Analyse This: The Technical Performance of Hogwart's Legacy...

I've never really been a fan of the Harry Potter series - I've never read the books, though I have seen most of the films and thought that they were okay. However, I was immediately interested in Hogwart's Legacy when I saw the game for the first time due to the graphical effects used (i.e. ray tracing) and also once I saw the recommended system requirements for the game. I wanted to test it to see why the requirements were so relatively high and to see how they run.

This isn't a review of the game - I might do one of those at a later point, this is a look at how the game scales with certain system resources...

The power curve of the RX 6800... and improving system energy use.

Again, literally what happens...

It may have escaped your notice that I picked up an RX 6800 last November. It's not been entirely smooth sailing, however: Two inexplicably dead DisplayPorts later*, I think I've managed to get a handle on the way in which to scale the RDNA 2 architecture.

*Completely unlinked to any tinkering on my part - since they happened when bringing the computer back from sleep - I don't keep my PC in sleep mode any longer. Never had a problem with it on my RTX 3070!

Last year, I looked at the power scaling of the RTX 3070 because I was conscious about getting the most out of my technology, with a focus on efficiency (both power and performance). So, I'm applying that same focus to the new piece of kit in my arsenal. Come along for the ride...

Analyse This: Forspoken Demo analysis...

I've been eagerly anticipating the release of the first DirectStorage title, mostly to see whether my prediction and/or understanding of the tech was correct or not. However, it seems like this particular DirectStorage implementation, much like Forsaken, itself, is a bit of a disappointment...

In the end, I did not splash out on the main game, given the very mixed reception and absolutely jam-packed release schedule for the first quarter of the year - I chose to spend my limited money on other titles that I actually might want to play/test, instead.

Luckily for me, Sqaure Enix released a PC demo and, while I am not entirely sure that everything is exactly the same between it and the main release, it is what I am able to test in this scenario. Perhaps the conclusions I will draw are limited because of it but I do sort of question whether there will be large codebase or engine optimisations available for the main release that are not part of the demo... But, let's see.

Next Gen PC gaming requirements (2022 update)

It's time for the yearly round-up of game recommended system specifications trending data! 

First up, I want to pay tribute to the person who helped inspire me to begin this yearly endeavour. It was his catalogging of the games released over a ten year period on Steam that jump-started this whole thing. He will be missed...

However, games keep being released and keep requiring more demanding hardware... so my sisyphean task remains.

Let's jump in!

Yearly DirectStorage rant (Part 3)...

Yeah, I know this is getting bothersome and tiring but, as we finally approach the release date of Forspoken - the first game to include DirectStorage as a way of managing data from the storage device on your PC - I've noticed a trend of people posting about the topic in a very uncritical manner.

So, let's take a quick look at that and let me tell you my doubts...