General Gaming Article

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• CybertronPC Readies Launch of CLX Line of Luxury PCs
• G.Skill's 128GB Ripjaws DDR4-3200 RAM Kit Tops $1,000 MSRP
• Rising Surface Sales Helped Microsoft Post $6.3 Billion Quarterly Profit
• HP Spectre x2 Review
• Rise of the Tomb Raider Optimization Guide

CybertronPC Readies Launch of CLX Line of Luxury PCs Posted: 29 Jan 2016 10:22 AM PST Fancy pants PCs Quick, name three different boutique system builders. Was CybertronPC among them? Probably not (unless you were swayed by the headline), though the company's been around since 1997 and boasts that it's the 15th largest system builder in the U.S. Out of how many, we don't know, though CybertronPC is attempting to boost its name recognition by launching a luxury line of customizable PCs. "Already a strong leader offering products that cater to PC users across the spectrum on retail sites such as Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, and Fry's among others for 19 years, CybertronPC is expanding its growth with the introduction of the CLX brand targeted towards PC gamers looking for the ultimate custom PC that offers an aggressive price to performance options," CybertronPC said. "This marks a significant milestone for CybertronPC, as it's the first time the company has launched a fully high end custom performance product line with special options from their Foundry customizations that includes features such as overclocking and liquid cooling." Dubbed "CLX" for "CybertronPC Luxury Experience," the outfit will offer five different categories of systems inspired by the Egyptian mythos and sci-fi genre. RA First up is RA, CybertronPC's new flagship desktop PC line. Buyers can configure a RA system around an Intel's X99 or Z170 platforms with support for the latest Skylake processors, up to four Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics cards, up to 64GB of RAM, and hard-lined liquid cooling. If you're looking to game at 4K, the RA is what you're after. Horus Next up is Horus, CybertronPC's line of mid-tower desktops. It offers the same components as RA, but in a smaller space and with toned down specifications, such as up to two graphics cards instead of four and up to 16GB of RAM instead of 64GB. Scarab Moving on to Scarab, this is a line of mini-ITX desktops that deliver "Goliath performance," CybertronPC says. Component options will be the same as for the two aforementioned lines, but again, in toned down form such as support for a single graphics card (up to a Titan X) instead of multiple ones. Overclocking will also be part of the package here, with a base configuration consisting of a closed-loop CPU cooling setup. Osiris For mobile warriors, Osiris is a 17-inch desktop replacement. It supports up to an Intel Core i7-6700K processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics, plus up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM and lots of expandability. You may be tempted to pair it with an external display, as the hardware will likely be overkill for its 1920x1080 panel. Anubis Finally, the Anubis is another gaming laptop line, one that comes in 15.6-inch and 17-inch form factors. These aren't desktop replacements, in that they measure less than an inch thick and sport mobile parts, such as up to a Core i7-6700HQ CPU and a GeForce GTX 970M GPU CybertronPC said its new CLX systems will be available in two weeks (countdown timer here) starting at $999. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

G.Skill's 128GB Ripjaws DDR4-3200 RAM Kit Tops $1,000 MSRP Posted: 29 Jan 2016 09:36 AM PST Not for the faint of wallet It's been less than three weeks since G.Skill announced its big and bad Ripjaws 128GB DDR4-3000MHz memory kit, and now it's back with another kit that's just as big and even faster at 3,200MHz. Like the previous offering, this newest Ripjaws V series memory kit consists of eight 16GB modules, so if you're shelling out for this thing, make sure your motherboard has enough DIMM slots (and can support 128GB). Capacity isn't the only thing that's big about this kit, so is the price. G.Skill's MSRP is a penny shy of $1,070. Before forking over that kind of dough, you'll want to assess your needs hyper-carefully to (A) see if you can utilize 128GB of RAM and if not, then (B) determine if you're willing to spend that kind of a premium on bragging rights. Okay, enough of all that. Moving on, the new kit is designed for Intel's X99 platform, which tops out official support at 128GB. It's rated to run at 14-14-14-34 at 1.35V, which G.Skill is awfully proud of. "Not only does this massive memory kit manage to max out on supported capacity at high speeds, its latency is also improved to CL14-14-14-34, which is also more efficient than the standard DDR4-2133MHz latency of CL15-15-15-35. At this point, there's nowhere else to go but faster," G.Skill says. If this is the kit you've been waiting for, hang tight just a little bit longer—it will be available by the end of February. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Rising Surface Sales Helped Microsoft Post $6.3 Billion Quarterly Profit Posted: 29 Jan 2016 08:57 AM PST Making it rain in Redmond Microsoft gets to head into the weekend on a positive note. That's because the numbers for its second fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2015, are in and they're cause for celebration. All of its businesses combined, Microsoft collected $25.7 billion in revenue (non-GAAP) during the quarter. Though that's down from $26.1 billion in the same quarter a year prior, Microsoft increased its quarterly profits by 8 percent to $6.3 billion, up from $5.8 billion. "It was a strong holiday season for Microsoft highlighted by Surface and Xbox," said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. "Our commercial business executed well as our sales teams and partners helped customers realize the value of Microsoft's cloud technologies across Azure, Office 365 and CRM Online." Indeed, the launch of the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book helped boost overall Surface sales 29 percent in constant currency to $1.35 billion, up more than double from the previous quarter's $672 million. This helped offset a 49 percent in Phone revenue, a decline that Microsoft said reflected its "strategy change announced in July 2015." In other words, this wasn't unexpected. Microsoft was particularly pleased with its cloud performance, noting a 10 percent rise in revenue related to server products and cloud services, and a big 140 percent jump in Azure revenue. "Businesses everywhere are using the Microsoft Cloud as their digital platform to drive their ambitious transformation agendas," said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft. "Businesses are also piloting Windows 10, which will drive deployments beyond 200 million active devices." Investors reacted positively to the news, with shares of Microsoft trading up nearly 5 percent today. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

