General Gaming Article |
- No BS Podcast 240: GTX 950, Windows 10 Privacy Issues, and More
- Newegg Daily Deals: iBuyPower Phantom Desktop, BenQ 24-Inch Monitor, and More!
- WB Begins First Interim PC Patch for Batman: Arkham Knight
- Valve’s VR Is the Closest Thing to the HoloDeck We Have
- HP Remains Confident in PCs Following Tough Quarter
- Samsung May Launch an 18.4-Inch Android Tablet
- Build It - Virtually Prepared: Getting Ready For Oculus Rift
| No BS Podcast 240: GTX 950, Windows 10 Privacy Issues, and More Posted: 21 Aug 2015 03:39 PM PDT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Newegg Daily Deals: iBuyPower Phantom Desktop, BenQ 24-Inch Monitor, and More! Posted: 21 Aug 2015 12:12 PM PDT Top Deal: We can all agree that the PC is the superior platform for gaming, and anyone who disagrees, well, we thumb our noses at that person! The question is, should you build or buy pre-built? We're obviously big proponents of rolling your own rig, but if you can't for whatever reason, there are some nice options out there. One of them is today's top deal -- an iBuyPower Phantom Series Desktop for $900 with free shipping (normally $950 - use coupon code: [EMCAWNK37]). This little beauty sports an Intel Core i5 6600K processor (Skylake), 8GB of DDR4 memory, 1TB HDD, GeForce GTX 960 graphics card, and Windows 10 Home 64-bit. Other Deals: Adata Premier 32GB microSDHC w/ Adapter for $9 with $1 shipping (normally $16 - use coupon code: [EMCAWNK29]) Samsung D3 Station 5TB 3.5-inch Desktop External Hard Drive Black for $120 with free shipping (normally $125 - use coupon code: [EMCAWNK32]) BenQ GL2460HM Black 24-inch Monitor TN Panel w/ Built-in Speakers for $130 with free shipping (normally $150 - use coupon code: [EMCAWNK34]) Dell P2414H Black 23.8-inch 8ms (GTG) Widescreen LED IPS Monitor for $190 with free shipping (normally $210 - use coupon code: [EMCAWNK68]) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WB Begins First Interim PC Patch for Batman: Arkham Knight Posted: 21 Aug 2015 12:03 PM PDT Can't keep a superhero down It looks like Batman: Arkham Knight is on track to return to the PC sometime this fall, as was promised when Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment yanked the game from Steam and store shelves in July. In a letter posted to fans on Thursday, WB said the first interim patch for Arkham Knight is now being tested. If all goes well, the patch will roll out "in the next few weeks," which puts the game's return in the early to mid September time frame. Here are some of the major fixes and improvements included in the new patch:
Those issues are taking priority over other bugs, though WB says that developers are also working to correct an issue that skips the boot up splash screens, along with DLC and Season Pass content, and additional updates such as Photo Mode. After a lot of hype leading up to its release, the PC version of Arkham Knight proved buggy and in need of some major TLC. The release was plagued by performance issues, even when running the title on a well-equipped PC. WB said it will offer another update on the situation within the next two weeks. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Valve’s VR Is the Closest Thing to the HoloDeck We Have Posted: 21 Aug 2015 11:08 AM PDT Update: We go hands-on with the new wireless controller and play Valve's new Dota 2 VR demo While you might have been able to read my hands-on impressions with Valve/HTC's Vive VR system back at GDC 2015 in March, it's really hard to get a sense of how awesome the experience is without trying it yourself. And VR doesn't exactly present the most accurate impression via a Youtube video either. As a result, HTC decided to take some big-ass trailers to tour the Vive around the world. This past weekend, I got to try the latest version of the Vive when the tour stopped by in San Francisco. The wireless controllers were the biggest addition to the experience (the controllers I initially tried at GDC were wired). To go along with the new controllers, I also got to try out Valve's new Shopkeeper demo, which takes you inside Dota 2's secret shop.Besides being wireless, the controllers themselves are pretty much how they were at GDC (which is a good thing). They are both Wii-mote-like sticks that have a circular touchpad on top of them. These touchpads are similar to what Valve uses on its Steam controllers, in case you were wondering. One concern that I had coming into this experience is that I worried the wireless controllers would add latency; latency can really break immersion in VR experiences. While I only got to play around with this updated Vive setup for 10 minutes or so, I didn't notice any lag or unwanted acceleration. Whatever lag these wireless controllers added is a non-factor, at least for me. These controllers here still provide a 1:1 experience. Another new thing that I noticed about these controllers, and perhaps I missed it the first time around, is a slight sense of haptic feedback. The controllers would jolt ever so slightly when I would