Crave

(Credit: Speedoflight.com)

If the gadget pictured with this item is difficult to make out, that's exactly the point. The flash ad was so fast that we were barely able to grab this screenshot.

It had been awhile since we'd seen a mystery product campaign, the latest being Sony's OLED TV, B&O's "Serenata" phone, and IBM's "Reserve Edition" ThinkPad. But we knew another would come out before too long.

This latest teaser campaign reportedly comes from game gear maker Razer to tout a new mouse called the "Salmosa." The ad can be found at Speedoflight.com and features what appears to be a mouse zooming by. That wouldn't be a huge surprise because Razer prides itself on its specialty mice in particular, though it makes plenty of other high-end gaming equipment as well.

Whatever it is, this latest product will be unveiled on March 4, according to the scant information provided on the teaser page, which includes a countdown clock but almost nothing else. But if it is indeed a mouse, it faces a huge challenge to live up to the standards of the Black Adder.

It's been six months since PC gamers have been able to get their hands on Nvidia's GeForce 8000-series of 3D graphics cards, and this week saw the launch of ATI's own Radeon HD 2900 XT. All of these cards are DirectX 10 ready, which means they'll be able to play the next-generation, Vista gaming titles as soon as they're out. Today, thanks to the DirectX 10 demo of Capcom's Lost Planet, we finally get some software to put that next-gen hardware to work.

This side-by-side compares the Xbox 360 version of Lost Planet with the forthcoming PC release.

(Credit: GameSpot)

You'll need Windows Vista, and either an Nvidia GeForce 8000 series or an ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT card to be able to try out the DX10 version of the demo (XP users, and Vista owners with older graphics cards can grab the DX9 version). ATI owners should note that the new Radeons haven't been certified on this game yet. Given that ATI's drivers are in such an early state, we wouldn't expect outstanding performance, but the good news is that it could get better as ATI's software matures. We won't be testing with this demo, as its release was basically shepherded by Nvidia in response to the launch of ATI's new card. You can find test results around the Web, though. Fairness aside, we're just glad to finally have something to try out our DX10 hardware.

We tried a brief side-by-side with the DX9 demo on one PC and the DX10 demo on another (both Nvidia-powered PCs). We weren't able to tell the difference in still shots, but the motion blur effects in the DX10 demo seemed more advanced. Our DX10 test bed, the recently reviewed Maingear X-Cube, is no budget PC, either, but it definitely showed signs of choppy frame rates, even at a modest 1280x960 resolution. A warning in the beginning of the demo says that it's not final code, so hopefully, between driver revisions and a more stable shipping game, the final experience will be smoother and less demanding. If not, it's going to be an expensive upgrade path to smooth DX10 gameplay.

ATI's new Radeon 2000-series 3D graphics cards (code-named R600) were at one point supposed to ship this January. After a few more months of fine-tuning (and plenty of Internet rumors), today brought the official launch of the 512MB Radeon HD 2900 XT. This $399 card is designed to compete directly with Nvidia's 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS, which at press time you can find for as low as $330 with rebates.

Both CNET and GameSpot will have full reviews of this card up shortly, but for now, you can check out the hard-core coverage over at HardOCP, HotHardware, and TechReport.

The takeaway from the reviews around the Web is that the Radeon HD 2900 XT is loud, requires a lot of power, and stays competitive with Nvidia as far as performance and image quality, depending on the game. We found a similar conclusion in our soon-to-be-posted review of a dual Radeon HD 2900 XT-equipped Velocity Micro desktop PC (which we rate and test differently then we would a standalone graphics card).

With no next-generation DirectX 10 games out yet and both cards' driver software still works in progress, we expect that the performance story will evolve over the next few months. We should also add that ATI has announced its mainstream Radeon HD 2400 and Radeon HD 2600 cards, to be released in June, as well as its complete line of Mobility Radeon 2000-series graphics chips. Since all of these cards and chips can decode HD video, even if Nvidia becomes the eventual 3D performance winner, there's still another battlefield on which ATI and AMD can come out on top.

We know that some of you won't balk at the $829 price tag of Nvidia's new highest-end GeForce 8800 Ultra 3D card, as long as it's the fastest thing around. With ATI's next-gen Radeon cards right around the corner, though, we'd definitely wait and take a few more laps around the money bin before springing for any high-end 3D cards today. The 8800 Ultra doesn't hit the street until May 15th, so you have a few days to think it over. But even if the Ultra card beats its soon-to-be-released competition, we have to ask if it's worth paying $125 or so more for only a 10% to 15% performance gain (according to Nvidia itself) over Nvidia's former king card, the GeForce 8800 GTX.

Nvidia's latest high-end 3D card, the Geforce 8800 Ultra

(Credit: Nvidia)

Basically an overclocked 8800 GTX, the 8800 Ultra gets its performance gains from faster core, memory, and shader clock speeds. Whereas the GTX has a 575MHz core, a 1.8GHz memory clock, and 1,350MHz for the shaders, the 8800 Ultra has 612MHz for the core, 2.16GHz memory, and a 1.5MHz shader clock. Both cards have 768MB of DDR3 SDRAM, currently the most memory we've seen on any consumer 3D card.

Nvidia didn't send a standalone 8800 Ultra for us to test, so we'll send you to the fine folks at Anandtech and PC Perspective for the full run-down of benchmark results. Their opinions from their testing mirror our own nonscientific conclusions based on the card's on-paper specs. The GeForce 8800 Ultra is indeed faster than the 8800 GTX (the former single fastest GPU), but even if you possess the financial wherewithal to shop for a near-$1,000 gaming card, we don't think it's worth the high price for what seems to be a nominal boost to 3D performance.