HP Spectre x2 Review Posted: 29 Jan 2016 12:00 AM PST At a glance X2 (+) Good value; quiet; decent battery life. X-Men: The Last Stand (-) No integrated USB type-A port; performance not great; kickstand solution needs work. For those that want a Surface Pro, but can't afford one Now that Microsoft's Surface Pro line of computers is catching some hype, HP is jumping on the bandwagon with its own variant of the convertible. Meet the HP Spectre X2. In many respects, it's similar to the Surface Pro 4 we reviewed in the February issue. It's a 12-inch Windows 10 tablet with a kickstand and a detachable keyboard. You can also purchase a stylus for it, for more input choices. But perhaps the biggest difference between the two convertibles is in price. The unit we tested has a $1,150 price tag, which is $300 cheaper than the Surface Pro 4 we reviewed. Unfortunately, while this may sound great on paper, the Spectre x2 makes some compromises that help explain its more affordable price tag. The Surface Pro 4 uses a super sharp 2736x1824 resolution panel; HP opts for a more conservative 1920x1280. To the left of the HP's monitor, there's a volume rocker and a USB type-C port. To the right of the monitor are ports for a SIM card and Micro SD card slot. We didn't like that you need to use a needle to get these two ports open, however. Finally, the last port here is another USB type-C slot. If you've done the math, you'll notice that we made no mention of any USB type-A slots. Yep, the x2 doesn't include one. The company did this to accommodate for the thin form factor. While the one-centimeter-thick chassis is nice, we would have preferred HP make the convertible a little thicker to accommodate at least one type-A port. HP does include a USB type-A converter in the box, although it feels a little janky to have it dangling off the side of the tablet when not in use. Unlike Microsoft, HP actually includes the keyboard. Despite the thinness, the x2 is about a pound heavier than the Surface Pro 4. At 3.4 pounds, however, it's still not super heavy. We didn't care too much for x2's kickstand; in order to get it to pop out of the back, you have to press down on a physical switch to unlatch it. While this is a little annoying, perhaps the biggest annoyance here is that you can't get the monitor to stand straight up or bend forward. The way the stand is set up, you have to lean it back a little. This is especially annoying when you want to lean it forward as you watch movies on it in bed. And the times we did use it in bed, the x2 had the habit of occasionally falling on its back. Fortunately, it comes with a good keyboard, which snaps on easily via a strong magnet, and the keys are about as comfortable to type on as any Ultrabook. We weren't enamored as much with the trackpad, however, which is really wide and often couldn't distinguish our right-clicks from our left. It also required a little more actuation force than we would have liked. Finally, rounding out the design are the speakers by Bang & Olufsen, which we felt could use a little more volume firepower. Our x2 unit rocks a 1.2GHz Intel Core M7-6Y75 along with 8GB of DDR3 RAM. The CPU is only a dual-core/four-thread part that carries a 1.2GHz base clock. While that doesn't sound too enticing, it is a 4.5-watt Skylake chip that is passively cooled, which makes it silent. In terms of actual performance, you can probably surmise that it's not ultra powerful. Because its form factor is so similar to Microsoft's Surface Pro 4, we decided we would use that as our zero point for testing. Now, we don't expect it to best Microsoft's convertible, considering our Surface Pro 4 cost $1,430 and uses a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-6300 CPU, but it should give you a good point of reference. In single-threaded CPU tests, the x2 ran around 20 percent slower compared to the Surface, and lagged behind in the mid 30s against Microsoft's solution. In graphics, the x2 saw similar 25–30 percent losses. One benefit to going with a low TDP part, however, is battery life. Here, the x2 showed a 20 percent longevity boost over the Surface with the device lasting 325 minutes in our run-down test. Boot-up time was also great with the convertible launching in 14.6 seconds. In the end, the x2 certainly has its blemishes but if you're in the market for a Surface Pro 4–style device but can't afford Microsoft's version, the x2 can get the job done for a much lower price. $1,150, www.hp.com Benchmarks   Zero-point (Surface Pro 4) HP Spectre X2 percent difference Stitch.Efx 2.0 (sec) 1,447 1884 -23.2% Proshow Producer 5 (sec) 2,343 2,947 -20.5% x264 HD 5.0 7 4.4 -37.1% Tomb Raider (fps) 33.4 23.6 -29.3% 3DMark 11 Perf 1,575 1182 -25% Battery Life (min) 270 325 20.4% Our zero-point is Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 with a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-6300U CPU with 8GB of RAM, running Windows 10 64-bit.3DMark 11 was run in Performance mode; Tomb Raider was run using low settings. Specifications CPU 1.2GHz Intel Core M7-6Y75 RAM 8GB Display 12-inch 1920x1080 IPS Storage 256GB SSD Connectivity 2x USB C, microSD card reader, headphone jack, 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 Tablet/Laptop 2.7 lbs/3.4 lbs

