PC Gamer

Leading a Revolt

Boutique builder iBuyPower has a new system on tap, the Revolt 2, that it's billing as the world's first eSports focused gaming machine. Beyond the marketing angle, what's most interesting about the Revolt 2 is the placement of certain components.

iBuyPower set out to a build a system that highlights the most important components in a gaming system, one of those obviously being the graphics card. Rather than having the GPU tucked away inside the PC with its heatsink and fan contraption facing downward, it sits at the top of the case behind a see-through window. It's oriented so that the side faces upward, while customizable Smart Lighting technology gives it a bit more visual bling.

"With all of the effort manufacturers put into the striking designs of their cards, it s a shame that all we see is the backplate at best. The Revolt 2 flips this notion on its head," iBuyPower explains.

Another somewhat unique feature is the Revolt 2's LAN-ready "SSD Swap" feature. It's basically a pair of hot-swappable SSD slots situated in the front of the case, both so you can show off your storage just as prominently as the graphics card (and with the same lighting effects) and so you can easily switch between SSDs with various games installed. In addition to the two 2.5-inch SSD drive slots in the front, ther's an optional internal location that supports either a 2.5-inch SSD or 3.5-inch HDD.

Based on the photos iBuyPower shared with us, the Revolt 2 looks like an aggressive system that would fit right in with an eSports settings. It has plenty of sharp angles and an overall look that's clearly aimed at gamers.

Beyond the aesthetics. the Revolt 2 sports a mini-ITX motherboard paired with standard ATX components. In addition to the storage amenities, there's room for a 280mm liquid cooler and a full size power supply.

iBuyPower will share more details about the Revolt 2, including price and specific hardware configurations, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next month.

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PC Gamer

Final Fantasy IX, the secret best Final Fantasy title, is coming to PC, only 15 years after it released for the original PlayStation. Square Enix announced the news on their Japanese site here (thanks, NeoGAF!), and while there's no guarantee it'll release in the West, the fact that you can view that site in English makes me hopeful.

The belated PC port will feature "high-definition graphics, newly added achievements, auto-save, high speed mode, and several game boosting features", and that's thankfully not code for "we made the game look hideous", a la Final Fantasy VI. You can see how the port looks in the accompanying trailer:

Oh, and in these screenshots from Famitsu. It looks absolutely fine! Phew.

Final Fantasy IX is coming to PC (and smartphones) "soon".

PC Gamer

There are three different 'Founders Packs' that will let you buy your way into Albion Online's closed beta, but the game itself was going to be Free To Play at launch—I say 'was', because those plans have now been ditched. Albion Online will instead be Buy To Play, AKA That Normal Payment Model That Most Games Have, as announced in a forum post yesterday.

"Making the game ready for a free to play model would take up significant development time which we would much rather use to make a better game" Albion Online founder Stefan Wiezorek said in the post. "Free to play would also create a lot of risks for the game - spamming, botting, world too small, etc - which we do not want to take if it can be avoided.

"When the game goes live, current founder s packs will be discontinued and replaced with starter packs, which will give full access to the game but offer less value for money than the founder s packs as this is only fair to all founders who help us in making the game. Of course, all founder's will automatically get full access to the game on release as well."

Moreover, the promising, largely player-driven MMORPG won't be out any time soon, as the closed beta has been extended by six months, until 1 August 2016, at least. Wiezorek says the team's "goal is for Albion Online to be a long term success, therefore, we only want to release the game when it is truly up to its potential. The extension of the closed beta period will allow us to make significant improvements to the game".

Galactic Civilizations III

Galactic Civilizations II is one of the best 4X games I've played—and I've played two 4X games, the other being the equally excellent Civ IV. But, regardless, it is magnificent, as Tom Francis' gripping War Diaries attest. Out of the blue, a giant new patch has appeared for the decade-old game, made with the help of the presumably-still-thriving community. The patch actually arrived a couple of weeks ago, but you might have been too full of chocolates and booze to care or notice at the time—I know I was.

Version 2.20 makes a frack-ton of changes to the sci-fi strategy game, many of which have been suggested, or already implemented in mods by the community. Stardock's CEO Brad Wardell says that it "was awesome being able to work with the fans to integrate years of their own mods and tweaks into the base game. They also gave me a long list of areas where they thought I could improve the AI, which I used to dig into the now 10 year old AI source code base to implement".

