ATI has released version 8.8 of their Catalyst display drivers. This update is quite a bit larger than the past few updates. Here is a list of some of the new features from the release notes:

• Dynamic Gamma/Contrast correction, available on the ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series, improves video image quality by delivering more vivid color in content with sharp contrasts and scenes with low and bright images.
• Improved video presets, available for the ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 and ATI Radeon™ 4800 Series, delivers a newly optimized video presets that users
• Windows XP support: Edge enhancement, which adjusts the level of sharpness of video content and Noise Reduction, which removes ghosting artifacts while preserving details of the original video. The new slider controls can be found in the All Settings page of the Avivo Video tab found in the Catalyst™ Control Center
• Hybrid Graphics Support for Windows XP. Hybrid Graphics delivers a significant 3D performance boost for systems featuring an AMD 780G/780D integrated graphics motherboard and an ATI Radeon™ HD 3400 Series or ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 Series graphics accelerator. It also provides support for up to four independent displays

There are also countless bug fixes. Some of the games affected are Age Of Connan, Call Of Duty 4, and Crysis.

After a few weeks of hard work FrameRage finally has a layout. The graphics are thanks to the guys at WebWorx. We've also added a few pages like our about section. Stay tuned. We are hoping to be able to roll out comments, and user logins soon. We only have a few features left before we can move on to phase two.

In the wake of the recent storm brewing concerning defective NVIDIA GPUs in various laptops HP has posted it's list of affected machines. Like Dell they have also posted a BIOS update to help prevent the problem. If you own a HP laptop of any kind you should check out their support page to see if you are affected.

Creative has released an update for their X-Fi series of soundcards. The update includes some new features for Vista users:

• Dolby® Digital and DTS® decode re-established for sound cards that included decoding in their Windows XP drivers (Not applicable for products that included a 3rd party software DVD player license in the package).
• DVD-Audio playback re-established for sound cards that included the application in their Windows XP software suite (For Windows Vista 32-bit only).

The following sound cards are affected by this update

• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty® Professional Series
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi

You can find the drivers by visiting the Creative's Driver Downloads page.

Lionel Menchaca has posted on the Official Dell Blog in regards to some potential problems with dell laptops containing NVIDIA Mobile GPUs:

The issue is a weak die/packaging material set, which may fail with GPU temperature fluctuations. If your GPU fails, you may see intermittent symptoms during early stages of failure that include:

• Multiple images
• Random characters on the screen
• Lines on the screen
• No video

To battle the issue Dell has released Bios updates for several of their laptops. The update modifies the fan profile to help better regulate the temperature of the GPU. Note however that this only helps to prevent potential issues. If you are already experiencing the above issues you will have to seek help through your Dell product warranty. Below is a table of all the affected products and the link to the bios updates.

Dell Product Name	BIOS Revision	Date	Update File Name
Dell Inspiron 1420 System BIOS	A09	7/14/08	1420_A09.EXE
Latitude D630	A12	6/22/08	D630_A12.EXE
Latitude D630c	A06	7/11/08	D630CA06.EXE
Precision M2300	A07	7/11/08	M2300A07.EXE
Vostro Notebook 1310	A10	7/10/08	V1310-A10.EXE
Vostro Notebook 1400	A09	7/10/08	1400_A09.EXE
Vostro Notebook 1510	A10	7/10/08	V1510A10.EXE
Vostro Notebook 1710	A07	7/10/08	V1710A07.EXE
XPS M1330	A12	7/9/08	M1330A12.EXE
XPS M1530	A09	7/25/08	1530_A09.EXE

ATI released another new version of the Catalyst Drivers today. This update is relatively small with only a few small changes. It includes the usual fixes and performance increases, but nothing serious. One of the most notable features of the patch is improved Linux support for the following operating systems:

• Ubuntu 8.04 production support
• SLED 10 sp2 production support

NVIDIA has posted version 177.41 of it's drivers for GeForce cards specifically to support the GeForce 200 series cards. The release notes have not been posted yet, so there's not a lot of specific information on the drivers. Get the drivers now!

ATI has made a huge leap with it's it's new 8.49.7 drivers for Linux. The download looks to be an absolute must have for any Linux user with an ATI card. Check out the performance claims from the press release:

Availability of this enhanced 8.49.7 Linux driver represents a significant leap for Linux customers seeking improved performance of CAD and digital content creation applications that can offer up to approximately 33 percent faster OpenGL performance than the previous driver.

Visit ATI's drivers downloads page now!

HotHardware did a little bit of investigation and wrote a great article about cheating allegations against NVIDIA in relation to it's impressive 3dmark scores with drivers for their recently announced GPU-PhysX port. In the article they quote Mark Rein of Epic Games who had this to say:

We couldn't care less about synthetic benchmarks. Real players play real games and in this case there is a real performance gain for a large number of users playing our game. The updated drivers that people are talking about allow properly-equipped Unreal Tournament 3 players users to use some amazing UT3 content that was specifically designed to take advantage of hardware-accelerated physics. So now that content works on high-end Nvidia graphics cards, as opposed to Ageia PPUs. This is a great thing as high-end Nvidia cards number in the millions, or tens of millions, compared to Ageia PPUs which obviously numbered far, far less. So Nvidia has done a cool optimization that allows their customers to get more value and performance out of their graphics cards. How anyone could possibly confuse this for a bad thing is beyond me.

As a website dedicated to real life benchmarks we couldn't agree more. When push comes to shove all that matters is the performance you get while you're playing, and in this case it's a win-win situation for everyone.

A hotfix has popped up on ATI's customer care for the 4800 series video cards. The page doesn't provide very much information other than this:

This Hotfix improves overall performance and stability. The hotfix includes the Display Driver and Catalyst Control Center.

