Joined: Dec 16, 2009
Posts: 1091
Location: North Carolina
Fermi once again gets pushed back another week?
For those who have been following the latest release date for the fermi cards ( mass distribution ) was set for april 6th; For some reason or another they have set the release date back another week; Speculations are that due to the recent changes in bios and coolers for the cards extra time is needed for each of the cards.
Intel USB 3.0 stand alone?
For those who haven't heard USB 3.0 is the newest thing since sliced bread! With speeds that completely dominate the old "2.0" this new version has yet to completely make mainstream. Due to this Intel might be working to make stand alone units. although this is all speculation of course!
Wiki ACTUALLY crashed?
Online encyclopedia Wackipedia crashed for two hours after the site's European data centre overheated. yes, yes it really did!
AMD catalyst 10.3
AMD has finally released its final Catalyst 10.3 driver with WHQL certification. The new features are pretty much the same as those in the preview driver released a week ago, but this time there are bunch of performance improvements as well. The new Catalyst 10.3 supports HD 2000, 3000, 4000 and HD 5000 series for both the Radeon ahd Mobility Radeon products.
The features that are well known from the preview driver include support for 3D Stereoscopic glasses, Display Bezel Compensation, Per-Display Color Adjust, Improved Display Configuration switching and easy toggling between cloned and extended desktop modes.
The performance improvements are mostly for ATI Radeon HD 5000 and HD 4800 series products and include games like Aliens vs. Predator, Battleforge, Devil May Cry 4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, Crysis and Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2 , and the performance is up by 2 to 10 percent in most cases. However, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X whichi is up to 15 percent faster on HD 5970 and up by 20 percent faster on HD 5800 series, while DIRT 2 is improved by 30 percent on the HD 5970 and up to 20 percent on HD 5800 and HD 5700 series.
Nvidia Drivers 197.13
Nvidia has issued a final WHQL release of its Geforce 197.13 drivers. The new driver features PhysX 9.10.0129 software version and supports all the cards ranging from Geforce 6 series to its latest 300 rebrands as well as the ION GPUs.
The new driver also updates the HD Audio driver to 1.0.9.1 version and brings performance updates for several games. All the performance improvements are compared to the v196.21 WHQL drivers and include Crysis: Warhead, H.A.W.X., Left 4 Dead and bunch of new titles including Assassin's Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Mass Effect 2 and much more. All the performance improvements are for both single and SLI setups.
The new driver also has enhanced SLI support for Metro 2033, Supreme Commander 2, Unigine Engine, and World of Warcraft, as well as Ambient Occlusion support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, NFS: Shift, Resident Evil V and other games. The Mass Effect 2 has been given an override for anti-aliasing support.
In addition to the bunch of performance improvements, the new driver aslo includes several bug fixes depending on the OS.
Blighty mocks US broadband reforms
The UK regulator has mocked the US way of encouraging broadband development saying that rules are the only way to get it to work.
In a press release OFCOM said that the availability of super-fast broadband in the UK was now ahead of most large economies where deployments have been funded commercially. In the US, AT&T and Verizon have upgraded their networks to cover 17 percent and 12 percent of households, respectively, while cable company Comcast is approaching coverage of around 35 percent of US households with super-fast cable broadband.
In other words the main countries which are currently leading in the rollout and take-up of super-fast broadband are those which have had significant government intervention to support deployment, such as Japan and South Korea. Superfast broadband is considered by Ofcom as 24Mbps and it generally refers to DOCSIS 3.0 cable systems or fiber.
It said that government line-sharing rules forced BT to unbundle last-mile copper and make it available to other ISPs. The result has been solid competition in the UK and lower prices. Across the pond however the American regulators are too scared of stepping on the shoes of big telcos who accuse it of interfering with non-existent competition.
New Siggy; What do you think?
For those who have been following the latest release date for the fermi cards ( mass distribution ) was set for april 6th; For some reason or another they have set the release date back another week; Speculations are that due to the recent changes in bios and coolers for the cards extra time is needed for each of the cards.
Intel USB 3.0 stand alone?
For those who haven't heard USB 3.0 is the newest thing since sliced bread! With speeds that completely dominate the old "2.0" this new version has yet to completely make mainstream. Due to this Intel might be working to make stand alone units. although this is all speculation of course!
Wiki ACTUALLY crashed?
Online encyclopedia Wackipedia crashed for two hours after the site's European data centre overheated. yes, yes it really did!
AMD catalyst 10.3
AMD has finally released its final Catalyst 10.3 driver with WHQL certification. The new features are pretty much the same as those in the preview driver released a week ago, but this time there are bunch of performance improvements as well. The new Catalyst 10.3 supports HD 2000, 3000, 4000 and HD 5000 series for both the Radeon ahd Mobility Radeon products.
The features that are well known from the preview driver include support for 3D Stereoscopic glasses, Display Bezel Compensation, Per-Display Color Adjust, Improved Display Configuration switching and easy toggling between cloned and extended desktop modes.
The performance improvements are mostly for ATI Radeon HD 5000 and HD 4800 series products and include games like Aliens vs. Predator, Battleforge, Devil May Cry 4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, Crysis and Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2 , and the performance is up by 2 to 10 percent in most cases. However, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X whichi is up to 15 percent faster on HD 5970 and up by 20 percent faster on HD 5800 series, while DIRT 2 is improved by 30 percent on the HD 5970 and up to 20 percent on HD 5800 and HD 5700 series.
Nvidia Drivers 197.13
Nvidia has issued a final WHQL release of its Geforce 197.13 drivers. The new driver features PhysX 9.10.0129 software version and supports all the cards ranging from Geforce 6 series to its latest 300 rebrands as well as the ION GPUs.
The new driver also updates the HD Audio driver to 1.0.9.1 version and brings performance updates for several games. All the performance improvements are compared to the v196.21 WHQL drivers and include Crysis: Warhead, H.A.W.X., Left 4 Dead and bunch of new titles including Assassin's Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Mass Effect 2 and much more. All the performance improvements are for both single and SLI setups.
The new driver also has enhanced SLI support for Metro 2033, Supreme Commander 2, Unigine Engine, and World of Warcraft, as well as Ambient Occlusion support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, NFS: Shift, Resident Evil V and other games. The Mass Effect 2 has been given an override for anti-aliasing support.
In addition to the bunch of performance improvements, the new driver aslo includes several bug fixes depending on the OS.
Blighty mocks US broadband reforms
The UK regulator has mocked the US way of encouraging broadband development saying that rules are the only way to get it to work.
In a press release OFCOM said that the availability of super-fast broadband in the UK was now ahead of most large economies where deployments have been funded commercially. In the US, AT&T and Verizon have upgraded their networks to cover 17 percent and 12 percent of households, respectively, while cable company Comcast is approaching coverage of around 35 percent of US households with super-fast cable broadband.
In other words the main countries which are currently leading in the rollout and take-up of super-fast broadband are those which have had significant government intervention to support deployment, such as Japan and South Korea. Superfast broadband is considered by Ofcom as 24Mbps and it generally refers to DOCSIS 3.0 cable systems or fiber.
It said that government line-sharing rules forced BT to unbundle last-mile copper and make it available to other ISPs. The result has been solid competition in the UK and lower prices. Across the pond however the American regulators are too scared of stepping on the shoes of big telcos who accuse it of interfering with non-existent competition.
New Siggy; What do you think?
