Hardware manufacturer Nvidia has released a set of Game Ready drivers for EA Vancouver’s Mass Effect: Andromeda, ensuring that GeForce graphics card owners will enjoy “higher-fidelity effects, higher framerates, and support for higher resolutions.”
Players who install Nvidia’s drivers will also get access to Ansel, a PC utility that offers expanded screenshot-capturing functionality for Mass Effect: Andromeda and other supported Windows games.
Launching worldwide this week, Mass Effect: Andromeda is the latest entry in developer BioWare’s sci-fi action-RPG series. Like previous Mass Effect games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Mass Effect: Andromeda offers a galaxy-spanning quest in which players delve into the depths of unexplored planets in search of valuable materials and clues regarding an overarching narrative.
GeForce hardware owners can unlock faster framerates and support for higher resolutions in the Windows PC version of Mass: Effect: Andromeda by installing Nvidia’s official Game Ready drivers. According to Nvidia, Andromeda‘s Game Ready drivers and the included GeForce Experience application also enable expanded support for 4K HDR resolutions.
“Whatever system configuration you play on you’ll have a great experience thanks to GeForce Experience, which can automatically configure Mass Effect: Andromeda‘s graphics settings for the best balance between image quality and performance,” Nvidia said. “And in addition to being a one-stop shop for game configuration and optimization, GeForce Experience will also enable you to record and stream Mass Effect: Andromeda gameplay, and much more, making it an indispensable application.”
Nvidia continues: “If you wish to crank the settings and resolution way up, consider SLI configurations, which are now supported in Mass Effect: Andromeda with the release of the new Game Ready driver.”
Mass Effect: Andromeda debuts for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PCs digitally and at retail on March 21.
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.