General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Nvidia launches Fermi Based GeForce GT 610, GT 620, & GT 630

Posted: 20 May 2012 03:56 PM PDT

ThumbNvidia is a master of marketing, so when they "quietly" launched the GeForce GT 610, 620, and 630 into the retail channel late last week, we knew something was up. It turns out of the three new cards, none of these are actually based on the most recently released Kepler architecture behind the GTX 670, 680, and 690, and are in reality based on the last generation designs.  We knew Nvidia was already rebranding Fermi parts for use in OEM laptops and desktops, however it looks like the practice will again carry forward to the aftermarket parts as well. 

The GT 610 is a rebadged GT 520, which could mean we are looking at a GF119, or GF 108 GPU, featuring a pretty paltry 48 CUDE cores. The GT 610 is intended to be the entry level 600 series card, and is unlikely to even outpace integrated graphics found on modern Ivy Bridge chips. 

The GT 620 is a variant of the OEM-only GT 530, and features a slightly more respectable 96 CUDA cores. Twice the CUDA cores will help, but like the GT 610, the GT 620 only has a 64 bit memory bus which no doubt be a bottleneck. 

The GT 630 is defiantly saving the best for last, however it doesn't take much to stand out in this crowd. This card is a rebadged GT 440, and contains 96 CUDA cores, though with a slightly more respectable 128 bit memory bus.

We wish Nvidia would quit it with the rebadging as it only leads to confusion, but at least it will help them fill out the low end options faster than trying to scale down Kepler.

(Image Credit = AnandTech)

Nvidia Acknowledges Kepler V-Sync Stuttering Issues and Promises a Prompt Driver Fix

Posted: 20 May 2012 02:06 PM PDT

KerplerNvidia's new Kepler-based graphics cards are still fairly new on the scene, but a fairly serious new bug has emerged that started out as a forum rant, and has evolved into an official acknowledgement from the green team. The problem in question seems to be limited to GTX 670, 680, & 690 customers who enable v-sync though the Nvidia control panel, and by most accounts, is pretty infuriating. 

Multiple news outlets have requested a comment from NVidia on the issue, however a response to the forum thread has finally brought closure to the issue, which by the sound of it, will be resolved in next month's drive release. 

We have received reports of an intermittent v-sync stuttering issue from some of our customers. We've root caused the issue to a driver bug and identified a fix for it. The fix requires extensive testing though, and will not be available until our next major driver release targeted for June (post-R300). For users experiencing this issue, the interim workaround is to disable v-sync via the Nvidia Control Panel or in-game graphics settings menu.

Microsoft Plans to Kill the Aero UI Prior To Final Windows 8 Release

Posted: 20 May 2012 11:22 AM PDT

DesktopMicrosoft has made some huge changes to its desktop UI in Windows 8, however it looks like they aren't done yet. The Aero Glass UI first introduced in Windows Vista brought us translucent window borders, rounded corners, and an interface that was designed to blend into the background. These effects remained in the consumer preview, and will appear again in the release preview, however Microsoft today confirmed they would be axed from the final shipping version. 

Microsoft makes its case for killing off Aero in a nauseatingly long 10,000 + word blog post, but to save you time here are the approximately 200 words which are actually worth reading. 

"We want desktop windows to continue to feel light and airy, and we want a chrome style that doesn't distract from the content of the app … Aero was designed to help the app's content to be the center of attention, and for the Windows system UI to recede into the background. This is still relevant today, and while we are moving beyond Aero, we don't want to lose sight of these goals."

"We made a conscious effort to relate the visual appearance of the Windows 8 desktop to the visual appearance of the familiar Windows 7 desktop. This helps people who want to predominantly use the desktop feel comfortable and immediately at home in the new environment."

"We applied the principles of 'clean and crisp' when updating window and taskbar chrome. Gone are the glass and reflections. We squared off the edges of windows and the taskbar. We removed all the glows and gradients found on buttons within the chrome. We made the appearance of windows crisper by removing unnecessary shadows and transparency. The default window chrome is white, creating an airy and premium look. The taskbar continues to blend into the desktop wallpaper, but appears less complicated overall. To complete the story, we updated the appearance of most common controls, such as buttons, check boxes, sliders, and the Ribbon. We squared off the rounded edges, cleaned away gradients, and flattened the control backgrounds to align with our chrome changes. We also tweaked the colors to make them feel more modern and neutral."

Killing off Aero effects should help to improve battery life on laptops and tablets, though it looks like desktop users who prefer this look will be out of luck as well. White windows and square corners might not sound like a big deal, but to some it might be yet another unwelcome change. What do you think of the change? 

Desktop

Firefox 13 Will Have Reset Button

Posted: 20 May 2012 03:24 AM PDT

The latest Firefox beta contains a feature that has been on the Mozilla support team's to-do list for, well, "forever." The "Reset Firefox" option is intended to help users avoid troubleshooting headaches and will be particularly handy when nothing else seems to work. What's more, you can reset the browser without sacrificing your personal data with this one-click option. Hit the jump to find out how.

According to Mozilla's Michael Verdi, the realization that not everybody possesses the time and expertise necessary "to identify the exact cause of the problem and just fix that" is what  prompted the non-profit to develop this feature.

"So the support team worked with product and engineering to create the Reset Firefox feature," he wrote in a recent blog post. "The first implementation of this is a button on the Troubleshooting Information page (about:support). What is [sic] does is create a new profile and migrate your bookmarks, passwords, cookies and form data. Everything else gets set to the defaults."

However, please note that at the moment this feature only works with the default profile, and saves nothing else except the bookmarks, passwords, cookies and form data associated with that profile. If you're using a Nightly or an Aurora build of Firefox, the reset feature may not work for you.

Firefox 13 will graduate to the stable channel on June 5, 2012, as per Mozilla's (rapid) release schedule.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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