THE IMMEDIATE FUTURES

I have to go out shortly ... to vote in my first ever General Election, in the UK if your from another county, lol.

I have a little time to kill and I was thinking about my playing Dying Light and that it is the only one I run on my PC presently. Now as we are into May, 2015, this started me thinking what it might be that I play next? I then started thinking about the next generation of GPUs, from AMD, in the form of the Radeon R9-390 and the CPUs that now must be within a year from release? As the Carrizo seems to be only mobile this means that the next step on the horizon is the often quoted Zen chip.

This has excited me, I have to admit, because all the signs are that this is going to be good and as the bulldozer design was good in some ways but only not so much in others this will be huge step forward.

My system runs on Kaveri, the AMD A10-7850K and I do not buy into much of the stuff fanboys seem to spout. Because that which they are using their PCs for wont see a difference to the naked eye.

In fact I can now tell you of an example I have only just remembered!

A game playing brother visited me a couple of days back and he also plays Dying Light only he has had issues with his one and had to limit the game to ... wait for it ... 30 frames per second to stop it juddering about something awful.

Now I was suprised to hear this for reasons I will go into in the next paragraph and let me tell you it will be a surprise, but I told him I had no issues at all and I was running everything on maximum. We were both surprised. Why?

The game is supposed to run better on nVidia graphics and you get the logo at the start. But his uses an AMD FX-8350 now, as he picked one up for £80. He also now has the nVidia 970 Maxwell card, the Strix model I believe.

Err unless you failed to pick up on it I have an AMD A10-7850K which has half the cores his does and a lower frequency. Oh my card? That would be an older than Maxwell Radeon R9-280. No 'X', just a 280.

He saw my game running and was shocked to see it running so well with half the CPU cores and a slower GPU!!

I built my system to play games on and I knew it would do that. But I knew also that in a couple of years there would be some new shiny kit I would want. There was nothing out that made me want to buy it, when I built mine, other than so very over priced kit from Intel. Eight cores and those expensive motherboards would have been the only other way to go. But the price! To see n o difference unless some software was running some numbers in front of my face. Something I grew out of and grew tired of some years ago now. The only time I want to see these numbers is when a new CPU or GPU is released. Then I want to see them only to compare them with the older versions and the rivals versions. That still interests me a great deal but unlike many I do not then hold onto the fact that one set of numbers is lower than mine, in case of a rival chip, and hard on about it.

So yes Intel is faster presently but you wont see it and it means that AMD have to focus on getting things better. Meaning that during 2016 there will be new and fast Zen processors that will then force Intel to bring out better gear. Something Intel fan-idiots would not otherwise get until probably 2019.

So yeah it is a bit of an exciting time but a bit of patience is needed.

We are now getting into a period whereby a new Fallout game is due which will mean that an Elder Scrolls game will follow before very long. The fact this has been under wraps for so long tells me that the games are likely coded for the next chips like the nVidia 980 Maxwell and the Radeon R9-390's.

By the time we have digested these announcements and any new titles not seen on the horizon then Zen will be staring us in the face.

The one thing I have found is that despite the new generation consoles and all the software houses harping on about coding for all platforms being easier ... well there has not been a great deal of stuff coming out. The graphics departments only seemed to be incremental too. As opposed to revolutionary that is.

Now I have a sneaky suspicion that Fallout 4, or whatever it will be called, will change this to a greater degree. All we need is something that changes things to a greater degree and then we now that everything that follows will be the same ... err to a degree, lol.

A new Deus Ex in Mankind Divided was pleasing to me in a big way. In a few weeks Fallout 4 could stand beside Deus Ex Mankind Divided in a dreamy vision of the not too distant future. Over the next 6 months I dare say there will be more.

There is still the Dead Island 2 game to come out that I am particularly interested in reading the reviews of, due to the love of the combat of Dead Island and Dying Light and curiosity ... well because of Dead Island and Dying Light, lmao!

Oh yeah and then there is Star Citizen!

