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Since its introduction in the mid-90s, Intel's P6 core micro architecture has gone from strength to strength. The initial chip to feature this new design was the Pentium Pro, a chip that most will remember as being the first to integrate the L2 (Level 2) cache with the rest of the chip package, making it extremely expensive. Another benefit of the architecture was its performance running 32bit software. At the time most chips utilised an internal 32bit architecture but only featured a 16bit external data bus. The Pentium Pro extended this to the full 32bits making it far more efficient and significantly faster when executing this type of code. The one drawback to all this performance was the simple fact that very little software took advantage of 32bit processing, and while Windows NT did make extensive use of the Pentium Pro's capabilities the mainstream OS, Windows 95, did not. Combined with the cost issue this meant that the Pentium Pro never became a mainstream processor. And so due to poor 16bit software performance (an issue that was finally becoming less and less important) and high costs the Pentium II was created, still featuring the core elements of the Pentium Pro's P6 architecture, and even with the later arrival of the Pentium III, the core was still based on the original P6. For many years now it has served us well, but never one to stand still, Intel have innovated and designed a new core which forms the heart of the Pentium 4.

"Warcraft III" has undergone a lot of changes since it was first announced at the ECTS '99 trade show in London sixteen months ago, and today new details of the game were released by Blizzard, including a new name - "Warcraft III : Reign of Chaos™". Confirmation also came that the six playable races originally planned have now been reduced to just four, with the demonic "Burning Legion" that figured prominently in the game's first presentation being relegated to a non-playable race which will pop up throughout the single player game to further the storyline.

With the arrival of our review copy from Codemasters comes word that their aptly titled fantasy action game "Severance : Blade of Darkness" is due for release on February 23rd. That's severance as in "severance of limbs" not "severance payments", and for the benefit of the American audience the game will simply be known as "Blade of Darkness" on the other side of the pond. No doubt to avoid confusing the poor lawyer-obsessed parents who might accidentally buy a copy of the game for little Johnny thinking that it's some sort of interactive board room drama, despite the big 18+ sticker and axe-wielding maniacs clearly visible on the front of the box. "Won't somebody think of the children?"

Friday is traditionally the day when new games are released here in the UK, and this week topping the bill are two games which have taken their own good time to reach our god-forsaken shores. First person shooter "Delta Force : Land Warrior" and giant robot fest "Mechwarrior 4 : Vengeance" have both been available in the USA for some time now, but have finally shown up in British stores today. Meanwhile Virgin Interactive have released both "Heist" and the wacky mob-and-mozzarella laden strategy game "Pizza Connection 2", for those of you looking for something a little different.

Eidos have updated their British release schedule, with a number of titles moving. The highly promising sci-fi role-playing game "Anachronox" has slipped yet again, this time to May, while Core's new third person action-adventure game "Project Eden" is confirmed for June on both PC and PlayStation 2. Other movers include strategy game "Startopia" and eagerly anticipated tactical action sequel "Commandos 2", both now expected some time in June. Finally "Three Kingdoms : Fate Of The Dragon" moves from a vague "first quarter" release to a rather more solid March 16th. For all the latest release information direct from the publishers, check EuroGamer's comprehensive UK release date list.

What's the biggest selling PC game of all time? Could it be "Red Alert", or maybe "Doom"? Perhaps even "Tomb Raider" or (god forbid) "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire"? Not even close. The answer is actually "Myst", the early CD-Rom adventure game which has gone on to sell over four million copies worldwide, although to be fair it probably falls into the same category as Stephen Hawking's best-selling book "A Brief History Of Time" - everyone has a copy, but most people didn't get past the first chapter...

If you thought you'd seen it all, you were wrong. Hardware fansite HardOCP has picked up on the meddlings of one of its forum regulars, a chap calling himself "awesomedude". Fair enough. Anyway, this young man has decided that he wants an all-in-one PC and Dreamcast, and to this end, has built the Dreamcast's internals into his PC case. And I don't mean simply super-gluing the console to the top either. Front mounted joypad ports, built in DC-to-VGA converter... it's a mod and a half. Take a look at the forum posting here. There are more pictures on the second page, also.

