More 8800 GTS cards on the way

Graphics giants go head to head on naming strategies, reports Fellacia Smoothly

In an industry where regular changes in branding are the norm, it’s great to see a company making a stand. The passing of legendary product names is always tinged with sadness, so Nvidia has decided enough is enough. From now and forever more, the company’s flagship graphics will be called the GeForce 8800GTS.

‘Our strategy of releasing entirely different products with the same name has already met with considerable industry approval’, explained Nvidia’s Madam Coat at the launch of the second version of GeForce 8800GTS in November. ‘It reassures the buying public that the product they purchase now will never become obsolete, except in its underlying technology.’

Nvidia plans to release a new product every day for the next year, although many will just re-establish popular brands of the past, such as the forthcoming GeForce 7800GTX and GeForce 4 Ti, which are the same as the 8800GTS. Mainstream and budget models will also receive classic model names of bygone eras, with a cut-down version of G92 imminent, to be called the 6600GT, and another identical card named the Riva TNT 2 on the roadmap.

But Nvidia’s main competitor, ATI, will be taking a radically different strategy. It plans to add 1000 to every range it launches, irregardless of whether it’s a new product line or not. The latest Radeon HD 3000 will be followed next month with the Radeon HD 4000 series, also using the same RV670 GPU. ATI intends to release products based on RV670 until 2037, by which time they will be called the Radeon HD 363,000 series.

Christmas game wars

Latvian blockbusters could outsell Halo 3, reports Benjamin Meister-Chef

Just when it looked like Halo 3 was the ultimate game of 2007, its ascendancy could already be under threat. A slew of new titles from Latvian developer Spongy Studios will be arriving just in time to take Christmas by storm.


Spongy’s first volley will be Puritan Territory: Quaker Wars, another title using the Dumb 3 engine. This innovative Enormously Multiplayer Online Role-Playing First-Person Real-Time Strategy Shooter (EMORPFPRTSS) gives you the choice of two teams. The Global Persecution Force gets powerful guns but must stay within the Old World. Alternatively, you can join one of the five classes of Puritan, none of which are allowed to use weapons, but have the ability to run away to the New World.

Based on the HP Sauce engine, TIM Fortress 2 is also shaping up to be a classic. You must defend yourself against the evil Netburst aliens, . It’s a challenging game, and will focus on personalised single-player action (PSPA) rather than online play.

‘There’s no “I” in “Team”, but there is in “TIM”’, explained Spongy’s Rodrigo Tarmac.

HellCatflap Ibiza is set in a post-apocalyptic Spanish holiday resort, which has been invaded by drunken English tourists. In this role-playing game with first-person shooter elements (RPGWFPSE), you play a Spanish shopkeeper trying to defend the tranquillity of the island from marauding British demons. The action is set to a heady dance remix by Pete Tong, and comes with a free six-pack of lager.

Spongy has even created a special Yuletide episode of its current money-spinner Crisis, with a story based on AMD’s recent product launches. With so many titles on the market, it’s sure to be ‘game on’ for Spongy Studios this Christmas!

AMD finds brown love

Special packaging promises return to success for AMD, reports Regina Resignation

Despite originally claiming its Black Edition was a one-off, AMD looks set to be releasing a whole slew of special versions of its processors. First off the blocks will be the mysterious Brown Edition. Although details are still scarce, shocking reports have been emerging that this could be an early example of AMD’s much-vaunted Jazz Fusion technology.


According to industry rumour site Crudzaroony.com, the new Brown Edition could be the first product to blend technology from both AMD and ATi. AMD’s forthcoming Benedorm CPU core would be mixed together with ATi’s next generation Costa Del Sol graphics, for unbeatable performance in every area. ‘Brown colour is dead giveaway!’ claimed Crudzaroony’s Frodo Abramovich. ‘Original Jazz Fusion presentation had brown background!’

However, AMD has officially denied the rumour, describing it as ‘complete arse’.

