Curtain Call

Hey Guys, so I think it’s finally time to hang this one up, for now. Our readership just isn't up to what we believed it would be, which is a big problem with your first blog, but we had some really high moments and some really fun articles. We are not going away and you will still have access to all of our old blog topics in case you found them entertaining or helpful. I will chime in periodically to let you know what is going on with Team Rev and for computing in general as I can or deem necessary. I want to emphasize that we will return bigger and better than ever with a new design and new and more relevant topics. I will leave you with this though:

Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life.

Michael LeBoeuf

And with that, catch you guys later, just hopefully not that much J

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Xbox One...Oh My

Hey Guys, so yesterday Microsoft announced the Xbox One and my god I am preordering two, one for me and one for the wife, she will not be left in the dark trust me. I hope everyone took the time to watch the reveal, if you haven’t start here.

There were a lot of assumptions about it being similar to the PlayStation 4, which it is hardware-wise, but this isn’t about the PlayStation 4. From a hardware perspective the Xbox One has 8 GB of RAM (DDR3), an 8 core x86 AMD processor and specialized GPU that is being equated to an AMD Radeon HD 7790 GPU, a Blu-ray player (thank God) and comes packaged with the new Kinect, a 500 GB HDD (standard) Gigabit Ethernet and HDMI in/out. All this hardware allows for a seamless switching between all of the software. The hardware working in concert with said software will create a very centralized (hence One) platform which actually leads us to the real marvel of the Xbox One the software.

The Xbox One Team has really stepped its game up here. For starters there are 3 Operating Systems: The Xbox platform that we know and love, albeit with a graphical upgrade, a Windows Kernel based on Windows 8 for applications and to deal with the multitasking and a middleware which I believe is hypervisor based (see: hypervisor) that makes it all play nice. One of the features that I like is the Live TV, this takes advantage of the HDMI in/out. This will work great for me because I have Direct TV so when football starts….imagine the possibilities. This also piggy backs on another cool feature: Active Fantasy Stat Tracking. The new Xbox One experience will track your fantasy stats (they've only showed NFL and NBA so far) and you will get a small popup notification when your players score points for your league, kind of like the achievements popup on the Xbox 360 just with smaller real estate. The other way you can track fantasy stats is with the new snap-in system. This basically works like picture in picture but is displayed side by side instead of the one screen being superimposed on the other screen. Speaking of the snap-in feature leads to another useful feature that we touched on earlier: Multitasking. They take this to extremes as are as I am concerned, as if Microsoft’s own words, “You can start matchmaking in one game while playing another”. This tech specifically is called Smart Match. Other multitasking that they showed were interesting as well. They show the first Star Trek (2009) and span-in(ed) the trailer for what I believe is Star Trek: Into Darkness and they were both playing. I couldn't tell if they were using split audio, but I would think that probable, specifically when you take into account that During the COD: Ghost expose’ they spoke of multiple video out. I started to give a entire sections to the Kinect but it can be summed up into a few sentences. It’s always on and always listening. It takes human range of motion into deep account, it even notices when you twist your wrist now and it is going to be an integral part of the system. Make your decisions on if that is a good thing as you may.

There were some mention of games but not much. EA is releasing 4 titles within earshot of launch all powered by EA’s new Ignite Engine (*Note: He got the life kicked out of him.Watch the video on IGN that I linked to understand). These titles are mainstays and should be expected on any new system: Madden, FIFA, NBA Live and UFC. Microsoft also spoke of 15 games that are coming from their internal studios with 8 being new franchises, but the show stealer was Call of Duty: Ghost. Everyone was waiting for that announcement. You should have seen me and my wife. This is primarily the reason why I am preordering two.

I refuse to compare the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 right now as these are new systems and we don’t have "complete" details about either systems or all of the launch titles. After E3 that should change but you never know.

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PC Gaming Workhorse

Hey Guys, today we are going to go into (as most of you know) one of my favorite areas, gaming. This time we are moving away from the console war and over to the PC side of the wheelhouse.

Your gaming performance depends on a lot of factors but one of the major ones is your graphics card. There are two primary types, discrete graphics cards and an intergraded graphics which are our topics of discussion.

Discrete graphics cards are what you hear about when a separate card that is specifically for processing graphics it is also known as a GPU. They come in a variety of sizes and speeds; also prices can start relatively low and get astronomical quick. Two of the newest and fastest so far the GTX Titan and the Radeon 7990 but of which will set you back $1000, but if you want to play your games on the highest graphic settings then you can do no wrong here.  There is a caveat here though; you will need a good CPU as well. The Intel Core i3/i5/i7 series CPU are the best for high end gaming, under almost all circumstances you can get away with a middle of the road CPU like the Core i5 with a decent card like a GTX 660ti and not have to worry about graphic tears or low frame rates for a while. Want even more power out of GPUs? Put them in a SLI (NVidia) or Crossfire (AMD) configuration. That takes 2 (or more) GPUs and bundles their processing power together to increase the graphics output and frame rate. Obviously there are other considerations like System RAM and the memory of the GPU.

