Posted 09/22/08 at 05:55:21 PM by Tom Edwards

Vic McGuire found a diamond in the rough when he set out to build his latest mod. While browsing through a computer store, he found a custom case with chrome-plated front air grills in the junk pile and an idea came to mind. After arduously sanding the rust off the grills, Vic had the basis for the HawgWild U.S.A. 

Hit the jump for more delicious photos!

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Posted 09/08/08 at 07:04:16 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

In the PDF archive of the August 2008 issue, you can find:

• PC vs. MacBook Notebook Battle!
• Ultimate Guide to Firefox 3
• Nvidia's Next-Gen GTX 280 GPU Unveiled!
• How To: Create your own Internet TV Show!
• Awesome Product Reviews, including MSI's new P35 Combo Platinum mobo!
• Ask the Doctor
• Rig of the Month
• The Watchdog
• And a whole lot more!

Click the big giant cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!

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Posted 07/29/08 at 04:02:16 PM by David Murphy

Setting up a streaming TV show on the Internet is a pretty easy task. You grab a webcam, plug it into a PC, and use an Internet streaming site to host your amateur show. We’re stressing the amateur part because let’s face it, we’ve all seen enough YouTube stars to know the score.

But since this is Maximum PC, we’re kicking it up a notch and showing you how to become an online video producer. First off, we’re upping the number of cameras to two. Second, we’re going to show you how to stream your video live. By using Ustream’s (www.ustream.tv) online interface, you’ll be able to switch back and forth between your two cameras. Give your audience two different views of your head! Or more likely, use the second camera to feature a special guest or sidekick.

Find out how to be your own internet celebrity after the jump.

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Posted 07/28/08 at 01:35:58 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I just completed a minor upgrade to my system, including the addition of a brand-spankin’-new Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU. My question: When you right-click a process in task manager it gives you the option to set affinity. If I’m right, this gives you the ability to set a process or task to a particular core of your CPU.

It seems like this would help distribute the load of everything running and keep things flowing smoothly, but it looks like every process is set to use all four cores.

Is there a right or wrong way to go about changing these settings? Is it advisable to change them? I would think that if you divided them up, you could gain a performance advantage.

Answer is after the jump!

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Posted 07/21/08 at 06:42:14 PM by Zack Stern

The shiny, new hatchback you nudge in a street race dents slightly on the driver’s side door. Although you’re playing a PC game, created with beaucoup equations, the bend looks almost real. The 3D renderer sculpts all those numbers into images, with help from the video API (application program interface). However, several completely different rendering techniques can be the source of those images. Currently, the hardware and software industries are debating how to best utilize two graphics-rendering techniques: ray tracing and rasterization.

Hit the jump to see how 3D game rendering is changing with hardware advancements. 

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Posted 07/21/08 at 05:29:45 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

This one is a little complicated, but here’s what happened: My girlfriend bought an AMD All-in-Wonder 7500 AGP card from Provantage.com for her father, but it arrived without a remote. He thought the description on the website indicated a remote would come with it, so he asked me to take a look at the website. I thought the product description was ambiguous, so I pinged Provantage about the remote and whether it was OEM or retail packaged.

To make a long story short, a customer service rep told me it did come with a remote and that it was retail boxed. The package my girlfriend’s father received was OEM and came with a driver disc and card—no remote. My girlfriend’s father didn’t want to bother with trying to fight for a return or the remote, so I left it at that. But I think it’s wrong for a company to tell you a product comes with something and then not include it. Provantage.com is definitely not a company I would recommend to anyone who works hard for his or her money.

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Posted 07/21/08 at 04:29:49 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I was a victim of the Symantec triple-license AV software whose timer started ticking with the first installation (March 2008). I called Symantec’s customer service number and complained, and the company fixed it for me by resetting the timer to start with the third installation. This rectified the situation to my satisfaction, and I learned a lesson.

Fast forward a year to a similar three-pack from Computer Associates. Being careful, I installed all three licenses on the same day to make sure there wouldn’t be any issues with the expiration date. As soon as the software ran an update cycle with the home server, it took three weeks off my license! I called CA and the company fixed the problem. The culprit? It seems the clock started ticking when I bought the package (or so I was told). But how did they know when I bought it?

Customer service didn’t say, but I bet it’s from the rebate form I sent in after buying the software. I had purchased the software locally prior to the expiration date of the current antivirus software on the systems I was using and waited a few weeks until the current licenses expired before installing the new copy—a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

This strikes me as an extremely deceptive practice. I wonder if anyone else has been bitten by this?

Answers for Louis (and the rest of us) after the jump.

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Posted 07/21/08 at 02:34:29 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

In your May 2008 issue, you made warm comments about HD Inspector from AltrixSoft. However, the trial version is not really fully featured, as you said, since you can check only the primary drive. All other drives are blocked. Also, these guys charge sales tax on downloaded software. No physical product is delivered, and there’s no way to complain about this. The real issue is the sales tax. This amounts to a 5 to 8 percent surcharge on the price of the product. I live in Boulder, CO. I highly doubt that the company is licensed to collect sales tax in Boulder, or in any other small town in America. This is fraud, and you should look a bit deeper before recommending some of these software vendors.

Well, Tom, the Dog has an answer for you after the jump.

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