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WTF, Lee, why the long pause?
Jan 30th
Well, I’ll tell you.
Things have been more than a little crazy at Minifrag HQ (translation: my house), because my family and I have been in the process of purchasing a new home. It probably wouldn’t be such a big distraction if it weren’t for our geography.
See, yours truly lives and works way, way up north in Canada — six hours north of Winnipeg, to be more clear. The dilemma we faced was deciding whether to commit to a long-term stay where we are now, or relocate somewhere a bit closer to “civilization.”
Ultimately, bush living won out, and we’re set to move — in a little over two weeks. So further craziness is about to commence…
On the plus side, the new place has an actual office where I’ll be writing from. No more kitchen-table blogging from me. And that also means I’ll be able to frag my heart out in private without disturbing anyone in my home who has practical things like homework or bill-paying to do.
Thanks for giving a hoot, and stay tuned!!
Futuremark’s Game-o-meter shows what games your netbook can play
Jan 19th
One big issue I have when it comes to paying for boxed (or downloadable) games is wanting some assurances they’re going to run on my hardware. I currently don’t own a tower with “real” graphics capabilities – just a netbook and a laptop, both with Intel integrated video.
Fortunately, the crew from Futuremark has a useful little web app called Game-o-meter. It uses a Java-powered system profiler to collect data from your rig and compare it to minimum requirements for tons of different games. Just about every popular title is listed, from WoW to CIV3 and 4, to Rome: Total War.
The results Game-o-meter produces aren’t fool-proof, of course, but they at least give you a little more insight than what’s printed on the box.
One caveat: new hardware might take a little while to show up in their database. As you can see from the test run on my Gateway LT210H, the Pine View graphics are as yet unknown to Futuremark.
To check your system, make sure you have Java installed and then head over to Yougamers.com – just click any game to start testing!
ECS MD120 dual-core Atom/Ion nettop now available
Dec 29th
While OEMs have been a little sluggish in producing netbooks with NVidia’s Ion under the hood, they seem to be falling over themselves to release nettops sporting the gaming-friendly chipset.
This time, it’s ECS offering the tandem – inside the MD120. It’s a barebones similar to the Asrock Ion 330, with a dual-core Atom 330, 2x SODIMM slots with a max of 4GB memory, multi-format card reader, 6 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, DVI, and VGA outputs, and room for 2 mini PCIe expansion cards and a slimline SATA optical drive.
There’s also room for a full 3.5″ SATA hard drive, which means cramming 1TB or more into this baby is very doable.
The MD120 is selling on Newegg for $269. Throw in the missing bits – say, a 1TB HDD, 2GB SODIMM, and tray-load DVD-Burner, and you’re looking at about $190 more.
Don’t forget you’ll still need an OS, which pushes this little system up over the $550 mark. Is it worth it at that price? Seems a little on the high side to me.
Of course, if you’ve got some good pulls sitting around and can kit this out with repurposed parts, $269 for the shell isn’t a bad deal at all.
via Netbooked
Stay tuned…more after this brief holiday break!
Dec 25th
I’m heading into the back country today with the family, so I’ll be relaxing offline until tomorrow.
Rest assured, this weekend will be action-packed here at Minifrag – with plenty of Atom Arcade action to get you gaming on that new netbook!
Thanks for reading, and see you soon!