Dirt 2 First Look

Dirt 2 First Look

The original Dirt--a rally racing game carrying on the legacy of the Colin McRae series--won over fans and critics with its combination of gorgeous visuals, varied events, and an impressive damage modeling system. In other words, it was a hit across the board, which naturally means that Codemasters is hard at work on a sequel. Known quite simply as Dirt 2, this follow-up was unveiled by the English publisher at a press event last night in San Francisco.

During the presentation, the big theme that Codemasters was hammering on for this sequel was the idea of off-road racing with an extreme sports attitude. What does that mean, exactly? The first game featured voice-over work by motocross legend Travis Pastrana, but this time around Codemasters is looking to go full tilt with the game's presentation. A teaser video revealed a scene from the player's RV, the hub where you control all your career mode exploits, and it was a raucous collection of grime, half-naked women, and general insanity. That should serve as a good hint of what the overall attitude will be.

But of course, this is still a racing game, and gussying up the user interface will take you only so far. Thankfully, Codemasters revealed some intriguing information about the type of racing you'll be doing this time around. The biggest chunk of information they let out is the inclusion of stadium rally events. They showed a gameplay video of a fictional stadium built around London's Battersea Power Station, with all manner of twisty dirt roads, puddles, and smoke stacks making up a very gritty and industrial-looking setting. Another similarly fictional stadium they mentioned is one set in Los Angeles for an event they're calling the Stadium King Shootout. Apparently, they've done work to the engine to make these stadium events feel quite massive, with crowd sizes going from 40,000 in Grid (a Codemasters racing game using the same engine released last year) to 120,000 in Dirt 2.

However, it's not just the number of fans watching you peel out and smash your front end that has been tweaked. A tech video shown during the presentation revealed some other enhancements to the game's engine. The biggie is probably advanced water physics: the game will be going beyond the rain-slick roads in the first game to include puddles that appear to be at least a foot deep. This new type of hazard ought to severely impact your driving ability and add a new dimension to the way you'll be racing around the course, because no longer will the optimal line around a corner always be the best one to take if it happens to bring you through a miniature lake.

In terms of locations, you can expect to see races held in London and Los Angeles, as previously mentioned, but also in some less expected spots, including Croatia, China, and Malaysia. Those Asian locales should come as quite a departure from the European-heavy settings in the first game. Another welcome departure is in multiplayer mode: you will now be able to take part in online matches against other drivers in real time. If that doesn't get you excited, you're probably not familiar with the first game's solitary, time-trial multiplayer, which felt like little more than a mean prank in the context of the great game built around it.

We'd love to have seen more on Dirt 2 than the few brief videos shown during this presentation, because what we did see looks promising. You can expect more coverage leading up to the game's release, which is currently slotted for late September.

Fuel Updated Hands-On

Fuel Updated Hands-On

It's fair to say that the sandbox racing genre hasn't taken off as quickly as action games set in a similarly open environment. But Burnout Paradise proved it could be done quite well, so now we're beginning to see more open-world racers come join the fray. One of the more intriguing examples is Fuel, a sandbox racer being developed in France by Asobo Studio and set to be released by racing megapublisher Codemasters. In it you pilot a variety of vehicles through a massive map depicting a variety of Western United States natural landmarks in the nasty, climate-changed future. We took an extensive look at the game last month during a visit to the developer's studio, though recently an updated build was shown off here in San Francisco at a Codemasters press event.

You can get the full rundown on Fuel in our most recent hands-on preview. Essentially, the game takes place in a giant map that covers 5,000 square miles of terrain. It's a diverse environment that encompasses all manner of settings, from dense forests to barren beaches with the rusted skeletons of cargo ships washed ashore. It's a big grab bag of natural landmarks plucked from the Western US, including Oregon's Crater Lake, Washington's Mt. Rainier, Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, and Arizona's Grand Canyon. The scope is hard to put into words, but with a 40-kilometer draw distance, it's definitely a sight to behold.