First Dell grabbed Alienware. Then HP picked up Voodoo PC. Today, we learn that Velocity Micro has acquired superfast PC maker Overdrive PC.

While neither Velocity Micro nor Overdrive PC may have the same name recognition as the companies involved in other recent acquisitions, this deal definitely makes the competitive landscape more interesting. The founder of Voodoo PC said earlier this spring that it's working on a game performance-oriented retail brand. That's a direct shot at Velocity Micro and its already considerable retail shelf presence.

By scooping up Overdrive PC, Velocity Micro has made a move to protect its retail standing. The reason is because it now has access to Overdrive's "Hyperclocking" technology. That term might sound like marketing language at its worst, but Overdrive's closely guarded tweaking has a history of winning Editor's Choice awards. If Velocity Micro was able to Hyperclock its retail systems, that could considerably improve the performance of its gaming systems, which retail for $2,000 to $3,000. Good for them, but more important, good for anyone in the market for such a PC.

For Overdrive PC's part, it will maintain its brand identity, but it now has access to part of Velocity Micro's production facilities. What that means for Velocity Micro's own efforts at making elite PCs remains to be seen. We expect that, for the short term, we'll continue to see its highest end Raptor Signature Edition PCs for sale. Down the road, we can't say.

If you're one of the pioneering few who picked up Ageia's PhysX game physics card, you'll soon have a game designed from the start to show it off. Best of all, you don't lose anything for trying, as CellFactor: Revolution will be available for free download on May 8.

CellFactor: Revolution promises to finally show off what a physics card can do.

(Credit: Immersion Studios)

We tried out an early tech demo of CellFactor when the Physx cards first came out, and we were impressed with how the effects offered a new way to interact with a game world (although we should add, that "DirectPhysics" component of DirectX 10 we reported on turned out to be just a rumor). Through the telekinetic-powered protagonist, we were able to toss all manner of boxes, rolling pipes, and other objects around a densely packed, small level. You can also check out PhysX accelerated effects over on Ageia's Web site.

Even if the game is terrible, we have to credit Ageia for its overall strategy. First it handed out its software development kit free to game developers, now it's giving away the first fruits of that labor. If you ask Intel, AMD, or Nvidia, they would all tell you that they don't see a need for specialized physics-processing hardware, when all of their own chips can use their off cycles to do the work. It's also sort of hard to explain the changes that improved physics can bring to gaming until you see them in action for yourself. Making it easy for people to see what it looks like for themselves is a great way to get the word out.

Ugh...looking back. And here we thought this industry was only supposed to move forward. Still, it's only fair that since we made such a stink about Dell's XPS 700 last year, we ought to give it credit for addressing one of that system's key problems, even if it is 10 months later.

If you'll recall, the Dell XPS 700 and XPS 710 shipped with Dell's own version of Nvidia's 590 SLI chipset. The Dell hardware lacked that chipset's support for BIOS-based overclocking of Intel's Core 2 Duo Extreme chips, as well as support for automatically detecting overclockable EPP memory that can further boost system performance. It also lacked certain kinds of RAID support and Intel's Virtualization technology. All bad stuff, especially since the missing features initially weren't documented as such.

Dell's XPS 700 gets some long-needed attention.

(Credit: CNET)

Ten months later, an announcement on Dell's blog says the company not only plans to remedy those issues, it's also going a step further. For one, a forthcoming BIOS update will address all of the issues above. Even better, in the coming months Dell says it will offer XPS 700 customers a free quad-core CPU-supporting motherboard, complete with on-site install service, with the option to purchase a quad-core chip at a 25 percent discount from the current price at Dell.com. XPS 710 customers who already have a quad-core CPU also will be able to get in on the motherboard exchange program.

Dell hasn't specified hardware makes and models yet because the parts it has in mind haven't been officially announced. But bringing these systems up to date retroactively is a major customer service move, and more like something we'd expect from one of the smaller boutique shops. It sounds as if Dell is finally getting the message about what it takes to compete in the high-end PC market.

(Thanks, Inquirer)

19-inch color television not included

(Credit: Erik Klooster and computermuseum.50megs.com)

Perhaps the best part about yesterday's report that we'd once again have Commmodore-branded computers on the market are the blogs that reported it, which dug up some pretty great images of the original, classic Commodore 64. Sure, we're eager to see what details come out on March 15 at CeBIT (Europe's massive annual tech show, held in Hannover, Germany), when the new Commodore Gaming PCs make their official debut. But really, what's more fun than browsing through all of the cheesy old-school console shots? We think we found a good one, but be sure to check out these others.

Nvidia's Vista driver is ready, mostly.

(Credit: Nvidia)

Good news for everyone but SLI owners. Nvidia just released a Windows Vista-certified 100.65 graphics card driver for its GeForce 8800 cards. You can find the driver on Nvidia's site. That's great for those of you running Vista and a single GeForce 8800 card. For anyone who has an Nvidia SLI mode of any flavor, you're still stuck in beta mode for now. We haven't played with the new driver yet, so we can't say just how beta the SLI support is. Nvidia's driver notes indicate that full SLI support will come in another driver update. This release brings Nvidia in line with AMD for single-card Vista graphics drivers, but neither vendor offers full support for dual graphics card configurations in Windows Vista.