MotorStorm: Pacific Rift's Game Director Nigel Kershaw issued a challenge today for fans as follows:
So MotorStorm: Pacific Rift has been out a couple of weeks, and we’re all back from our vacations, rested, refreshed and ready to give you a run for your money on the online leaderboards in Time Attack.
If you’re not familiar with Time Attack in the MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, it’s a game mode where you attempt to get the best lap time possible using one of the vehicle classes on one of the 16 racetracks in the game.
It’s different than regular MotorStorm racing, as it’s just you on the track with no opponents to worry about, and it’s all about getting around the track in one piece. If you crash or manually reset the track during the course of a lap, then that time will not be uploaded to the online leaderboards.
There is a different board for each of the eight vehicle classes on each of the tracks, as well as an over... More »
There's general agreement that Sony stumbled out of the gate with the PlayStation 3. Months of intense hype were followed by a late launch (fully a year after the Xbox 360) and a staggering $600 price tag for the deluxe model.
Even worse, the PS3 didn't initially have any real must-have exclusive titles, and despite the power of its vaunted Cell processor, multiplatform games from third-party developers didn't look appreciably better than the respective titles on the Xbox 360.
Since then, the company's been modifying the PlayStation product line to better fit the competitive market landscape. As of August 2008, a new "bargain" PS3 is available with a larger, 80GB hard drive, and a "deluxe" model is due in November, doubling the capacity to 160GB.
Both, however, lack backward compatibility with PS2 games and do not come with flash card readers. If those features are a must, it might be best to pick up the 80GB "Metal Gear" bundle version on eBay w... More »
Looks like the New Xbox Experience dashboard update is experiencing some not-so-new Xbox woes. November 19: launch day for the NXE update. Not 24 hours after it went live, complaints
are already piling up.
Various forums online (such as the one linked above) have threads and threads of people reporting anything from connection freezes, slow downs, lock ups, broken TV connections, and so many other different numerical errors that, if all of them were strung together, could potentially measure all the way from Earth to the moon (and back).
There are even reports of brickage - yes, the famed red ring of death is back. Some say it's limited to modded consoles only (no surprise there) but other untainted units seem to be affected by the same problem too.
We've yet to hear any official response from Major Nelson or any of the Microsoft staff. Some say the slow downs are caused by the simple fact of surging traffic accessing XBL, but the oth... More »
Recently WiiGator has updated Wii Backup Launcher to v0.3, which allows you to play Nintendo Wii backups on your non-modded Wii console.
As always, the complete changelog is below and this update includes optimized speed, higher compatibilty, and support for loading 1:1 backups from disc channel.
Will splashing out on expensive RAM make a real difference to PC performance? And if so, how much should you buy? We supply the benchmarks and lay the details bare.
According to legend, Bill Gates once concluded that “640KB of memory ought to be enough for anyone” (a legend he’s at pains to repudiate). These days it takes more than 800 times that much RAM just to make Windows Vista work smoothly.
But as the idea takes hold that more RAM is always good, we’re increasingly seeing home systems armed with a vast 4GB of storage. Indeed, with 64-bit Vista gaining traction, we’re sure the 8GB home PC can’t be far away. Is there any need for this much memory, or is it a waste of money beyond a certain point?
This month we set out to discover the truth. Armed with a comprehensive set of benchmarks and a big stack of DIMMs, we’ve tested performance on both XP and Vista to find out how much memory you really need.
DreamStream to employ military-grade encryption to secure Royal Digital Media's new optical media format, which exceeds Blu-ray's HD capabilities.
Press Release: Los Angeles (PRWEB) - DreamStream has signed on to encrypt Royal Digital Media's new optical media format. The agreement will allow RDM to employ DreamStream's military-strength encryption in the copyright protection of their high-definition discs.
The deal marks the first time a military-grade encryption has been implemented in the copyright protection of commercial motion picture discs.
"DreamStream and RDM's technologies align perfectly, as they both rest exponentially beyond the standards currently being employed," said DreamStream's Chief Development Officer Ulf Diebel, in a statement issued at the signing in Paris.
DreamStream is the first company to implement a 2,048-bit encryption in consumer media. AES encryption, used in Sony's Blu-ray discs, relies on only a 128... More »
What’s not to like about PS3? Playing videos games, accessing PlayStation Network, intuitive firmware updates via WIFI/ LAN/Flash Media, abundance of video formats support and least but not last, most consistent and fastest loading time Blu-ray player to date.
Japanese site PhileWeb has put a 2nd generation BD recorder, a few 3rd generation Blu-Ray standalones, and the good old PS3 on test; no surprises here, PS3 once again came out on top in terms of disc loading speed.
If you have one of those older generation Blu-ray players, you know how frustrating it can be when it comes to loading BD-JAVA interactive menu. Painfully slow! The newest Sony entry level BDP-S350 and a $2,000 flagship BDP-S5000ES promise an improvement in this area, but how do the 3rd generation BD players stack up against the cell-power PS3?
Still behind... test after test PS3 has proved to be the fastest l... More »
Many users live with boot problems or re-install Windows and start again, but there is a better way. If you learn what happens during the boot process then you'll be able to diagnose and fix any issues that might arise.
The BIOS
The boot starts with your PC's BIOS, which grabs its settings from CMOS RAM before initialising your video adaptor and any expansion cards. A Power On Self Test does basic hardware checks, tests your RAM if required and usually delivers a single beep to indicate that everything is working.
If there's a problem at this point then the BIOS will display an error message or issue a number of beeps; check your motherboard manual to figure out what they might mean. If it's accessible, launch your BIOS setup program to confirm that no settings have been changed. If they have, this could mean that your motherboard's CMOS battery has failed, in which case you'll need a replacement.
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