Items tagged with Gaming
Gaming headsets are becoming more and more popular with online gaming becoming a more well-integrated aspect of gaming in general, and Astro Gaming has been at the forefront of the revolution. The new Astro A30 Cross-Gaming Headset uses the same audio and voice communication DNA in the A40, but it utilizes a lightweight, street-styled design that can be used on consoles and even cellphones.It's basically a headset or a set of headphones, or both. There's a built-in, Dolby-powered ASTRO MixAmp, which is an audio engine that mixes voice and game sounds. It also sports speaker tags that can be customized with their own artwork or with our pre-loaded imagery, and the dual mic system makes sure that...
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Just this past week, the Game Developers Conference was held in downtown San Francisco, CA. If you're unfamiliar with GDC, it is the "world's largest professionals-only game industry event." In other words, everyday gaming enthusiast can't just walk in off the street to take a look around. GDC is held every spring and is basically a forum for learning and networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and online games. Hundreds of companies come out to present their latest wares, preview upcoming titles, and also interview thousands of potential game developers...Game Developers Conference 2010 Highlights...
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Just this past week, the Game Developers Conference was held in downtown San Francisco, CA. If you're unfamiliar with GDC, it is the "world's largest professionals-only game industry event." In other words, everyday gaming enthusiast can't just walk in off the street to take a look around. GDC is held every spring and is basically a forum for learning and networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and online games. Hundreds of companies come out to present their latest wares, preview upcoming titles, and also interview thousands of potential game developers. Intel used GDC 2010 to announce their latest processor,...
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3D just might be taking over the world, but that's perfectly okay in NVIDIA's eyes. The company has been on the forefront of 3D technology within gaming ever since their 3D Vision kit hit the market, and it's widely viewed as the best 3D solution out there for gamers looking for additional depth in their gameplay.At the GDC Expo in California, NVIDIA and Epic Games simultaneously announced that 3D Vision support would be coded into Unreal Engine 3, a breakthrough new engine that may very well set the bar for how well GPUs fare in the coming months. This means that every single game based around the Unreal Engine 3 (of which there will be many, we're sure) will be able to have a 3D mode compatible...
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3D is the tech story of the year in 2010, with tablet PCs following closely behind. 3D is now everywhere: in cinemas, in HDTVs, and soon, in video games. Sony already admitted that 3D games would eventually be released for the PlayStation 3, and now Darkworks is making 3D possible for everyone else. At GDC in California this week, the company announced their TriOviz for Games SDK, which is the first available stereoscopic SDK for game consoles. In a few words, this technology allows existing 2D titles (or new titles that are being developed in 2D) to be enjoyed in 3D. It's a 2D-to-3D conversion, of sorts, but one of the most interesting aspects is that it doesn't require a 3D HDTV. It's made...
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OnLive just announced that their remote gaming service would finally launch on June 17, 2010, and already a major competitor has stepped up to create a bit of competition. InstantAction is a company that's offering a new way to game, and as with most everything else these days, it's highly connected to the cloud and highly different from the "I'll just buy this game on a disc" business model that has been fading fast for the past few years. It's not much like Steam, and it's barely similar to OnLive. It uses a new streaming process that captures files onto your hard drive while you're playing, and similar to have an HDX quality movie plays from VUDU, this system downloads just enough of the game...
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Nintendo has their Wii remote, Microsoft will soon have their Project Natal, and now, Sony has their PlayStation Move. At the GDC '10 conference in San Francisco, the maker of the PS3 decided to cut loose and unveil the "next generation" in console control, though it's really just a sophisticated improvement upon the PlayStation Eye that has been out for a few years now. The Move motion controller will be compatible only with the PS3 console, offering a motion-based, high-definition gaming experience that is said to be "unlike anything on the market." We kind of doubt it's "unlike" the Wiimote and Project Natal, but we'll let Sony think that they have an all new thing going. Alongside the Move...
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Just when you were beginning to think "vaporware," OnLive has delivered in the clutch. Nearly a year after being introduced to the world as the future of remote gaming, this service has finally left the "informational" stage at the GDC Expo in California. For those who missed out on last year's news, OnLive is basically an online streaming service that enables users to play games regardless of their location, so long as their home Internet connection has enough upload speed to push content to your current location. Announced this morning in a San Francisco presentation, OnLive has finally opened up to the public after eight full years of development. Starting on June 17, 2010 (during E3), the...