‘We just liked the colour. AMD is green and ATI is red – mix them together and you get brown! So it shows how well mixed AMD and ATI are now,’ explained AMD’s PR colourist Julia Rembrandt. ‘Brown is the new black, and it also commemorates the departure of Dave Orton and Henri Richard, to whom the Brown Edition is dedicated. Oh, and there’s Gordon Brown as well. People seem to like him, and they are more likely to buy our processors in a nice brown box.’

If the Brown Edition is as successful as the Black Edition is shaping up to be, AMD is planning a Pink Edition, and a Paisley Edition could well be on the roadmap as well. Intel is rumoured to be considering tartan packaging for its next Core 2 Extreme.

Leonard to the rescue

AMD’s critics are set to be answered in 2008, when wholesome new platform promises to hand back performance advantage, reports Daisy Inyourdreams

It looks like 2008 could be the year AMD once more puts up a fight against its competitors, Intel and Nvidia. June 2008 will see the launch of AMD’s Leonard platform, successor to Insect, which will be arriving shortly. Insect will soon bring us AMD’s first Native American Quad-Core processor, Big Chief X4, and LaCrosseFire multi-GPU. AMD hopes LaCrossFire will ‘hit Nvidia with a big stick’, but analysts predict it won’t achieve its goal.

Fortunately for AMD, everything could change when Leonard is introduced. Leonard incorporates AMD’s High performance Extension for LaCrossFire PCI express! (HELP!) technology. This allows performance enthusiasts to gang together as many ATi graphics cards as it takes to beat one graphics card from Nvidia. To house the expected number of graphics cards, new larger chassis designs are in the pipeline from Cooler Master and Lian-Li. Power supply manufacturer Tagan is allegedly building small, portable nuclear power stations to cope with the megawatt requirements of up to 18 Radeon cards in a single case.

The Leonard platform will also herald in a host of supplementary new technologies, including HopeFul Transport 3.1, AMD Cool’n’Slow technology 7, and the TVAM2++ Socket. The latter will be the platform for AMD’s first all-natural quad-core processor built with entirely organic materials, including wood and chickpeas. AMD had an engineering sample of Leonard on show at a recent analyst conference, but it was eaten by a goat before any benchmarks could be published.

Bill Oddie falls foul of Censor

Another new game title falls foul of the UK censor, reports Felicia Carma-Geddon

It’s turning out to be a bad year for the video gaming industry. No sooner has Manhunt 2 been denied a UK release after failing to receive a BBFC rating, when Bill Oddie’s Bughunt 7 looks set to face a similar fate. Developed by TV Personality Games, Bughunt 7 puts the player in the role of a rare beetle called Ben, who is trying to avoid capture after being released into the wild from the collection of a crazed entomologist.

During the game, Ben must escape the clutches of a series of bloodthirsty nature programme presenters, including Bill Oddie, David Bellamy and Steve Irwin, before facing the big boss, David Attenborough and his team of jungle gorillas. In its report, the BBFC criticised Bughunt 7’s cruel and sadistic portrayal of flies having their wings pulled off and ants being burned with giant magnifying glasses.

‘But in reality we just don’t like creepy-crawlies’, explained the BBFC’s Pauline Killjoy. ‘Yuck, nasty little creatures.’

Bernard Manning’s posthumous game release, Jokehunt, where the player faces a gruelling quest for humour whilst being assailed by vicious mothers in law, also looks set to meet the censor’s axe, later in 2007.

Little and Large criticise Windows Vista

Redmond reels as TV comedy acts express their opposition to Microsoft Windows Vista, reports Cyril Mead

Every new Microsoft launch has its detractors. But Windows Vista appears to be incurring the particular wrath of the British comedy fraternity. Hot on the heals of Mac-loving Mitchell and Webb’s stinging, bitter attacks, more big names have come out in disfavour of Windows. Following two years of development at Butlins holiday camps, former BBC Saturday night favourites Syd Little and Eddie Large have rekindled their legendary double act to create a lightly entertaining operating system. Codenamed Supersonic, it’s intended to compete directly with Windows Vista.

