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!

THRUSTMASTER A PIECE OF CRAP AFTER ALL

I find it bloody strange that tonight of all nights the Thrustmaster Ferrari GT Experience Racing Wheel has decided to make me regret my apologies to Thrustmaster.

Turns out there steering wheels are pieces of crap as my Ferrari GT Experience, I do wish they would not put car logos on them, we are not all five years old, decided to play up tonight with the exact same fault it did last time around. Err which it then cleared itself of?! Worked for several weeks and now decided it does not want to play anymore and thrown all its rattles out of its pram?!

Bugger it!

I said it was funny that it decided to do it today and this is partly because this Thrustmaster, and I am hearing that they all are, is a piece of crap but a piece of old crap. While in WH Smith earlier today I picked up a magazine I believe was Custom PC and I caught sight of a letter on their letters page.

Now if you have followed me for awhile you will know that I bought the first ever Custom PC Magazine and carried on buying them for several years. That I built an SLI rig before they even published their issue explaining how to do it.

You should also know that not only do I hate the magazine today and what it has turned into but that the reviewers have been speaking quite authoritarian about a particular subject in hardware that not only do they know little about they have also been getting it wrong. They have also been misinforming gamers about hardware and seem to have forgotten the fact that Custom PC's arew made for playing games. Well 99.99% of the time. They are also biased too.

So it raised an eyebrow when someone wrote in a letter stating that it was amazing that he had been buying their magazine for 18 months and it had taken them that long to review a racing wheel?! I laughed out loud, literally! Eighteen months. Of course have a wild guess at the company and the logo on the wheel? I think it may have been the 458 Italia wheel?

Yes a weird coincidence that I have been accusing them of actually forgetting not only what they started out being but had also become biased and drifted further and further away from that they orginally did. Oddly they cover games more and more these days.

The other bizarre thing I just recalled was not only that this letter was having a dig that they are a Custom PC Magazine and so centred around gaming but not cover this particular type of peripheral in the eighteen months he has bought the mag. How long it actually has been I do not know as I wont buy it since Bit-Tech took over the magazine and that was the moment it become lop-sided and biased. No the weird thing was that three, read that three, computing magazines did group tests on coolers? Three?! On the shelf at the same time?!

But this chap had waited eighteen months before reading about a racing wheel!

Hmm I wonder if they said it was good when its actually a piece of crap like this one and will go wrong within 4 months?!

LMFAO!

Now I am wondering what to do. My two car racing titles are a bit old admittedly. I was interested in both The Crew, does not get a glowing review that one, and Project Cars but do not know when this one is being released. I also here their is a new Need For Speed on its way but again not sure when this will be out. In fact I cannot remember the damned name of the Need For Speed title. Did have Rivals in my head but its not that as that ones already out.

Ahh the Need For Speed title is called 'No Limits'. Just looked it up, lol.

Oooh yeah I remember now its being done by those Fire Monkeys, or whatever they are called, who do the Real Racing series on mobile devices, I have it on an Android tablet.

Hmm does this mean you will have to spend money to win or get better cars?!

I hate this fecking attitude in games and I do wish that journalists in their respective fields would not be such bloody pussies over these things. It is so obvious a rip-off in the UK, ohh yeah check out PC Pros rip of Britain article thats a waste of time lol. You end up needing things you normally get for free but suddenly your hit with obstacles you cannot work around without giving them money, rather a lot of it at times too. Just how theyu think serious gamers who will have two dozen titles or more can just hand them 40 quid or more every month I do not know. Their accountants and lawyers obviously know fuck all about economics and nor do they know that a game generally means a level playing field. Without one its no longer a game. If the German national footie team was to play a Sunday League team or Pub team you would not bet on the Sunday League team now would you? What are the chances? No bloody chances.

When I do my little reviews about this concerning Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Phantoms I always kind of smile to myself. Because initially people will look at it with me a grown man griping about some cash for a stupid game? But I am not griping about the cash, I do not care. I do care however when they start expecting a monthly subscription because its all wrong and too greedy. Think about it...a monthly subscription for everything?

I would need several dozen for games, Microsoft and Android would love to get as many of their things as they can on an online only monthly subscription. But I have a dozen other interests outside computing! How many of these will also want a monthly fee? They are hitting you with music and TV/Film subscriptions and God knows how many other things besides.

Sorry but your bean counters, as ever, are all wrong. They can't see the paper for the dollar signs. It was never workable and I always knew that they would start with a few that make a bit and then everybody else jumps in to until at some point...many that were doing well, and as usual changed everything so that they can just live like that monthly figure goes on forever, hence the UBI Soft attitude on their reply. Then it all falls apart. As it was always bound to.

