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Gaming PC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (November 2007)
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Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (January 2008)
A common design in custom-built gaming-PC´s incorporates a neon colored case and a vinyl side window.
The terms gaming PC and gaming computer refer to computers specifically built to play personal computer games at a higher resolution or higher graphical settings than domestic PCs. They commonly feature extravagant casings and high-end components, and are sometimes liquid cooled. They often run on the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems.
Although PC games will run on general-purpose home computers, a true gaming computer is specifically made to process the instructions necessary for 3-D graphics acceleration processing, physics modeling, unified pixel shading technology, dynamic geometry rendering, and enhanced sound processing and effects engines. They also include readily available external connection points for a variety of accessories such as, headphones, USB formatted devices and firewire connection points. Although gaming computers, sometimes called a "gaming rig", may be bought retail in the same manner as the common computer, they are frequently built by their creators for use in single player, or online gaming. Gaming computers are purpose-built to gain the best possible performance advantage in order to produce a computer that will out-perform the opponents computer, thereby winning the game in an online contest, or to simply enjoy the best images and effects a new computer game has to offer.[1]
The personal computers made specifically for playing games started being popularized with the introduction of games back in the 90's such as Doom by id Software, made for Microsoft DOS based personal computers. These games pushed standard business and home computer hardware to their limit, and game enthusiasts began building computers with the highest performance hardware to run Doom at the best possible performance (measured in frames per second). Therefore, the gaming computer began as a modified utilitarian device for competitive events.
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Check this out from Wired!
Top Stories Magazine Wired Blogs All Wired
Tech Biz : Media
Movie Industry Doubles Down on 3-D
By Betsy Schiffman 04.14.08 | 12:00 AM
DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens is the studio's first movie produced in 3-D technology. It's slated for a March 2009 release.
Courtesy DreamWorks
Studio execs have an odd conundrum: Box-office receipts have steadily grown but the number of ticket sales have not. Thanks to the proliferation of home theaters, movies-on-demand and portable video players, moviegoers have fewer reasons to actually "go" to a movie. The studios' solution? Hike ticket prices by a couple bucks apiece and ramp up production of 3-D movies.
"It's pretty clear right now that you can charge a premium for 3-D," says Doug Creutz, an analyst with Cowen & Co., who covers the entertainment industry. "We're probably talking about the difference between $15 and $10 [tickets]. And attendance is much better for 3-D movies."
Filmmakers and studios alike have pledged their allegiance to 3-D. Disney and Pixar announced this week that it will release all of its films in 3-D, starting with Bolt, which is slated for a November release. Dreamworks Animation says that by 2009 all of its movies will be released in 3-D. James Cameron is working on big-budget 3-D sci-fi flick called Avatar, and George Lucas is working on remastering all the Star Wars movies in 3-D.
For studios, the financial allure of 3-D is twofold: The technology can't easily be replicated in home theaters (yet); and moviegoers are still willing to pay a premium for 3-D films. The big question is whether the technology is a game changer or just a short-lived gimmick to drive ticket sales, like Smell-O-Vision -- or, for that matter, the 3-D technology of the 1950s.
"This is a serious visualization technology that's just begun to be used for entertainment," says Elizabeth Brooks, chief marketing officer of 3-D system maker RealD, which has about 97 percent of the 3-D market. "It's been used by NASA and by scientists who need to render things perfectly. It's my job to sing the company's praises, but if the technology weren't good, [filmmakers] wouldn't be planning to make as many 3-D films as they're making."
Unlike 3-D films of the 1950s, the new wave of 3-D pictures don't blur and they don't cause headaches. In basic terms, a 3-D film is shot in two frames -- one for the right eye and once for the left eye. The projector buffers the left and right streams and projects them in alternation at 144 frames per second, using a "triple flash" technique that shows each frame three times in order to smooth out the picture. The RealD 3-D system also requires theaters to install a special silver screen to maintain the polarization of the image.
"To the people who continue to say it's a gimmick I would simply say, 'You're going to be the one left saying the Earth is flat,'" says Jim Dorey, a 3-D obsessive and writer of the Marketsaw blog, which is sponsored by several 3-D companies, including RealD. (Dorey, whose background is in IT, says he first became intensely interested in 3-D with the release of Jaws 3-D in 1983.)
And it doesn't hurt that 3-D is poised to improve theater attendance and box-office grosses. The average ticket price for "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds," a 74-minute 3-D concert flick, was reportedly $15. By contrast, the average 2-D movie ticket price is about $7, according to the National Association of Theater Owners. Hannah Montana grossed about $65 million domestically, and on its opening weekend, it grossed about $31 million, handily out-selling the 2-D Jessica Alba vehicle, The Eye, which sold about $12 million worth of tickets.
But while studios move full-steam ahead with 3-D production, there's one minor hitch: There still aren't a whole lot of 3-D movie theaters -- only about 1,000 out of 38,900 screens in the United States are 3-D.
In order to install a 3-D system, theaters must have digital projectors. And at the moment, there are only 4,600 digital projectors in the United States, according to the National Association of Theater Owners. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade to digital projectors, and $20,000 to $50,000 more to install a 3-D system. It's a rich investment, and theater owners may not see much of
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