Tag: Game
It is nothing short of ironic that game password stealing malware is being associated with an exploit designed to target a vulnerability in DirectX. But Microsoft officially confirmed that malicious code designed to harvest account credentials for online games had been detected bundled with exploits targeting the DirectShow vulnerability impacting Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.
The flaw is Critical, the company warned in May 2009, when it revealed that users executing malicious QuickTime media files were at risk of remote code execution.
“Users, upon visiting a specially constructed web page that invokes the vulnerable media plug-in, will encounter exploit shellcode, which further execute and download additional malware to the infected machines. Intending to bypass antimalware protection, malware binaries are encrypted in the download data stream. New dog, same old tricks. To wrap up the attack scene, under the cover of the new exploits are the old long-lived online-game password stealers: PWS:Win32/Wowsteal.AP (drops PWS:Win32/Wowsteal.AP.dll); TrojanDropper:Win32/Dozmot.C (drops PWS:Win32/Dozmot.C and VirTool:WinNT/Dozmot.A); and TrojanSpy:Win32/Lydra.AE,” revealed Microsoft’s Lena Lin, Cristian Craioveanu, Josh Phillips and Patrick Nolan. Read More»
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Windows Vista, just as previous Windows releases, ships with a range of pre-installed games. Users are undoubtedly familiar with such titles as Minesweeper, Solitaire, FreeCell, Spider Solitaire and Hearts. Windows Vista adds to these casual games such as Chess Titans and Mahjong Titans. However, even though these games ship as default components of the operating system, some users might notice that they
are in fact missing or inaccessible. Microsoft explained that this scenario implied that the Inbox Games were not in fact fully installed on the platform. It is a situation that users of the Vista Business edition, for example, are more likely to come across, although other SKUs are not excluded from this. Resolving it is a matter of turning on Inbox Games.
“Users need to navigate to Start Menu, Control Panel, “Programs,” and choose the “Turn Windows features on or off” option in the left hand side pane. “Turn off Games by clicking the box next to Games. This will remove the check from the box. Select “OK”. Select Restart to reboot your system. From the Start Menu select Control Panel. In the Control Panel select “Programs”. Next select “Turn Windows features on or off.” Turn on Games by clicking the box next to Games. This will add the check to the box. Select “OK”. Select “Restart” to reboot your system,” Microsoft explained. Read More»
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There has always been a gap between computer gamers and console gamers. Generally because of the impossibility of a console gamer to play computer games or a PC gamer to play console–only games. Luckily for us, some people just don’t understand when to quit and keep on trying to create a bridge between consoles and computers as far as gaming is concerned.
Those people are the ones behind console emulators for the PC allowing PC gamers to play titles that appeared in a console-only format. This is how emulators such as Chankast for the Sega Dreamcast, Dolphin GameCube emulator, ePSXe PlayStation One emulator and many more appeared. Next generation consoles, however, seemed to be impossible to emulate on a modern computer mainly because their architecture is pretty different from that of a computer. Although it is said that console manufacturers have created emulators, there are no real facts confirming these speculations.
There are numerous teams working on Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii emulators, and one has just succeeded in making the first emulator to play PlayStation 2 video games. Read More»
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February 09, 2009 by
Jason Setting up a wired or wireless home network has many benefits than just having Internet access for multiple computers in your home. Today, it’s almost a necessity to be able to plug in or connect via wireless to your network from any room in your house.
With many people who set up a home network, they end up under utilizing their home network and only use it for Internet access, attached to one computer.
Today, that kind of network setup is old school. Adding a router to your network, turns a home network into a LAN (Local Area Network) opening up many possibilities of what you can do on your network. Even if you have just have one Computer, many devices exist (other than computers) that are network capable, allowing interaction with other.
So what can you do with all this technology? Here are ten uses for what you can do on your home network. Read More»
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January 14, 2009 by
Jason
Update Vista’s DirectX9 files for better game compatibility
One of the fixes for getting games to run in Vista that do not normally (such as FEAR and 3Dmark06 as two examples) is relatively simple. These games require the latest version of Directx 9. Vista does not actually contain a full installation of Directx 9, just some elements for compatibility purposes. So, install Directx 9.
To install Directx 9c on Windows Vista:
step 1: Download the latest DirectX 9 redistributable file from Microsoft.com here.
step 2: Unzip the file into a folder on your desktop or in your documents.
step 3: Run the DXSETUP file.
step 4: You can delete the folder after the install has finished.
Read More»
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November 12, 2008 by
Jason With Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6801 out of Redmond, it was only natural that DirectX 11 would follow. And this is precisely what happened. Having served Milestone 3 Build of the next iteration of the Windows client, Microsoft is also moving forward with the graphics technology included by default with the operating system. The transition from Vista to Windows 7 is synonymous with the evolution from DirectX 10.1 (in Vista SP1) to DirectX 11. At this point in time, the first taste of the next version of the DirectX suite of multimedia application programming interfaces (APIs), namely DirectX 11, is available for download via the November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit.