You can download the new patch from the 'My Downloads' section of the Stardock site, or if you own GalCiv2 on Steam, it should already have been updated, providing you have it installed.

Here are the full patch notes:

Gameplay

  • General
    • The Capital now increases Morale to 35 (up from 25) and Economy to 25 (up from 10)
    • Advanced Hulls is now unlocked from Basic Logistics
    • Life Support is now unlocked from Advanced Hulls
    • Several techs moved to improve AI use
    • Mind Control Center moved to Concept of Malice
    • Shrine of the Mithrillar now gives a 10% population growth bonus civ-wide
    • Shrine of Tandis now gives a 10% morale bonus civ-wide
    • Information Warfare tech now requires Advanced Diplomacy (instead of Planetary Invasion)
    • Temporal Mechanics cost increased from 10 to 30
    • Hyperion Packages cost increased from 10 to 30
    • Entertainment Center now requires Innovative History
    • Slave Pits, Slave Labs, Collectives and Maintenance Grid have had their costs adjusted
    • Research Matrix bonus decreased from 12 to 10
    • School maintenance increased from 1 to 2
    • University maintenance increased from 2 to 3
    • Space Weapons no longer grants a Military bonus
    • Economic Direction Unit bonus reduced from 50 to 25
    • Ultra Spices now requires Extreme Entertainment instead of Xeno Cultural Trends
    • Merchant Trade Complexes cost increased from 800 to 1100
    • Buffed Tier 1/2 starbase attack modules and battlestations 4; removed Singularity Armor
    • Neutrality Learning Center cost increased from 500 to 1000
    • Cultural Enlightenment no longer has a pre-req; moved to Pure Research
    • Healing Pools now requires Planetary Improvements; cost decreased from 300 to 100
    • Nano Materials now requires Basic Space Construction
    • Advanced Philosophy now requires University
    • Enhanced Adaptation cost increased to 150/450/600
    • Robust Hull Construction now provides 15 HP (up from 10)
    • Precursor Library cost decreased from 400 to 100
    • Miniaturization techs bonuses updated to be better
    • Empathic Tactical Center now grants a defense bonus of 25% instead of an attack bonus of 20%
    • Various weapons rebalancing
    • Plus much much more adjustments. See the Progressive Changelog for more.
  • Terran Alliance
    • Changed default alignment from 50 to 75
    • Now start as Mercantile political party
    • Starts with +10 Economics, -10 Social Production, +25 Trade and 12 Logistics (up from 6)
    • Starting techs changed to: HyperDrive, Industrial Revolution, Fusion Reactors, Traditional Research, Innovative History, Capitalism and Basic Space Construction
    • Terrains gain a 10% bonus to propulsion and diplomacy research
  • Drengin Empire
    • Now starts game as War Party political party
    • Starts with: +10 Military Production, -30 Diplomacy (increased from -25), 20 Loyalty (up from 0) and 14 Logistics (up from 7)
    • Starting techs changed to: Fusion Reactors, Ruthless History, HyperDrive, Stellar Cartography, Specialized Research, Capitalism and Traditional Slavery.
    • Propaganda Machine is now a special project
    • New invasion tactic added (version of Information Warfare)
    • Drengin suffer a 50% penalty to trade techs; and a 100% penalty to diplomatic techs
  • Altarian Resistance
    • Now starts game as Pacifists political party
    • Starts with: +10 Luck (up from 0), 10 Logistics (up from 5)
    • Starting techs changed to: HyperDrive, Industrial Revolution, Fusion Reactors, Traditional Research, A History of Benevolence, Stellar Cartography, Capitalism and Basic Space Construction.
    • Social Matrix is now a special project
    • Altarians gain a 20% bonus in Labs research
  • Arcean Empire
    • Now starts game as War Party political party
    • Starts with: +10 Economics, +10 Morale, +20 Military Production, +30 Ship HP (up from +20), +20 Soldiering (up from +10), +25 Courage, +20 Loyalty and 20 Logistics (up from 8).
    • Starting techs changed to: Glorious History, Fusion Reactors, HyperDrive, Industrial Revolution, Stellar Cartography, Traditional Research, Capitalism and Basic Space Construction.
    • Stellar Forge and Cathedral of Valor are now special projects
    • Arceans now gain a 20% bonus to Hull and Logistics research
    • Arceans now gain:
      • 15 HP from Superior Hulls (up from 10)
