It is with deep regret to announce that the GameRail network has been discontinued at this time. Thank you to the gamers who have participated in the GameRail trial and support of its development as we worked to solve the issues of latency and network quality and their impact on gaming. We believe that latency and network quality will continue to affect the gaming experience and while we are still believers in the GameRail concept, the market does not appear to be ready to support a standalone network for gaming at this time.

GameRail operated a high speed network that directly connected online game players to servers hosting popular games. GameRail’s business model was to deliver superior performance to its subscribers by peering directly with ISPs, universities and game server providers (GSPs). Low latency (”lag”) is crucial in multiplayer first-person shooter games like CounterStrike, where a slow connection can leave a player at a competitive disadvantage. But gamers are also a price-sensitive crowd, as noted by Wagner James Au at GigaOm:

GameRail’s death notice suggests a broader reason: There are probably very few gamers out there willing to pay extra to become what’s colloquially called an SLPB, or “super low ping bastard.”

Memory vendors have become excellent at marketing their latest high-end products: DDR3-2000 speeds are currently considered state of the art for enthusiast Intel platforms based on Intel’s P35, X38, X48 chipsets or the new Nvidia 7 series. But how much sense do these products really make? While mainstream DDR2 memory has reached almost ridiculously low price levels - you can get two 2 GB DDR2-800 DIMMs for less than $80 - DDR3 memory at 1600 speed or faster easily costs five times as much, without delivering even double the performance. In fact, for the vast majority of users, the difference between mainstream and high-end memory turns out to be extremely small.

Their conclusion: “The results must look disappointing for the memory vendors, as the largest performance differences we found amount to 7-8% with DivX and WinRAR, while almost all other benchmarks and applications perform alike: a 1-3% performance delta cannot be noticed at all.” Read the full story for more.

“Every Windows gaming PC has other non-gaming tasks running in the background vying for network resources,” said Harlan Beverly, co-founder and CEO of Bigfoot Networks. “Killer Bandwidth Control can for example, stop PunkBuster or annoying Windows updates from ruining the experience by limiting the bandwidth they can use.”

The Killer NIC gaming network card is designed to reduce the lag and latency associated with high action MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) and FPS (First Person Shooter) games. With a dedicated Network Processing Unit (NPU), Killer NIC offloads network processing from the CPU, bypasses the Windows Network Stack and prioritizes game packets to boost average frame-rates and smooth gameplay during intense game situations.

With Bandwidth Control gamers can manage the bandwidth across all applications to further maximize their game performance. Key features include: (1) Bandwidth Priority settings tell Killer NIC which applications should get preferential access when multiple applications are vying for the same bandwidth, (2) Bandwidth Limits set a minimum/maximum upload and download bandwidth speed for any game or application.

Bigfoot Networks specializes in technologies designed to fight Lag in online games. The company’s mission is to enhance Internet-based online game experiences in multiplayer action games. The company’s hardware and software solutions are targeted at gamer PCs and game hosting servers.

Bigfoot Networks Inc Killer K1 64 MB PCI Wired Online Gaming Network Accelerator NIC (B011-500-0045)

The Killer™ K1 64 MB PCI Online Gaming Network Accelerator from Bigfoot Networks™ is a Network Card designed specifically for online gamers. Killer K1 accelerates gaming by bypassing the Windows Network Stack, getting to data to your game fast. It features 333 MHz Network Processing Unit with Lag and Latency Reduction Technology. Killer K1 can be upgraded to support the Flexible Network Architecture (FNA). This allows you to run applications such as firewalls and BitTorrent clients right on your Killer instead of your CPU.

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I sincerely hope the monitor would have HDMI. Good luck in running Crysis at 2880 x 900 though.
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CS Online is the Asian version of Condition Zero. The game is being developed by Nexon, a Korea-based company. This version would come with new weapons, maps, and player models that are tailored for the Asian audience.
New terrorist models are: Red Beret Condittiere, Asia Red Army, National Liberation Campaign, and Vigilante Corps. Likewise, there are new Counter-Terrorists, such as: South Korean 707, Taiwanese Police Special Forces, Chinese Devil Squad, and Japanese SAT.
Unlike the previous Valve games, CS Online doesn’t require you to have Steam.
According to MMOtaku, over 170,000 gamers participated in CS Online’s closed beta test. The game will be released in Korea (obviously), China, Japan, and Taiwan.
Aside from the obvious cosmetic […]

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