Whiskers

I wish people would stop saying things like this. It's gotten to the point now where even if it's intended to be humorous it fails to be. Plus frankly it's boring. On topic - awesome. Nice to finally have it.

As far as I'm aware, there is currently no concrete information available on a Shield 2. The device was primarily a proof-of-concept, an advertisement for Nvidia and a way to bring in more interest for their technology and GPUs. It was not really intended as a mass-market consumer device, so it's unlikely they would invest in making a second system so soon.

Ultimately, no. Or at least that is to say that I've yet to find any. The only decent ones are basically just larger versions of the DualShock 3 sold at ridiculous prices. I've get to find a single decent one designed to be similar in layout and ergonomics to the Xbox 360 controller, unfortunately. They usually get criticised as you said for having really bad deadzone issues or awful build quality. The best controller I have found so far is the DualShock 3. And to be fair, is analog sticks kick the crap of of those on the Xbox - trying to play Fora on the Xbox is quite difficult after becoming accustomed to the level of subtle control provided to you by the DualShock 3 in Gran Turismo 6. Whereas in GT6 I can control the car easily by simply altering the angle at which I aim the thumbstick, in Forza I need to repeatedly tap the thumbstick in the direction I wish to steer.

Why not get the HTC One? It comes with 32GB of internal storage as standard, has hands-down the best build materials and quality of any Android device available today, has powerful hardware and you can get a Google Play edition from the Play Store. Other than that, perhaps wait for the Sony Xperia Z2 - looks like a brilliant phone.

Windows XP was, at the time, unparalleled as an OS. Xbox was more powerful and easier to work with than the PlayStation 2, and the Xbox 360 (in spite of the hardware errors) brought along a completely new attitude towards playing games both by yourself and with friends online. Microsoft have made brilliant things. The problem is that for the last couple of years they've not been like their former selves - the Surface line was a half-assed mess of conflicting hardware and software, the Xbox One has a lot of issues, Windows Phone is a complete joke and Windows 8 was marketed and advertised in the most horrific way possible. It's actually a great OS, but Microsoft's inability to allow customers to acclimatise to it in time led to a lot of criticism and customers stubbornly refusing to move on from Windows 7. As for Mr. Elop, this is evidently quite worrying. Xbox is very important for Microsoft, and not just financially - it's tied quite strongly with most of their technologies and features (Bing, DirectX, Windows NT Kernel etc) which makes it difficult, maybe even impossible to simply sell off at any point. Hopefully this guy will do a good job at strengthening Xbox (perhaps he'll finally convince them to sell a cheaper Kinect-less version?), but only time will tell.

Attractive and well built phone with decent hardware and software coupled with unique and compelling features such as being water and dust proof. What makes it a bad phone? Most of the proper mobile games (that is to say, 3D games with decent content - not the likes of Flappy Bird) nowadays take up at least 600MB of space each. Telling the OP that he should buy a separate device for listening to music is incomprehensible in the modern age - a decent phone should have enough storage space to accomodate your music. The Nexus 5 has a pitiful amount of storage. The Note 3 is essentially an identical size to the Note 2. It's thinner, but that's the only noticeable difference - height is 0.1mm taller, and width is only 1.3mm smaller. OP, for you I'd have to recommend a Note 3. Great battery life, copious amounts of storage + expandable storage, and just an all-around fantastic phone. You may think it's a brick right now, but in reality it's surprisingly comfortable to hold and use. Unless you have small hands, it should still be perfectly usable with one hand.

Indeed. And it proves a point in my eyes. In spite of all the hate consoles receive for not being powerful enough and all of the "#pcmasterrace" rubbish, there aren't any car games available on PC that are significantly better looking than GT6. Marginally better at most. Which is equal parts impressive on the part of GT6 and disappointing for us PC gamers - why oh why are we not seeing much better looking games when we have superior hardware?

I was playing it on my PlayStation yesterday. It really does look like that whilst you're playing it. It's an utterly jaw droppingly good looking game.

Agreed on ODST. One of my favourite soundtracks of all time. Simply superb work by Marty.

Actually, I still find it more graphically pleasing than 99% of racing games available on PC. Project Cars etc are quickly closing the gap I guess, but considering the difference between the hardware of the PS3 and our computers I find the graphics to be really underwhelming. Gran Turismo 6 is almost on par, which it shouldn't be.

DVI is purely digital, whilst VGA is analogue. What this means is that DVI will more consistently provide a clearer signal and therefore image to your monitor or television - with VGA you can have lots of different issues such as fuzziness, inaccurate or even downright wrong colours being displayed which can be caused by lots of different things such as a low quality cable, excessive interference when using an inadequately shielded cable, trying to use an excessively long cable etc. The gist of it is, DVI will usually either just work or it won't. VGA meanwhile can be at any point in between. This would be less of a problem than it is if VGA was still properly supported today, but unfortunately it isn't. Most modern GPUs and monitors implement very cheap DACs in order to keep costs down, as VGA is not a priority for them - as a result these issues are usually even more prevalent nowadays than they once were. VGA is old, and no longer the best connector out there. If it's all you can get and you're only running at 1080p, it should be perfectly sufficient - but if you have the option to get DVI or DisplayPort you should really opt for one of those instead.

Good riddance to him. I hope this doesn't result in those of us in the UK having to see the insufferable oaf on TV more often, however.

Welcome!

I don't hate it at all. VGA is actually still competent. The problem with it nowadays is that everyone throws in really bad quality DACs into their GPUs and monitors for handling VGA output/input. With components that handle it decently it's still perfectly acceptable, certainly not noticeably different to DVI or HDMI at 1080p or so. (Theoretically it has more bandwidth than the current iteration of HDMI, so...)

No, they're not. Again, the 3570k outperforms the 8350 in the vast majority of games. Likewise, the 4670k outperforms the 8350. For gaming, the most comparable Intel CPU to an FX-6300 is probably one of the lowest-end i5 CPUs, certainly not the 4670k.

If that's what he means, he's wrong. I just interpreted what he was saying a little differently.

Strictly speaking he's right. A 3570k still outperforms an 8350 for gaming performance the majority of the time, and a 4770k outperforms it in the vast majority of gaming scenarios too. That doesn't actually equate to much of an FPS difference (perhaps 5 at the most) for most modern games, but in significantly demanding single-threaded games it can result in noticeable performance gaps. Intel's per-core performance is superior to that of AMD's, which results in better performs for applications which only take advantage of 1 or 2 cores - which many games still do. That said, the answer to the question is no. An 8350 will not bottleneck a 780 Ti.

PS4, yes. It can still be used to access things like YouTube, play Free to Play online games and other video and music content services. Xbox One, no. To access any online features besides the marketplace, friends list and messaging you'll need a subscription to Xbox Live. Until then you'll have no Netflix, YouTube, Free to Play game online functionality etc.

It would still have some of the same inherent limitations, but yeah it would be a good improvement.A joystick is better than WASD for movement, be that of your character in an FPS or TPS or a car in a racing simulator etc. More ergonomic, and more accurate for fine movement. Plus the possibility to alter one's velocity.

Interesting. I don't think it'll actually be very good, but nonetheless it's interesting to see new ideas and experiments. I just wish we had a better way of controlling movement on PC. WASD is ridiculously clunky and limiting in comparison to a thumbstick. Unfortunately this doesn't look like it'll help that much...