Monday, May 31, 2010

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 rounds up mostly positive reviews

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/31/nvidia-geforce-gtx-465-rounds-up-some-positive-reviews/

Well, it's not quite June 1, but the GeForce GTX 465 reviews have come flooding out all the same. The official specs are exactly as a recent leak indicated: 352 CUDA cores running at 1,215MHz, a 607MHz graphics clock, and 1GB of GDDR5 memory operating at a 3.2GHz effective rate and exploiting a 256 bit-wide interface. With an MSRP of $279.99, this Fermi-lite GPU scored plenty of admiration for the value it offers, with one reviewer going so far as to call it "quite possibly the most powerful DirectX 11 graphics card for under $300." Others weren't so enthusiastic, citing the far cheaper HD 5830 from ATI as a better choice, but it's true enough that the next best GPU, the HD 5850, tends to be at least $30 more expensive than the 465, depending on brand. You'll want to delve into the game benchmark numbers in order to make up your mind about which card might make for the best bit, but be warned that NVIDIA's 465 retains the GTX tradition of ravenous power consumption -- something to consider if you're rolling along with an old school 400W PSU in your rig.

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Continue reading NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 rounds up mostly positive reviews

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 rounds up mostly positive reviews originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 08:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI deliver driver software to allow iPad charging from the PC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/31/gigabyte-asus-and-msi-deliver-driver-software-to-allow-ipad-cha/

You one of those unlucky folks who found out about the iPad's dislike of low-powered USB ports on standard PCs after you'd already pulled the trigger? Well, you can stop crying yourself to sleep nights and finally do something about it: Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS have all come out with software that hops up their respective, fairly interchangeable motherboards and delivers extra juice to an iPad-plugged USB port. Of course, they built these softwares for their own hardware, but there's a video after the break of a reckless user putting the ASUS software to work on a myriad of non-ASUS (mostly Sony) machines. Your mileage may vary, but if you wanna play it safe we'd say look into who built your motherboard before installing: we're not scientists, but we hear extra electricity "does stuff."

[Thanks, Jeff F.]

Continue reading Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI deliver driver software to allow iPad charging from the PC

Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI deliver driver software to allow iPad charging from the PC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 11:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sunday, May 30, 2010

Soundation Studio is a Flash-Based Music Mixer [Music]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5550778/soundation-studio-is-a-flash+based-music-mixer

Soundation Studio is a Flash-Based Music MixerSoundation Studio is a Flash-Based Music MixerIf you've ever had the urge to mess around with mixing your own electronic music, Soundation Studio is a free Flash-based editor that makes editing and mixing your own songs drag and drop easy.

Soundation Studio is simple enough that you can start mixing together a song with absolutely no experience or technical knowledge. If you're inclined to do so you can dig into the sub-menus in Soundation Studio and tweak any of the dozens of variables available—variables you may, if you're as much a novice in music mixing as I am, have to look up.

You build your song up from the hundreds of samples included in the Library or use the virtual instruments to create your own beats. When you're done you can export the song as a .WAV to your computer or save it on Soundation Studio and share it with a link. Soundation Studio is free and only requires a login if you wish to save your projects between sessions.

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Enable Motion Interpolation for Movies on Your PC [Movies]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5551295/enable-motion-interpolation-for-movies-on-your-pc

Enable Motion Interpolation for Movies on Your PCThe debate over frame interpolation is starting to heat up, and you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. Tech weblog Tested has a guide to enabling it on your PC and watching your movies with doubled frame rates.

While it is technically closer to what we see in real life, a lot of people are so used to watching video at 24 frames per second, that faster frame rates seem "fake" to them. Part of this is likely because the smoother motion is somewhat similar to what we see in soap operas (a lot of people describe it as the video looking like it's going 1.5 times faster, but actually moving at actual speed). If you haven't tried watching movies at a faster frame rate, or if you're already a fan but don't want to shell out for a 120Hz television, you can enable motion interpolation on your PC.

You'll need a fairly decent computer to pull this off; Tested recommends a good dual core processor for watching 720p video and probably a quad-core for 1080p. It also involves installing a few different programs and manually copying plugins into directories, as well as copying and pasting a bit of script, but it isn't too difficult—it just might take you a bit of time. Note that while the guide mentions re-installing ffdshow from scratch, it doesn't provide the link. You can get the installer package here.

I tested this myself and can confirm that it works on my 15" MacBook Pro in Windows 7 64-bit, and I did notice quite a difference. It's a bit distracting at first, but it definitely changes the way you watch certain types of fast-paced video, such as sports or some of today's cluttered, hard-to-follow action sequences (I'm talking to you, Transformers and The Bourne Ultimatum). It definitely takes a bit of getting used to, but if you're curious and want to see what it looks like before buying a new TV, it's definitely worth trying out. Hit the link for the full guide, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Nokia N8's USB On-The-Go support demoed, lesser phones turned into slaves

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/30/nokia-n8s-usb-on-the-go-support-demoed-lesser-phones-turned-in/

Among the Nokia N8's neater tricks is its support for USB On-The-Go, which basically lets you connect USB peripherals (flash drives, for example) to the phone and have it act as a host -- a duty usually reserved for heavier-duty devices like PCs. Though the N8 is still a solid month or three away from release, we're getting a nice little video demo on YouTube today of an N8 being walked through the paces of connecting both a plain-vanilla USB drive and another Symbian-based Nokia candybar (brownie points for naming the model in comments, by the way). Basically, you can treat the connected hardware as mass storage and browse it just as you would the N8's internal space, which basically means you've got unlimited music capacity as long as you've got a pocket full of USB sticks and a micro USB-to-USB adapter cord. Follow the break for video.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Nokia N8's USB On-The-Go support demoed, lesser phones turned into slaves

Nokia N8's USB On-The-Go support demoed, lesser phones turned into slaves originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 May 2010 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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