Tech Olive

Finally, we get to see if Nvidia’s new Fermi card is any match for ATI’s monster HD 5870. Tom Petersen, Director of Technical Marketing at Nvidia gives us a quick walkthrough of their benchmark for the GTX 480 and how the new card really excels in tessellation, but looking at the graph of the results themselves doesn’t really make us ooh and ah. Yes, the GTX 480 does perform a bit better than its competitor, but isn’t this thing supposed to blow it out of the water? It’s a brand new card going up against another card that’s a half-year old….By any means, you can catch the video after the break.

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Bioshock 2’s DLC is scheduled to begin its release with the first piece coming next week on the 11th. The first release will be the Sinclair Solutions Test Pack. While 2K Games has only detailed a few multiplayer changes and additions, we have been assured that there will be even more new multiplayer features, as well as some new content for singleplayer. 2K has promised more details in the coming week. Until then, follow the break for a list of confirmed changes.

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While the console releases are still on-schedule for the May release date of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, the PC version has been pushed back a month to June. Ubisoft has yet to explain why the PC release has been delayed, but I think it’s safe to assume that it has to do with Ubisoft’s recent experiments in copy protection.

via [CVG]

After Crystal Dynamics’ press release that only left us with more questions, GameSpot comes to the rescue with an exclusive preview of the game. It seems the developers are aiming for a retro-feeling, isometric platformer. Also, you should try and make some friends between now and the game’s Summer release because it will be featuring co-op.

“You’ll also encounter a number of tombs to explore. These indoor caverns offer up the chance to take a break from the frenetic combat to do some old-fashioned puzzle solving. Think booby traps that can only be overcome with two people working as a team, and you’ve got a good idea for how these puzzles will function. This co-op system will work both online and locally, featuring a drop-in system for adding a second player on the fly. The whole game can be played using a single player, as well.” – from GameSpot’s preview.

via [GameSpot]

Good news for fans of the strategy genre: Steam has announced that the public beta of R.U.S.E. is now pre-loading on Steam and will officially begin on March 9th.

According to Gamestop’s store listing for Portal 2, the upcoming game will feature online cooperative play and is scheduled for a release on October 26th. While it’s far from official details, I think we would be safe in assuming that Gamestop isn’t just making things up.  The boys over at Kotaku were quick enough to catch this nugget of info before Gamestop removed it from the product page. Follow the break for Gamestop’s unedited product description.

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Shown for the first time at CeBIT, was Thermaltake’s new designs of three new gaming keyboards (for low, mid-range and high-end budgets) and a gaming mouse, which are all part of a new product line dubbed “Tt Esports.” Fudzilla (head over there for a few more pics) received some hands-on time and fed us some details, so join us after the break to find out more!
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It seems that Valve’s puzzle-filled games have led up to what we were all expecting: The official release of more Portal 2 details. Just announced through their website, Game Informer’s April cover story (pictured above; click for larger view) is all about Portal 2.

“Our 12-page cover story gives you the first details on Portal 2’s new gameplay mechanics, storyline, and some surprising new twists.”

Unfortunately, that’s all we get pertaining to Portal 2. It seems we’ll have to eagerly await the delivery of the April issue. Am I the only gamer with tears of happiness starting to well up in my eyes?

Nvidia has recommended that all users that have the 196.75 drivers installed revert back to the previous 196.21 version due to reports of overheating video cards during intense gameplay. StarCraft II beta testers were the first to spot this problem when they detected temps as high as 104C. After finding out about this heated issue (pun intended), Nvidia has released an official statement:

We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers. Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our Web site in the meantime.

So folks, it might be best for you to revert back to 196.21 if you do any GPU-intense gaming.

via [IncGamers]

After the first installment and its exclusive debut on the Xbox 360, EA DICE has deemed PC gamers worthy of receiving the second installment of the Bad Company series. It’s still a bit confusing as to why there was never a PC port of Bad Company, but we’ll take what we can get. With its sights firmly set on Modern Warfare 2, let’s see if Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is even worth our time.

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