Nvidia: Console Software Sales Flat, PC on the Rise

PC gaming is dead? Not so fast...

ZoomI'm not quite sure how it happened, but PC gaming seems to have gotten a bad rap over the last several years. It isn't from journalists like me, and it's certainly not coming from sites like Tom's Hardware; but at some point "they" decided that the PC should play second fiddle to the Xbox and PlayStation, instead of the other way around...or at the very least, seeing every player in the gaming space as equal.

Nvidia certainly has something to say about that, and the company's response isn't a sleek new near-$3,000 gaming laptop, nor is it some hot new PC title...despite Battlefield 3, Skyrim and Rage being right around the corner. Instead, Big Green is bringing cold, hard facts to the table. In short, it's all about the almighty dollar and how that cash is wielded by you, John Q. Consumer. I met with Nvidia recently to talk about gaming in general, as well as look at some exciting new hardware coming out in the near future. The latter is hush-hush until next month, but when it comes to the state of PC gaming, it's open season.

Microsoft looks to 'Mojave' to revive Vista's image

REDMOND, Wash.--After months of searching for ways to defend its oft-maligned Windows operating system, Microsoft may just have found its best weapon: Vista's skeptics.

Spurred by an e-mail from someone deep in the marketing ranks, Microsoft last week traveled to San Francisco, rounding up Windows XP users who had negative impressions of Vista. The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a "new" operating system, code-named Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista.

0digg "Oh wow," said one user, eliciting exactly the exclamation that Microsoft had hoped to garner when it first released the operating system more than 18 months ago. Instead, the operating system got mixed reviews and criticisms for its lack of compatibility and other headaches.

To be sure, the focus groups didn't have to install Vista or hook it up to their existing home network. Still, the emotional appeal of the "everyman" trying Vista and liking it clearly packs an emotional punch, something the company has desperately needed. Microsoft is still trying to figure out just how it will use the Mojave footage in its marketing, though it will clearly have a place.

Reducing runtime memory in Windows 8

Reducing runtime memory in Windows 8

Fundamentals such as memory usage represent a key engineering tenet of Windows 8. In building Windows 8 we set out to significantly reduce the overall runtime memory requirements of the core system. This is always good for everyone and especially in a world where people want to run more and more apps at the same time or run on systems with only 1 or 2GB of memory. The laptop we talk about in this post is the exact same one we talked about at the Windows 7 PDC in 2008 – an off-the-shelf, first-generation, ATOM-based netbook with 1GB of memory. This post details our efforts around memory footprint and was authored by Bill Karagounis, the group program manager of our Performance team. --Steven

The runtime memory usage of Windows 8 is an important factor in determining the Windows 8 system requirements, as well as the broadened spectrum of devices that will host Windows 8. As you know, we’re delivering the complete Windows 8 experience on SoC-based devices characterized by low power consumption. This makes it even more important to leave lots of memory available for multiple concurrent apps and to sustain the overall responsiveness of devices.

Windows 8 Uses Less Memory Than Windows 7

Windows 8 Uses Less Memory Than Windows 7

Those of you who saw Microsoft demonstrate Windows 8 at their Build conference last month will know that Windows 8 uses less RAM than Windows 7. Microsoft used a low powered netbook which had just 1GB of RAM. They booted Windows 7 SP1 and the Windows 8 Developer Preview and after they had both been at idle for a while it was found that Windows 8 was using a lot less CPU and Memory compared to Windows 7. ( 5% vs 1% and 404 MB vs 281 MB)

Windows 7 was applauded for reducing the amount of memory that Windows uses, especially compared to Windows Vista but now Microsoft have gone even further with Windows 8. One of their goals was to make sure that all machines that are capable of running Windows 7, will be able to run Windows 8 without a problem. Microsoft have managed to surpass these expectations by making Windows 8 even less resource intensive.


So how do they do it? Well Microsoft went into great detail over on the Building Windows 8 blog but I’ll try and just give you some of the main points.

Windows 8 make use of a new feature known as memory combining. Basically Windows looks at system RAM use, then it finds duplicate code that could be running for a variety of reasons, it then removes these duplicates from the memory so that you only have one copy of the code running, thus freeing up memory.