flyinghaggis

I didn't realise how easy it was to get homebrew and emulation running on the Xbox Series consoles! Pretty cool that Micosoft allow this out of the box.

I went for the optical drive version of the console and Demon's Souls. The Demon's Souls remake is outstanding. The visuals, audio and general aesthetics are spectacular and the gameplay more than holds up. Definitely one of the best launch titles ever on a Sony system IMO. As many have said the DS5 controller is fantastic. Feels super premium and the larger size makes it more comfortable than the DS4 IMO. The upgraded rumble is more granular and the adaptive triggers pretty nifty. Plus I'm still shocked at just how quick the SSD loads! I've had an SSD in my PC for ages but honestly it's unbelievable that the PS5 can load games in literally a few seconds compared to the minutes some games used to take on the PS4. Even PC's with high end hardware and superfast PCI-E 4.0 SSD's don't even come close to the special sauce Sony seems to have under the hood here. It might be divisive but I quite like the design and styling of the console. Plus the larger size at least seems to come with the benefit of cooler temperatures which keeps the machine very quiet. Speaking of styling I like that the system comes with removable side panels. It makes cleaning dust from the fan easy plus should mean we see custom colours and designs which provides some nice customisation options. Personally I'm hoping they release panels in the original PS1 retro grey with the old style PS logo and a matching controller In terms of gripes I don't appreciate the increased price of the games with many first party Sony titles like Demon's Souls now touting a £70 RRP Also, the console and stand feel like they were clearly designed first and foremost to be positioned vertically. In horizontal mode the stand doesn't fix onto the console and it's very easy to knock it off if you move it slightly. Seems like a poor design IMO. Plus, out of the box the system only comes with around 650GB of usable SSD space. At least it can be increased using an M.2 SSD in future though. Generally though I'm really impressed with the PS5 so far

Has anyone else pre-ordered a PS5 for launch? Mine's being delivered today!

To me it's more that as an organisation you preferably want to standardize on a single video calling platform rather than a case of labelling specific platforms as being 'bad'. Presumably if you have teachers/staff making calls at the organisation you want a record of those calls in case of and complaints/impropriety/issues and to guarantee a level of service and availability. If all staff are off doing their own thing using stuff like Zoom at a personal level then the school has no visibility/logs of video calls in the event of any issues. Ultimately it's the call of those in charge of the organisation.

Yeah, I've seen those projected benchmarks! Imagine what that would mean for the Intel/AMD PC x86 market if it turns out to be true I struggle to believe that can be the case, especially across a varierty of benchmarks, but time will tell though....

Absolutely, I'd take the 2-3 times performance they claim with a massive spoon of salt. However, even if Apple can simply match the performance of their current x86 based Mac's whilst using half the power that's a real paradigm shift. Especially if they can continue to make the kind of year on year performance gains we've come to expect from their iphone/ipad chips. If you look at those kind of gains versus ~20% generational increments we've come to expect from Intel it's hard not to wonder where they'll be in a few years time versus x86.

Interesting to see Apple making moves away from Intel/AMD/X86 and towards it's own chips for both CPU and GPU. Apple Announces The Apple Silicon M1: Ditching x86 Apple are making bold claims of 2-3 times the performance but haven't indicated how they measured this or what they compared it against! I wonder if this is the start of a wider move in the industry away from x86 based chips. Previous ARM based versions of Windows have been pretty much a disaster but maybe now the performance of ARM and similar SOC mobile chips has reached the point where they can compete? I'm keen to see independent benchmarks/reviews and see how they compare with previous Intel X86 and AMD GPU based Macs in terms of performance/compatibility?

The biggest gripe I have is that the retail pricing is no longer particularly appealing on the 5600x. Until recently you could buy the 6-core 3600 for around £150 and now a similar 6-core 5000 series chip is nearer double that at basically £300. Granted it's the faster X variant but it feels like a colossal price hike for anyone who was looking at the 3600. I guess now they know they have the superior product over Intel in every way they don't feel the need to be overly competitive on pricing anymore! Hopefully they unveil some more cost effective options (5600/5300) at the lower end in the near future for more sensible money.