Rise of the Tomb Raider Optimization Guide Posted: 28 Jan 2016 11:15 PM PST If you think of archaeology in pop culture, two big names come to mind: Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. If someone were to make a game about archaeology— real archaeology—it would be boring as hell. There'd be a lot of reading, fundraising, and cataloging tiny bits of pottery called sherds that often measure around a centimeter square.Only if things got really exciting would there be a dig, and even then the digs are carefully planned out and methodical. Indiana Jones, you've spoiled us. Square Enix has released the follow-up to its 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider series, calling this one Rise of the Tomb Raider. In the game, you play as Lara Croft, a British archaeologist (of sorts) with a gift for getting into trouble. Our friends at PC Gamer wrote a review of the game, so if you're on the fence, it's worth a look. MORE: PC Gamer's review of Rise of the Tomb Raider While we love Tomb Raider for its platforming, puzzle solving, and combat, we also really love the graphics. We've been using the benchmark from the 2013 Tomb Raider in our system tests for a while now, and it still can make the best PCs break a sweat at 4K resolutions. After playing this game for a couple of hours on a few of our rigs, we can safely say that your GPU will drop a few pounds trying to keep up with Ms. Croft. This guide is designed to give you some insight into what you can do to get the best performance out of your PC while playing Rise of the Tomb Raider. Our goal is to get as close as possible to achieving an average frame rate of at least 60 frames per second. But before we get into that, it's a good idea to become acquainted with the options Rise of the Tomb Raider comes with. The Options Rise of the Tomb Raider has a slew of options to help you tweak the appearance of the game. Some settings have bigger effects on performance than others, but all of them can help make the game look amazing from scene to scene. All of the options can be configured before launching the game, or while running the game itself. We recommend setting the fullscreen setting, the resolution, and the anti-aliasing mode before launching the game. Resetting things like resolution in the game will cause the video driver to reset, which can cause problems with some setups. Fullscreen On, Off The fullscreen toggle determines whether the game will be played fullscreen (on) or in a window (off). Most users will want to play in fullscreen mode. Exclusive Fullscreen On, Off This toggle controls the type of fullscreen mode you'll be in. When set to on, the game fills the screen, and an Alt-Tab takes you to the desktop with the game minimized. This is what you're probably used to in most games, and what we recommend using for most people. When set to off, the game renders in a borderless window to match the fullscreen resolution that has been set. If you're wondering why this wasn't combined with the Fullscreen option, we are too. Running a game in a borderless window may sound funny, but it does have its merits. The game gets rendered like any other window, and captures input when active. When you press Alt-Tab, you can drag other windows on top of the game, which may be useful if you're looking up guides (you cheat, you), or want to be able to hop into another application quickly. Resolution Width x Height When you set the resolution, you're setting the size of the rectangle that the game will render. This number will default to your monitor's native resolution, but you'll generally be able to change it to any smaller resolution your monitor is capable of displaying. Changing the screen resolution is often the single biggest determiner of performance for your GPU. The larger the resolution, the more pixels that have to be calculated and rendered. Generally, if you can't get a decent frame rate at your native resolution with settings turned down, you can often get a higher frame rate by stepping down to a lower resolution and turning the other settings up a notch or two. This can be especially helpful if you've got a hankerin' to turn up all the whiz-bang special effects the game has to offer. Refresh Rate Hz The refresh rate should match one of the refresh rates available to your monitor. This will allow VSync to work correctly. If you're not planning on using VSync (you should probably be using VSync) you can sort of ignore this setting, but you should still set it to your highest possible refresh rate. (Hint: 24Hz without VSync results in even more tearing. Fun!) Anti-aliasing Off, FXAA, SMAA, SSAA 2x, SSAA 4x Anti-aliasing is one of those settings that has a drastic effect on the appearance of the game. To put it simply, anti-aliasing is a type of edge blurring that attempts to make make the transition between two adjacent contrasting colors easier. This helps eliminate aliased edges or "jaggies." If you've ever used Photoshop to zoom in on an image and noticed how an outline or edge looks jagged, anti-aliasing is the equivalent of using the blur tool to make those edges a little softer. After the screen resolution, anti-aliasing is frequently the next most "expensive" option to use. On top of that, the bigger the resolution, the more expensive anti-aliasing becomes. However, there's a limit to its usefulness: Anti-aliasing is typically used to compensate for low pixel density screens. With a high enough pixel density, the effects of anti-aliasing become harder to notice. If you use a moderately sized 4K monitor (as opposed to a 40-inch monster), the physical pixels are smaller. That increased definition and accuracy often lets you do away with anti-aliasing, which results in some pretty big compute savings for the GPU. This doesn't work as well at 1440p or 1080p, so if you're gaming at those resolutions, it's a very good idea to turn on anti-aliasing. Rise of the Tomb Raider offers several anti-aliasing modes, and despite what we just said, the impact on frame rates ranges from mild to severe. FXAA (Fast approXimate Anti-Aliasing) will usually work just fine in most cases, and it's a type of post processing—a smart blur filter applied to the final rendered output before it gets sent to the screen. It's very fast on modern GPUs and is practically free to enable, though it doesn't always eliminate all jaggies. SMAA (Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing) is another post-processing filter, but it's supposed to look better than FXAA with a similar performance hit; in testing Rise of the Tomb Raider, we found SMAA runs slightly slower than FXAA. SSAA (Super-Sample Anti-Aliasing) is