reach out and swing at an object. The vibration is very subtle and mimics the slight haptic feedback that Oculus' Touch controllers offer. Getting into the Dota 2 demo, the scene starts you off in the secret shop. It is worth mentioning, for those that don't play Dota 2, that you never actually get to explore the inside of the secret shop when you're playing Dota 2, as the game is a top-down MOBA, so you're getting a new perspective on the environment here. Dota 2 trailerThe real physical room I was in was roughly a 16x10-foot trailer, but the in-game shop probably measures 20x20 feet. Once the demo begins, the shopkeeper greets you and extends his arm out to hand you a fireball. Once you reach out to touch the fireball, your in-game controller lights up and it looks like you're wielding a lit-up wand. The shopkeeper then leaves through the front door and you're left to explore his shop on your own. Inside the room, you'll notice a bunch of props from the world of Dota. As I am not a huge Dota 2 player, I'm sure a lot of these Easter eggs went over my head. The first thing I noticed was a little green lizard guy to my right. I'm pretty sure it was Osky the Ottragon. He was staring right up at me, and as I waved my wand in his face, he started to get pestered and backed up a little. In front of me was a large table with some scrolls on top of them. One of the scrolls was a large glowing weird-symbol glyph thing and I was told by the HTC rep in the room that there are a total of five glyphs in the shop that I had to track down. So I blasted my wand at this first glyph and it shrinks me down to the size of an ant on the table. Then, all of a sudden, I see what appears to be a giant spider creep up from underneath the table. It heads towards me and gets uncomfortably close before ultimately walking away. I then unshrink myself to try and find the other hidden glyphs throughout the room. In the shop, I can see a bunch of fantasy-like trinkets that include swords, potions, lanterns, and the like. I noticed that there's a little frog on one side of the room that looks like Skip the Delivery Frog. So I walk closer to the frog and notice that there's a glyph next to him. So I once again blast my wand at the glyph and shrink down onto the countertop near the frog. Here, Skip now looks like a giant frog and he shoots his long tongue straight at me, which causes me to flinch. It's kind of a cheap 3D trick, like the ones you see in 3D movies, but it works. I unshrink myself and find another glyph by a book shelf. After blasting my wand there, I shrink on to the book case and notice a big hole behind the books. And very briefly, I see a big eyeball peek into this hole before quickly moving on. After walking through the environment and finding all the hidden glyphs, a cinematic event happens where I hear a giant beast huffing and puffing off in the distance. The roaring thumps get louder and closer, and all of a sudden the giant beast rips a big chunk of the ceiling off and angrily pokes his head in. It is none other than Roshan, Dota 2's ultimate monster baddie. He sticks his head into the room, looks at me, and begins to scream. It's super unnerving, but in a super cool way.I think my biggest gripe with the demo is that it wish it featured a more sensitive Chaperon system. The Chaperon system is Valve's way of letting you know when you're getting close to a wall. What happens is that a faint blue holographic wall will appear inside the demo indicating to you that you are getting close to a wall. The Chaperon system in itself is a great idea, but it seems like it only tracks the distance of your headset (aka head) to the nearby walls. I wish it would track your controllers, so that you can stick your arms out in front of you to protect you from running into anything. Either that, or adjust the Chaperon system to show the blue holographic walls earlier. As it is right now, it seems that the virtual walls don't appear until your head gets within two feet or so of the real walls around you, which could be problematic if you're running around/jumping in the room and can't quickly stop on a dime. All in all, however, the Dota 2 demo here provides a fun, new way of looking at the Dota 2 universe and the production values of the demo rival that of Valve's Portal VR demo. I'm excited to see what else Valve has up its VR sleeve. The original GDC 2015 article (published March 19, 2015) is as follows: I just walked out of Valve's SteamVR demo and can say that it is the best VR experience I've ever had. And this is coming from a guy who has tried nearly all of the VR headsets out there, including Oculus VR's newest Crescent Bay prototype. This is the closest thing to a modern-day holodeck we have at the moment. Built in partnership with HTC, and named the "Vive," the head-mounted display (HMD) here uses two 1080x1200-resolution displays, one for each eye. The display uses a low-persistence, global display solution that turns the display on and off at the same time. We couldn't take any pictures of our VR