Assuming your NVIDIA GeForce graphics card isn't broken, the company has added PhysX and CUDA support to its GeForce 8, 9 and 200-series via the free Power Pack download, found on its Force Within page (via press release). The company is also offering a few Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX-enabled maps, the full Warmonger game, Folding@Home, demos of Metal Knight Zero and Nurien and various tech demos. Each game has to support PhysX before you'll notice a difference (here's a list of supported titles). Once we download the update, we'll let you know just how much more awesome our copies of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening are. (Answer: so much more awesome.)

While AMD is riding high after the unveiling of its brawny ATI Radeon 4870 x2, rival NVIDIA is potentially looking at more problems with defective GPUs rolling out of its fabs. According to an article from UK tech blog The Inquirer, a recent batch of bad notebook chips was only the first sign of a malady affecting a wide swath of the firm's graphics processors.

The site reports that four of NVIDIA's partners are seeing G92 and G94 chips "going bad in the field at high rates." These two GPU parts power a number of the company's most popular notebook and add-in solutions, notably the 8800 mobile series, 8800GT, 8800GTS, 8800GS, and 9600GT. Laptops from Dell and HP are reported to be most affected, but with the problem seemingly creeping into stand-alone cards, desktops from these vendors – along with others, not to mention home-built rigs – could be in danger of GPU failure. Until there's a formal announcement from NVIDIA, new hardware purchasers should probably keep their receipts handy just to be safe.

[Via Engadget]

In addition to talking movie downloads, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai confirmed at a business briefing yesterday (via Next-Gen) that the PlayStation 3 consoles produced after last holiday season all have the 65nm Cell processor (down from 90nm at launch). In addition, Sony will be slimming down the RSX graphics chips to 65nm this Fall.

The GPU shrinkage will make the PS3s cheaper to produce, use less energy and not heat up as much. That doesn't necessarily mean a price drop is imminent, but it does give the company some more breathing room to make up that $3.32 billion.

NVIDIA's Roy Taylor doesn't believe PC gaming is dying, but he does believe it's changing. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, the Content Biz Dev VP discussed the growing effect console gaming has had on the PC market.

According to Taylor, consoles have become the "baseline" for game development; PC-exclusive titles are a thing of the past, and more and more titles make the transition from console to PC, as opposed to the other way around. Luckily, Taylor believes that PC versions of those titles we always be superior, and as the baseline console versions improve, so too will the PC ports. Good to know, then.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today launched AMD GAME!, a program aimed at providing "a better experience for the mainstream (core) gamer" by helping to educate them on buying a PC that's capable of playing today's games. The program, separate from the PC Gaming Alliance, has a lot of support from hardware makers and retailers. We talked with AMD Gaming Strategist Brent Barry to get a better understanding of the program.

We all know that gamers can actively help medical research through efforts like the PS3's Folding@Home project. Now comes word from UK's The Engineer magazine that gamers and their pumped up video cards are helping the cause of medical imaging without even trying.

You see, speeding up the processing of magnetic resonance imaging is important to prevent the blurring effects of involuntary body movement. Networked supercomputers are fast enough to do it, but they're too expensive to be a wide scale solution. However, high-powered video cards, with their 128 built-in processors, provide the perfect, low-cost method for speeding things up. And why have those graphics cards so freaking cheap and powerful? "The reason for this is the games industry," said Kings College London Professor Tobias Schaeffter. "It is amazing how much the power of the cards increases annually by putting on more processors and more memory."

So remember, the next time you plunk down hundreds of dollars for that new super-duper graphics card, you're not just helping your gaming experience -- in some small way, you're helping medical research.

Graphics whiz buys physics boffin news now, with the announcement of graphics card designer Nvidia's "definitive agreement" to purchase Ageia, developer of the PhysX middleware and corresponding PPU (physics processing unit) hardware accelerators. Ageia's PhysX solution is reportedly in use by over 140 shipping or in-development games across a range of platforms, including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and PC.

The purchase reflects both companies' shared goal of "creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."

The press release makes no mention of the acquisition cost nor specific products those millions of gamers around the world can expect in the future, but the first benefits of the agreement are sure to be seen in precariously stacked, stunningly rendered crates.

[Via Engadget]

Have any NVIDIA hardware installed on your machine? If so, you're entitled to a free extended demo of Portal, the best game of 2007. Entitled Portal: First Slice, the demo features more content than the normal demo, and is available free to all NVIDIA customers through a new partnership between Valve and the hardware manufacturer.

The offer is accessible through Steam, which will scan your computer to confirm the presence of NVIDIA hardware before making the offer available (creepy). Game|Life also reports that in addition to the Portal: First Slice, demo, NVIDIA customers can also download Peggle Extreme, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, and Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast for free through the same offer. Not too shabby.