one of the best looking forms of anti-aliasing, but it's also by far the most demanding. It effectively renders the game at a higher resolution (2x or 4x your selected resolution), then samples that down to your native resolution. Unless you have an extremely beefy setup, you're likely going to want to avoid SSAA for this title and invest the computing power elsewhere. VSync On, Off Vertical-sync or VSync is basically a frame rate cap that the game or video driver places on the GPU. At first, VSync may sound counter-intuitive: Why the hell would you ever want to limit the output of your video card? Well, there are two big reasons. First, VSync helps to synchronize the frame rate output with the refresh rate of your monitor. Without VSync, you can get what's called tearing, and it's a pretty nasty glitchy-looking effect. In short, the screen output can contain portions of multiple frames, and when a lot of things change between frames you get a horizontal split that's very visible. VSync causes frame buffer updates to only take place when the screen output isn't currently updating, thereby eliminating tearing. The other good thing VSync can do is improve stability and reduce heat. Without a frame rate cap to meet, your system will happily churn out as many frames as it can. This requires the full effort of the GPU and CPU, which means more heat and potentially a shorter product lifespan. Using VSync helps keep heat and GPU utilization under control. It can also smooth out gameplay, as a steady 60fps or even 30fps can often feel better than jumps from 60 to 200fps and back. The problem with VSync is that if your system is running just below your monitor's refresh rate—say, at 55fps on a 60Hz display—the next frame update always arrives just after the screen update. On a 60Hz display, you'd end up running at a steady 30fps instead of 55fps, which some will find too slow. If you're in an area that fluctuates between 55 and 65fps, it's potentially even worse, as you'll experience a stuttering effect where a few frames will update at 60fps and then you'll get some at 30fps, then back to 60.... But tearing isn't really any better, which is why it's usually best to leave VSync on (unless you're benchmarking). There is now technology to take care of the VSync problem, of course. AMD's FreeSync and Nvidia's G-Sync allow your GPU and display to synchronize updates within a supported refresh range. So if your GPU is running at 50fps, your display will refresh at 50Hz. It's really a great technology and can definitely improve the gaming experience, particularly if you're falling shy of the "magical" 60fps mark; better displays even support refresh rates of up to 144Hz, which feels liquid smooth. But FreeSync and G-Sync displays cost more than regular displays. The Graphics menu in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Preset Lowest, Low, Medium, High, Very High, Custom In the graphics menu, the first option you'll see is Preset. Presets vary from Lowest to Very High and are great jumping-off points to customize your settings. We prefer to start with a preset that gives us more frames than we're asking for and add features from there. Note that even the Very High preset won't max out all settings, however—which leaves room for future GPUs to push quality even higher. The moment you change an option other than Preset, this option gets set to Custom to indicate that the user has set options manually. Texture Quality Low, Medium, High, Very High High-res textures are expensive, but you can definitely see a difference. The texture quality sets the size of the texture files that Rise of the Tomb Raider will use to skin the game models. Simply put, the higher the setting, the larger the resolution of the texture files, and the more graphics memory you'll need to hold those textures. There's a lot of processing that goes on with textures as well, so a higher setting will also tax the GPU more. We've found that using the Medium setting at 1440p still looks really good, so there's no need to feel bad if your GPU can't take the High or Very High settings. Anisotropic Filter Trilinear, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x Anisotropic filtering helps to make sure textures don't look weird and distorted when they're viewed on surfaces that are closer to parallel with the user's gaze than perpendicular. The higher the setting here, the better textures will look when not viewed straight-on. It also blends the transition between mipmaps (different texture resolutions are used based on how far a texture is from the user; there's no need to use a 2K texture on an object that's so far away that it only fills a few hundred pixels). While this used to be a relatively expensive option, modern GPUs are all fairly adept at ansiotropic filtering, though dropping this setting down to 2x may give you a couple of extra FPS. We don't recommend dropping it down to trilinear filtering unless you have to, since ansiotropic filtering looks much better. This is one of those operations that is performed on your textures, so the the higher your Texture Quality setting, the more expensive this setting becomes. Shadow Quality Off, Medium, High, Very High This setting controls how sharp the shadows will appear in-game. The lower the setting, the more "jaggies" you'll see in shadow effects. We don't recommend turning this setting to Off, since it will ruin the atmosphere of the game. Rise of the Tomb Raider takes place in a number of caves and tombs, so having shadow in dark places is an obvious need. Why would you want to remove that basic element of the game art? However, running at Medium instead of High/Very High can definitely buy you some extra FPS. Sun Soft Shadows Off, On, High, Very High Sun Soft Shadows is basically like anti-aliasing for shadows cast by the sun. Shadows do look noticeably less jaggy with this feature turned on, but if you're in need of a few extra frames, it won't kill you to turn it off. Ambient Occlusion Off, On, HBAO+ If the objects in a game were like the contours of an object in a sketch, ambient occlusion is like the shading an artist would use to bring out the details. Ambient occlusion helps accentuate the contours of just about every object in the game to create a better sense of depth. We highly recommend leaving this on. The game just doesn't look as impressive without it. If you've got a dozen extra frames to spend on quality, switching this setting to HBAO+ (Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion) will yield even better results. This setting is computationally expensive, so we recommend leaving this setting to On unless you've got some serious graphics muscle to help kick it up a notch. Depth of Field Off, On, Very High If you've never taken a photography course, the idea of depth of field may be a little foreign to you. Don't worry, it's an easy enough idea to wrap your head around. Depth of field has to do with the focal plane of a lens. A lens can only ever focus to a given distance. Depth of field determines how far away objects can be from that plane while still remaining in focus. A large depth of field means that almost everything will be in focus (think of a landscape photo), while a narrow depth of field will make everything in front of or beyond the plane look more blurry (think of a close-up of a flower). This setting determines how much processing will be allocated to creating a depth-of-field lens effect. For some, it may not matter, since the effect is often subtle. However, the setting does add a little polish to the way the game feels, so we recommend leaving this set to On unless you're really pressed for frames—and even then, the difference in performance is generally not very big. Level of Detail Low, Medium, High, Very High The level of detail is a very vague setting, but an important one. It controls the number, draw distance, and quality of object meshes in the game. Higher settings require more processing power and memory, while lower settings can create good savings in terms of compute power. In our tests, we found that Medium is really the lowest you want to go with this setting. While we were testing the Syria level in the game, we noticed that this setting directly affected how lush the environment looked. Level of Detail set to Low. Level of Detail set to Medium. Level of Detail set to High. Level of Detail set to Very High. On top of that, we noticed that some objects like piles of bones simply disappeared at a distance when this was set to low. For this reason, we recommend keeping this setting at Medium unless playability becomes an issue. Tessellation On, Off Tessellation helps details like these engravings pop. Tessellation is a fancy word that describes the subdivision of polygons into smaller polygons. Wait, what? Three-dimensional objects in a games are first rendered by drawing polygons, which are then covered with a texture. The fewer the polygons in an object, the more blocky it looks (think of a cube). The more polygons (or sides) you add to the object, the more round or defined its characteristics can be (think of going from a dodecahedron to a sphere). Tessellation is basically a way to use texture to take a flat object and add depth, by creating a bunch of additional polygons. It looks great, but it takes a bunch of computing power to do it. In graphics engines, tessellation is usually only done fairly close to the player (or "camera"), since there's no need to display details the player won't notice. Tessellation is great to have on, but it won't kill you if it's off either. The Medium preset, which we think looks pretty darn good at 1440p, has Tessellation turned off by default. Screen Space Reflections On, Off This setting determines whether or not the game will attempt to use ray tracing (produce reflections on water and other reflective surfaces) when it needs to. This can get pretty expensive for things like water, but most of the time it's not too big of a deal. We don't think it's the end of the world if you turn it off, but it does look awfully nice when you notice it. If you can spare a few frames, we say keep it enabled. Dynamic Foliage Low, Medium, High You know how plants tend to move when you or an animal brush past them? That's what dynamic foliage is in Rise of the Tomb Raider. The higher this setting is set to, the more plants will tend to move around. It's a cool effect that adds to the realism, but we think you can get away with this set to Low or Medium without much worry. Bloom On, Off Bloom enables or disables the bloom effect when transitioning from dark to light areas. You know that painful contrast between sitting in a dark room and walking out a door into a bright, sunny day that makes you wonder if you're part vampire for just a second? That's what the bloom effect tries to emulate. You can take it or leave it, but it won't destroy your frame rate to leave it on. Vignette Blur On, Off The vignette blur is a slight blur effect around the edges of the screen. We don't think it's necessary for playability or for the aesthetic integrity of the game, so we turn it off. Motion Blur On, Off Motion blur helps objects look like they have a greater sense of speed when moving. We like to keep it enabled, but if you're really trying to eke out a few extra frames, it's one more effect that's more like icing on the cake. PureHair Off, On, Very High Get used to looking at Lara's hair. You'll be doing it a lot. PureHair is one of those effects that can get pretty expensive, but we try to enable it anyway. Since Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person game, you'll end up spending a lot of time looking at Lara's ponytail. PureHair helps make hair in the game look more realistic by simulating the physics for each strand of hair. That's quite demanding, but we think it's one of the nice touches that makes the cinematic scenes pop. If you're wondering, PureHair was created by Eidos Labs as a modification of AMD's TressFX. Tomb Raider 2013 was one of the first games to use TressFX, and with AMD having released the code to the open source community, Eidos was able to improve the feature. Of course, if you don't care about how Lara's (or anyone else's in the game, for that matter) hair looks, you can get a few extra frames by disabling this option. We recommend disabling it for midrange graphics cards, since there are other core effects and settings you should be prioritizing. Lens Flare On, Off Didn't anyone ever tell you not to look at the sun? This option should be pretty obvious. If you're reminded of Michael Bay every time you see a lens flare, feel free to turn this one off. If you like your lenses to refract light when pointed directly at a light source, feel free to leave this turned on. It's not terribly expensive in most scenes, since you'll be rummaging though a lot of dark places anyway. Screen Effects On, Off A little motion blur combined with screen effects helps make the scene more immersive. Screen effects are the spatters of dirt, water, and blood that appear to hit the lens of the "camera." Rise of the Tomb Raider also uses a slight film grain. The effects do add some grittiness to the game, so we like to leave this set to On; plus, these aren't particularly taxing to render. Whew! Still with us? There's