3D in Games

Wouldnt it be cool if you were able to play games in 3-D. This might seem like a new idea, but this piece of technology has already been around for a while.

We all know about the company called Nvidia ( for those who don't know, it is a major graphics processing unit manufacturer ). This is the company that had released the revolutionary product called the Nvidia 3D vision. There are two modes of 3D vision available to use. One of them is the anaglyphic ( passive ) 3D and the next one is  active 3D. In the anaglyphic 3D mode, there is no need to have any special hardware, just a pair of read-cyan glasses as shown in the picture below is needed.

Since there are two sets of colour filters , they will cancel out the corresponding colours and hence you will see the game in 3D. This technology will be explained in detail later. This mode of 3D gaming is called Nvidia 3D Vision Discover.

The next mode of 3D vision required the use of additional hardware including a special monitor. The below show the 3D vision kit from Nvidia.

This uses the LCD shutter glasses to project 3D. The difference between the previous version and this one is that , the LCD glasses don't use color filters , hence the original color of the image is maintained. More details about the principles of working will be released in the next post.

Assembling a PC

My PC was assembled by me at the start of this year, and now it is smooth as a snail, but not as slow as it ! In this article I will to share my experience while assembling this PC. If you want to ignore the situation in which I started building this PC then skip the next paragraph and jump right ahead to the specifications part.

My dad always insisted me to build a new PC for a long time, suddenly by the end of December, I got this urge myself. I referred the net and noted down some of the specifications that would fit into the budget that I fixed and mailed it to dad ( He resides abroad and comes home for the holidays ). All of the parts that I wanted were available at the shop except the graphics card. Thus I had to stick with the card that was available at the shop. To make sure that I would be happy with the card that dad purchased, I began surfing up and down youtube for the performance of the card before dad brought the card to home.

SPECIFICATIONS :

1. Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 , 2.4 GHz
2. Motherboard : Intel DB33GU motherboard
3. RAM: 4 GB Kingston RAM, 800 Mhz, DDR 2
4. Graphics Card : Zotac Geforece GTS250, with 1GB DDR 3 memory
5. Power supply :  Phoenix 650 Watt
6. Optical Drive : LG

The overall cost came below Rs. 50,000/-, which included the cabinet and the Operating System CD (Windows 7)

ASSEMBLY

STEP 1: Fixing the Power Supply unit in the cabinet. ( Not a big deal )

STEP 2: Assembling the Motherboard. This is where the processor , processor's fan, RAM are all fixed on the motherboard and the board is placed inside the cabinet.

STEP 3: Fixing the Graphics card and the hard drives

STEP 4: Completing all the connections, which include:

• Hard drive - motherboard
• Graphics card - motherboard
• Cabinet START and RESTART buttons - motherboard
• External USB - motherboard
• Cooling fans - motherboard
• optical drive - motherboard
• PSU ( Power Supply Unit ) - hard drive, graphics card, optical drive, motherboard etc.

After this , the cabinet was closed and the operating system (Windows 7) was loaded and the necessary drivers for all the hardware were installed and VOLA! IT IS ALIVE!!!!!!!!

DIFFICULTIES

The only problem was that the CPU cooling fan wasnt placed properly and hence whenever the system was switched ON, it would switch OFF itself after few seconds. This problem was identified by the error message that was displayed whenever the system was restarted. The fan was adjusted and fixed tight on the board and the problem was solved.

PRECAUTIONS

The most necessary precaution is to make sure that your body is static electricity free. This is usually present in your body when you wear shoes or wear woolen cloths. We can drain this static electricity from our body by grounding our self. This can be done by touching the inner surface of the cabinet when it is connected to a switched OFF plug point.

DirectX - Behind Gaming

We all love to play games, we all have games, we all enjoy games, but what makes the games tick? What is the mechanism in which computer gaming works? How come a game works with many versions of an operating system?

The most important component that helps gaming in a Windows PC is DirectX. DirectX is a collective word used for Direct Music, Direct Play, Direct 3D etc. In short it is an Application Programming Interface ( API ),
which is related with multimedia operations. Thus, when a game is created, it has to only be interfaced with Direct X to work.

There are many versions in DirectX. The latest one is DirectX 11, which is present in Windows 7. The most popular one was DirectX 9, the one in Windows XP. DirectX 10 ( the version that was released with Windows Vista )  was not such a big success as it did not have any great advancement over its previous version. Both DirectX 9 and 10 almost look similar. But there are heavy expectations over DirectX 11 as it brings in much more realistic gaming. I will be discussing about directX 11 in the upcoming posts.

iPad

iPad - it is the latest mind blowing gadget from Apple, the same guys who brought us the iPod and iPhone.

Apple iPad

The iPad is nothing but a tablet computer which works on the same OS as the iPhone. Its technical specifications include:

* A 9.7 inch display
* It uses a 1 GHz processor chip
* Flash storage of 16,32 and 64 GB
* Wifi and 3G connectivity along with bluetooth connectivity
* The battery can last long upto 10 hours of usage and also up to one month in standby mode
* It also includes an accelerometer and a digital compass which comes along with the iPhone

Tablet computers are mainly aimed at more portable situations than laptops. The main usage is browsing the internet at a wifi hot spot and also document editing on the go. The iPad is very much similar to the iPhone as it has the same input techniques. The only major difference is going to be the size.But still, this gadget will definitely be an eye catcher.

32-bit and 64-bit OS

The term "Windows 32-bit" is known to all of us, but we never really think of what "32-bit" actually means. Infact there is also another version called "64-bit". A 32-bit operating system uses 32-bits for data transmission, while a 64-bit uses 64. There is only one major difference between both of them. A 32-bit system supports upto a maximum of 4 GB RAM. So, if you have a 32-bit operating system and 4GB of RAM installed you will only be able to use 3.00-3.25GB of RAM since the system reserves 1GB of RAM for PCI devices ( Eg. Graphics cards ). On the other hand a 64-bit oeprating system supports upto 128 GB of RAM. Thus the major differnce is the memroy support. Other issues when compared between both systems are only minor improvments. Also remember that if you are planning to install a 64-bit operating system, make sure that the processor that you have supports the same. Some processors only support 32-bit.

Surface and 7

Windows has its top two projects runnning.....the Microsoft Surface and the Windows 7. This article is shares a little information about them both and their integration ideas.

Microsoft Surface - Simply to say a hands on approach for windows. It is said to be a tabletop, a table whit a touch screen as an interface. It uses infrared to sense the touch.The touch screen is very advanced with the capabilities of multi touch sensing.

Windows 7- The latest,upcoming operating system by the computer giant microsoft. Windows 7, codenamed : Windows Vienna, can be imagined what it will look like after how XP and VISTA are evolved. It already has its transformation packs available around the net and much more eagerly waited.

The microsoft surface incorporates Windows 7 as its operating system. Both together have changed a table into a mighty gadget. The surface can display images, movies at any size and can be zoomed and resized using the fingers. The multitouch fucionality has taken the Surface beyond its limits.