graphical fidelity Archives

AppWizard

April 30, 2025

PC gaming is the real next-gen and now’s the best time to switch

Cyberpunk 2077 offers an immersive gaming experience on high-end PCs, showcasing advanced technology such as real-time reflections and path tracing for enhanced visuals. The game runs seamlessly at maximum settings on an RTX 5070Ti, achieving over 120fps in 4K resolution. The current gaming landscape indicates that next-generation gaming is primarily driven by PC technology, which remains more viable due to stable hardware prices compared to rising console costs. Modern platforms like Steam and the Epic Games Store have simplified PC gaming, making it more accessible and often more economical. Recent advancements, including ray tracing, enhance even older titles like Half-Life 2. Major console games are increasingly launching on PC simultaneously, and PlayStation titles are appearing on Steam within a year of their console release. Speculation about future consoles suggests they may adopt PC-like features, but they are unlikely to match the performance of top-tier graphics cards.

AppWizard

April 19, 2025

The Best PC Games Right Now (2025)

PC gaming in 2025 features a mix of innovative remasters, indie titles, and new intellectual properties, providing a wide range of experiences for gamers. The most played games on Steam include Counter-Strike 2, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, and Dota 2, with Counter-Strike 2 leading in player engagement due to its esports scene. Notable new releases include Blue Prince, The Last of Us Part II Remastered, and Promise Mascot Agency. Other popular games outside Steam are Minecraft, Fortnite, and Valorant. Genre-specific leaders include South of Midnight for action, Myst (Remastered) for adventure, and Street Fighter 6 for fighting. Upcoming anticipated titles include Grand Theft Auto 6 and Elden Ring: Nightreign. Trends in 2025 highlight esports engagement, indie innovation, purposeful remakes, and cinematic storytelling. Last Epoch's Season 2 update has revitalized player interest with new content and enhancements. The year 2019 was significant for PC gaming, with acclaimed titles like Resident Evil 2, Control, and Disco Elysium, and marked by the influence of digital distribution platforms.

AppWizard

April 16, 2025

Best Single-Player PC Games to Play in 2025

Single-player PC games are thriving in 2025, featuring captivating narratives, intricate gameplay, and stunning visuals. Notable titles include: 1. Blue Prince - An indie roguelike puzzle game with a Metacritic score of 93, set in a shifting manor where players solve interconnected puzzles. 2. Assassin’s Creed Shadows - Set in feudal Japan, this game features two protagonists with distinct playstyles and has been praised for its narrative pacing and environmental design. 3. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - A cinematic first-person adventure focusing on exploration and puzzle-solving, released on PC in late 2024. 4. South of Midnight - A magical adventure following a girl with weaving abilities, notable for its claymation art style and emotional depth. 5. Avowed - A first-person fantasy RPG with choice-driven storytelling, set in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity. Upcoming games include: - Blades of Fire (May 22, 2025) - A Soulslike combat game with a focus on cinematic storytelling. - Cairn (TBA 2025) - A survival climbing simulator emphasizing precision control mechanics. - Hell Is Us (September 4, 2025) - A narrative-driven action game that eschews traditional open-world design. - Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream (Late 2025) - A stealth-adventure game featuring orphans uncovering a conspiracy. The PC platform remains the best for single-player games due to mod support, performance flexibility, a vast library, and indie innovation. The evolution of gaming technology has led to cutting-edge graphics, immersive storytelling, and innovative exploration mechanics, enhancing player engagement.

AppWizard

March 25, 2025

Minecraft Vibrant Visuals Update Will Transform Way Players Experience the Game

Mojang's update, Minecraft Vibrant Visuals, enhances the game's graphical fidelity while maintaining core gameplay mechanics. The initial rollout will focus on the Bedrock Edition, followed by the Java Edition. New features include directional lighting, volumetric fog, dynamic shadows, enhanced water reflections, and subsurface scattering. Essential gameplay elements like mob spawning and crop growth will remain unchanged. The update is optional, allowing players to toggle new graphics on or off, and is backwards compatible with existing worlds. It will run locally, independent of friends' settings, and aims for accessibility across various Bedrock devices, with more compatibility details to be announced. Early testing versions will be available soon, with a full release expected in the coming months.

