After the Acer S3, Lenovo steps in the Ultrabook segment with the launch of the U300s. Available from all major retail outlets, the IdeaPad U300s is priced at Rs.67,900, plus taxes. The U300s is built from a single piece of aluminium that form the chassis, similar to the MacBook Air. Due to this, it has a thickness of just 14.9mm and weighs less than 1.3 kg. It also packs in some technologies like ‘Breathable Keyboard’, which uses Intel’s Advanced Cooling Technology, which allows air to flow in through the keyboard and out the sides and the rear hinge.
If looks could kill
This design removes the need for vents on the underside of the notebook, making it ideal for long periods of use. The Lenovo Long Life Battery provides the U 300s up to 8 hours of productive use or 30 days on standby. With Lenovo RapidCharge, the battery can be charged to 50 percent capacity in just 30 minutes.
The 13.3-inch HD ready screen is LED backlit and the notebook is powered by Intel’s 2nd Generation Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD. Along with that, we also have Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi ‘n’, USB 3.0 and 2.0, HDMI, SRS Sound enhancement, Intel’s WiDi technology and finally, a 1.3MP webcam. Acer’s similarly speced Ultrabook is actually slightly cheaper, so it’s interesting to see what special Lenovo’s offering will bring to the table.
Most Android-based smartphone users would agree that they would prefer testing an app before downloading it to their phone. The reason behind this is usually to avoid unnecessary space hogging apps. Some users might also wish to play some of the cool mobile games available for the Android platform on their PC i.e. on a larger display. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how can your favorite Android apps on your Windows-based PC using a simple and free software called BlueStacks.
Installing
BlueStacks is an app player for Windows, which can play Android apps faster than it can run on a phone and that too, on a full-screen. The app includes 10 pre-loaded apps and one can add up to 26 more apps of their choice. Favorite apps can be pushed directly from the phone onto the PC using an Android app via internet route. Download and install the software for Windows from the URL ‘www.bluestacks.com’. The software is nothing, but a simple virtual Android operating system, which simulates an Android phone or UI. It uses the desktop PC’s resources such as the processor, the internet connection, mouse, keyboard and the audio card. The installed folder located on the PC contains the necessary files for its use, namely the kernel, data, system, boot and storage (the SD card). The BlueStacks Android (Gingerbread) virtual machine creates a hardware environment with a limited amount of storage (around 363 MB) for installing apps and 262 MB of SD card storage space.
Once BlueStacks is installed, the application will be running the Android operating system in the background and you will see an icon in the system tray area and a widget will be running on your screen. A single click on the widget will reveal the Android system apps installed in it. Click on the apps and enjoy them on a large screen. Additional apps can be installed from the BlueStacks website by signing in using your Facebook account details. To get to this page, all you need to do is click on the BlueStacks widget, scroll to and click on the app icon/shortcut ‘Get more apps’. A website will open up where you can login using your Facebook details. Once logged in, simply click on the ‘Subscribe’ button for the available apps (in the Featured Apps section) and they shall automatically get installed on your system via the internet. The ‘Could Connect’ link on the same page will highlight a special 9-pin numerical code which needs to be entered on your Android phone running the BlueStacks Cloud Connect app (download it from the Android Market for free). Once done, you can push apps from your phone to your PC by simply selecting multiple apps and syncing it. That’s it! You can now enjoy all your favorite apps from your phone on your Windows desktop PC.
Interface
Cloud connect
Note: There are a few (or many) apps that will not function on BlueStacks, due to reasons such as incompatible hardware (for example there is no wireless network available here and apps that need the wireless network will not function). Also a few apps cannot be installed under the free license of BlueStacks. The BlueStacks Pro version will be out soon and you can do a lot more on it. The free version has a maximum limit of 26 installable apps, while the pro version will have the possibility of installing unlimited apps.