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When a game developer releases a demo, it's typically intended to entice players into first trying and then purchasing the full version. In keeping with that goal, demo versions of a game are (usually) designed to be fun. This is the stuff of Game Design 101 for most of us, but a crack team of cutting-edge gaming researchers at Sony have applied for a patent based on a novel concept—game demos that become progressively less fun the more you play. Sony refers to this as "feature erosion"; the patent application can be viewed in full here. "Redefined" Is Not A Synonym For "Better "The patent abstract states: A demonstration video game permits garners [gamers, we assume] a more complete game experience...
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Talk about an obscene amount of power. AVADirect has begun selling what it claims is the world's most powerful i7 SLI gaming notebook -- the Clevo X8100 -- and after taking a peek at the spec sheet, we won't argue. Every bit the desktop replacement, only the chassis qualifies this one as a notebook, even if the hardware under the hood screams otherwise. Here's what you get:Screen: 18.4” Full HD (1920x1080) TFT LED LCD Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 720QM / 820QM / 920XM Socket G1 processors supportVideo Card: NVIDIA® GTX 285M 1GB single or 2GB Dual VGA / SLI configurationMemory: up to 8 GB 1066/1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM Memory SupportedHard Drive: Support up to 3 Hard Disk Drives with...
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Here we are, barely two weeks removed from the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 5570, and we find ourselves in the now familiar position of announcing yet another Radeon HD 5000 series card. With the breakneck pace (relatively speaking) of Radeon HD 5000 series releases over the past 5 or 6 months, it would be easy to dismiss today's launch of the Radeon HD 5830 as a move by AMD to simply use more marginal Cypress GPUs, thus increasing effective yields, while at the same time sticking it to NVIDIA yet again. But a quick look at the company's 5000-series product stack reveals the other major reason... ATI Radeon HD 5830 Review: Filling The Gap...
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Here we are, barely two weeks removed from the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 5570, and we find ourselves in the now familiar position of announcing yet another Radeon HD 5000 series card. With the breakneck pace (relatively speaking) of Radeon HD 5000 series releases over the past 5 or 6 months, it would be easy to dismiss today's launch of the Radeon HD 5830 as a move by AMD to simply use more marginal Cypress GPUs, thus increasing effective yields, while at the same time sticking it to NVIDIA yet again. But a quick look at the company's 5000-series product stack reveals the other major reason. Here's how the currently available cards in the Radeon HD 5000 series line up in terms of street...
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Some may argue that Steam has a monopoly on the digital distribution of PC games, and while it is obviously the most well-known outlet for acquiring new titles without getting a physical disc, we can't help but say that our experience with the program has been great. There are obviously a lot of others out there feeling the same way, as the service has grown 200% (up to 25 million users) over the past year, with 12 billion player minutes being logged per month and 75 billion Steam client minutes per month.That kind of growth takes a toll on an infrastructure, and Valve is making sure that they are well prepared for the continue influx. As the world continues to spin and more households procure...
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Origin is a fairly new boutique system builder, but already the company is making some noise in the gaming community. The company's latest machine is the new EON18 custom gaming laptop. Featuring "the most powerful and fastest gaming technology in the world," the EON18 combines today's fastest processors and graphics solutions to give you a screaming laptop. “The new EON18 is all about gaming, power and performance, with the combination of Intel’s Core i7 Extreme processor and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 285M graphics all wrapped up in a package that is portable”, says Kevin Wasielewski, CEO/Co-Founder of ORIGIN PC. “The EON18 is for gamers who crave power and speed over cute and petite.” Key features...
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We just saw a very interesting, very specific post go up on the official NVIDIA Facebook page. It appears the company's highly anticipated, initial line-up of GF100 based graphics cards will be launching on March 26, 2010. Here's exactly what NVIDIA had to say..."NVIDIA We want to apologize for the confusion around our most recent GF100 update. To clarify, the launch date for GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 is March 26, 2010. This date also coincides with the GeForce LAN event NVIDIA is hosting at PAX 2010. Hope you can attend the show. For more info, please visit: www.nvidia.com/paxeast" NVIDIA GF100, aka Fermi up and running in a Maingear SHIFT PC at CES 2010 - Click for full...