Integrated graphics are graphics that are built into the CPU that share their memory with the system. This is usually represented as like this: Up to 3061MB Total Available Graphics Memory. This means that the APU (accelerated processing unit) can siphon up to just under 3GB of System RAM to accelerate the graphics. AMD APUs are generally the industry standard when it comes to APU for gaming, that might change soon with the introduction of Haswell architecture announced from Intel which promises to be up to 2x faster compared current APU technology. This is a major step up from the Intel HD 4000 graphics which is the current for the Core Series CPUs.

The great thing is that you can build a very good gaming rig for relatively cheap nowadays, as long as you don’t go too overboard with the other parts, but one of the things that I highly suggest is do research online for you next GPU/APU. The reviews that you might read/watch can be subjective, when you find a part that you like and you buy it make sure to do benchmarks like 3dMark and use Fraps to find out what your frame rate is compared to others people with similar builds. In closing as always stay tuned as you never know we might be giving away some high end parts in the future #wink.

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Update 3 Bringing it Forward

Morning Guys,

Yesterday’s blog will be delayed a week due to unforeseen traveling that I have to do. We will be back next week, but I wanted to take this time out to mention a few things:

1. We here at TRT are very excited about the upcoming reveal from Microsoft on May 21^st and we will have full coverage of the event, hopefully next time there is a major announcement we will get an invite.
2. We are also looking for guest writers that appeal to a variety of audiences and on more specific technology topics like gamer culture, hardware and software problems and mobile technology. If you would like a guest spot please let me know via email at blog@teamrevolutiontechnology.com
3. We are coming up on our one year anniversary on July 5^th and we are excited about that. We are planning something special for that blog posting, but we can’t tell you yet. We will be leading up to it in the posts that are coming up at around that time.
4. We will also be making a push to have more diverse content, so some of my future blogs will have pictures and other articles attached, especially as I begin to deal with bigger and better tech in my daily travels.

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The World of MacBooks

Hey guys, this week we are talking about the World of Mac products, specifically their laptops and ecosystem. I am not generally a Mac user but I support them and have an iPad at home so please remember I am not the authority here.

Apple products have been a staple of go-to computers for designers and similar minded people for many years now and only have 2 distinct models to choose from, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. This is where Apple shines though. With their ecosystem so small they don’t have to deal with the fragmentation issues that Android and Windows users have to deal with. They also stick to a very specific development and distribution cycle that is so specific you can generally set your watch to it, this is where they might be lacking especially when they are trying to acquire new customers. The same development and distribution cycle is very short with a new model coming out every year or two depending on the product. I have heard complaints from new customers saying that by the time you really learn your Apple products, the new one is out. To this I will simply end with this, I am a Supporter of computers in general so I like Mac products. Now without any more delay here are the MacBooks.

The MacBook Air is classified as a notebook but I would call it more of an Ultrabook because of its truly pleasing aesthetics and its very slim design. Everything on the MacBook Air is designed for maximizing speed and efficiency in a very slim and streamlined fashion. They do this with a solid mix of hardware and software usability. Running the latest Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processor with 4 GB of RAM, these never really feel sluggish and they always have a snappy response. They also use flash memory with a 512 GB storage cap. These allow very fast read and write speeds keeping your data close at hand. The thing that I really like though are the other amenities like the multi-gesture track pad and thunderbolt port. The speeds of thunderbolt are a thing to be reckoned with, from a storage stand point that is, with read and write speeds in the 10 GB/second area, or you could use it for one of their 27” Thunderbolt displays and those are magnificent. Pricing starts at $1099 for the base 11” model and $1399 for the 13” model.

The MacBook Pro is a different beast all together. This comes in 2 distinct configurations, with Retina and without Retina and believe me Retina is worth it. Imagine if you will, a beefier version of a MacBook Air and you have a general understanding of how a MacBook Pro works. Another very good trait is that it extends the maximum specs threshold. The RAM is upgradeable to 16 GB and the storage to 768 GB of flash storage. Everything else it pretty much comparable to the MacBook Air with one very notable except, it comes with a mobility series NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card. For you gamers out there this make as a huge difference as the MacBook Air comes with integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 which will not give you much of any 3D gaming potential. The pricing here is a little different as the have 2 models with two configurations apiece. The Pro without Retina starts an $1199 for the 13” and $1799 for the 15”, while the 13” with Retina will run you $1499 and the 15” will set you back a smooth $2199 (ouch).