Of course eventually your going to have millions of customers who have paid for something thayt do not have anymore because they paid money on the hope that using it online will always be there. Who would have thought that they of all people would go bust?!

Now then I will have to give it some though ... A-GAIN over the next few days regarding a wheel. The clamp on this thing is shite anyway and I hope to god they are not all like this one?! I simply cannot get it to clamp down and not shift about. But after anywhere between a couple of hours and a couple of days if I am not using car games that much the fecking thing comes off the solid metal platform of my racing wheel stand! Often mid bloody race and has done it a few times in just the few movies I did if my playing Need For Speed.

I think I am going to be reading a lot of reviews over the coming weeks?!

Bah-humbug!

WATCH OUT FOR THE DOGS

In all my researching of computer games of late, and being out of gaming for several years and had not discovered RPGs last time around the were... are a lot of them to work through, some were exciting to begin with then... not.

In older titles this is usually down to bad customer reviews. In titles bit yet released this is down to hype, or more precisely over-hyped.

Hype is often stated, at least I think, by the publishing companies and the oby train they are there in all honesty. Yes they may bang on to the software house about how much advertising costs and his much they need it to get their large share of the profits and dog the software houses to rush games.

Today there is little need for them and in all honesty probably do note harm than good. Sometimes they are a little more subtle and simply show you a running game in all its graphical splendour. They may do a few remarks and then the fans do the rest.

One particular title which is a very good example is Watch Dogs. I was very interested in this title and the pictures looked out of this world. Now I have this odd thing about not liking third person perspective games, or used to have, but seem to have gotten over this with a couple of very good titles. Mass Effect did the third person particularly well I thought. So did Sleeping Dogs but I like the ones that were over the shoulder and then change to first person or target view on pressing the right mouse button.

Watch Dogs got released and within a short space of time there were strange rumblings among gamers. First off all the graphics were not the same as those shown at one of the big events. I did read some complaints about it being short and that was an old complaint of mine.

I went off the idea of getting the game but today I saw this report about the title selling in figures that made no sense. In the first three months the game sold a whopping 8 million. In the following three months it sold 9 million?! I have to admit to reading it wrong and thinking it only sold 1 million. Lol. Now it is entirely possible that it could have gone on sale in more countries in the second the months. Not sure how but I guess some would have needed to be 'toned down' maybe to meet certain certifications to do with violence and sex? Still even so it's still peculiar. If not its downright had scratching!

I was totally put off after being completely on board. I know that I most certainly was not alone. I find this quite bizarre and wonder if this happens all the time? On the other hand I think of Tesco Supermarket in the UK who have been making it the company is taking me than it did. Someone I know right this was down to embezzling but I can't see that. I think it s note to do with seeking the company and ripping another rip off company. Well what goes around comes around and the only people to give a shit about that are the rich people, solicitors and news media because they are household names. Good God when will the media learn?

Oh well wait, people do like these reality show based upon supposed talent? Hmm maybe I have been looking at some things all wrong?

I personally find it completely bizarre and when I use words like 'bizarre' it is because I cannot think of a realistic reason. Hence 'bizarre'.

Still maybe there is some plausible reason this has occurred.

When I talk about people with... 'odd views' I can state that I remembered a webpage tonight speaking about a title I now am currently playing but has since issues.

This is Sleeping Dogs and oh my word I cannot explain how much I love this on so many levels. But it was obvious from my early moments that something was amiss. It actually ruined the early moments of the game and I thought it was going to be unplayable. The control was slow, clunky and unresponsive and I was heartbroken at looking at the visuals and knowing it had martial arts, I've trained a fair deal in Wing Chun Kung Fu, in it and at in Hong Kong, a place I have wanted to go for years along with Foshan.

I searched the Internet for tips, solutions or whether there was an update that solved the issue. I stumbled across a website with a few other pc gamers complaining about the same thing. But then another bunch of pc gamers, console gamers I expect it from, telling the guy he should be thankful they bought it to the PC and that he was unreasonable to expect then to re-write the game for the PC to take advantage of the mouse and the keyboard. When he stated that the mouse and keyboard were superior controllers than gamepads some actually disagreed with him?! Umm... no.... just, NO!

To be honest I thought they were console owners making these statements and not very bright ones at that?! Let's take a look at what's wrong with these statements...

1 So it's not financially rewarding to rewrite the controller post of code for the PC? Let us say that they sell 6 million in each platform? So a small rewrite of the code for control is bit worth another six million or more in sales? Dumb-arses.

2 These people are showing that they do not give a shit about their customers and YOUR defending then?! Are you for real?

The poster on that forum was right in stating it was laziness. I turned up the mouse sensitivity in game but it did nothing. So I went back into settings and found the sensitivity had reset itself? Odd.

However my particular mouse, Logitech G602, has on board buttons to adjust the DPI and that seemed to make enough of a difference. Happy Days!

