Anyone with an ATI X8x0 series card is pretty angry at the fact that their card cannot handle a game that an X1300 can. Fortunately for gamers that still have a Shader Model 2 card, hackers are working day and night to bring BioShock to said cards. Instead of buying a SM3 or SM4 card that would cost at least $60, old-school gamers can now apply a hack. You can download and read into this hack here. However, while this is all well and good for people with hearty graphics cards, such as the previously mentioned X8x0 series, people still running the Radeon 9x00 series and the NVIDIA GeForce FX series will probably suffer quite low framerates.

Keep in mind that this is still a beta.

American teenager George Hotz enjoyed quite the busy summer this year. While simultaneously preparing for college, tinkering with his car, and working to complete several other projects, Hotz managed to find a risky (yet completely effective) method of unlocking the iPhone. While everyone else seems to think that the best way to unlock the iPhone is with a software program, Hotz unlocked it with an intricate 10-step technique involving soldering irons and voltage meters. And while it's not good for the day-to-day hardware modder, a factory could automate the process, and make a substantial amount of profit. Certicell founder Terry Diadone thinks so, and felt that the unlocked iPhone was worth a Nissan 350Z sports car, and three brand-new iPhones. George Hotz gladly accepted the offer, and the official trade was made on Saturday. Hotz drives off to college in style tomorrow, and will be giving away all three iPhones to his best benefactors and friends. While in college, Hotz plans to work with Certicell to do some consulting work, and to add GPS functionality to the iPhone.

If you think you can unlock the iPhone yourself, check out Hotz' blog here.

As everyone knows, the $600 Apple iPhone is designed to run exclusively on AT&T's cellular network, as well as the occasional Wi-Fi hotspot. Hackers decided that they didn't want to be forced into buying a 2 year contract from AT&T, and worked day and night to get the iPhone to run on alternative networks. Finally, we are seeing some progress. Croatians, using a particular SIM card (SuperSIM - V1, U types), a SIM read/writer, a Silvercard, and a particular software suite, succeeded in making the iPhone run on T-Mobile's European network. The hacking software works on both Mac OS X and Windows computers. The only thing lost with the hack is YouTube functionality However, considering the limited library available on the iPhone's version of YouTube, The Inquirer does not consider it that great a loss.

Since the iPhone was released, various reverse engineers, hackers, and entrepreneurs have been working night and day to make the iPhone work on networks other than AT&T. Considering that the iPhone was only released last week, progress has been substantial. While individual reverse engineers can get all functions other than cell-phone to work, UK-based Uniquephones has gotten much farther. With their crack team of scientists, they have developed a pre-release crack that activates 75% of all Apple iPhones...without signing a contract with AT&T. An open beta is "almost ready", and the full version should be $50 USD. A fully operational retail version of this software would effectively allow an iPhone to be used with any network (Verizon, Sprint, and others).

It seems that NVIDIA is upset that the folks over at NGOHQ.com are distributing their ForceWare drivers with modified install scripts. NVIDIA is threatening legal action towards the site and its owners if they do not comply with their demands.

Of particular note is AMD/ATI's stance on modifying install scripts for their Catalyst package:

"Feel free to distribute and endorse Catalyst software. Just please let your users know that if they use modified drivers we aren't able to support them properly. Keep up the good work in the community." -AMD/ATI

Asustek Computer, one of the world's largest producers of computer components, on Tuesday unveiled what it calls "the world's first hardware based real-time overclocking device for graphics cards" along with its new Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT-based graphics board. The tool may be useful for not very experienced overclockers.

Asustek's OC Gear real-time overclocking device should be installed into a spare 5.25" bay and connected to an USB port. Specially developed software will allow end-users to adjust system master volume, graphics processing unit's (GPU's) clock-speed, GPU fan speed using a simple knob as well as monitor GPU temperature and current frames per second (FPS) information.

The EN8600 GT OC Gear graphics card from Asus is equipped with 256MB of high-speed 1ns GDDR3 memory as well as high-performance cooling system, thus, can provide sufficient overclocking potential for those seeking additional performance.The Asus OC Gear device itself is also compatible with various graphics cards by Asustek Computer, the company said, however, it did not reveal whether the software needed for Asus OC Gear will support other than EN8600 GT graphics boards.

Guru3D - Driver Sweeper is a fast tool to remove driver leftovers from your system. It's very important to remove your drivers on a proper way, because driver leftovers can cause problems like stability and startup problems. You can use it if you want to update/remove drivers from your system.

The change log for this release is:

NiBiTor is the original and definitive BIOS tweaker that supports the latest NVIDIA graphics cards, and which is updated on a regular basis. NiBiTor allows graphics card enthusiasts, or the hardcore overclockers to have full control over some advanced features and functionality found on firmware of supporting cards. This new version is build upon the logic of the previous version, with some minor fixes and added support for GeForce 8800 Ultra PCI-E, GeForce 7900 GS AGP and GeForce Go 7600 PCI-E graphics cards. See the full change log or download the NiBiTor v3.4a from here.

