Count me in, although the Revolution is 7.1, not 5.1.

Nope, they released the Revolution 5.1 a couple of weeks ago. Reduced the price from the 7.1, added hardware Directsound acceleration, improved the drivers. It's like a 7.1, only more gamer-oriented. I grabbed one as a gift for a friend. You can get it from Newegg.

As for hardware digital surround, I honestly don't know. It's not something I've considered, as I think sound calculations don't really suck up that much CPU time, and M-Audio makes more fundamental improvements in their cards--192Khz audio sampling in hardware, rather than Creative's 48/96Khz, for example. They also include almost every sound API in existence. Digital surround in hardware would be nice, but higher sampling rates are nicer, IMO. Also helps out in Winamp quite a bit.
This comment was edited on Sep 7, 10:18.

Okay, normally TweakTown will have some interesting stuff. Their tweak guides in particular are pretty good, and I wrung a few hundred more 3dMarks out of 3dMark 2003 with their "From Reformat To Relax" guide.

But this article is just... well, effing retarded. It's clear from the beginning that they want their SoundStorm, and they stacked the deck with some of the dumbest cards possible. Had it been a more intelligent article, they would've included something Envy-24HT based, like M-Audio's Revolution 5.1. Instead, they have to whine about their Soundstorm. Sigh.

Well, at least I know M-Audio makes quality cards.

Thanks for carrying on the ignorant American sterotypical "if you don't like it, leave" mentality. Without idiotic reminders like that, people wouldn't have the chance to realize that wealth by itself doesn't make things right. Using that logic of more and more, you support that England had a right to keep the US as a colony and ironicly European values. Good call!

Wow, unintelligble liberalism being used to justify a console hating position. Turn it down a notch and try to have some fun with these games, will you? As for choice, welcome to the market economy.

Oh, really? What "innovation" is that? The jiggling breasts in DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball?

No, more like the action-adventure of Ninja Gaiden, the presentation of Viewtiful Joe, the original, new worlds of Skies of Arcadia and Baten Kaitos, the perfection and simulation of Gran Turismo 4, the immersion and pacing of Metal Gear Solid, the teamwork and narrative of Final Fantasy Tactics (Advance) and every single Nippon Ichi game ever made, the epic Xenosaga, a little game called GTA: San Andreas, and then the perennials like Mega Man, Metroid, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Castlevania. And that's just gameplay. You could get into music and go as far back as the NES--who hasn't memorized the world 1-1 music from Super Mario Bros.? You could go to the early '90s and talk about the music wars between Streets of Rage and Final Fight. You can hit the PSone era for games like Einhander, or come to modern day for soundtracks such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra-performed Xenosaga.

Please drop the hate.

I don't play consoles because I'm not exactly a fan of the oh-so-original jumping puzzle platform.

You also seem to have NFC about what titles actually come out for consoles. Half-life and Doom 3 had more jumping platform puzzles than any console or portable game I've played in years. Another option is to simply not buy the games you don't like, or if one console is filled with games you don't like, don't buy that console. There are at least two more you can choose from.

how do I check to see if I have .net already installed or not? I have windows XP SP2

Check Windows Update. It should be available in the Windows component section, which is located between the critical updates and the hardware updates listings. It's under the title of .NET Framework.

If it's not there, it means you have it.

Um... console gamers aren't waiting for the next generation. We're waiting for the holidays. Every upcoming game I can think of is coming out this fall/winter, ranging from Phantom Brave to MGS3 to San Andreas to Suikoden IV to Wild ARMs Alter Code: F.

You might like HL: Source.

It wasn't supposed to. 0.9.3 plugs the Mozilla/IE exploit from a few weeks back. 1.0 is slated to be the major bugfix.

Quote from the article...

"But there's a stigma attached to academia, particularly among game designers and game players. In a word, academia is 'boring.'"

Those are some remarkably shallow people. Academia shouldn't be involved in games not because it's boring, but because there's absolutely no point. The closest match gaming had with other areas of life was the movie industry, and look at how THAT turned out. Do you know anyone who breaks out their SNES to load up quality games like Alien 3 and Judge Dredd?

