Updated (and official) HD trailers from the link above:

Looking back, I can’t believe I went to those extremes for a console that is now basically collecting dust after the Wii Sports novelty wore off and after I got my fair share of Super Mario Bros. and Punch Out nostalgia sessions. Long story short, the Wii is now my wife’s console but this could be getting me back for more…

The trailer above was just released and shows new gameplay elements for the upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii slated for release this November.

Those that can afford to buy software generally do pay for it, but I have found the hard way that it isn’t always worth it, and this is becoming truer as time goes on thanks to poorly implemented DRM (Digital Rights Management).

When Microsoft released Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit it was rather pricey, but I still went out and purchased two copies right away – one for me and one for testing. Although I have paid for the software I’m extremely tempted to avoid the genuine activation and simply crack it. But why would I do such a thing for software that I have paid good money for? Well, it’s simple. Because of the large number of people that pirate Windows, Microsoft has felt compelled to punish the suckers that actually buy it.

Hateful DRM practices jeopardize the end-user experience

Every time I change a major piece of hardware I end up with a warning message informing me that I have two days to reactivate my copy of Windows. Okay, that’s not so bad. Just click re-activate then shall we. Hang on, that didn’t work, and now I have to ring the Microsoft support center based on India and try to communicate a 60+ digit code to someone I can barely understand. After that process is done I can finally use my computer again. Yay! Well… at least until I need to change/upgrade something again.

The alternative is to run a 20 second patch that removes the Microsoft activation altogether, meaning that I will never be inconvenienced again when upgrading, an inconvenience I apparently paid good money for. Again, the options: to pay for software that is going to have you pulling your hair out every time you change something, or get it for free without any of the catches.

Over the years the countless re-activations of my computers has not only improved my Indian accent, but also simply become a way of life.

Windows activation reminder

Although I spend much of my time testing out new and exciting graphics cards in the latest games, I rarely get to actually play the games themselves extensively. I’m a huge fan of real-time strategy games and I love the Command & Conquer series. The good old days when Westwood was still around…

Anyway, the recent release of C&C: Red Alert 3 allowed me to get back into the RTS scene and play a few games in-between testing new graphics cards. Unfortunately, having finally stopped and taken the time to enjoy a video game, the experience was far from enjoyable, at least so far.

The first thing I did upon receiving my fresh new copy of Red Alert 3 was to install it on one of my desktop PCs, I chose my work computer since it was powerful enough and I spend most of my time on it. This turned out to be a bad move since EA doesn’t support 64-bit operating systems, at least with RA3 anyway. The game would crash to the desktop after 15 – 20 min of gameplay without fail.

Before discovering that it was an incompatibility issue with the 64-bit operating system I uninstalled the game and then re-installed it on the same system to no avail. The crashes to the desktop persisted and I was forced to play on another computer. I got another hard drive, installed Windows XP on it, and re-installed RA3 once again. It worked, and flawlessly too, which was all good news. I spent much of my spare time over the next few weeks playing it online.

C&C: Red Alert 3 is one many current EA titles that uses SecuROM DRM

The computer that I had installed it on needed a motherboard change (testing related issue) so I swapped out the board for a new one. Windows XP booted up, I installed the new drivers and away I went without an issue, at least until I tried to fire up RA3 again. Other games like Far Cry 2 worked like a charm. Not Red Alert 3, though. Instead the game pretended to load and then hit me with an error explaining that the game had been installed too many times.

Despite the fact that I had not re-installed the game on this PC and had only changed the motherboard, it refused to load. Therefore I had to sign up for EA support, which was a pain in the arse, and just another one of those inconveniences you shouldn’t have to go through when paying full price for software. Anyway, EA got back to me, slowly, and once I sent them all my details they informed me that I had been given 1 more activation and after that it was pretty much all over, even if I uninstalled the game.

So here I am, with a game that I paid $60 for ($95 AUD), and if anything goes wrong with the hardware in my current system or I want to upgrade it in a year’s time, I may have to purchase another copy if I want to continue playing.

I have been reading about these kinds of DRM problems for some time now, but had never encountered them myself other than the Vista activation shenanigans. So, I understand that this is nothing new and probably something that many of you have already been dealing with, but it is still a load of BS!

Anti-DRM logo by Alfredo Rezinovsky.

So, head to your hardware manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers available for Windows Vista – we also keep a healthy catalog of the latest drivers for graphics cards and other devices in our own drivers section.

After downloading the drivers, run the installation setup and follow the prompts as if you would any other time. If you are presented with any errors due to compatibility, cancel the installation, right click the on the install package’s .exe and choose “Troubleshoot Compatibility”.

This will present you with a “Program Compatibility” wizard of sorts, which is a bit more friendly than on previous version of Windows.

The wizard will show a few common issues to select from and ask which apply to your situation. It won’t allow you to proceed without selecting something, so if it’s not already, just check the box next to “The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won’t install or run now” and click next.

Obviously we’ll want to choose Windows Vista as the last known OS to support the drivers.

