Streaming is a big piece of the video game industry. Whether players are growing an audience or just doing it to show friends, modern consoles have made sharing gameplay as easy as pressing a button. For more advanced streamers, there are capture cards. One of the most well-known brands, Elgato, recently launched the 4K60 Pro capture card. Starting Tuesday, November 21, players can capture crisp 4K visuals at a smooth 60 frames per second.
For those who prefer higher framerates over visuals, Elgato’s latest capture card can lower the resolution for extra frames. This includes running games at 1440p and 144 frames per second.
“Elgato Gaming is dedicated to giving content creators the tools they need to succeed and stay ahead of the curve,” Julian Fest, general manager of Elgato Gaming, said in a statement. “4K60 Pro ushers in a new era of 4K viewership by giving the power to produce Ultra HD content to the public. Content creators are now able to surpass traditional broadcast media and give viewers the eye candy they crave.”
Aside from 4K streaming, the 4K60 Pro uses low-latency technology to provide a near-instant view of the gameplay. With Elgato’s custom software, the 4K60 Pro can capture full-4K visuals from a PS4 Pro, Xbox One, or any other unencrypted HDMI device. Capturing a console for game capture is done through an HDMI In and Out.
The 4K60 Pro joins the company’s established line including the HD60, HD60 S, and HD60 Pro. As a member of the Pro series, users will need to connect this to their computer tower using a PCI Express slot. The earlier HD60 and HD60 S have less permanent connections through USB, but they won’t come with the 4K capabilities.
In order to gain a smoother streaming experience, Elgato also released the Elgato Stream Deck earlier this year. With its focus on live-streaming, it features customizable LED buttons that can be mapped to specific stream functions. Streamers can switch scenes, launch media, adjust audio, and more with the simple press of a button.
Elgato’s 4K60 Pro capture card is available now for $400.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.