Maximum PC mods RSS Feed

Intel Launches their Core i7 Custom Challenge

Jason Barry — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:37:49 -0500

Intel has kicked off a PC Mod contest to help generate some publicity and enthusiasm over the new Core i7 and Core i5 processors. Not that Intel needs to drum up any excitement about the processors; most enthusiasts have been anticipating them for quite some time.

The contest involves building, or modding, a computer with the new technology and submitting photos of your build to Intel. There will be a preliminary judging by Intel and sponsors and the top mods will be sent to the People’s Choice finals where the public can vote on the mod they like the best.

You can get more details at the Intel Core i7 Custom Challenge site. The deadline for submissions is November 16th and voting begins November 23rd.

Modder Crams HTPC Into 25-Year-Old Cellphone

Paul Lilly — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:52:02 -0500

Finnish modder Jani Pönkkö scores major geeks points, both for holding onto a 25-year-old cellphone and for breathing new life into the mobile monstrosity by modding it into an HTPC.

Pönkkö started off with the handset, installing LEDs, a WiFi card, a soundcard, a speaker, and the crème de la crème - a 128 x 182 OLED display.

Inside the briefcase-sized Mobira Talkman's base, Pönkkö managed to cram a 3.5-inch form factor motherboard, Intel T5500 Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of DDR2 notebook memory, and a 32GB SSD. The modded cellphone also boasts a DVI port and USB hub.

Check out the full worklog and video here.

Image Credit: metku.net

Does Your PC Have What it Takes to be the Rig of the Month?

The Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:45:18 -0600

Have you spent countless hours shedding blood, sweat, and tears into your Kick Ass mod? Does your mod have your friends and family drenching you in compliments? If so, have your rig shine alongside the elite crew of modders by submitting your rig to MaximumPC’s Rig of the Month contest! Every month, one talented modder and his rig will be featured in the magazine before the entire world to see, as well as rewarded with a $250 gift certificate! We know you’re interested, so read on for contest rules and details.

TO ENTER: Your submission packet must contain your name, street address, and daytime phone number; no fewer than three high-res JPEGs (minimum size 1024x768) of your modified PC; and a 300-word description of what your PC represents and how it was modified. Emailed submissions should be sent to rig@maximumpc.com. Snail mail submissions should be sent to Rig of the Month, c/o Maximum PC, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080.

The judges will be Maximum PC editors, and they will base their decision on the following criteria: creativity and craftsmanship.

ONE ENTRY PER HOUSEHOLD. Your contest entry will be valid until (1) six months after its submission or (2) the contest ends, whichever date is earlier. Each month a winner will be chosen from the existing pool of valid entries and featured in the Rig of the Month department of the magazine. Each of the judging criteria (creativity and craftsmanship) will be weighed equally at 50 percent. By entering this contest you agree that Future US, Inc. may use your name and your mod’s likeness for promotional purposes without further payment. All prizes will be awarded and no minimum number of entries is required. Prizes won by minors will be awarded to their parents or legal guardians. Future US, Inc. is not responsible for damages or expenses that the winners might incur as a result of the Contest or the receipt of a prize, and winners are responsible for income taxes based on the value of the prize received. A list of winners may also be obtained by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Future US, Inc. c/o Maximum PC Rig of the Month, 4000 Shoreline Ct, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. This contest is limited to residents of the United States. No purchase necessary; void in Arizona, Maryland, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and where prohibited by law

Free Fallout 3 G.E.C.K. Editor Now Available

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:26:25 -0600

Think Bethesda shouldn't have spilled so much Oblivion into the good ol' Fallout formula? Think you can do a better job? Well, here's your chance. After heralding its arrival a couple weeks ago, it's our pleasure to inform you that the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) is here! Break out the irradiated champagne bottles!

On top of that, Bethesda has also blown the cover off its G.E.C.K. wiki, a "community-run site where you'll find everything you need to use the The Garden of Eden Creation Kit and make mods for Fallout 3." Or, if you only have text-reading eyes for Maximum PC, you can ride the Internet over to Bethesda's blog, where you'll find a number of handy video tutorials.

Now, if you'll excuse us, we're off to craft the Fallout 3 equivalent of a child's first macaroni drawing. We sure hope our mom likes it enough to tape the computer to the refrigerator door. That'd just be tops!

New Half-Life Remake Trailer Looks Freaking Incredible

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:57:32 -0600

Black Mesa, a Source engine recreation of the original Half-Life, has sported an unwavering "in development" status for the past four years. After a while, we just started lumping it in with Duke Nukem Forever, Alan Wake, and the apocalypse as signs that God does exist -- but that He's one hell of a procrastinator. After checking out the latest Black Mesa trailer, though, we're belting out a different tune. Or at least, we're trying. The cascading tidal waves of drool blasting out of our mouths -- fire-hose style -- make it kind of difficult.

Fortunately, the mod will apparently scale the walls of development hell within our feeble lifetimes. According to a post on the official site for the unofficial remake, "the days this mod stays in development are truly numbered. Hang tight, because at long last, it is coming."

And then they prompt readers to GO WATCH THE TRAILER NOW. Which we think is a pretty good idea.

WASD: Modding is (Sort of) Dead, Long Live User-Created Content

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:39:37 -0500

"Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Fable 2... uh, LittleBigPlanet," I nonchalantly listed, sliding my scroll bar up and down a ludicrously large list of games that'll begin hogging shelf space next week. Instantly, a deafening shout of "OH! LittleBigPlanet!" flew straight and true, right into my unsuspecting ears, from the other side of a view-obscuring television. "You're so buying LittleBigPlanet!" My friend's voice continued, registering at somewhere around War-crime on the decibel scale.

