does feed back into it, when you’ve got the dev-relation team that is deeply intertwined with the development studio. That tends to make your hardware, in some cases, come out better than what it truly is, because it’s got more of the software side behind it.

Carmack also weighs in on medieval weaponry: twisted swords win.

You almost can’t make a bad decision with graphics cards nowadays. Any of the add-in cards from AMD or Nvidia are all insanely powerful. The only thing that’s still lacking—and it’s changing—is the integrated graphics parts. Rage executes on an Intel integrated graphics part, but it isn’t something you’d want to run it on right now. But even that’s going to be changing with the upcoming generations of things.

I mean, the latest integrated graphics parts probably are more powerful in many ways than the consoles. If they gave us the same low-level of access, coupled with the much more powerful CPUs, we could do good stuff there. Of course, that’s the worrisome large-scale industry dynamic there, where as integrated parts become “good enough,” it’s got to make life really scary for Nvidia on there. If it went that way to its logical conclusion, where Intel parts were good enough and Nvidia was pinched enough not to be able to do the continuous R&D, that would be an unfortunate thing for the industry.

To some degree, it seems almost inevitable where the world of multi-hundred-dollar add-in cards are doing something that’s being done pretty well by an on-die chip. Not right now, maybe not next year, but it’s hard to imagine a world five years from now where you don’t have competent graphics on every CPU die.

PC gamers with access to an Nvidia GeForce graphics card, the 3D Vision kit and a 3D capable monitor will be able to play Epic’s insane shooter in brain-bending 3D-o-vision come February 22.

Developer Cliff Bleszinski may be living in hope that this PC exclusive feature could cheer up PC gamers after he made them ‘grumpy’ by tweeting that the Bulletstorm demo would only be available on consoles.

So does this make up for the lack of a PC demo? Let us know in the comments.

The price of the card hasn’t been announced yet but it’s due to be released in the UK soon. You’ll find more details on the card on the KFA2 site. One thing’s for certain, it’s a pretty odd use of wireless technology. Can anybody think of a use for this thing?

[via TheInquirer]

1. Razer Hydra motion controls and Portal 2

Razer have created their own precision motion controller for the PC. It’s called the Hydra, and like the Ninendo Wii controller, it consists of two handheld controllers linked by a cable, the movements of which can be recognised by a device that sits on your desktop and projects a six foot wide electromagnetic field. The controller will come bundled with a special copy of Portal 2 that will contain an extra level pack specifically designed to make use of the Hydra’s abilities. The controller allows the player to pick up, stretch and distort special blocks to solve the game’s puzzles. Here’s Progaming’s video showing one of the new Portal 2 levels being demoed with the Hydra.

2. Intel’s Sandy Bridge processor

It wasn’t just the Razer Hydra that featured Valve’s input at this year’s CES. Valve CEO Gabe Newell gave a presentation singing the praises of Intel’s new ‘Sandy Bridge’ processor. It’s a CPU with built in graphics card capabilities. At the moment it’s not powerful enough to make graphics cards redundant, but it’s an interesting glimpse of a possible future in which integrated graphics technology outshines separate GFX components. Newell says that Portal 2 has been specifically optimised to work with the Sandy Bridge technology.

3. PrimeSense Wavi Xtion motion sensor camera

PrimeSense are the company responsible for much of the depth sensing technology in Microsoft’s motion sensing Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360. They’ve teamed up with ASUS to create the Wavi Xtion motion sensing camera, which has been designed for use with the PC. The device is due to be released in February along with the Xtion Pro Developer Kit, which should give Kinect hackers a more powerful alternative to the Microsoft camera. The twist to the Wavi Xtion is that it comes with a pair of boxes that wirelessly stream data between your PC and your TV, letting you play games on your TV powered by the hardware in your desktop computer.

4. Razer Switchblade

One of the best gadgets to be unveiled at CES 2011 was the prototype for Razer’s Switchblade notebook. It features a multi-touch screen and an adaptive keyboard that changes depending on the game or application you’re running. The Intel Atom processor within is powerful enough to run games, but flexible enough for multimedia activities like watching films or browsing the web. Check out the video below for an overview, or the official Razer site for more information.

5. Nvidia 3D monitor

Nvidia announced a new 3D PC monitor, the Lenovo L2363d. The 23 inch screen can display 3D images at 1920 x 1080 resolution and even comes with a built in, dual lens 3D camera that can capture 3D stills and film, and even allows for 3D video chat. Unfortunately, you’ll still need the special glasses to enjoy the 3D effect, and price details are yet to be announced.

TL;DR?

“Fermi – the real Fermi – has arrived. It’s still pricey and power hungry, but quieter and performs much better. We’re looking forward to checking out retail cards, but for now, the fully operational GTX 580 should delight gamers with deep pockets.”

“Built on a cut-down version of Nvidia’s high-end, DirectX 11 GPU, this card posted eyebrow-raising benchmarks, pretty much putting it into a class of its own.”

Click here to read the full review and benchmark tests.

UAC: good or bad?

I was having an argument about the benefits of UAC in Windows Vista/7, I am of the opinion that it does a good job and anyone turning it off is asking for trouble. I compared not using it to logging in as root on Linux for everyday use. Could you clear this up please.

jon_hill987

PCG: Like most people, I’ve come full circle on this one. When Vista launched, UAC was a good idea poorly executed. It prevents programs from installing or altering system files without explicit approval from the user and helps to stop you accidentally installing malware on your system, so it’s a good thing. But because it popped up so many times and needed so many clicks to clear, turning it off and relying on firewalls and AV for security was enough for me.

