bigfoot-networks posts

Bigfoot Networks has been releasing its PC gaming-related projects for some time, specifically its desktop networking cards with its unique anti-latency hardware and software. Today Bigfoot Networks revealed that it is teaming up with the Gaikai streaming PC game service to better provide PC gamers with access to that service.

Bigfoot Networks claims that if a PC with one of its products signs onto a Gaikai streaming PC game server it will automatically detect that and provide a better streaming game experience. The two companies also announced that they plan to reveal more of their team up plans in the near future.

Bigfoot Networks has been releasing its gaming PC-specific network cards for some time. While these products are a tad expensive, they have been proven to have positive effects on latency while playing PC games. Now the company has gone a step further and has teamed up with graphics card maker VisionTek to combine its network card with a graphics card after showing a prototype of such a product earlier this year.

The result is the newly announced VisionTek Killer HD 5770, which allows gamers to combine an AMD Radeon HD 5770 graphics chip and a Killer E2100 networking card onto one PCI slot on their gaming PC rig. The price for this unusual combo card is $199 It's currently due for release sometime next week.

So you want to upgrade your gaming PC with a new graphics card but you have also heard some good things about Bigfoot Networks' line of gaming oriented network cards too. Well, how about if you got both on one card? Our sister site Engadget is reporting from Computex that Bigfoot Networks is going to do just that with a currently unnamed product that combines its recently launched Killer 2100 gaming network card with an ATI Radeon 5000 series-based graphics card from a company called TLU.

The company is showing off a prototype of the product which it says will cost less than if you had to buy each card separately. The final product should be released later this year. Engadget's story also hints that Bigfoot would like to see its network card technology in gaming laptops and in motherboards in the future. It's also looking to bring its low ping network tech to WiFi sometime in 2011.

Bigfoot Networks has been developing and releasing their Killer series of PC network cards that are supposed to be made especially for PC gaming. Today the company unveiled their latest entry, the Killer 2100. They even have brought out (fictional) musician Rod Trotter to check out the unboxing. You can check out the video after the jump.

The company claims the new Killer 2100 card handles online PC gaming network traffic at up to 10 times the speed of the average NIC. In addition to having a dedicated Network Proccessing Unit, the Killer 2100 can detect traffic that's specifically for games and then optimizes the bandwidth beyond the rest of your PC's bandwidth. It can also let you directly control where your network bandwidth is being used. The card will go on sale "in coming weeks" for $129.

The PC Gaming Alliance has been in existence for over a year now and the non-profit group dedicated to promoting and expanding the PC game industry has just announced a number of new members to its group. Two of them are PC game developers, Gas Powered Games and InstantAction. In addition the downloadable PC game service GameTap has also joined the organization.

These three new members doubles the number of PC game developers and publishers that are a part of the group ( with Epic Games, Capcom and Microsoft being the others)

Other new members include PC hardware companies like Bigfoot Networks, BFG Technologies, and Flextronics. Game retailer GameStop is now confirmed as a new member (something which we reported first a few months ago) and the LAN Center franchise Howie's Game Shack is a new member as well.

As we await the commercial release of Windows 7 some gaming PC makers are still coming out with new products. iBUYPOWER has just announced the Chimera Killer Special Edition Gaming PC, a new product that includes the Killer Zeno Pro gaming network card from Bigfoot Networks.

As we have reported before the Killer Zeno Pro is designed to optimize even fast broadband Internet connections for a lag free online experience. The Chimera Killer also uses a firey looking "Inferno" case design and can be configured with both Intel and AMD processors. The gaming PC starts at $1,499 and can be ordered at the iBUYPOWER.com web site.

Three years ago a Austin, Texas based company called Bigfoot Networks released their Killer NIC PC network card. With features like an on-board processor that helped to improve latency in even fast broadband connections the product got solid reviews. Still the original price of the card at $249.99 might have kept many from giving the Killer NIC a shot. (Bigfoot released a lower priced version of the card a year later, priced at $149.99).

Last month, Bigfoot Networks announced the next generation of their Killer network card family. The Killer Xeno not only has improvements over the original but it also will launch with a lower price point compared to the launch of the first Killer NIC card ($129.99 for the Pro version and $179.99 for the Ultra version). But is the network card still worth getting? Big Download got more info from Bigfoot Network's founder Harlan Beverly ahead of the product's release later this month.

A couple of years ago Bigfoot Networks launched their first gaming LAN network card, the Killer NIC. The card was designed to give PC gamers a smoother and better online gameplay experience even with fast broadband connections. While the device was much more expensive than the normal NIC product reviews of the Killer card were very favorable.

Today Bigfoot Networks announced their plans to release their second generation gaming PC network card family, the Killer Xeno. Using a PCIe interface the new card has more memory, an improved network chip and hardware acceleration for improved voice chat in games.

There will be two versions of the Killer Xeno card. The the Pro version will have 128MB of memory and sell for $129.99. It will go on sale in April via third party card maker EVGA. It will also be made available as an option on Alienware PCs. The Ultra version, with 256 MB of memory, will go on sale in May for $179.99.

Paying even $100 for a stand alone PC network card seems pretty excessive but the folks at Bigfoot Networks have been selling their Killer NIC cards as stand alone products for over $200 since 2006. These cards have on-board technology that can actually reduce Internet latency and improve frame rates for games while playing them online.

Now Dell has decided to give their customers an easy way to get a Killer NIC card by offering one as an option on their gaming-themed XPS PCs. The company started offering the "budget" K1 version of the card on their XPS 730 and 630 PCs for a mere $149. Dell's blog site has a quick Q&A with Bigfoot Networks' Sean McCann who gives the lowdown on the benefits of including such an expensive part in the PC.