It is no secret that Windows users have learned that change is something Windows computers don’t like. Often, it is much easier to leave the Windows version that came with a PC as it was and avoid the pain of upgrading. Vista may have been an exception as the operating system itself was worth the extra pain (or not), while Windows XP was a solid software that works well for the majority of computer users worldwide even today.

New market share data recently released by Net Applications puts XP’s market share at 60.03%, down from 60.89% in the month before. Windows Vista fell from 14.00% to 13.35%, while Windows 7 gained 1.25 points to 17.10%. It is interesting to see that Vista and XP lost a combined 1.51 points in September: The difference between the gain of 7 and the loss of Vista/XP represents 100% of the Windows market share loss, which was down 0.25 points to 91.08% in September.

Since the launch of Windows 7 in October 2009, the operating system was able to post a net gain of market share in only three months, according to Net Applications, and was hit with a net market share loss of 1.44 points over the past 11 months. If we believe the data published by Net Applications, then Windows 7 has not been able to stop the market share bleeding of Windows, even if it has slowed a bit: In the past 9 months, Windows lost only 0.92 points, while Windows lost 1.14 points in the 9 nine months directly preceding the launch of Windows 7.

The high-end GeForce GTX 480 is more than capable of playing this game in all of its glory at resolutions as high as 2560x1600 with PhysX enabled, so it is not the $500+ graphics cards we are concerned with. Even the more affordable GeForce GTX 460 can handle PhysX at resolutions such as 1680x1050 or lower when coupled with a fast enough processor.

Sadly for those with AMD graphics cards playing Mafia II with PhysX enabled is not going to run very well, unless you have a Nvidia graphics card handling the PhysX workload. Even with our Core i7 920 processor clocked at 3.70GHz, the Radeon HD 5970 and 5870 cards were limited to 22fps at 1680x1050. With a dedicated Nvidia PhysX card even the old Radeon HD 4890 can provide playable performance at 1680x1050, however factoring in the cost of the additional graphics card this path makes little sense. The best option for AMD users is to disable PhysX and forget it even exists. We suspect most will get over the missing rubble. While we would not normally recommend disabling anti-aliasing in games that support it, we must admit this feature made little difference in Mafia II. Owners of speedy GPUs won't feel the need to turn it off, but to give you tangible examples, the Radeon HD 4850 was an incredible 78% faster with anti-aliasing disabled while the GeForce 9800 GT was also 52% faster.

The long and short of it is that, according to AMD's own survey results, consumers savvy enough to know something about discrete graphics cards tend to know the Radeon name, they tend to like AMD, and they don't mind seeing the AMD name on graphics cards once they realize AMD merged with ATI. The folks at AMD read those results as "permission" to jettison the ATI brand name.

The plan, then, is to replace "ATI Radeon" and "ATI FirePro" with "Radeon" and "FirePro", along with a sprinkling of AMD corporate identity. The badges you see above will be used for systems with discrete Radeon and FirePro graphics cards. The lower row omits the AMD logo, so PC makers shipping Intel-based systems will be able to avoid the oil-and-water combo of Intel and AMD branding, if they wish.

If you just bought an "ATI Radeon" and are proud of that fact, fear not. Existing products, including the Radeon HD 5000 series, will not be renamed. Instead, AMD says the first products to carry the "AMD Radeon" label will be introduced later this year.

- OpenGL ES 2.0 support
- Video Quality default options
- Performance enhancement for Eyefinity
- Anti-Aliasing support for StarCraft II

Sharp has been working with Nintendo on an autostereoscopic 3D solution that uses parallax barrier technology. Bower says it costs less than $20 to put Master Image technology in a mobile phone.

"Autostereoscopic 3D is what everybody wants," says Reuben Langdon, president of Just Cause Productions, which has developed stereo 3D video games like Resident Evil 5 and Lost Planet 2 for the PC with Capcom. "Everybody keeps telling me-because they know I'm in the 3D business-'Oh, you're in 3D. That's great, but you have to wear those silly glasses.' That's the first thing everybody says. I always tell them, 'You won't have to for long. Just bear with it for a couple of years and we'll be glasses-free soon.'"