Gameplay, the mail order company turned e-commerce barons have today axed a further 275 jobs from their high street arm, and cut back severely on their international operations. They have also consolidated both their London and Leeds offices by combining various functions into the same space. The move comes as something of a shock, as Gameplay only recently branched out into the high street, with a couple of original stores (including one in Kingston and another in Glasgow) along with the acquisition and conversion of The Dixons Group's @jakarta shops into its own. The cost-cutting measures will apparently result in a saving of some £12.5m annually across the board, and should help get Gameplay out of the muddy waters they have presently found themselves in. It is also believed that even more jobs are to go, after a secret 10am meeting of the various staff at Gameplay's London HQ. The company is believed to be making sweeping changes to its internal structure and almost certainly cutting back on those areas that outsiders suggest are losing it money; Wireplay for instance. Gameplay chairman Mark Strachan described this morning's early announcement as a "broad and decisive restructuring of the business" before explaining to everyone who would listen that he just wants to make some money, for crying out loud. No announcement has been made about further losses this lunchtime, but the news is expected to break through the usual channels within a matter of hours. We'll keep you posted. As will no doubt have occurred to you by now, this is just one of several high-profile cutbacks across the industry that we have reported on in the last week. Sega have restructured on a grand scale, culling jobs at its European HQ, Codemasters axed 90 positions yesterday afternoon, and other gaming-related companies have also announced poor results and potential redundancies; in Barrysworld's case it even stretched to the realms of voluntary liquidation. Update: At the time of writing (11:15am), the outside world's connection to Wireplay's game servers has allegedly been turned off. The internal staff netfeed has also been severed. This is believed to be in an effort to prevent reporters easily contacting staff or vice versa, but it doesn't bode well. The entire London staff has allegedly been sent home for the day, and more job losses are still expected. Related Feature - Codemasters axes 90 jobs

Back in 1999 id Software intended "Quake III : Arena" to be the definitive deathmatch first person shooter, and although the game largely succeeded at what it set out to do, many gamers were looking for something a little more than straightforward toe-to-toe fragging. Enter "Quake III : Team Arena", an extravagant new add-on pack from id which is designed to do for teamplay what Quake III did for deathmatch, while giving the game a much needed overhaul.

Codemasters are a popular company. Their last few games, with the possible exception of "Insane" have all been top performers for their respective genres. And yet, as with so many tech companies, this last financial year has been a troubling one. Many blame the state of the market at the moment. As such, the company has announced to its staff that as many as 90 employees will be liberated from their positions within Codemasters, including the entire London development studio staff, who have been asked either to moves to the Midlands or face redundancy. The survival of the game they were working on, believed to be a next-generation Cannon Fodder title, has been secured. Indeed, no projects ongoing within the company should be terminated, but the redundancies may lead to delays. The official press release can be read here. Codemasters Chairman Jim Darling commented that it was "distressing to lose such talented and loyal personnel," but that "By doing this now we ensure that Codemasters is well positioned to continue its proud tradition of creating and publishing some of the best games in the world thus giving the company an enormous opportunity as the market moves into its expansion phase." Related Feature - Insane Review

Industry journal MCV has reported this morning that Sega intends to lay off a portion of the staff working in its European HQ. Dreamcast hardware production is set to end on March 31st the world over, and as such a number of positions are having to be axed. Although the company was eager to play down this morning's announcement, it was quite inevitable at the outset that there would be losses - the business strategy changes undergone at Sega equate to the requirement of an entirely different staff. Details of who and how many jobs have been lost are scant, but MCV is claiming that the entire third party division, including the tech-support team, translators and other staff have been given P45s with their morning coffee. An official statement from the company was issued as follows: "Earlier today Sega Europe announced a restructuring of its business to enable us to go forward to an exciting future with a focus on software. This has lead to a number of job losses which are to be regretted. However, Sega Europe is now leaner and fitter and ready for the challenges ahead." Related Feature - Sega to become platform-neutral, Team up with Palm

Just a couple of days ago we reported that EA had confirmed the release date for the eagerly anticipated "Black & White" as March 30th. Now things are not so sure, as Jamie Durrant of developer Lionhead insists that the game is still on course for release in late February or early March. "I've just had a word with our man at EA, and he has told me that the date of 30th March is the latest date that the game will be released by. We are all working very hard to get the game to you before that date."

, the self-proclaimed "first Gaming Internet Service Provider" (which is about on a par with everyone's favourite "WuRldS 1st InTerneT GaMinG P0rt4L!") have announced that their new unmetered service will officially go live tomorrow after "a long beta-period and delays for last minute changes". They are limiting the service to just 2500 users to start with, hoping to avoid the overcrowding problems which have plagued other unmetered ISPs, causing slow-downs, outages and engaged tones for frustrated users.