AppWizard

March 24, 2025

Minecraft is getting a graphics overhaul with the Vibrant Visuals update

Minecraft Live announced significant updates, including the introduction of Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical upgrade for the game. This upgrade will first be available for the Bedrock edition, with the Java edition to follow. Key features include directional lighting, subsurface scattering, and volumetric fog. Additionally, the upcoming update titled Spring to Life will introduce variants of various mobs and new ambient features like the firefly bush and falling leaves. A teased update will feature a dried ghast block that can be transported to the Overworld, where players can revive it as a friendly mob and equip a harness to mount it.

AppWizard

March 13, 2025

Rise of the Ronin is another crappy PC port, performance patch coming ‘soon’

Rise of the Ronin was released on Steam a year after its PlayStation 5 launch, but players are experiencing significant performance issues, including stuttering, low frame rates, crashes, and input delays. Koei Tecmo is investigating these problems and developing a patch. The game has received a "mixed" rating on Steam, with only 44% of user reviews being positive. Many users express disappointment with the game's graphical quality, and while some report satisfactory experiences, frustrations are prevalent. Koei Tecmo acknowledged issues with FPS drops and model rendering when using the Ultra graphics preset and suggested lowering the graphics settings and FPS limit as a temporary solution.

AppWizard

March 9, 2025

I use Apollo and Artemis to stream PC games to my phone

Apollo and Artemis are server and client applications designed for streaming visuals from a gaming PC to a smartphone while allowing input from the smartphone. Apollo is installed on the gaming PC and includes a virtual display feature, while Artemis is installed on the smartphone. Both applications are forks of Sunshine and Moonlight, with Apollo offering automatic adjustments for resolution, refresh rate, and aspect ratio. To set up Apollo, users must download and install the Apollo.exe file on a Windows machine, create a password, and access the web UI. For Artemis, users download the APK file, connect to the same WLAN as the Apollo server, and enter a pin displayed on the smartphone into the Apollo web UI. The setup is currently limited to Windows PCs and Android smartphones, and while it can work with Moonlight, the developer plans to move away from Sunshine and Moonlight in the future.

AppWizard

March 8, 2025

Run Xbox 360 Games On Your PC With XenonDecomp

XenonRecomp is a project focused on preserving Xbox 360 games by transforming them into native x86 software, enhancing their graphical fidelity. The Xbox Series X currently supports only 632 out of 2,155 Xbox 360 titles through emulation. XenonRecomp faces challenges such as understanding system architecture, supporting PowerPC instructions, and addressing the lack of MMIO support. Developers must also obtain assets from legal copies of the original games. The game Sonic Unleashed has been successfully ported using this method, with enhancements demonstrated by Modern Vintage Gamer.

AppWizard

March 7, 2025

Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced is a bitter-sweet return to Rockstar’s money-making machine

Over a decade has passed since the launch of Grand Theft Auto 5, which remains the only installment in the series not fully completed by the author. The Enhanced edition features advancements such as full ray tracing, DLSS, and FSR support, but the single-player experience feels neglected compared to the rich content of GTA Online. The focus has shifted towards online gameplay, with new features like the Career Builder and exclusive content such as Hao's Special Works and the storyline "Oscar Guzman Flies Again." There are concerns that the single-player component may become merely an introduction to the online universe, and hopes for a more inclusive experience in future installments like GTA 6 are expressed. The author plans to explore the available content in GTA Online.

AppWizard

March 5, 2025

GTA V Enhanced Makes the 12-Year-Old Game Look Great Again

Rockstar has released the Grand Theft Auto V PC update, named GTA V Enhanced, which replaces the previous version, now called GTA V Legacy. The update has higher system requirements, with minimum specifications including a 64-bit processor, Windows 10, Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD FX-9590, 8 GB RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 or AMD Radeon RX 6400. Recommended specifications include Windows 11, Intel Core i5-9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 6600XT. Progress can only be transferred from the Legacy version once, affecting both Story Mode and GTA Online. New features in the update include ray tracing support, AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS upscaling, faster load times via DirectStorage, enhanced 3D audio with Dolby Atmos, and DualSense controller support. However, HDR display support is not yet implemented, and the NVIDIA App does not recognize the new version. The game runs smoothly at an average of 123 frames per second on high-end rigs without Frame Generation, which may be added in future updates. Players must use the Rockstar Games Launcher regardless of owning the game on Steam or Epic Games Store, complicating DLSS management. A mod is available to assist with DLSS file management during gameplay.