Forbes Magazine, or, as it's commonly called, "the Champagne of Business Magazines", will reportedly recognize the processor producing powerhouse Nvidia as its 2007 Company of the Year in an early January edition. Sure, we could list the company's many contributions to gaming over the past few years, but companies don't get awards from Forbes for making contributions to gaming -- no, they get Forbes awards for making ridonkulous amounts of cash money, which Nvidia has done hand over fist.

The company's share prices have shot up 2100% since its initial public offering in 1999, and its profits have increased about 50% every year since the company's inception. With an extremely ambitious CEO, and the increasing popularity of these "computer" things, we feel confident saying Nvidia will see continued growth in the upcoming years -- but we'll leave that kind of conjecture up to the big dogs.

Having already released a new, (sort of) budget-priced GeForce 8800 GT less than two months ago, Nvidia has just launched today a higher-end 8800 GTS 512 MB for the $299 to $349 price range. According to the press release (via GamesIndustry.biz), the card "offers 25% more graphics processing power than NVIDIA products previously offered at the same price point."

Our friends at Engadget have made the rest of the technospeak easier to understand: 65-nm technology, twin dual-link DVI ports, DirectX 10 support, smooth playback of H.264, VC-1, WMV and MPEG-2 HD and SD movies, and more. Sure, it'll set you back the cost of an Xbox 360 console, but you might be able to raise the graphics settings on Crysis up to a mind-blowing medium.

Not content with ATI resting atop the DirectX 10 throne when their compliant cards come out this month, NVIDIA is showing off the new speed king, trumping their very own GeForce 8800 GTX, the current speed king. Behold: the GeForce 8800 Ultra! Rocking 768MB of video memory, and performing between 10 to 15% faster (on average) than the 8800 GTX, we don't even want to know what one of these overclocked beasts is going to cost when they hit retailers worldwide by May 15th. Oh, $829 and higher? And they're SLI compatible? Well, if Lost Planet at 2560X1600 is that important to you, we won't stand in your way.

[Update: The reviews have not been kind. Anandtech says, "The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra is an utter waste of money," while HardOCP says, "there [is] absolutely no reason to buy an 8800 Ultra over an 8800 GTX at this time." Ouch! Thanks for the links, guys.]

If you find the lack of DirectX 10 compliant games disturbing, you probably won't be interested in ExtremeTech's review of the just released, more affordable variant of the GeForce 8800, the 8600 GT and GTS. The cards -- which range from $150-170 for the EVGA GeForce 8600 GT and $200-230 for the XFX GeForce 8600 GTS -- may have that all important DirectX 10 qualifier, but without any DirectX 10 software to test them on, the crew at ExtremeTech are unsure of how to evaluate them. They write, "Unfortunately, we don't know if these new mid-range graphics wonders are going to be "enough" for true DX10 content. Simply put, there are no real DX10 games for us to try out." Nvidia's got a full lineup of DirectX 10 cards but no software to test them on; seems like a hollow victory to us.

According to a Famitsu report released earlier this morning (translation), Capcom and Nvidia are jointly announcing that the platinum-selling Xbox 360 title Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is coming to the PC. Visuals have been improved and the title will utilize DirectX 10 (with resolutions up to 2560x1600). The report cites a June 2007 release in North America and Europe with no date listed for a Japanese release.

We're left wondering if Lost Planet PC is going to be Vista-exclusive, and if there are similar PC plans for Capcom's other Xbox 360 "exclusive."

[Thanks, Rob]

Despite what John Romero thinks, the PC gaming world has a long ways to go before it can match a dedicated gaming console on a dollar per graphical gewgaw basis. Thankfully, in just one week, dedicated (and subsequently cash poor) PC gamers will be able to upgrade their boxen to Microsoft's double digit DirectX 10 for a lot less loot with the introduction of the GeForce 8600 GTS, 8600 GT and 8500 GT cards. The cards, retailing at $199-$229, $149-$159, and $89-$129 respectively, help bring DX10 home for a lot less than the current (and only) DX10 card, the princely GeForce 8800. Any Vista early adopters upgrading their cards?

[Via Engadget]

Unless you live the sort of life where you receive money for nothin' and your chicks for free, you'll undoubtedly consider a fancy DirectX 10 card as a straight plunge into financial dire straits. "Not so," says Nvidia, pointing to the launch of the 320MB GeForce 8800 GTS, a mildly nerfed but more reasonably priced entry into their DirectX 10 graphics card lineup. It's up to you to decide just how reasonable the $300 asking price is, but it's certainly a far cry from the Crysis-killing, $600 GTX models.

Besides sporting considerably less RAM when compared to the 768MB found in the GTX, the 320MB 8800's G80 core runs 75MHz slower at 500Mhz. Still, the card's performance should be more than adequate to handle the likes of Crysis and the tight budget of those working in less lucrative industries (microwave oven installers, for instance).

[Via Engadget]