more to know about Lara Croft's latest game than just the raw settings. Next, we'll discuss what we found out about the engine and our hardware from our testing. A tomb raider is a tough mistress We learned a few things about Rise of the Tomb Raider from our testing. The first was that this game can be really demanding in some scenes. There's a lot going on in the world of Lara Croft. Crystal Dynamics took a lot of time crafting all the little details in the game, which can be a blessing or curse, depending on how you look at it. We first tested the game on the Midrange gaming rig we built in November. The PC is no slouch, boasting an Intel i7-6700K, a GeForce GTX 980, and 8GB DDR4. Normally, this rig can handle just about anything at a resolution of 2560x1440. We were surprised to find the 980 falling under 60fps in many areas of the levels we used fortested on. The frame rate struggle is real at 1440p. Things didn't look much better for our Turbo rig when we dialed the resolution up to 4K. Even when we dialed back to the medium preset and turned off anti-aliasing, we still struggled to climb north of 50fps in some zones. That's with an i7-5820K, 32GB of memory and two GTX 980 Tis working in SLI. (It's worth noting that when we turned the resolution down to 1440p on this rig, we didn't see frame rates dip below the high 60s while using the Very High preset.) So what gives? It feels like the game simply isn't optimized for the PC. That's not to say it's not playable; it's just a battle to stay above 60fps in any given zone. The game remains very playable, and in most areas where you'll need a quick reaction time (like running from disaster while jumping over stuff), the frame rates we saw stayed in the mid-50's and low 60's for most of it. It seems like when the engine is showing off (entering a tomb, presenting a temple, or playing a cinematic), the frame rate drops as well, often locking in at 30fps. The longer you're going to be looking at something, it feels like more power is spent on quality of frames over quantity. Cutscenes look great, but they also run closer to 30fps than 60fps. With all of that said, it bears remembering that wildly fluctuating frame rates can lead to unsightly tearing. We definitely recommend using a G-Sync or FreeSync monitor, if you have the option. Unless you're running a beastly rig (and maybe even only at 1440p), your frame rates will frequently drop below 60fps—and sometimes even 50fps—in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Even with all this gloomy doominess, Rise of the Tomb Raider is still very playable at the lower frame rates. Rarely did we see frame rates slip below 30fps. Of course, you can always pretend to be a console gamer and set VSync to On, and you'll be all set. So how did we get our rigs to run satisfactorily? Let's see. The Midrange The Blueprints Midrange rig is midrange in name only. This rig is designed to be built around a price of $1,500, and includes a water-cooled i7-6700K and a GTX 980. We designed this PC to be a go-to for 1440p gaming, though Rise of the Tomb Raider had us doubting. We spent the most amount of time trying to tweak this rig, clawing our way toward 60fps. We got to that mark, but only by making some sacrifices that we wouldn't have to in other games. Here's what we used: Setting Value Resolution 2560x1440 Anti-aliasing FXAA Texture Quality Medium Anisotropic Filter 2x Shadow Quality Medium Sun Soft Shadows Off Ambient Occlusion On Depth of Field On Level of Detail Medium Tessellation On Screen Space Reflections On Dynamic Foliage Medium Bloom On Vignette Blur Off Motion Blur On PureHair On Lens Flares On Screen Effects On The Turbo The Blueprints Turbo PC is built to be a statement of power. While still under the prices of many boutique PC builders, the Turbo is a baby brother to the Dream Machine. It runs Star Wars: Battlefront at 4K without breaking a sweat, and scored an impressive average of 77fps on the Tomb Raider benchmark at 4K. That's pretty awesome, but it's kind of to be expected when you have two GTX 980 Tis in SLI. Along with 32GB of DDR4 and a six-core i7-5820K, this rig happily takes whatever you can throw its way. However, Rise of the Tomb Raider really put the machine through its paces. We were able to get frame rates that rarely dipped below 70fps at 1440p with these settings: Setting Value Resolution 2560x1440 Anti-aliasing FXAA Preset Very High Meanwhile, this rig couldn't keep up with Lara at 4K, dropping to 40fps in some zones with the following settings: Setting Value Resolution 3840x2160 Anti-aliasing Off Preset Medium The Budget Gamer Our Budget Gamer build is only "budget" when compared to the awesome power of the Turbo and Midrange. With a target total cost of $800-$850, the Budget Gamer is designed to be a machine that will handle most games at 1080p. When it comes to Rise of the Tomb Raider, the system is quite capable of running the game at full HD. With this configuration, frame rates stayed at or near 60fps, dropping into the mid-50s from time to time. Only rarely did rates drop into the 40s. Setting Value Resolution 1920x1080 Antialiasing FXAA Texture Quality High Anisotropic Filter 2x Shadow Quality Medium Sun Soft Shadows Off Ambient Occlusion On Depth of Field On Level of Detail High Tessellation On Screen Space Reflections On Dynamic Foliage Low Bloom On Vignette Blur Off Motion Blur On PureHair Off Lens Flare On Screen Effects On The thing about gaming at 1080p is that objects can start to look surprisingly low-res after you've been gaming at 1440p or above. To compensate, we made sure to invest some opwer and memory into the high resolution textures. We also turned off PureHair, which gave us about 3-5 frames per second right away. Final thoughts Rise of the Tomb Raider is still a very new title, so we may yet see patches or driver updates that boost performance on the PC. This game isn't an FPS, and as such isn't designed to keep a constant frame rate in every scene. To drive this point home, the game set the default graphics preset for our budget gamer to High. Frankly, it looked great, but that preset wasn't going to allow us to stay consistently near or above 60 fps.  The game is designed well enough that it remains above 30 fps in just about every instance. That said, frame rates like to jump around from zone to zone. Use of VSync and adaptive sync technologies (G-Sync, FreeSync) will help keep tearing under control, and we highly recommend using it if you've got it. Have you played Rise of the Tomb Raider on the PC yet? Let us know what you're running, your settings, and what kind of frame rates you're getting in the comments.

