CES 2014: The Highs and Lows.

There were some Highs and Lows of CES 2014 expectations that were met and some that we disappointing.

Highs:

1. Mantle - AMD's Mantle API is amazing. AMD has taken Nvidia's innovation of replacing the CPU with the GPU for advance and specialised calculations to the consumer level. In other words, GPU acceleration not in the realm of Super Computer usage but in the realm of gaming something CUDA failed to ignite.

Another thought I was having is that now AMD is entering into the ARM market in the server end, maybe in the future we will be seeing APUs with 12-16 ARM 64bit core with 32-64 GCN cores on our desktops.

Check the video out at 23mins.

Another demo without the lecture.

2. Freesync - You can have dynamic refresh rates for your monitor with the new Display Port 1.4 standard.

3. Trueaudio - Remember how awesome the Creative X-Fi cards were? But since EAX was so expensive for manufacturers to licence to make into their own soundcards game developers stopped adding those effects when everyone used the cheap onboard sound that only had DirectX. Expect the 3D Directional Audio and Environmental Effects back in Trueaudio games.

4. 4K Monitors - Dell providing cheap 4K monitors so if you need one for some good old 4K movie watching or just an awesome cheap monitor with fantastic colour reproduction and crystal sharp image.

Dell 4K Monitors

5. Utraslim Gaming Laptops - Nothing much to say but those skinny chicks are sexy beasts.

Gaming Laptops/Notebooks

Lows:

1. G-Sync - Nvidia is at it again making a Propriety product for should be a common feature. What do I mean? Well look at PhysX, Nvidia hype the hell out of it and it was only a Nvidia card feature. After a year no one really gave a shit because game developers were not going to go through the trouble to make a game that uses PhysX as a gameplay feature. Instead, it was regulated to the eye-candy category of features a game had something no one really cared or wanted except gloating Nvidia fanboys.

G-Sync is the same marketing swill. Nvidia is trying to capitalise early on what's going to be soon a common feature in monitors. Worst, they want you to pay 200 buck extra for it.

Asus G-Sync Monitor

2. Nvidia Game Streaming - Steam is doing it, Sony is doing it, Microsoft is doing it. I don't really give a crap if Nvidia is doing it.

Nvidia Streaming Games

3. Secret Gaming Laptops - Apparently, a few secret gaming laptops 'revealed'. As in they showed you the laptop but told you nothing of the specs. Since, all laptops practically have the same goddamn specs it is just the enclosures/housing and screen quality are different I see no reason to hide the specs.

4. Curved TVs - If it is good enough to watch it flat in the IMAX Cinemas it is good enough to watch it flat at home.