So while the gameworld is a huge mash-up of rolling outdoor terrain that you can explore however you like in a free roaming mode, the career races take on a more traditional approach. The bulk of the races seem to be point-to-point checkpoint events where you'll be navigating from one glowing red column to the next, while some of the others we saw are circuit events that have you running several laps around the same area. In the case of checkpoint events, these points are usually spread pretty far apart, so you've got a good deal of room to navigate how you'd like to get to the next one. This usually involves a combination of sticking to the road or trail while, in the back of your head, weighing the pros and cons of darting through shortcuts that always seem to be taunting you. We had a lot of fun barreling down steep cliffs with a checkpoint at the bottom when the in-game GPS advised taking a series of cautious switchback trails, or cutting through a dense forest when told to stick to the asphalt road veering around it.

One of the neat things about that GPS system--a series of red arrows floating overhead--is how it adapts depending on what sort of car you're driving. It doesn't just have an ideal line for each race; it has an ideal line for which type of vehicle you're driving and how you're driving it. For example, because motorcycles can scale hills much easier than a sedan, you'll be instructed to take the occasional uphill cut between tracks while on a bike that you wouldn't get in another vehicle. And with 70-plus vehicles spanning different classes, like motorcycles, dune buggies, quads, muscle cars, and monster trucks, you'll have lots of vehicles to choose from.

At this point, the big question you might be asking is why place the game in an open-world setting if all the races are fixed events. That's where user-created races come into play. You can create your own events by dropping checkpoints anywhere on the map, so if you want to do an uphill endurance race straight up Mt. Rainier or a lap around Crater Lake, that's well within your means. These can then be shared online with others, and you can take part in 16-player online matches. But, as mentioned before, you're also given the ability to explore around at will.

So far, we like what we've seen of Fuel. Its artistic design is especially impressive, though one big flaw we've noticed is that the frame rate really chugs during big events. Still, it's a unique take on the off-road racing genre, and we're excited to get the chance to explore the entire gameworld. It's due for release on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 this May.

Tune up utility 2009

The fastest Windows of all time in just five minutes!
Part 1: Switch off annoying background tasks

Immediately after logging on to the computer, Windows starts so-called "Scheduled Tasks" which are frequently not needed at all. This costs time and processing power. Decide for yourself which ones you need, and simply switch off the unnecessary tasks.

How it works with Windows XP

	Click “Start”, “Control Panel”, and “Scheduled Tasks.”

Here you will see an overview of all Scheduled Tasks which start either immediately after logging on or at a particular time. Simply delete tasks which are not required! Example:

Finished! After the computer is restarted, you will no longer be disturbed by these independently active tasks. Tip: The deleted task can be found in the Recycle Bin, should a problem occur. Also make sure that you don't remove any entries from TuneUp Utilities 2009. These ensure a fast and error-free system!

How it works with Windows Vista First of all, click the “Start” button and type the following term into the search box: "Task Scheduler"

	In the list of results, simply click “Task Scheduler” and then “Continue.” Now double-click “Task Scheduler”, “Microsoft”, and “Windows.” You can now decide which of these tasks you want to switch off without having to think twice about it.

First of all, click “Customer Experience Improvement Program” and select all entries visible on the right-hand side:

Then simply select “Disable.” Behind this first disabled entry is the “Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program”, which likes to send (anonymous) utilization statistics to Microsoft! Repeat this step with the following tasks if they are not absolutely necessary:

“Defrag” defragments the hard drive at scheduled times. Unnecessary! Instead use TuneUp Drive Defrag. “DiskDiagnostics” checks the hard drive for errors – as this check is very superficial, use TuneUp Disk Doctor instead. “MobilePC”: Switch off the entry “HotStart” on the right – behind this is a function which has so far not really been exploited in any laptop. It starts a program (something like Media Player) without an operating system immediately after switching the computer on. “SideShow” is a Windows function with which information can be displayed on a laptop on a small, secondary display. Only a handful of laptops support this – therefore: Disable!

