If you've been living under a rock lately and haven't heard about the Spore Creature Creator, we forgive you. However, if you actually just live under a rock and look like something spawned from the Creature Creator, and have been pouting because you have an Interl Mac Mini or an older MacBook with Intel's GMA 950 integrated graphics, then turn that frown upside down.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog will let you know how to fool the program into thinking you're sporting a different graphics chip, and you'll be able to play God on your precious piece of outdated, but still loved, hardware. Just don't blame us if your now hacked machine becomes sentient and starts spawning.

Sam McGrath, technical guru and one of three founders Offset Software, has announced that the company has been purchased by technology giant Intel. The notice came in the form a short post on the Project Offset website, with McGrath adding that the now mythical project is still "going strong" and that the team is "excited about things to come."

Honestly there are two ways to take this, either as PR rhetoric, or a sign that the tech demo that wowed us way back in 2005 could finally be getting its game legs. We'd like to believe the latter, but most of us here stopped believing in miracles a long time ago. But it begs the question as to what Intel has up its sleeves -- why would it pick up such a small developer if Offset Software's game engine technology didn't somehow fit into Intel's master plan? Whether it's interested in pushing Project Offset ahead or is just wanting to field the company's impressive middleware technology, it will be very interesting to see what comes out of this latest game industry acquisition in the months to come.

While waggling your Wii remote around provides a decent approximation of natural motion, Intel predicts a future where cameras will provide highly accurate motion data to a game system. "We imagine some future generation of [Nintendo's] Wii won't have hand controllers," Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner, told Business Week. "You just set up the cameras around the room and wave your hand like you're playing tennis."

It should be noted that there's nothing in the article to indicate that Rattner has any insider info on Nintendo's plans -- more than likely he was just theorizing about what he'd like to see in a future system. Still, the idea of a camera-based 3D motion-sensing setup has incredible potential for gaming. More than the simple video transposition of the Xbox Live Vision Camera or the PlayStation Eye, a multi-camera system could model your three-dimensional movements in real time, in effect placing a digital version of you in the game. The result could revolutionize the way we play games and even how they're made -- after all, why should developers use motion captured performances when the players can provide them for themselves?

Such a theoretical system would take quite a bit of processing power, though, which might explain why Intel is talking it up -- after all, they already have a chip that can perform one trillion calculations a second. The future's so bright, we're using our Wii remotes as makeshift shades.

So, we're giving away this here gaming PC built by the folks at Falcon Northwest. Since they're the experts when it comes to building gaming PCs and we're the experts when it comes to asking obvious questions, we decided to combine our relative talents and present you with a short bit about a different component each day. We asked Kelt Reeves, CEO of Falcon Northwest, if the system's Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz was similar to our PC's 486DX2 processor. He replied: "Yes, very much so. I'm glad to hear your Falcon Mach V system from 1993 is still working for you. Oh shut up – what did you look like in 1993? Well this is the advertising-equivalent of our 'big hair days'. In 15 years our ads have gotten better."

So, that's the processor as relayed by comparing and contrasting advertising. Pretty fancy, eh? And here's your daily reminder to enter. Go to the giveaway post and answer the following question in the comments: What's your most embarrassing "big hair" memory? In 1993 we were rocking a Hypercolor shirt ... with matching Jams ... and braces. (Also virginity).

Even if you're not familiar with the name Havok, you probably know of the games that have used the company's technology, a list that includes BioShock, Stranglehold, Halo 2, Half Life 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Crackdown. Intel announced today that they've purchased the entire company, a value of around $110 million. The last $21 million sliver was purchased from an Irish holding company called TVC.

As video game bloggers, it's important for us to use our expertise to frame the news in a context that you can use and relate to your daily life. So, here's what this announcement means to you: When you have to press start to skip through a Havok logo before you can play a game, know that you've helped Intel make some more money. ... That is all.

American McGee's Alice has been updated into a Universal Binary, and the tens of Mac gamers who both use Intel Macs and enjoyed this title -- or at least its gnarled art direction -- can now run the game natively. (Okay, we jest; there must be at least hundreds of us, including this writer and other Joystiq contributors.)

We salute Aspyr for offering a free update to this older title. This sort of support makes us want to keep playing Mac titles, even though the platform's gaming future is uncertain at best. Now excuse us while we dig up old copies of Alice and recite incantations for a Deus Ex update.

Macworld's Peter Cohen (author of the magazine's recently vanished GameRoom column) has posted an online idolatry to Apple's new Mac Pro workstation, in which he praises the G5 successor's potential as a gaming tour de force.

