Charlie Foxtrot

Posts Tagged ‘development’

GPU Computing is the use of the massively parallel architecture of the graphics processing unit (GPU) as a computational engine that can be programmed with high level languages and APIs. Fact is, More and more processing is being moved from the CPU to the GPU.  We already have a great roster of applications that run on the NVIDIA CUDA architecture that consumers love. Video has been the killer application for the GPU, and a number of new video applications are able to tap into the computing power of the GPU.  Adobe has added support for GPU computing to their popular CS4 Suite, Flash 10.1 and their Mercury Playback Engine. Now Microsoft is adding Office 2010 to the list.

“Microsoft has published the hardware requirements for the upcoming Office 2010 Suite, and people noticed one surprising addition: A DirectX compatible Video Processor.  Over at the TechNet blog, Microsoft explains why:

If your computer has a GPU, it lets us perform graphics rendering tasks (like drawing charts in Excel, or transitions in PowerPoint) in the GPU instead of in the CPU, which parallelizes work and speeds up performance. This is particularly relevant for users of PowerPoint 2010, which will introduce some awesome new graphics and video integration features (more info at the PowerPoint team blog).”

CPUs are an important component of the PC. However, too often PCs ship with insufficient graphics processing power and the result is an unbalanced PC that can’t run the applications you want. For the best experience, you should buy a PC with the right balance of CPU/GPU horsepower.

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that Crysis was and still is the best looking PC game of all time. Guess what? Crysis 2 is shaping up to be even better (if that’s even possible). The extremely lucky editor of PC Gamer Magazine Germany was given a sneak peak of Crysis 2 which is scheduled to arrive by early 2011 and according to him, it’s shaping up to be one of the best looking games of all times on all platforms.

U.S. PC Gamer magazine had a chance to sit down with executive producer Nathan Camarillo and this is what he had to say – “We are applying our expertise to a new style of jungle which we will discuss more in the upcoming months, but it is definitely far from tropical. We are very excited to introduce Crysis-style sandbox gameplay to a different, yet ultimately familiar environment.” They’ve also released two new screenshots.

Coming back to the article published in the German PC Gamer magazine, a lot of details about the story line and new features have been released. This article is published in German unfortunately. However, Willy at inCrysis.com, he’s done a translation and pulled some of the relevant information from the story which you can read here.

The Wii and various mobile gaming platforms have done wonders for the trend toward casual or “easy” games. But the success of a few recent titles, despite their difficulty, has caused some to wonder whether the pendulum has swung too far; whether a little frustration can be seen as a good thing.

“The evidence is subtle but compelling. For one example, look to major consumer website GameSpot’s Game of the Year for 2009: Atlus’ PS3 RPG Demon’s Souls, which received widespread critical acclaim – none of which failed to include a mention of the game’s steep challenge. GameSpot called it ‘ruthlessly, unforgivingly difficult.’ Demon’s Souls was a sleeper hit, an anomaly in the era of accessibility. One would think the deck was stacked against a game that demanded such vicious persistence, such precise attention – and yet a surge of praise from critics and developers alike praised the game for reintroducing the experience of meaningful challenge, of a game that demanded something from its players rather than looked for ways to hand them things. It wasn’t just Demon’s Souls that recently flipped the proverbial bird to the ‘gaming for everyone’ trend. In many ways, the independent development scene can be viewed on the macro level as a harbinger of trends to come, and over the past year and into 2010, many indies have decided to be brutal to their players.”