After Halloween, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the Bioshock Big Daddy and Little Sister costumes in the video we posted on the SLI Zone blog. I was however a little disappointed that no one answered my call and submitted a home made Crysis nanosuit Halloween costume. Sam and I took the matter into our own hands and we announced a “Build Your Own Nanosuit” contest at GeForce LAN 4. The premise was simple, anyone wanting to join in the contest had two full days to create a Crysis-inspired nanosuit, with whatever materials and however much money they wanted to put into on the project. The audience would pick the winners on the last day of the event and the winner would walk away with a new motherboard, CPU, XFX GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card, and memory. Some guys spent over $100, while others spent something pretty close to $0.

How did it go? Let’s just say that some costumes were better than others. One of my personal favorites was a woman in a translucent garb, which looked a little peculiar until we heard her say, “cloak enabled,” to the crowd. You can find the undisputed winner of the contest below. Not only did his costume look great, but it included a voice-altering box that changed his voice to one that is strikingly similar to Nomad’s. Nicely done.

What do you guys think of the winner’s nanosuit? Can you do any better? Send us pictures of yourself in your own Crysis inspired nanosuit. If it’s any good, we’ll post a picture of it and send you a prize.

I’m sure some of you gamers have been playing video games for more than 15 years; I have. For some of us, arcades were our babysitters. And yes, we’re still playing games today. I think it’s great. We fueled the industry in its early years and our passion (and competitive nature) continues to fuel it today. Along the way, some of us got married and had children, yet during quiet-time, still go online to play World of Warcraft, battle in Ghost Recon or race a Ferrari in the streets of New York.

We cut our teeth on Asteroids, Pacman, and Donkey Kong and we’re now playing The Orange Box, Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Assassin’s Creed, and Command & Conquer 3. I wonder what video games are going to feel and look like in 5 years from now. Don’t you?

I’ve seen so many cases modified in so many ways. My personal favorites are rigs themed after video games. But every once in a while I come across some that I can’t forget, like this Microwave Mod or our vey own Rig of the Month winner John Mangus from Stoystown PA, with his “Transformer PC”. I’m curious to see if someone out there is already building a BioShock-themed rig. If yes, make sure to send pictures our way. 

GeForce LAN 4 will be the last stop for the XFX Challenge 2007, a nationwide competition and tour pitting challengers against a member of the XFX Team in a "King of the Hill" competition for a coveted seat on the XFX Bus as part of the XFX Team.

After GeForce LAN 4, the XFX Team heads to a VIP event in Las Vegas on November 25, then to Los Angeles for the highly anticipated rematch against the Los Angeles Complexity at the Championship Gaming Series (CGS) World Championships.

Additionally, the team will be given a spot at the next CGS Combine to be potentially drafted as a professional player by one of the CGS teams.

Learn more about the XFX Challenge at http://www.xfxteam.com/, but be sure to register for GeForce LAN 4 to secure your spot!

You asked for it...you got it! We have relaxed the age restrictions for GeForce LAN 4 to allow those under 18 to attend.

Those 16 or 17 can attend as a general admission spectator or BYOC / tournament participant provided they obtain parental consent.

Those under 16 can attend as a general admission spectator or BYOC participant (but may not compete in the official tournaments), provided they have parental consent and are accompanied by a parent or legal guardian on site at all times.

For more information, please see the under 18 instructions and parental consent form

I joined NVIDIA few weeks ago. Before this I worked for one of the world’s leading developers and publishers of “software entertainment” (a.k.a. video games). My first project was to build my very own SLI enabled gaming rig! The second weekend I was sent to Ontario (CA) to attend Newegg Lanfest 2K7. Every day, my lunch is pretty much free (it’s good and healthy too) and I get to bring my dog to work. Yes, it’s a great job. However, we do have one of those hellish always-jamming-kinda-offline-perhaps-out-of-paper-but-maybe-working-again printers. Thankfully, there are 10 other printers I can use as back up. Days have gone by really fast and I’m keeping busy with numerous projects (including the upcoming GeForce LAN 4 event), taking it all in, learning a lot; especially learning the NVIDIA way, “The Way It’s Meant To Be Played”.

We’ve been receiving some comments from end users asking us for information on how to build an SLI PC.  We actually have some great tools on how to build your own SLI PC in our SLI Marketplace. There, you will find lots of tips and recommendations on what components to buy, how to build a PC from scratch, or simply buy an SLI-Ready PC (starting at $889).

In addition, take a look at our “How-to” guides, designed to take you step by step through the process of upgrading your computer and enabling SLI.

As a gamer, nothing impresses me more than a really good gaming-themed Halloween costume. I’m talking about the ones that gamers make by themselves, spurred by their creativity and the love of their favorite games. By far the best one I’ve seen this year was a dad and his daughter dressing up as Big Daddy and Little Sister from BioShock. Check it out below!

The only thing that could possibly beat this would be a good, custom made, Crysis Nanosuit. Did anyone see some one sporting a Nanosuit this Halloween?

This week we launched a new brand new GPU that supports SLI, the GeForce 8800 GT. I could bore you with marketing quotes or website reviews, but I’m sure you can find those on your own. Instead, I want to show you why this is a great SLI GPU for some users.

I attend a lot of tradeshows and LAN events and I always ask people if they are an SLI owner or if they are considering buying it. One of the reasons people tell me they don’t plan on buying SLI is that think they just need a really high-resolution panel to get the benefit from SLI on the games they play.  I always follow-up and ask, “well, what resolution is your monitor?” Typically I get responses like 1680x1050, 1600x1200, or 1920x1200 – all terrific resolution panels at great price points. In fact, those are some of the best panels for SLI.

I was reading in the SLIZone forums where someone did a really cool comparison using 1680x1050 16xAA / 16xAF which shows that 8800 GT SLI is a great setup and in some cases is just slightly slower than 8800 GTX SLI. Read it at: http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=9798&st=40&p=67061&#entry67061

The conclusion in the forum is pretty clear: without SLI, Oblivion, FEAR, Bioshock, and Prey were all running below 60 fps without SLI. Simply adding a second 8800 GT made the fps jump above 60. That’s a huge number since it now means you are running at the native refresh rate of most panels out there, a very important point for many users who want good quality 3D.

Now I don’t think any of us are arguing that 8800 GTX SLI and 8800 GT SLI performance are the same. What we are trying to highlight is that there are terrific SLI solutions at all price points and performance levels and there is bound to be one that fits right into your budget. Now the GeForce 8800 GT is our latest offering and we hope it’s a great solution for you.

You can find out where to buy the 8800 GT today by checking SLIZone.