Hijinks Inc.

Tag: gaming

  • Nothing to See Here: Starcraft 2 is NOT killing graphics cards.

    Nothing to See Here: Starcraft 2 is NOT killing graphics cards.

    With the launch of Starcraft 2 on July 27th, 2010 people were excited to get their hands on this long awaited game.  Development of the game started in 2003 and had been delayed or postponed several times due to other games Blizzard was producing at the time.

    Since the launch minor issues have been growing, and today Blizzard Confirms an overheating issue. However, this story has been spun by the technology community even to the point where Slashdot picked up on it.  It has been given menacing sounding titles such as “Is Starcraft II bad for your graphics card?” by ZDnet and “Is Starcraft II Killing Graphics Cards” by Slashdot. A much more appropriate title to the actual problem is one given by OverClockersClub “Starcraft 2 causing some GPU’s to Overheat”

    The problem is that during some of the in-between mission screens, cut screens and menu screens are not frame capped like the actual game play is.  This causes the GPU to render these screens as fast as possible.  Since these screens are simple and, for the most part, static, the computer has an easy time and is able to render these very quickly causing the GPU to heat up.  This increased heat and power consumption exposes flaws in Starcraft II players’ computers, causing crashes, reboots, and even some claimed GPU failures. (more…)

  • Why Forbes is Wrong (Again)

    Brian Caulfield of Forbes.com thinks that the iPhone could kill the DS. Is it a possibility? In a word. No.

    Still not getting it? Let me put it this way… Hillary Clinton has a better chance of being elected president.

    Monday, however, Nintendo will likely face a new and far more dangerous foe: Apple. Steve Jobs’ computer and gizmo maker will likely launch a long-promised feature, dubbed the App Store, which will let outside developers pour software into the iPhone and iPod Touch. And while it’s unlikely that, say, a mobile version of Oracle’s wonky database will make anyone stand up and cheer, we already know putting games on the iPhone is a pretty powerful combination.
    [ more ]

    According to his little equation, Nintendo should already be in trouble. I don’t know about you but I’ve been downloading games for the iPhone ever since I purchased it. Granted Installer.app isn’t as mainstream as the App Store will be, but shouldn’t it have had at least some affect on Nintendo’s sales? Well, when you look at the numbers, Nintendo actually saw increased first quarter sales in 2008 over 2007.

    Just for fun, lets take a brief look at Nintendo’s best selling game of all time, Nintendogs, with 18.67 million copies sold as of March this year, 18.67 million? Apple hasn’t even sold that figure in iPhones and iPod touch sales combined! And this is only one game!

    Not being a gamer myself I can’t really comment in detail as to just how bad the control scheme on an iPhone is vs. a DS, but it’s bad. I’ll let Fred expound on that one if he wishes.

    From my point of view, gaming on the iPhone is better than gaming on your average cell phone (unless you live in Japan) but it’s nothing to sell your DS or PSP over (or even your Game Boy Color).

  • Wormux

    I don’t know if any of you have played any of team17’s Worms series, but they’re awesome.

    Anyhow, Wormux is an open source equivalent available for OS X (as well as Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, and also available in a bootable livecd form), you should seriously consider checking it out.

    [ Download it here ]

    I’m hoping either team17 or the developers of Wormux come out with an iPhone version after the SDK launches. That would be fantastic.