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Nvidia launches GeForece GT 240

While we wait for Nvidia’s next gen chip, codenamed “Fermi”, the company has followed its old style of re-branding and re-releasing old chips. Well, not quite this time, as the new GT 240 chip is still the same technology, but is built on 40nm process and includes DirectX 10.1 support — at a time where the big deal is DirectX 11.

The new graphics card is mainstream oriented, and should offer decent performance and low power consumption, at a decent price. The chip is outfitted with 96 stream processors clocked at 1360MHz, while the graphics core runs at 550MHz, with idle power load at just 9W. It’ll retail later this week for $99.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 PC to support DirectX 11

In a rather surprising move, DICE confirmed (via Twitter) that Battlefield Bad Company 2 for the PC will support DirectX 11, which was introduced with Windows 7. The news was announced by AMD, which is in cooperation with DICE to add DX 11. The game will still use the fist edition of the Frostbite engine, while Frostbite 2 will fully support DX 11, and is the engine used in the upcoming Battlefield 3.

Nvidia’s DX11 graphics card delayed until 2010?

Fudzilla claims it has details that point towards Nvidia launching their next generation graphics chip, codenamed Fermi, in January 2010, as opposed to in December, as originally planned. Granted, Nvidia never officially announced a release date, but did mention December as a viable time.

However, DigiTimes — a far more reputable source than Fudzilla — claims that the date is even further into 2010, as Nvidia CEO stated that the card will likely launch in the first fiscal quarter of 2010, which begins in March. If true, this will mean that AMD’s cards, which are already out, will be given a good 6 month head start as the only DX 11 cards available on the market.

Nvidia posts $107m profit in Q3

Despite falling behind in both sales and technology to arch rival AMD, Nvidia managed to turn a solid $107 million profit in Q3, on revenues of $903.2 million, mostly fueled by the mobile and laptop sector. Compared to last year, that’s an increase of 16%, and from the previous year by 18%. The company said that it expects revenues in Q4 to be up 2% from previous year.

The company is set to release their brand new graphics card and technology later this year, called Fermi.

Unreal 3 Development Kit launches

Epic Games has launched a free edition of their massively popular Unreal Engine 3, called Unreal Development Kit. The kit includes access to the Unreal Engine 3, the Unreal Editor, which comes with a whole suite of development tools, and the ability to distribute games on their own, for free, with no additional software required.

Obviously, it’s only intended for games that are free, similarly to mods, since the “real” Unreal Engine 3 costs upwards of $900,000 for a commercial license.

You can find the Unreal Development Kit at www.udk.com, and where you can already download games build with the new kit.

Dual-gpu ATI 5970 spotted in the wild

ATI’s upcoming dual-gpu based card, the Radeon HD 5970, comprising of two 5870 chips — which themselves are the most powerful graphics chips today — has been spotted in the wild over at PC Perspective. The card, measuring at 13.5″ inches, needs both a 6 pin power connector and an 8 pin connector as well, meaning it’s gonna draw a lot of power when fully throttled. The card is expected to be in stores this December.

QuickDev16 card offers SNES homebrew

The Quickdev16 card, which plugs into an SNES, offers quick and easy access to SNES homebrew — the cartridge packs an Atmel AVR ATmega644 chip with a boot loader, a USB connection with which to upload a ROM, 16 megabits of SRAM, plus an RS232 converter (whatever that is). Who whole (tiny) package can be had for only $120 — cheap, when considering we’re talking about “game development” here. If you’re up to it, there’s more details about the card here.

New Xbox 360 updated locks out “unauthorized” memory units

The upcoming update of the Xbox 360 dashboard and firmware will lock out unauthorized third party memory units. Third party memory units, especially “unauthorized” ones, usually hold far more capacity — several GBs more –e than Microsoft’s own units, and are also far cheaper. Some of the third party units feature connectivity with SD and microSD cards as well. If you’re one of those using them, you’re out of luck, and you should save your stuff on an “authorized” unit. Meaning shedding lots of cash for it.