I also have to state that this was the first time I bought a title that I actually thought I would have to buy a Gamepad to pay it? That had never happened before outside of FIFA, umm that other famous football title I had on the Playstation Portable? Yes I owned A Playstation! Just the one mind and I have to admit to having a passing interest in the Vita. Yes, I said that too! Lol. But then I never really travel or go far enough away or long enough to use one. However now that I think about it I do think it might have been more sensible to have gone for the Vita than the Advent Tegra Note I currently have! Hmm if I could like up my not so good Gamepad to it but more importantly if I could link my portable fold up keyboard to it. Oh no, now I cannot stop thinking about that now? Lol.

Due to unforeseen... financial circumstances I have still to finish my PC and still have... errm, two posts to get, ooh no three. Well I silk have to test my racing wheel to see if it works normally again? That might sound weird but the wheel only played up when Microsft realised I had an unlicensed copy of Windows and that played up too. Not installed it since they sent me an official copy. So have my fingers crossed I don't need one! Especially as the reviewers out there do not have a good word to say about one, consistently anyway, outside of the Logitech G27. I am really disappointed in Thrustmaster as many years ago they were synonymous with quality. This is true up to £100 and over that it jumps to £200 and then another £150 or more, more for the next model which is the GT500 I think it's called. Bummer.

So yeah I want mine to be still operational. Otherwise it came from PC World and did not last a completion of a single title, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. Mine is the Ferrari GT Experience.

http://appygamer.mobilesrepublic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=4&articleid=31119338

BETHESDA GAMES A GO GO & MORE

I have been playing Fallout New Vegas a great deal of late, to take my mind off other things.

It is interesting because there were several really nice things that I had failed to discover, down to me being away from games too long and off the pulse, so to speak.

I did not realise that The King's robot dog, Rex could become a companion. I had become obsessed with gunning down Deathclaws from afar with the Anti-Material Rifle and gathering as much loot as I could, especially as I realised that there is a place to store it all and that's in the Presidential Suite of the Lucky 38, as this appears to be mine now.

I also got some real shocks too! After a stint in that offshoot err add-on that I am just trying to buy time until I remember what it was called with the chips and the bald and mute lady and that ... ohh damn it. The one where your abducted and put a collar on by that Elijah bloke. Lol! You have to go through that town with those ghost type people but you have to do everything stealthily and at a snails pace.

That is the one thing that stands out as annoying is that walking in their games is extremely frustrating and you fell more like your dragging a leg. Running is OK but walking is a pin in the arse!

Now what I got a real refreshing surprise from was the other two umm oooh NUTS! The Canyon Wreckage one with Hopesville and errrrrrrrrr ummmmmmm that courier chap, I loved that! Way too short in my opinion and should have been much longer but I still loved it. The Divide! Brilliant, lol.

A complete contrast to this and equally as good and just as equally too dman short was the Northern Passage add-on. Or at least I think they were add-ons, lol. The Grand Canyon was beautifully presented but it was a bit light on a few things. Loved the Joshua Graham character and a shame it did not go a bit deeper into his character. I liked that snowchalk, or was it chalkcheese guy the one you meet when you first get there, oooh Zion that was what it was referred to as I remember now, lol. I thought I had done something so very wrong when we suddenly reached Zion and it was not what I expected at all. Everyone gets shot and I am getting ready to hit the reload as I thought I had missed something!

The funny thing was as I was gunning them down with a sniper rifle of some sort I was left with one guy and I knew I hit him and he was still standing?! I kept low and got a bit closer, took aim and shot him again and yet still he stood there?! I remember thinking 'Whoa! Hardly anything can survive a shot from this gun while hidden! That must be one tough mother?!' Turned out to be chalkcheese, Slowchalk or whatever his name was. Man, that was a pretty map whereas the Divide was interesting and menacing.

I must admit to having used Fallout to take up some time and I wanted to leave Skyrim alone for several weeks. Then I wanted to get the expansion disks.

However I was actually paying much closer attention than normal to the games that have been coming out and I did not realise that the graphics had moved on a whole Direct X number from Skyrim?! Mind you on the one hand people now state how old Skyrim is and its engine but not too long ago it was the bee's knees! For me when I saw the screenshots of Skyrim I could not quite believe my eyes! How far the 3D Engines had come since I built my last RIG, notice I said MY last rig as I did sort of build one for someone else a couple years back.

I could not help thinking that Skyrim for me, as I had been out of the gaming world for a few years, looked good on my system. As stated before my system is a Phenom X3 1.8Ghz with a Radeon HD 5450M graphics processor.

