AMD's VISION - The APU. (And why you should vote for me!)

I'm not usually one to enter this sort of competition, but when the good people at AMD approached me during an event that I held for them, I could hardly say no. I need votes to win, but before I get into that, let me run you through AMD's VISION..

Beyond all the computer jargon and fancy talk, it's all very simple. The folks at AMD had a vision that everyone and their uncles should be able to have a supercomputer. Simple things like full time HD, a battery life of over 8 hours, across the board 3D capabilities and much more were desired. So they built an APU - Accelerated Processing Unit. This is what AMD had to say about their APU:

"Information inside a computer flows between two critical areas: the GPU (for creative and visual tasks) and the CPU (for analytical and logic-based functions). Traditional PCs have separate CPUs and GPUs which leads to a communication bottleneck. This often results in extensive slowdowns for consumers.

Introducing the innovative AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU):

Powerful AMD processor technology and discrete-class, DirectX® 11–capable graphics combined on a single chip. It’s the perfect combination of beauty and brawn—delivering smooth HD video, powerful multitasking and energy efficiency. AMD's new APU features up to 4 x86 cores combined with up to 400 Radeon™ graphics cores in a single microchip."

That's how they describe it. In simpler terms they took, what has always been the more capable chip in a computer the GPU, and built it into the CPU, thereby increasing the processing power by at least 80%! Smart move, eh? You know have a simple chip that has tons of more processing power, making things like extended battery life, full time HD and 3D child's play. All of this is rooted in AMD's VISION engine. I'll let them explain that to you:

"AMD VISION Engine — The foundation of VISION Technology from AMD that enables vivid HD

entertainment, blazing-fast Internet browsing and accelerated media applications."

Pretty sweet, huh? My request now is to get you guys over to their website and vote! Each of the challengers, yours truly included, has to gather votes and the challenger with the most votes gets to go to the Austin City Limits Music Festival to see, amongst others, Arcade Fire, Coldplay Kanye West etc. live!

Help a brother out? Click here to start voting for your friendly, neighbourhood smartass!


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Review: Crysis 2 (360, PS3, PC)

Here's my review of Crysis 2, that was originally featured on LochalArchade.com. You can find the original post here.

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How do you top a game that has since become a benchmark for performance? How many times has the quote, “Yeah, my new rig can run Crysis on full steam, no problem,” been used to gain brownie points in the gaming community? When you create a game that becomes the label by which a computer’s performance is quantified against, making a sequel to a game like that, is not something easily accomplished. I mean, ask the guys at 3D Realms how their sequel to Duke Nukem came along.

Review: BulletStorm (360, PS3, PC)

Now, when someone tells me, "hey dude, remember Cliff Bleszinksi? Yeah, he made a new game," the bar is already pretty darn high. Bleszinski happens to be part of the Epic Games team. Remember them? They made Gears of War.

Thanks to the wonderful folk at EA Middle East, I got my hands on a sweet little copy of Bulletstorm. And man, it was good. BS (lol) follows the story of a crew of former assassins - turned - mercenaries out to get back at their former boss who betrayed them. A simple story line, so not much you can do wrong with that. 

Review: Killzone3 (PS3)

Killzone 3 starts off somewhere which would probable leave you pretty confused; inside the visor of a Helghast. Eventually though, things get back to normal and once again you’re good ol’ Sgt. Sevchenko fighting the good fight against the Helghans.

Initially rumoured to, ‘break the PS3,’ it turns out to be true. Simple things, that aren’t so simple to create, make all the difference. While every strand of grass glints of the mist gathered and with some of the best fire effects I’ve seen, this is the best looking Killzone yet. Unfortunately, this is also one of its drawbacks.

While playing I noticed amateur mistakes. Things going wrong that you wouldn’t expect in a title of Killzone’s caliber. Gun sprites freezing when you reload, confusing the hell outta the player. There were also repeated times where the cutscenes would have the speech all mistimed and messed up. Subtitles were repeatedly incorrect, so while it read something, Sev was really saying something else.

There was a continuity issue that bothered me too. [Warning: Here be spoilers] When Sev destroys Stahl’s cruiser with the nuke, the resulting outbreak, kills everyone in space, around Stahl. How did Sev and Rico survive?

All in all, Killzone 3 delivers quite well, except for a few bugs.

Visual: 8.5/10

Audio: 8.5/10

Gameplay: 9/10

Story: 7.5/10

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