The Omnia isn't running the game, of course. Instead, its being processed remotely and streamed via OTOY, an upcoming server-side rendering service that'll let you play high-end 3D games on low-powered machines.

In this video, Crysis is being played through the Omnia's browser with no additional plug-ins and is being controlled wirelessly with an Xbox 360 controller.

It'll be interesting to see how many people take advantage of this when it officially launches. [TechCrunch]

Except for the RAM, I'm actually fairly impressed with the components Maximum PC picked out: an ATI Radeon HD 4870 at $175, $71 Intel Pentium E5200 2.5GHz Wolfdale, $90 MSI Neo3-F LGA 775 motherboard, $21 2GB DDR2-800 RAM (with a rebate, you can go up to 4GB of RAM for $7 more, which I'd recommend), $25 optical drive and $50 320GB hard drive (for $10 more, you can go up to 500GB). Finally, for the case and power supply, a Rosewill TU-155 II 500 Black, which is a good pick since Rosewill makes decent power supplies (I also like Seasonic, which is what I rock in my PC) and it's only $75 for the whole package. After rebates, that's just $479, although that doesn't include Photoshop or Geek Squad visits.

A good 22-inch monitor can be had for $150 easy, and obviously a keyboard and mouse can be found for under $10 a pop if you really wanna scrimp. For the OS, Windows 7 beta is freeeee. Or you can find a copy of XP lying around somewhere, I'm sure.

Depending on the resolution you wanna roll with, at 1280x1024, Maximum PC got an average framerate of 44.42FPS, and at 1900x1200, a still respectable 36.22FPS.

If you've never ever built a computer before, check out Lifehacker's first-timer's guide to building your own PC. It's a pretty excellent Saturday activity. And obviously a PC can do way more than play Crysis. [Maximum PC]

Their test rig used a Core i7 with 3GB of triple-channel memory running Vista vs. Windows 7 beta build 7000 (the one you're probably running). The cards tested were Nvidia's GeForce GTX 285 and GeForce 9800 GTX+ and ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2 and Radeon HD 4850. And they checked out a whole bunch of games, from Crysis to Left 4 Dead.

Medium-length answer short: It's pretty much the same! Sometimes Vista wins, sometimes Windows 7 will squeak out an extra frame per second over Vista. Overall, across all of the games tested, higher end two-in-one cards seem to eke out most of their wins in Windows 7 though, especially with the ATI cards.

It bodes pretty well. You definitely won't lose any performance moving to Windows 7, and it's likely going to get even better as we move to the final OS and Nvidia and ATI keep cranking out drivers. So maybe not today, but one day, Windows 7 it seems like will run Crysis (and most any other game) faster than Vista. Check out all the benchmarks for every game over there: [Extremetech]

In a nutshell, ray tracing works by tracing rays (ta da!) or lines of light from a certain point through pixels in an image plane. It's hard to do, because it takes a lot of processing juju, with a fast processor that has a ton of cache memory.

Nvidia and AMD are working on a hybrid approach that uses ray-tracing and rasterization (their current technique). Which makes sense in context of what Intel chief Craig Barrett told me at CES: "Everybody's kind of looking at the same thing, which is, 'How do I mix and match a CPU- and a GPU-type core, or six of these and two of those, and how do you have the software solution to go hand-in-hand?'"

Right now, Caustic says they have a hardware and software setup that can zoomify ray-tracing 20x over today's hardware, and that by 2010, they'll have goods that'll do it 200x faster. Sadly, they're not moving into the gaming space first, instead focusing on architects and animators, meaning we'll have to wait for like Crysis 4 to see if Caustic can... well, you know the rest. [NYT]

These results from DirectX 9 testing speak well for Windows 7, topping Vista on the lower and higher spec systems while, much of the time, just about keeping pace with XP. In fact, with Intel's i7 quad core processor, we actually see a brief moment of performance gains over XP. Blasphemy!

Crysis DirectX 10 testing did not go over as well for 7, which got pretty trounced by Vista (though 7 won a DirectX 10 round later with Far Cry 2). We chalk these inconsistencies not only to different games but to the fact that both Windows 7 and its graphics drivers are still in beta. Overall, early performance testing of Windows 7 gaming leaves us optimistic, even if there's still plenty of room to grow. [Firing Squad via Kotaku]

Cnet says that the Falcon Northwest Mach V has the latest and bestest combination of components there is, which is what makes it the fastest thing on chips:

• 3.79GHz Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition.
• An Intel X58 chipset.
• 12GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM.
• 2 x 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
• 1TB 7,200RPM Hitachi hard drive.
• 80GB Intel X-25M solid-state drive.

All this comes at a pretty hefty $8,028 price tag, including the Ferrari red paint job, which is a $500 option. Unfortunately, the automotive-class red paint job reportedly helps you get at least three extra frames per second in Crysis. Fortunately, there's a potential DIY fix to save those $500: Apply a few adhesive flames to the chassis, and Bob's your uncle. [Cnet]

Fearing that the system came as a bag of components, they were relieved to hear that it was actually a fully built and tested system. Fearing a white-box scenario where you have to add on your own OS, they again were happy to hear it comes with Windows XP Pro installed with the latest service pack—though it doesn't appear the game comes in the bundle. Ultra claims that the Optimized PC will run Crysis Warhead at the highest DX9 setting, at 30 frames per second, and that the game was actually "fine tuned" to work with Nvidia 9800 GT video card.

Pre-orders at TigerDirect.com start next week. Sounds like a sweet deal to me—even if you still have to buy the game and a monitor and speakers—but give me your thoughts... You buyin' this? [GameCyte]

That means for every one game sold, people download 15 to 20 pirated copies. It's an amazing number when you realize that as of February, the game had sold 1 million copies and it could alter who makes PC-exclusive games going forward. In other words, just look for console gaming to get even bigger Mr. I Spent Too Much On My Computer But It Glows."

Then again, 20:1 is probably fairly paltry when compared to the free download rate on Adobe products...yes, we're looking into your computers and we can see their black, stolen hearts. [IGN via Maxconsole]

The new version of StreamMyGame can stream 1024x600 from your big PC to your little PC over your home network. So if you've been waiting to recreate some of the most graphically-intensive games of the current era on a squintastic 7" screen, your day has come.

StreamMyGame : Play Crysis and the latest games on the Eee PC. Now compatible with over 100 UMPC models.

www.StreamMyGame.com, which enables games to be played remotely, has released today a new version of its software targeted at the highly popular Eee PC and Ebox from ASUS and over 100 UMPCs from other manufacturers.

StreamMyGame's new software runs at full screen resolution on both Windows and Linux versions of the Eee PC and many other Netbooks and UMPCs.

"The Linux player has been requested by our Eee PC members and has been optimised to run on both the original and new ranges of the Eee PC. The Window's player has also been optimised." said Richard Faria, StreamMyGame's CEO.

"You can have your games installed on your home PC and play them on your Netbook around the home and remotely, providing a portable gaming experience on screens that have resolutions of 1024x600," he said, "There are over 100 Netbooks and UMPCs that are now compatible with our technology and we will guarantee similar compatibility with the MID market."

Utilising StreamMyGame's technology, high-end games including Crysis, Call of Duty 4, BioShock and HalfLife2 can be played smoothly and without lag on the Eee PC and other UMPCs providing a responsive gaming experience. The gaming power is delivered from your main PC and networked to your Netbook. The new range of Eee PCs using 802.11n and WiMAX will further improve game play by substantially reducing any network lag.

[StreamMyGame]