Sorry I have not posted in a few weeks, I have been traveling for NVIDIA on business.  I wanted to share two funny stories from my trip to Seoul, Korea.

#1 Evil Dead The Musical, now playing in Seoul!  I heard about it, but couldn't believe it.  I loved those movies growing up so I was shocked to actually see the sign staring right at me.  Apparently it was a huge hit in Japan, now is big in Korea.  If you go, make sure you buy the "splatter zone" seats.  As the review said, the first three rows of the theater where the audience can count on a good blood-soaking.  Sounds like fun :)

#2 Starcraft is the game everyone plays.  I was walking along Insadong (a cool place to check out if you are ever in Seoul) with my NVIDIA shirt and I must have been stopped five times.  A lot of people speak English over there and when they saw my shirt they would say three words: "NVIDIA," "GeForce," and "Starcraft."  I can't believe peoople still play that game!  Myself, I'm waiting for Stacraft II.  That game is going to be awesome with full 3D accelerated graphics and will bring a new era of gamers into the Starcraft universe.

It’s been awhile, I know. Truly, I wanted to finish Call of Duty before I blogged again. But first, a few observations on gaming in general. To make up for lost time, this blog’s going to be a long one...

I’m sure most of you remember all the negative press surrounding Grand Theft Auto when it was first released in the late 1990s. I sure do, and at the time, I had a seriously self-righteous attitude toward such games, believing that the game developer was socially irresponsible and amoral. Of course, like many others, I’d never actually played the game but formed an opinion nonetheless. Even though, ironically, one of my favorite movies of the era was – and still is - Requiem for a Dream, I had placed movies and video games into completely separate, incomparable forms of media. Oh, how things have changed, not just for me, but for the American audience in general.

Driving home from work a couple weeks ago, I heard a review of GTA IV on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Did you get that? NPR!! And it was an objective review, written by a female reporter. A woman, like me, playing an M-rated game and being pulled in. Rewind ten years and try to imagine a gal writing a positive review on GTA—perhaps I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine it ever happening.

This weekend I was reading the May 12 issue of Newsweek and turned to an article called “The Art of Mayhem and Murder”. You guessed it, another review of GTA IV. Like the NPR review, this reviewer focused on the inner turmoil, the depth of the main character, his supporting players, the environment, and even the comedy and sarcasm of the story. There you have it – Newsweek and NPR explaining to the rest of the world (i.e. non-gamers), how truly awesome gaming can be. I see this as a step in the absolute right direction.

[*As a side note, I have to admit that I’ve not played GTA IV – I have a Wii, an original Xbox, and a killer (SLI!) PC, but nothing that’ll actually play the game. Guess I will wait (im)patiently for the PC version!]

Back to my experience. YES! Finally finished COD4. I’m sure most of you are wondering what in the world took me so long, but there are two very good reasons:

1)      Unlike Crysis, you can’t save as you go in COD4

2)      Guitar Hero III

As many NVIDIA customers know, we try to offer GPU options and price points ranging from $59 GPUs all the way up to $599.  And anywhere in between, you can choose your form factor, whether its a add in graphics card, in your laptop, or a GPU installed directly on our motherboard.  We pride ourselves in having technology that enables people to an immerse, visual computing experience.  So its frustrating to me is that not all of the PCs in my life have NVIDIA GPUs so I can enable a great experience where ever I go. 

A great example for that is a new laptop that I have with integrated graphics in it (not NVIDIA's).  Basically its worthless to me to do anything except Excel, Powerpoint, Word, and Outlook.  You may wonder why I need anything else?  As a business traveler, I take this laptop to many countries.  I would love to to take my Blu-ray movies, play Call of Duty 4, or just edit my photos in Picasa on the road during some downtime in my hotel room. 

Sadly, it looks like I will never be able to game on this thing.  Its funny I was doing some web research to try to find some information on the DirectX 10 drivers for my laptop and I just got them, but I came across another blog from a year ago which made me chuckle.  Take a read for yourself.

Our local SLI Zone forum moderator, ChrisRay, posted his experiences with Hybrid SLI. 

If you have never read Chris' posts, its a good idea.  His posts are usally short, insightful, and to the point.  He will give his opinion as someone who is familiar with our technology, but is never afraid to be honest with us on our products.

Today we released v175.16 beta drivers for GeForce GPUs including Hybrid SLI support (on Windows Vista only).   This driver is going through WHQL certification now and will be posted once complete.

You can download the drivers here. 

Check out Ton’s Iron Man Mark 1 Case Mod! A super gaming rig themed after the Iron Man movie, complete with a handmade Iron Man mask, UV reactive layer Iron Man text, coolant level window, top exhaust vents, dual fill ports, “radioactive” reservoir, case lighting, and to finish it off two BFG GeForce 9800 GX2 in Quad SLI.

Hundreds of the world’s top video game players from over 50 countries  will take part in the 6th Electronic Sports World Cup™ (ESWC) Grand Final at NVISION® 08, the premier event for visual computing professionals and enthusiasts. NVISION 08 is hosted by NVIDIA and will be held August 25-27, 2008 in San Jose, California.

I'm pretty sure I could taken them in Call of Duty 4 ;)

Today we launched a a really new tool on nZone.com called the NVIDIA Game Browser.  This tool allows you to browse computer games in a new innovative way. Check it out.

The NVIDIA Game Browser was developed in house by our the web team to help users choose the right games for them based upon a number of criteria.  Over the next few weeks, the entire catalog of The Way It’s Meant to be Played titles will be available in the browser. Eventually, the plan is to allow advanced searches on game detail like development team information, games that will run on your system config and more.

Please add a comment or two and tell us what you think.