The softer side of a Killer
In addition to a copy of F.E.A.R.—on DVD, I might add—the Killer NIC comes with little more than a driver CD. The latest drivers are available via Bigfoot's website, and we're pleased to report that there appears to be no, er, lag between releases for Windows XP and Vista in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Bigfoot even offers drivers for 64-bit versions of Windows XP for the half-dozen or so enthusiasts who are running the OS.

There isn't much to the driver itself, although users do have access to a control panel that can manipulate the onboard LEDs, GameFirst packet prioritization, and a few other variables. An auto-optimization option is available as well, so you don't have to mess with the sliders yourself.

The most important element of the control panel is the LLR mode switch. In app mode, the Killer NIC uses the standard Windows network stack, while game mode switches to Bigfoot's own. Obviously, you'll want to opt for the latter with games.

Mode switching is the least of what you can do with the Killer NIC's software. The card's embedded Linux implementation opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities for applications that can run entirely on the card. Bigfoot has created several of these FNApps itself, and has also made a free development kit available for those who want to roll their own.

One of Bigfoot's more useful FNApps is a firewall, which seems like the most logical application to run on a network card.

Bigfoot has also released an FNApp that automatically downloads game patches when they become available. This is a handy app to have, but one that may not gain much from running on the network card. Apps better suited to the NIC include a beta Filezilla implementation that runs the FTP client on the Killer NIC and a custom BitTorrent tracker that downloads torrents to external hard drives connected to the card's USB port.

This BitTorrent client is probably the most intriguing FNApp. The client runs entirely on the Killer NIC, and Bigfoot claims that with packet prioritization in effect, it shouldn't impede game performance or responsiveness. Bigfoot makes a big deal about the fact that the torrent FNApp won't steal CPU cycles, either. To be fair, though, good BitTorrent clients like µTorrent are pretty frugal with system resources.

Mature BitTorrent clients like µTorrent also illustrate just how basic Bigfoot's torrent offering is. The BitTorrent FNApp offers little in the way of configuration options and doesn't give users much indication of what's going on with the client and active torrents. It works, of course, but the limited functionality would prevent me from recommending it over standard Windows clients, at least for now.

In their current form, FNApps strike me as having great potential, but none are, er, killer apps. Whether Bigfoot can garner enough of a following to inspire community FNApp development remains to be seen.