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MMORPG News

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• Albion Online: From F2P to B2P, Plans for Launch & Beyond
• Trove: Changes Incoming to Cubits, Classes & Patrons
• Wartune: Latest Update Focused on Revamping Game Systems
• Vainglory: eSports Off and Running for 2016
• Marvel Heroes 2016: First Wave of 2016 Initiative Launches Today
• Blade & Soul: 1v1 Cup Tournaments to be Part of ESL
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Subscriptions at the Highest Level in Three Years
• General: Fractured Space Free Trial Weekend & a Big Update
• Cabal 2: Chapter 2 - Calamity of War Update to Go Live Tonight
• ARK: Survival Evolved: Latest Update Sends You for a Ride on a Gallimimus
• Camelot Unchained: New, More User-Friendly, Site Debuts
• General: The Test of Time - Champions Online
• Elder Scrolls Online: A Recap and Analysis of All the Recent News
• Swordsman: Slicing & Dicing Its Way Onto Steam
• The Division: Three Expansions + Free Content Coming in First Year
• Armored Warfare: Next Update to Feature Chinese Tanks, New PvP Map & More
• Heroes of the Storm: $500K Pool for Collegiate eSports Champions
• Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen: How a PC Port Should be Done
• Star Trek Online: Happy 6th Anniversary, STO!
• Shroud of the Avatar: Release 26 - It's the Final Countdown
• Elder Scrolls Online: Additional Thieves Guild DLC Details & a New Trailer
• General: GoG.com Enters Early Access Arena
• Crossout: Week of Mass Recruitment Underway - Sign Up for Access

Albion Online: From F2P to B2P, Plans for Launch & Beyond Posted: 28 Jan 2016 12:53 PM PST Recently, Albion Online announced that they'd be dropping the F2P (free to play) payment model in favor of the buy to play (B2P) model used by games like Elder Scrolls Online and Black Desert Online. We sat down with Game Director Robin Henkys to discuss this change, and more about the ongoing plans for launch and beyond.

Trove: Changes Incoming to Cubits, Classes & Patrons Posted: 29 Jan 2016 05:43 AM PST The Trove forum has a new post to proactively warn players about some fairly significant changes coming to three areas: Cubits, Classes & Patrons. The post begins with a discussion of why changes are needed in order to keep the game moving forward and then details the changes that will be coming in the future.

Wartune: Latest Update Focused on Revamping Game Systems Posted: 29 Jan 2016 05:40 AM PST The latest Wartune patch has been deployed that bring a number of reworked systems online including the replacement of old-model buildings with newer, more functional structures. In addition, content has been added that will appeal to both new and veteran players. R2Games is inviting former players to revisit the game to see all of the improvements and new content.

Vainglory: eSports Off and Running for 2016 Posted: 28 Jan 2016 03:32 PM PST Vainglory has taken the mobile eSports genre by storm with last year's teams taking home over $350,000 in prizes and with Super Evil ready to double down for 2016. In addition to over 800 teams taking part in competitive tournaments during the Winter Championship, several teams have been acquired by professional eSports conglomerations, a signal that mobile eSports is on the rise.

Marvel Heroes 2016: First Wave of 2016 Initiative Launches Today Posted: 29 Jan 2016 03:39 AM PST Gazillion Entertainment is ready to unleash the largest update to Marvel Heroes 2016 in the past two years. The update brings community driven improvements as well as new content, controller support, a revamped Deadpool and much more.

Blade & Soul: 1v1 Cup Tournaments to be Part of ESL Posted: 29 Jan 2016 02:56 AM PST ESL has announced that Blade & Soul will become part of its stable of eSports titles. The site will host both North American and European 1v1 Community Cup tournaments set to begin on February 7th. All players of level 15 and above can take part according to region and can sign up on the ESL site.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Subscriptions at the Highest Level in Three Years Posted: 29 Jan 2016 01:04 AM PST As part of the emerging financial picture given by EA during its latest investor report, it has been revealed that Star Wars: The Old Republic is at its highest subscription level in the past three years. It is likely that interest in SWTOR spike in the final quarter of 2015 due to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

General: Fractured Space Free Trial Weekend & a Big Update Posted: 28 Jan 2016 03:25 PM PST Edge Case Games has a special treat for those who have been looking for a great strategy MMO to try out. This weekend, interested players can try out Fractured Space on Steam for free and keep the game after the weekend ends. In addition, a large update has been applied that introduces gameplay enhancement, a Tech Tree reset and much more.

