Archive for December, 2010
If you’re doing a little digging to find a decent gaming laptop under $1000, you might run across several options out there. Your best bet would be to create a list of features you want from the laptop and search according to that list.
A good gaming laptop must first be configured to carry a powerful processor. Now for this limited budget, some good suggestions would be dual-core processors, since these are both powerful and affordable at the same time. Single core processors are great for simple tasks, but since games demand more from the gaming system, it’s a lot better if you start with a dual-core processor just to make sure everything runs fine.
In terms of system memory a good target to start at would be 3GB. Extreme gaming laptops might carry up to 16GB, but for a modest gaming laptop, 3 or 4GB of RAM is a good start, since most modern games don’t even go beyond 3GB in their system requirements list. This amount will allow you to also do some editing work, graphic design and even a bit of multitasking.
The video card that comes with a gaming laptop has to be dedicated. What this means is that it has to have its own dedicated memory, so it doesn’t take from your available RAM in order to run. For this budget you’ll probably get away with a decent model from either nVidia or ATI with about 512MB to 1GB of dedicated memory. This is fine if you don’t mind running games in medium to high quality settings, but for extreme graphics you’ll definitely need to do better than this.
Mobile phones have gotten fancier over the years. First the developers added cameras, the internet and now most smart phones can now play video games. They’re not budget games like Snake or Tetris either. Smart phones are able to play video games that have the same quality that portable gaming devices produce.
One of the most recent smart phones released is Sony’s Xperia Play. Xperia Play has been dubbed as the world’s first PlayStation certified phone. Not only is it a phone, but it can double as a portable gaming device. The controls are very similar Sony’s other products such as the PSP and the PS3 controller just to name a few.
This means you can finally play PlayStation-style video games with the comfort of a real control scheme. There is nothing more uncomfortable than playing games on your phone using the horrible numbered keypad. The most pleasant thing about the Xperia Play is that some PlayStation Classic games will be heading their way onto the system very soon.
Although there have not been any RPG PlayStation games available yet, it’s more than likely that Square Enix will release some of its Final Fantasy games onto the platform. Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX have all been ported to Sony’s PlayStation Network. The thought of putting Final Fantasy VII (the most popular RPG ever made) on the Xperia Play could help Sony take a hold of the market dominated mostly by Apple.
Zenonia 2 is an old-school 16-Japanese RPG much like the older Final Fantasy games from the early ’90s. The 2D graphics are cute and the game itself is one of the better RPGs available on Android phones. Although the game is heavily inspired by Japanese RPGs, it’s actually made in Korea. Nevertheless, I’m sure it’s a game RPG fans will love playing.
Most of us don’t think about our PS3 breaking until it actually breaks. The Yellow Light Of Death (YLOD) can happen to any PS3 as it is a general hardware failure, however there are steps that can be taken to prevent your PS3 from breaking.
The first thing to do is make sure your PS3 is above, or around, waist height. The reason for this is that dust settles and gathers closer to the floor after flying through the air. Just from moving around the room you are stirring up dust particles from the floor. Keeping the PS3 above waist height will prevent these particles from clogging up your PS3 and increasing heat internally. Remember your PS3 system resembles a vacuum cleaner as it will pull in and exhaust a ton of air. Also proper maintenance and cleaning using compressed air will help to keep the vents clean.
Replace the Sony compound on the CPU and GPU with arctic silver. Sony mass produces these systems and, as a result, cheap thermal compound was used to remove heat from the chips. Arctic Silver will provide much better heat transfer from the Cell and RSX chips to the heat sinks. Check out our YLOD guide to see the breakdown of the PS3 to the motherboard to see how to reapply new thermal compound.
If you have a 15 blade fan in your PS3, replace it with the 19 blade fan. The extra blades will help move more air in the same amount of time and will also be much quieter!
After another year of controversy and a ton of media coverage we’re back again in the hands of Treyarch, usually in the shadow of its “bigger brother” Infinity Ward with the hottest franchise of the moment, Call of Duty. We find out if a new approach, and setting, can invigorate a series that some are losing faith in. With the release of Modern Warfare 1, we saw the invention of a completely new game, far away from what the Call of Duty fan base was used to and a re-invention of the IP Activision had created. Ditching the WW2 setting we saw a new direction, backed up by a revolutionary multiplayer experience and an explosive single player narrative that Hollywood would have been proud of. Since then both Infinity Ward and Treyarch have been given the reins to the title, each trying to outperform the original in every single way, with sales only growing with each release. Does Black Ops continue the trend?
There are days in your life where you have absolutely nothing to do and boredom is taking the most out of you. If this is the case, there is only one thing that you have to search for over the internet to keep you occupied – free online games. And if you can’t decide which game to play, free jigsaw puzzles are the ones most recommended. These are the simple games that anybody can play regardless of age, game preference, and intellectual abilities.
Free jigsaw puzzles may seem too easy for you. But you never know how complicated these games can really be. Try to solve a puzzle that consists of at least 1,000 pieces and you will definitely spend days putting everything together. However, while there are jigsaw puzzles that can be very complex, there are ones that are rather simple too. The simpler ones can be played by kids. As for adults, there are puzzles that would take you around five to fifteen minutes to solve, depending on the number of pieces present on the board.
The better way to enjoy free jigsaw puzzles is when you play against yourself or another player. Set a time limit and whoever finishes the game faster is the winner. If you can’t possible play with another player, you can always try to beat your last record. It is true that the more you get familiar with the jigsaw set the faster you can finish the board. Be sure to shift from one puzzle to another so you can you’re your skills better. There must be the same number of puzzle pieces so that the complexity level is similar all across.