GPU Clock Tool - Works on R600 !

Ever since R600 samples were handed out by AMD, people have been asking me for R600 support in ATITool. It's coming along nicely, but is not quite ready yet.
In the meantime you can use this nifty little tool from AMD. It can change 2D/3D clocks and lets you monitor temperatures of the card. It also works on RV610, RV630 and all previous products like the R5xx Series. It works under 2k, XP, Vista, 32-bit & 64-bit.Download (440 KB)

CPU-Z is a freeware software that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system. This version has preliminary support for Intel Penryn CPUs family (45 nm). It also adds support for Intel Core 2 Duo E6x20, Pentium E2140/2160 processors and Intel P35, G33, G31, Q35, Q33, X38 chipsets. Download CPU-Z v1.40 from here.

The good folks over at BleedinEdge have a nice little contest on the go for overclocking.

Think you have tweaked your system the best over stock? Well here's a chance to prove it running both SuperPi 1M and 32M. Show us and you will have a chance to win some great prizes! Don't worry if your system is not the latest. It's all about how much over stock that counts.

There are two categories: Conroes/Quads versus all other CPUs. The prizes are randomly drawn from ballots you receive based on your best improved times. There are also random draws during the week for other prizes.

It's that easy to win!

The contest will not be one that can only be won by the latest and the greatest, but rather how well you can overclock your system. There are lots of fabulous prizes and everyone should take a look!

Rivatuner is a powerful tweaking utility for NVIDIA GeForce and ATI Radeon based videocards. This version adds support for NVIDIA G84 and G86 GPU family as well as some minor UI and localization fixes.

RivaTuner Version 2.01 for Windows 2000/XP/Vista x64 & x32 (2.2MB)

A very curious ArsTechnica member (Nivenhbro/jjwalker), as far as I can tell, got very bored one day and decided to start project Float32. The end result of all this concentrated boredom and effort is an extremely well done S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mod. Of course, as we all know, third party add-ons may easily be broken by the makers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with patches.

The modification boasts better bump mapping, adds real time calculated specular effects, improves full reflection vector calculations, and boosts soft shadow quality. At the same time of offering all these improvements and more, the mod improves efficiency of the game, increasing frame-rate by no less than 20%, which is no small feat. Using next generation (and NDA) hardware, The Inquirer claims that they see a 20-25% improvement in frame-rate.

If you want to try this modification for yourself, save a copy of your original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. files, and head over to NGOHQ.

Some people may consider the new 120GB Xbox 360 hard drive to be a complete rip-off a little expensive at $179 considering that you can buy a 2.5" external drive of the same capacity for under $100. And Microsoft's justification for the price? "I know it sounds expensive to a lot of consumers but we are comparable to those types of drives and also we have to go through a lot more testing and security," said Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg. Anyway, Xbox-Scene has a good guide on how you can make your own working 120GB hard drive for the Xbox 360 at a much lower price.

First you will need to get hold of a Western Digital Scorpio BEVS-LAT drive (it's not too expensive and it's the only drive that is known to work). Next you need to download Hddhacker v0.90 (built by The Specialist) and dump your hddss.bin firmware file from your 20GB Xbox drive onto a floppy disk by attaching the drive to a SATA controller (most modern motherboards should be fine), and then flash this file to the new 120GB drive. After this your drive should be ready to go. For full details on this procedure, read the guide on Xbox-Scene. This is one area where the PS3 can clearly show its superiority, as users can add their own 2.5" drive without voiding the warranty. Which reminds me, the warranty on both the new drive and the Xbox will probably be useless after doing this, so keep that in mind!



Warning: Microsoft is now blocking modded consoles from Xbox Live!, so it is recommended you DO NOT try this mod!

We all know that DirectX10, for many of us, means an expensive upgrade and the move to a new operating system. We also know that DirectX10 is going to be necessary to play DX10 games such as Crysis and Halo 2 for the PC. What if I told you that a project sought to change that? That you could run DirectX10-exclusive games such as Halo 2 for PC on a DirectX9 platform with Windows 2000? Thanks to the Alky Project, we may not have to spend a penny to enjoy DirectX10 goodness. A quote from their official blog (I know, it's not an official web-page, but they do link to working models) tells us exactly how we can make DirectX10 work without spending at least $270 on a DirectX10 upgrade ($170 NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT, $100 Windows Vista Home Basic).

I'm proud to release a preview of our DirectX 10 compatibility libraries. These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Microsoft Vista, and increase hardware compatibility even on Vista, by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it. No longer will you have to upgrade your OS and video card(s) to play the latest games.

The preview/beta build is here. Make sure to read the README file, as it will tell you exactly how to install the project.