It will be three years in November since Intel launched their X58 chipset, a platform dedicated to enthusiasts, overclockers and professional benchmarkers. The platform served its purpose well for a long time and has managed to hold on to the ‘best performance’ crown all this while. The X58 chipset now makes way for Intel’s highly anticipated replacement, the X79 chipset. Why X79 and not X68 or X78 beats us, but it is what it is. Intel has a notorious habit of switching sockets time and again and they haven’t broken that streak this time too. Along with the new chipset, the 2nd Generation Core i7 family of processors will use the new 2011 socket so there’s no chance of any backwards compatibility with existing Z68 chipsets. Now, we can’t go into too much detail about the chipset due to Intel’s NDA but we can talk about Asus’s new line-up based on the X79 chipset.
Asus had a little media preview on the 21st of October where a select few journalists (us included) got a first hand look at their upcoming motherboards. Three flagship boards were showcased, each filling up a different segment and first we’ll be looking at the P9X79 mainstream motherboard which also includes a Pro and Deluxe model.
Asus P9X79/Pro/Deluxe The first major change is the 3rd generation Dual Intelligent Processors along with a new DIGI+ Power control system. Asus first launched the DIGI+ VRM on the P67 motherboard last year and this time, there’s a separate power controller chip for the memory modules as well. This dual chip design ensures dedicated power control to the CPU and memory for better stability during gaming or overclocking.
The P9X79 mainstream motherboard
The second big addition is Asus’s very own SSD caching technique. Intel’s X79 does not support SRT (Smart Response Technology) at the moment so this way, we can enjoy similar benefits like we do on Z68 motherboards. Through the bundled utility, all you have to do is plug in an SSD and let the software do all the configuration for you. You don’t have to re-install the OS either, which is a good thing. Asus BT GO 3.0 feature makes a return but this time the Bluetooth module has been bumped up to v3.0.
The rear ports of the P9X79
The third and perhaps the most interesting new addition (at least for us reviewers and enthusists) is the new USB BIOS Flashback. Now, it’s not something as mundane as being able to flash the BIOS via USB - that feature has already been with us for a while. This involves a physical button at the rear of the I/O ports that lets you flash the BIOS directly through a pen drive, even if none of the components like the CPU, RAM, etc. are installed! This is really convenient since you don’t have to enter the BIOS anymore in order to update it.
Asus SSD caching at work
Their popular UEFI BIOS is back along with some minor tweaks and changes. The DRAM SPD Info feature currently found on their Z68 boards makes an appearance. This utility lets you check the status of the DRAM modules right from the BIOS itself. The new ‘F3’ shortcut key brings up important BIOS features in a single list allowing you to quickly skip to them. Finally, Asus has incorporated a UASP USB 3.0 controller on the motherboard for better speeds from USB 3.0 devices. USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) is a replacement for Mass Storage Class and Bulk Only Transfers (BOT) protocols that will soon be standard on motherboards. In order for this to work optimally though, one needs a UASP motherboard as well as a UASP-based hard drive, which aren’t commercially available right now. However, existing USB 3.0 drives can get a slight speed boost from this as it uses the full duplex capabilities of USB 3.0 and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 as well.
Asus has revamped the look of their AI SUITE II software to match the series of the board, so for instance the R.O.G series will have a Red theme while the TUF series has a Blue theme. The onboard audio supports DTS Ultra PC II which offers new functions like ‘Enhance’, ‘Surround Sensation’, etc. Next, let’s have a look at the TUF series motherboard, the SABERTOOTH X79.
Well! this is rather disappointing. After being delayed numerous times, the PC version of Batman: Arkham City that hit stores all across America yesterday has turned out to be broken. Ok so broken may be a strong word, but after a quick trip to the Steam as well as the Arkham City forums, you’ll see tons of posts illustrating Rocksteady’s failure at creating a solid PC port. This obviously is a huge letdown from Arkham Asylum that performed very well on PCs.
Y U No like PC gamers Rocksteady?
Perhaps the game’s biggest fault is that DirectX 11 support, its much touted feature completely decimates performance even on powerful rigs that can run games like Battlefield 3 with ease. Besides that, there have been tons of framerate, stuttering and lip-synching issues that have disappointed PC gamers, who’ve been waiting for this game since a month.
The problem is so widespread, Rocksteady themselves have acknowledged the issue and are frantically working on a patch to fix stuff, but obviously the damage has been done. We suggest you hold off on your purchase till this game gets fixed. Batman: Arkham City release for the PC in India tomorrow.
