skipclarke's blog

So, Gizmodo picked up this story from the New York Times about a study proving that multi-monitor configurations make users more productive. Really? Is that new news? We could have told you that.

The article cites a study (funded by monitor maker NEC) that says having multiple monitors can save you 10 seconds of toggling between windows, for each five minutes of work. Sum total in a day, this works out to saving 15 minutes - enough for a coffee break. Yay! Too bad they missed the larger point...

So, I saw this article on Rock Paper Shotgun the other day about skipping combat in games, and I thought hey what a great idea. Little did I know that there is actually a whole Internet controversy surrounding the whole issue.

Somehow I missed this article about AMD's booth at CES, that showed off an AMD Radeon 7970 hooked up to a 4k monitor. The article outlines that a 4k monitor requires two DP inputs to support the full resolution and bandwidth. This got me thinking...

So, we're coming up on three weeks since CES 2012. It wasn't a huge show for gamers, but there were a few standouts. The first couple of days started strong with lots of news and announcements, but this quickly tapered off by the third and fourth days. I guess this is to be expected.

After have a few weeks for it to all sink in (and to get through another video card reviews and the AMD HardOCP event), I thought I'd circle back around and give my spin on all the announcements. Did gamers fare well, or was it all TVs, tablets and new wave washing machines?

So, it's been a couple of weeks since the AMD HardOCP GamExperience. Took me the first week to recover from all the work to prep and exhibit, and the long drive to Dallas and back. After that, I spent the next week working on my review of the AMD Radeon HD 7950. In the time I've had to reflect on the day, it only makes me look forward more and more to the next event.

I had a great time getting to meet everyone who stopped by the booth, and I enjoyed getting to share what we do at the WSGF and show off the new WSGF Edition Multi-Monitor Stand. It was amazing to see the passion that every has for good hardware and for PC gaming. It was also great to see the number of companies who came out to show off their products and talk to the enthusiast crowd.

Over the Christmas holidays it dawned on me that it had been exactly one year since we began the site migration to Drupal. Most everyone is aware that earlier this summer we made the transition from a phpBB/MediaWiki platform to Drupal. However, few people know about the unexpected journey we undertook. In thinking back on the last year, I quickly drew a parallel to the opening scenes from The Hobbit.

So, I'm excited about 3D gaming. I really am, I just wish someone could get it right. With three little kids the wife and I don't get out much, but last Christmas we finally made it out to see our first 3D movie (we saw two in fact). I was hooked. The effects in Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader were subtle and well done, and I felt the 3D effects in Tron Legacy really added to the experience.

In March, AMD came to visit and brought with them a PC set up for 3D gaming, based on their HD3D initiative and the Tri-Def DDD software. I had already played around with Stereoscopic 3D (S-3D) gaming a bit on my HDTV with my PS3 and a trial version of the Tri-Def software on my PC. In general I liked S-3D, but found it inconsistent and not on par with my movie going experience. The best titles were those on the PS3, which had been designed or updated by the original devs to support S-3D. I also found myself getting eye fatigue (and on occasion, bad headaches) from my play sessions. This was something I hadn't experienced in the movie theatre.

One of the things I love most about the WSGF is our community (i.e., our members). People are welcoming, helpful and friendly, and we are known as an inviting community. Behind the scenes there is a core group of people (our Insiders and Editors) that stay in contact and game together from time-to-time. However, one of the things I would like to see more of is a more active gaming community within our membership at large. To that end, we're launching a number of activities to help bring WSGF members together.

In my last blog post, I talked about how the WSGF got started. In those early days we often found that games had zero support for widescreen. We weren't debating issues of "good" or "bad", or "Hor+" vs. "Vert-". We were trying to get widescreen resolutions to just show up in the game options. Fast forward a few years, and as widescreen displays became more prevalent, the issues became fewer. We still fought the good fight regarding increasing the horizontal FOV, and ensuring that the HUD remained unstretched.

Have a sit, and I'll tell you the tale of how the WSGF came to be...

Back in September 2003 I was looking to buy a new laptop. I wanted to do some gaming, and knew that I wanted to go widescreen. I was torn between the 15.4" Presario x1000 and the 17" Pavilion zd7000, both from the newly merged Compaq/HP. In my research I found two forums (both now defunct), x1000forums.com and zd7000forums.com. I ended up buying the x1000, but then returned in and exchanged it for the zd7000. Ah, the early days of a 9+ pound 1440x900 17" notebook with a full keypad....

Believe it or not, many games at the time didn't support widescreen. It was common for widescreen resolutions (listed in your desktop properties) to be completely missing from game options. And, even when you could get the game to load, there were often issues. In scouring the x1000 and zd7000 forums, I saw that members were working diligently to find solutions to the popular games of the day - but those two groups weren't talking together. If two communities that were closely aligned (many members were users on both forums) weren't sharing information, what about all the people with Dell, Sony and Toshiba laptops? Or, people who owned or built desktops.