experience but here's what the headset looks like. One Valve rep tells me the FOV is around 100 degrees, while another tells me its 110, I'm more inclined to believe the former. While I could still see pixels and there is, of course, room for improvement, it's hardly distracting and is definitely sharp enough for consumer release and, dare I say, slightly sharper or roughly on par with Oculus's Crescent Bay prototype. Like the Oculus Rift HMD, the Vive will be a wired experience, and like Crescent Bay, it supports a 90Hz refresh rate. Beyond that however, there are are some key differences that set the two HMDs apart. Instead of relying on a single external camera for head tracking, Valve set up two "lighthouses" on two pillars and placed them on opposite ends of the room I was in (the room measured roughly 25x25 feet). The lighthouses simply need to be powered (they don't need to be plugged into your PC) and they emit red lasers that assist the Vive in mapping out your room so you can get 360-degree room scale tracking, which allows you to map out your walkable space when you're in VR. The lighthouses also help to identify where Valve's new VR controllers are. The controllers are very similar to the Razer Hydra controllers, except will be wireless (the prototype unit we tested used a wired solution, but we hear there are working wireless ones out there in the wild). The controllers have sensors that work in conjunction with the lighthouses to allow the HMD to detect where they are in your virtual reality experience. Assuming you're holding these sticks, this essentially means you can see your hands in the game. The controllers have a circular touchpad on the front that is roughly one inch in diameter, a trigger button on the back that essentially allows you to grab things (a la crab hands), and long buttons on the side of the stick that you can squeeze (think stress ball). The controls were nearly 1:1 and are definitely the best VR controllers out there, even better than Sixense's similar Stem VR system. There are also a bunch of little cameras on the front of the headset that leverage the position of the lighthouses to provide positional tracking, which not only lets you lean into objects but to walk around as well. One big problem with VR pertains to response time; I tried shaking my head as fast as I could to see if I could experience any judder and am glad to report that I experienced no such lag. It felt completely smooth and natural. This is more or less how our VR room was set up. While the headset that I used didn't have integrated audio, Valve told me that the consumer version will come with an integrated solution that users will be able to detach, in case they want to user their own high-end audio headset. Now, on to the really fun part: the demos! I tried roughly half a dozen demos during my session with Valve. The first placed me into a white room with a bunch of virtual posters of the demos I was about to experience. What was immediately pretty weird was that I saw the controllers in VR floating my way. It was the Valve rep handing the controllers to me. As soon as I held both controllers in my hand, I immediately felt at home. I quickly came to the realization that the pinpoint precision and accuracy of being able to move my hands on a 1:1 basis was the big piece of the VR puzzle that I had been missing this whole time. I began the demo by using my left hand to press down on the "play" button in front of me. After I did that, I started to see a bunch of little white pillars appearing all around me. These pillars would shift up and down, and there were hundreds of them surrounding me. While it's a very simple demo, it felt extremely polished and certainly gave me a sense of presence. The next demo was called Blue and it took me to the bottom of the ocean atop an old sunken ship. The point of this demo is to show off three-dimensional depth. I should mention that I'm nearsighted and wear glasses, and prior to starting this demo was prepared to take them off, but was advised that the HMD "renders to infinity" (I assume this means it renders as far as the human eye can see) and that I could and should leave them on. With my prescription glasses on underneath the HMD, I looked straight up and it seemed like I was half a mile away from the surface. Faintly in the distance above, I could see the sun's rays piercing the top of the ocean. I really felt submerged (and this is coming from a licensed scuba diver). Another interesting element of this demo is that barriers of my real physical space were taken into account within the game. Essentially, the walkable area on the deck of the ship represented the walkable area of space within the room. Valve says these experiences will dynamically shift depending on one's real space constraints, though our rep didn't elaborate on how. Considering that all the VR experiences I've tried so far have been designed for the seated experience, I still couldn't help but not trust these markers. Valve says some games will draw boundary lines on the