Having contributed to the decline of the Dreamcast by refusing to develop any titles for the console, publishing behemoth Electronic Arts have now decided to react to the news of Sega's refocusing on software development by pointing and laughing. Answering a question about how hard it would be for Sega to adapt to developing games for other platforms, John Riccitiello, EA's President and CEO, is reported by Reuters as saying that "It's not quite as though this is GM saying we'll make BMWs, but it's the same kind of proposition. They may look like BMWs, but I doubt if they'll drive like BMWs."

The Vipers of which the game speaks are actually a bunch of kids, who have for some reason taken to wearing astonishingly bright and colourful armour for no apparent reason. They also have a few bones to pick with a chap called "BM," whose back garden their ball presumably landed in. He's fairly hacked off with them as well, and wants to make them inmates in his shiny new island prison complex. Perhaps it loses something in the translation, but hey, beat 'em ups aren't renowned for their awe-inspiring back stories. First up on the list of improvements (we ran the game next to a Saturn running the original Jap CD), is the framerate. A super-smooth 60FPS is wonderful, and adds enough gloss under its own steam to offer an improvement. The graphics have been spruced up in places, noticeably so on the characters, but they still look blooming awful, with their exceedingly bright Tupperware armour and snakeskin costumes. This is one of Viper's biggest problems; it wasn't actually that incredible a game to start with. The point was that with three years to play around in, and vastly more impressive hardware, everyone had expected great things.

Over the last few years a number of courses in game design have popped up at various universities across Europe, and now publisher CDV is taking the obvious next step by offering scholarships to German students wanting to study level design at the Games Academy in Berlin. "We have to fight a battle due to the huge lack of new talent in our business", according to CDV founder and CEO Wolfgang Gaebler. "By endowing this scholarship we want to give new talent a chance to pursue a highly qualified degree as Game Level Designers."

Unless you're connected with the technical know-it-alls of this world, the chances are the following will seem rather confusing and highly illogical to you, but nonetheless, it accurately describes a real life situation brought about the almost-conspiratorial foolishness of two companies; Microsoft and VIA. Allow me, gentle reader, to explain. When Microsoft built Windows 2000 and Windows Millenium, ATA 100 was a bit of a myth, and the only controller cards you could get for it were rather poor, so as a failsafe measure, they didn't build proper support for it into the operating system, leaving it instead to the ATA 100 chipset manufacturer to come up with the goods. This, they thought, would help prevent them getting into trouble. The fact that it's taken a year for people to stand up and take notice kind of proves their point, and Whistler will no doubt make up for this purposeful oversight. Anyway, it's about a year on, and ATA 100 is all the rage. Its benefits are as debatable as ever, but in an effort to fit one more buzzword feature onto their motherboard setups, ABit, ASUS and co. have included native ATA 66/100 support, safe in the knowledge that VIA's motherboard drivers (those crazy "4-in-1" things they insist you install along with the rest of it) will understand and interpret the higher transfer rates for the operating system. Won't they, VIA? Hello? The point of course is that no, they don't. Even the latest official release of the VIA 4-in-1 drivers (4.25a) doesn't do the job, sticking all of your hard-drives into the vastly inferior PIO mode only, and ignoring any changes you try to make to that setting. Of course, those amongst us that care about such things as the speed of our hard-drives simply will not have this. We will fight them on the beaches, in the swamps, on our desktops and at our command prompts to overcome such an atrocity. And to this end, VIA Hardware.com, a similarly-minded group of fellows, have ferreted out a beta version of the VIA IDE Busmaster driver, in other words, the piece of software that tells your hard-drives and other devices what to do. A beta version it may be, but we've experienced no problems with it. If you download and install this, a little system tray program which you run on startup keeps an eye on what your drives are doing and enables you to tinker with their performance settings to no end! In my case, the performance of my machine under Windows 2000 improved almost as much as it did when I last upgraded my processor - something just about everyone with a new Athlon or Duron system and Windows 2000/Me will want to get their hands on.

Auran, whose Tactics Engine powered the hit real-time strategy game "Dark Reign", have released a second beta version of their latest project - a 3D accelerated "next generation game architecture" called Auran Jet. As with the first public beta, you can download the latest version from the Auran Jet website, and non-commercial use of the engine is completely free.