It's been two weeks since Apple released the Apple TV. Unfortunately, it's been getting a lot of criticism. It runs Mac OS X, yet it is very limited. The Inquirer boldly claims that the Apple TV is "limited and produces poor quality video content". A bunch of hackers seemed to think so, hence, they decided to fix Apple TV the only way they knew how; crack the thing like an egg. They first managed to install a full version of OS X, and then went on to figure out how to install a bigger hard drive, enable SSH/Apache (big for server people), start a remote desktop service, and plug in a full keyboard/mouse. The main reason that these guys are able to do so much is because the Apple TV is a lot more of a PC than Apple would like us to think. The hackers are busy working on more hacks, and their site gets over 500,000 hits a day.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is a great game, but the developers missed bugs in the initial version and had to rush out a patch. This patch did some good, and some bad, because one could not use the old saved games to carry on the adventures of "The Marked One". For all those people who feared to start all over again there is a solution, in form of a tool, on the horizon that will convert older saved games to make them playable with patched game versions. Though such a converter sounds very promising it remains to be seen if this converter applies for the initial version's saved games, or to already patched ones as details of this tool are really sparse.

As I don't use Linux at all I found this article to be pretty informative for the penguin people among us. Its all about overclocking graphics cards with ATI chips and the new tool the people at Phoronix are using: ATIpower. It is compatible to the X1000 chip family where the older Rovclock still capitulates.

For several years, people have used the cliche "Turbocharge your PC" when referring to upgrading it. Raktron Inc., which has both PC and car enthusiasts, had enough of this nonsense and decided to literally turbocharge their PC. They took a turbocharger out of a 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse, and hooked what would be the intake manifold to the front of the case, and set the turbocharger fan to run at 3500rpm. Raktron then proceeded to put headlights on the case, gave it an incredible paint job, and licensed it through Ohio (could just be a novelty plate, though).For more details of this project, please see the source link below.

It seems that you can overclock way more than just your computer. A man in Kentucky has managed to overclock everything in his house, simply by increasing the frequency in his electric current. Inspired by the "measly" performance of all his electronics, Lance Hatler decided that 60Hz was not enough for his house. After a lot of trial and error, along with several trips to the emergency room, Hatler has managed to overclock his electrical current to 900MHz. Increasing this frequency any further caused minor fires and structural instability (no his house didn't bluescreen :p). A mere example of all this extra power is Hatler's newfound ability to shred 2x4's (large pieces of wood) in his garbage disposal. Unfortunately, due to the extreme heat output of this overclock, Hatler had to put a gigantic CPU cooler on top of his house. His house maintains a balmy 115 degrees Fahrenheit. When asked what Hatler plans to do next, he claims he will break the 1GHz barrier with the help of liquid cooling.

Nintendo has altered the circuit layout of its Wii games console in order to block the increasing use of modification chips (modchips). The new Wiis, which are part of new shipments of the console, have an altered circuit layout that makes modification more difficult than in earlier versions. Users attempting to mod the new consoles using current modchips are very likely to damage the system, the sources pointed out. However, new-generation modchips capable of working with the revised Wii consoles may become available in less than a month, according to DigiTimes.

NAVIsis has demonstrated an interesting new product at this year's CeBIT, with its LaptopTablet, a device which allows you to turn a normal LCD notebook screen into a touch screen to give it features similar to tablet PCs. You simply attach it to the side of the screen, plug it into a USB port and start writing/ drawing. The recommended price is $130 and more information can be found here - presumably it works with all LCD screens, not just notebooks, but it looks like it could potentially scratch them if there isn't a screen guard.

New version 3.3 of the NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) software, has just been released. NiBiTor is the original and definitive BIOS tweaker that supports the latest NVIDIA graphics cards, and which is updated on a regular basis. NiBiTor allows graphics card enthusiasts, or the hardcore overclockers to have full control over some advanced features and functionality found on firmware of supporting cards. This version has added support for the 8800 series as well as some minor bug fixes.

Download: NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) v3.3

Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end run around one of Microsoft Corp.'s key antipiracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston said today. Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely. Microsoft promptly labeled the registry change a "hack," a loaded word that is usually synonymous with "illegal." Click here to read the full story.

The latest version of SpeedFan, one of the best pieces of software for temperature monitoring and fan control, has been released taking it to version 4.32. It's only a minor update, adding improved motherboard support and other small fixes. One of the biggest improvements is full 64-bit support, including Vista, and full Core 2 Duo support. Here is the complete list of changes:

• added a digitally signed 64 bit driver (fully tested under Vista 64 bit)
• added full support for INTEL CORE DUO internal temperature readings
• added full support for Andigilog aSC7621
• added full support for Fintek F71882F
• added xAP support to publish temperatures and fan speeds
• improved support for Fintek F71782F
• improved support for IT8716F
• renamed temperatures readings for MAX6640
• improved compatibility with Intel D975XBX2
• reduced AD7416 and AD7417 false detections
• reduced MAX6650/6651 false detections
• improved Intel SMBus routines

You can download it here.