Tag: TV

PC gaming is not just for the couch potatoes. The great thrilling pc games are for everyone who wants to get a thrill moving the joystick and conquering the obstacles. Boys and young men who like to get some thrill and fun without getting their trousers dirty.

Well before there was pc gaming, young men used to go out into the fields playing football, climbing trees, jumping into rivers, rolling down slopes, climbing hills, heading brawls, and all the things that were normal fun for boys of a different generation.

Now the fights are usually conformed to pc gaming or gaming with game consoles for that matter. It seems girls are not as much interested in pc gaming as boys and men are. Or is it a discriminatory observation? Any way, most households can see boys spending time pc gaming, while girls spending their time in the kitchen, at the garden, before the TV, and filling their scrapbooks.

Video games, brick games, puzzle games, there isn’t a game category that is not available for PC gaming. The choices of PC gaming is endless and you can’t possibly try all the PC games available today. By the time you try a small percentage of games, the pc gaming industry would have expanded beyond your reach. Anyway, it is fun to spend hours and days before the pc, tying a new game and remaining unsuccessful cracking the final frontier after one month of toiling.

PC gaming is not always a one man affair. Sometimes it can be interactive too. With broadband internet becoming norm of the day, you can play high graphics games with your friend, who can be at Sydney or in Paris, just like would play face to face. You can get the thrills of challenging your friend, without having to feel embarrassed if defeated. Online interactive games go far beyond the online chess games available at hundreds of different websites.

You can find dozens (sometimes hundreds) of titles at your local mall, local computer centre and online. Free to download games, paid to download, and games available in DVDs and CDs, the world of pc gaming is quite fascinating one, you don’t ever have to play the same game more than you like to. If you are fed up with one game, just throw it away and there are dozens of others on the queue, vying for your attention.

Good graphics card, sound card, joy stick, etc are needed for pc gaming. The speed and memory of the computer also are important components of good gaming experience. Computers that support super speed games are in demand.

Reading this you might think pc gaming is a post 2000 phenomena. It is not. PC gaming has been around since 1960s. Spacewar! of 1961 is the first PC game. Several games have come and gone since then. The unfettered interest to pc gaming knows no bounds. It can’t be explained. Only people who spend time before their pc, gaming could understand what it means to be pc gaming.

Sheer nostalgia. Remembrance of the days, when there were no Play Stations, we were devoid of the 3-D gaming experience and graphic cards, gaming encounters needed to pass through a long connection sequences of console to TV and remote controllers. There existed cartridges, and Super Mario ruled the world. In addition, there was Tank, straightforward entertainment, where all you needed to do was to control your given vehicle, inside a specific area, blow up your enemies into ashes and complete stage after stage.

It was some serious fun back then. You would have to maneuver in the four main directions, loaded with just one gun, and you have enemies lining up against you. Moreover, you were supposed to save a target. Sometimes there would be top ups, which would either upgrade or degrade your status. Another main attraction was the stages. It was compilation of a variety of things, from bricks to iron blocks, to water to forests, to cement roads, all in one stage. As you cross one stage, the next stage gets tougher and more challenging. Moreover, the view would be from the top, for a better maneuvering of your move.

However, it all went through the drain. The cycle of nature, you may say. The old makes way for the new. The whole of gaming sector was occupied with much more advanced interactive experiences. Day in and day out, we were being fed with more and more inputs. We started to get completely involved. They urged us to use our brains. Stress busters became more of competitive game now.

It is often said, being childish is good. Then someone took it too seriously, for our good. A new version was developed for our own old Tank. It was a fusion of the old game with the new interface. It had more colors; it became more attractive, interactive. You got more guns, more air attacks. Still the aim was the same; kill them all, as Metallica would have said.

Playing it turned out to be, altogether, a new experience. You did not need any brains; you did not need to be Einstein for it. Sit, shoot and you are done; all you need it a good power of attention. Probably this was the reason too that it became a success.