Sapphire has just announced a 2GB version of the HD 6850 graphics card. This mid-range GPU from AMD gets a boost in the memory department, which will help improve the frame rates at high resolutions. Details on pricing are still unknown, but I wouldn’t expect it to be more than Rs.500 over the standard 1GB version.
More RAM for high-res gaming
In terms of specifications, the new 2GB variant is exactly the same as the standard version. The core is clocked at 775MHz and packs in 960 shader modules or Stream Processors. The memory GDDR5 memory has an effective speed of 4000MHz and runs on a 256-bit memory bus. Connectivity includes a single link DVI-D port, dual-link DVI port, DisplayPort and HDMI v1.4a. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs as well as the DisplayPort output enables this card to support three monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode, with a suitable DisplayPort monitor or active adapter. Their custom cooler also ensures that there is a good margin for performance tuning (overclocking) by enthusiast users. A new overclocking tool - TriXX - is now available for tweaking the performance of these cards. It also supports DX11, Stereoscopic 3D and 7.1 channel high bit-rate audio support.
In the last couple of weeks that we’ve been testing graphics cards, there’s one thing that most of us agreed upon, which is - you do get a good amount of performance from graphics cards that are designed to be budget offerings. With many enthusiasts wanting to game at lower resolutions and build systems under the Rs. 30,000 mark, there have to be some compromises that need to be made. We’ve learnt that you can still manage to game at decent quality settings with graphics cards priced under the Rs. 8,000 mark. Here’s one graphics card that caught our eye when we reviewed it recently in our budget graphics card comparison test.
Features
The XFX Radeon HD 6770, like the rest of the Radeon 6000 series of GPUs is based on the 40nm fabrication process. The GPU runs at 850MHz and has 800 stream processors under the hood. XFX has gone with 1GB of Hynix’s GDDR5 memory. This isn’t an overclocked card, so most of the specifications as exactly the same as the reference card.
Basic connectivity options - D-Sub, HDMI and DVI
In terms of connectivity, there’s a D-Sub, a DVI and an HDMI port at the rear. In terms of power requirements, the card demands a single 6-pin connector. CrossFire is support and this card can be used in a 3-GPU configuration. Stereoscopic 3D is supported and inherently, so is HDMI 1.4a. DirectX 11 support is present, like it is on all modern GPUs.
Design
The XFX Radeon HD 6770 is different from the stock Radeon design. This card, however is smaller than the Radeon 6800 line of cards. XFX has gone with the standard black PCB and a large heatsink on top of the GPU. Although, the design of the heatsink is basic, but it is very effective.
A compact card
There’s no fancy designs and graphics on the card, either. The only visible sign of XFX is the logo on the fan. Although the card uses only one external slot, inside the cabinet, it’s likely to block the adjoining slot on the motherboard.
Performance
We reviewed a whole bunch of graphics cards using the budget graphics card comparison test. The XFX Radeon HD 6770 manages to get very close to the HD 6790 in most game titles. It’s as fast or faster than the Galaxy GTX 550 Ti, too. Across all benchmarks, the XFX HD 6770 trails behind by roughly 5 to 10 percent, which isn’t too shabby.
Comparison with other GPUs in the price and performance range
In terms of operating temperatures on idle, it settles down to around 40C and under load, that number rises to 56, which is still very commendable. The faster Radeon HD6790, for example will peak out at 77C, which on the other hand is pretty high.
Verdict
The XFX Radeon HD 6790 was the fastest card around followed by the GTX 550 Ti cards from Sparkle and Galaxy in the last comparison test.
A relatively large and effective heatsink
What the XFX Radeon HD 6770 does well is offer a good share of the performance at a lower price of just Rs. 6,785. So for those, with tighter budgets and demand most of the performance of the best performer, the XFX HD Radeon HD 6770 hits the sweet spot.