Under Windows 7, it’s far less intrusive so I leave it on all the time. But it still bounces up more often than, say, Ubuntu’s root prompt. Why? Because Windows doesn’t make the same strong distinctions between user and root space as Linux. For example, logic says an app like Core Temp which reads CPU sensors shouldn’t need to access UAC protected areas every time it’s run. But because of the way Windows is constructed, it does. On the other hand, there are a good many Linux apps which are buggy because they don’t have root access – if you want to use the GUI to change a graphics driver setting, for example. So there’s no perfect solution just yet.

Why don’t graphics chips cook?

My question isn’t really anything serious, more of a curiosity. I was wondering why a GPU’s thermal rating is always so much higher than a CPU? For instance, Nvidia’s new Fermi cards will safely run at temps above 90C without breaking a sweat! Nvidia even lists the maximum temp at 105C on their website.While at the same time, even the most adventurous overclocker won’t push a CPU’s temps much above 70C under load. Why is that? It just seems like there shouldn’t be that large of a discrepancy.

Makius

PCG: Good question. There are differences in the way that the two types of processor are manufactured which affect performance at temperature, but I put the fundamental part of the question to Lars Weinand, Senior Technical Marketing Manager at NVIDIA.

“A CPU is much more error critical than a GPU running graphics,” he explained, “For example, if the CPU gives a wrong value when running something as ‘simple’ as Excel, then the whole OS can crash whereas a slightly wrong pixel colour when a GPU is pushing out millions upon millions of pixels at once does not cause a game to crash. This is simplifying things, but the end result is that a GPU has a much higher thermal range. Also, half of the die space on the CPU is dedicated to cache and its few cores have long pipelines which creates hotspots where heat builds up. On a GPU the heat is shared over a larger die area hence GPUs having a higher heat threshold.”

Giving it the boot

At reboot, or normal boot-up, I come to a black and white screen with roughly the words “Boot error, please insert disc and hit Enter.” So essentially, it again does not bring me to the “which OS do you want screen”, just this new screen. So, I put in the Win 7 disc, and did a hard reboot. As expected, after reboot, the next words to come up were “Hit any key to boot from CD or DVD…”, but to test things, I hit NO KEY. I let it pass. Guess what? The two choices screen came up! “Earlier version of Windows, or Windows 7″. Very perplexed, I chose Win 7, and it boots up no problem. So, to test it out again, I took out the 7 DVD, and rebooted. Wham, same problem black and white screen: “Boot error, please insert disc and hit Enter”. So I did, but this time I DID hit a key, went into 7 setup, and tried the “Win 7 repair startup” option, and rebooted w/out the disc and tried it again; again, SAME “boot error” message! But when I put the Win 7 disc in, hard reboot, let it come back up, display the “Hit any key to boot from DVD” and I SKIP THIS (hitting no key), it then goes to the “correct” screen of offering me two choices. I hit Win 7 every time, and it boots up fine.

The_Terminator

PCG: The_Terminator’s question comes from our excellent new tech forum which is well worth checking out as a first point of call for your problems. There’s some more background to the issue and some excellent advice for repairing damage to the Master Boot Record (MBR) of a damaged Windows installation. I think there may be a simpler solution, though. It sounds as if the hard drive order got swapped around during a BIOS flash. Even though nothing has changed physically, if your XP hard drive has been set ahead of the Windows 7 one in the Boot Order, it would account for nearly all the problems you describe here.

Nvidia’s DirectX 11-capable graphics processors, codenamed Fermi, have finally arrived. The Fermi core, also known as GF100, at last pushes Nvidia beyond the first unified shader design it used with the 8800 series almost four years ago.

Fermi is Nvidia's first DirectX 11 card.

Individual processing units now come in groups of 32, each of which has four texturing units along with ‘Polymorph Engine’ logic support for DX11’s cool new tessellation effects. Beyond that there’s a massive 48 ROP (raster operation) units for post-processing and anti-aliasing.
In comparison to the current top-end GeForce GTX 285, the GTX 480 has twice the number of unified shader processors (480) and over three billion transistors, compared to 14,000 for the GTX285.

It’s a massive step up in performance. The GTX 480 is the fastest single GPU card available today, and despite what you may have heard about power consumption, we had no problems running it in the current PC Gamer rig with its 600W PSU. It does require both an eight pin and a six pin molex, though.
Is it worth the money? If you’re putting together a multi-monitor rig and want a single card that will play at obscene resolutions, then it may be your best choice. If you’re using one screen, it’s hard to argue that the performance is worth the £100 premium over an AMD rival.

There’s a stronger case for the GTX480 if you’re looking at the latest DirectX 11 scores. On the evidence of these benchmarks (most notably the Unigene Heaven test) the gap between Nvidia and the current Radeon cards grows when new effects like tessellation are turned on.

Whether or not you need the power the GTX480 can produce is questionable, but the fact that this is the first card to appear in a long while with a 20% performance lead over its closest competitor is something you have to credit Nvidia for. Even if you buy its cheaper cousin, the GTX470, which we’ll review next month.

Adam Oxford