Now the most superficial of tasks have been switched off and will no longer be slowly loaded when starting Windows!

RacePro Updated Hands-On

RacePro Updated Hands-On

"The problem is when you have a lot of horsepower." So says SimBin Studio's creative director Diego Sartori, one of the driving forces behind the studio's upcoming racing debut on the Xbox 360, RacePro. Long known for its heralded PC sim-racing games, including GTR, GTR 2, and last year's Race 07, the studio is branching out with RacePro, a game that the studio hopes will please hardcore racing fans and perhaps create a few new racing fans along the way. We've had a chance to spend some time with an updated build of RacePro and, yesterday, we spoke with Sartori about the game's evolution on the Xbox 360.So, back to that horsepower problem. As Sartori puts it, one of the benchmarks in developing a successful racing game is making the upper-echelon cars in the game both compelling and manageable. "We still want to have a game that can handle a lot of horsepower, but still have an intuitive [driving] experience. I definitely think once you open up the more powerful cars [in RacePro], the game begins to flex its muscles and shows how well we have managed."

You go about unlocking those upper-tier cars in the game's career mode, which appears to be the game's single-player highlight. It's organized in a very straightforward manner: You earn credits by placing high in races, and then use those credits to open test drives for teams in other classes. You start off in low-powered rides like Mini Coopers but, soon enough, you'll be piloting 400+-horsepowered brutes around the game's 13 circuits from all over the world. There are eight tiers that you'll need to conquer throughout your career, and though each tier will feature a mixture of car classes to choose from, the further you progress in the game, the hotter the rides (and the tougher the competition).

From a development standpoint, RacePro's mixture of approachability and demanding realism called for a brand-new game engine, codenamed "Lizard," to be built for the console. Although the game is still in development, and the preview build that we played had some rough edges (namely in the unstable frame rate), there are some important high points that improve on what SimBin fans have come to expect on the PC. Take track surfaces, for example. As Sartori put it, track deformations have been significantly improved in RacePro. You need only drive a single lap at a track like Brno--a constantly changing, engrossingly challenging track in the Czech Republic--for proof. When entering and exiting certain corners--turns that we've experienced many times in other console games--we were shocked by the amount of undulations threatening to upset the balance of our car. And the more powerful the ride, the more obvious each and every bump becomes.

As Sartori put it, that extra attention to track surface detail will play a big role in determining how you want to attack any course in the game. Now, of course, every track is different. Sartori describes Brno as a track in which every corner is connected--and a mistake on one turn will have ramifications on upcoming corners, if not the entire lap. Other courses in the game, such as Italy's Monza and Brazil's Curitiba, have a little more room for error yet are still, in their own ways, lots of fun to drive. To help you make the most of your laps, a color-coded racing-line feature can be turned on or off. Although the feature itself has become a racing staple over the years, we were interested in learning why the developers at SimBin went with a static racing line, as opposed to the dynamic line featured in Forza Motorsport 2. As Sartori put it, there's something to be said for a line that shows you the optimal line around a track, not just one that helps you get out of trouble if you make a mistake in braking or accelerating.

While the game's racing line is immovable, there will be lots of options for tuning your car. Like any racing game worth its salt, RacePro will go deep with the tweaking options; gear ratios, downforce, and brake bias are just a few of the aspects of your ride that you'll be able to change. Sartori told us that the development team has put a lot of effort into finding the correct default setups for all of the cars in the game. In fact, once the game's base physics system was in place, a large part of the testing came in the form of determining just how those default car setups should drive. As a result, the cars are currently set to understeer a bit, meaning that they're less twitchy and nervous in the corners, which presumably makes them easier to drive from the outset.

