MaximumPC 2007 04

94 MAXIMUMPC APRIL 2007

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FRAME-RATE MADNESS!

I don’t care who says what, once you hit 60fps in

any media, that’s it—unless you happen to be from

Krypton or $6 million was spent rebuilding you. I

engineer systems and networks for graphics, video,

and audio clients.

This also means I tend to build home systems

for these folks. Since the first 3D cards hit the

consumer market in the ’90s I have been doing

my own benchmarks. This allows me to see what I

can offer my clients for the best possible price. I do

all the testing blind, and I do not run benchmarks

until after I see the user experience. I know those

benchmarks are going to show a huge jump in

performance, but the only time users can actually

discern these performance jumps is when they go

from a low-end PC to a high-end rig or when they

see the benchmark scores.

Simply put, I have seen only one occasion in which

a human actually saw any performance leap from

65fps to 80fps. Yet I keep reading in your mag how cool

it is to jump from 80ish frame rates to the 100s.

—Frank Mondana

SENIOR EDITOR GORDON MAH UNG RESPONDS:

Frank, I agree with you that going from a steady

80fps to 100fps is difficult or impossible for

mortal gamers to see, but as one of the last few

here from the old boot days, I can tell you that

nothing has changed.

I can still hear Senior Editor Andrew Sanchez

saying that most people can’t see any difference

above 60fps. However, we recommend videocards

that deliver greater than 60fps for two reasons.

First, cards that hit higher frame rates give you

breathing room for future games that will stress

your hardware more. A rig that delivers 60fps on

average today will not do so in games that come

out six months from now.

Second, we publish the average frame

rate, because that’s what most benchmarking

tools report. However, the more telling number

is actually the minimum frame rate during the

run—when a game’s frame rate drops below

60fps, people notice, and the result is unpleas-

ant. In FEAR on machines that average 60fps,

the minimum frame rate can dip as low as

20fps. Not good.

You should also remember that today

people push 24-inch panels with resolutions of

1920x1200. Even if a machine ekes out 60fps at

that resolution, it’s not going to run at the same

speed on super-high-resolution 30-inch panels.

WE’RE VERY, VERY SORRY

Page 59 in the March 2007 issue is one of the

worst pages I’ve ever tried to read in a magazine.

My only conciliation is that the product on that

page [Philips’ amBX speakers] was rated so low

that I guess I didn’t miss much. You value sub-

stance over style with your product reviews, so

please remember that philosophy in the layout.

—Hollis Jackson

EDITOR IN CHIEF WILL SMITH RESPONDS: As some-

one with spectacularly bad vision, I can assure

you that we didn’t intend for that page to look as it

did. Unfortunately, in some issues, a printing error

caused the page to be exceptionally difficult to read.

We’ve taken steps to ensure that the problem won’t

occur again, as you can see on page 59 of this

issue. If you received an affected copy of the maga-

zine, please contact me at [email protected]

and I’ll send you a PDF of the amBX review.

WE’LL CALL IT THE CRAPCARD

I was surprised to read in Will Smith’s “10 Reasons

You Don’t Need Vista Today” (February 2007) that

“Vista won’t support CableCard for the vast major-

ity of users.” I just read about ATI’s new OCUR

CableCard, which is supposed to come out in mid

Sure about

the Sansa?

Your review of the SanDisk Sansa e260

digital media player (November 2006)

was generally positive, but you raised

a major objection to the Record button,

which was too easy to push, and gave

the player a 5. I’ve heard that newer

releases in the E series have upgraded

firmware with a software-activated lock

for the Record button. How would you

rate those players?

—Dave Braune

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN

RESPONDS: We actually review the Sansa

e280R in this issue (see page 62) and can

confirm what you’ve heard about the firm-

ware. Being able to lock the Record but-

ton resolves our biggest complaint about

this player, but we still don’t care for the

undersized buttons. SanDisk showed us

a new player at CES—the Sansa Connect

Wireless—that has a completely different

button/wheel interface, but it’ll be a couple

of months before we can get our hands on

one of those. Stay tuned!

in outYOU WRITE, WE RESPOND

CUTCOPYPASTE

Our review of Roku’s SoundBridge Radio (January 2007)

incorrectly reported that Roku Labs does not provide

its own server software: The company’s open-source

Firefly Media Server is at version 1.0. The company also

tells us it will add WPA security with version 2.7 of its

SoundBridge software, which was in beta at press time.

The Sansa

e280r fixes

many of the

problems that

plagued its

predecessor,

but we’re really

excited about

the upcoming

Wi-Fi-equipped

version.