Therefore, the next time you are aggravated to the core and need to fun, sheer, pure, plain fun and need some place to take your frustration out, you do know what and how you need to do the needed. So yeah, Blow them up indeed.

The gaming console has led the way for living room entertainment since the dawn of computer games, with diminutive size and low price bolstering its appeal. With the advance of powerful pint-sized PC systems are the days of gaming consoles numbered, can a do-it-all mini PC break through into peoples’ living rooms?

On the face of it, a gaming console seems far cheaper with a much lower initial outlay. Currently, an Xbox 360 console package with a game and controller can be snapped up for just 150, whilst an cheap gaming PC would cost at least 300 – 400. This is a very clever marketing push employed by the manufacturers of Xbox and PS3. In fact, both vendors lose money when a console is purchased as the development and manufacturing costs are much higher.

It is important to realise that the profit element comes from the games, online subscriptions and extra peripherals. The prices for console games are about 20% – 30% higher than PC games, and there are no online subscription charges when gaming on a PC. If these elements are taken into account, then over a lifespan of 5 years of gaming on a console you would spend as much if not more money in total in comparison to buying a cheap mini PC.

Putting aside the price factor, it is undeniable that a PC has much more to offer than a gaming console. A mini PC connected to a big screen in the living room can become an entertainment hub able to access the internet, check emails, play music, watch and record TV, play DVDs, load media from an external HDD or any portable device, play online media and do much more besides.

The performance of even a mini PC is always at the cutting-edge compared to a gaming console. An Xbox360 or PS3 uses a graphics processor that was developed over 5 years ago; it is less powerful than even the most basic of modern graphics cards. Graphics card development is such that a top-of-the-range model a year ago can be out-classed by a mid-range model today. With a gaming console, you will not be able to appreciate a game at its top quality settings and resolution. Although playable, the game would never leave you immersed with its realism and depth, which is a shame as the latest games are developed to give you that wow factor, except when playing on a gaming console.

The components used in a gaming console are proprietary technology, which means that carrying out any upgrades or repairs is simply not possible. Also there is not much scope for design customisation, although there are firms that will paint a console or controller to make it unique, making these modifications usually voids the warranty as a seal would be broken. In comparison, any PC can be easily upgraded or modified, a mini PC can be opened up and a part replaced or upgraded to give it a performance boost.

There are some advantages that gaming consoles have that a PC will find hard to compete with. A console has been and always will be very simple and user-friendly. You don’t need to install a game before playing it, you don’t need to worry about downloading the latest updates and drivers before running a game – Even a child can just plug and play! The controllers for consoles are also very easy to get your head round, whilst PC gaming requires a bit of preparation to familiarise yourself with which buttons to use on the keyboard.

Gaming consoles are also perfect for multiplayer fun, where a number of controllers can be hooked up and friends can simultaneously play against each other on the sofa. Popular games for multiplayer action are traditionally fighting games such as Smash Brothers and Street Fighter. PCs are not usually used for playing against friends in the same room, but this can be achieved by connecting USB Xbox360 controllers.

All-in-all, the advantages of the gaming console are the simplicity and user-friendliness, as they are designed for gaming only, a PC would always be less straightforward and demand certain amount of technical nous as it’s designed to do far more, and is inherently complicated.

In conclusion, there are far more advantages of having a mini PC in your living room instead of a gaming console. But this is not appreciated by most people as the low price and intuitiveness of a gaming console will always give it more appeal.

When it comes to gaming through your TV rather than your PC, user expectations of sound and picture quality are higher than ever before and manufacturers of LCD and LED TVs are aware that they must deliver on both of these things if they are to be the number one choice in such a competitive market; so which type of television is better for gaming, LCD or LED?

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs are crystal clear thanks to their high resolution and those models which use an analogue input can be adjusted to the correct pixilation for the game you are playing or the DVD or Blu-Ray player which you are connecting to and playing films through. The high intensity of light produced using this technology makes for particularly bright images, which are effective in all light conditions but really come into their own in brightly lit rooms, a condition which can wash out images on standard CRT televisions.

