Nvidia posts

If you have been playing the PC version of Dragon Age 2 and have wanted the performance to be better, then you might want to pay attention to this. Graphics chip maker Nvidia has released some new GeForce beta drivers that, among other things, greatly increases the performance of BioWare's recent fantasy RPG.

The 270.51 drivers increase perfomance for that game by up to 516 percent with a GeForce GTX 580 graphics card and up to 461 percent with a GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card. Many other PC games also get performance boosts with this driver update. It also includes the first appearance of Nvidia Update, a new and optional program that automatically scans your PC to see if you need a new driver update and then letting you know if a driver is available for download.

[Via Blue's News]

While developer Funcom is still working on its next MMO game The Secret World it has not forgotten its previous fantasy MMO Age of Conan. Today Funcom announced that the game now has an updated engine that, among other things, has server-side game physics supplied by Nvidia's PhysX technology.

Age of Conan is the first PC game ever to have PhysX-powered server-side game physics. Funcom reports that the change results in "more than a doubling in the speed-of in-game physics processing" versus the normal method where PhysX is on the game's client software.

Funcom has also improved a number of other visual aspects of the Age of Conan graphics engine. You can see a narrated trailer showing off and explaining those new visual effects after the jump:

Do you want the most powerful graphics card for your gaming PC rig? Nvidia wants you to believe it has it with the newly announced GeForce GTX 590 graphics card. This massive dual GPU card (actually two GTX 580 chips in one) with 3 GB of RAM will set you back about $699.

But is it the fastest card you can buy? Well, our sister site Engadget has gathered up a list of reviews from various PC hardware sites. Their overall verdict is that rival AMD's recently launched dual GPU card the Radeon HD 6900 (also priced at $699) actually edges out the GeForce GTX 590 in terms of pure performance and benchmarks. Still if you can afford a graphics card that costs more than a lot of full featured PCs you likely won't care about one or two frames per second.

We thought that Nvidia might reveal its next high end PC graphics card at PAX 2011 but apparently it wasn't ready for prime time. That will apparently change on Thursday at 9 am Eastern time as Nvidia has released a teaser video (you can check it out after the jump) showing Nvidia's Tom Peterson showing a box labeled "Tom Secret".

While Nvidia is keeping to the company line, the internet rumors strongly suggest that this new graphics card will be called the GeForce GTX 590 with dual graphics chips and a very high price. The video also shows Crysis 2 running in the background which is ironic since the PC port of the just released first person shooter doesn't even run DirectX 11 level graphics (at least not yet).

[Via Engadget]

With more and more PC games supporting 3D viewing features, it makes sense that some might want to make seeing these games in 3D more affordable. Nvidia has led the way in promoting 3D PC gaming with its 3D Vision technology and today the company announced that its 3D Vision wireless glasses kit is both more affordable and longer lasting.

The kit, which contains the glasses as well as the infrared receiver, now sells for $149 which is a $50 price cut from its previous price. In addition the battery life of the glasses has been improved from 40 hours to 60 hours. Keep in mind that PC gamers must also have a Nvidia 3D vision compatible display and of course a game that supports 3D Vision to see the 3D effects with the glasses.

With the full version of Crysis 2 due out next week some PC gamers may be concerned that their gaming PC rig won't be able to run the sci-fi shooter very well. Now graphics chip maker Nvidia has decided to promote its newly announced budget graphics card, the $150 GeForce GTX 550 Ti, by using it as the graphics source to make a sub $600 gaming PC that can run Crysis 2.

The GeForce.com web site goes over all of the parts you will need to purchase to assemble the PC and shows Crysis 2 benchmarks for the finished system. The result was solid and playable frame rates for the system on high resolutions settings and "Advanced" graphics settings. The higher Hardcore graphics setting pushed the framerate down below 30 fps for the system but overclocking the graphics card pushed the framerate for Hardcore just above 30 fps at 1680x1050 resolution. Nvidia has listed a couple of sub-$600 gaming PCs that are already on sale that have similar hardware inside.

PAX East 2011 will be filled with exhibitors showing off upcoming games but there will also be some PC game hardware companies showing off their new and/or upcoming products. One of them is the gaming PC maker iBuyPower and today the company sent over word that it will be showing its upcoming Erebus gaming PC at the show this weekend in Boston at the Nvidia booth.

While iBuyPower is keeping much of the details of the Erebus system to themselves it did post a teaser trailer on YouTube which you can check out after the jump. As you will see there's lots of tight closeups on the system, particularity its fans and liquid cooling system, along with some three way Nvidia GeForce SLI action. Over clocking seems to be the theme of this gaming PC rig. The Erebus is scheduled to be available for sale in a few weeks.

Looks like someone who wasn't supposed to bring a camera to Epic Games' demo room at GDC 2011 did anyway and films the Unreal Engine 3 tech demo. The result is a blurry ShakyCam video showing off the live tech demo that was shown to the press earlier this week.

Keep in mind that the video was filming a real live in-engine demo and that the visual effects and other improvements needed a powerful PC running three Nvidia graphics cards in SLI in order to have a descent framerate. If you want to see a much more in focus and higher resolution movie you might want to wait until the official Unreal Engne 3 trailer is issued from Epic sometime next week. You can check out the ShakyCam YouTube version right now after the jump:

[Via VG247.com]

Unreal Engine 3 got a new tech demo that was shown at GDC 2011 this week at Epic Games' booth. The level of detail and visual effects in the demo was pretty staggering, according to reports, and a trailer showing off the demo will be released next week.

But most PCs currently wouldn't be able to run the live demo well, according to PC Gamer. The GDC 2011 build was running on a PC with three Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards installed. Epic Games' VP Mark Rein stated, "Maybe the next Nvidia graphics card bump means we can use two, we don't need three. And maybe the next bump means we can use just one. And the next bump after that means that we can use the mid-range card."

The point of the GDC 2011 Unreal Engine 3 demo was to show the press and game developers what might be possible for game graphics in the next few years with Rein stating, "This is our proposal for what the next big generational leap of gaming should be." Those features include things like water puddles on the ground that reflect neon signs or highly detailed facial textures for characters or clothing that realistically flaps via hardware physics. Rein stated that this year's demo took 12 people two months to complete, adding that Epic Games puts in "tens of millions of dollars into these R&D experiments."

As we reported earlier this week Unreal Engine 3 and UDK users will soon get an update that adds DirectX 11 graphical features into the latest build.

Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 game development tools are by far the most popular third party software tools used by game developers around the world. Today at GDC 2011, Epic Games announced that an upcoming unreal to Unreal Engine 3 will allow the tools to support DirectX 11 graphics features including tessellation.

The demo is running at Epic's GDC 2011 booth using Nvidia's GeForce GTX 500-based graphics cards. Unreal Engine 3 already supports Nvidia's propiertary gameplay features such as PhysX (for in-game physics) and APEX (for more realistic animations). In addition to Unreal Engine 3 the free UDK software will also get an update that will support DirectX 11 graphics features.

Download Unreal Development Kit February 2011 Beta (1.29 GB)