The Full Nerd 2021 hardware awards...

This may be the only way to actually have a PC in a few years' time...

Yesterday, I watched the latest episode of the excellent Full Nerd Show, presented by PC World staff. They covered their favourite tech for the year in the categories of CPU, GPU, PC case, "Accessory", Laptop, PC game, Best innovation, and Worst Trend. I highly recommend a watch of this episode in particular as there's a lively debate over the CPU and GPU picks but I recommened subscribing to their channel in general as The Full Nerd is always of high quality.

However, I did have some thoughts about those two hotly debated categories and on what my own picks woud be for the CPU and GPU of the year....

Is AMD in trouble? R5 5600X vs i5-12600K meta analysis...

 

Yeah, I splurged on a stock photo license for this piece...

Dear friends, 

We are gathered here today to lay to rest our dear friend, Zen 3. Zen 3 was received in this world in a mostly positive way, despite their parent, AMD, charging more for them than was expected or deemed seemly. However, Zen 3's life was cut dramatically short on the 04th November 2021 after just one year  on the market, when Intel released their 12th generation of processors, previously codenamed "Alder Lake".

And so, we pay our respects to Zen 3. Ashes to ashes, dust to- OMG, it's alive! It's STILL alive!

Post Thoughts: PC Gaming Simulator

 

A couple of weekends ago, PC Building Simulator was offered for free on the EPIC Games Store. I was intrigued enough to check it out but wasn't super interested in it other than to satisfy that curiosity. The first thing to note is that this game's name is terrible!! It only partially describes what the game is about and, at least for me, led me to the wrong conclusion.

So let's take a look at what I liked and didn't like about this title. As usual: here be spoilers!

Consoles aren't good enough for Ray Tracing...

[From Henrik, via Wikipedia]

I remember seeing articles and thought pieces before the release of the current gen console hardware regarding their ability to perform ray tracing (RT, for short) in games. Overall, I think they were pretty pessimistic on the whole and, especially towards release, the Series S was never really considered as a serious RT machine. 

However, since release we've had several games that have proven that there was little to fear and that, if integrated at an early stage in a game's design or within the engine design, ray tracing is perfectly possible. 

So, it's surprising to see this article on Tom's Hardware stating the opposite.

Analyse This: The Story of Hyper Light Drifter... (Part 4)

Into the unknown...

I noticed that, recently, this series had been getting a few views again and I remembered that I had practically written two more entries and never posted them. So I figured that I'd finish what I'd started...

From here on out, we're in pure speculative and analytical territory. These are all observations and connections I've made based on what's in the game... but they're just that: Things my mind sees.

Just a reminder that this series discusses aspects of the game Hyper Light Drifter and will veer wildly into spoiler territory from the get-go.

Enjoy!