EVGA finished its twentieth release of the EVGA SLI Enhancement Patch, a software that adds to the GeForce system drivers' SLI profiles specific to applications. These SLI profiles help applications take advantage of multiple GeForce graphics cards in SLI, or dual-GPU GeForce accelerators such as the GeForce 9800 GX2 and GeForce GTX 295. Version 20 (01.15.10) adds SLI profiles to Dark Void, Serious Sam HD, and Avatar (Demo). This patch is based on GeForce drivers 195.81. The latest version of GeForce drivers from NVIDIA bring SLI profiles to the latter two games. Registered EVGA users can download the software from here.

EVGA released its 16th iteration of the SLI Enhancement Patch, a piece of software that adds SLI profiles of usually new games to the NVIDIA GeForce driver. SLI profiles are application-specific bits of software that let the application take advantage of two or more NVIDIA GPUs in SLI, or on dual-GPU cards. v16 (08.25.09) is based on GeForce 190.62 drivers, and enables SLI support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood Demo, apart from the numerous new game titles the driver brings in support for, including Wolfenstein Multiplayer, Allods: Online, Battlefield 1943, BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams, Cities XL, Death to Spies: Moment of Truth, Empire: Time of Troubles, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Mini Ninjas, Risen, Saboteur, Star Wars Clone Wars: Republic Heroes, and Tales of Monkey Island. Registered EVGA users (registration is free) can download the software from here.

Despite NVIDIA now releasing their own SLI patches, EVGA have still continued to release theirs. Version 14 is based on NVIDIA's 190.38 Drivers.

New SLI profiles from EVGA SLI Enhancement Patch:

• Enables SLI support for Section 8
• Enables SLI support for Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
• Enables SLI support for Rise of Flight
• Enables SLI support for FUEL
• Enables SLI support for Prototype digital version
• Enables SLI support for Merchants of Brooklyn

Maybe annoyed by EVGA, NVIDIA today released their own SLI profile patch, which primary objective is to accelerate a number of games when ran on systems with multiple NVIDIA video cards. Version one of the NVIDIA SLI profile patch should be used with version 186.18 display driver. It adds support for Anno 1404 (Dawn of Discovery) and ARMA II. The patch works under Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA SLI Profile Patch 1

EVGA published the 13th release of its SLI Enhancement Patch. The patch works in conjunction with NVIDIA's drivers, and expands its SLI profiles for games. Based on GeForce drivers 186.18 WHQL, EVGA SLI Enhancement Patch v13 adds SLI support for the games ArmA 2 and Merchants of Brooklyn, along with the new SLI profiles GeForce 186.18 brings for the games Dark Sector, Trine, Prototype, Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Free Realms, Wolfenstein, Order of War, Disciples 3, and Bigworld. Registered EVGA users (registration is free) can download the software from here.

EVGA published the 11th version of its SLI Enhancement Patch. Version 11 (05.15.09) is based on NVIDIA GeForce drivers 185.85, and enables SLI support for Zeno Clash and Merchants of Brooklyn, beyond the new additions NVIDIA's general release brings along: Guitar Hero: World Tour, Earthrise, Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark, Shadow Harvest, and Terminator: Salvation.

The software works in conjunction with NVIDIA GeForce drivers, and helps expand the list of games that support NVIDIA SLI technology beyond what the drivers offer. For a 3D application to take full-advantage of SLI technology, typically NVIDIA creates an SLI profile that is released along with a usually new driver release. Registered EVGA users can download the patch from here.

EVGA released the 10th version of its SLI Enhancement Patch since its initial release in mid-February. The patch expands upon the SLI profiles NVIDIA's official drivers come with. An SLI profile is an application-specific optimization to take advantage of two or more NVIDIA GPUs in an SLI setup. With this release (version 10, 04.24.09), EVGA adds SLI support for the games Zeno Clash and Merchants of Brooklyn. The patch is based on NVIDIA GeForce 185.68 driver, and is available for 32/64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista. Registered EVGA users can download the software from here.

