Items tagged with PC gaming
Gamers who have been enjoying PC gaming for decades will probably have fond memories of playing classic MS-DOS games back in the day. Some of those games have been made playable on Archive.org. MS-DOS games have been added as playable in a browser since 2015 thanks to the Internet Archive, and it has announced that 2,500 additional games have been added. The Internet Archive says that it has added games here and there in that time, but this is by far the most extensive collection of games that it has ever added at once. The new collection ranges from small independent releases to big-name games from major studios that launched decades ago. There are some caveats to keep in mind with the...
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PC gamers often don't want to play games on a console and hold out in hopes of a decent port. There are so many console gamers and only a few consoles to develop for, so developers tend to go that route on many games to start. One perfect example is Red Dead Redemption 2. The game launched on Xbox and PS4, while the PC gamers out there who refuse to use a controller, have been waiting to see when and if the game would land for them to play. Rumors of a Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) PC port have resurfaced after a mysterious RDR2 listing turned up on the Australian Classification Board's website this week. Initially, the request for a rating, which doesn't specify its for the PC, was denied. However,...
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It's been 20 years since The Blair Witch Project launched and left moviegoers scared and wondering if the film was actually based on real events. There have been video games based on the franchise before, but they were forgettable, and many likely don't know they ever existed. A new game is on the way called Blair Witch from Lionsgate Games and Bloober Team, and it looks incredibly creepy. The official E3 announcement for the game promised a first-person, story-driven, physiological horror game based on the cinematic lore of Blair Witch. The game is set in 1996, complete with old cell phones, and has the player searching for a young boy lost in the woods. Players take on the persona of a former...
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Many companies are currently working on a wide variety of gaming services. Cox Cable has now thrown their hat into the ring and is currently testing a gaming network service that would reduce lag, ping spikes, and jitter. Cox Cable’s “Elite Gamer Service” reportedly speeds up the connection between the player and desired gaming server. The Elite Gamer Service is not a “fast lane” service and does not “prioritize Internet use”. It relies on WTFast technology to find the shortest available route to send data. The company insists that they do not plan on introducing any “fast lane” services in the future. Cox claims that that service will produce...
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The gaming laptop market is one of one of the largest and most diverse segments of the PC industry, with systems ranging in price from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Dell's Alienware gaming machines typically lean towards the higher-end of the price spectrum, with premium build quality and strong component configurations, like the Alienware m15 that we're looking at here today. Dell's Alienware gaming division has re-tooled this machine as well, almost from the ground-up, while still preserving its classic Alienware design signature. The new Alienware m15 ranges in price from $1,379.99 up to just under $4,000, if you want to go for broke. Our exact test unit is well-equipped, but sits...
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Be sure to tune in to our 2.5 Geeks Webcast tomorrow afternoon, as we will be having a detailed discussion with Scott Wasson of AMD. For those not in the know, Scott Wasson serves as Senior Manager for Product Management in AMD's Radeon Technologies Group. Given his area of expertise, Scott will be discussing the latest and greatest features found on board AMD's Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition, which we covered earlier today when AMD announced it. However, Scott will even be sharing demos of AMD's new tech and all the new features and more in tomorrow's webcast. Be sure to tune in live here on this page, or on HotHardware's YouTube channel and HIT the...
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If you are a fan of the original 1993 game Doom, you are in for a treat with Romero Games offering up a new expansion for the original game to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The game is called SIGIL, and John Romero says that the game is a free megawad that contains nine single-player levels and nine deathmatch levels with music by metal guitarist Buckethead. The megawad will launch in mid-February and requires that you have the original 1993 registered version of Doom to play, not the newer 2016 version of Doom for Switch and other platforms. Before you panic -- if you lost your original Doom floppies from way back in 1994 -- the original DOOM is available on Steam. Romero calls SIGIL...
