It's quite a boring day today news wise, so if you are in that same state .. feel free to grab some game-demo's we just added into the download section.

 LEGO Indiana Jones Game Demo (PC)
 Spore Game Demo (PC)
 WALL-E Game Demo (PC)
 Space Siege Game Demo (PC)

Spore

It's the right thing to do we say, props to Dell for it.

Dell announced today it will offer an additional 12-month limited warranty to customers affected by failing NVIDIA GPUs. The warranty enhancement covers the following fifteen notebooks:

• Dell Precision M2300, Precision M4300, Precision M65
• Dell Inspiron 1420
• Dell Latitude D620, Latitude D630, Latitude D630c, Latitude D820, Latitude D830
• Dell Vostro 1310, Vostro 1400, Vostro 1510, Vostro 1710
• Dell XPS M1330, XPS M1530

Dell says details of the service plan will be available in the next few weeks. More info over here.

Yay ! ... finanly a new fligh-sim in our benchmark suite ? :) Atari sent out a press release announcing that it will publish Heroes over Europe, an ultra-realistic seat-of-the-pants tactical flight combat game. Heroes over Europe will be available on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2009.

The sequel to the mighty World War II flight combat game Heroes of the Pacific, Heroes over Europe takes aspiring combat pilots into the bullet-ridden heart of major World War II European air battles in glorious dogfight-friendly high definition. Heroes over Europe follows the Allied campaign from the attacks on London to the destruction of Berlin, with players under orders to strap themselves into the authentically rendered cockpits of the campaign's iconic aircraft. Their mission: to survive the most ferocious dogfights ever seen in a flight combat game.

Developed by Transmission Games (formerly IR Gurus) in Melbourne, Australia, and powered by an all-new engine, Heroes over Europe is set to raise the bar for flight combat games, with new and unique game modes, and deeper and more comprehensive online gameplay for up to 16 players. Visually, the game takes no prisoners with meticulously rendered environments including faithful recreations of London and Berlin, and ultra-realistic iconic warplanes of the era, all presented in stunning high definition graphics. With additional content available to download from launch, Heroes over Europe is scheduled for release in 2009.

Shit man, that's looking good.

A sequel to Ascaron's Sacred, Sacred 2 promises to flesh out the world of Ancaria with bigger playing fields and improved graphics. Coming soon to the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Here are some fresh looks at the upcoming action RPG, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel. The trailer mostly focuses on the updated graphics technology and new features such as combat while riding a mountable creatures. Then there are powerful spells that are enhanced through team play.

And I've got the proof to back it up. A new industry report released by IBISWorld, reveals women and older adults -- not the proverbial nerdy teenage boys -- are the new driving force behind the success of the video games industry as console manufacturers and software developers race to expand their offerings beyond the traditional action genre which has always appealed to youngsters.

According to the report: 38 percent of U.S. gamers are women and the average player is 35 years old, The average purchaser of video games is 39 years old, *4 percent of game players are aged over 50, around a third of American households have a gaming console.

Phew -- I feel so much better now :)

The percentage of female gamers has increased from 33 to 38 percent in just five years as women flock to purchase not just Nintendo's Wii Fit, but interactive group games such as Singstar, Rock Band, and Lips, as well as The Sims, The Movies, Nintendogs and NeoPets. Games targeting girls, such as Bratz Rock Angels and Dora the Explorer have also succeeded in introducing a new generation of female gamers to the console format.

"Wii Fit is the perfect example of how recent developments in game design and marketing are opening up female gamers as the potential growth market in the industry, and the fact women comprise 38 percent of game players indicates the level of growth available to the industry, as there are still very few titles designed specifically to target that demographic. Wii Fit shows the attention women can expect to receive as manufacturers and developers actively chase the female dollar," predicted Mr. Van Horn.

As the young male demographic is comprehensively served by existing game titles, and the female market is the latest focus, IBISWorld expects one of the remaining markets ripe for the picking is older gamers.

