What with the sober-suited Euro foil to CES that is the IFA consumer electronics show, Intel’s IDF shindig, a new console or two from Sony and new version of the smartphone that dare not speak its name, it’s been a busy week or two in tech. But has there been any joy for the good old PC? You know, that dessicated old thing that just so happens to be by far the best gaming platform, period? There’s certainly been some startling new PC-gaming kit, including surely the most preposterous gaming laptop ever. But also some newness of genuine relevance, including an update on AMD’s new Zen CPU, some very interesting screens, plus a few further potentially PC-related oddities that are hard to gauge for now.
I keep banging on about it to all who will listen, but like a mid-life-crisiseer and their ridiculous sports car, I am increasingly in love with my new ultrawide monitor. I had to use a standard 1080p one recently – oh the humanity! – and felt as though I was trapped inside a tiny box. 21:9 is the only way to play. At least until 32:9 arrives and I decide that of course I cannot live without that. CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME. Genuinely though, ultrawide is lovely: it really brings games to life. Read the rest of this entry »
The graphics launches have come thick and fast this year. What with GTXs and then the surprise Titan X from Nvidia, and AMD’s Polaris chips, there’s little chance of keeping up with the official embargo calendar. So think of this as part two of my leisurely stroll through the new GPU landscape. Last time around, it was the mighty Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080, which suddenly looks a lot less mighty thanks to the arrival of the aforementioned Titan X. This week, it’s the turn of Nvidia’s new mid-range contender, the GTX 1060. As before, I shall be spurning objectivity, benchmarks and frame-rate counters for a what-does-it-actually-feel-like approach. And yes, AMD coverage will follow in the fullness of time. Patience, Iago!
NVIDIA’s 2014 medium-high-range graphics card the GeForce GTX 970 was and is a powerful board – I’m using one right now, and it’s perfectly capable of running games at decent settings at 3440×1440 – but there was one fly in its otherwise well-received ointment. Though billed as having 4GB of onboard memory, the reality was that its RAM was divided into one 3.5GB chunk and one slower 512MB chunk. NVIDIA refutes that this meant the board was in effect just 3.5GB, and claims performance was not meaningfully impacted. However, the firm was also accused of overstating specs regarding the 970’s render output processors and L2 cache.
Numbers, numbers, but what you really need to know is that the alleged misrepresentation led to a clutch of class-action lawsuits – which NVIDIA has now agreed to settle. By refunding every American 970 purchaser 30 bucks. Read the rest of this entry »
The PC is brilliant. It’s brilliant for all the things you can do with it. But it’s also brilliant for being something you can build yourself. Yes, you at the back. You too can build a PC. Almost anyone can. And it’s not just easy. It’s fun. Once you get the knack, you won’t want to turn back. You’ll also be much more confident in future whenever you have to crack open the case. So here’s the RPS guide to the basics of building a PC.
The bloom has slowly been coming off VR’s rose on PC, as expensive hardware, floor space requirements, image quality issues, cabling woes, the delay to Oculus Touch controllers and too many underwhelming, bite-size launch titles transformed this from beautiful dream to compromised reality. The show’s not over, of course: this is but generation one, from both a software and hardware perspective, but it needs a new fire lit under it.
Meanwhile, on PlayStation, the excitement is on the rise rather than the wane.