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Bethesda's online RPG Fallout 76 hasn't even been available for two full weeks yet, but given how much there has been to talk about, it's felt like a lot longer. That is unless, of course, you are one of the players who decided to hop into the online Fallout universe, one that is plagued with more bugs than you can shake a rifle at. As a quick recap, the game launched with a massive patch weighing in at 56GB. Days earlier, Bethesda penned a letter on its website to warn fans that the game would be buggy. This move was likely unsurprising to everyone who read it, as a buggy launch has become standard fare for Bethesda. Fallout 76 takes the number of issues to the next level and many...
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PC gamers out there who want a smoking good deal on a new video game will be happy to hear that Steam has kicked off its Autumn Sale. Steam has a couple big sales per year; the last major sale was in June when the Steam Summer sale was underway. While some of the games available in the Autumn Sale are old; there are deals on some new games as well. Monster Hunter: World is one of the new games; it launched back in August and it can be had for a 34% discount making it $39.59 rather than the regular price of $59.99. The popular game Rocket League is part of the sale and is available for $9.99 rather than its usual $29.99. One of the older games that is still fun to play is Borderlands: The...
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Fans of EA games have been able to subscribe to Origin Access for a quite some time. That basic membership costs $4.99 monthly or $29.99 per year. In return, players got a collection of 122 games they could play at any time. Subscribers also get to try new EA games before they launch and save 10% on purchases via Origin. EA will be launching a fancier tier of that service come July 30. The new tier will be called Origin Access Premiere and it will share the all-you-can-play model that the original service, now to be called basic, plus you get more. An EA Help page reads, "Premier is a new membership tier that gives you access to the latest and greatest EA games before anyone else. You get access...
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PC gamers and console gamers are sometimes rivals, with each camp touting their platform as the best. We all know #PCMasterRace is where it's at of course. If you venture to E3 it certainly seems as if consoles are the platform that most developers and publishers focus on. Sure, many of the games that you see at E3 are offered on PC, but it's rare to see the PC platform take the forefront in any of the keynotes at the show. However, as in years past, PC gamers got their own show at their own venue that ran concurrently with E3 called the PC Gaming Show. There were some very cool games talked about at the event from different publishers. The show did include a slew of new games, but many were...
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The weekend is nearly here and if you have nothing planned or winter is still holding on in your area as it is in mine, perhaps the best weekend is spent indoors playing some sweet games. The good news is that Steam is having a massive sale right now and it has some awesome games that you can pick up for bargain basement prices. My favorite on the list is Sid Meier's Civilization V. Civ V isn't the newest game in the franchise by any means, but if you throw a rock into a room filled with Civ fans you will hit a bunch who think Civ V is the best game in the franchise. The game originally landed in September of 2010 and still looks good and plays well today. Civ V runs well on most modern computers...
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It's no longer a surprise when we hear about brand-new game releases being cracked days after launch, but it's not often we hear about one fully cracked even before its release. Unfortunately for Square Enix, its latest epic adventure Final Fantasy XV on Windows has been cracked and released online ahead of its March 6 release. If not for a couple of simple things, this wouldn't have happened, so we're bound to see things change a little bit going forward. Over at Origin, the game can be preloaded (FFXV is not an EA title, but is one of the rare ones to be sold on its service), and the fact that it preloads completely unencrypted is where Square Enix got burned. But only because it was kind enough...
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The hype surrounding the upcoming Call of Duty: WWII is intriguing and very justified. Not much longer than a decade ago, it seemed the world was sick and tired of World War II-themed games, but thankfully, zombie games have since come to our rescue, cleansing our palettes. Today, WWII actually looks like it could give us a fresh experience, and create an interesting online battlefield. Unfortunately, "interesting" is proving true already, but not in a good way. Over the weekend, the beta for WWII went live, and almost immediately, complaints stemming from testers began to hit the web. In almost record time, those who find joy in ruining other persons' online experiences equipped themselves with...
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It seems like the more time passes, the more caveats Bungie decides to add to its upcoming epic adventure game, Destiny 2. Through a new entry in Bungie's help database, we learn that Destiny 2 is going to be beyond fussy when it comes to things like overlays and screen captures. Bungie wants to make sure that people don't inject code into the game for the sake of cheating, so it's being extra careful. In the help entry, it's made clear that software that records as "Game Capture" will not work, which includes OBS (Open Broadcasting Software) and XSplit. The same tools appear to work fine as long as "Screen Capture" is chosen instead. That's a problem for those that like to play their games in...