Upon completion you ought to be met with a window displaying the new settings enabled for your software and the option to test your new configuration by clicking next.

Interesting fact: According to Google Analytics, over the past few weeks the number of visitors coming to TechSpot using Windows 7 has exploded. Currently it accounts for roughly 2% of our traffic. Doesn’t sound like much but this is only 15 days after its beta release. It also makes for the fourth most popular OS among our readers after XP (65%), Vista (23%) and Mac OS X (3%).

Click here to download the patch, unrar it into the games installation directory at: \Game\Localized\Video and then run remove.intro.crysis.warhead.bat

The only thing it does is renaming all files beginning with “Trailer” so you might as well just delete them all and be done with it ;)

The results have been very surprising to an extent:

The poll is not over yet and we are not closing it until later on, but there are a few things that I wanted to point out based on the results already in from 3,000+ voters:

+ First big shock, 30% are not PC gamers. Wow. So, TechSpot is about more than just PC gaming, I get that ;). But still quite a large number of people that are simply stating, “no, we are not here for the games.” And to be completely clear about it, this doesn’t imply that these people are gaming on consoles either.
Even when I consider myself a PC gaming evangelist, I have to admit I’m very happy to see this trend going on here, as it describes in part a prominent future outlook for TechSpot with or without gaming built into the equation… it’s also about the technology, the hardware, and the innovation on the field.

+ The largest group of people (36%) still prefer to buy games at the store, hmm?

+ A minority of 7% buy games through digital distribution. I expected something in this range considering the many, many games not using this medium yet, however for a PC enthusiast site it could still be considered a low share. Personally, I don’t belong in this group either, although I bought the Orange Box through Steam, I still prefer to keep around my shiny box of Crysis and physical DVD just because…
This also gives some weight – even if minor – to the select few who pointed out a few weeks ago how PC game sales are not being measured correctly because those don’t include digital distribution. Agreed on that, also for non-hardcore casual games that are very much ignored despite of growing sales. The pain is still felt however when major development studios focus more on consoles than the PC.

+ 10% do online and boxed. Here’s where I stand, although for the Crysis case above I ran to the local BestBuy on the launch date.

+ 15% pirate games, most likely using BitTorrent. Thank you for your honesty! And no, we don’t collect your IP addresses or anything like that =)

In case you haven’t noticed, every week day we have in our frontpage the “News around the web” coverage with 4-5 hand picked items of interest that sometimes deviate from our usual news but are well worth a read. The post also features a “Five years ago in TechSpot” story from our archives, just to give you some perspective of the technology today. Then it’s all rounded up with reviews and articles from fellow websites.

Major thumbs up to Johnny Chung Lee for his creativity using Wii’s hardware. I wonder where did the millions spent in the PS3 and Xbox 360 go? Especially when the later is essentially a rebadged PC.

There are obvious shortcomings inherent to the way data is being gathered (all user-submitted, 3dmark tested only, features are not considered), but from a quick glance I took to the stats, it’s at the very least an interesting thing to watch.

An obvious miss I thought was the “Best Bang for the Buck” graphics card where the GeForce 8600 GT is sitting on top, and we know this has never been a product of our particular choice, even when considering the price. But yet, the thing costs less than a hundred dollars nowadays, so perhaps we should revisit those budget choices. The quad-core CPU best value went to the Core 2 Quad Q6600, no surprises there, although it appears to be AMD Phenoms are not even getting listed yet.

You will be surprised when you see the Athlon 64 X2 3600+ getting the most CPU Marks per $, in fact all Athlon X2s were on top of Intel Core 2 Duos, which are generally better choices for gaming but perhaps this is not reflected as dramatically in 3dmark.

While there, I recommend you also check out statistics gathered for the most popular hardware used by 3dmark users in the past 12 months. Nvidia GeForce cards dominate 9 of the top 10 positions (#1 GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB/640MB), while the Core 2 Duo is also comfortably on top of the CPU chart.

So, my last batch of major upgrades was over a year ago, when the Athlon X2 was still hip and so I’m running a 4400+ CPU with 2GB of memory on a speedy, but unfortunately very noisy 150GB Raptor HDD. Also just recently got to switch from an oldie GeForce 7800gt to a Radeon HD 3850, in fact I got two cards, but my SLI motherboard won’t let me run them in Crossfire. So, what’s the next step? Intel’s Core 2 Quad is my favorite route at the moment but I haven’t quite yet decided that, after all if my only motivation is gaming then a videocard upgrade should take precedence, but as you know both ATI and Nvidia will be playing the Multi-GPU card early this year which is not necessarily the GeForce 8800 Ultra we all wanted.

In the meantime I’m letting my plan unfold where I play Crysis as little and as slow as possible so when my upgrade finally comes, I still get to play it a bit with some more eye candy turned on :). Not to despair though, Far Cry 2 is up and coming, not to mention the wide number of good PC game releases we got last year, oh, and did you know Crysis is set to be a trilogy? Hopefully the sales will justify it.

Finally, here’s some Far Cry 2 video that recently hit the web: