Loading... Bigfoot the Olympic Sprint Runner

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Posted Tue, May 11, 2010 by B. de la Durantaye

Welcome to the 1,330th edition of Loading...

Loading... is the premier daily MMOG news and commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

Can changing your NIC really improve game performance that much? According to Bigfoot networks it can. Today we take a look at their newest card, the Killer 2100, announced today, in Loading... Bigfoot the Olympic Sprint Runner.

The Pulse

You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).

Here are today's top 5 Pulse results:

Biggest movers today:

Pirates of the Burning Sea (UP 24 to #11)
Guild Wars (UP 12 to #12)
EverQuest (down 10 to #16)

Recent Releases

2/16 - EverQuest 2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion)
2/16 - LotRO: Oath of the Rangers (content update)
4/5 - Pocket Legends (iMMOG - release date)
5/1 - City of Heroes - Issue 17: Dark Mirror (content update)

Upcoming Releases

May 11, 2010 - Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer (expansion)
May 18, 2010 - EVE Online: Tyrannis (expansion)
May 27, 2010 - Craft of Gods (release)
June 30, 2010 - APB (US - July 2 in EU)
Q2 2010 - Mytheon
TBA 2010 - Final Fantasy XIV

Upcoming Events

6/15 - 6/17 - E3 Expo
6/25 - 6/27 - Looking for Group Expo
7/22 - 7/25 - Comic-Con International
8/5 - 8/8 - SOE Fan Faire 2010
9/3 - 9/6 - DragonCon
10/22 - 10/23 - BlizzCon
3/24 - 3/26 (2011)- CCP FanFest

Loading... Daily

Before I get into the bulk of today's Loading... allow me to point out that today is launch day for Age of Conan's Rise of the Godslayer expansion. Despite AoC's rocky start in 2008, I've always loved the game. You simply cannot find a nicer looking MMOG out there right now, nor can you find one with as unique a combat system - at least for the melee classes. Seeing Funcom really flesh out the game with the new expansion, and address so many player concerns... well, it just makes me tingly inside. Don't take my word for it. Editor-in-Chief, Ethec, and I have regular disagreements about the quality of the game, often ending in the hurling of marshmallows at each other, so it was fitting that he be the one to do our Rise of the Godslayer preview. Does the expansion soften Ethec's heart to the game? Find out!

Now, onto the other news of the day.

Bigfoot Networks contacted me last week to tell me about their newest product, the Killer 2100, which was announced to the public today. Allow me to admit that when it comes to network cards, I've been settled for some time in the "as long as I get high speed internet, I don't care" camp. I've never given much thought to network optimization since my home network consists of my desktop, my laptop, my Wii and my PS3. And I live alone. So the only traffic happening there is from what I'm doing myself. I have an 8 meg internet connection which is plenty fast for anything I do. So, when I spoke with Bigfoot last week, I was all "what do I need this for?"

They answered.

The Killer 2100 is all-new. The entire concept was redesigned from the ground up, so we see a completely new product over Bigfoot's previous NICs. In addition to this, and probably the biggest immediately noticeable difference is the software package. The new card comes with a full application that allows you to not only monitor every single process that uses bandwidth, but also to manage those applications. You can skip the Windows stack entirely and with Bigfoot's Visual Bandwidth Control, tweak how much bandwidth you wish to allow to each application, or block an application all together. What's particularly handy about this is that since you'll see every single process using bandwidth, you'll probably notice some that you didn't even know were running. If those applications were using bandwidth, chances are they were using processing power too. The enhancements to performance-tweaking can easily be seen.

As an example, I'm often downloading tv shows in the background. I also like to keep my MMOGs up to date so I don't have a day of patching ahead of me when I decide to log in next. Windows could be downloading some updates, and maybe Adobe Acrobat is updating itself without me knowing. Previously, I could possibly set the bandwidth limit for torrents, but my game updates would be coming in at full speed, Windows would be downloading its updates and Adobe would be doing its thing without me even knowing, throttling any kind of conneciton I'd have to the game I was playing at that instant. With the Visual Bandwidth Control, I could simply move the slider for those downloads to either throttle those apps or block them entirely, all the while preventing my game from suffering at all.

As for the hardware, the unit comes with a 400 MHz processer and 128 MB of DDR2 RAM. What this means is that all of the network and bandwidth options you have set or are running are managed by the card itself and not your CPU. In a day where response time is everything the implications can be significant. To illustrate the improvement, a network efficiency test showed that a standard NIC connected to a typical LAN network would have a 22.5 ms response from packets sent and received to a station on the same LAN (of the worst 10% packets sent). The Killer 2100 on the same LAN had a 0.71 ms response time, again on the worst 10 percent. That's a big difference, even if we are talking milliseconds.

So how does it all measure up? Unfortunately I was not able to test one of the cards myself, so I can't give a hands-on impression. The presentation by Bigfoot Networks though, did make enough of an impression that I'm going to be booking some time with them at E3 to see the hardware in action and assess if it's worth the $129 USD MSRP. In the meantime, let me know your thoughts in the forums.

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our /OOC (Off-topic) forum

Hey Boomjack!

The members of our forum community are in search of the ever-elusive Boomjack, former purveyor of profound prognostication via this very newsletter. While Boomjack has turned his focus toward bigger and better behind-the-scenes (damn, that's a lot of alliteration!) things at Ten Ton Hammer, he's never far away. (In fact, check under your bed before you go to sleep tonight; he's just that sneaky.) Can we make Ten Ton Hammer's very own Boo Radley come out? Give it a shot!

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Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread

"I have baited the trap! There is no way Boomjack can resist a shirtless Vin Diesel."

- Annatar
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Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? Tell us!

New and Exclusive Content Today at Ten Ton Hammer

6 new Ten Ton Hammer articles today! 33 Ten Ton Hammer features in May! 504 in 2010!

PREVIEWS

Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Expansion - Launch Day Preview
http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc/rise-of-the-godslayer/preview

Today's the day: "Rise of the Godslayer," Age of Conan's first expansion, hits the servers. Will this heavy dose of Asian culture give Age of Conan the mid-level lift the game sorely needs? Will the dizzying amount of carefully crafted level 20 through 80 content unleash our inner barbarians once again? We won't attempt to answer these ponderous questions... at least, not yet. But we will give you a solid first look at the expansion's loot, levels, locations, lore, and lurid brilliance in our special launch day preview of Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer.

FEATURED EDITORIAL

Microcosms – Business or Pleasure: Gaming vs. Corporate Culture
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/84216

The news cycle this week was spinning with tales of corporate mergers, CEO departures and lawsuits both settled and filed. Ten Ton Hammer is beginning to look as much like The Wall Street Journal as it does a gaming site. While the reality is that gaming is a business, and a big one at that, it seems like the more companies focus on the bottom line the less they focus on fun. Join Jason “Medawky” Bolton as he delves into the conundrum this week in Microcosms – Business or Pleasure: Gaming vs.Corporate Culture.

FEATURES & GUIDES

How To Get Rich Off Market Stampedes In EVE Online
http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/business/market_stampede

In further preparation for helping readers profit off of the speculation-happy Tyrannis expansion for EVE Online, Space Junkie, gives us the skinny on provoking and profiting from market stampedes.

Ten Ton Hammer's Star Trek Online FAQ
http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/faq

With the release of Star Trek Online a few months behind us, your pals at Ten Ton Hammer decided to roll up their sleeves and update their STO FAQ. Hopefully, all your questions will be answered. And, for the record, no tribbles were harmed in the making of this FAQ.

Discovering the Unknown: WoW Easter Eggs
http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/easter-eggs

Hidden messages are scattered throughout almost every form of media we can image. Books, movies, music, and computer games all hold messages, or subtle jokes, more commonly known as Easter eggs, just waiting to be discovered by those who look close enough. It comes as no surprise then to discover that World of Warcraft is full of them.

Cataclysm Leaks, Real ID, and Guild Leadership - WoW Weekly Report
http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/newsletter/issue66

Our World of Warcraft Weekly Report - The Overpull arrives every Tuesday morning to cover the past week's news, features, and more here at Ten Ton Hammer. Don't get caught behind, be sure to subscribe to The Overpull so it zips to your inbox each week or stop on by and pick up the latest copy on our website. This week's news includes some tidbits about the Cataclysm Leak, Real ID, and Guild Leadership.

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