With a list of cars that range from Mini Coopers to open-wheeled F3000 cars, and a host of GT-class cars, race fans will likely find something to love in RacePro. We're particularly fond of the open-wheel Formula BMW rides; with front and rear wings that give you downforce in turns and enough horsepower to be fun, these rides seem to find the sweet spot between control and power in the early goings of the game. This is just a handful of the 44 unique car models found in the game, with plenty of different liveries to choose from.Though RacePro will feature racing for up to 12 players online, there is an offline mode known as Hot Seat that looks like a good alternative for those who don't want to hop online. Here you can race competitively against a friend, or race cooperatively, with each player taking a turn driving the car. When racing cooperatively, you choose how many laps you want, the number of opponents and their skill and, most interestingly, the length of time that each player drives before switching out. You can choose between time (30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, and so on) or number of laps. In a race, a prompt appears onscreen a few seconds before you switch over to the other controller. It's certainly no substitute for online competition against real foes, but it is an interesting twist on multiplayer racing.

RacePro will ultimately support online racing for up to 12 players, but the build that we played wasn't ready for online yet. However, we're hoping to hook up with the SimBin folks in a couple of weeks to check out that aspect of the game and hopefully learn some tips from the pros on how to improve our times on the various tracks. We'll be sharing those tips with you in our next look at RacePro in December.

AMD Phenom 2 Processor

AMD had to overcome a few hiccups in the initial Phenom launch and revisit its pricing to stay competitive with Intel in the Core 2 era, but AMD's back in the game with the new Phenom II processor. It's not exactly a knockout blow, but the Phenom II X4 has the right price and enough performance to do some damage.

This year AMD will ship two new quad-core Phenom II X4 processors, the 940 Black Edition and the 920, clocked at 3.0GHz and 2.8GHz, respectively. Black Edition processors come with an unlocked multiplier setting to make overclocking easier for PC enthusiasts. The processors differ only in clock speed, and have identical specifications otherwise. The Phenom II X4 processors will come with 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (512KB total L1 per processor), and 512KB of L2 data cache per core (2MB total L2 per processor). The processors will also have a shared 6MB L3 cache and will feature an onboard DDR2 memory controller with 17.1 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Built on a 45nm manufacturing process, the processors will have a relatively cool maximum thermal-dissipation value of 125 watts. Cool 'n' Quiet 3.0, AMD's power-management solution, keeps the Phenom II X4 chilly during periods of inactivity. AMD states that the CPU will now use 50 percent less energy while idle in comparison to Cool 'n' Quiet 2.0.

In a move sure to make existing Phenom owners happy, Phenom II X4 processors will be backward compatible with existing AM2+ motherboards. Motherboard manufacturers will release BIOS updates to ensure compatibility. As a follow-up in early 2009, AMD will release AM3 socket-based Phenom II X4 and X3 processors. Both will also be backward compatible with current AM2+ motherboards and will support both DDR2 and DDR3 memory.

AMD also bundles the Fusion and Overdrive utilities with the processors. Fusion helps to improve gaming performance by disabling scores of Windows services and slightly overclocking the entire system. AMD's Overdrive utility helps to automatically overclock the system and lets users apply those settings on an application-specific level. Overdrive helped bumped our Black Edition up to a final speed of 3333MHz when we tried it out.

The new Phenom II X4 processors will be available immediately in quantity. Expect to find the Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition retailing for $275, and the Phenom II X4 920 at $235.

From the pricing angle, the best direct competitor to the Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition is Intel's 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q9400, a quad-core processor with 6MB of L2 cache. Intel's Core i7 920 sits at a similar price point, but the total cost of ownership is much higher for the i7 after you factor in the cost of the motherboard and memory. The i7 processor requires DDR3 memory and a motherboard with an LGA 1366 socket. DDR3 memory costs roughly twice as much as DDR2. AM2+-based motherboards start in the $50 range and cap off at $200, whereas LGA socket 1366 boards start at $200 and can run as high as $400.

We didn't have Intel's 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q9400 processor on hand for our comparison. Instead, we clocked our Core 2 Extreme QX6800 with 8MB of L2 cache down to 2.66GHz and put it up against the Phenom II X4 940 to see how the chips stack up.