As well as being brighter than CRT TVs, LCD TVs and LED TVs are both easier to watch and reduce the instances of eyestrain and resulting headaches thanks to screens that dont flicker. Choosing a quality television, such as a Samsung LCD TV, means that you will be able to watch television from almost anywhere in your room, as the screen can be viewed at up to a 160 degree angle, or 80 degrees either way from the centre point of the screen.

LED TVs are reliant on the LCD TV technology; LCD TVs are now available with LED backlighting which makes for an even clearer and crisper image as well as better blacks, which in turn mean better overall contrast. LCD TVs used to bow to the Plasma TVs superior viewing angle, but these days high quality models are virtually comparable and no longer present a barrier to purchase either for gaming or viewing purposes.

Samsung LED TVs have been hailed as some of the best affordable LED TVs on the market at the moment, with a better HD (High Definition) picture than many in the same price bracket, a better range of blacks and therefore better contrast and finally, better picture quality at acute viewing angles. When it comes to gaming, you want a large screen and viewing range, good quality sound output and high definition picture, high contrast between blacks and colours and a bright screen that allows for a good quality image in both bright lit rooms and dark rooms. LED TVs are probably on a par with LCD TVs for all of these requirements except one; a good quality LED TV will likely surpass a standard LCD TV in terms of brightness of image thanks to the hundreds of LEDs used to backlight the screen.

Gone are the days when you would have been laughed at if you walked into an all-night LAN party carrying your trusty laptop and expecting to hang with the giant computer towers standing at everyones feet. The gaming laptop computers of today sport huge, crisp LCD screens, cutting-edge video cards and full-size keyboards. Not only can these gaming laptop computers hang with the standard clunky computer tower, but they can also be ordered fully custom to meet the exact specifications of any gamer.

Since there are so many customizable components in these laptops, a standard practice has been to create what some call a “system builder.” This is the page where you get to add and subtract components through drop-down menus in order to create the best gaming laptop computer for your needs and your budget. This type of page can be overwhelming to someone just starting the gaming laptop shopping process, but it is very manageable if you take it just one component at a time.

The Gaming Laptop GPU

This is the heart of a gaming laptop computer. The GPU (graphics processing unit) is a component that will make or break your gaming experience. If your GPU isnt up to snuff, your games wont play.

Without getting into specific models since they change all the time, the key is that the graphics card not share resources with the computer. A gaming laptop video card must have its own memory on board. Generally speaking, standard off-the-shelf laptops will not have this feature. The two current makers of laptop video cards are nVIDIA and ATI.

Without the Screen, You Dont Have Much

What good is a gaming laptop without a screen that can actually render your games? Now certainly, you can connect an external monitor, but if you cant actually play on your gaming laptop without that external monitor, then your laptop isnt all that mobile.

While the technology and terminology for LCDs (liquid crystal displays) could take up an entire article in itself, there are a few key points to keep in mind when choosing from available LCD options for your new gaming laptop computer: native resolution, aspect ratio, rise and fall time, contrast, viewing angle, and size.

Native Resolution. The native resolution is simply the setting at which your screen will render the clearest images. Since games are constantly in motion, slightly soft edges may not bother most gamers, but keep in mind that while this is your gaming laptop, you will likely also use it for other things like surfing the Internet. If the resolution isnt comfortable, you arent going to enjoy using it.

Aspect Ratio. As you probably know, a movie theater screen and a TV screen have different proportions. Likewise, there are widescreen format gaming laptops and there are laptops that have a standard aspect ratio – like that of a TV. A widescreen format gaming laptop (a 16:10 ratio) has advantages and disadvantages. Many games today do not have a widescreen mode. This means that the game may stretch across the screen and become distorted or you may run it with black bars that fill in the sides. There are ways to get around this, but if you want an out of the box perfect experience, the widescreen format may not be for you.