ARCHIVED NEWS
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November 2011
Safari 5.1.2
30 November 2011
Apple has released Version 5.1.2 of the Safari browser for Windows. This update allows PDFs to be displayed in web content, and contains security, compatibility and stability fixes.
Game Patches
30 November 2011
WinZip 16
30 November 2011
The archival utility WinZip has been upgraded to Version 16 Build 9691.
CCleaner 3.13.1600
29 November 2011
A new Version 3.13.1600 of the free CCleaner system cleaning utility has been released. This update adds support for the Internet Explorer add-on manager and Firefox Jumplist cleaning, adds support for new applications including Corel Paintshop Pro and Nero Vision, improves cleaning for Winrar, Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird and Microsoft Office, and has other improvements and fixes.
Game Patches
29 November 2011
Nvidia Beta Forceware 290.36
28 November 2011
Nvidia has released the Beta 290.36 driver for Windows Vista and 7. This driver is for GeForce 6 and higher desktop cards. It adds Ambient Occlusion support for Skyrim and COD:MW3 in the Nvidia Control Panel, provides updated SLI and 3D Vision profiles, and contains bug fixes. The driver package also contains the 9.11.11.07 PhysX drivers.
AMD Catalyst 11.11b
27 November 2011
AMD has released a Catalyst 11.11b Performance Driver for Windows 7, Vista and XP. This driver provides CrossfireX support for Skyrim and Assassin's Creed: Revelations along with the changes introduced in Catalyst 11.11a.
Game Patches
27 November 2011
GPU-Z 0.5.6
26 November 2011
GPU-Z, a free graphics card information utility, has reached Version 0.5.6. Changes include support for new chipsets as well as bug fixes.
Game Patches
26 November 2011
Site Update
25 November 2011
Quick update on the Skyrim Tweak Guide. I sent it to Nvidia a few days ago, and it is currently undergoing feedback and review. It won't be available on GeForce.com until some time next week. I do want to hose down some of the hype surrounding the guide. I've tried my best to make the guide as comprehensive and detailed as possible, but don't expect any miracles. Stay tuned and I'll announce when it's up.
Game Patches
25 November 2011
Game Patches
24 November 2011
CPU-Z 1.59
24 November 2011
A new Version 1.59 of the CPU-Z information utility has been released. This update provides support for new chipsets, and adds support for Windows 8.
Windows Update
23 November 2011
Microsoft has released a non-critical Update for all versions of Windows to address changes in daylight savings time in several countries.
Game Patches
23 November 2011
WinZip 16
23 November 2011
The archival utility WinZip has been upgraded to Version 16 Build 9686.
Site Update
22 November 2011
Another day, another post on Skyrim. As many of you know, Steam updated Skyrim today. I have no official word on what it contained, but it appears the update was only designed to ensure that Steam couldn't be bypassed by launching the game directly from TESV.exe. However it also breaks any modifications to that .exe file, including the popular Large Address Aware patch.
AMD Catalyst 11.11a
22 November 2011
AMD has released a Catalyst 11.11a Performance Driver for Windows 7, Vista and XP. This driver improves performance in Skyrim, Rage, and Batman: Arkham City, and fixes a bug in BF3 on HD 5000 and HD 6000 series cards.
Game Patches
22 November 2011
Site Update
20 November 2011
For those who are curious, the good news is that the Skyrim Tweak Guide is nearing completion. I can guarantee it will be the most comprehensive tweak guide for the game, with plenty of detail, lots of tested and working tweaks, and full descriptions and screenshot comparisons throughout. The bad news is it will be at least another week, perhaps a bit longer, before it becomes available. In the meanwhile, the word from Bethesda is that the next Skyrim patch will arrive around the week of 28 November.
Update: The guide's pretty much complete now, just adding screenshot comparisons, awaiting the performance charts from Nvidia labs, and it will then have to be edited and put up on GeForce.com. I'm hoping it will be up before Thanksgiving but I can't promise anything as some of it is out of my hands. What I can say is that the guide is more detailed than the Oblivion Tweak Guide, and addresses many common concerns, and clarifies many tweaks. I've also omitted any tweak which isn't 100% confirmed as working.
In the meanwhile, several people have pointed out this thread which talks about issues caused through disabling VSync by setting iPresentInterval=0 in Skyrim.ini. It's not quite that simple. Vertical mouse sensitivity in Skyrim is always linked to FPS; disabling VSync only highlights it, but is not the cause. Any Physics bugs may be caused by either disabling VSync or high FPS - it's unclear. The timing bug is also unclear; some people claim they have it with VSync enabled, some say they've disabled VSync but don't have it. There is no simple solution to the VSync dilemma in Skyrim. The engine is obviously quirky, and disabling VSync may cause issues, but leaving it enabled also causes mouse lag and can reduce performance. Simply capping FPS may not necessarily fix all these issues either. Probably the best compromise for now is to leave VSync enabled and use Triple Buffering, though this may not help people using 120Hz monitors. I'm hoping Bethesda address this issue either through formal advice or in the upcoming patch, but I suspect it's a fundamental engine flaw due to the game's console heritage, which forced VSync simply covers up by keeping FPS low.
Game Patches
19 November 2011
Game Patches
18 November 2011
Chrome 15.0.874.121
18 November 2011
Google has released Version 15.0.874.121 of the Chrome browser. This version contains a bug fix.
Game Patches
17 November 2011
AMD Catalyst 11.11
16 November 2011
AMD has released the official Catalyst 11.11 graphics driver for the HD 2000 series and above. The changes in this WHQL certified driver include GPU-accelerated Flash support, as well as a range of bug fixes.
Game Patches
16 November 2011
Site Update
15 November 2011
Let's take a moment to talk in more detail about Skyrim. It's obviously incredibly popular, and I think deservedly so. I'm working on a comprehensive Skyrim Tweak Guide right now, but it won't be up on GeForce.com for at least another week or two. It takes time to properly test and document the advanced tweaks, but thankfully some of the decent tweaks are already widely available. There is also unfortunately a lot of confusion, which hopefully the guide will help clear up. The bottom line is that at present the game can definitely be made to look nicer, but some things like texture quality can't be improved much more regardless of tweaking. Some people have misinterpreted the answers extracted from this old interview with Bethesda to mean that a high-res texture pack will be released. That's not what they said: "The PC version also gets higher res textures, larger render modes, and a bunch of other effects you can scale up if your machine is a beast." They were talking about the features of the game prior to its release, so these are already incorporated into Skyrim on PC.
In terms of performance, there are a wide range of tradeoffs, tips and recommendations I have in the guide, but let's be clear: Skyrim is a CPU-limited game, which is why there are slowdowns in certain areas. Performance articles like this one show it, but let me demonstrate it on my own i7 920/GTX 580 system. The following screenshots are all of an identical low FPS scene on my system, at the Ultra preset with 8xAA/16xAF, and FPS shown at top right: 1920x1200, 1920x1080, 1280x720. To save time I'll spell out the result: at all three resolutions, FPS fluctuates around 28-30. In fact if I go from 8x MSAA to no MSAA, the result is still the same. This is a classic example of a CPU bottleneck. And even with the relatively poor textures and shadows, I've also seen my Video RAM usage rise to in excess of 1GB after only a few minutes of gameplay at Ultra settings, not including any extra tweaks. The fact that it performs much more smoothly than previous Bethesda games tends to indicate that the setting tradeoffs built into the PC version of the Creation Engine are not so bad despite the game's console-based heritage. In any case the guide will be out soon and you will have the option to alter a much wider range of settings. In the meanwhile, concentrate on enjoying this excellent game, faults and all.
Update: For people still not clear on what this all means - Skyrim only runs on the equivalent of 2 CPU cores; it cannot use more than 2 threads, so performance is CPU-limited. Also a heads-up that places like PC Gamer have widely misreported the VSync tweak I posted earlier. To disable VSync you must add iPresentInterval=0 under [Display] in Skyrim.ini, not SkyrimPrefs.ini, otherwise it won't work. Alternatively you can enable Triple Buffering, but that uses more VRAM, which is why disabling VSync is the easiest solution. Either way, it is a necessary step as VSync actually reduces overall FPS, not just caps it.
iTunes 10.5.1
15 November 2011
Apple has released a new Version 10.5.1 of the iTunes software. This update adds the new iTunes Match feature, providing iCloud support for the music library. Note that iTunes Match is US-only.