Video games aren’t usually associated with books—games have yet to reach literature’s level of sophistication in storytelling, and we all know books are for uncoordinated nerds who can’t get kill streaks in Halo. But the two mediums are sometimes combined, and not just into dozens of mediocre Lord of the Rings games. Some very fun and important games have been inspired by the written word, such as…
10. Shadow Complex
Orson Scott Card is famous for his classic science fiction novel Ender’s Game, but more recently he wrote a book called Empire. It’s about a second American Civil War between increasingly radical right and left wings—think of it as Fox News viewers going to war against MSNBC fans. It’s an interesting idea, although its execution falls flat. But it did inspire Shadow Complex, one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2009, which runs parallel to Empire’s plot.
Shadow Complex is clearly inspired by the Metroid style gameplay of “blow up everything in sight, then backtrack so you can blow up some more stuff with the cool new weapons you picked up.” It’s immensely fun, featuring a mixture of fast-paced shooting and addictive exploration.
Its connections to Empire are tenuous—if you hadn’t heard of the book beforehand you probably wouldn’t even realise there were connections. And since Orson Scott Card has dropped off the mainstream radar, making a game inspired by one of his weaker novels was an odd decision. But it paid off—Shadow Complex’s literary roots may not be remarkable, but we still have them to thank for one of the best action games in recent memory.
9. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is inspired by the 1970s Russian sci-fi novel Roadside Picnic¸ a loose film adaptation called Stalker, and the book based on the film based on the book, also called Stalker. You got all that?
Set in and around Chernobyl after a fictional second meltdown, players control an amnesiac stalker, a person who explores and scavenges the radiation infested wasteland. Along the way you’ll encounter mutated monsters, anomalous areas that defy the laws of physics, and plenty of good old-fashioned gunfights.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. drops most of the themes and ideas that led to the novel being heavily censored by Soviet authorities, but it does a remarkable job of capturing the bleak, depressing and often scary landscape—and an equally good job of making travelling through it feel grimly realistic. It’s one of the most memorable settings you’ll find in a video game, book or movie.
8. The Wheel of Time
The Wheel of Time is a fantasy series of over a dozen long and often tedious novels, written by Robert Jordan. Naturally, it made perfect sense to adapt the franchise into an action-packed first person shooter.
The Wheel of Time didn’t get much attention when it was released, both because it was competing against the successful Unreal and Quake series, and because its source material is only popular amongst the geekiest of geeks. But don’t let its obscurity fool you—this is a fine game. It takes advantage of its fantasy setting, replacing guns with a complex spell system and letting players use those spells to blast monsters in locations that, for the time, were some of the finest displays of architecture in gaming. And it tells a decent story to boot.
If you’re a fan of the series you’ll appreciate the game’s attention to detail, and if you’re not a fan you’ll appreciate the fact that you can shoot chain lightning at bad guys. What’s not to like?
7. Parasite Eve
Parasite Eve is a beloved Japanese role playing game set in New York City about a woman who makes people spontaneously combust if they get too close to her. This freak of nature occurred after an experiment to cure cancer went wrong (you know you suck as a scientist when your attempt to cure cancer makes people explode), and it’s up to the player to stop this madwoman before she gives birth to a terrible monster. It’s a strange game.
Parasite Eve was made by SquareSoft, who are famous for their Final Fantasy series. Their sudden shift from swords and sorcery to modern biological drama was inspired by a book of the same name, a Japanese horror/sci-fi novel written by a pharmacologist (so it totally has a scientific basis). It’s gory, scary and often perverted (and footnoted), kind of like a Japanese Michael Crichton. And since it was translated to English in 2007, you too can read one of the weirdest, most over the top horror novels out there.
6. Metro 2033
Metro 2033 is set in post-apocalyptic Russia, where atomic war has forced survivors into the subway tunnels. The main character must defend his home station from a mysterious threat, while at the same time dealing with communists, Fourth Reich Nazis and mutants.
The story was first told online in 2002, where readers were encouraged to add to the universe with artwork and their own tales. A cult hit in Russia, it was published in book format and translated to English in 2005. The novel is both a sci-fi adventure and a commentary on modern Russian society, which is presumably plagued by radioactive freaks and future Nazis.
The game adaptation came out in 2010 and is similar to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in that, while the plot is nothing to write home about, the atmosphere is simply fantastic. Players shoot, sneak and occasionally run in blind terror through a creepy, engrossing world of metro stations. It’s a faithful take on an interesting literary project, one which has expanded into a second novel, with a second game and movie in the pipeline.