Oh and I am waiting to see what Project Cars will be like along with the next Need For Speed title, I need a good car game since Hot Pursuit ... err 2? Lol.

Oh a good combat flight simulator would be nice too, based on an EFA, F22 or F35 or preferably all three!

Yes my games catalogue needs more diversity! It is great having two of three FPS games and RPG games but something very different to go with them like driving of flight simulation would be cool. I cannot think of anything to buy in all honesty.

Hopefully and soon I will be utterly spoiled for choice?!

Here's hoping!

THE DYING LIGHT OF EXPERT GAMERS

I have mentioned many times previously of the number of fanboys and idiot gamer journalists championing Intel chips which are bugger all to do with gaming over AMD chips. I have also ranted at their claim about what you do need and dont need in gaming for the foreseeable future?

This idiocy based on an irresistable drive to appear knowledgeable and intelligent does the exact opposite. You look and sound like idiots and this is far worse if your a claimed gamer journalist. Not that long ago they were still claiming these absolutely stupid things.

Now I am going to simply tell you about am announcement of the requirements for an upcoming game and they not only make all these morons look like exactly that but even I am blown away!

Dying Light (Techland)

Minimum Requirements:

64 Bit Windows 7 upwards
Core i5 2500 3.3GHz or AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz
4GB RAM
GEFORCE 560 or Radeon 6870 both 1GB

Now thats MINIMUM...

Now for RECOMMENDED...

Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz
8GB RAM
GEFORCE 780 or RADEON R9-290

Now I cannot remember if the Core i5-2500K has 8 threads or not but I must think it has because the rest have 8 threads I am sure.

Even if it does not it matters not for my points and that is that only mere months ago tech journalists, gaming journalists and armchair experts everyhwere urged people to not bother with 8 cores or threads because games only use one and will not change any time soon.

They forgot the golden rule of computing prediction, they code for chips when they know they have become mainstream and just about any gamer worth his salt is running a minumum of 4 threads and has been a couple of years. Couple years development and BOOM! Everyone suddenly looks like they do not know what they are talking about despite claiming, being in a job that suggests so and being paid while charging us to know what they are talking about.

Now you know why I am extremely wary and in all honesty I would not be surprised if after this announcement there will be no magazines left, on the PC side of things, in a year from now.

Now you will realise that when it was announced that the new consoles were to have 8 cpu threads you should have corrected your mistakes where I immediately thought, ooh not long now before they all get exposed as dicks?!

Luckily I had decided to hold back from buying a graphics card and decided against dual graphics as I had this nagging feeling...now I am glad I did and I now know that there is an expected drop in graphics cards prices and that the nest Radeon, and possibly full fat Maxwell nVidia cards, are going to be eye openers and the current Maxwells already did that once already.

Also bear in mind that this is Techland and not one of the greatest in graphics in the recent titles so what will happen when the Fallouts and Elder Scrolls next versions drop?! Utter pandemonium I would wager? LMAO! Fun pandemonium but pandemonium all the same. FarCry 5 and possible Crysis games? Stalkers or Metro games? Mass Effect? Deus Ex? I found in my Techland title of Dead Island Riptide that the graphics were a bit of a cheat to be honest. I realised that there were very high textures on very blocky landscapes. Noticed this while standing on a tree one time, I happen to know how a lot of nature looks up very close, check my other blogs for evidence and details on that one. The tree I was standing on was extremely flat and without many 'sides' to it looking not a great deal more than a five sided block, as opposed to a rounded but bumpy edge to it.

Still had me fooled for awhile but the original Crysis was better looking. Oh yeah and not a great variety of zombies either. I would certainly read a lot more reviews, om Amazon and not magazines anymore, before buying the next Dead Island. Cure some of the most annoying and cheating aspects and I just might be in, after swearing never to again. Your lucky I give second chances...hmm or is that I dont like being beaten? Lol!

http://www.pcgamer.com/dying-light-system-requirements-are-killer/