[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Half-Life 2 In September?

It looks like the crew at Half Life Source have been talking to Valve’s Doug Lombardi who says the game will be gold at the end of August and on store shelves in September. Remember, this is second hand news, Doug Lombardi hasn’t confirmed this…but it does sound reasonable.

According to recent conversations we've had with Valve's Doug Lombardi, Half-Life 2 will be passed on to publisher Vivendi for final mastering and duplication within days for it's early August target. The official appearance will make store shelves sometime in mid to late September.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

ASUS P5DA2 Premium:

Platform upgraders (if that is even a word) looking into the move to an LGA775 based system should check out this Motherboards.org review of the ASUS P5DA2 Premium.

Out of all the boards I have yet received to review for the new Intel platforms, the P5AD2 Premium is the most fully featured available and leaves not much you could possibly desire as far as feature options are concerned.

Gigabyte GF 6800GT:

Legion Hardware has Gigabyte’s GeForce 6800GT strapped to the review bench for a little review action. NVIDIA’s 6800GT series of cards literally screams “6800Ultra? 6800Ultra? We don’t need no stinking Ultra”:

Overall, if it is performance you want, it is performance you will get with the Gigabyte GeForce 6800 GT. It would seem NVIDIA has now got back on track after their previous FX generation upset.

ABIT KV8 Pro VIA K8T800 Pro:

Hexus reviews the ABIT KV8 Pro VIA K8T800 Pro and comes to an all too familiar conclusion, nice board…needs a better BIOS. You can see our review here for comparison purposes.

ABIT's KV8 Pro has a lot going for it. Decent layout, a low street price, above-average audio, excellent presentation, a robust BIOS, and decent performance. That would normally propel a motherboard close to an Editor's Choice award. There's one huge stumbling block that hinders the KV8 Pro.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

RatPadz MX700 Mod:

I have seen my share of RatPadz mods over the years, I even did a RatPadz mod myself (almost 4 years ago to the day), but this one takes the cake. Not only is this mod cool, it is also practical. I give you the RatPadz MX700 mod. Thanks to Tony Frazier for pointing this one out.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

h20-Computers Pre-Modded Watercooled Case @ Guru3D - CoolerMaster Vortex Dream Review @ Pcmoddingmy

Misc:

ATi HDTV Wonder HTPC News - Bluetake Wireless Printing Solution @ Envy News - Samsung Yepp YP-T5V Digital Audio Player @ Designtechnica - Silverstone SST-FP54 VF-Display Review @ Twinsbyte - D-Link Wi-Fi & Gigabit Round-Up @ Phoronix - Icy Box IB350 HD Enclosure @ Oc Prices

Cases & Modding:

Silverstone SST-LC02 @ CoolTechZone - Silverstone Lascala LC03 HTPC Case @ HardCoreWare - Logisys Phantom Mid-Tower ATX Case @ ExtremeMHz

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Violent Video Games Blamed:

I guess it is easier to blame a video game for your son killing someone than for a parent to accept the possibility that their kid was a homicidal maniac. It is even more saddening considering you know all the warning signs were there. You know that it is bad when the kid is so far gone that even the teletubbies probably would’ve set him off but the parents are oblivious, blaming video games. Thanks to Tristan Leask for the linkage.

The parents of a boy who was murdered with a claw hammer by a friend have blamed a violent video game which the teenage killer was "obsessed" with. Warren Leblanc, 17, repeatedly stabbed 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah after luring him to a Leicester park to steal from him.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - Press Releases

NVIDIA 64-bit Demo:

NVIDIA Corporation today announced availability of a new 64-bit demonstration for NVIDIA nForce™3- and AMD Athlon™ 64 processor-based PCs and notebooks. The highly-graphical 3D demo portrays a liquid-like dancer who moves and grooves in a surreal disco world, employing specialized 64-bit instructions that respond to real-time user intervention and music MP3s.

ATi Siggraph Line-Up:

ATI Technologies Inc. is offering a great learning environment for academics and industry insiders at SIGGRAPH 2004, being held in Los Angeles, CA, August 8-12. Bringing together top industry experts on a range of important topics, ATI’s conference activities are a must-see at this year’s show. SIGGRAPH will be an impressive demonstration of ATI’s leadership in the graphics industry showcasing a wide range of industry-leading ATI products for the workstation, Mac and mobile platforms. The most exciting and dynamic booth (#1101) at this year’s show, ATI will be a hub of activity at SIGGRAPH 2004.

New Swiftech H20 Kits:

The H20-220™series liquid cooling kits are designed for near silent operations in extreme thermal load environments such as multiprocessors, thermoelectric applications, or extreme overclocking. These kits are ideally suited for wide body server chassis featuring 120mm fan ventilation. A chassis modification is required in most cases to locate the dual 120mm radiator. Other components are entirely plug-and-play. The kits' reliability factor is now enhanced compared to earlier 22600 series models thanks to the replacement of the MCP600™ pump by the new MCP650™, which features a 5 year lifetime.

