by Joe Keefe Introduction Flight sim entertainment is about recreating the feel of the subject in question. One of the best ways to do that is to put a realistic and precise controller in the hands of the simulation hobbyist. CH Products has a long-standing history of doing just that, and its latest offering, the […]
by Joe Keefe On June 23rd, Matrox announced the TripleHead2Go DP Edition. “DP” stands for DisplayPort, the latest graphics connectivity technology. DisplayPort provides a small interface cable connection and supports up to 8.64 Gb/s data transfer rate, higher than the 7.92 Gb/s of dual-link DVI. This means that higher resolutions, or the same resolution at a […]
Back To Page 2 Joe: If the camera is that much more responsive, won’t it pick up some of my unwanted head movements? Seth: I’ve seen a TrackIR 5, while tracking stationary markers on a tripod, register the footfalls of a developer walking by the unit about 10 feet away. It’s that sensitive. However, this definitely isn’t something […]
Back To Page 1 Joe: Most TrackIR 4 users I know are pretty satisfied with its performance. Does the extra resolution really make that much of a difference? Game play is what really matters in the end. Seth: I think that the difference in-game is significant. TrackIR 4 is still a nice piece of technology. It […]
An Exclusive Interview with Seth Steiling, NaturalPoint Product Manager for TrackIR by Joe Keefe Joe: Thanks Seth for taking the time to answer questions sim fans have about the new product. Let’s get at it. What’s new in TrackIR 5, and how is it improved over TrackIR 4? Seth: The most significant improvement is in resolution. Our […]
by John Reynolds Introduction AMD launched the Radeon HD 4800 series last summer to great reception. Based on a smaller GPU than NVIDIA’s offerings at the time, AMD was able to aggressively price their new graphics boards and force their competition to repeatedly respond in turn. This January NVIDIA did a 55nm die shrink on […]
Back to Page 3 Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific was tested during an attack on a convoy. All in-game settings were enabled and placed at their highest options. The latest Ubisoft sub sim is pretty much a wash among the three GPUs tested, though not surprisingly the Radeon 4870 trailed behind the newer boards. World […]
Back to Page 1 Test System Details The test system detailed below was installed with Vista Ultimate Edition x64 SP1 and consisted of the following components: Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.2GHz) CPU Intel DX58SO X58 chipset motherboard 6GB Corsair DDR3 1333 memory WD VelociRaptor 300GB hard drive Plextor PX-712S DVD drive Dell 3007WFP 30” […]
Back to Page 2 IL-2: 1946 was tested with the “Zero vs P40” track. The game was run in OpenGL mode with max settings and the conf.ini file used for setting the resolutions. Hardly a cutting-edge graphics engine by today’s standards, 1946 showed the GTX 285 crushing the two Radeons, though all three boards are way […]
Back To Page 4 Conclusions The Core 2 architecture was a clear win across all fronts for Intel when launched in June of 2006. The same, unfortunately, cannot quite be said for the Core i7. While the new architecture displays enormous potential under synthetic applications, such code is generally more forward-looking and heavily multithreaded […]
Back To Page 3 GTR 2 sees the Core 2 part outperform the new Core i7s under the low setting, and it also outscores the mainstream 920 under the high category. The 965, however, ekes out a win under the high setting. For GRiD, both Core i7 processors shine in this particular title, dominating the Core 2 […]
Back To Page 2 Test Results – Real World FSX does almost all of its heavy lifting in one hardware thread so the return of SMT in the Core i7 architecture has no real performance impact here. The only real noteworthy score is that of the 920 under the low setting, where the higher frequency, […]
