Board game tests PC graphics to limit

Unable to display Scrabble

Just how difficult can it be to write a version of the board game, Scrabble, that could be viewed on a regular, XP based PC? Too difficult for Ubisoft, it seems.

It seems fairly reasonable to assume that if you're a keen games player, you do a bit of research and get yourself a decent graphics card allied to a pretty reasonable display.

That surely applies to a contemporary shoot-em-up game but to Scrabble for Heaven's sake? All it needs to do is display a board and a few tiles (chips).

Yet this INQ hack wasted a couple of hours trying to get Ubisoft's Scrabble 2005 to work and to no avail.

The irony is that the game was bought purely because an ancient version – also by Ubisoft – refused to load under XP, having run happily under Windows 95 and 98.

Does everybody have to possess the graphics industry knowledge of a Fudo to get a PC game to work, the INQ wonders?

Another irony is that a close friend of the INQ, Dr Peter Turcan, made his name by creating a version of Scrabble that could run on a Sinclair ZX80!

Just for the record this is what the PC has: a SiS Mirage 3000+ display adaptor, married to a Video Seven (V7) L17GM LCD display.

The game requires DirectX – for which the drivers have very definitely been loaded.

At this rate, going back to playing the game with a physical board and tiles seems to be the most sensible option.

(c) www.theinquirer.net

Nvidia G80 Vista drivers in 2006 don't materialis

DirectX 10 is 2007

WE KNEW that Nvidia and everyone else targeted DirectX10 for next year but we and dozens of G80 users are frustrated as we don’t even have buggy drivers for the new OS yet. We at least expected some beta in 2006 but this driver has been more than delayed.

Nvidia is playing stall until it's ready tactics but is getting a lot of criticis about it. People had time over the Yule break and all G80 owners can forget about Aero glass for Yule and New Year.

So what happens when you plug a G80 into a Vista system? You are forced to install standard VGA driver that will let you change the resolution to fit your native resolution of the screen and that’s it. Aero Glass won’t work and even rendering of 2D windows will be difficult.

Nvidia has really disappointed us with lack of Vista driver in 2006 but we hope that the full working version will be ready soon. Until then, ATI users can play all they want with Vista with the exception that a few things won’t work well, but every card is supported while Nvidia users can forget the super high end G80s for the time being.

I exepect that Nvidia plans to show G80 driver at CES as internally Nvidia has it for a while, but it doesn’t want to share it yet.

(c) www.theinquirer.net