GTA IV In Development for PC?

Firstly, this is bit old. Still interested? Read-on….

With so many newsbits and flying rumors about GTA IV (not to mention the hope that refuses to die!) coming to PCs, it’s hard to take anything in regards to that seriously unless it’s an official statement from Rockstar. But that doesn’t stop blood thirsty fans from doing weird things, does it?

Two people decided to annoy the customer support of 2K Games and request assistance concerning the problems they were facing while playing the *PC* version of GTA IV:

I recently downloaded your free version of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC. Despite your unique instructions on how to get it to play, it has performed great. The first person driving view is simply amazing and the Nico Bellic character really makes me feel like I’m living the storyline. So much so that I feel bad in finding something to complain about, that being the surround sound. At times the back left speaker cuts out, specially when characters like little Jacob are speaking. Also when I call 911, the automated response starts, but cuts out when I am given emergency options. I am using a Sony Vaio LT VGCLT23E all-in-one desktop, an NVIDIA Geforce processor, and the Sony sound reality with external RCA speakers. Could it be that the speakers are simply not the same Sony brand? They work perfectly with my other applications. So I have to assume it’s your game. I hope you can resolve this issue for me, your website was no help. It’s a shame the multi-player isn’t available for PC in the free version, but I can live with that, I don’t want to be picky. Thank you for any help you can provide.

Scotty C

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nVIDIA’s Roy Taylor Speaks on PC Gaming

With everyone shooting their mouth off regarding PC gaming, it’s about time the graphics card giant nVIDIA said something about it:

I think we have to face the facts - the value of consoles is such that no-one is going to make a PC-exclusive game in the future. Why would they? Why would they ignore consoles?

You can read the full interview here.

Call of Duty 4 - v1.6 Patch & FREE Map Pack

In sponsorship with nVIDIA, Infinity Ward will be releasing Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack on PC…for FREE. This is the same map pack that is available on Xbox LIVE for 800 Microsoft points. Infinity Ward will also release Patch v1.6 that fixes numerous exploits/bugs, server crash and adds support for the four new maps.

 The Variety Map Pack includes four new maps for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare multiplayer including Broadcast, Chinatown, Killhouse, and Creek.

Unreal Tournament 3: 40million pirates attempted to play online

Here’s something interesting: According to Mark Rein, CEO of Epic Games, 40million pirates have tried to play UT3 online using an invalid key.

If those 40 million players actually paid the full price, it would have been nearly $2 billion more in Epic’s pocket book. That is more than the quarterly sales results from Nvidia or AMD. To add another perspective, the government lost out as well, because no sales tax is earned on pirated copies.

Whether this number is actual or made-up just to spark interest? (due to poor sales) We’d reckon it’s the latter one. Piracy is too easy of a escapegoat nowadays.

Update: Mark Rein confirmed he never said anything about the 40mil number. Rein has no idea how TGDaily got this info. 

Mass Effect PC System Requirements Unveiled

BioWare has released the system requirements for their upcoming Action/RPG Mass Effect. Check them out below:

Mass Effect PC System Requirements:

Operating System:
Windows XP or Vista

Processor:
2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD

Memory:
1 Gigabyte Ram (XP)
2 Gigabyte Ram (Vista)

Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 6 series(6800GT or better)
ATI 1300XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)

Hard Drive Space:
12 Gigabytes

Sound Card:
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers
———-

Recommended System Requirements for Mass Effect on the PC

Operating System:
Windows XP or Vista

Processor:
2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMD

Memory:
2 Gigabyte Ram

Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or higher.
ATI X1800 XL series or higher

Hard Drive Space:
12 Gigabytes

Sound Card:
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers – 5.1 sound card recommended

———–
Additional Note from Derek French:

The Mass Effect Config program will automatically adjust your settings on first run, to attempt to give you an optimal play experience. As with all PC games, computer performance varies from system to system and adjustments can be made via the Config or through the in-game options to tailor your experience.

Race 07 Update Released

Updates to RACE 07 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

RACE 07

• Fixes for Nvidia 8800 users getting crashes
• Fix client crash on multiplayer session switch
• Fixed loading of replays (showed up as incompatible before)
• Various fixes to sun and lensflare effects
• Fixed listening position in freecam mode
• Fixed mouse pointer in replay / freecam mode
• Fixed start position of freecam
• Fixed generation of AI opponents when using custom skins
• Added automatic clutch options to realism settings
• Fixed LOD for freeflight camera
• Fix for mouse pointer getting stuck in replay browser after exiting replay when mouselook mode enabled
• Fixed various mouse look issues
• Various HUD fixes

Tim Sweeney Talks PC Gaming

Recently, Epic Games has a lot to say regarding PC gaming, but in doing so, epic always went the wrong way. We either got dimwitt console producers with stupid haircuts bad mouthing PCs or clueless and sub-par console ports . Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, creator of Unreal engine and arguably one of the most respected and admired developers around, sat down with TGDaily to discuss the current stature of PC gaming. Here’s a snip:

TG Daily: What are your thoughts on the future of the PC as a gaming platform? Is scalability the future – we hear AMD talking about Spider and Nvidia is selling Triple SLI that will keep us upgrading over the next several years. Or did the industry lose its focus?

Sweeney: PC gaming is in a weird position right now. Now, 60% of PCs on the market don’t have a workable graphics processor at all. All the Intel integrated graphics are still incapable of running any modern games. So you really have to buy a PC knowing that you’re going to play games in order to avoid being stuck with integrated graphics. This is unfortunate, and this is one of main reasons behind the decline of the PC as a gaming platform. That really has endangered high-end PC game sales. In the past, if you bought a game, it would at least work. It might not have been a great experience, but it would always work.

Full Interview after the break. Read more

nVIDIA GeForce 9 Series Pricing

NordicHardware has what they claim to be the pricing of nVIDIA’s upcoming GeForce 9 series of graphic cards. According to them, three graphic scard launches are scheduled. namely: GeForce 9800GX2, 9800GTX and GeForce 9800GTS.

GeForce 9800GX2 will be the first high-end card of GeForce 9 series and will feature 256 stream processors (twice of those found in 8800Ultra/GTX) 675MHz core and 2.0GHz memory and will be launched at March 19th retailing at $599; GeForce 9800GTX will be the mainstream high-end card and will feature 128 stream processors, 675MHz core and 2.2GHz memory and will launch on March 25th retailing for $399; GeForce 9800GTS will come clocked with 600MHz core and 1.8GHz memory. All of these cards will use 65nm manufcaturing process.

Interestingly, from what we’ve seen so far (in terms of specs) GeForce 9 series feels like a GeForce 8 rehash, rather than a incredibly technology leap nVIDIA took with GeForce 7 to GeForce 8.

by NordicHardware

Image Courtesy: NordicHardware

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures System Requirements

Official Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures site now lists the minimum and recommend PC specs required to play Age of Conan, upcoming MMORPG from Funcom.

Minimum Requirements:
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
Memory: 1GB Ram
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 compliant, nVIDIA GeForce 5800/ATI Radeon 9800 or higher
Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista (for DX10)

Recommend Requirements:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz
Memory: 2GB or more
Video Card: nVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 1GB or better
Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista (for DX10)

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nVIDIA ForceWare BETA 169.44 Driver for Crysis v1.2 Patch

If you’ve downloaded Crysis v1.2 Patch and use nVidia GeForce 6/7/8 GPU, It’s recommended to download the latest ForceWare BETA drivers. Download Links Below:

Download:
Windows XP 32-bit
Windows XP 64-bit
Windows Vista 32-bit
Windows Vista 64-bit

Size: 45MB (US english version)