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|  | Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope – Google Earth & Sky Eat Your Heart Out!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a computer program developed by Microsoft that allows you to explore outer space. WWT enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope. The WorldWide Telescope was announced at the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference in Monterey, California in February 2008. The WorldWide Telescope was created with Microsoft’s Visual Experience Engine technology that enables you to pan and zoom around the night sky, planets and various environments. Images are taken from the Hubble Space Telescope – one of the largest space telescopes, which was carried into earth’s orbit by space shuttle in April 1990. WWT blends terabytes of images, information, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet. The WorldWide Telescope has four objects that you can explore: Sky, Earth, Planets and Panoramas.: Sky Mode: This is WorldWide Telescope’s main feature. It allows you to view high quality outer space images from the Hubble Space Telescope and ten Earth bound telescopes. You can see the same images that scientists use for their research. Earth Mode: You can switch to this mode for viewing the Earth, using Google Earth, NASA World Wind etc. Planets Mode: This mode allows you to explore three planets, namely Mars, Jupiter and the Moon. Panoramas Mode: You can use this mode to explore panoramas and you can download images and save them to your desktop. The system specifications are pretty hefty and include: Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista (recommended).
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU with 2GHz or faster.
RAM: 1GB of RAM, 2GB is recommended.
Graphics: 3D accelerated card with 128MB of RAM; for higher performance, discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM is recommended.
HDD space: 1GB of available HDD space. 10GB is recommended for off-line features and higher browsing experience.
Display: XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor.
DirectX and .NET Framework: Microsoft DirectX version 9.0c and .NET Framework 2.0.
Internet access: 56Kbps or higher. Uncharacteristic for Microsoft, this gem of a Sunday afternoon time-killer is a free download! Click here to visit the page from where you can download the WorldWide Telescope and start exploring the universe. |   |
| | | Game Testing 2GB versus 4GB of Memory on Vista 64-bit
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Legit Reviews have been very busy testing 9 games in Windows Vista 64bit with 2GB RAM and 4GB to see what difference the extra RAM makes to framerates. Is it worth the extra cash? “Inspired by the Corsair Performance Analysis of 4GB versus 2GB of memory we figured it would be fun to see for ourselves how gaming performance is impacted by adding more system memory. We got our hands on a 2GB and a 4GB set of Corsair DOMINATOR PC2-9136C5 memory modules and set off to see what happens to the average frame rate in nine games at 1920x1200. Our average frame rate increase of 1.6% in nine games was slightly higher than the 1.1% shown by Corsair in the three games they tested, but our test system was a little newer and we were running Vista SP1. Something else that we noted while running the benchmarks is that game loading times were also significantly enhanced by installing 4GB of system memory. While load times was not the focus of this article we noted that Crysis v1.21 loaded 54.1% faster (14.28s versus 22.00s) on the initial level load. After the level was loaded and then restarted (as if one died and started over) the load times were within a hundredth of a second..." | |
| | An Overview of Today's Graphics Cards
Monday, May 12, 2008
Big PC tech review sites get a lot of samples and every once in a while they paste all their test results together to paint a picture of where things stand. Tech Report has used their wealth of tests and product samples to being you a definitive overview of the video card industry as it stands today. “Thanks to our latest round of graphics card reviews, which culminated with the massive GeForce 9 series multi-GPU extravaganza last month, we've ended up with enough benchmark data to paint a fairly complete picture of today's mid- to high-end GPU market. Armed with this information, we've taken another crack at quantifying value, this time by looking at what sort of GPU power you get for your dollar. The results are interesting, if nothing else. Read on to see what we found.”
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| | Another Friday, Another Vlog
Friday, May 09, 2008
Yesterday we published a review of the AV LABS AVL337 Bluetooth speakers and today they have featured in our vlog. With a few stuff ups along the way I manage to make a bit of a fool of myself. Thank God it’s Friday! Check it out here. | |
| Are Intel Chipsets Really Capable of Running DirectX 10 games?
Friday, May 09, 2008
A blog over at Hardware Secrets includes some tantilising inside information about thoughts within the NVIDIA camp about the capability of Intel’s integrated solutions being able to run DirectX 10 games adequately. Saucey! "That is the question nVidia is asking around. They just sent us some information about DirectX 10 support on Intel chipsets with integrated video. The conclusion is simple: DirectX 10 support isn't relevant as on-board video doesn't have enough performance to run today's games anyway! See below the full e-mail we've got from nVidia. If you are interested in learning more about integrated (a.k.a. on-board) video from Intel it is an interesting read.” | |
| AV LABS AVL337 Bluetooth Speaker Set Review
Thursday, May 08, 2008
There are so many wired speaker sets to choose from, but still very few bluetooth speaker sets in the market. With a bluetooth connected speaker set you can wirelessly connect your iPod, notebook, mobile phone, or other device without a cord. Bluetooth speakers do cost more than wired speakers, but if you have a particular need for the lack of wires, it’s a good option and these AV LABS AVL337 speakers look pretty nice too. Check out our full review here. | |
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