Then again, a lot of professors are airheads--they'd go well with G4.

What the hell? Logitech makes some damn small mice in the first place. Actually, now that I think of it, everyone does. Even the MX510 is too small for my hand. Ironically, the Xbox S controller fits perfectly.

Instead of a mouse that's 2/3rds the size of current mice, how about a mouse that's 1/3 larger? I don't need the base of my palm to slide around a mouse pad, thanks.

From the shots I did see HL2 looks 100% better. DOOm3 is more of a texture effect then anything much lower poly count.

Er... Half-life 2 is all about the textures as well. Actually, most games are. Poly counts only get you so far--you have to have something to apply to their surfaces.

Am I the only one tired of seeing a rush toward polygon counts instead of texture quality? All you have to do is play any game with some kind of rocky area to get an idea of how badly we need some upgrade in texture quality. Though the rocky area example is also a nice argument for increasing environment polygon counts as well, IMO.

Ah, hell. Gimme more of both.

Despite the people here who say tweak guides in XP aren't that great, I have to disagree.

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=review&dId=324&dPage=1

I've used this guide, and Windows runs quite smoother. Gaming performance has increased by a few FPS--nothing too major, though. Still, it does help for general Windows usage.

Of course, that'll make combat against demonic creatures from hell a lot less fun, so combat troops will toss the advanced items away and make do with a simple flashlight.

ZING.

The problem with the column comes in the listing of questions:

"How do you square higher prices with President Bush's speech in March calling for 'affordable broadband' for all Americans?"

"Congress gave telephone companies $500 million to buy new equipment to comply with CALEA. Why should Internet companies not receive the same treatment? Is it because Verizon, SBC and the other former Bells have well-connected lobbying outposts in Washington, D.C.--but Vonage, 8x8 and other VoIP start-ups do not?"

"Conservative groups including Americans for Tax Reform, the Free Congress Foundation and the Rutherford Institute warn that granting your requests would 'drive up costs, impair and delay innovation, threaten privacy and force development of the latest Internet innovations offshore.' These groups share President Bush's commitment to the war on terror and backed you, John Ashcroft, when your nomination to be attorney general was foundering in the Senate. When they suggest other ways to accomplish your stated goal of protecting America, might they be right?"

I understand that the questions are simply a method of the writer making his points, but he's blaming the Justice Department for concepts and actions that it has no control over. Since when did Justice make telecommunications policy, for example? What would the Justice Department know about what lobbying group X wants, as opposed to lobbying group Y? He's blaming DoJ for things it has not done, nor has any control over. Had this been a list of "questions to ask government officials," I wouldn't have opened my mouth. Blaming Ashcroft for higher broadband prices and the distribution of the federal budget is a little off the reservation.

Missing (the magazine) Next Generation

Next Gen!? Can't believe someone misses that thing. Okay, their interviews were great, but that's about all. Their reviewers came from an alternate dimension where good games are bad, and vice versa. And their screenshots looked terrible--you could compare the same screenshot in another magazine, and somehow the other magazine's shots had 50% less jaggies, better colors, and generally looked more representative of the game itself.

Sloppy media reporting... the killings weren't over an Xbox, they were over a fight that happened earlier. Then the killers robbed the house, and the items included an Xbox.

Media templates... sigh.

Fahrenheit FBI: The temperature where intelligence burns.

One of Cnet's worst columns in a long time.

Pink... ouch. Nintendo really has no idea how to market towards women. There's a very simple method... sell Tetris. Not that crappy version you can buy right now, but a no-frills rerelease of the 1989 original, just in color. Every woman I know loves that game.

... A Japanese publisher releasing the soundtrack to a video game is news? Come on, Gamespot. You're better than that. Slow news day, perhaps?

As for The New York Times... I think there are other problems at that paper which don't involve capitalizing id. A quick reader's guide to TNYT: use the National Enquirer. As you read an article, ask yourself, "Wow, what if that's true?"