|
|
Advertisement:
|
|
OCAU News |
The Government is still not recognizing video games as an art form therefore restricting governmental rebates to game developers. Poho spotted a petition in support of this rebate. It's often been an Australian complaint that while we seem to pride ourselves in supporting "the arts", video games never seem to get the same attention. This has come to the forefront again today, following news that the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, The Hon. Helen Coonan, has dismissed a call from the Game Developers' Association of Australia (GDAA) for a 40% rebate to assist game developers and promote the growth of the industry in this country.
IGN have interviewed Rachel Bernstein, the Producer on SimCity Societies. The SimCity series is taking a slightly different tack for Societies. Player choice is a big focus, with a wealth of options available far removed from the usual decisions the series has posed. Players will now be able to steer their city's 'societal energies' to produce truly unique results; anything from an idyllic rural setting through to a thriving entertainment hub, a polluted industrial wasteland and a grimy totalitarian regime. Or a little of all the above. Development duties are being handled by Tilted Mill Entertainment, who'll no doubt be familiar to strategy fans courtesy of previous projects Children of the Nile and Caesar IV.
Michael noted some pics and specs of Microsoft's new Zune. We love a good non-mystery around here, and Microsoft's new Zunes are about as un-mysterious as they get. But we also love a good product refresh, and now that the cat's officially out of the bag we can really dig into the new Zunes, which definitely have a lot going for them. There's plenty to cover, so here's what you need to know.
Karl sent in this writeup about a flying model X-Wing. Andy Woerner and his crazy rocketeer friends have built a 21-foot long X-Wing model that can actually fly. Yes, this is a real X-Wing powered by four solid-fuel rocket engines complete with radio-controlled moving wings. It blasts off in California next week, and we talked with Andy about the project, and how they expect it will do.
HotHardware have written about the state of DX10 performance and image quality. When DirectX 10 was first introduced to the market by graphics manufacturers and subsequently supported by Windows Vista, it was generally understood that adoption by game developers was going to be more of a slow migration than a quick flip of a switch. That said, nearly a year later, the question is how far have we come? In this HotHardware article, we showcase many of the most popular DX10-capable games, like Bioshock, World In Conflict, Call of Juarez, Lost Planet, and Company of Heroes, and feature current image quality comparisons versus DX9 modes with each.
Craig saw this article about Amazon's convoluted logging off procedures. The reader was particularly bothered by what appears to be the only procedure now for logging out of an Amazon account. "Amazon offers a moronic - i.e., counterintuitive -- solution to signing out. You have to find a page on the site that has 'If you're not (your name), click here' and click on it, thereby saying you're not you. This convoluted procedure is too bizarre to be unplanned or mere Webmaster gaffe, so something's going on."
PenstarSys have posted a rundown of the upcoming graphics releases from ATI and Nvidia. Currently AMD is shipping their new HD 2900 Pro, which is a fully functional R600 chip clocked at 600 MHz. From my understanding the yields on the R600 chip have been good, but the power draw and speed bins for these parts have been the limiting factor. It is not surprising that AMD has put out the lower clocked HD 2900 Pro. They have also just released the HD 2900 GT which has a SIMD unit disabled, so it features 240 stream processors vs. the standard 320.
LegionHardware have compared the Intel X38 and P35 chipsets. The new Intel X38 and the P35 are very much alike and this comes as no real surprise. If history is anything to go by, there is no reason for the X38 chipset to be all that much better, as the 955X was really no better than the much cheaper 945P chipset. The 975X was again not really any better than the P965 chipset, so why would the X38 be a “much improved” chipset when compared to the P35.
PCMech have posted about hard drive failures. Hard drive failure is a black and white thing. If the drive is working at all, you have a drive which is about to fail and is exhibiting the above warning signs in varying degrees. Once actual failure occurs, it just doesn’t work.
They also took a look at things you can do with your webcam. I thought I would outline a list of things you can do with your webcam. Considering what you can do with it, they are a good buy. Most webcams range anywhere from around $50 to up to $100. I have two Microsoft webcams for my desktop machines. My notebook computer has one built right into the top of the screen. They really are everywhere. So, what can you use it for? Let’s take a look.
Dansdata has posted some more letters. In this edition: Shooting at satellites, XP within Vista, the Amazing Electric Man, and drying out a DS.
Return to OCAU's News Page
|
|
Advertisement:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
|
Advertisement:
|
|
|