"We will be withdrawing from the ordinary gaming business that consider game console as a main," says this morning's latest statement from Sega. The company has admitted to be developing three games for the GameBoy Advance, "Chu Chu Rocket!", "Puyo Puyo Summer 2001," and "Sonic the Hedgehog Advance," expected in March, Summer and Autumn respectively. On the PlayStation 2 it has announced five new titles; "Virtua Fighter 4," two sports simulations of unconfirmed titles (Sega Worldwide Soccer is a possibility), and "Sakura War Series," a huge hit already. Elsewhere, "Space Channel 5" will return, as we said yesterday. Related Feature - Sega to become platform-neutral

Although they are called real time strategy games, all too often combat in these games devolves into "tank rushes", with both players hurling huge numbers of cheap units at the enemy until they keel over and die. TimeGate Studios are hoping to avoid this pitfall with their new fantasy strategy game "Kohan : Immortal Sovereigns", which will feature a "more complex" combat system than most other games in the genre, with units organised into companies for battle.

When a title is released which is multiplayer-driven, it's normally released on the back of a tried and tested pedigree. This is demonstrated by the likes of "Quake 3 Arena" which, as everyone knows by now, was the last title in a succession of games which led the pack into the era of online multiplayer gaming. Rarely has any genre other than the first-person shooter or role-playing game been known to forage into the online gaming arena, and driving games in particular aren't exactly known for their towering presence in this area. With 1nsane (or Insane as I'll name it, for the sake of my sanity .. no pun intended), Codemasters have set out to change this.

Sega have thrown a slew of announcements into the mix as of midnight tonight. We did try to report the news earlier as a rumour based on news we had received through unofficial channels, but the response was for us to remove the story nonetheless. The three announcements concern Sega's movement into the third party videogame development business, their Sonic Café deal with I'Apli and a crucial strategic alliance with Palm regarding wireless videogaming. Of the three releases, the strategic relationship with Palm is of most immediate interest, since they kept this one very quiet. "Both online and offline videogames will be released for the Palm V and Palm VII sometime this year," it says, and "further details regarding this relationship will be forthcoming." After the relative failure of Sega's Game Gear device and the catastrophe that was the Nomad, this deal will finally give Sega a solid development platform for its mobile games. Speaking on behalf of the company, COO Kazutoshi Miyake commented that the deal "breaks new ground" and that "people want to play more games on the move." The main announcement, that Sega intend to break into the third party videogame development business, was summed up quite succinctly in our restrained item earlier, which was as follows:- "A source close to Sega has revealed to EuroGamer that the company intends to make a big announcement tomorrow (Wednesday, 31st January) about its future in the videogame market. Definite confirmation is expected tomorrow, but in the meantime, we know that Sega intends to redevelop "Space Channel 5" for PlayStation 2 and "Sonic The Hedgehog Advance" for the GameBoy Advance. The information was obtained from someone who works for one of Sega's competitors - apparently it's common practice to share this information around a bit prior to it becoming public. Apart from the 100 games for Dreamcast Sega pledged to ship by March 2002 earlier this week, the company is apparently working on 30 for other videogame consoles and a number of Internet devices. Many will be sequels to well-known brands like "Crazy Taxi" and "Shenmue"." Specific details can be found in the press release. Related Feature - Sega Confirms New Business Strategy

With the recent news that Sony had purchased "Crash Bandicoot" developer Naughty Dog came rumours that the Japanese behemoth would be publishing future Crash games themselves, and that they would be exclusive PlayStation 2 titles. Today publisher Konami has declared both rumours to be false, with Konami Europe's president Kunio "My Name Is" Neo saying that "we are especially looking forward to Crash Bandicoot, which will be released by us on PlayStation 2 and Xbox".

Earlier today we posted a story based on information revealed to us by an insider at one of Sega's competitors. Shortly after, we received word from Sega's official channels that our report broke a press embargo regarding the news, and in compliance with their wishes we have decided to pull the story until midnight tonight. At the time of posting the news, we had not received any news of the embargo, in fact it was before any information on the topic was released to the press. Check back at midnight GMT for Sega's latest news.