EVGA released another version of its SLI Enhancement Patch, version 8 (03.30.09), its third one for this month alone. The patch works in conjunction with the installed NVIDIA GeForce driver, in providing SLI support to games through SLI profiles. The support is game-specific, and each release of the patch expands the support-base. The new version is based on NVIDIA driver 182.46. The following games are added to the support list, apart from all the games already supported by the patch:

• Battlefield Heroes
• Stormrise
• Weapons of Fate
• Jumpgate Evolution
• Age of Booty
• Football Manager '05-'09

Registered EVGA users can download the patch from here.

Just under a week ago we covered the release of a driver add-on from EVGA which adds SLI profiles to the 182.05 driver from NVIDIA, for some of the latest released demos and games. It seems that EVGA have now released a second version of their SLI Enhancement patch, this could end up being a regular occurance, as games and demos are frequently arriving on the market, faster than NVIDIA can release fully fledged drivers. Unfortunately, they are not available to all NVIDIA SLI users, as you must be a registered member with EVGA to access the download links. The patches are available for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions Windows Vista, changes in this version are as follows:

• Enables SLI support for Grand Ages: Rome Demo
• Enables SLI support for Codename: Panzers Cold War Demo
• Enables SLI support for Men Of War Beta
• Improved SLI support for Burnout Paradise
• Enables SLI support for NecroVision Demo (DX10 Mode)

You can find more information along with the download links here.

EVGA today announced a new piece of value-added feature for its customers: the EVGA SLI Enhancement. The feature forms as a part of NVIDIA Forceware drivers that has an expanded SLI profiles list. To make full use of two or more GPUs teamed in an SLI setup, games and 3D applications need "SLI profiles". The general Forceware driver isn't necessarily in tune with the frequency at which new games are released. EVGA has taken the initiative to release SLI profiles for games before NVIDIA does.

The company released the first release of the SLI Enhancement (version: 02.11.09), which is based on NVIDIA Forceware 182.05 driver suite, and supports the entire range of graphics products EVGA currently sells. When installed, the software intends to boost performance in SLI setups for Burnout Paradise and Necrovision Demo (DX10 Mode), apart from all the applications Forceware 182.05 already has profiles for. The software is exclusive for registered EVGA customers. Visit this page for more.

Patch Tuesday is here with five critical and there important patches that address multiple vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office, Windows and Internet Explorer. One of the five critical patches is designed to resolve a flaw in Microsoft Office Project, which could allow attackers to take complete control of users' systems if they open a malicious Office Project file. A second critical patch is designed to tackle GDI (Graphics Device Interface) vulnerabilities in Windows. One of the security bulletins is a cumulative patch for IE, and the other is designed to resolve vulnerabilities in ActiveX Kill Bits. Microsoft also issued a critical Windows patch for vulnerabilities in its VBScript and JScript Scripting engines, which could provide attackers with access to users' systems and allow them to install programs, as well as view and change data. Download and find more information here: Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for April 2008.

The first patch for Crysis has been released, which you can download from here. The changes are as follows:

Fixes:

• Damage dealt to vehicles when shot by LAW has been made consistent
• F12 (screenshot) now works in restricted mode as well
• When player melees during gun raise animation, their gun will not be in a permanently raised position anymore
• Memory leaks and potential crashes

Developer Infinity Ward has just released the 1.4 patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The changes are as follows:

• "Winter Crash", a holiday version of Multiplayer map "Crash"
• Improvements to the server browser
• Fixed some rare bullet accuracy issues for all weapons.
• For server admins: fixed user ban list not working correctly on servers. Ban.txt will be created in the main or fs_game directory

You can download the patch from here.

Developer Infinity Ward has just released the 1.3 patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

This patch addresses the issue reported by community member Uzi Kidding which now catches some files bypassing the pure client test. In addition this update will set properties so that Anti-lag is always enabled upon map loads, an optimization for Sniper Rifle accuracty at certain distances, as well a fix so text chat between rounds of multiplayer will no longer cut out at the end. The 1.3 patch will also include all previous fixes from previous patches.

You can download the patch from here.

Microsoft has released a new compatibility pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 file formats. This pack should allow Office 2000, XP or 2003 users to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations using the Office 2007 format, which may be useful to people moving documents between work and home where different versions of Office are in use. Before you install the pack, make sure you have installed all high priority updates from Microsoft Update - you can download the 27.5MB pack here.