‘Supersonic is all about variety’, explained Little. ‘We plan to match Microsoft’s confusing array of Vista versions with a broad selection of comedy sketches and musical dance numbers for all the family.’ In new TV ads for the operating system, Eddie Large pretends to be a big fat bloated PC, whilst Syd Little dons thick Aero glasses. However, Supersonic has key features in common with Vista. Its Live from the Palladium DRM system is thought to have been included in order to protect Little and Large’s comedy secrets. However, the innovative Win-FFS! file system will not make it into the initial release.

Microsoft is currently scouring vintage episodes of Morecombe and Wise for jokes as good as Windows Vista’s sound card support, and has enlisted pint-sized Ronnie Corbett as a premium Desktop Gadget. Former Little and Large competitors Cannon and Ball are also reportedly developing their own Vista competitor based on Linux, due for release as a Christmas gala special in 2008.

AMD integrates chimp

Chipmaker hopes to ape Intel’s success with new processing core, reports P G Tips

These days, processor manufacturers really need to think ahead. First AMD outlined its future plans to integrate the GPU onto the processor die. But in what is seen as the most radical move yet, the company is planning to use the space savings of its new 65nm production process to integrate a simulated on-die primate. Current designs specify a chimpanzee, but the modular approach of the Direct Connect architecture will also allow an orang-utan or tribe of gibbons should the market require them.

‘Over the last few months, we have grown tired of Intel making a monkey out of us,’ explained AMD’s new PR representative, David Attenborough. ‘We realised some serious gorilla tactics would be needed to fight back.’ The apes will help accelerate Windows Vista by moving pixels around using their supple, dextrous hands.

First, a single chimpanzee will be integrated alongside the processing cores. But AMD is already hinting at a ‘go native’ quad-chimpanzee design with individual primates communicating via a fast Hominid Transport bus. This contrasts with the Intel strategy of forcing macaques to work as independent pairs.

Each on-die chimpanzee will incorporate multiple 128-bit Streaming Simian Extension (SSE) registers. The new core will also be capable of Habitat Virtualisation, in case AMD is threatened with extinction. However, by 2020 AMD hopes that its on-die chimpanzees will have evolved via a process of natural selection into CPUs with fully integrated homo sapiens. This will give AMD a distinct technological lead over Intel’s primarily lemur-based architecture.

Sinclair to make PCs

Sinclair, the UK’s favourite computer maker, is making a valiant return, reports Belinda Osborne

The famous console brands of the 1980s are springing back to life. No sooner had Commodore re-emerged as a maker of enthusiast gaming PCs, when Atari announced a new Meerkat range inspired by the seminal Jaguar console. Most exciting for us here in the UK, however, is the return of Sinclair. Trading on its continuing brand heritage, the company hopes to cash in on its legendary reputation for gaming.

‘The ZX81 and ZX Spectrum were the Alienwares and Vadims of their day,’ Sinclair’s executive president Oxford Sovereign told us. Befitting their heritage, the PCs come in kit form, and use Digital Compact Cassette to load software. The top specification model will be called the Sinclair C4. ‘With AMD’s groundbreaking Quad FX platform and ATi Radeon X1950XTX CrossFire inside, it’s sure to pack explosive performance!’ Sovereign told us. ‘And it echoes the legendary C5 electric car, renowned for its speed!’ The new PCs will also be available with specially branded ReadyBoost memory upgrade modules, designed to mimic ZX81 16K add-on packs.

Like Commodore, Sinclair is targeting retail outlets, and the PCs will be available from Argos and select branches of Woolworths. Sir Clive Sinclair told us, ‘It’s a bit of a gamble, but as viewers of my late-night poker sessions will know, I’m not afraid of losing my shirt!’

What the FX?

The quad-core choice is widening still further, reports Jack Hammer

The drive to ‘do it on all fours’ gained even further pace today as little-known Polish processor company MAD announced its imminent quad-core plans. According to MAD, the company’s new Quid FX platform will shoehorn a quartet of 386SX chips onto a single motherboard, for a ‘huge performance boost’.