Cohen summarizes, "With Leopard coming next spring, Universal Binary games here today and Cider-wrapped games coming within the next couple of months, Mac gaming is on the upswing, and the Mac Pro is a rig that should really be able to take advantage of everything that's offered."

Do you agree? Some of the comments we received for our original post on the Mac Pro raised issues with the Xeon's shortcomings as a gaming chip (which Cohen also addresses), while other Joystiqers engaged in a healthy debate on cost comparisons with similarly configured PCs.

After some initial rumblings that indicated otherwise, AMD has reaffirmed their desire to attach the ATI brand to several of their forthcoming product lines. "The ATi name will live on at AMD as our leading consumer brand, and so will the Radeon brand and other ATi product brands," says spokesperson Eric DeRitis. "AMD's executive management knows very well the power and value of branding, and ATi's branding is some of the most valued in the global technology industry. As such, we plan to keep it. Period."

The nature of the products to be branded as such have yet to be fully disclosed, but already AMD is hinting at providing more integrated graphics solutions. Indeed, the branding may become especially vital when faced with the widespread (and arguably correct) perception that "integrated graphics" is merely a shorter term for referring to that worthless piece of tech that came with your computer and can barely push two frames per second in the latest Tiger Woods game. According to their marketing manager for Europe, AMD sees integrating graphics acceleration directly into the CPU as the next logical step.

"So, in much the same way as a floating point unit is now integrated into the processor, I would expect to see joint single pieces of silicon for certain specialist markets too." Richard Baker restrains the idea a bit, though, and says that AMD won't "integrate some steaming great big quad-core CrossFire engine into a CPU; that would be crazy. But if you're looking at entry level parts for emerging markets, where a very simple GPU could be integrated, then that could be possible."

The true fallout of the AMD/ATI deal will likely become most evident once the new product lines show up which, if Baker is to be believed, could happen as early as next year.

Read - AMD stays hand over ATI brand axe
Read - AMD hints at integrated graphics and physics acceleration in CPUs

Previously:

• AMD to buy ATI for $5.4 billion
• Nvidia on ATI: "basically throwing in the towel"
• ATI responds to Nvidia, clears up post-takeover rumors

Not too long after Nvidia CEO, Jen Hsun-Huang, described AMD's purchase of ATI as a "gift" and as a sign of their main competitor "throwing in the towel," comes this retort from the newly formed CPU-GPU monster:

"The PC market is a tough place to be without any friends. ATI now has all the resources of AMD behind it, and will be producing faster, more compact GPUs and reaching the channel more effectively than ever before. Nvidia's words are bravado, designed to confuse the market while the company tries to find a way to compete now that it's standing alone."

Oh my, such comments are in desperate need of thermal paste and an officially endorsed heatsink and fan combination! Or, um, burn. While Nvidia is hardly "alone" in the market, the point ATI makes is not entirely without merit. In a considerably competitive hardware market, combining resources and technology couldn't easily be labeled as a terrible strategy and certainly not as a white flag flapping in the wind. Both companies have valid points -- we'll see which is more convincing once they start releasing their next generation of wares.

The rest of AMD's response is aimed at several rumors that have cropped up since the original takeover announcement. They pledge to remain committed to GPUs and to support graphics solutions on Intel platforms, rubbishing the suggestion that Intel is revoking ATI's license. Perhaps that's where Nvidia and ATI can agree: having a strange PC hardware format war would be unpleasant for all parties involved.

[Via Voodoo Extreme, thanks devian!]

In the aftermath of AMD's acquisition of ATI, ZDnet blogger Jason O'Grady ponders Apple's next move with regards to graphics chips. While this isn't an issue for the MacBook and Mini product lines (both use the dreaded integrated graphics solution), the iMacs and MacBook Pros currently use the ATI Radeon X1600, while the Power Mac G5s ship with an Nvidia GeForce 6600.

Should Intel sever its ties with ATI, where would this leave the Intel Macs, including the forthcoming Mac Pros (rumored to be switching back to ATI)? Over the past year, it seems Mac gamers have been in an endless state of confusion with the CPU transition, Rosetta and Universal binary technologies, the introduction of Boot Camp, and now a potential GPU change.

What are your thoughts on the future of Mac gaming? Should Apple continue offering solutions from both graphics providers, and are Jobs and Co. doing enough to promote the Mac as a gaming platform?

It seems that graphics powerhouse Nvidia is reacting rather well to news of AMD scooping ATI off the corporate shelf and filling in coupons to the value of $5.4 billion at the checkout counter. Speaking to BusinessWeek Online, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang described the purchase as a "gift", presumably whilst reclining in a henhouse, sipping cocktails and counting objects of some kind. He went on to say that ATI was "throwing in the towel, leaving us as the only stand-alone (graphics chip) company in the world." Of course, not being a stand-alone graphics chip company hasn't stopped Intel from competing in that market, so perhaps winning the "who can be the last stand-alone company" competition isn't all that important.