Game Patches
15 November 2011
Game Patches
13 November 2011
Nvidia PhysX 9.11.1107
12 November 2011
Nvidia has released the 9.11.1107 PhysX drivers. These were supposed to be included in the 285.79 Beta graphics driver package but were not, and can now be downloaded and installed separately.
Game Patches
12 November 2011
Autoruns 11.1
11 November 2011
Microsoft has released Autoruns 11.1, updating this free startup software identification utility. This version adds new autostart locations, reports the active filter in the status bar, and highlights unsigned images and those with no company name/description.
Game Patches
11 November 2011
Chrome 15.0.874.120
11 November 2011
Google has released Version 15.0.874.120 of the Chrome browser. This version contains an updated V8 and Flash, as well as security and bug fixes.
Flash Player 11.1.102.55
11 November 2011
Adobe has released Version 11.1.102.55 of the Flash Player plugin for browsers.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
11 November 2011
Skyrim, the long-awaited sequel to Oblivion, has finally been released. I've prepared an HD YouTube Video which demonstrates basic gameplay at maximum settings. I'm also writing a tweak guide for the game, as it has a range of in-game settings and a large number of .ini variables which can be tweaked. For now, the most important tweak has to do with the fact that VSync is automatically on and can't be disabled from within the game. This not only reduces FPS, it also introduces mouse lag. To disable VSync in Skyrim, add iPresentInterval=0 to the bottom of the [Display] section of the Skyrim.ini file in the \Users\[Username]\My Documents\My Games\Skyrim directory.
Nvidia Beta Forceware 285.79
10 November 2011
Nvidia has released the Beta 285.79 driver for Windows Vista and 7. This driver is for GeForce 6 and higher desktop cards. It is specifically designed to provide performance improvements and bug fixes for Battlefield 3. It also contains new SLI and 3D Vision profiles for several games, as well as a Windows Media Center bug fix. The driver package also contains the 9.11.11.07 PhysX drivers.
Battlefield 3 Tweak Guide
10 November 2011
My Battlefield 3 Tweak Guide is now available on GeForce.com.
Game Patches
10 November 2011
Firefox 8.0
9 November 2011
Mozilla has released Version 8.0 of the Firefox browser. This is a relatively minor release, with the most significant changes coming in the form of improved add-on security and performance improvements. The Firefox Tweak Guide has been updated for the release of Firefox 8.0 - see Page 3 of the guide for a summary of notable changes in Firefox 8.0.
Microsoft Security Updates
9 November 2011
Microsoft has released its monthly set of Windows security updates which you can get through Windows Update.
Game Patches
9 November 2011
Shockwave 11.6.3.633
9 November 2011
Adobe has released a new Version 11.6.3.633 of the Shockwave player plugin for browsers.
Game Patches
8 November 2011
Site Update
5 November 2011
My Battlefield 3 Tweak Guide is currently being prepared for GeForce.com by the guys at Nvidia, so it should be up soon. I want to make it clear however that there are no "magic" tweaks in the guide; DICE has specifically disabled most of the advanced tweaks to maintain fairness in multiplayer. You cannot tweak the game to go below the Low graphics settings. The guide focuses on detailed accurate descriptions, indicative performance data, recommendations and tips for each of the in-game settings, as well as the key working advanced tweaks. While you're waiting for the BF3 tweak guide, you might want to check out the Deus Ex: Human Revolution Tweak Guide I prepared a while back which is now live.
Game Patches
5 November 2011
Game Patches
4 November 2011
SpeedFan 4.45
3 November 2011
Almico has released Version 4.45 of SpeedFan, a free utility for changing system fan speeds, measuring temperatures and voltages and adjusting clock speeds. This version adds support for all Radeon GPUs, support for new chipsets, as well as other improvements and bug fixes.
Game Patches
3 November 2011
Game Patches
2 November 2011
AMD Catalyst 11.10
1 November 2011
AMD has released the official Catalyst 11.10 graphics driver for the HD 2000 series and above. The changes in this WHQL certified driver include support for Eyefinity 5x1 setups, support for up to 16000x16000 resolutions, Bezel compensation, VECC/CCC enhancements, as well as a range of bug fixes.
Game Patches
1 November 2011
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