10 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|NOV 08 |www.maximumpc.com
QUICKSTART^
THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALLVIA Exits Chipset Biz
Is anyone surprised?
Judge Halts Defcon Presentation
MIT students were to describe subway vulnerabilities
V
IA announced it has abandoned the
core-logic chipset game after years
of relative inactivity in that area to
concentrate exclusively on making low-
power CPUs. VIA chipsets were once a
popular alternative to Intel’s RDRAM-only
chipsets in the Pentium 3 days and helped
make the original Athlon a success. But the
company says it saw the writing on the wall
long ago when Nvidia and ATI entered the
chipset market. –G UA
group of MIT students were
prepared to give a presentation at
Defcon on how to hack the Boston
subway system, providing details on both
physical vulnerabilities related to security
lapses as well as how to add value to a
subway pass. However, a federal judge
issued a restraining order forbidding them
from giving the talk aft er offi cials with theMassachusetts Transit Authority fi led a
complaint.
Although the students were unable
to present at Defcon, slides of the talk are
readily available on the Internet and had
also been burned to CD, copies of which
were given to conference attendees. The
Electronic Frontier Foundation is currently
handling the students’ appeal. –T ETom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor
for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for
Microprocessor Report.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................X
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxEm vulput ing ero
consectem dolore feu feum do consed enim
verosto dolorper alisis nibh eugait laore do
dolorero digna faciduipit vendip eniam, quat, sequis
niat. Unt lor sustrud do corer sim iuscilla commy
nit augiam, qui bla alis ero ex el dolutetue facilis
nulputat. El ipismolorem volore magna feu feum vel
el ut nonsequi ex eriure dolesse dolor sit wismod
dio consequ atinis augiat lumsandion henis nosto
dolobor sustrud exer si.
Adiat ea alisi. Gait non eugait dipit irillam,
consequis nulla con ulput lummy nonullan vel iure
etue voloreet, vullaor percidunt aciliquat lore et,
con euisi.
Core dolut ullam dolortie faccum accum verat-
ing esequat adio et lore volent iuscillan volobor
sequipit pratueriurem dolortie do doloreet eriure
euguer aut alit, commy nummy nim quatio dui essit
delent utem el del utem volesectem eleniam dipit,
con utatum nim velismolore mod endiam dunt wisi
el utat.
Sit nit volutpat wisi. Wis nit augiat, quisseq
uamconsequi blan vullaore facil et luptatie facin
henisit vendignis nonsequat iriusto dio ese facipis
autem quamconsecte magna faccum eum vel ut lor
suscing eugait ad del do do do odionullaor alismod
tionsen dignit, suscidunt praesse exer aute eugiamc
onsectem iuscili quamconsent praesto cor sed
elestie consecte deliscil in heniscidunt la ad magna
feuguercip etuer alit wisit landiam, quipsustrud
eu faci et, qui te eugiam quatum zzrilit volendiat.
Iril exero consequis nonsenisit laoreet, suscilisit
ad magna commy nisse tat. Duis adip er se dolorer
sumsan volobor eetummy nibh eraesti onsequat.
Igna faccumm odolor sisit vel et lummolo borpercil-
lam ate delenisim in ute te dio od digna adip ea au-
giamet vullam, con hendre te vulputpate consectem
verostisl doloreraesed tat, volor sumsandre facipis
accum nostrud min heniat nim dit ex eros nullut utet
alit velenia mconsed duisim er alisisi.
Eliquat nisim duisl delit lorem dit atis ad magna
alisim zzriure tat, quat. Duisi.
Feugue dolortisi. El in henim quat, velenim
quip ero odionsed eliquam volobortisse eliquam,
conulputatis do ero eugue dignibh eummy nibh
eumsan vel delenibh erostrud tin ullaor sit dolendit,
sequam, conse dolum doloborem zzrilit do od tem
velendioXxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TOM HALFHILLMaximum PC
Folding?
No, the magazine isn’t going under—
it’s sponsoring a Folding@Home
team of PC users who are putting
their spare CPU cycles to good use.
Working in concert, volunteers’
machines are able to crunch vast
amounts of data to help Stanford
researches unlock the secrets of
protein folding—and by extension,
help cure common diseases such
as Parkinson’s. To join Maximum
PC’s folding team—currently the
fourth-largest points producer in the
world, with 2,000 active members—
download the folding client at
http://folding.stanford.edu and
register with team number 11108. To
learn more, visit the MaximumPC
.com forum on folding at http://
tinyurl.com/6rqku9. –K SNehalem Gets
a Name
Intel has dubbed its new Nehalem
family of CPUs “Core.” The extreme
version will be called Core i7. What
does the i7 stand for? Nothing, the
company says.
That’s not the only thing likely
to confuse consumers. This is Intel’s
third trip to the Core well. Prior to the
latest chip family, Intel had a Core 2
Duo chip, which itself followed the
Core Duo. –G UI
am not a doomsayer. I am not here to tell you
about the death of PC gaming. I am here to
share two names with you: Spore and Europa
Universalis: Rome. We’ll get to them momentarily.
Every year at this time I create the Games
100 , an annual guide to the best games released
for all platforms since January. To date, 2008 has
not been a brilliant year, particularly coming after
the high-water mark of 2007. But there have been
some strong moments on various platforms, and
the fall season promises some excellent releases.
So what about Spore and EU: Rome?
They are the only two signifi cant PC-exclusive
titles released this year. I could probably add Age
of Conan, but that release is best characterized as
a boxed ongoing open public paid beta. Let us not
mention it any further.
Much as I’ve enjoyed spending time with
Spore: Creature Creator (and been impressed
with what I’ve seen of the fi nal game), and as good
as it is see the Europa Universalis series take on
the Roman Empire, this is hardly a list upon which
to hang a hobby. We have clearly reached the low-
water mark in the history of PC gaming.
Peel back the layers a little bit, however, and
you’ll fi nd a contrast that matters. Last year, PC
gamers got fi rst crack at several excellent multi-
player action games, among them Unreal Tourna-
ment III and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Their
quality did not become completely clear until the
games were ported to other platforms this year.
The console versions of both games are
weak and fl accid things, pale shadows of their PC
incarnations. In graphics, features, speed, and
stability, the PC versions are head-and-shoulders
above their bastard siblings. Playing an online
FPS on a console is like reading the Illustrated
Classics version of a great novel. You may get
some sense of the actual experience, but it’s a
long way from the real thing. That real thing is
native to the PC, and the true experience simply
cannot be duplicated in any other medium. And in
that distinction may lie the hope that PC gaming
will turn around, and that 2009 will yield more
than a couple unique titles.GAME THEORYNothing Like the
Real Thing
THOMAS MCDONALDThomas L. McDonald has been covering games
for 17 years. He is an editor at large for Games
magazine.