Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit PC Performance & Screenshots

The latest installment of the legendary series, Need For Speed, has just been released. As usual, it's time to see how well the PC version performs and if Criterion did a good job porting the game. Yeah, you read it right. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit for PC is simply a port from the console version, with all the cons of such a thing.

Although there is an option for High Resolution textures, Criterion didn't bother with taking advantage the additional raw power of the latest GPU's. Moreover, Criterion doesn't provide us with a lot of graphical options to adjust the game. FSAA is also not supported, although you can force it if you have an ATI card and Nvidia will likely support it with a better game profile in the next version of ForceWare. Graphically speaking, we have some great lighting effects and amazingly detailed cars. Stages are well designed, although they lack some fining details that would earn them some extra points. You won't notice their absence while driving, but still we'd like more environmental detail. All in all, Hot Pursuit is a nice game but nothing breathtaking!

Medal Of Honor PC Performance & Screenshots

After a long time, Medal Of Honor is back in action. This time though, you won't be fighting in the WW2 era. Like COD, the latest part of MOH is taking place in modern day. You take the role of various elite members in a war with the Talibans. The game uses the Unreal3 engine for its Single Player part and the Frostbite engine for the Multiplayer part. Was it a wise decision to use different engines and how do they perform? We'll use a Q9650 @ 4.2Ghz with 2GB DDR2 and a GTX295 to find out.

Let's start with the Frostbite engine. This is the same engine we've met in Bad Company 2, but as we can see it runs smoother. The major reason for this is the limited destructibility. Contrary to BC2, Medal Of Honor has a lot of buildings that are indestructible. Graphics wise, the MP part looks good but nothing breathtaking. As with Bad Company 2, the Frostbite engine is CPU bound so you'll definitely need a quadcore to enjoy it or a dualcore with a high CPU frequency. Frostbite doesn't tax the GPU, so you won't need a high-end card to enjoy it.

Fifa11 PC Demo, Performance & High Resolution Screenshots

EA released their demo of Fifa11 and for the first time, PC gamers have the chance to experience the next-generation gameplay and graphics of the Fifa franchise. Although the PC version is not the same as the console one (Personality is missing and the online mode supports only 5vs5 instead of 11vs11), the game is remarkable. As with PES2011, we won't discuss the gameplay but how it performs. The demo is 1.17GB and you can download it from here.

As with PES2011, we can clearly see that the new game engine of Fifa11 is multithreaded. The game takes utilizes all the cores of our Q6600, although as we can see it doesn't tax them. The overall CPU usage was 50-60%, which is exactly the same with the one of PES2011. This means that both games will run fine in most PC systems, even if they aren't high-end. This is great news to say the least.

Πειρατεία vs PC gaming

Κατά καιρούς θα έχετε όλοι ακούσει για την περιβόητη πειρατεία και τις επιπτώσεις της στο PC gaming. Developers που εκφράζουν παράπονα για μια ‘πεθαμένη’ πλατφόρμα, με ολοένα και περισσότερα studios να στρέφονται προς τα… ‘δελεαστικά’ οικιακά συστήματα (κονσόλες) και μια μαζική εγκατάλειψη των ριψοκίνδυνων αποφάσεων δείχνει με τον καλύτερο τρόπο την κρίση που περνάει την σημερινή εποχή το PC gaming. Μήπως όμως στην πραγματικότητα έχουμε να κάνουμε με μια γενικότερη κρίση, στην οποία χρησιμοποιείται η πειρατεία των PC games ως αποδιοπομπαίος τράγος;


Δεν είναι ψέμα να πούμε ότι η πειρατεία μαστίζει τον χώρο του gaming από την εποχή του Amstrad και του Atari. Πειρατεία υπήρχε, υπάρχει και θα υπάρχει. Και προσπάθειες αποτροπής της καταλήγουν σε έναν φαύλο κύκλο, στον οποίο ζημιώνεται ο αγοραστής κι όχι ο πειρατής. Το είδαμε στο παρελθόν με το Starforce. Το βλέπουμε και τώρα με το νέο online σύστημα προστασίας της Ubisoft. Το πρόβλημα δεν είναι η πειρατεία ή η καταπολέμησή της.