More than a decade into the franchise’s lineage, Forza Motorsport makes its PC debut this year in the form of Apex, a free-to-play version of the sixth mainline instalment that launched on Xbox One in 2015. Now, Turn 10 Studios has announced an open beta for the release, which is set to begin next month.
Community manager Brian Ekberg describes the team at Turn 10 as “obsessed with performance” in a blog post that was published yesterday on the official Xbox news wire. To that end, the studio is using the open beta as a method of fine-tuning the game to perform well over a “diverse selection of hardware setups.”
Ekberg offered up a few morsels of information for fans looking forward to Apex, including the promise of wheel support. Unfortunately, the post also confirms that the livery editor from the Xbox One version of the game will not be making the jump, although a selection of curated designs will be made available.
System requirements for the game are also being publicized. Turn 10 is advising players that an Intel Core i3-4170 CPU, 8GB of RAM and 30GB of storage space are the minimum requirements, alongside either an Nvidia GeForce GT 740 or a Radeon R7 250X GPU, according to a report from Tech Spot.
However, to experience the game in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, you’re going to need an even more potent rig. Anything less than an Intel Core i7-6700K, 16GB of RAM and 30GB of solid state drive storage, accompanied by either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti or a Radeon Fury X, isn’t going to make the grade.
The Forza Motorsport 6: Apex open beta is scheduled to begin on May 5, and will run throughout the summer. The game is expected to release on the PC before the end of 2016.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.