10 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2007
quickstart THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL
Tom McDonald has been covering games for countless
magazines and newspapers for 11 years. He lives in the New
Jersey Pine Barrens.I
n order to become a Games for Windows title, a
game needs to meet a few criteria, including an
Easy Install option, compatibility with Xbox 360
controllers (sometimes), compatibility with Vista
Games Explorer, compatibility with 64-bit proces-
sors (even for 32-bit games), and support for both
normal and widescreen resolutions.
As criteria go, that’s about as meager a set of
standards as one can assemble and still call them
“standards.” It’s particularly risible given the fact
that the most important standard, that of DirectX
10 compatibility, remains irrelevant at this point
given the paucity of DX10 hardware.
No one is denying that the new Windows
Display Driver Module is a fine thing for gaming.
It promises us a world filled with the wonders
of unified pipeline architecture and predicated
rendering, much like The Jetsons promised us
a world of robot maids and flying cars. I’m sure
DX10 will work wonders and move mountains, but
right now there’s no there there. The entire Games
for Windows brand is thus less a set of standards
than it is a placeholder for a set of standards. It’s a
simple marketing gimmick.
And you know what? I think that’s great. I
actually get excited about marketing because I
live in the Pine Barrens and we really don’t have
much else to get excited about (aside from the
annual Jersey Devil hunt). Microsoft is creating,
out of the warring factions and disparate creators
of PC gaming, an identifiable brand that allows
PC games to compete with Xbox, PlayStation, and
Nintendo titles on retail shelves. It means more
than simply putting a banner graphic at the top of
a standardized, game-size box. It means shifting
PC games from the software ghetto of retail stores
to the far more sexy gaming section, where their
improved branding creates a de facto fourth gam-
ing system.
People need to be reminded that PCs are gam-
ing systems and that they can compete against
(and in most cases defeat) any of the new con-
soles. PC gaming will survive, and Vista will even-
tually earn its bones as the gaming OS of the next
generation. In the meantime, simply creating a
fourth platform will go a long way toward winning
back the hearts and minds of the gaming public.The Fourth
Console
GAME THEORY
THOMAS
MCDONALDW
hile ATI has yet to announce its
DX10-compatible lineup, Nvidia
just added three new budget
GPUs to its DX10 stable.
The GeForce 8500 GT will enable
board manufacturers to sell DX10-compat-
ible cards for well under $100, but its specs
aren’t particularly appealing: The part will
have just 16 stream processors clocked at
450MHz and 256MB of DDR2 memory run-
ning at 400MHz on a puny 128-bit bus.The GeForce 8600 GT ($140 to $160)
and 8600 GTS ($200 to $250) include twice
as many stream processors running at
540MHz and 675MHz, respectively. There
will be 256MB of DDR3 memory on refer-
ence design boards running at 700MHz
and 1GHz, respectively. Unfortunately, both
cards use a 128-bit interface.DX10 Videocards,
Cheap!
Nvidia lowers the barrier of entry to
DirectX 10—againI
t’s getting harder to pack in all the demands of modern life and still have time to
enjoy TV. Sure, a PVR lets us watch our favorite programs on our own schedule,
but the more we record, the more we’re confronted by our limited time.
CyberLink’s MagicSports ($50, http://www.cyberlink.com) is one solution. The plugin
for Windows Media Center takes the PVR to its next logical level. It will process
baseball, soccer, and lacrosse games that you’ve recorded and create a custom
highlight show. Want to watch only pitches? The program can cut out all the bas-
erunning, catching, and spitting that fi ll a three-hour game. It does so by analyz-
ing the on-base overlays broadcasters include as well as a game’s sound.
We sense a trend that’s sure to extend beyond sports. Why watch an
entire episode of 24 when you can home in on just the parts with Jack Bauer
pointing his Sig Sauer at some terrorist’s head? Or why not get just the good
news by having a
plugin analyze
newscasters’
smiles? Think of
how many more
programs we
could watch!The Cliffs Notes of TV?
CyberLink taps into the busy consumer’s desire to watch
just the ‘good parts’Preview
Cheaper DirectX 10 cards are com-
ing, but they’re shackled to a narrow
128-bit memory bus.MagicSports will
create a per-
sonal highlight
reel from your
recorded TV.