While the biggest event in computing, Comdex, cleaned out San Francisco of all its CEO and tech people - we were happy to see that hardware companies still focus on the sacred conference of gadget gurus and geeks to announce their next big things. Sure, they'll have more stuff in time for E3, but these announcements at least help gamers gauge whether they should buy new equipment now or hold off for the new stuff.

　　The biggest announcement of the show had to be 3dfx's unveiling of its new graphics processor, the VSA-100. 3dfx has always been known for innovation, and apparently it has decided to be innovative with its naming conventions as well. The new VSA-100 chips (doesn't that look like Matrox's old naming scheme?) will power both the Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 boards. Voodoo4 boards will get only one chip while the Voodoo5 boards will play host to two to four chips. The four VSA-100 board, called the Voodoo5 6000, sucks down so much power that it has an external power connection that you plug into your wall.

　　There were other announcements at Comdex as well. S3 started talking about its upcoming Savage4+ chips, and we found out that the latest Viper II boards do not have hardware T&L. Since only Quake III Arena uses the hardware technique, gamers may not mind this, but they may mind the fact that S3/Diamond had promised the feature for the Viper II boards. We expect a full disclosure of what the company tends to do about the situation sometime next week. Nvidia also got into the mix by talking about its latest GeForce 256 and the chip's ability to decode HDTV signals. While I'm all for a nice HDTV set, at a price of over $5,000 for an HDTV-enabled set, I'll take a GeForce 256. And finally, VideoLogic announced that it will bring its PowerVR2-based Neon 250 PCI card to the US. While many of the hard-core gaming group won't jump all over the new PCI board, gamers with slower systems and shallow pockets may find it the answer to their needs.

　　In the "I told you so" category this week, Infogrames has finally come out of the closet and announced that it would be buying GT Interactive. The US$135 million sale comes as no surprise, since we already reported that Infogrames' CEO was seen running around the offices at GT. We have yet to hear whether GT will keep its brand name. When Infogrames acquired Accolade (the last US company Infogrames acquired), the name "Accolade" disappeared completely. We'll see what happens when Unreal Tournament hits shelves.

　　Trekkers everywhere unite. This week seemed to be the one where everyone was dying to talk about their upcoming Star Trek-based game. While no company has yet found the perfect game to draw in the masses, the latest games do look promising. We expect next year to be chock-full of Star Trek games. For the latest information and screenshots, take a look at the stories below.

　　Blockbuster is supposedly getting into the PC software rental business. While this concept has been attempted in smaller test trials around the US, none of them have ever been successful. Why? Who really wants to use Word for only three days? Blockbuster will be offering a listing of PC games, with "special" encryption software, in 14 test cities in the US. I guess all those rogue programmers have a new task ahead of them now...