New game gadgets land at QuakeCon

DALLAS — Play enough video games and you'll soon realize that good hand-eye coordination alone doesn't guarantee victory.

From pricey video cards to turbocharged sodas, there's an entire industry that wants to make you a better gamer or at least a hipper one.

Some of the hottest — and oddest — video game products were showcased during this month's QuakeCon 2003. The annual gathering attracts dozens of hardware and software companies that hope to impress finicky PC gamers.

For the do-it-yourself crowd, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. next month is rolling out its latest, fastest version of the Athlon64 chip. The "64" stands for 64 bits. For consumers, that means it can churn through all those bytes much faster than the 32-bit processors most everyone has in their home or work PC.

QuakeCon gamers who tried out Athlon 64 systems seemed to enjoy the benefits.

For true visual speed, though, there's the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra by Nvidia Corp. Computer graphics have never been more realistic than with this $499 video card. It plugs into the Advanced Graphics Port in your computer and makes games dance across the screen more fluidly than ever.

It won't magically transform your games into "Finding Nemo," but it has a nice feature called "anti-aliasing" that minimizes "jaggies" — the blocky pixel effect often seen with computer graphics.

Just be ready for more tech obsolescence: Nvidia and Canadian rival ATI Technologies Inc. have been duking it out for years.

So you've got the skinny on the best computer guts. Why hide them inside a boring beige computer case?

For the chic geek, AeroCool displayed at QuakeCon its line of Acryclear computer cases. The clear design lets you see all that lies within.

There's form behind that function — the case includes four precut holes where you can insert cooling fans to keep your precious cargo from overheating. Prices start at $170.

Tinkerers, take note: Making modifications requires technical savvy, a bag of tools and lots of time. If you're not up to the task of swapping chips and manipulating settings, Alienware offers a range of fanciful but powerful — and already built — computers.

Alienware's flagship Area-51 computer has an out-of-this-world twist: It comes in a rainbow of colors and looks like an alien head, with the beady black "eyes" doubling as cooling vents.