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"This is like déjà vu all over again." That quote from the ever-so-quotable former New York Yankee Yogi Berra is particularly suitable for today's launch of the ATI Radeon HD 5570. Just last week, we brought you our coverage of the Radeon HD 5450 launch and wrote a bit about AMD's aggressive release schedule with regard to their DirectX 11-class GPUs. In this article, we will present to you yet another new DX11-class card from AMD, the ATI Radeon HD 5570.A quick look at its model number, along with a bit of deductive reasoning, will reveal that the Radeon HD 5570 falls somewhere in between the Radeon HD 5450 and 5670 in AMD's current line-up. And in fact, the card shares some attributes...
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"This is like déjà vu all over again." That quote from the ever-so-quotable former New York Yankee Yogi Berra is particularly suitable for today's launch of the ATI Radeon HD 5570. Just last week, we brought you our coverage of the Radeon HD 5450 launch and wrote a bit about AMD's aggressive release schedule with regard to their DirectX 11-class GPUs. In this article, we will present to you yet another new DX11-class card from AMD, the ATI Radeon HD 5570. A quick look at its model number, along with a bit of deductive reasoning, will reveal that the Radeon HD 5570 falls somewhere in between the Radeon HD 5450 and 5670 in AMD's current line-up. And in fact, the card shares some attributes of both...
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Over the course of the past four months or so, AMD has been on a tear, releasing a slew of new DirectX 11-class GPUs at price points ranging from approximately $600 all the way on down to about $100. All the while, AMD was also up front about the release schedule for many upcoming, future products. If you remember back to some of our previous Radeon HD 5000 series coverage, we showed you a picture of this slide, that outlined AMD's plans to launch the GPUs codenamed Redwood and Cedar sometime in Q1 2010. Redwood became the Radeon HD 5670 and today we can finally spill the beans on the first iteration of Cedar.Now, 135 days after the arrival of the Radeon HD 5870, AMD is at the ready with the...
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Over the course of the past four months or so, AMD has been on a tear, releasing a slew of new DirectX 11-class GPUs at price points ranging from approximately $600 all the way on down to about $100. All the while, AMD was also up front about the release schedule for many upcoming, future products. If you remember back to some of our previous Radeon HD 5000 series coverage, we showed you a picture of this slide, that outlined AMD's plans to launch the GPUs codenamed Redwood and Cedar sometime in Q1 2010. Redwood became the Radeon HD 5670 and today we can finally spill the beans on the first iteration of Cedar.Now, 135 days after the arrival of the Radeon HD 5870, AMD is at the ready with the...
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Gateway just took the wraps off a new line-up of gaming systems and multimedia-ready desktop systems. The offering ranges from their FX gaming-targeted models, to the DX mini-tower, SX (small form factor), and ZX all-in-one series systems. All models ship with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, which is a nice touch and will come in handy addressing the rather stout system memory build-outs that are configured with the systems. The FX models are your standard gaming PC offering but with some all new, swank stylings. Gateway offers two builds to customize for this machine, ranging from $1300 - $1700 (not too shabby at all). The lower-end model is based on a 2.8GHz Core i7-860,...
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Sony has proven itself to be a giant in the gaming industry, first with the PlayStation console and now with the PSP line. The company's PSP Go took its fair share of criticism (mostly surrounding price), but the actual hardware/gameplay isn't too shabby. What's interesting, though, is how Sony's numbers have continually crept up despite the negative vibes. And odder still, it seems that Apple may be to thank.In an almost too-good-to-be-true article, Sony has seemingly thanked Apple (at least in theory) for helping its PSP consoles to skyrocket in terms of sales. Granted, no physical thank you notes were sent, but how else would you describe the comments that John Koller, who is responsible for...
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Last week, we brought you a preview of newcomer Origin PC's Genesis desktop and announced a system giveaway. Now it's time to investigate the system's actual performance as shipped. With a list price of $4999 as configured, this particular Genesis system is breathing some rarefied air indeed. Our expectations are similarly high; any company marketing a $5000 system has to demonstrate it's got all of its bases covered. We were happy with Origin's warranty terms and promise of lifetime support when we previewed the system; let's see if the company's hardware selection and system performance are commensurate with its lifetime support and personalized care... The Origin of Speed: Origin's Genesis...
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