Cabal 2: Chapter 2 - Calamity of War Update to Go Live Tonight Posted: 27 Jan 2016 05:12 PM PST ESTsoft has announced that the Cabal 2 update called Chapter 2: Calamity of War will be going live later tonight. Players will be able to journey past the Great Wall and will be able to take advantage of a 50% boost to Abysmo, Honor, Conquest and Challenge points. Panda Masks will also be on special sale for 1 eCoin.

ARK: Survival Evolved: Latest Update Sends You for a Ride on a Gallimimus Posted: 28 Jan 2016 03:11 PM PST Among other nifty new stuff added in the latest ARK: Survival Evolved Steam update, players can check out the new three-seater Gallimimus mount. In addition, players can learn more about the Electric Prod Stunner, check out the greenhouse tileset and the new Swat-style armor.

Camelot Unchained: New, More User-Friendly, Site Debuts Posted: 28 Jan 2016 01:39 PM PST A brand spanking new Camelot Unchained site has opened up for business today. It features a lot more user-friendly interfaces designed to put all of the best information at your fingertips.

General: The Test of Time - Champions Online Posted: 28 Jan 2016 09:47 AM PST Rob is back with another entry in the Test of Time series. Next up? Champions Online.

Elder Scrolls Online: A Recap and Analysis of All the Recent News Posted: 27 Jan 2016 02:36 PM PST These last couple of weeks have been fantastic for The Elder Scrolls Online. A plethora of information has come out about the future of ESO and the first DLC of this year, Thieves Guild. Let me tell you, almost everything looks exceptionally promising. I say almost because there was some bad news that was released. So let's discuss the bad stuff first and then get into the good stuff.

Swordsman: Slicing & Dicing Its Way Onto Steam Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:51 AM PST Perfect World Entertainment has announced that Swordsman Online has made its way to the Steam gaming platform. The Steam version comes with new achievements and launches with all of the updates applied since launch in 2014.

The Division: Three Expansions + Free Content Coming in First Year Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:27 AM PST Ubisoft has laid out the details on the next year of content coming to The Division after it launches in March. Pass holders can expect three expansions that are rooted in group game play mechanics.

Armored Warfare: Next Update to Feature Chinese Tanks, New PvP Map & More Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:10 AM PST Obsidian Entertainment and My.com have announced that the next major update to Armored Warfare will be available on February 11th. The update will feature Tiers 3-8 in the Chinese tank line, a new "Coastal Threat" PvP map, an overhauled PvE rewards system and a brand new v2.0 Matchmaking algorithm.

Heroes of the Storm: $500K Pool for Collegiate eSports Champions Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:06 AM PST Blizzard has unleashed the first information about the 2016 Heroes of the Dorm tournament that will see students competing to win a share of $500,000 in tuition awards and other prizes throughout the competitive season. Coverage of Heroes of the Dorm will take place on ESPN Network with live coverage on both cable channels and online.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen: How a PC Port Should be Done Posted: 27 Jan 2016 12:28 PM PST Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen for the PC is an example of a port done right, with slightly updated graphics, an improved framerate, and all of the additional content included. All of this combined easily makes this the definitive version of the game. Take note developers: THIS is how you do a PC port. Just try not to take so long next time, Capcom.

Star Trek Online: Happy 6th Anniversary, STO! Posted: 28 Jan 2016 09:59 AM PST Star Trek Online Executive Producer Stephen Ricossa has taken to the blog-o-sphere to pen a happy anniversary note to the game and to reflect on the past. Ricossa takes time to explore a bit of STO's earliest history as well as a more lengthy look at 2015 and the big changes brought to the game via updates throughout the year.

Shroud of the Avatar: Release 26 - It's the Final Countdown Posted: 27 Jan 2016 11:54 AM PST If you're Lord British, you make games. It's what you do... If you're a developer for Shroud of the Avatar, you release your 26th monthly update, and announce the final wipe. Red Thomas took a trip to Austin to find out more, but unfortunately the airlines lost his luggage, which included his selection of decent segues.

Elder Scrolls Online: Additional Thieves Guild DLC Details & a New Trailer Posted: 28 Jan 2016 07:15 AM PST Bethesda has released a new trailer to shine the light on additional information about the Elder Scrolls Online Thieves Guild DLC. Set to be released on March 7th for PC (March 22nd for XBox One, March 23rd for PlayStation 4), viewers can get a look at some of the new locations featured in the forthcoming DLC.

General: GoG.com Enters Early Access Arena Posted: 28 Jan 2016 07:07 AM PST Good Old Games has taken another significant step into the multi-games platform arena by announcing that it will be hosting a curated list of early access games in development. According to the site, the games are 'excellent hand-picked games with no questions asked refunds' if needed.

Crossout: Week of Mass Recruitment Underway - Sign Up for Access Posted: 28 Jan 2016 06:57 AM PST According the Crossout Facebook page, fans looking to see what a vehicular MMO is like can get signed up during this week's "mass recruitment event". Those who have already registered to participate will get guaranteed access and those who sign up between now and February 7th will have a "significantly increased" chance to be chosen.

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