ground or even render virtual walls once you get close to the bounds of the walkable area. Even with these walls in place, however, I just felt safer taking a small step here and there. In this demo, I saw a bunch of fish and manta rays swim around me and it felt extremely polished and immersive. This felt much more real than the Ocean Rift demo on the DK2. But the real kicker came when a giant blue whale swam by the ship and looked at me. I felt like I was on an alien planet, and basically just kept on smiling and nodding my head as if to suggest to myself, "Yep, you guys have done it." The next demo took me to a virtual kitchen and presented me with some ingredients on a virtual counter top and placed recipe instructions on a wall. It asked me to pick up tomatoes from the table in front of me and then walk over to the right to place them in a pot. I then had to find a mushroom, but didn't see it on the table, so I walked over to the fridge on my left and opened it. The missing mushroom was in there, so I picked it up and walked across the kitchen to place it in the pot. From there, I dinged the bell sitting atop a table to signal that dinner was ready. It was a cartoony demo in the style of Surgeon Simulator and the graphics weren't very intensive, but it just felt like a complete joy. Ringing the bell, picking up the various objects, opening the fridge... it all felt incredibly natural and instinctive. It didn't feel like I was experiencing a demo, but instead accomplishing real work. The next experience was called Tilt Brush. It leveraged the full range of motion that Valve's VR controller provided and allowed me to use my hands to paint floating 3D art in the air. The way it works is that your right hand presents options for you to change your brush type and brush color. You can then use your left hand to point and select what sort of brush you want. You're not relegated to just paint, but can paint with fire, stars, ice particles, and more. So there I was, painting fiery three-dimensional Christmas trees. From here, I could walk around my floating artwork and admire it from all angles. I suggested that Valve should allow users to 3D print their works of art, similar to what Microsoft is doing with its HoloLens and HoloStudio software suite. I interview CloudHead Games and discuss their upcoming VR game The Gallery: Six Elements The next demo I tried was called The Gallery: Six Elements, which is a full-fledged game being designed by Canadian developer CloudHead Games (check out my in-depth interview with the developers in the video above). This demo started me off in an ancient fantasy-style elevator in dark mines, think the Mines of Moria from the Lord of the Rings. I could walk around this elevator and pick up Skyrim-like helmets and nuts and bolts. Off in the distance was a giant rock monster, like something you'd see in God of War. The rock monster talked and seemed friendly enough. Me? I was mainly focused on pulling levers, using my hands to swat at dangling cables, and picking up little bolts throughout the room and inspecting them with a childlike wonderment. The rock monster continued rambling on, so I decided to see if I could chuck a bolt at him, and it worked! Throwing objects felt extremely natural. Eventually, the elevator started falling apart, and walls started falling down all around me. The elevator eventually took me to the top, where I could see an expansive fantasy-like vista with a bridge just in front of me. The rock monster asked me to follow him, and that's where the demo ended. I wanted more of it, and suffice it to say, I'm eagerly awaiting the game's release. Here's a short video snippet of Valve's Portal VR demo. The last demo was a pleasant surprise and was developed by Valve itself. It took me to a laboratory within Aperture Labs where I was greeted with narration provided by the opening narrator from the original Portal. The narrator asked me to perform various tasks in the lab, which included opening drawers along a wall. I encountered a bug, however, where I couldn't pull out one of the drawers and the demo had to be reset (a downside to showing off pre-release hardware and software, I'm afraid.) Once the demo booted up again, I was able to pull the drawers out. One of the drawers contained a piece of rotted cake (the cake is real and I have seen it!). Another drawer contained a bunch of little cartoon stick figures working inside a tiny office. The narrator said that because I had looked at them, I was now their god. The drawer then closed and the narrator jokingly suggested that the tiny little community inside would be incinerated. It wouldn't be Portal without a little Valve humor. Eventually the narrator asked me to walk to the other end of the lab and hold down a latch. Doing so opened up a garage-like door and out came Atlas, one of the robots from Portal 2. He came stumbling out and looked really sick. The narrator asked me to pull Atlas's face off, and out popped his robotic guts right in front of me. The narrator then said I needed to