Computer Shopper - UK (2020-01)

ISSUE383|COMPUTER SHOPPER|JANUARY2020 15

THESURFACEPROXisaninteresting rejigof
the hybridmachineswe’ve seen in recent years.
Not only could it rival the iPad Proasadevice
forcreating and consuming content on the
move,itcould also challenge other Windows 10
laptops andeven Microsoft’s
own Surface Pro7if it can
deliver theperformance it
looks to have on paper.
It also shows an interesting
statement of intent from
Microsoft, which shows the
company is willing to look at
how Windows 10 can run on
systems thataren’t reliantonIntel or AMD CPUs.
While Windows 10 hasrun on Snapdragon
chips before,under Microsoft’s Always
ConnectedPCinitiative,performance and
compatibility issueshaveheldthem back.
But with Microsoftgetting more involved
with the silicon in such devices,wecould start
to see more Windows 10 devicesrunning on
ARM ratherthan x86-basedchips. That could
in turn deliverdevices that are lighter and more
energy-efficient, yet stillpowerful.

SOWHAT?

Chip partnerships

Intel is killing off the Kaby Lake-G chips,

whichsaw the chip maker team up with

rival AMD to createachip that mixed an

Intel Core CPU with AMD Vega graphics,

yielding some capable slices of silicon

Foul play

Game giant EA exposed the personal

details of FIFA20players on its website

when gamers signed up forthe football

game’s Global Series competition

Auto motors

Nvidia has teamed up with Toyota and

GM, among others, to work on chips for

self-driving cars in the Autonomous

Vehicle Computing Consortium, further

paving the road ahead foratime when

computers, not humans, will be the

motorists of the future

Not Scot free

Twoteenagers

thought to have been

involved in ahackon

the Metropolitan

Police’s websiteand

Twitter account have

been arrested and charged in Scotland

On the Spectrum

Eve,the company behind the

Surface Pro-like,crowd-

sourced Eve V, has tapped

up its community to come

up with the Eve Spectrum, a

4K monitor that takes the desires

of its 2,000 members intoaccount

Double duty

Google has revealed apair of new Pixel

phones, with the fourth-generation

Android handset dropping the single-

camera setup foradual-camera array

Charging ahead

The Oppo Reno Acehandset can charge

its 4,000mAh battery from empty to full

in amere 30 minutes thanks to a65W

SuperVOOC charger,potentially setting

the standard forfaster phone charging

Yee-core

Rockstar has revealed that its hit

console title RedDeadRedemption 2is

coming to the PC and will tap intothe

power agaming rig can bring to bear

with enhanced graphics settings

THEHEFTYDEMANDSray-tracing puts on
even acostly GeForce RTX2080Timeans the
light-rendering technique hasn’t exactly been
rampantly adoptedbygamesin2019.Asthe
currentcrop of gamesconsolesalsolack
support forray-tracing, there’s an argument
thatit’s not going to be high
on the priority list for
developers makinggames
that work across PlayStation
4, Xbox One andthe PC.
However,Nvidia’s push to
explore how ray-tracingcould
be added to oldertitles might
change this.Patches that
implement ray-tracingand can be applied to
games that are alreadyonthe PCs of millions of
people is oneway to showcase thetechnique.
Acardfrom theGeForce RTXline-up will
still be needed, but QuakeIIcan run with
ray-tracing enabledonanRTX 2060, amore
affordable GPU with onboard ray-tracing

hardware.This couldmeanthat ray-tracing

could become moreaccessible to PC gamers,

andthusinterest in it rises.This could then

make the effort of addingray-tracing into

games morecompelling fordevelopers.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the

PlayStation 5and next-

generation Xbox mayhave

ray-tracing support. As

such, more work on

ray-tracing is importantso

thatdevelopers can ready

themselves forthis

upcoming generation.

Having astudio

dedicatedtoray-tracing work stands a

strong chance of finding new ways to make

ray-tracing more efficient and effective in

games, and thus make it more accessible.

Nvidia’s work should also spurAMD into

adding more comprehensive ray-tracing

support in its Radeon cards.

SOWHAT?

Microsoft’sworkwithAMD also shows the

Redmond company is not wholly beholden to

Intel, and will happily roll its sleeves up to work

with other chip makers.This sets the stagefor

other PC and laptop makers to follow suit.

With prices ranging from

£999 to over £2,000 forthe

new Surface devices,this

top-notch engineering won’t

come cheap,sowe’ll have

reviews in upcoming issues

to tell you which Surfaces are

the best bet.

From starting out witha

slightly odd tablet-meets-laptop device,the

Surface range has evolved into asuite of

impressivedevices. The showcaseinNew

York demonstrated that Microsoftisn’t just

willing to refresh its most criticallyacclaimed

Surface gadgets, butalsolook at innovative

directions the Surface range can segueinto

(seeTheLowdown,page 17,for an example).

That’s all very promisingfor futureSurface

devices and their impactonnext-generation

Windows 10 machines.

We ’recherry-

picking some of

the greatest titles from

the past decades and

bringing them into the

ray-tracing age”

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