The MacBook Pro section brings up another issue that plagued me until I figured it out. I didn't start serious gaming on my laptop until the last one that I brought and I didn’t understand completely why I had to sacrifice good graphics to make my games playable and then I figured it out. The internet is a informative place. So I am going to save you the trouble of having to find out….next week’s topic is the difference between a APU and a CPU/GPU Combo.

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Sub-classes of Laptops

First I have to apologize to the people that read the blog. Work and Life have a way of throwing you a curve ball here and there. To give you some perspective one what is coming in the future, we have a few great blogs lined up for you over the next few weeks. Some are centered around hardware others around troubleshooting common place problems, but we WILL be back on schedule of Friday postings and incremental weekday postings here and on our Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus pages (which you can find in the bottom of the post).

Without further ado, let’s talk about sub-classes of laptops. There are many different types of laptops with more and more popping up all the time. Each has a different use case scenario, but they all fit into one or more of the archetypes I am about to list. To make the transition between them easier I will be giving an example of each type to guide you along the path. * Disclaimer* If I have classified something that you don't agree with or make a mistake, please let me know.

Let’s start it off with what everyone has at least one of in their household, normally reserved for budget-conscious people, the Economy notebook. The concept of an economy notebook is always one of the fastest changing classifications. This is because as technology advances the parts that were high-end 1 or 2 years ago are replaced with newer and higher end products. The first laptop that I purchased myself (with the help of my Battle Buddy Martin) fit very neatly into this one. For those who are wondering it was a Dell B120, which I still have running Linux Mint and working nicely might I add. These laptop are very low side & middle of the road parts and are inexpensive. The do many things well and easily and are generally for web browsing, low impact gaming and Microsoft Office type products. They can do more, but the higher (depending on the specs) you go in terms of software the more you will strain the system and the more noticeable that strain will become.

Dell Inspiron 15

Next up we have the thing that most of the adult work force is familiar with the Professional laptop. These are what companies like Dell and HP market to businesses and home office users. They are generally powerful machines but are made specifically for portability and power in a light(ish) package. These will generally have later model processors (Core i5 and Core i7) and mostly utilize integrated graphics on the CPU and have good amounts of RAM (6 GB or 8 GB). These are designed with mid to upper level parts to facilitate higher functions like analytic work and are a staple IT shops everywhere.

HP Elitebook 8470p

Dell Precision M4700

Now is time to get into the meat and potatoes of laptops. Two of the next three sections revolve around what most people think about when they think high tech laptops. The third is what I consider a "dead" class, but might be making a resurgence....maybe.

Let’s start with my personal favorite class of laptops: Gaming Rigs. Gaming laptops are horribly bulky in this day and age, with the possible exception of the Razer's Edge, and there is good reason for this. The parts are almost entirely high end parts, think of a souped up version of a Professional laptop, but this is where the similarities end. These laptops have dedicated graphics card, extremely high resolution displays, high fidelity audio, TV tuners and all other manners of cool add-ons. This is why they are so heavy. These are made for high end gaming, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, Audio Synthesis and all mannerisms of high level computing. These are the literal can do anything laptop, but you are going to pay the price for all the amenities. To me they are worth it though. A sub category of these are slight less expensive and less powerful Entertainment laptops, which I own myself. I haven't given them their own section because they fit very nicely here.

Alienware M17

Mobius ES

The Ultrabook is the (mostly) new kid on the block. It has an emphasis on being a light weight powerhouse laptop while being both "beautiful and artistically inspired". The new breed of them have all sorts of cool moves like turning into tablets and being ultra-thin. They come equipped with a similar disposition to a Professional notebook but with the aforementioned lightness and cool features. They are breaking onto the scene in a big way especially since lots of laptops are going touch screen, which is where the really shine. 

IdeaPad Yoga 13

Samsung Series 9

The last in this list is a dying breed of laptops that Google might be helping make a resurgence, the Netbook. Netbooks are small ultra-portable laptops that are more on the economy side in terms of power but much smaller. Because of this they are never really that powerful, that is until Chromebooks came along. Chromebooks started showing up a little while ago and come in 3 flavors, two on the low end and one on the HIGH end. The Samsung and Acer C7 Chromebooks are perfect for you student types out there, cheap and will do everything you want it to do, except game, unless browser games work for you. The Pixel on the other hand I wouldn't personally bother with, it’s too expensive for what it does, but WOW the screen is great and the design is top notch.

Chromebooks

That closes us out for this week and for the perceptive one's out there who noticed I didn't bring up Macs, don't worry the will get there spot light very soon...

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PlayStation 4 The Re-Up

After a LONG hiatus, TRTR is back with its take (factual and speculative) on the PlayStation 4 Reveal that happened on the 20th. We are going to talk about most of the information that was delivered at the event and believe me, you should be thinking about getting one. I personally am excited for the next gen consoles. As you may remember (Game of Choice October 6) where I stated that I own a PS3 and Xbox 360, so I am a fanboy for neither console and love them both for different reasons. So without further ado, let’s start.