fix the robot and quickly jabbered a bunch of nonsensical technical instructions and gave me a quick destruction timer. Eventually, Atlas pulled himself together and the walls started collapsing, revealing more of the underbelly of Aperture Labs. Atlas then falls out of the room and after he falls, none other than a giant Glados comes rolling around. She started spouting off about me as she looked at me, and the demo ended. Compared to other VR solutions, Valve is at the top of the heap. Its headset is sharp, offers a great sense of depth, has excellent tracking, allows you to walk around, didn't make me motion sick, and comes with an excellent VR controller that works well. In addition, all of the demos looked excellent and polished. Valve says a dev kit should be released by the fall, and the consumer release should be coming at the end of the year. If I do have one concern about the Valve/HTC solution, however, it pertains to price. All of this sounds expensive, but I might just sell my own legs for this if it meant I could get virtual ones. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HP Remains Confident in PCs Following Tough Quarter Posted: 21 Aug 2015 09:26 AM PDT Down but not outHewlett-Packard, the world's second largest supplier of PCs behind Lenovo, reported $25.3 billion in revenue for its fiscal 2015 third quarter ended July 21, 2015, down 8 percent from $27.6 billion in the same quarter a year ago. It was the fourth consecutive quarter that HP's seen a decline. Only the company's Enterprise Group saw a rise in revenue, which was up 2 percent year-over-year. HP's Personal Systems revenue declined 13 percent, while its printing business saw a 9 percent drop. Similar declines were noted across the board. With regards to computer sales, HP boss Meg Whitman remains confident in the category. "That business, depending on what happens with Windows 10, we think, is actually going to come back over the long term," Whitman told CNBC. Windows 10 launched to the public on July 29, just one week after HP's fiscal third quarter. Whitman noted "there was definitely a consumer pause waiting for Windows 10" and expects "some difficult quarters ahead," but overall, she's confident the PC business will bounce back. This was the last quarter before HP splits its PC and printer business into a separate entity, which will be known as HP Inc. in November. Whitman will be chair of HP Inc. and CEO of HP Enterprise. "I'll be a holder of both stocks. And I'm excited about both companies," she told CNBC. While Whitman remains optimistic, more layoffs are coming. Citing HP CFO Cathie Lesjak, Business Insider says HP plans to slash an additional 5 percent of its workforce over the already scheduled 55,000 job cuts. The additional cuts are intended to offset costs associated with HP hiring new talent following the split. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Samsung May Launch an 18.4-Inch Android Tablet Posted: 21 Aug 2015 08:57 AM PDT Does size matter? It seems that Samsung is getting ready to gamble on there being a market for giant sized Android tablets. And by giant, we mean a display size of 18.4 inches diagonally, albeit with a Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) resolution. News of the forthcoming tablet comes from SamMobile, which says that Samsung is calling it "Tahoe" (codename). If the information is accurate, it will sport a 64-bit octa-core Exynos 7580 processor clocked at 1.6GHz, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of built-in storage expandable via microSD, 2-megapixel front camera, 8-megapixel rear camera, and Android 5.1 Lollipop. Tahoe will measure 17.8 by 10.8 by 0.46 inches (WxDxH) / 451.8 by 276.8 by 11.9 millimeters and have a 5,700 mAh battery. That's similar in size to Dell's XPS 18 Portable All-in-One (18.25 by 11.17 by 0.7 inches), a system I've spent some hands on time with and recommended to my parents. What I like about the Dell XPS 18 is that it's technically portable. No, it's not something that most people are likely to tote around like a smartphone, but it could be used to watch Netflix in bed after a long work day or something like that. I'm not sure Tahoe will have the same appeal. While you can also use Tahoe to watch Netflix in bed, you can't use it to run Windows applications. I don't know that there's a big demand for a one-trick pony of this size, though that's something the market will ultimate decide. What are your thoughts on an 18.4-inch Android tablet? Is that too big, or could you see yourself owning one? