Gaming Tech (A @qurator Monday Mission Entry)
I have been a nerdy gamer dude for the better part of the last three decades. As a student and a young adult, I lived through the huge leaps and bounds that every year brought with the PC gaming space. A new chipset and CPU and a new GPU practically every year, offering leaps and bounds of smoother and prettier performance and the promise of more realistic and deep gaming.
I never really was much of a console gamer though. My brother really got into it, but I'm afraid that I just really hated the idea of the controller setup vs the keyboard and mouse. Plus, the games on PC were just so much better than the testosterone fantasies of the Xbox and Playstation crowd. However, I did have a soft spot for the Nintendo consoles... even getting a little DS ages back (which I have to resurrect and give to my oldest daughter!).
Most of the time, my gaming hardware desires have fare outstripped my actually financial ability to acquire cool hardware. These days, I'm an adult with a slightly better income stream... but with dependents... however, the best thing about these last few years of PC gaming (and gaming in general...) is the fact that the hardware wars are essentially over... gaming technology in the form of CPU/GPU upgrades has pretty much hit a plateau and you are generally going to be happy gaming on hardware that is a couple of years old (as long as you don't mind a reduced resolution and image quality!).
So, with that in mind I'm giving you a little tour of my current gaming hardware... it is a bit of a hardware nerd out! (I'm going to save you the photos of stacked old hardware and various bits of cobbled together Franken-computers!).
PC Gaming on tour
For many years, I would have a powerful but heavy gaming laptop to lug around with me when I was travelling for work! However, after a while... I really got sick of lugging a slab of metal around. It was the around the time of the onset of new thin and light laptops that I started looking for a replacement. This time, I was looking for something that would be more of a decent productivity machine (nice to type on and to carry... with more than the 1 hour battery life of most gaming machines!) with some grunt under the hood. However, the grunt would be secondary to the other factors.
I ended up settling on this XPS15 with a decent enough GTX 1050 powering the graphics and also a decent enough Intel processor. It has been a great machine for the past couple of years, although... I am starting to feel the itch to upgrade again and hand this lovely machine to my wife!
The CPU/GPU combination is more than enough to run a whole host of games that aren't FPS based (so some RPGs and that sort of thing!). However, it is a machine that is prone to overheating a bit when it is running full on... so, there was some tweaking required. A simple software undervolting and also cracking open the machine to apply proper thermal pasting to the CPU/GPU heat sinks and a some thermal pads to cool some badly ventilated capacitors.
If I do upgrade, I am really looking seriously at some of the thin and light gaming machines out there... There are some really decent ones in the 15 inch category with some pretty serious horsepower and build quality (I'm looking a bit at the Alienware, Razer and Aero...).
Gaming at Home
It is insane that I can build a kick arse gaming PC based around the ITX form factor that is about the same size as a ream of A4 paper! Absolutely unbelievable... there used to be a time when this sort of power would have to be housed in a much larger tower machine. Still, there are some disadvantages to this setup... it is hard to replace components as the space is at a huge premium here... so, everything has to fit really well... and whilst building... lots of cursing and cut fingers! There really is very little space... and metal is sharp!
Still, I am really happy that this machine has served me really well for the past few years... it will make a good hand me down for my oldest girl when she wants a computer. That said, the next time I upgrade... I'm going back to a gaming tower! I prefer to have the excess space to just fit in extra bits and pieces without worrying about clearances and power constraints! That said... it is pretty damn elegant!
Some Nostalgia
Of course, I still retain some nostalgia for the Nintendo way of console gaming... and I have to say that with the Switch... they have really hit it out of the park! I was pretty disappointed when Nvidia had announced the cancellation of their 2nd iteration of the Shield Tablet... with the news that Nintendo would be launching something new on that chipset instead... however, in hindsight... WOW!
A mere few years ago, it would have been completely unimaginable for a handheld console to be running these types of games! ... and yet, here we are in the future!... and it is a great place to be! If only I had the time to play all the games in my backlog....
Splinterlands (aka the best blockchain game out there!)
Humble Bundle
Have you heard of Humble Bundle? It's a place to get some really great deals on Games, e-books and comic bundles. However, if you sign up for a Humble Bundle Subscription (12 USD per month) you get some really nice bonuses!
- A 100+ USD bundle of games delivered direct to you each month, redeemable on Steam, Uplay or direct download (depending on the game). This includes recent Triple A games!
- Access to the Humble Bundle "Trove", a list of 60 games (and growing...) which are free to play as long as you remain a subscriber!
- Additional Discounts on the Humble Bundle store, with the choice of supporting charities, Humble Bundle or developers in whatever percentage that you wish!
Humble Bundle Subscriptions, it's a no brainer for the dedicated gamer!
Account banner by jimramones
I'm looking to get a new laptop in the not too distant future. I'm thinking of getting an Alienware but it's more an emotional attachment. I've wanted an Alienware since before Dell bought them. In a gaming laptop, one of the most important things to me would seem to be cooling. So many laptops seem to overheat and throttle when pushed hard. I want one that doesn't do that. No tweeking required. Thin and light is not a necessity.
The m15 looks like a pretty decent one... I am always pretty keen to get that extra little bit of performance or battery life... so, I will always end up tweaking the software or cracking open the casing....
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