Until recently, the teenage pioneers of video games 25 years ago were under 40 years old. Today, those gamers are approaching their mid-to late- forties. In order to retain those original fans, games are being designed specifically to appeal to older players are most likely the next, and perhaps final frontier for developers and publishers to cross. This has already begun, with Nintendo's DS 'Brain Age' testing games, and IBISWorld anticipates it will continue as the industry faces a diminishing number of potential new customers in the longer-term.

"Parents also fall into the 'older gamer' category, and the sheer number of them playing games with their children is another factor driving industry growth," said Mr. Van Horn. "Some surveys (NPD) suggest that 93 percent of parents playing video games have children who are playing too. In fact, nearly half the games sold in 2006 held an 'E' rating, and with 39 the average age of a game buyer, that would suggest the Mom and Dad market is a major one."

Arts-technica reported that one of the longest running file-sharing lawsuits has come to a close, as Denise Barker and the RIAA have mutually agreed to settle a three-year-old lawsuit for $6,050. Barker has been represented by Ray Beckerman, known for his Recording Industry vs The People blog, who used the case as a platform to attack the foundations upon which the RIAA has built its legal campaign.

Barker had admitted to using KaZaA, but argued that the statutory damages sought by the RIAA were unconstitutionally excessive with damages. Instead, Beckerman argued that damages should be capped at no more than $3.50 per song

OCZ Technology Group announced the ModXStream Pro, a superior gaming-grade power supply series that offers consumers a combination of OCZ

After releasing the 2.5-inch SATA/IDE SSD (which Guru3D will review tomorrow) , Silicon-Power is expanding product lines on the emerging SSD market, today SP introduces its 1.8-inch microSATA SSD drives aimed at small laptops.

At 1.8 inches, the drive is the smallest on the market to use a microSATA interface. The new product also supports SATA I/II interface. For fulfilling customer needs in seeking cost-effective solution, the 1.8?h microSATA SSD drives use SLC NAND Flash modules, offering higher performance and reliability, and MLC NAND Flash modules respectively. The product using SLC flash memory has a read speed of 160MB/sec and a write speed of 90MB/sec. With the aforementioned high speed data transfer, the 1.8-inch microSATA SSD also features ECC function, shock resistance and vibration, enabling the operating system to work well even if it is on the move. Silicon Power 1.8-inch microSATA SSD decreases power consumption and heat when the system runs. It has thin size, light features that are especially suitable for micro-laptops.

The 1.8?h microSATA SSD with low power consumption and noise-free operation is fully compatible with RoHS requirement, with capacities ranging from 8GB to 64GB, often enough for customer needs.

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eWeek heard from AMD Senior Vice President Randy Allen that the firm will ship out its first 45nm Shanghai server processors in the fourth quarter of this year. The AMD processor is designed to compete against the Intel Nehalem processor, especially in the volume two-socket server market.

"On the eve of the Intel Developer Forum, at an Aug. 15 press conference, AMD Senior Vice President Randy Allen said these 45-nm chips will ship in the fourth quarter of 2008, which means that some of AMD's OEM partners could have early systems for sale by the end of the year.

In previous statements, AMD executives have said the first 45-nm processor products would ship in the second half of 2008. Intel has not specified when the first of its Nehalem chips for servers will ship to partners. The first of these processors will appear in high-end desktops.

But it is clear that Intel will want to counter what AMD has to offer, especially in the high-volume, two-socket server market. This could mean Nehalem-based chips for two-socket servers will appear in the fourth quarter as well.

During the press conference, Allen attempted to claim that AMD would be ready with its products before Intel, especially those chips for two- and four-socket servers. While this can be seen as a classic fear, uncertainty and doubt campaign, it at least shows that AMD feels it has overcome the problems that led to delays with the quad-core, 65-nm Opteron chip in 2007.