After only a month since the release of 8.5 ATI hasn't wasted any time in releasing version 8.6 of their display drivers. The new features of the card include:

• OpenGL Adaptive Anti-Aliasing Custom Filters support
• OpenGL CrossFireX™ (QUAD) support - 3 or 4 GPUs in CrossFire™ mode
• Catalyst Install enhancement - No reboot required after Catalyst upgrade install

Some of the performance improvements claimed by the release notes are pretty impressive. For instance, ATI claims users can see up to 35% improved performance in select maps in Call of Duty 4. This combined with some of the fixed issues make this update a must have for Call of Duty 4 players.

The GeForce 200 series cards are here, and the internet is overloaded with hardware reviews, benchmarks, and information. Here are some of my favorites:

• Official NVIDIA Press Release - The official source
• VR-Zone - Press releases from various brands.
• TweakTown - Long list of links to other reviews.
• AnandTech - All the dirty little details.
• TheInquirer - Comprehensive list of benchmarks.

EA has released the system requirements for Spore. Here's the quick information for windows users:

• 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
• 512 MB RAM
• A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• At least 6 GB of hard drive space

There are more detailed system requirements at their website, which includes supported video cards.

HardOCP has posted some excellent benchmarking numbers for the upcoming MMORPG Age of Conan. They performed an excellent array of benchmark tests that provide a clear view of how each respective video card will affect your gameplay experience. The final synopsis is this:

Performance-wise, the excellent NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT is definitely the best value in a video card for Age of Conan. You can get a 512MB EVGA GeForce 8800 GT from Newegg for $159.99 USD, or a 512MB BFGTech GeForce 8800 GT OC2 from TigerDirect for $149.99 USD after rebates, and it will give you just as good an experience as video cards costing well over $400. If you already have a GeForce 8 or 9 series, or a Radeon HD 3000 series, you are all set. But if you're looking to upgrade for Age of Conan, the GeForce 8800 GT is the video card to beat.

Wondering if your computer has the power to run Devil May Cry 4? Fileshack has posted a Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark Tool to help users find out if their PC can handle the game.

OCZ has a great solution now available for those of you that want to make a laptop yourself. The OCZ DIY Gaming Notebook features a GeForce 8600M GT video card, and is a perfect start for making a gaming laptop. Once you have the base all you need to get started is your own processor, ram, and hard drive. The best part is the base is only $669, and you can even get free shipping! Here's the specs:

Included

• 15.4" WXGA Display w/ Glossy Finish
• Intel PM965 Chipset + ICH8M
• NVIDIA GeForce? 8600M GT with 512 MB DDR2 Video Memory
• PCI-Express? 16X
• 8X DVDR/RW + 4x Dual Layer Combo drive
• Built-in HD Audio Codec
• 3D Surround sound
• Integrated Touchpad
• A4 Sized Keyboard
• 1 Lithium-Ion Battery (9 Cell)

Equipped For (Not Included):

• Intel Core? 2 Duo platform
• Up to 4GB Dual Channel DDR2-667
• 80 to 320GB 5400/7200RPM 2.5" SATA DD/SSD
• Microsoft OS (Vista or XP)

Intel's upcomming Nehalem processor has been benchmarked at VR-Zone using a 2.66GHz Bloomfield running on a X58 Tylersburg motherboard. It's CPU score came in at 16334. Not shabby at all. Visit their site for screenshots of the benchmark scores.

AMD is taking a new approach to laptop video cards with their External Graphics Platform. The platform features completely external video cards with their own cooling and power. The video cards connect to your laptop using PCI e 2.0 providing a 4Gbyte/s connection to your computer. The XGP also features ATI CrossFireX technology which provides the cards with multi-GPU scalability options. Here's the feature list:

• PCI Express® 2.0 offers more than enough horsepower for the most demanding professional graphics applications by boosting 3D graphics performance while providing fast throughput resulting in an excellent overall system performance
• ATI Avivo™ HD Technology that delivers smooth video playback and photos in high-definition format with brilliant colors and sharp images
• ATI Avivo HD technology features an enhanced version of AMD’s Unified Video Decoder (UVD) offering full hardware acceleration of video decode for smooth playback of full 1080p content from Blu-ray movies4
• Integrated Digital Outputs enable viewing standard and high-definition content on a variety of devices including HDMI with integrated audio and DVI

As you can see it's almost identical to NVIDIA's 9M platform, except that ATI's cards are external.

NVIDIA has announced a new generation of GPUs for notebook PCs called the 9M series. The press release claims a 40% increase in performance over the previous generation of notebook video cards. In addition to this the 9M series will also feature the new NVIDIA Hybrid SLI technology. This technology allows the system to use two GPUs cooperatively. One of the GPU's will be optimized for optimum energy efficiency. If the user needs to save on battery life the system can simply switch from using both GPUs to using only the energy efficient one. Here's a feature list from the press release:

• A new graphics engine that delivers up to 40% faster performance than the previous generation GeForce notebook GPUs and 10x the performance of integrated graphics solutions
• New PureVideo® HD video processing features for improved color and contrast
• Full support for the latest Blu-ray advancements including BD-Live and dual-stream video playback
• Extensive multi-display connectivity with support for all the latest display standards including DVI, HDMI 1.3, Display Port 1.1, and VGA
• Support for the new MXM version 3.0 graphics module specification

Look for them in notebooks this summer!

Thermaltake has issued a press release announcing a new mid tower computer case named the M5. The case is equipped with tool free design, as well as an optimized air flow system featuring 6 fans. The case also features all sorts of great little extras. The M5 includes filters for all the fans, and a few innovative features to improve cable management. Not to mention that the case is a great size and weight for LAN parties! Stop by their website and take a look at the product specifications.