[H]ardNews 12th Edition

Overclocked Segway:

[H]-reader Ed Cabarles sent me this picture and said “It had to be a Hummer 2 owner to do something like this to a Segway”. We happen to know a thing or two about Hummers around here, and I have to whole-heartedly agree…only a H2 owner would do something as crazy as this. Check this Monster-Segway out:

[H]ardNews 11th Edition

PayPal Class Action Follow-Up:

There is a follow up to the PayPal class action lawsuit we told you about awhile back. E-mails are being sent out to PayPal users who joined between 10-1999 and 01-2004 that lay out the conditions of the PayPal settlement and what to do if you qualify. The details can be found here.

You have been sent this Notice because the records of PayPal, Inc. indicate you are a current or former PayPal account holder. This means you may be eligible to receive a payment from the proposed class action settlement in the lawsuit In re PayPal Litigation, Case No. 02 1227 JF PVT, pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose. This Notice provides a summary of the terms of the proposed settlement. It also explains the lawsuit, your legal rights under the settlement, what benefits are available to you under the settlement, and how to get them.

[H]ardNews 10th Edition - Blair's Tech Ed.

MS Delays Updates:

It looks as though Microsoft has pushed back the Windows XP 64-bit version and Windows Server 2K3 SP1 to the second half of 2005. No reason was given.

Microsoft said Tuesday that it has delayed an update to its Windows Server software as well as the first version of Windows to support 64-bit x86 chips such as Advanced Micro Device's Athlon 64.

DDoS Targeted DoubleClick:

I know it may be hard to muster up any sympathy when you hear that a DDoS attack brought down DoubleClick…but a DDoS, though it may be funny, still isn’t cool.

DoubleClick Inc. suffered a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack Tuesday that knocked out its popular online ad-serving service and its own corporate Web site for several hours, the company has confirmed.

Lycos Sold At $12B Loss:

I think “OUCH” might fit this situation to a tee.

The sale price will be in the range of $95 million to $115 million, the filing states. This is a far cry from the $12.5 billion Terra paid for the Waltham, Massachusetts-based Lycos in the heady days of the Internet frenzy in May 2000.

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

More Creative DOOM 3 Patent:

There has been much discussion on this whole issue of Creative’s patent and Carmack’s comments on the issue. Most people are upset at this move by Creative, some even suggesting that the patent held by Creative could be challenged on the “prior art” basis. This post from September 2003 by NVIDIA’s Sim Dietrich lends a lot of credibility to the “prior art” argument.

Don't worry about it fellas. I described this technique publicly a few months before they filed the patent - hence Prior Art. Ironically, it was at a Creative Labs developer's forum. During my stencil buffer talk, I described doing shadow volumes the 'reverse' way. At the time, I didn't realize the major reason why the z fail method is better than the z pass method, although I did realize they were logically equivalent, which is why it's now known as 'Carmack's Reverse' and not 'Dietrich's Reverse'!

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

ABIT AA8 DuraMAX:

Hexus has the ABIT AA8 DuraMAX on the review bench today with the board getting a less than favorable review. The unfavorable aspects of the board are not the fault of the board but actually all the new technology it is built on. You can see our review here for comparison.

Based on Alderwood (i925X), it seeks to bring all that new platform loving to an enthusiast friendly board. Let's take a closer look to see how ABIT implement the new Pentium 4 platform, comparing it to Intel's own i925X board along the way.

Catalyst Tweak Guide:

TweakGuides.com has an ATi Catalyst Tweak Guide posted that may be of interest to some of you. A lot of this is common knowledge for most performance enthusiasts out there but there are a few handy tidbits for all ATi owners.

For those of you willing to get your hands a little bit dirty, you can use the official Catalysts and do your own tweaking.

MSI PCX5750-TD128 PCI-E:

The MSI PCX5750-TD128 PCI-E makes an appearance on the PCStats review bench today. This a budget card built for an emerging platform. Personally I don’t see many people spending a lot of money to upgrade motherboard, CPU, DDR only to skimp on a budget PCI-E video card. Then again, after spending all that cash….you might have to.

As a videocard, the MSI PCX5750-TD128 is one of the first PCI Express solutions out of the gate, and comes with an exceptional software package. Three full version games are included. Bundled extra's are nice, but it's the performance figures that really play out in the long run.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

Creative Pressured id Software?

In our 7th edition yesterday we posted a link to Creative’s press release claiming EAX Advanced HD Audio support in DOOM 3 which seemed somewhat odd to many people. If you reread the press release closer you will see that the wording does in fact seem a tad bit fishy. Beyond3D was the first to contact id Software for clarification and here is what John Carmack said at Beyond3D:

The patent situation well and truly sucks. We were prepared to use a two-pass algorithm that gave equivalent results at a speed hit, but we negotiated the deal with Creative so that we were able to use the zfail method without having to actually pay any cash. It was tempting to take a stand and say that our products were never going to use any advanced Creative/3dlabs products because of their position on patenting gaming software algorithms, but that would only have hurt the users. - John Carmack