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Do you love the color green? How about Razer and MAINGEAR products? Is the R1 | Razer Edition a little bit too big? MAINGEAR has one answer to all of those questions, and it comes to us in the form of the R2 | Razer Edition, a gaming PC that occupies 50% less space than the original, which launched last fall. MAINGEAR's goal with this build wasn't just to make it look good, but to make sure it offered more than the expected performance out of such a small box. Intel's Core i9 processors can be configured with this model, but as of the time of writing, no such SKU is available on MAINGEAR's website. Stock configurations of the R2 begin at $1,099 for an AMD Ryzen build, and $1,199 for an Intel...
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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 Microsoft, this feature offers a “new way to communicate that creates a more accessible and inclusive...
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In case you haven’t noticed, the PC gaming market is exploding. As we reported in the closing days of 2016, PC gaming software sales reached nearly $36 billion ($35.8 billion to be exact) during 2016, compared to just $6.6 billion for console game sales. Neither was able to touch mobile gaming revenues, however, which hit $40.6 billion during the full year of 2016. Now, Jon Peddie Research (JPR) offers a report on PC gaming hardware sales for 2016, and they likewise hit a record high. Hardware sales surged past the $30 billion mark for the first time ever, topping out at $30.6 billion. In addition, the PC gaming hardware industry's Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is expected to top 6...
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Research firm SuperData has just released its latest year-in-review report. While some of the findings are expected, others are a little surprising. Some are also great if you happen to be a PC enthusiast, as PC game sales dwarfed game sales on all of the consoles combined. That's an amazing data point, so let's bring in some real numbers. According to SuperData, the entire console market generated $6.6 billion in 2016, which is a Far Cry (pun intended) from the $35.8 billion the PC platform generated. That's a staggering difference, but the PC isn't the only platform to vastly outperform consoles -- so did mobile. Thanks to hits like Clash Royale and Pokemon GO, mobile gaming reached an impressive...
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If you love Xbox One games, but enjoy gaming on your PC, there is now a simpler solution. Microsoft just announced that the Lenovo IdeaCentre Y710 Cube is the first PC with fully integrated Xbox Wireless. This is the first device with such an integration built within the physical chassis, without the need for a USB dongle. Will Tuttle, Xbox Wire Editor in Chief, remarked, “At Xbox we believe in playing the games you want, where you want, with the people you want. By expanding the Xbox Wireless ecosystem with new accessories and PCs such as the IdeaCentre Y710, gamers have more choice and more freedom to play anywhere.” The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y710 Cube will be able to support...
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Whoever the Einstein was that declared this a "post PC era" needs talk to the gamers and enthusiasts that flocked to Boston Convention And Exhibition Center this weekend for the sold-out PAX East show. And in good ol' Bean Town, the Murphys might dropkick that genius for being overly impaired and "ship him off" promptly. In a record attendance of around 90,000 or so, there was plenty of console gaming going on, as well as mobile gaming on tablets and smartphones, and even board games but nothing compared to the crowds flocking around booths from major PC manufacturers and ecosystem partners like Kingston, Gigabyte, Corsair, EVGA, Logitech, NVIDIA, AMD and Intel. And VR was center stage with the...
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Face the facts: if you want a pre-built PC that can play virtually any game at high resolutions with high-quality settings, you're going to have to pay a princely sum. While you could probably build your own PC for less than a pre-built system, boutique builders typically offer a number of benefits in the form of guaranteed overclocks or custom component. Or maybe you just have no interest whatsoever spending all that time installing parts and hiding cables in your case. Though Digital Storm's Bolt 3 isn't the highest-end gaming PC we've tested, it holds its own for its not-so-insignificant price—delivering gaming performance that fits its cost, all built within a beautiful, small form factor...
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