Respected Id Software co-founder John Carmack is to be inducted into The Academy of Interactive Arts and Science' Hall of Fame on March 22nd, joining such industry legends as Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario), Sid Meier (Civilisation) and Hironobu Sakaguchi (Squaresoft). The prestigious honour is to be bestowed upon young Carmack at the Fourth Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. Well played that man. Carmack's works include the various Quake engines, Doom, Doom II and other Id titles. His forthcoming work on Doom 3 is unlikely to be demonstrated any time in the immediate future, but many suspect it will be the most impressive yet, and on a sadder note, possibly the last true first person shooter to come out of Id's doors. Related Feature - John Carmack Workshop at the Razer CPL

Although it was groundbreaking gameplay that made titles like "Red Alert" massive hits for Westwood, part of the appeal of the "Command & Conquer" series has always been the stunning cinematics, often including big name hollywood actors. Now Westwood's latest real-time strategy game looks set to follow suit, with "Emperor : Battle for Dune" (based on the classic "Dune" novels by Frank Herbert) starring the likes of Michael Dorn (Worf from "Star Trek"), Vincent Schiavelli (Dr Kaufman from "Tomorrow Never Dies") and Michael McShane (Friar Tuck in "Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves").

Originally we had been expecting "Black & White", quite possibly the most eagerly anticipated PC game in recent history, to be released just before Christmas last year. Unfortunately things didn't quite work out that way, and Peter and the gang at Lionhead were given an extra few months to polish the game up. Since then the new release date has been vaguely offered as "first quarter 2001" and "some time around Easter", but now we know that EA are expecting to release the game in the UK on March 30th. Expect queues around the block and stores opening at midnight to meet the demand from ravening hordes of bleary-eyed gamers, closely followed by the collapse of western civilization.

"Is my PC running too hot, or not?" A common query, especially in this age of power-guzzling Athlons and hair drier-class cooling units. As we said in the Sounds of Silence feature yesterday, you should never risk a trade off for volume that could put your CPU through some dangerous temperatures. The best way we have found of monitoring modern CPUs is with the aid of Motherboard Monitor (version 4 seems easiest); this little tool sits in your system tray giving a constant readout of your CPU's temperature based on the reading from its little thermal probe. If you CPU doesn't have a thermal probe, it's very easy to simply buy one from somewhere (e.g. Maplin) and install it to measure. You can even tell Motherboard Monitor how often it should check your temperature, and get it to play a sound (a Klaxxon is usually quite good) whenever your CPU reaches a certain temperature, above which you would prefer it not to venture. The trick is, of course, to find out where you should be drawing the line, and that, dear reader, is where The Heatsink Guide comes in. The Heatsink Guide, although also offering plenty of advice on which bits of metal to strap to your machine, includes a list of the highest operating temperatures you can reasonably use your processor at, based on documentation from the chip-makers themselves. Information it might take you hours to locate on vast websites like Intel.com. The guide covers everything, from modern day Athlons and Pentium IIIs, to old Pentium Pro chips and even the more recent Pentium 4 (or "Williamette") processors. If you're worried about your processor burning up under the stress of a late night Counter-Strike session, this is the place to turn. Related Feature - The Sounds of Silence

Just six months ago Eidos seemed to be on its last legs, with their share price plummeting as they issued a series of profit warnings, and rumours emerging that Infogrames and other competitors were trying to buy them out. And while sales in the US have remained disappointing, here in their native Britain the company is thriving. "Deus Ex" shot to the top of the charts when it was finally released on this side of the pond, and the latest release in the "Championship Manager" franchise sold rather a lot of copies as well, needless to say. In fact, when Eidos announce their financial results for the last three months of 2000 on February 28th they will reveal that they leapt into second place in the UK computer games industry, with 12% of the games sold in the UK during that period published by Eidos.

Publishing giant Infogrames yesterday announced that their acquisition of Hasbro Interactive from its parent company Hasbro Incorporated has now been completed. Commenting on the deal, Bruno Bonnell, chairman and CEO of Infogrames said that "the completion of the acquisition is extremely exciting for us, as it fits perfectly with our corporate strategy of building the premier publisher of digital interactive entertainment for the whole family". Thanks to its library of over 250 games, he said in the company's prepared statement, Infogrames "felt that Hasbro Interactive was an ideal partner". The deal was first announced in December, and sees Infogrames swallowing all of Hasbro Interactive's assets, including the Atari and Microprose brands, Games.com and a long-term licensing agreement with Hasbro Incorporated to develop games based on Hasbro's future properties. Atari are of course the company behind many classic arcade games stretching back to Asteroids and Frogger, while the seminal Grand Prix series was released under the Microprose label.