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Build It - Virtually Prepared: Getting Ready For Oculus Rift Posted: 21 Aug 2015 12:00 AM PDT This article was published in the September 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here. Welcome to the Wild West of VRLength of Time: 1-3 Hours | Difficulty: Medium The MissionVirtual reality is a hot topic for PCs right now, and everyone wants a piece of the action. It's a Wild West free-for-all as different hardware and platforms are announced, so putting together a gaming rig that can handle the demands of the upcoming VR setups is a real concern. Oculus VR has recently helped clear the air by publishing the recommended specs for its Rift platform. Depending on your current system, the recommended hardware either looks moderately tame or outlandishly extravagant. The core components consist of the CPU, GPU, and RAM: Core i5-4590, GTX 970 or R9 290, and at least 8GB. If you want to minimize on costs, you could easily build a complete Oculus-ready system for around $800, including the OS, but we view these recommendations as more of a minimum rather than a long-term solution. No one likes to be caught unprepared when the inevitable next round of updates shows up, so we set about building a rig that has some room for upgrades down the road. Our baseline rig meets the Oculus recommendations, and when Oculus 2.0 doubles down in a year or two, you'll be ready. Trusty screwdriver in hand, let's get busy building. Saddle UpIn theory, all you need to get started with building a VR-capable rig is any computer case to house your components, but a poor choice can leave your rig pushing up daisies in short order. If you want to be going strong for several years, you'll need something more capable. We've opted for a larger case that offers plenty of room for expansion; we also chose a slightly faster processor, a motherboard that can support a second GPU, and included an SSD, which ought to be required for any new PC in 2015. The case is Antec's shiny-new P380, an understated yet attractive design with plenty of room that doesn't make a lot of noise. Our graphics card is the diminutive Asus GTX 970 DirectCU Mini, packing a lot of power into a small package while using much less power than the AMD R9 290. The CPU is Intel's i7-4790K, cooled by the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, though the i5-4690K could save you $100 without hurting gaming performance. ASRock's Z97 Extreme6 mobo is good value, and if you want wireless AC integrated into the board, check out its similarly priced Extreme6/ac. Either one makes adding a second GPU simple. Powering the system is the Corsair CX500, a compact but non-modular PSU. We used some generic DDR3-1600 memory, as RAM typically has little impact on real-world performance. Wrapping things up, we went with a 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD and a 2TB Hitachi HDD.
1. True GritAs we go to print, Intel has just announced its desktop Broadwell parts, and they should be available by the time you read this. The good news is that the i5-5675C should work fine in the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 mobo we've selected; the bad news is that the Iris Pro 6200 graphics and reduced CPU clock speeds aren't really an upgrade for those using a discrete GPU. Further out is Skylake, with leaks showing a Core i5-6600K for the new LGA 1151 platform. It ought to provide improved performance, but it will also require a new motherboard and memory. Bottom line: We have to build with parts that are currently shipping, so we stuck with Haswell. The past several generations of CPUs from Intel haven't radically altered CPU performance, and Broadwell doesn't change that, so the Core i7-4790K should keep you happily gaming for years to come. 2. Young GunsIf you're new to building PCs, it's often necessary to mount your cooler prior to installing the motherboard into the case. The P380 has a cutout on the back, so you could do it either way, but larger air coolers like the Hyper 212 Evo can be a bit finicky to install, so it's best taken care of first. We could've also skipped the aftermarket cooling altogether, as we're running stock CPU clocks. There's nothing wrong with that approach, but the larger fan on the EVO makes less noise and will keep the CPU frosty. It's also not so large that it will interfere with the DIMMs, but the side-facing fan likewise isn't going to provide a lot of airflow to the RAM or mobo heatsinks. 3. Hang 'Em HighThe P380 comes with three fans—two 140mm at the top and one 120mm at the back—each with a speed selector. All three fans come pre-installed near the top-left of the case, venting hot air. That means Antec is using negative pressure cooling by default, which often has the undesirable side effect of pulling dust in through every crack and seam over time. We didn't add any intake fans for this build, but there's room for a couple of 140mm (or three 120mm) fans on the front panel. If you want to use liquid cooling, there's also room at the top and back for radiators. The P380 has an integrated fan power hub on the back, but it's there purely for providing power. It would have been nice if Antec had included external fan-speed switches, but cooling worked well enough even with all three fans set to low speed. 