5. Alice
You’re no doubt familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland, probably through the Disney movie but maybe the books if you had more literate parents. If as a child you said to yourself, “Alice in Wonderland is neat and all, but it would be better if Alice whipped out a knife and stabbed everybody,” then Alice is the game for you.
Alice (technically American McGee’s Alice if you’re a fan of egocentric, oddly named video game developers) is about Alice after she went insane when her family was killed in a house fire, turning Wonderland into a place warped beyond recognition by her broken mind. It’s uh… a little bit darker than the books.
It’s also one of the most visually creative games you’ll ever play—the new, macabre Wonderland is a horribly fascinating place. Unfortunately the gameplay, which largely consists of running around and smacking enemies, isn’t quite as compelling; but it’s such a twisted take on a childhood classic that you can’t help but be enthralled by it anyway.
4. The Witcher
A Witcher, besides being someone who witches, is a cult hit series of short stories and novels. They’ve been published in their native Poland since the early 90s, but were only translated into English in 2007. The role playing game came out the same year, introducing the franchise to the western world.
What’s The Witcher about? Slaying monsters, making difficult moral decisions and sleeping around, mostly. You play as a witcher named Geralt, a person raised from birth to travel the world and kill dangerous beasts.
Monster slaying is fun, but the game’s greatest draw is the decisions you make—unlike the moral choices in most games, The Witcher’s aren’t clear-cut. The consequences of selecting between various shades of grey are rarely made obvious, a theme carried over from the books. It’s that extra level of moral complexity that makes The Witcher worth playing. Also, you can collect naughty postcards featuring pictures of the women Geralt sleeps with. Now that’s literature!
3. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Enslaved is based on Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. The book, set in mythological times, is about the pilgrimage of a Buddhist monk and his followers to India.
So obviously there were some changes, as the tale of a monk on a journey to enlightenment doesn’t translate into exciting gameplay. The main difference is that Enslaved is set 150 years in the future, in a post-apocalyptic world full of killer robots.
It’s a pretty serious change, but you can still see the core inspiration in Enslaved’s characters. Their names, traits and relationship to each other are similar to those of the novel’s heroes, and those familiar with the book will catch additional references to the work.
Connecting a post-apocalyptic action game to a 16th century novel may sound strange, but it worked—Enslaved was acclaimed for its excellent storytelling. Modernising the classic was a great idea, because with all due respect to one of the most important works of art in Chinese history, the killer robot fighting really spiced things up.
2. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is based on Harlan Ellison’s famous story of the same name about a supercomputer, AM, that annihilates the human race in a nuclear holocaust and tortures the five survivors into insanity. The game adaptation is a point and click adventure—you control each of the five survivors in turn as AM puts them through a trial that reflects their greatest flaws.
In each scenario you’re given the ability to do both good and evil—take the high road and you’ll have a better chance of destroying AM in the climax. But act immorally and, well… the game’s title should make it pretty clear what kind of ending you’ll get.
The game has its shortcomings, including some illogical puzzles and ridiculous overacting by Harlan Ellison as AM. But it’s a rare game that tackles serious subjects like rape and genocide with the respect they deserve, and the adventure is both thought provoking and genuinely unsettling.
1. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
Dune, the classic science fiction novel about the decay of a mighty space empire, a rare drug that turns men into supermen, and gigantic worms, has received numerous video game adaptations. Dune II was the second in a series of strategy games, but it’s more than just another take on the franchise—it’s one of the most important titles in gaming history.
Okay, so you can tell from the video that Dune II hasn’t aged well—but its influence can’t be overstated. Dune II is a real time strategy game, and while not the first of its kind it laid down many of the conventions gamers know today. StarCraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires… these beloved franchises are all based on ideas that Dune II established.
It was also a pretty fun game. As for its literary influence, Dune II did a fine job of capturing the feel of the Dune universe. The storytelling isn’t exactly on par with the novel, but the source material was put to good use. Dune II may not be the greatest game based on a book, but it’s certainly the most important.
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