Skidrow put their own copy protection on the crack because they simply placed the values from the emulator into a dll. It's nice and convenient to have a dll return the values instead of a server however if they had actually cracked then they would have also cracked the other games for which the emulator doesn't currently exist.

So yes, Assassin's Creed 2 is playable but their copy protection is only broken in the sense that AC2 designers decided to make the server-client for this game return static responses that can be collected and eventually make the game playable for pirates.

First, even loud movies have quiet moments and the ideal for those users is to not hear the hum of a computer at any point. Second, the fact that there is a movie making sound doesn't necessarily prevent one from also hearing the sound of a computer.

The idle fan speed (idle or load) and coil whine reported on some units is maybe not up to the standard of quiet enthusiasts but relative to other systems it's good. If it doesn't bother you and there's no coil whine then there's nothing to worry about.

this is oversimplifying considering all the fans that have comparable cfm/rpm yet have characteristics which makes them loud/annoying

An aside: the dB ratings from manufacturers are often false (ie outright lies)

That said, the GPU acceleration is at the moment only for video and requires a GPU that supports DXVA. Eventually GPU acceleration will apply to more software. For example, firefox and Internet Explorer will soon have GPU acceleration of their rendering.

Some HTPC cases are compact. With all the components in a limited space the temperature of the components can rise more than systems built into larger cases. The ambient temperature in your environment may also be lower than what other people are using their system in.

I don't know how much CPU is still utilized but the current flash betas are GPU accelerated.

Most don't bother reading the article anyway. It's an opportunity to talk about quiet/silent computing

The other point is that there are decent GPU including onboard designed for HTPC which will hardware accelerate and diminish the need for CPU.

Even then, as he said beyond 5-6 feet many wireless keyboard mouse stop functioning well. I had previously used a Logitech Wave plugged into a USB hub extended as close to the seating as possible and it was still malfunctioning.

yes, many of the wireless keyboard and mouse are design to work well with a reciver within several feet. Logitech isn't any better. It's important to check how good the RF reception is or go with an alternative technology such as bluetooth.

Technically yes, it's not silent, however most are aiming for quiet not so much perfect silence (good fans running in 800rpm are relatively quiet). It's possible to do silent, however you run up the price sometimes in aftermarket parts doing that. Once you get fanless then you notice the sound of the hard drive, so you put in an SSD instead, etc.

The ghetto method to do perfect silence is to put the computer in another room, for example in the closet of an adjoining room then run an hdmi cable (to the receiver) and usb (to a hub) through the wall (also optical/analog sound if the sound is not hdmi). It's what I do.

Even gaming, if you aren't massively overclocking a good tower heatsink is good enough to run with little air flow. The main issue is the video card, however one would not hear the video card typically over sound unless the ambient temperature is high. There are of course aftermarket parts for the video card as well.

Another issue with any system, not only game systems is the sound of the hard drive. Many hard drives, especially older hard drives become loud over time. It doesn't matter how much you dampen the vibration. The best results depend on getting the right model (some Samsung and WD are popular right now if I'm up to date)

you can use a picoPSU that come in 90+ watt configurations. there are HTPC that are using only 60 watts at load but it of course depends on what you are using it for. I think a 90 watt picoPSU should be fine with a capture card but I don't capture on my HTPC and don't know first hand.