“Included in the November 2008 DirectX SDK is a technical preview of Direct3D 11 and associated components and tools. Direct3D 11 is an update to Direct3D 10.1 enabling new hardware features as well as improving the breadth of configurations supported by Direct3D. As such, Direct3D 11 enables developers to create applications and games that work on Direct3D 10, Direct3D 10.1, and Direct3D 11 hardware when it becomes available. With the addition of WARP and Direct3D 10 Level 9, Direct3D 10.1 and Direct3D 11 have the ability to target fast software rasterization and Direct3D 9 hardware,” Microsoft revealed. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7, Windows Vista | 3 Comments »
October 14, 2008 by
Jason The pain…
If you’ve invested your hard earned cash on a Creative X-FI sound card and a copy of Vista, you may be feeling a bit underwhelmed right now. Some of your games may be sounding a bit flat and lifeless and you’ll have no doubt felt that sinking feeling when you edit the sound settings in your new game only to find that you can’t enable some of the fancy options. There is a good reason for this and you probably will have been told at great length about it by one of the many passengers on the anti-Microsoft bandwagon.
The Science…
If you’re an experienced PC gamer you’ll no doubt be aware of DirectX and the various functions that make up the DirectX standard, such as DirectDraw, Direct3d and DirectSound and DirectSound3D. You will probably be aware of the hype surrounding Direct3d already, given that it has now reached version 10, but that’s a story for another day. DirectSound is what we are interested in here and it is sadly missing in Vista. XP and DirectX9 featured a “Hardware Abstraction Layer” which was a piece of software that allowed Windows to talk directly to a soundcard such as the X-FI to provide hardware mixing and 3d effects for your games. Without this layer any sound you hear will be mixed using software, rendering much of your shiny new soundcard useless. Read More»
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October 05, 2008 by
Jason Microsoft has shared bits and pieces of how it is adding new features to its development tools to better support parallel processing.
But the next release of Windows client and server also are going to incorporate changes designed to improve their parallel-processing support.
While Microsoft execs and those who’ve managed to get their hands on early builds of Windows 7 have focused largely on user-interface tweaks in Windows 7, there will be some under-the-covers changes, too. Microsoft officials have said on the record that deep-level changes between Windows Vista and Windows 7 will be kept to a minimum, in order to insure application and driver compatibility. Yet Microsoft officials acknowledge that Win32, the core of Windows, is not suited for asynchronous, concurrent computing.
Microsoft is taking the first steps toward remedying this limitation with Windows 7 and its joined-at-the-hip sibling, Windows 7 Server (the product currently known as Windows Server 2008 R2). Read More»
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September 08, 2008 by
Jason The Windows Experience Index measures the capability of your computer’s hardware and software configuration and expresses this measurement as a number called a base score. A higher base score generally means that your computer will perform better and faster than a computer with a lower base score, especially when performing more advanced and resource-intensive tasks.
Each hardware component receives an individual subscore. Your computer’s base score is determined by the lowest subscore. For example, if the lowest subscore of an individual hardware component is 2.6, then the base score is 2.6. The base score is not an average of the combined subscores.
You can use the base score to confidently buy programs and other software that are matched to your computer’s base score. For example, if your computer has a base score of 3.3, then you can confidently purchase any software designed for this version of Windows that requires a computer with a base score of 3 or lower.
The base scores currently range from 1 to 5.9. The Windows Experience Index is designed to accommodate advances in computer technology. As hardware speed and performance improves, higher base scores will be introduced. However, the standards for each level of the index stay the same. For example, a computer scored as a 2.8 will remain a 2.8 unless you decide to upgrade the computer’s hardware. Read More»
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1. DirectX 10. Without a doubt, Vista’s support for DirectX 10 is the primary reason why gaming in the Windows environment will transcend gamers’ wildest dreams and far exceed the visual quality of even the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. “When DX10 games come out, the end result will be a significant increase in visual fidelity,” said Microsoft’s Donahue.
This means a marked increase in the number of objects and/or characters on the screen at a time, as well as dramatic impact on the level of background detail trees, water, stars in outdoor and indoor environments. It also means, for example, that characters’ clothing and fur will flap in the wind. Based on the early gameplay screenshots released for DX10 games such as Crysis, the impact of this new version of DirectX is quite clear even at a glance. (See the comparative scenes from Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures below.)
This increase in graphical quality is the result of a number of enhancements in DirectX 10 code, operations and resulting capabilities. As an example, a brand-new shader model (Version 4.0) in DX10 allows for more detailed and nuanced 3-D graphics. Read More»
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