Worried about how your favorite Xbox game would fare on your PC? Microsoft has put your mind at ease by rolling out a new game performance indicator on the Xbox app on Windows.
Dubbed the Game Performance Fit Indicator, the new feature was released in the latest update on Thursday, giving you an idea of how certain Xbox games perform on your computer compared to other ones with similar specs before you download them. For example, if you want to play Sea of Thieves but want to know if it’s suitable for your computer, you’ll see a label that reads “Plays well on similar PCs,” which predicts that the game will run perfectly on your computer as well. Other games may give you a different label that indicates otherwise because some features call for different spec requirements.
“If your PC isn’t up to the task of running a graphically demanding game, you’ll be able to view the game’s system requirements to get more details on what you need to run the game,” Tila Nguyen, senior product manager lead on Xbox experiences, explained.
Nguyen was quick to add that not every game will run against a performance check, especially games that have recently been added to Xbox Game Pass, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and Assassin’s Creed Origins. As such, the Game Performance Fit Indicator won’t show up on every game on the PC Xbox App until Microsoft has more information to recommend what games go well with your PC and which ones require more specs, or even a PC upgrade, to play them well.
Until that update comes, you may have to run games without a performance indicator against other performance checking and system recommendation sites, such as Can You Run It.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.