Weekly Fix #2

Hey everyone,

Welcome to your weekly fix for Monday, March 2, 2015.

GTAV PC Push Back, Heists, and $1.5M Pre-Order Bonus

According to Rockstar Games, developer of the famed Grand Theft Auto games, the release for GTAV PC has been pushed back yet again. It was supposed to release on PC in late 2014, which didn't happen. Then it was supposed to be late January, 2015. Slated for release on March 24, it got pushed back another time now to April 14. As unfortunate as this is, I'm totally with Rockstar about their decision to buy time and release when it's best for the game. Rockstar has always made fantastic games with incredible levels of detail and polish. Learning from their past, they know the effect on the community can be profound if a product which is not ready is released (GTA Online ring any bells here?) It looks like they've taken this one by the horns and are sticking to their guns on ensuring the game will live up to the expectations of millions of fans worldwide.

As an additional incentive and act of goodwill, the pre-order bonus was amped up to include another $200,000 usable in GTA Online when the game launches. That brings the current pre-order bonus to $1.5M.

Additionally, we are finally going to be seeing heists in GTA Online. For owners of current and next generation copies of GTA V, heists can be expected to hit on March 10, 2015. They will fundamentally be very similar to those int he single player game. You will need to prepare for the heist over the course of several missions with your friends, and only then will you be able to do the big job. This is a 4 player cooperative game mode that I personally cannot wait to play.

Multiple GPU's? Yes please!

According to speculation and rumors originating on Tom's Hardware (and for now they will remain speculation and rumors) apparently there is a PC video card breakthrough coming from Microsoft to be revealed mid March at GDC.

DirectX has been at the forefront of PC gaming for many many years. It has been evolving as have the graphics cards to provide us gamers with more immersive and realistic gaming experiences. Now, DirectX 12 looks like it's going to take PC gaming to a whole new level.

According to some of these rumors, a source who wished to remain anonymous revealed that DirectX 12 will make it possible for PC gamers to mix and match graphics cards in multi-GPU arrangements without the restriction of multi-gpu technology or manufacturer.

For instance, if you own a PC and want to increase the graphical processing power of your system, you might want to install 2-4 nVidia SLI enabled video cards. Or, you might want to do the same with AMD CrossFire. What (apparently) DirectX 12 will make possible is that not only would you be able to use AMD and nVidia cards interchangeably with one another, having multiple types installed in your system, but that they would be collaboratively considered as a single graphics card.

On top of this, memory pooling would allow you to maximize the amount of VRAM you had available to the total amount of RAM among video cards installed in your system.

I'm not sure what to expect here, but if this is true, it could really send a shockwave through the market, change the way AMD and nVidia compete against one another, and possibly change the way we game forever.

HTC & Valve to enter VR market

In a world of ever advancing technologies, it's a no brainer that more and more companies want to get involved in the next generation of tech.

Recently, VALVE (The company behind Steam, as well as some of my favorite PC games) revealed alongside Taiwanese phone giant HTC that they will be entering the VR market later this year with the release of their VR headset named Vive.

The Vive is said to have a resolution of 1200 by 1800 per eye and run at approximately 90FPS. This, says the developer, will remove the jitter that is prevalent in many other devices already on the market.

In addition, with several base stations (I assume that will have to be purchased separately) your body can be tracked as well as your head in a room the size of about 15 by 15 feet. This would add a new dimension in the feeling of immersion, and would make for some interesting experiences.

HTC was initially very skeptical as to the way the system would work until they saw Valve's demo. They jumped on board shortly thereafter and there are now several other companies signing up to produce content for the Vive. Companies like Dovertail Games, Fireproof Games, and Cloudhead Games. With others like HBO interested as well, I am curious to see which way this technology will go.

Surely the focus is gaming, but it might be possible to apply this technology to other faucets of entertainment as well. Only time will tell.

It was also rumored that a handful of Valve games will support this new VR headset, and in doing so will help to further immerse gamers into the awesome experiences they already enjoy today.