The Source engine, despite the many updates to it, is showing its age as shown here. While I am curious about why the toilet didn't have any shadows to it, the Source engine is pretty finnicky, at least for me. Sometimes when I play TF2, half the map shows the infamous purple and black checker pattern. Perhaps Episode 3 was delayed to introduce a new engine?
It's a pity that the graphics part is a bit lacking. What I mean is optimization. Stroll around in Dalaran and even the mightiest rigs suffer 30-50 FPS. Problem is that WoW uses too much CPU power instead of off shoring it to the GPU. With Directx 11 cards being dirt cheap, surely they could have splurged.
Video game consoles today are just modified PC's. They have a motherboard, a CPU, a GPU, RAM, and a HDD. A PC has the same thing. (oh and a disc drive). It is pointless saying your Xbox 360 is "superior" when in actuality it is a modified PC running a custom OS, with its hardware designed specifically for games.
I'm not in the Army. Why do I have to wave my arms around willy nilly to play a game? As my friend who came from Iraq said "I spent years working my butt off and lugging around gear and a rifle. Now that I come home, I'm working my buttoff and carrying a plastic white controller as a rifle to play games. At least there is no gear."
No duh gaming isn't a major focus of CES. It is after all a tech showcase of upcoming/prototype consumer electronics, not a gaggleslew of video games. Gaming hardware is welcome, but I doubt consoles would get much show due to their very nature. Tegra 2 is fascinating and Intel's touch screen internet display system goes to show how strong the Core i7 is (never knew it could be pushed that hard). I was hoping for word of StarCraft II branded stuff from Razer but I suppose we'll have to wait for E3 for that.
zografos123, you are forgetting the versatility that a computer brings. Most people who don't realize it are still in high school but once you hit college and graduate school, you would be amazed what "gaming" hardware can translate into real life applications. For example for my medical research, the CUDA processors in nVidia graphics cards allow me to render in 3d various images that otherwise would sometimes take up to a hour to render. Hospitals where I work especially make sure of this technology (and yes we play games on them, in order to relieve work stress). In the end, as a working adult, I start to understand why video game consoles are in the end, just toys. Yes they have multimedia whizbang and etc but that really isn't the main focus of the product and in the end, I buy a nice Xbox 360 for my 6 year old nephew, not for myself.
I don't really care about graphics comparisons that much. I have a PC. Honestly if you are sucking up a console for its graphics, I feel sorry for you.
You probably see increases with a SSD in a PC because of the way SSD's are designed and how the controllers function. I doubt that Samsung would bother devoting millions in extra research into providing optimizations for a Playstation 3. Not to mention Sony has to deliver on the software side which would be very difficult for them. Regardless if you have a laptop or a PC, a SSD is a worthwhile investment as it removes the last major bottleneck in a PC system, that being the hard drive. The announcement of SATA 3 and better efficient controllers and speeds for SSD's along with dropping prices for SLC SSD's is also welcome news.
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