Computer Peripherals.
Once again, I look at an area that has taken
leaps and bounds from their early beginnings. Peripherals and other add-ons
for computers have turned the home PC from a fancy word processor to a
games machine that can easily rival any arcade machine. Apart from a good
computer in the first place (meaning fast processor, lots of RAM and a
good graphics card) there are three basic extras that everyone needs to
turn their home computer into a great games machine. These are a sound
card, a joystick and (these days) a modem.
Every single game released these days is a multimedia
extravaganza. That means that (provided you've got the right hardware)
you get incredible sight and sound and the later of the two is the one
that you'll need to fork out extra for. Sound cards provide any computer
with incredible music and SFX quality. CD quality can be easily affordable
and the technology for such quality isn't new. The now antiquated SoundBlaster
16 will give CD audio from a CD-ROM drive and play sampled sound at that
quality with no second thoughts. Things have progressed a lot further than
that, though. The newest soundcards coming onto the market use Wave Table
synthesis (instead of FM) in order to give music that easily rivals that
of a CD in a fraction of the disc space. 3D sound is coming into its element
and multiple sound channels can really give the sensation of "being there"
in the computer's simulated environment.
An important aspect of any game is being able
to control. Often the best way to accomplish this is to use a joystick.
These have progressed a long way from the original stubby arcade
machine sticks and now use advanced features such as digital technology
for excellent precision and force feedback for even more realism. My personal
favorite is CH Product's Flight Stick Pro followed closely by Microsoft's
new force feedback Sidewinder. Both of these offer multiple buttons, incredible
control and the later offers the ability for the joystick to resist your
movements hence adding an additional dimension to the gaming world.
The newest craze in gaming around the world
is multiplayer gaming. This involves putting your self up against other
real people, instead of just the very limited and somewhat predictable
computer opponents built into most games. This gives way for battles, wars
and fun the likes of which have never been seen before. Of course, for
this to become a reality, there is something that you desperately need:
a modem. The ability for computers to connect to each other via a normal
phone line gives rise to so much ease of multiplayer gaming and the technology
has actually surpassed the current phone line system. With the advent of
digital (rather than analogue) modem technology the modems are being let
down by the phone lines which can only handle (at best) around 44 Kb/s
rather than the modems rated speed of 56 Kb/s.
Go to the Banksia
Technologies Australia, CH
Products or Creative Labs
websites.