More importance can be found in the repercussions of such a large purchase. There are concerns that AMD's debt-to-capital ratio might take a turn for the worse after the company took out a $2.5 billion term loan to cover some of the purchase. Intel and Nvidia's chummy relationship may also prove to be a stumbling block should ATI's graphics chips ever be locked out of Intel machines. Still, AMD cautiously considers the potential benefits, such as major cost reductions and an entry point into the Intel-dominated laptop arena, to be worth the price and effort.

Mr. Huang's expectations may turn out to be accurate in the long run, but in an industry that was once ruled by 3dfx Interactive (remember Glide?), anything can happen.

A couple of hours ago, Epic Vice President Mark Rein opened the Develop Conference in Brighton with a keynote covering topics ranging from the economics of next-generation games, episodic content and middleware (which, incidentally, Epic makes a lot of its money from). The majority of the second half of his keynote took a critical look at Intel's place within gaming; specifically, Mark thinks "Intel is killing PC gaming".

Over several slides on the topic, Mark laid out the reasons he thinks that PC gaming is being harmed by Intel. He pointed the finger at Intel's integrated graphics chips. Integrated chipsets are often incapable of playing the latest (and certainly next-generation) games at any kind of graphics settings. Despite this, they are wildly popular amongst retailers. According to Mark's figures, 80% of laptops and 55% of desktops (note: he failed to cite a source for these figures) feature integrated graphics. That's bad news for companies like Epic, which are investing heavily into extremely demanding next-generation games.

If next-generation games don't run on the vast majority of computers, big-name and -money developers will lose (or have already lost) their bottom end. At the same time, the higher end is getting higher. The last year has produced widespread-SLI adoption within the hardcore PC gaming community and new technologies like Quad-SLI, Quad-CPUs, physics processors and $10,000+ PCs.

Over the next couple of days we'll be exploring this keynote and other seminars from Develop in more depth, but for now we'll ask you the same questions that Mark asked the audience:

• Do games like The Sims, World of WarCraft and other low-budget Asian MMOs prove Mark's hypothesis, that PC gaming is going away because of Intel, wrong?
• Will console MMOs put the nail in the coffin of PC gaming?
• How come big publishers aren't placing big bets on PC gaming? (Mark says that he knows of at least two "major" developers that are considering moving exclusively to console based development, although he failed to elaborate on which ones).
• Will the PC market be relegated to only mass-market and casual games?

Intel, ATI, and Logitech will be sponsoring a Rise of Legends tournament that includes $100k in prize money. Qualifying events will be held between September and November, and the top eight combatants will be invited to the final round in January to determine the "ultimate champion". Visit the official site for details.

Professional gaming has been a frequent topic of discussion in recent months:

• Gaming at the Olympics? It could happen
• Pizza Hut to sponsor cyberathletes
• Guild Wars Factions Championship update

PC World's list of top 100 tech products of the year praised our sister blog Engadget and gave Apple lots of love but the categorical winner of the list is undoubtedly gaming. The following products aren't all directly gaming related (you could use some of them to run spreadsheets) although there's a quite clear video gaming subtext underlying many of the choices. Lets just say that they're as close to being gaming technology as Uri Geller is to being locked up in an asylum.

1. Core Duo - the first chip to enable desktop level performance in games on laptop computers.
2. Athlon 64 X2 - for that ultimate gaming rig you always wanted (but couldn't, and still can't, afford).
10. Boot Camp - Apple's Mac gaming solution.
16. GeForce 7600GT - hits that price/performance sweet spot.
19. Guitar Hero - we think that this is some kind of video game.
55. Raptor X - 10,000RPM Hard Drives were invented for gaming.
58. X1900 XTX - ATI's biggest, baddest GPU. Stupid name though.
63. A8N32 mobo - it's all about the SLI, baby.
89. Xbox 360 - we've heard of this! Isn't it designed to hold your lunch?
92. GeForce 7900 GTX - nVIDIA's biggest, baddest GPU. Stupid name though.

I personally own several products identical or similar to products on this list (a MacBook with a Core Duo CPU running Windows via Boot Camp is being used to write this post - I'm off for some Eve Online in a sec). Do you agree with these choices? What's missing?

P.S. If anyone from PC World is reading this, I apologize for desecrating your logo.

[Update: "top tech," not "top ten tech". Thanks Ahms!]