Langdon says having the Nintendo 3DS come out with auto-stereoscopic technology so quickly is proof that it's the future of 3D.

GeForce GTX 460 1GB SLI real world gaming performance is superior to even AMD's fastest high-end single GPU video cards in a CrossFireX configuration. And do keep in mind this is real gaming, not benchmarks. There is no getting around or denying the awesome performance of SLI configured GTX 460 1GB video cards. The excitement is even more pronounced when you can find very highly overclocked GTX 460 cards like the Galaxy GTX 460 1GB Super OC for $229 after $10 MIR. These cards simply represent a great value for the gamer and hardware enthusiast.

We've found previously that GeForce GTX 480 SLI provides tremendous performance well out pacing Radeon HD 5870 CFX in pretty much every newer game released (and we have a follow-up on that coming soon). You can see here where specifically in AvP, that GTX 480 SLI destroys 5870 2GB CFX. So maybe we should not be surprised by what we are seeing here. It seems, that GTX 480 SLI is not the real competition for 5870 CFX after all, it seems that these much less expensive GTX 460 1GB video cards are the 5870 GPU's real competition. AMD should be worried about this. CrossFireX scaling needs some work....a lot of work. SLI is blowing CrossFireX out of the water with these newer GPUs.

StarCraft II’s menu screens aren’t framerate-limited, which means that when there’s nothing else happening, your graphics hardware renders the shit out of those screens, causing some bad overheating problems. Not to worry though the fix-up is easy, requiring players to add only a few of the following lines to your “Documents\StarCraft II Beta\variables.txt” “Documents\StarCraft II\variables.txt” file (nice catch, commenter LegolElf):

frameratecapglue=30
frameratecap=60

There was a major problem with our tests but it ended up being a good eye-opener as well. The main issue here is the fact that we are seeing performance comparisons on paper and in chart form so the differences from one product to the next sometimes look significant. Truthfully, unless you are playing on a massive 30” screen, it’s highly unlikely that you would actually “feel” the difference between $200 GTX 460 768MB and a $500 GTX 480 in this game. The fact that a lowly HD 5750 is able to provide a perfectly stable gameplay experience all the way up to 2560 x 1600 at Ultra High details proves Blizzard’s statement that StarCraft II will have no issue being played by a large cross-section of the market. If anything, this game shows that you don’t need to spend an absolute fortune on a graphics card upgrade to get the best possible experience. The mark of a good game for a broad range of users is a small fluctuation between the average and minimum framerates. StarCraft displayed exactly this.

When it came to overall performance, there is no doubt that NVIDIA’s cards are able to run away with the show at anything under 2560 x 1600 resolution. When the higher resolution is used, the competition heats up and ATI’s higher end cards are able to stage a comeback to put them almost within reach of the GTX 480 and GTX 470. Both these ATI products also show that higher efficiency can lead to some serious considerations on a performance per watt level as well. Lower down in the price ranges things are all firmly in NVIDIA’s hands with the GTX 460 cards but this category also leads to the biggest disappointments. The GTX 465 and HD 5830 are truly dogs when compared to the rest of the field; they are both either too power hungry or too expensive and never really compete from any viewpoint.

This actually leads us to our recommendation: the GTX 460 1GB. It offers the perfect balance of overall performance, power consumption and price. Even if Blizzard rolls out a number of patches which add increased image quality, this card still has the overhead necessary to continue delivering performance in spades long into the update life of StarCraft II. It also has the ability to use NVIDIA’s anti aliasing override in order to give the game that extra eye candy punch versus the competition. As we said in its original review: the GTX 460 1GB is literally the perfect card for today’s market and its performance in StarCraft II just shows this once again.