MP5 Wiimote submachine gun controller

There have been a few odd Wiimote-based controllers over the years, from attachments that made the Wiimote act like a “gun”, to actually looking like a gun, which is the case with Heckler & Koch MP5 Wiimote controller, which comes with built in Wiimote, nun-chuck and Wii Motion Plus, all in one great, black sub machine gun. The controller was spotted at an expo in Hong Kong, so no word on if we’ll ever see it retail.

Michael Pachter predicts Project Natal to cost 50 bucks

Now I’ve never been one to put much stock into the speculations of industry analysts but Michael Pachter has a good track record and his latest analysis is one I like, so I shall tell you about it — Pachter predicts that the motion sensing technology from Microsoft currently entitled Project Natal will cost no more than $50.

He elaborates by saying that Natal is just a single camera and when compared to the PlayStation Motion Controller it will most likely cost a great deal less as Sony’s offering is both a controller and a camera.

Whatever the case, Microsoft is going to have to price Project Natal very competitively as it is essentially an add on for the Xbox 360 and they will have to do so to keep up with both Sony and Nintendo.

via industrygamers

Logitech announces G110 gaming keyboard

Logitech, makers of the very popular G11 gaming keyboard, have revealed its successor; the G110. The new keyboard doesn’t have as an aggressive look as the predecessor, but the technology inside has been improves somewhat; the G110 features 13 programmable keys, automatic game detection that loads custom profiles for each game, and red or blue LED back-lighting on all keys. There’s no mention of price or release date at this point, but we expect the initial price point to be a notch above the older model.

CryEngine 3 in action

Yesterday we wrote about the release of Crytek’s CryEngine 3, an now we have a video to back up the claims made about “Beauty, Speed, Interaction” (Crytek’s words). The video shows the engine in action, on all three major platforms; PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

CryEngine 3 hits the scene

Crysis and more importantly CryEngine 2 has been known as one of the most graphic intensive game engines on the market today. That’s all about to change as Crytek has just come forward to let us know that CryEngine 3 has officially launched which means we should be seeing a whole slew of titles using the engine.

One of the most important features of CryEngine 3 is that it allows for painless mutliplatform development so if you can make something for the PC, chances are it will convert to PS3 code almost effortlessly.

Below Crytek head honcho Cevat Yerli comments on the engine’s release:

“With its scalable graphics and computation it is next-gen-ready and with new features like CryEngine 3 Live Create the best choice for game developers and companies developing serious games applications alike. It is the only game engine solution that enables real-time development and can ensure teams are able to maximize their own creativity, save budget and create greater gaming experiences.”

via joystiq

Nvidia Tegra to be used in next Nintendo DS

Nvidia’s Tegra chip, which includes CPU and graphics in the same, lower powered chip, is rumored to be featured in Nintendo’s next DS update. The Tegra chip can already be found in Microsoft’s Zune HD, which can, among other things, play 3D games and stream HD video. The basic Tegra chip configuration runs at 600 MHz, while the two chips found in the DS run at a meager 67 MHz and 33 Mhz. The rumors suggest that the new DS might wait and get the next generation of Tegra chips, which are due in about a year from now.

Microsoft using ATI for next-gen Xbox?

Tech site Fudzilla is claiming it’s got information that Microsoft has already given the deal to build the graphics chip for the upcoming Xbox console to ATI. ATI, which already makes the “Xenos” GPU used in the current Xbox 360, apparently has Microsoft satisfied with the current GPU and wants to do more business with ATI, which we can certainly understand — the GPU in the Xbox 360 has pretty much been the only stable part of the console over the years. The rumors also suggest that the new Xbox will launch i 2012.

However, Fudzilla, as usual, never cites any sources so this is pure speculation, at best, and the site isn’t known for having the best track record out there when it comes to rumors.