‘Crimson Desert’ Is a Cat Dad Simulator
Step into the shoes of the strongest, goodest boy in a game that is beautiful, baffling, and impossible to put down. Source link
All posts tagged: pc games
Gamers Hate Nvidia’s DLSS 5. Developers Aren’t Crazy About It Either
After a day of widespread, overwhelming pushback, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang doubled down and said gamers are “completely wrong” about DLSS. (You know how much gamers love being told that they’re wrong.) But developers at Capcom and Ubisoft say they didn’t even know what the tech demo would look like and, according to Insider Gaming, found out about it the same time everyone else did and were just as surprised. (Nvidia, Ubisoft, and Capcom did not immediately get back to our request for comment.) “I think the reaction from gamers is understandable,” Marwan Mahmoud, a game developer at Incrypt, wrote in an email to WIRED. “Some games started relying too heavily on these technologies instead of focusing on proper optimization. From a developer perspective, it feels a bit different, because you see DLSS as a tool that helps rather than a core solution.” The problem for many people, developers included, is the one-size-fits-all approach of a technology that can adjust visuals across various game types. “The artist has a style, the artist has an art …
How to Choose the Right Gaming Laptop (2026): What You Need to Know
Gaming laptops used to be straightforward. They were powerful but thick and unwieldy. These days, you have options. There are gaming laptops that prioritize performance at all costs and others that home in on thinness, cost, or design. Heck, there are even gaming tablets and 2-in-1s. That breadth of choice means choosing a gaming laptop in 2026 isn’t simple. While picking any option from our Best Gaming Laptops, Best Cheap Gaming Laptops, and Best Laptops guides is a good place to start, you still might not end up with a gaming laptop perfectly suited for your needs. Having tested many gaming laptops in over a decade of reviewing products, I’ll break down each element of these spendy machines to lead you in the right direction, as well as explain what to expect from the major laptop brands. Updated February 2026: We’ve added information on the latest gaming laptop announcements from CES, as well as the new context on pricing, the memory shortage, and CPUs. Table of Contents AccordionItemContainerButton What Size Gaming Laptop Should You Get? …
6 Best Gaming Laptops (2026): Tested and Reviewed
Top 6 Gaming Laptops Compared Other Gaming Laptops to Consider Photograph: Luke Larsen Alienware 16X Aurora for $1,970: Alienware has lost some focus with its gaming laptops recently, but its latest refresh feels like a return to form. The Alienware 16X Aurora (7/10, WIRED Recommends) sits in the middle of the lineup, attempting to offer the right balance of performance, premium features, and price. At its current price, it nails that walk across the tightrope. Though it isn’t flashy, the design is understated yet refined. And while there are cheaper ways to get RTX 5060-level performance, the bright, color-accurate IPS display is a great upgrade, as is the premium touchpad. All in all, the Alienware 16X Aurora ended up being my favorite Alienware gaming laptop in years. It’s too expensive at retail price, so wait for a discount on this one. MSI Titan 18 HX for $5,200: Power. It’s what PC gamers want most, right? Well, if that’s you, and you don’t have a budget, get the MSI Titan 18 HX (7/10, WIRED Recommends). It …
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU Review: Gaming’s Best Chip
Introducing the gaming side paints a slightly clearer picture. In older 3DMark benchmarks, again using the RTX 5080, the difference in scores was extremely minor, with wider margins in newer benchmarks. Time Spy, for example, saw under a one percent increase, while Speedway was closer to 10 percent. via Brad Bourque When it comes to actual gaming benchmarks, there’s a difference, but in practice you aren’t going to notice it. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of my go-to games, because it’s a popular title that’s also quite demanding, and the in-game benchmark means it’s very consistent. At 1440p, with the settings on ultra and ray tracing on, but path tracing off, the 9800X3D delivered 69.61 FPS compared to the 9850X3D’s 71.19 FPS, about a 2 percent difference. via Brad Bourque None of the other major games I tested, including Marvel Rivals, Arc Raiders, and Counter-Strike 2, showed any noticeable difference either. Particularly with a matching high-end GPU, we’re talking about a 3 to 4 frames-per-second difference when already over 120 fps. I’m not sure even the …
Hyperkin The Competitor Controller Review: A DualSense Copycat
The most immediately striking difference is that Hyperkin’s product swaps the typical Xbox approach of asymmetric thumbsticks for the PlayStation’s horizontal layout. It also separates the D-pad (it’s one piece inside the pad, but splits its cardinal directions so each appears to be its own button), while the ABXY face buttons are spaced slightly further apart. Where the DualSense’s touchpad would sit, we have the Xbox home, menu, view, and share buttons, all blended in rather smartly. An LED ring around the home button just about echoes the lights running the periphery of the DualSense’s touchpad, although it’s really more of an inversion of the regular Xbox controller, where the home button itself lights up. The Competitor’s thumbsticks come equipped with thumbcaps that mirror the PS5’s, an outer ring with a convex central point, but a pair of Xbox-standard concave caps are included. These easily pop on and off, and can be mixed and matched, if you were so (strangely) inclined. There are two areas where this departs from both the standard Xbox and PlayStation …
Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop Review: Great Value
It also came with two sticks of Kingston Fury 16-GB RAM and a Wi-Fi 7 card. All that for $1,550 is a really solid deal. There are cheaper ways to get RTX 5070-level performance, such as this iBuyPower system, but the Alienware Aurora is also far from the most expensive either. The Asus ROG G700, for example, is hundreds of dollars more, even when similarly configured. I haven’t tested these yet myself, so I don’t know how equivalent the performance or fan noise is. But the Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop is a great deal, especially if you catch it on sale. The Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop performs fine enough. It’s about 5 percent behind the typical RTX 5070 scores in 3DMark Steel Nomad, a standard benchmark for measuring gaming PCs. The RTX 5070 is considered primarily a 1080p video card that can occasionally jump up to 1440p, depending on the game. You can see the frame rates in the chart below, all of which were tested at max settings without ray tracing, frame generation, or …