wide·screen gam·ing fo·rum (wsgf):
[-noun] Web community dedicated to ensuring PC games run properly on your tablet, netbook, personal computer, HDTV and multi-monitor gaming rig.
Submitted by skipclarke on 12 November, 2013 - 03:00
A while back I wrote a blog post about building a Steam Box out of an AMD APU. The idea was to build a SFF PC built around digital delivery of Steam content. The unit would focus on Steam's Big Picture mode, and use a wireless mouse/keyboard and wireless Xbox 360 controllers for input. There were a few things that I needed to work out before embarking on the project. One, I needed to find the case that fit the limited space of my entertainment center. And two, I needed to determine whether a Trinity APU was up to the task of powering a "Steam Box" gaming experience.
That initial blog post came out in June, and a bit has changed since then. IRL has been quite crazy, eating up time I had for component selection and benchmarking. Contributing to this craziness was buying a new house, which ate up most of that time. One good point is that the new house has a great built-in entertainment center, which allows for a much larger case. This article is the fulfillment of the second issue - benchmarking Trinity and Richland APUs.
Submitted by skipclarke on 6 November, 2013 - 16:32
As many users are aware the WSGF helped to Kickstart the Oculus Rift and received a dev kit. Since I didn't have time to play with the kit, I decided to pass it around local users here in the Houston area. Three of those members - Zencyde, TheDestroyer and Peanut - were interviewed by CultureMass about their experience with the Oculus Rift and their viewpoint immersion, virtual reality and motion input.
Click the source link and check out their interview. Thanks to CultureMass for reaching out to the WSGF for our input, and the chance to do this interview.
Submitted by Anonymous on 5 November, 2013 - 11:11
Battlefield 4 is a multi-player focused first person shooter, if you've played any of the prior Battlefield games then you will know what to expect from the multi-player, and as seems to be the way of things the campaign is more of a token gesture. It's multi-monitor support appears to be spot on, the game is horizontal plus, has a FoV slider, the menus and UI auto centred for me, as have the pre-rendered cutscreens. There are some frame rate issue currently, but these should largely be fixed with future patches and driver updates.
The video itself is part analysis, part walkthough and part waffle, feel free to like or dislike my video and comment are always welcome too. The audio quality of this video might be a little hit and miss, you have my apologies, I was trying a slightly different audio setup which seemed OK in testing but hasn't turned out too well.
While this video can be watched on any screen it has been encoded to look best on a multi-monitor system, so if your running such a system, then select original quality from the drop down box and watch in fullscreen.
Submitted by Anonymous on 30 October, 2013 - 00:52
Battlefield 4 features several changes compared to its predecessor. The game's heads-up display is much the same, composed of two compact rectangles. The lower left-hand corner features a mini-map and compass for navigation, and a simplified objective notice above it; the lower right includes a compact ammo counter and health meter. The mini-map, as well as the main game screen, shows symbols marking three kinds of entities: blue for allies, green for squadmates, and red/orange for enemies.
Submitted by skipclarke on 29 October, 2013 - 17:22
AMD has recently relaunched and rebranded its Radeon line of graphics cards. The first step of this was setting the "baseline" of the new product series with the launch of the Radeon R7 260X, R9 270X and R9 280X. These are a rebrand of the Radeon HD 7790, 7870 GHz and 7970 GHz - respectively. Outside of a few upward frequency tweaks, the real big news is a drastic price cutting of each card in the new product stack.
The R9 280X now has a street price of $299, down from the $499 7970 GHz. The R9 270X now sells for $199, versus the previous $349 of the 7870 GHz. A 4GB R9 270X will also be available for $229. The R7 260X will sell for $139 and come standard with 2GB of RAM. The HD 7790 1GB version sold for $150, and a 2GB variant sold for $170.
The two high end cards have massive price drops of $200 and $150 respectively. This puts high end graphics and Eyefinity well within the reach of many gamers. One additional improvement in the new boards comes from easier Eyefinity configuration. If you use three matching monitors, you no longer need to use at least one DisplayPort connector. With three matching monitors you can use 2x DVI-D and 1xHDMI connectors for Eyefinity. I have personally tested this on a Sapphire R9 280X using 2xDVI and one HDMI>DVI cable. It worked without a hitch. Just make sure you find a board that has both 2x DVI-D and an HDMI connector, and you're good to go.
In this article we'll run the cards through a series of quick tests in Metro Last Light, DiRT Showdown and Unigine Valley. To showcase the similar performance I tested the HD 7000 series with the 13.4 WHQL driver, and the 13.11 Beta driver (released for the R7 and R9). I then tested the new R7 and R9 cards with the same 13.11 Beta driver. Everything was tested in 1080p HD and Eyefinity.
Submitted by Anonymous on 29 October, 2013 - 10:43
Rocksmith 2014 is the second iteration of the Rocksmith series, they are basically tools designed to help you learn and practice to play the guitar and/or a bass guitar, the 2014 version is a massive software update rather then a direct sequel, so playing the first isn't required, but there is enough new stuff and improvements in the second version to justify buying it if you do own the original. Now the game does run on a triple monitor setup, but it only renders a 16:9 aspect ratio, which as far as I'm concerned is probably for the best for this kind of game, the last thing you need when trying to learn something is to have distractions in your peripheral vision, but the ability to use the resolution is nice to have as it means it won't mess up your desktop every time you run it.
The game itself does require a few things before you can use it, firstly it requires a real guitar or bass, as how are you meant to learn how to play with them, the second thing it needs is a special cable called Rocksmith Real Tone Cable, unfortunately the game explicitly searches for this cable so without using some sort of work around you have to use there cable to connect your guitar to your PC.
The video itself is part analysis, part walkthough and part waffle, feel free to like or dislike my video and comment are always welcome too.
Halo: Spartan Assault is the first mobile game in the Halo series. Progress and achievements are synced between Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8.
The Obsidian 750D is Corsair’s third new case in the Obsidian line this year. It slots between the 350D microATX chassis and the 900D super-tower. The 750D continues the same elegant styling and refined look of the Obsidian line of cases, which feature brushed aluminum and steel construction.
The case offers an array of cooling configuration options (both air and liquid), and more than a dozen storage bays.
Submitted by skipclarke on 14 October, 2013 - 19:41
October 13th marked the 10th anniversary of the WSGF. On October 10th 2003, I registered widescreengamingforum.com. Three days later on the 13th, I had the phpBB2 forum up and running and waited on our first posts.
The last ten years have been a wild ride, and it wouldn't have been possible without this great community and our amazing volunteer staff. To help celebrate the anniversary, we are going to do a game giveaway (amongst other things).
Submitted by skipclarke on 11 October, 2013 - 02:31
I wanted to let everyone know that we do have reviews in the works for the just announced Radeon R7 & R9 series. I have an R7 260X 2GB, R9 270X 2GB and R9 280X 3GB in my posession. I knew that AMD was having the Tech Day broadcast from Hawaii, but was surprised to learn soon after that I would be receiving cards. I actually got the cards delivered before I got the emails from AMD. Following the cards there was a press briefing last week, along with the usual slideshow press deck.
Prior to this I was neck deep in two articles for the WSGF. The first article was looking at the gaming power of the latest AMD A10 APUs. The second was a large CPU shoot-out to look at a range of CPU/APUs and their real-world impact on gaming. While I would have loved to jump into the new GPUs, I was simply too deep into the testing cycle on these existing platforms. That testing has completed, and I have updated my test rig to boot. I have migrated to an AMD FX-8350, and upgraded to a 480GB SSD as my primary drive.
Thanks for your patience, and please let me know if there are any particular titles you would like for me to test.
