Tuesday, November 19, 2002

XBox Live Detects Mod Chips -- 8:58 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to this CNet article Microsoft is denying people with mod chips in their XBox access to the XBox Live network. This should come as a surprise to, um, nobody. Of course equally unsurprising, I've heard that the modding community already has a work-around.

Somewhat offtopic: Why is it that I have zero interest in getting a gaming console of any sort, XBox or otherwise? I've yet to see any game that made me scream, "I must get this console!"

J.t.Qbe comments: Actually, I've just come dangerously close to getting one myself. The only thing that saved me is not being able to decide which one. The other thing--two things that saved me!--is the cost of the newer consoles: two hundred bucks is still a lot of cash. And the other thing--three! three things that saved me!--is the fact that I still have lots of great PC games left to play. I really don't need a console. That's what I keep telling myself.

The Master comments: Consoles rarely have the kinds of games I like, with controls I can master. I find gamepad controls to be very difficult to use, and hard on the hands. I'll stick with PCs with keyboards and mice thank you :-)

Monday, November 18, 2002

NFL Week #11 Final -- 11:35 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Fightin' Wombats (my fantasy team) win! It was an ugly victory, but I'll take it. That puts me in a tie for second place in my division, one game out of first! Otherwise, this week I was 11-5 in my picks and Eeyore was 10-6. Both in double-digits! Year-to-date that makes me 103-56-1 (.644) while Eeyore is 90-69-1 (.563). Here's to similar results next weekend!

UT2K3 Patch Fixes -- 11:21 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Planet Unreal posted a length list of changes and fixes that will be included in the next patch for Unreal Tournament 2003. There is no ETA for the patch. Thanks Shacknews.

FWIW, I'm playing through the single-player portion of the game to get better aquainted with the levels. I've also done some tweaking to crank my framerate. When I'm not in a UT2K3 mood, I'm working on finishing Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I've really enjoyed that game and can see myself playing through the single player again. I just want to get it done before the Neverwinter Nights Linux client comes out.

GeForce FX Revealed -- 12:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Anandtech posted all the specs for NVIDIA's new GeForce FX, formerly known as the NV30. This latest chip is 0.13-micron, DirectX 9.0 compatible, and adds some compression to reduce the performance hit of antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. It will also take up two slots because of the cooling mechanism. These bad-boys probably won't hit the market until February.

The Master comments: Yummy, but I bet this sucker is going to cost a mint. Or two. Maybe three.

A.T. Hun comments: Probably four. It does seem to be a jump over previous GeForces like the GeForce 3 was over the 2. DirectX 9.0 games are ways off, so its full power won't be tapped for a while. We'll have to see how it runs Doom 3 compared to the GeForce 4.

Past Two Days' News

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