4. Take It EasyThere are two main philosophies when it comes to wiring your case. Some want a pristine-looking wiring job, and others just tuck everything out of the way and call it good. The drawback of cleaning up the wiring too much is that if you then need to add another component, you're often stuck undoing your earlier work and then tidying up again. For frequent upgrades, it's easier to not spend too much effort on the "hidden" wires—it's not like anyone looks at the back of your motherboard. Also notice that the 8-pin EPS12V cable for the CPU has to reach quite far, and the 26-inch cable on the CX500 makes this easy. A PSU with a 22-inch CPU cable likely wouldn't be able to route behind the motherboard. 5. The Lone RangerOur single GTX 970 is so small in this cavernous case that it looks a bit lonely. Smaller cases might require that you remove one of the hard-drive cages to fit longer GPUs, but not the P380. If you want to add a second GPU, or even go with a couple of significantly larger GPUs, such as AMD's R9 295X2, there's room to spare. The case will also support E-ATX mobos, if you're looking to install something larger. Oculus VR may only recommend a single R9 290 or GTX 970, but the other VR options may end up pushing the envelope further. If you're looking to add a second GPU in the future, however, we'd recommend stepping up to a 700W–800W modular PSU. 6. Fistful of DollarsSay what you will for other aspects of the case, but the P380 is a real looker. Antec uses 4mm-thick aluminum front and back panels, giving the case a distinctive look, but also jacking up the price. We think the clean front fascia with no external drive bays looks awesome, but what if you still want an optical drive? Antec includes a slim optical drive mount that sits behind the front cover. It's frankly a bit of a pain to deal with, so if you really want an optical drive you might want to look at a different case. It's possible to swap around the USB and audio ports on the top, allowing them to face right or left (the default is left). You can also remove all the front drive cages and mount a second 240mm radiator, if you're so inclined, but that limits storage options. 1. You can fit up to a 360mm radiator, but sometimes a simple air cooler is all you need. Hi-Yo, Silver!For something as demanding as rendering two stereoscopic images for VR, the recommended specs from Oculus aren't actually that crazy. In fact, our midrange Blueprints going back as far as October 2014 have all been sufficient, and only the shift to Nvidia's Maxwell 2.0 architecture rules out older builds. That's simple enough to fix, of course, as swapping graphics cards is one of the easiest upgrades you're likely to make. From the perspective of many Maximum PC readers, then, Oculus is already within reach. What will be interesting to see is how game developers leverage the available hardware, and that's always been a sticking point in the console versus PC debate. By defining a relatively high recommended system, Oculus opens the doors for full DX12 support and advanced rendering features. But developers often want to increase the available installation base, so they create lower-quality rendering paths. Considering the Oculus Rift shipping hardware is likely to cost well over $300, however, it's not too much to expect gamers to have commensurate hardware elsewhere. The final Rift hardware is now shaping up, and it will include an Xbox One controller. Oculus has also revealed an Oculus Touch controller, but that will ship after the initial hardware. We have the Oculus Rift DevKit 2 (DK2), and setting it up can be frustrating—getting the head tracking to work, in particular, was more difficult than it should be. The final hardware now includes a desk-mounted sensor that we're hoping will be easier, not to mention a single cable to the headset for audio, video, data, and power. The combination should help reduce the space requirements, but for a standing-up experience, you'll need a decent amount of room. While there's a lot of potential in VR, it's a chicken-and-egg dilemma. Developers need hardware in the hands of more consumers to make money creating games. Consumers, however, want compelling software before they buy expensive hardware. And everyone wants the entire experience to be as hasslefree as possible. We're not there yet, which is why Oculus Rift isn't expected until Q1 '16. When we consider the competing hardware and platforms, such as SteamVR, HoloLens, Project Morpheus, OSVR, and Gear VR, it becomes far less clear who'll win this shootout. Oculus kick started—or Kickstarted—the current VR craze a few years back, but it isn't the only game in town. It remains to be seen whether we'll have multiple complementary platforms or a single winner-take-all solution. As exciting as VR is, no one wants to get stuck owning a virtual Betamax setup.
Our current zero-point consists of a hexa-core 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K 3.8GHz, 8GB of Corsair DDR3/1600, on an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard. We are running a GeForce GTX 690, an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD, and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional. |
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