THQ has issued the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl 1.0003 patch, updating US and European releases of the game. There are patches to update the original game, as well as 1.0001 release (if you have that one installed your save games will be preserved). The 1.0003 release offers more bug and crash fixes, plus the 16:9 aspect ratio now works correctly.

Community team coordinator on the European MotorStorm forums, "Lestrade" writes that an update for the game will be coming "in the next couple of weeks." The update will be free and is required to play the game online.

The patch, which bumps up the game to version 1.2, will address several issues, including a bug that allowed racers to exploit the boost, an increase in the size of the buddy list, better online performance, audio issues, and more.

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.

NVIDIA has released new WHQL certified 8 Series ForceWare driver version 158.18 that adds support for GeForce 8600 GTS, GeForce 8600 GT, GeForce 8500 GT, GeForce 8400 GS, and GeForce 8300 GS GPUs. This version offers increased performance in 3D applications. Please read the release notes for more information.

Windows Vista 32-bit (30.4 MB)
Windows Vista 64-bit (43MB)

Anyone who uses Windows Vista and Mozilla Firefox may be pleased to hear that the Windows Media Player team has now released a plugin for Firefox that should allow the browser to play WMP content on websites. Here are the steps to get it working:

• Installation of the Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin may require administrative access to your PC. It is recommended that you close all other open browser windows before continuing with the installation.
• Click the Install button to automatically download and install the Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin.
• Depending on your security settings, you may see a Security Warning dialog box. Click Install to install the plugin.

There is a known issue if you are using Firefox version 2.0.0.3 on Windows Vista with the installer failing with error code -203. To work around this simply restart Firefox (you will get a notification that Windows Vista will be changing the Firefox compatibility settings) and then install again - the second time should succeed.

The download is available here, and the new plugin works on all versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista (although it is mostly intended for Vista, as that currently has no WMP support in Firefox).

Microsoft has released an updated version of its MS07-017 patch that fixes some incompatibility problems with the animated cursor vulnerability patch. Early installers of the original 925902(MS07-017) patch that was issued on Tuesday reported seeing error messages with their Realtek HD Audio Control panel. In addition to Realtek, users of three lesser known programs could be affected. Those programs are ElsterFormular, TUGZip and CD-Tag. Microsoft says the problem appears because of the user32.dll and the hhctrl.ocx files have the same memory address after the patch. You can download the updated 935448 patch from here.

Forum users at Broadband Reports have posted some problems with Microsoft's new patch for Vista. The KB925902 patch, which was supposed to fix vulnerabilities including the cursor exploit, is reportedly creating issues including stopping antivirus software such as AVG and F-Secure loading correctly, causing false positives of a Trojan, and even preventing users booting entirely. Although this isn't yet a widely documented problem, it may be best to delay patching Vista until the matter becomes a little clearer. Apparently the news poster at neowin.net also experienced this problem, with one of the two computers he installed the patch on failing to boot.

Relating to Firingsquad.com, NVIDIA will release a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. optimized graphics driver for the GeForce 8 series next week. The new optimized driver should increase the performance especially on GeForce 8800GTX cards, because these cards aren't much faster than their "little brother", the 8800GTS, when playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with current available drivers. Additionally the new driver should provide the missing SLI-functionality in the game.

As we reported earlier EA promised to address a number of technical issues present in Command and Conquer 3. They kept their promise and here is the official Patch 1.02:
ENGLISH | GERMAN Standard Edition | GERMAN Kane Edition | SPANISH | FRENCH | ITALIAN | SWEDISH | HUNGARIAN | CZECH | DUTCH | KOREAN | POLISH | RUSSIAN | THAI | CHINESE_S | CHINESE_T

Within a couple of hours the makers of Command and Conquer 3 will come up Patch 1.2 to fix certain issues. Electronic Arts realized the launch of the latest C&C sequel hasn't "been completely smooth" so to make everyone happy they are right now working hard to address reported problems like disconnects or freezes in game lobbies, the lobby refresh time and quirks with the built-in updater. So stay tuned and check the official C&C Tiberium Wars Website.