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Gaming
Last year we offered a detailed exploration of NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience tool set for capturing screenshots and videos. Since then, a few bells and whistles have been tacked on to further enhance the experience. The most recent of these is ShadowPlay Highlights, a slick feature that intelligently identifies your finest moments (or epic failures) in games and records them for your viewing and social sharing pleasure. The Highlights feature requires developer support for implementation and therefore is currently only working in select titles. The latest, great addition to the supported titles list...
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Have you ever wanted to send a message while playing an intense MMO, but did not have time to type? Microsoft has the solution for you, as the company has just released the pilot for its Game Chat Transcription feature for Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. Game Chat Transcription features speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities. Speech-to-text converts what a player is verbally conveying into text. Text-to-speech enables typed text to be spoken aloud to other players. This feature is perfect for deaf or hard-of-hearing gamers, or gamers who are simply doing a lot of multitasking. According to...
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There has always been a parallel between building and modding performance PCs and tuning muscle cars, both of which revolve around squeezing every ounce of power and speed available out of a careful selection of parts, a practice that Maingear helped spread to a wider audience. Maingear took an obsession enjoyed by a niche crowd of overclockers and modders and turned it into a full-fledged business that's now going on 15 years strong. That is not to say Maingear was the first boutique builder on the block. Far from it. However, it might be the only vendor whose founder, Wallace Santos, actually...
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When Windows 10 Build 14997 leaked in December, it foreshadowed a lot of updates and functionality that would later be introduced to official testers with Builds 15002 and 15007. One of the features that drew the interest of the enthusiast community was the discovery of the performance enhancing Game Mode. Microsoft for the first time this week confirmed Game Mode, and announced that it will soon be available for Windows Insiders to try out. “Windows Insiders will start seeing some of the visual elements for Game Mode this week, with the feature being fully operational in builds shortly thereafter,”...
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A good rule of thumb when purchasing a gaming laptop is to buy one with the fastest GPU you can afford. Unlike desktop PCs, you usually can't rip out the graphics adapter and upgrade to something faster (not in most cases, anyway), so when that once shiny and fast laptop starts feeling a little sluggish, you're looking at dialing down in-game settings until you've saved enough scratch to buy a new laptop. That's an expensive proposition (it's called throwing the baby out with the bath water), but if gaming on the go is what you're after, you don't have much choice in the matter.That's still the...
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Boutique gaming PC system builders are a flourishing breed these days with new brands popping up on the scene regularly it seems. It's a testament to the fact that PC gaming, and the hardware the fuels it, is not only alive and well but kicking some major butt, especially with the advent of the eSports industry. Maingear has been building high-end rigs in boutique fashion since 2002 and in the process has racked up many awards over the years, including a few here at HotHardware. Today we're taking a look at a refresh of the Maingear RUSH SuperStock, a series of high-end PCs that we haven't looked...
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Fans of the original Mirror's Edge will be happy to hear that a follow-up title is in the works, dubbed Mirror's Edge Catalyst. ME Catalyst revisits the dystopian world of the original game with a fresh new story that expands on the origins of protagonist Faith Connors. The beta test just wrapped up last week. It offered a brief window into the look and feel of ME Catalyst, which is the unofficial reboot of the original 2008 parkour adventure from developer EA DICE. Back then, while known primarily for their success with the Battlefield franchise, EA DICE gambled on something completely new with...
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While discussions about the best desktop gaming PCs tend to be divided between do-it-yourselfers and fans of pre-built PCs, gaming laptops spark a different debate, typically between large system builders versus, smaller boutique system integrators. Many of the industry behemoths kick-started or bolstered their gaming system lines by acquiring boutique SIs (think of Voodoo, which was swallowed by HP, and Alienware, which is now a part of Dell), but some niche builders are still going solo, including well-known players like Falcon Northwest and Maingear. Mythlogic is another custom builder providing...
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Do you think Microsoft might be a little stoked about DirectX 12? You better believe it. Microsoft's excitement over its next-generation API spilled over into a short video demo comparing the visual effects of DX12 to that of DX11, while also explaining some of the benefits, like reduced latency and smoother frame rates. "DirectX 12 is a ground-breaking Microsoft technology that gives game developers the ability to harness the full capabilities of a PC’s GPU(s) and raise the bar on graphic fidelity and immersive gameplay," Microsoft explains in the video's description. The neat thing about DX12...
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The wait is over. The time is nigh for sci-fi super-spy gadgets, cigar-smoking, and rampant exclamation points. Oh yes, the one-eyed one has returned. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has landed on the PC and it’s a doozy. Utilizing the same Fox Engine for its visuals, this latest effort nicely follows-up last year’s Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes—the prequel which set the stage for this, the epic and more open-ended Phantom Pain. Despite being one of the industry’s most beloved visually-challenged protagonists--with numerous sequels, prequels and remakes under his belt, Snake is a veritable...
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PC enthusiasts tend to spend a lot of time sitting in front of their systems. We spend hundreds of dollars on monitors, graphics cards, and processors without a second thought, to ensure the best experience we can afford. So, why do so many of us sit ourselves down in inexpensive and inadequate thrones for extended computing and gaming sessions?If your body is your temple, does it not deserve the finest in enthusiast seating? There are two prominent companies crafting these enthusiast chairs, DXRacer and Maxnomic, though there are a plethora of smaller players as well. DXRacer was a pioneer...
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You no longer have to wonder what Super Mario would look like if he was rendered in 3D using the Unreal Engine 4. What, the thought never crossed your mind? Well it did for YouTube user aryoksini, the same cat who showed off samples Super Mario 64 remade in HD using the Blender engine. As nifty as that was, his newest project is even better. Using the Unreal Engine 4, aryoksini created a 3D world in which you see Mario like you've never seen him before. Not that we haven't seen Mario in 3D before, just not as well rendered as this -- it's equal parts awesome and disturbing to see Nintendo's iconic...
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If your any kind of a computing enthusiast, you're quite familiar with EVGA, even if you haven't bought and of their hardware. From power supplies to motherboards and graphics cards, the company has established a solid reputation for producing high-quality, enthusiast equipment. EVGA recently sent over one of their new Torq X10 gaming mice -- does this new entrant into the crowded high-end mouse market deserve your gaming dollar? Let's take a look. Of Mice and Markets: Ask ten gamers if a high-end mouse is important for gaming and you'll likely hear universal agreement. Ask them to name the...
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We think it's fitting for Maingear to bring 3K resolution gaming to its aptly named Pulse line of laptops. Consider that playing games at full HD 1080p (1920x1080) on the desktop is nothing special these days, which is why we're seeing more and more players jump to higher resolution displays, from 2560x1440 (most 27-inch class monitors) on up to the emerging 4K (3840x2160) format. We're finally seeing some innovation again in the monitor market, yet laptop displays were stuck in a state of comatose for a while. Not anymore. Maingear has given its Pulse 15 -- and the gaming laptop segment in general...
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