"They [Intel] won't be factoring our 45-nanometer Shanghai product and be making shipments of that by the end of the year," Allen said. "I think some of the questions that should be asked are, What is their [Intel's] specific schedule for their two-socket offering around Nehalem and when is that going to make its way into the four-socket platforms?"

courtesy of chip-architect

1. NCAA Football 2009 (360): 398,000 2. Wii Fit (Wii): 370,000 3. Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS): 310,000 4. Wii Play (Wii): 284,000 5. NCAA Football 2009 (PS3): 243,000 6. Soul Calibur IV (360): 219,000 7. Mario Kart Wii (Wii): 175,000 8. Rock Band (Wii): 166,000 9. Soul Calibur IV (PS3): 156,000 10. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (360): 148,000

BFG is in the house with their latest weapons of mass gaming. They recently altered something in their product line-up and released the "OCX" series of products. Typically any manufacturer has it's normal baseline product, then an OC (overclock) products and in the case of BFG, they added an "X".

Well X marks the spot, and OCX obviously is short for Overclocking eXtreme. So we picked up two of their OCX models and see what the difference is all about and have a look at their BFG 9600 GT OCX and GeForce 8800 GT OCX.

Read the article here.

HardwareOC Unreal Tournament 3 Benchmark -- Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) is a first-person shooter and online multiplayer video game by Epic Games and is the next installment of the Unreal series after Unreal Tournament 2004. The third generation Unreal Engine was designed for DirectX 9/10 PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows, and builds upon the tools available in previous versions of the engine.

System requirements

• Windows XP / VISTA
• The latest drivers for your graphics card
• v1.3 patch

Feature

• Fixed resolution from 640
  

A lot of trailers are being released at this moment. Could be related to the Games Convention in Leipzig that will start later this week, where Guru3D will be as well.

Gametrailers have posted 'Never-before-seen gameplay' trailer for Far Cry 2, upcoming first person shooter to be published by Ubisoft and is the sequel to Far Cry. The game is looking pretty hot, can't wait to test it at GC.

The first water-cooling blocks for the Radeon HD 4870 X2 can be spotted on the web. First up is Danger-Den with their R700 waterblock. It should be available pretty soon and hopefully can effectively help cool off the pair of RV770 GPUs. No word on pricing or anything else:

The second set we spotted, actually our forum admin has a serious eye on these, comes from EKWaterblocks. And I have to tell you, that's a sexy looking  waterblock for real. These should be available at the 21st of August.

Taipei, Taiwan, 15 August 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA N700 Nano-ITX board, designed as a complete solution for compact industrial PC and embedded automation devices. Featuring a 1.5GHz VIA C7 or 500MHz VIA Eden processor, the VIA EPIA N700 is the first Nano-ITX board to feature the latest VIA VX800 media system processor, offering system designers the perfect balance of ruthless miniaturization and uncompromising functionality.

Compact, yet user friendly, the VIA EPIA N700 uses additional onboard ports to make system design of compact PCs easier; two S-ATA ports, a Gigabit LAN port, a COM port, two USB 2.0 ports and a VGA port are provided, with additional COM, LVDS and IDE support available through onboard pin-headers. With the VX800 offering an integrated DX9 graphics core and excellent hardware accelerated video playback, this compact, low heat, power-efficient board is the ultimate solution for designing low heat, compact systems.

The VIA EPIA N700 is the lowest profile Nano-ITX board ever. The addition of onboard VGA, USB, COM and Gigabit network ports on this compact board helps to reduce cluttered cabling, adding improved air-flow for enhanced stability in always-on systems and a further reduced system foot-print. The VIA EPIA N700 requires only a single 4-pin power cable as its sole power source, again saving space, while the external CMOS battery allows flexible, efficient placement within the chassis.

The VIA VX800 Media System Processor
The VIA EPIA N700 is equipped with the latest VIA VX800 media system processor, an all-in-one, highly integrated digital media IGP chipset featuring the latest video, graphics and connectivity performance in a single chip. Measuring just 33x33mm, the VIA VX800 features an integrated VIA Chrome 9

Capcom released a new trailer of Bionic Commando. This action game will be available by the end of October for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. On a re3cent NVIDIA press presentation we saw a live demop, and it was pretty interesting. This game will take advantage of GPU-accelerated PhysX on NVIDIA GeForce 8 and higher graphics cards.