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Microsoft quietly updated its Games for Windows Live service to version 3.0 yesterday. The biggest new feature, according to the company, is how users can now access the marketplace to buy content while playing any supported title and have it download and install in the background. The feature should help streamline digital distribution on PCs and follows a growing trend of generating additional revenue through post-release game content – Valve offers a similar feature on Steam and even Apple is supporting it for iPhone apps
n-game account management is also now possible, so you won't have to stop playing Fallout 3 (or whatever) in order to buy some Microsoft Points, edit your credit card info, or redeem codes. While most gamers will agree the aforementioned features are welcome additions to Games for Windows, there’s also a couple more that are meant to appease publishers.
This includes two new anti-piracy solutions: a Server Side Authentication method that links the game license to a user’s Gamertag, allowing you to game from anywhere but apparently also making used game discs worthless for sale or giving away; and Zero Day Piracy Protection to keep games from launching before the street date the publisher has set for the game. The update is available as a free download here.
New hardware is on the way from VIA, in the form of a new addition to their wide EPIA series. The new N700-10EW board conforms to the Nano-ITX form factor and is designed specifically for “extreme” environments. Extreme as it is defined here isn't the usual PC hardware marketing term, but rather indicates the board is up to the job of being situated in extremely high or cold temperatures, at high altitudes or in other intense environments.
The new board certainly seems to boast such functionality on paper, with VIA saying it can withstand temperatures as cold as -20C or as hot as 70C. The company guarantees maximum stability at these temperatures, indicating it may operate far beyond those limits – despite its fanless design.
The N700-10EW is based on a plethora of other common VIA components, such as the VX800 chipset, onboard gigabit LAN, audio, USB and Compact Flash. They even mention its media functionality, but clearly their aim here isn't the standard media center or highly integrated niche markets they generally pursue. You can catch all the details on the product page, but things such as pricing and what sort of manufacturing differences this board has over other EPIAs are not mentioned.
Microsoft today made the finalized version of Windows 7 available for download to TechNet and MSDN subscribers, announcing the right-on-schedule delivery on the officialWindows Blog. At the same time, however, a recently-discovered memory bug is threatening to spoil the milestone as several sites are picking up the story and speculating about a possible launch delay.
While the bug has been called everything from critical to catastrophic, Windows division president Steven Sinofsky claims it is far from being a show stopper and joked about the blogosphere blowing things out of proportion.
The flaw is triggered when users run the CHKDSK command with the /r switch, which is designed to locate and repair bad sectors on a disk. According to reports, this should result in your memory quickly gobbled away by the chkdsk.exe process until it either stops at or around 90% or it maxes completely out and crashes the computer. Though it is said to affect both 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, it’s also not reproducible 100% of the time and apparently only affects systems with multiple hard drives or partitions.
Sinofsky still acknowledged the alleged flaw is something they must look into and that, for affected users, simply updating chipset drivers from the PC motherboard manufacturer may take care of the problem. Hopefully a fix will come ahead of the Windows 7 launch, but even if it doesn’t apparently it’s not serious enough to derail plans of an October 22 release.
Microsoft quietly updated its Games for Windows Live service to version 3.0 yesterday. The biggest new feature, according to the company, is how users can now access the marketplace to buy content while playing any supported title and have it download and install in the background. The feature should help streamline digital distribution on PCs and follows a growing trend of generating additional revenue through post-release game content – Valve offers a similar feature on Steam and even Apple is supporting it for iPhone apps
