Gaming News and Debate

DVI stands for Digital Visual Interface. DVI Cables are generally used to connect an LCD monitor to a computer’s video card. The DVI cable is a successor to the VGA cable, which uses analog not digital. Despite it’s name DVI cables do come in versions that are capable of transmitting analog signals.

DVI connectors consist of DVI-D which can only send digital signals, DVI-A, which can only send analog signals, and DVI-I which can send both digital and analog signals. DVI-D and DVI-I types are also available in dual link versions which increase the amount of data the cable is capable of transmitting (thus increasing the available resolution size the cable can transmit). A single link DVI cable can transmit a WUXGA signal, which is a resolution of 1920 x 1200 at 60hz. A dual link can transmit a WQXGA signal, which has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 at 60hz.

Unlike some cables a DVI cable only transmits video. not audio. While the DVI cable was introduced in 1999 it is still in use today although it is quickly being replaced by the HDMI cable due to it’s slightly superior video capability and the fact that it can also transmit audio signals, although on computers it usually isn’t used for audio. Still due to the an HDMI cables high cost DVI cables will likely still be in use in the lower end markets for years to come.

I bought my hdmi cable from lindy.co.uk

Wii homebrew development has been increasing ever so slightly since the original twilight hack was discovered. The original hack was discovered by inputting a huge name as the name for your Zelda character; this then sent the memory into buffer over flow mode, which then enabled some clever people to run a script on it. Now once this twilight has been run you can choose to install the wii homebrew channel which will allow you to run homebrew without having to run the hack every time, the big feature I personally like about the homebrew channel is that it allows you to update it via the console, this cuts out the tediousness of having to go through the whole process every time there’s an update. There is a wide range of applications already available, which include things like emulators, games and media programs. To install these applications it’s a simple process of copying the downloaded file on to the SD card. One controversial application that was leaked by beta testers, is been developed by Waninkoko, (he now says that he has stopped any further development due to the application being leaked), the program is a wii iso loader; by the name I’m pretty sure you know what it does. The application has received a lot of criticism by the gaming community, due to the iso loader only having one real purpose, to load pirate games, the wii community is worried that the same would happen to the wii what has happened to the psp, where the quality of games has dropped to nothing due to a near 90% piracy rate. It’s advised that you do not try the application due to it been in beta, and running a high risk of bricking your console.

We all know that adverts on WebPages help pay for the running costs etc, but do we really want this in a game? Ad Sense is basically an advertisement service run by the guys and gals at Google, People who own websites can sign up to this service, which will then allow Google to show text, image and video advertisements in designated areas, website owners then receive money from Google when people click on these advertisements. The same process is being beta tested for games, which will probably take off due to having the Google behind it, which has a surplus amount of money at their disposal. If I’m not mistaken there are advertisement already appearing in console games, which is not terrible, however I would like to see the consumer reap some of the benefit from the revenue the games manufacturers are seeing, by way of some reduction in the price of the game. My fear is that the games will start to suffer as a result of all the advertisements, developers might start to get greedy and then start to implement features into a games that’s sole purpose is to advertise.

This is the question I asked myself prior to acquiring the knowledge; at first I always thought that all disk media quality was the same and that the only difference between the more expensive ones and the cheaper ones were brand name. I soon found this to be untrue after an hour or two of googling, basically the cheaper DL media will work on your xbox360 however the quality of dye used on these disks is far lower than on more expensive disks, the consequence of putting a DL disk in your 360 is that it puts more strain on your DVD drive laser resulting in your DVD drive packing in far earlier than it should.

Top 3 are as follows;
*Verbatim (Must have the right dye)
*Datasafe
*Ridisc

For xbox360’s the problem of which DL media brand to use should not be of importance at the end of November, once Microsoft release the new dash board update which enables you to run you games from your hard drive so long as you have the game in the drive, which will cut down the demand on your DVD laser. One last thing to note when making a backup is to only burn at 2x, you will find you get the best results, and end up will less coasters, also there are some dvd burners that work better than others, Pioneers have the best success rate.