I never thought I would be able to play Skyrim on it in a million years and many people in the Internet said no way. All of them were wrong and I realised after first owning Oblivion and then Fallout 3 that the later engines were coded alot more efficiently than previously. Skyrim looks far better and runs a lot smoother than Oblivion on my laptop! Mad as it sounds, it is true.

So I could not help but think each time I played it just how good it would look with the settings on max?! Obviously there was no way that was going to happen on my laptop and I would not even get half way there, that much I knew! Then after I discovered that other titles were not only reported as having better graphics than Skyrim but also with the free roaming world idea I started to wonder even more! Mind you there is no point having a free roaming world unless you have a nice length main plot mission driver with other side plots to actually extend the main plot line!

Personally I hated these done in two days titles of old and I did not like it. Playing Oblivion and then Fallout and Skyrim this seemed to me to be the natural way to go and to extend the longevity of the game was a given and for me seriously needed to happen.

Years ago I was waiting for Half Life 2 with baited breath, do you know I just found the original receipt from PC World for my purchase of Half Life 2?! Yes it was good except for the fact I had completed it in just two days and yet at around that time I had the demo of a Real Time Strategy game Age of Empires II, I think it was, that I had played for around a month?!

I remember thinking how bloody stupid it was that this had occurred, I had paid 'X' amount of money and been forced onto a system, STEAM, I did not like and never thought would work, well it has not really and mostly full of crud lol, that was problematic at best t o play a game that was going to last in the hours and not even days for some.

Fast forward to present day and Bethesda's games are going for bloody weeks, but I would prefer months guys?! Lol!

In all honesty the maps are great and I am all in favour of bigger maps and more areas. Oddly I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Elder Scrolls online game had the entire Tamriel map? Stunning! However from a hort clip I saw the game looked like complete pandemonium and I will be honest here and stating that your charging for the software and then a monthly subscription on top?! Sorry there are absolutely no excuses for that and you will not ever get me paying out that money and those that do? Well your a few sandwiches short of a picnic! Well based on the video I saw and the way people are playing the game anyway they do seem to be minus those sandwiches?!

Why on earth would I pay to go into a game that instead of playing it with an interesting plot and getting together with other in a team or co-op type fair they're just running at each other in some massive drug influenced mad battle the likes of which reality has never seen and Napoleon Bonaparte would turn in his grave over!

These are obviously spotty teenagers that seem to hink that playing a game that way os the cool thing to do? Hmm maybe they should round up the players one at a time and do a psychological evaluation of them?! Lol. If any have dyed theur hair green then lock them up in a padded cell until a psychological evaluation is done.

I am looking arund currently trying to catch up on titles I have missed but that are not too old!

Not worked out FacrCry 3 yet as this gets some good reviews but then I see many are moaning because the plot was very thin and very short? I also here that rather surprisingly FarCry far was about to be, or has been, announced? I wonder if this is because of the things I read? I played the original FarCry and I am sure I got FarCry 2 but seem to remember it crashing and not completing it?

Similar to what I read about FarCry 3 was Thief! Now Thief, which I am most definitely getting, is an odd one because the graphics looked great and I was kinda hoping it was at least some of the original team behind it. I still have several copies, two came with two GeForce 6800GT's I used in my original SLI rig, today of the third instalment Thief III Deadly Shadows and this for me was one of the greatest games ever made! The best part was my sister laughing at me and said a game cannot be frightening so I let her play until cacking her underwear became a major problem as was the leaning to one side like she was going to dive under the kitchen table! I kid you not! She was not a kid either and was in full time work. She said she just never imagined a game could be scary!

Those reading this who played the game would have long since known that it was the asylum and they also would have known I was letting her play the part where you go up the spiral staircase!

But I hear the latest Thief is not all that. Well we will see before long.

Right now though it would be nice to know if there was going to be a Fallout 4 at some point and a Elder Scrolls?! Now what with the recent advancement of graphics and a couple of new graphics APIs of Direct X and Mantle along with HSA and hUMA I for one simply cannot wait!

Now the very idea of a title each of Fallout and Elder Scrolls with these technologies about makes me dribble like a madman! Lol! One thing I do feel sure about and that is that we will here something about BOTH titles before 2014 is through. I think that would give us all something to smile about?!

Now I have regained interest in Dishonoured and am looking for other open ended titles and see what is out there.

On another note I am getting excited about both Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, though I am sure it wont be called that, maybe STAR COMMANDER? Lol!

On the lookout for forthcoming car racing titles too and that Project Cars sounds good even if the title does not? Hopefully a decent Need for Speed? I love the Need for Speed titles but they have the whole old Star Trek thing going on! One good one and then one or to crap ones, or so they say. Never played a crap one myself but then I missed out on a great deal of titles over the last five years! I do have Hot Pursuit and that is good!

Shall return to Hot Pursuit in the next coupld of weeks!