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NVIDIA: there's nothing 'Ultra' about Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks unless you add Kepler
This is a vaguely awkward message for NVIDIA to be putting out. On one hand, the company is best buddies with Intel and is hoping to see its next-gen GPUs bundled with a large portion of the Ivy Bridge notebooks that will ship this year. But to reach that target, it must risk irking Chipzilla by emphasizing the limitations of Ivy Bridge's integrated graphics. That's exactly what happened at a recent presentation, when NVIDIA told us there'll be "nothing Ultra" about the performance of a regular Ivy Bridge Ultrabook because the integrated HD 4000 graphics will only handle around 43 percent of current games. By contrast, if you add in a GeForce GT 640M you'll find that 100 percent of current games are playable with frame rates over 30fps and high detail settings, including Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, Crysis 2 and many others. If you leave the lightweight Ultrabook spec behind and combine Ivy Bridge with a GT 670M GPU then you can go even higher -- as we just discovered in our review of the MSI's GT70 gaming laptop. Fortunately, Intel was pretty magnanimous about HD 4000 when it briefed us, and readily accepted that enthusiasts will still want discrete graphics, so we don't imagine the slide above will cause too many hurt feelings.
MMObility: How to real-time-strategize your way into my heart
If there is one thing I can appreciate in my gaming choices, it's flexibility. I want to be able to not only do what I want but do it when I want. If I want to avoid combat or other players, the game should allow me to do that. I don't want to bother with things that annoy me. If I am in the mood for tweaking my character, sure, I'll do that, but I don't want it to be forced on me by a pushy fellow player or virtual progression wall. In other words, give me as many choices as possible and I will love you. Once I discovered the world of browser-based real-time-strategy games, I found a large number of games that provided me with almost everything I needed. While I normally preferred more "immersive" play, I found that the miniature armies and grand scale of most of these newer titles filled in my imagination just fine. In fact, the more I play with them, the more I am reminded of tabletop gaming as a teen. Those were glorious times, despite the fact that I am now, and always have been, horrible at war. Let me tell you all about my recent obsession with browser-based real-time-strategy MMOs. (That's quite a mouthful.) Click past the cut!
Rise and Shiny recap: GhostX
There are quite a few side-scrolling action MMOs out there these days, so when I decided to take on yet another one, I thought that I might regret it. As soon as I downloaded GhostX and loaded it up, however, I knew I was in for a different experience than anything found in the other side-scrollers I have played in the past. First of all, GhostX is set in some kind of futuristic setting, complete with nanobots and strange mutant creatures. The look of the game is distinctively Anime, but the good kind. When I think Anime, I think incredibly bad creations like Naruto or Pokemon -- stuff that literally makes me cringe. GhostX is the kind that just looks like a toy, like you could reach through the screen and manipulate the characters and story yourself. Click past the cut to read more!