‘The 386SX may not be a particularly fast processor on its own by today’s standards,’ explained MAD’s Technical Director Captain Hook. ‘But put four of them together and they’re four times not particularly fast – which is faster!’

The Quid FX platform uses dual-independent 16-bit ISA buses to communicate between each processor, capable of a whopping 8Mbytes/sec in both directions. These will be special Incoherent ISA connections, which stop each 386SX processor from being able to understand what the others are doing, so they don’t get sidetracked.

According to MAD, the platform will come into its own when running multiple copies of Reversi at the same time, or Reversi and Minesweeper simultaneously. MAD also expects FreeCell to execute considerably faster on Quid FX than a single 386, and it may even be possible to play very loud audio clips alongside the game. MAD is calling this ‘megaphone tasking’.

MAD told us Quid FX stands for Quid Facit X? (Latin for ‘what the X are they doing?’). ‘It’s really a platform for the future’, Captain Hook explained. ‘By using four sockets we have much greater upgrade flexibility. When we move to native 486SX in 2007 we will really give Intel and AMD something to think about!’

AMD rebrand shock

Athlon name makes way for racy new trademarks for the metrosexual generation, reports Penelope Nexgen

Shock waves were rippling across the computing world today as AMD announced a huge swathe of rebranding. The Athlon name we have come to know and love since the late 1990s will be no more. First to go will be the Athlon 64, although the Athlon X range will continue for a limited time as the Athlon XR3i. The brand is designed to be ‘affordable but a bit sporty – something even a hairdresser could own.’

However, the new native quad-core processor will be launched as the Femidom. The name is intended to continue the prophylactic theme begun with the Duron, and will be based on the Special K core previously codenamed Benidorm, as the K9 was considered to be barking up the wrong tree. At the same time, AMD itself will become PMT. Many in the industry had accused AMD of being ‘menopausal’, and the name change is designed to show that the company is still young and sexy. The ATi brand will simultaneously become L’ATi (pronounced latey-eye), in commemoration of the regular tardiness of new product releases, but with a romantic French image.

‘New brand names obviously make your products perform better,’ explained PMT’s temporary PR executive, Fenella Trojan. ‘Intel saw a huge speed increase when it moved from Pentium to Core, and we expect something similar by switching from Athlon to the new marque.’

The first Femidom will hit the market when PMT feels the Athlon brand has lost all the nuances of performance it had built up over the last decade. So industry pundits predict the launch is imminent.

Smell the fear

Innovative new game kicks up a stink, reports Reginald Tarkovsky

PC gaming has been stagnant for years. Locked into stale genres defined a decade ago, the computer entertainment industry has been crying out for innovation. At last, it could be on its way in the shape of a new title from Chelmsford-based Chavmaster Studios. Blending RPG and real-time strategy with pinball, solitaire, and minesweeper, S.T.I.N.K.E.R.: Umbrage of Basildon brings a fresh direction to the first person shooter.

The story promises thrills aplenty. After an horrific accident at Big Brother winner Jade Goody’s perfume factory, the whole of Essex has been turned into a wasteland. You play a Stinker, using your genetically enhanced sense of smell to sniff out the aroma of intelligent life in the beleaguered Home County. It’s a tough challenge only the most adept gamer will rise to, and finishing the single-player levels is certainly no roadside picnic.

Through your forays into the Scone you will meet mysterious characters swathed in patterned clothing and shiny sports attire who attempt to pick a fight with you, as you search for the fabled Kingdom of Lakeside. ‘S.T.I.N.K.E.R. promises hours of freeform gameplay, with some truly novel touches,’ explained Chavmaster’s PR Director Katie Bling. ‘The dots between the letters are particularly original.’ However, S.T.I.N.K.E.R. has faced its own challenges. First announced in 1973 as the successor to PONG, the title has taken over 30 years to arrive. Nevertheless, it still has the sweet scent of success about it.