Next Generation console hardware is going to be overkill compared to current generation hardware. The PS4 is using an 8 core 64-bit “Jaguar" CPU and a AMD Radeon GPU, which I believe are both custom so it’s hard to draw a direct comparison to current CPUs and GPUs, but I personally use an AMD A8-3250M CPU on my laptop and my gaming experience is very good indeed, so I would assume it would at least have the power of the AMD A-10 CPU. The 8 GB of DDR5 Ram, I think as a bit much (OVERKILL) but it will allow this console the power in needs to do some of the things we will talk about later with ease. What I like is the 6x Blu-Ray player that they added. The PS3 only had a 2x player and installing any game from a disc was a chore to say the least, so this has redeemed them in my eyes a bit. Hard drive sizes weren't discussed but I hope they break a Terabyte. I brought a 320 GB at launch for the PS3 and fill it up all the time and I kept forgetting to upgrade it. Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and USB 3.0 make sure you have all the most up-to-date specs, except Bluetooth 2.1, I would went 4.0 personally, but I would assume the 2.1 is cheaper.

What I am really excited for is the software that is packaged in this time around. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has shown me that streaming games for others to view can be enjoying, especially if you have an epic game. I am looking forward to this like you wouldn’t believe, especially since with COD I got back into competitive gaming. Sometimes you need people rooting you on or validating that you made the right call, and now you have this by default with all games at launch! The flipside of this coin is that you can now stream games and demos as well without have the hard drive investment like with OnLive.

Since the major hardware overhaul with the PS4, the only real comparison I can draw on is my own laptop that I game on (Vanilla laptop review found here) and the only change that I have made is I put 16 GB of Ram in it. As I have previously said, my gameplay is really enjoyable, I can’t play Crysis 2 but I am still building my gaming desktop for the higher end fun stuff.

Some of the new features will actually make you take notice this time around. The real one for me are the real-time updates. If you ask any PS3 owner what his least favorite thing is, having to wait for a game update is definitely in the top 2 spaces somewhere. I have literally waited 3 hours for the Dust 514 Beta to update, I waited for so long that I forgot I wanted to play it. The new showing for the DualShock 4 and PS4 Eye should get you all excited. They decided to go with a touchpad for the DualShock 4 like the PS Vita and a steroid laden Kinect camera. The sweet spot for the camera is 2x to 3x wider allowing more frantic play with more players. And then there is the 4K Video support. Don’t go rushing to get a 4K TV yet as its video support only, not for games. #sadface

Now for what you all have been waiting for….The Games!!!

First, the “almost” sad news: No backwards compatibility. This was a sour face on the info, I personally am not bothered though. I am buying a PS4 for PS4 games not to play PS3 games. The good news to that sour face is PS Cloud. PS Cloud will allow you to stream PS 1, PS2 and PS3 games, but I don’t believe PlayStation Network will honor you current PSN purchases on PS4 so you will have to repurchase them.

1.     Knack – This looks like a kinda cartoony beat-em up with a serious story. The main mechanic is that the little guy can absorb parts to become larger or shed them to become smaller. Good one for the kiddies and adults alike.

2.     Killzone: Shadow Fall – Not going to spend too much time here. It’s Killzone. Side note the game looks great aesthetically, like really great.

3.     Driveclub – It’s a FPD (First Person Driving) game. The locales look very, very life like and I think this game will give rise to people just getting out in the (virtual) world and driving around again, just for the fun of it.

4.     Infamous: Second Son – For those unfamiliar with the original Infamous games, they are kind of a superhero or super villain platform action game with a lot of vertical movement. From the looks of the trailer this one looks like it takes place in a military state or place with Martial Law in place, looks interesting but I can’t tell if it is canon with the rest of the story.

5.     The Witness: First-person puzzle game, that’s all I really know about it. I generally stay away from puzzle games, but it looks nice at least.

6.     Watch Dogs: This is gonna be a doozy. I do not know what the complete story is but the game revolves around the idea of smart cities with everything be interconnected through the net and the main protagonist has hacked the system and now has control of it all. It’s set in Chicago I believe.

7.     Diablo 3: This is the game I am most excited for, hands down. Diablo 3 has been out since May, but the fact the Blizzard has decided to bring one of my favorite franchises to the PS4, makes me all kinds of happy. I also think this will pave the way for bigger and better Blizzard titles (Project Titan and maybe StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm) onto console.

That concludes our PS Event coverage and knowledge dump. As I said before everyone should be waiting with baited breath for this revolution in gaming to drop on us. Stay Tuned, you never know we might give away on if the support is there for it…..

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