Tighten Titan
By Jeremy Laird on May 13th, 2013.
Back in Feb we had a little chin wag about the mad dash of annual graphics hardware launches slowing to a saunter. We can add a little more flesh to the bones of that story this week, with some pretty plausible looking details of Nvidia’s upcoming plans – and further confirmation of nothing new from AMD. It’s worth a quick dip into the mucky waters of rumour for anyone pondering a GPU upgrade or a generally a new rig as some new kit – of sorts – is imminent. Read the rest of this entry »
By Jeremy Laird on May 12th, 2013.
Remember our gaming rig give away in January? It took a little while to pull all the pieces together and get the kits out to our winners. But it was quite a haul – a package including our favourite CPU, motherboard and graphics card combo – and well worth the wait. The lucky so and soes who won have had their booty for a few months now, so we thought we’d drop in and find out what life is like in the pixel-pumping fast lane… Read the rest of this entry »
By Jeremy Laird on April 25th, 2013.
Equitable though Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland may largely be, a few isolated injustices still stalk the land. That I have to work for a living hardly seems fair, for instance. But even more odious is the fact that consumerist tat like smartphones, ultrabooks and tablets now have better screens by many metrics than our hallowed PC monitors. What gives? A recent interview I did with monitor maker Iiyama for ye olde PC Format mag dug up some answers. I also discovered why things aren’t likely to dramatically improve any time soon. Meanwhile, the roller coaster ride for AMD’s fortunes continues. This week, I predict survival! Read the rest of this entry »
By Jeremy Laird on April 18th, 2013.
Don’t sling your old CPU on eBay just yet. Too many Rumsfeldian known unknowns remain, never mind the unknown unknowns. But the known knowns suggest Intel is bringing back at least a slither of overclocking action to its budget CPUs. It’s arrives with the incoming and highly imminent Haswell generation of Intel chips and it might help restore a little fun to the budget CPU market, not to mention a little faith in Intel. Next up, local game streaming. Seems like a super idea to me. So, I’d like to know, well, what you’d like to know about streaming. Then I’ll get some answers for you. Meanwhile, game bundles or bagging free games when you buy PC components. Do you care? I’ve also had a play with the latest bonkers-wide 21:9-aspect PC monitors… Read the rest of this entry »
By Jeremy Laird on April 8th, 2013.
Here it is, folks. The answers to all your AMD questions. Well, not all of them. Dropped some, reworded others, added a few twists of my own. The usual. The senior AMD suit in question is Roy Taylor. His official title is Corporate Vice President, Global Channel Sales. That’s right, Corporate Vice President, Global Channel Sales. Soak up the seniority. He’s been at AMD for 12 weeks having spent the previous 12 years at arch enemy Nvidia. So let’s just say he’s got plenty of insight into graphics, CPUs and gaming. Did I mention he is indeed quite senior? Read the rest of this entry »
By Jim Rossignol on April 5th, 2013.
Stood by the Oculus stand at GDC, I heard someone say “the thing about all this VR stuff is that it hasn’t moved on a great deal from the ’90s.” Can that be true? For a moment I assumed this gentleman in the crowd might know something I didn’t, but it turns out that there’s a good deal that VR and head/body-tracking can do in 2013 that it couldn’t do in the 1990s. For a taste of that, you’ll want to read this and watch the video below, which places the user in a Doom 3 level with a Portal gun, and shows off all manner of body tracking and movement cleverness.
Go look!
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By Jim Rossignol on April 2nd, 2013.
You might remember that we previously revealed upcoming vehicular RTS Hardware from former Homeworld devs, and were quite intrigued by what we learned. We were also excited to see very large vehicles spitting out smaller vehicles.
The teaser trailer below STILL doesn’t really tell us enough about the game, other than it has peerless art. Go take a look.
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By Jeremy Laird on April 2nd, 2013.
Bit of an experiment this, but I’m meeting up with some senior AMD suits later this week. So instead of standing around looking plausible and pretending I know stuff, I thought it might be fun to give you lot the chance to put whatever queries you might have to AMD, makers of Radeon graphics cards and FX/Phenom/Athlon processors. It might not, of course, but what with the PS4 and next Xbox (allegedly) going all-AMD and the PC component market in something of a transition – oh and with the very future of AMD in question – well, there’s plenty to ponder.
Whether we get any answers worth having is another matter. But don’t ask, don’t get. Fed up with AMD drivers? Want to know what’s next for the FX CPU? Sound off below and I’ll lay it on Paxman-styleee later in the week.
What's In The Box?
By Jeremy Laird on March 18th, 2013.
Why wait for Gabe Newell to wax his generous whiskers and turn up fashionably late to the launch party? Build your own Steam Box today. Or perhaps getting a pre-order in for Xi3′s today-it’s-official-tomorrow-it-ain’t Piston is a good idea? Yes, there have been some odd goings on. But all this PC-as-games-console jazz does throw up several interesting questions. Like what does it take to build a Steam Box yourself? Does Piston have plausible gaming chops? And can the official Steam Box compete with those evil corporate consoles on price? For answers to these questions three and a generous helping of finger-in-air prognosticating, ride your rodents to the other side… Read the rest of this entry »
"one hell of a CPU-GPU fusion processor"
By Jeremy Laird on March 13th, 2013.
Ahhh, the quest for PC games with graphics so good, they look pre-rendered. When will it end? Actually, it’ll end when PCs are capable of graphics that look pre-rendered. It’s going to happen. And say what you want about the gameplay or narrative, but Crysis 3 is a reminder that we’re getting ever closer. Think it’s also worth a recap on the Sony PS4 launch now that its beating, PC-derived heart has been officially revealed and tell you why I’m increasingly convinced it’s good news for the PC.
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actually pretty safe
By Jeremy Laird on March 4th, 2013.
A high quality LCD panel. Or high refresh rates. Take your pick. Because you can’t have both. Well, not unless you think BadgerJump Monitors (or whatever they’re called) sounds like a sensible consumer electronics brand and you’re thus willing to roll the dice on a dodgy Korean panel off eBay. But wait. One of the footnotes to NVIDIA’s recent Titan graphics card launch is a new monitor overclocking feature. Yup, monitor overclocking. But will it give you 120Hz for free? Will it fry your panel? Do you need NVIDIA’s £800 Titan? Should you actually care about high refresh? I’ve got the answers… Read the rest of this entry »
