FarCry 2 Gameplay Performance

Armed with new drivers and a total of seven different video cards, today’s FarCry 2 gameplay performance evaluation will let you know which GPU you need to get the FarCry 2 gaming experience you want.

This Gameplay Performance evaluation is Part 1 of our extensive FarCry 2 gameplay coverage. In this evaluation we focused on real-world gameplay performance and gameplay experience along with A2A testing. We have further articles planned to look at FarCry 2’s image quality, DirectX 9 versus DirectX 10 performance and image quality, as well as CrossFire and SLI performance.

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ZDNet Editorial: Blu-ray is Dead

While we may not agree with everything that was said in this editorial, we do believe that pricing Blu-ray players and movies in line with current DVDs is a smart move. Thanks to IceWeasel for the linkage.

Fire all the market research firms telling you how great it is going to be. They are playing you. Your #1 goal: market share. High volume is your only chance to earn your way out of this mess and keep some control of your distribution.

Personally, I think that if the consumer could pay the same for HD content versus SD content they would chose high-def every time. Wipe out DVD and you have the market to yourself. Am I wrong?

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[H]ard|OCP [H]otDeals

Welcome to the Monday edition of [H]ard|OCP [H]otDeals! Let’s start things off with a $40 off deal on this EVGA NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI FTW motherboard and $51 off this Sapphire Radeon 4870 and both deals come with free shipping! There are two deals for under $70 here, this KFA2 GeForce 9600GT OC is only $69.99 as is this Maxtor 500GB SATA hard drive. Get in on the deals while the getting is good! Finally, we still have a deal going on new RatPadz GS or RatPadz XT, you get $5 off + free shipping (in North America) while supplies last!

[H]ardware Round-Up

Cooling

Zalman CNPS9300 AT Heatpipe HSF @ Hardware Logic

ETC.

VIA Global Mobility Bazaar Program Launch Event @ VIArena

Memory

Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3 1333MHz @ Pro-Clockers

Motherboards

ECS X58B-A Black Series Preview @ Bit-Tech

Video

AMD's X-Video Bitstream Acceleration @ Phoronix

AMD/ATi Far Cry 2 and Stalker Clear Sky HotFix

AMD has just released a hotfix for Far Cry 2 and Stalker Clear Sky. The hotfix is available for Window XP and Windows Vista in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. The hotfix addresses the following performance issues:

Improves performance for the DirectX 9 version of Far Cry 2 on CrossFire™ compatible systems. Improves performance for the DirectX 10 version of Far Cry 2 on both single and CrossFire™ compatible systems. Improves performance for the DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 version of Stalker Clear Sky on both single and CrossFireX configurations at higher resolutions.

Consumer Group Opposes Google, Yahoo Partnership

Citing consumer privacy concerns, the U.S. Public Interest Group has sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General stating its opposition to the Yahoo, Google deal.

U.S. PIRG argued that advertisers who try to compete with Google and Yahoo, which together have more than 80 percent of the search advertising market, will be forced to collect more information on Internet users because they would not be able to compete with the market leaders on price. The result would be a loss of privacy for consumers, the group said.

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Windows 7 Taskbar And Multi-Touch Demo

You’ll need a translator to read this site but the video below is universal (second half is in English too). The multi-touch aspect of Windows 7 looks neat.

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Full FarCry 2 Performance Eval

Want to know what exactly a new video card will do for your FarCry 2 gaming experience? We show you exactly that. Please give a Digg to share this article with others!!!! Then head to the HardForum to discuss the ins and outs of FC2.

Google Phone Security Flaw Found

A team of computer security experts have found a "serious flaw" in T-Mobile G1. The researcher that found the flaw says Google has been made aware of the situation but Google claims the phone’s built-in security features would limit any danger posed by the flaw.

According to Charles Miller, one of the computer specialists who discovered the flaw, the vulnerability affected the G1's web browser. Hackers could have used the security loophole to trick G1 users into visiting a rogue website, which would in turn secretly install keystroke-logging software onto the phone. That would enable hackers to remotely monitor and record what buttons the user pressed, and could have made it easy to steal identity information, such as logins and passwords, for banking or shopping websites.

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Creepy Talking Robot Head

Robotics engineers at the University of Bristol have developed a rather creepy talking head that can mimic facial expressions. The facial expressions aren’t that good yet but the work that went into this thing is extremely impressive. I thought this speech was entertaining:

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Official Radeon HD 4850 X2 Pics

Thanks to [H] reader Edward Cabarles, we have two official pictures of the Radeon HD 4850 X2. The crew at GPUReview also has pictures of the card and some box shots as well. So all of you that were jumping for joy yesterday when you saw the spy pics we posted can now rest assured this card is real. Still no pricing info yet though.

Original Discussion

Banking Security on a USB Stick

On one hand, a USB device that bypasses your computer altogether to do your online banking sounds like a good idea. On the other hand, you wonder how long before crooks are exploiting something like this. Hopefully I am just being paranoid.

The device, which looks like a memory stick with an integrated display, creates a secure channel to a bank's online transaction server. The connection bypasses the user's PC, which could be infected with viruses and other malware that make sending financial information over the Internet unsafe.

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