Yeah, LittleBigPlanet's kind of a big deal around the gaming scene's more console-y bits, but what's it mean for PC gamers? Well, in these parts it's not quite a revolution, but it's pretty damn close.

Over the past couple years, "user-created content" has crept onto many game developers' billowing lists of PR-friendly buzz words, and with good reason. Whether it's Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's character creation system or Spore's, well, everything, people love to spill their creative frustrations onto videogaming's canvas. (And drawing new Mega Man levels on graph paper is so nineties.)

Now stop! Take your finger off the scroll wheel; the comments section isn't going anywhere. Yes, PC gaming gospel states that we must fling ourselves into Internet forums, kissing the ground, and praising mods -- and games like Oblivion and Spore did not invent user-created content -- but guess what? Mods are old news, no matter how crazy-awesome they might potentially be.

Why? Consoles. Consoles. Consoles. Like it or not, aside from a few shining examples, game design has parked its heart in simpler interfaces and ease-of-use. PC gaming, its cash cow now six feet under for a number of reasons, simply isn't worth the effort these days. As a result, real mod support -- sloppily attempted in only a single console game -- watched its bungee cord snap as it plummeted right off developers' priority lists. After all, mod tools don't just appear out of thin air; they siphon extra time and cash away from other areas of development. When user-creation tools can offer a menagerie of similar (but less versatile) powers to a wider range of people, mod tools sadly get kicked to the curb.

For instance, when asked about possible mod tools for the upcoming Far Cry 2, creative director Clint Hocking instead chose to emphasize the game's map editor, saying, "One of the really great things about the Far Cry console games is that they had a really usable map editor. It wasn't super powerful in the way the Crytek engine was or the way our Dunia engine is. It wasn't full featured like that. But it was really usable and it allowed people to create very good maps very quickly. So we're going to have a map editor that's sort of a version two, upgrading all of the functionality in that and integrating a lot of fan requests."

Additionally, games like Fallout 3, Diablo III, and (probably) Rage won't see official mod tools because, between console ports and user-creation tools, mods are less of a priority these days.

However, things aren't nearly as bad as they sound. Sure, games like LittleBigPlanet -- as well as map editors and things of the like -- aren't versatile enough to pop out the next Garry's Mod or flood us with copyright-kamehameha-ing Dragonball Z clones, but spectacular projects like Half-Life 2: MINERVA are well within the realm of possibility. On top of that, whereas modding is a niche within a niche, user-created content could very well expand into its own genre.

Simple -- and downright fun, in LBP's case -- tools allow anyone shoot a bolt of life into their wildest dreams, while Youtube-esque community tools raise the player-crafted wheat onto a pedestal where hungry, chaff-devouring flames can't touch it. Suddenly, hammering together a series of wow-worthy levels isn't a soul-draining, year-long project enticing only to those with a hard-on for compiling code; it's accessible, while still remaining a mere notch below modding on the versatility scale.

And of course, the modding scene will never evaporate completely. It'll just find itself with a few hundred pairs of eight-sizes-too-large jeans, if you catch my meaning.

So ultimately, don't think of user-created content's comeuppance as an end to yet another thing that made PC gaming special. Think of it as a change with tremendous, but different potential -- not for PC gaming, but for videogames as a medium.

Thom Davis Has the Best Seizure Ever

Tom Edwards — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:09:20 -0500

A man needs a place of his own, and when Thom Davis found using the family computer for his gaming pursuits to be less than ideal, he set about building the Seizure, the ultimate form-follows-function gaming rig. His goal was to create a rig that was gaming friendly, had no exposed wires, and looked good in the living room. We think he succeeded on all three counts.

While building the Seizure, Thom discovered that connector manufacturers definitely tend to think “inside the box,” and typically don’t make cables suitable for such a large rig, but with the assistance of a local electronics supply store, he was able to create the 6-foot cables he needed to complete the job.

(Click for Full)

The two front LED panels were inspired by ROC, the computer featured in Airplane II.

(Click for Full)

These switches aren’t merely for show, each controls a different function, including monitors, audio, lighting, and the minifridge. A universal power supply guarantees mission-critical components will keep humming for 20 minutes after a power outage.

(Click for Full)

Thom and his wife spent many a night hot-gluing 1,500 LEDs to the front panels—nothing spells romance like a little candlelight, a bottle of wine, and a glue gun!

To enter the Rig of the Month contest, your submission packet must contain your name, street address, and daytime phone number; no fewer than three high-res JPEGs (minimum size 1024x768) of your modified PC; and a 300-word description of what your PC represents and how it was modified. Emailed submissions should be sent to rig@maximumpc.com. Snail mail submissions should be sent to Rig of the Month, c/o Maximum PC, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080.

This Mod Goes HawgWild

Tom Edwards — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:55:21 -0500

V ic 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.

The side of the case originally held an 8cm fan. After a little work with a scroll saw and a dremel, Vic created a window to show off the rig’s parts.

After simulating several paint designs in Photoshop, Vic decided on this black and orange motif with a hammered metal finish as a texture coat. (click for full)

Vic purchased a model Harley, stripped it, painted it to match the case, and planted it in the window.
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The difference is in the details. These official emblems complete the rig’s look.

Vic and his rig.

For submitting this month’s winning entry, Vic has won a $250 gift certificate.