Just wondered what everyone was using for redacting sensitive information when processing subject access requests/etc. I guess technically you can use any app like Microsoft Word/etc to blank out parts of a document but I'd wondered if anyone used dedicated software specifically for redaction and GDPR requests?

That's what I was thinking! They need to sell this in kit form so you can add your own keyboard case shaped in a variety of 1980's home computer themed shells (BBC Micro, C64, Spectrum, Amstrad, etc)

If any other Playstation VR owners have ordered a PS5 you can get a free PSVR camera adapter, which is required to use it on ps5, via the link below. https://camera-adaptor.support.playstation.com/en-gb

Been playing this over the weekend on Playstation and it's really good especially in VR. Anyone else playing it? The above review is good but I appreciated the first minute where it cuts from clips of the 90s Lucasarts games to the current one. Shows just how far things have come in ~25 years!

Looks like a second wave of stock has been made available today if anyone is looking for a preorder. https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/2020-09-25/ps5-preorder/

It would be handy if Bethesda were on Gamepass. It's great when a new game you want to play is available on it at launch!

https://news.microsoft.com/2020/09/21/microsoft-to-acquire-zenimax-media-and-its-game-publisher-bethesda-softworks/ Wow, that came out of nowhere!

I understand that it's a budget model however it still disappoints me that it isn't as capable as an Xbox One X in terms of Memory/Resolution. Maybe most folk won't have the same expectation though !

My aging PC (X99/i7-5820k) failed on me a few months ago so I finally got round to fixing it last week. I needed a new CPU/mobo and, with most of the componets I intended to re-use being 5 years old, I wanted to keep costs down. Thought about holding off for the 4000 series but I don't want to wait another month and given I'm buying at the entry level I doubt it'll make much difference anyway. So I deciced to go for a B550 motherboard and a Ryzen 3100 CPU. Gotta say I'm pretty impressed with performance it offers despite being the lowest tier processor in the AMD 3000 range. Definitely worth considering if you're after a budget build.

A point worth noting for anyone considering the series S is that it has less ram than the current Xbox one X so won't be able to run current gen games in one X 4k mode. Kind of disappointing that in some ways a "next gen" machine is actually less potent than the current gen! https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-series-s-will-run-older-games-xbox-one-s-mode-improvements-rather-x-mode

I was tempted but I'll wait to see what launch games are announced. No Forza or Halo titles confirmed so far AFAIK

Enter the Gungeon is free on the epic game store. Been meaning to give it a try as it looks like fun. https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/pc-gods-trigger-enter-the-gungeon-free-to-keep-at-epic-games-store-from-aug-20th-4pm-3524222

New footage out today. The more I see of star wars squadrons the more awesome it looks 😎

The main thing that I take away from this is that when we get USB 4.0 it'll be a complete rolloup of all the USB 3 standards, will use a USB-C connector and will also include Thunderbolt 3 support so given that in theory we can be reasonably sure it'll be compatible with anything that isn't Thunderbolt 4. I don't see many manufacturers bothering to offer Thunderbolt 4 devices given USB3/Thunderbolt 3 is already capable enough for most things. Especially once USB 4.0 is available.

I know you should never pre-order...... But at £30 for a full star wars X-wing /TIE-fighter game in VR I'll take a chance on it! Does seem almost suspiciously cheap though.... Can't help but assume EA have DLC missions, content packs and numerous microtransaction paint jobs and ewok/stormtrooper cockpit bobbleheads in the pipeline!

I guess those are my guesstimates at this point. ~£400 for Digital and ~£500 for physical. I did actually wonder if they might step it up a notch to £450 for digital and £550 for physical just to try and push people away from physical so they can maximise profits from the digital store and any potential future subscription plans. I think a ~£100 difference between physical and digital is likely for sure though. I prefer the fact that Sony is making a clear distinction between the PS4 and PS5 generations by not pushing cross-gen compatibility and muddying the water with less powerful versions of their latest console in the way Microsoft seems to be with the rumoured Lockheart variant. I think that'll give Sony an advantage when it comes to creating games that fully utilise the new hardware.

As someone who loved the old Xwing and TIE Fighter games back in the 90s I'm glad to see this Star Wars series making a comeback. Fantastic that it has VR support as well. There's an gameplay unveil on Thursday 18th June. https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/squadrons