http://rainbow.furver.se/ the Rainbow Networks en-us Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:24:16 GMT 1440 CPG-Nuke Dragonfly the Rainbow Networks News http://backend.userland.com/rss http://rainbow.furver.se/images/logo.gif http://rainbow.furver.se/ http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=105 As you might have noticed, Furver (http://rainbow.sytes.net, Rainbot, FreezeRail and VQ3 Freestyle) was unreachable for some time during the 31:st of March and the 1:st of April. This was because our ISP suffered a power failure. Everything is now back to normal and I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused by this downtime. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:24:16 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=104 The new AMD Phenom X4 9850 is a great processor for its segment even though it is still not able to dominate in any fashion over the Intel quad-core options. Just as with the initial 2.3 GHz Phenom B2 launch, AMD still considers the Intel Core 2 Q6600 its primary competition, and I consider the Q9450 to be another potential threat as well. This new CPU is definitely getting AMD closer to its performance goals and any enthusiast or gamer looking for a ~$240 processor is going to have a fantastic experience with the 9850. The added performance and efficiency of the 2000 MHz memory controller and system bus add to the benefits of the 2.50 GHz clock rate producing the best fastest stock speed AMD quad-core CPU to date. Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:49:25 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=102 In a conference call from intel yesterday details where revealed on Intels up-coimg Dunnington, the company's upcoming six-core server part; Nehalem, the next-generation architecture that will supplant Core 2 processors later this year; and Larrabee, Intel's forthcoming discrete graphics processor. Dunnington feature six cores, 16MB of L3 cache, and a staggering 1.9 billion transistors. Dunnington's six cores will all be Core 2-based, and the processor will slip into the same Caneland platform as today's Socket 604, Xeon 7300-series CPUs. Dunnington appears to be a single-die product, unlike Intel's four-core offerings that are just two dual-core dies tacked together on the same package. Shipments are due some time in the second half of the year. Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:42:11 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=101 According to BetaNews, PC hardware manufacturer Acer is considering the development of an open, non-proprietary game system. Acer senior VP James T. Wong said that his company has a game machine in mind that would be built upon "open standards" at a press event last week. "If you look at most of the other game machines that are out there right now--Nintendo's, the Xbox [360]--they are 'closed' and proprietary systems," Wong said. Unlike the current roster of consoles, an "open" platform would not require corporate oversight or management, allowing anybody to run just about anything on the hardware. The company, which recently acquired fellow PC manufacturer Gateway, hopes to incorporate open standards into all its products envisioned for future development, including the possibility of a console or console-like game system. Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:31:52 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=100 Take Two has announced that BioShock 2 will be released in fiscal Q4 2009. The publisher's financial year is two months ahead of the calendar year, so that means we'll see the game somewhere in the August-October 2009 period. Interestingly, Take Two hasn't set Ken Levine's 2K Boston (formerly Irrational Games) to work on this one, preferring recently-formed studio 2K Marin, based in Novato, California, for what's inevitably going to be among the most highly anticipated sequels of 2009. (Update: However, the company said during a subsequent conference call that Levine would be involved in the game's production: "He will be working on Bioshock 2 and he will be working on a new IP.") When Take Two announced 2K Marin's formation in December, the company said the studio would "build upon [2K's] success in creating and leveraging AAA franchises". Go team leverage! BioShock has now sold over 2 million units worldwide, Take Two pointed out today. Platforms and other details were not mentioned (the first one was PC and 360, if you've already forgotten), and nor were details of what the "new IP" Levine/2K Boston are working on is. We'll let you know when we do. It will certainly be interesting to see how 2K Marin approaches a BioShock follow-up. Events in the first game would suggest it's unlikely we'll see a return to Rapture unless we're in prequel territory. What do you reckon ? Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:25:05 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=99 The Q&A focuses on very technical details about graphics engine development, sure to be a help to anyone writing a doctoral thesis on the advantages of sparse voxel octree-based technology. He also admits "the uncomfortable truth" that consoles are the driving force behind game development, so "it's difficult to set things up so that you can do much to leverage the really extreme high end desktop settings." He also talks about the pros and cons of multi-CPU and multi-GPU systems, making it clear that problems taking advantage of these technologies are due to bigger issues than simple growing pains. Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:15:59 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=98 Tim Sweeney revealed that "Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the Playstation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that. " Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:15:51 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=97 As promised, id Software has launched the official beta sign-up page for Quake Live (also known as Quake Zero) letting folks sign up for the chance to be selected to test out the upcoming web based and ad-supported version of id's long running first person shooter series. Quake Live will be a free multiplayer FPS acceessed through a single web portal--quakelive.com--which will also offer free friends lists, sponsored events, tournaments, and matchmaking services. There's no word on when the actual testing will begin. Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:10:34 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=96 Too many changes to list here. qscore is at version 0.8.0 because many changes and code cleanups have taken place also some new tools have been added to this package like qmaps for managing maps and creating map indices. Please read the changelog for more details qscore is a tool to parse Quake 3: Arena (and compatible) server logs into high scores and statistics. qmaps a map manager, qcon a remote console client and a simple (un)pak are included http://qscore.y7.ath.cx Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:32:27 GMT http://rainbow.furver.se/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=95 These days there is a great Starcraft Broodwar Tournament going on. If anyone is interested in great Starcraft matches, check this page out. Since this is a korean tournament, gomtv hired a great english caster to broadcast this to a wider audience. Direct link to the page: gsi.gomtv.com/ Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:24:07 GMT