      • 20 HP from Master Hull Building (up from 15)
      • 15 HP from Reinforced Hull Design (up from 10)
      • 15 HP from Hardened Hull Design (up from 10)
  • Torian Confederation
    • Now starts as the Populists political party
    • Starts with: +30 Loyalty, 16 Logistics (up from 8)
    • Starting techs changed to: Torian History, Fusion Reactors, HyperDrive, Stellar Cartography, Inherited Technology, Capitalism and Basic Space Construction.
    • Can now research Advanced Aquatic World Colonization cheaper
    • Aquatic Transport Station is now a special project
    • Torians now suffer a 20% penalty to Hull research
    • Changed Advanced Computing requirement to University (from Scientific Method Implementation)
    • Changed Planetary Improvements and Enhanced Adaptation to require Basic Space Construction
    • Added Basic Space Construction with cost 75
    • Xeno Communications now requires Cultural Enlightenment
  • Yor Collective
    • Now starts game as the Industrialist political party
    • Starts with: -30 to Diplomacy and 12 Logistics (up from 6)
    • Maintenance Grid and Distributed Energy Matrix are now special projects
    • New invasion tactic: Terror Drones (Cost 250, 20% bonus to attack, 25% improvement damage)
    • Yor now can a 20% advantage in Labs research
  • Dominion of Korx
    • Now starts as the Mercantile political party
    • Starts with: +15 Economics, +10 Diplomacy and 12 Logistics (up from 6)
    • Starting techs changed to: A History of Mercantilism, HyperDrive, Stellar Cartography, Industrial Revolution, Fusion Reactors, Traditional Research, Capitalism and Basic Space Construction.
    • Festival of Capitalism, Mercenary Academy and Freighter Command are now special projects
    • Korx gain a 20% bonus to economic research
  • Drath Legion
    • Changed default alignment from 75 to 50
    • Now starts as the Populists political party
    • Starts with: +25 Espionage (up from 0) and 16 Logistics (up from 8)
    • Starting techs changed to: Way of the Drath, Industrial Revolution, Basic Space Construction, HyperDrive, Fusion Reactors, Traditional Research, Stellar Cartography and Capitalism.
    • Drath gain a 20% bonus to diplomatic research
  • Thalan Empire
    • Now starts as the Technologists political party
    • Starts with: -50 Population Growth (increased from -30), +40 Loyalty and 12 Logistics (up from 6)
    • Starting techs changed to: Fusion Reactors, HyperDrive, Stellar Cartography, New Propulsion, Artificial Gravity, Xeno Biology, Xeno Medicine, Xeno Engineering, Hyperion Packages, Temporal Mechanics and Interstellar Construction.
    • Gaia Vortex and Church of Valor are now special projects
    • New invasion tactic: Mechanized Warriors (Cost 250, 50%/90% min/max bonus to attack, 100% improvement damage)
    • Thalan suffer a 50% penalty to trade and diplomatic research
  • Iconian Refuge
    • Now starts as the Federalists political party
    • Starts with: +10 Morale (decreased from 20), +20 Research, 0 Espionage (decreased from 100), -5 Soldiering (decreased from 0) and 16 Logistics (up from 10)
    • Precursor Library is now a special project
    • Expert Engineering is now unlocked after Advanced Hulls
    • Soil Enhancement, Xeno Biology and Space Mining moved to the Enhanced Adaptation tree
    • Iconians gain a 20% bonus to terraforming research
  • Korath Clan
    • Now starts game as War Party political party
    • Starts with: -30 Diplomacy (decreased from 0), +10 HP (decreased from 20), +30 Soldiering (increased from 10) and 14 Logistics (increased from 7)
    • Starting techs changed to: Fusion Reactors, Ruthless History, HyperDrive, Stellar Cartography, Specialized Research, Traditional Slavery and Black Market.
    • Graft of Ages is now a special project
    • New invasion tactic added (version of Information Warfare)
    • Korath suffer a 50% penalty to trade techs and a 200% penalty to diplomacy research
  • Krynn Consulate
    • Now starts as the Universalists political party
    • Starts with: -15 Research (decreased from 0) and 12 Logistics (increased from 6)
    • Starting techs changed to: HyperDrive, Industrial Revolution, Basic Space Construction, Fusion Reactors, Traditional Research, The Path, Stellar Cartography, and Capitalism.
    • Super Spy Training Center, Temple of Espionage, and Oracle of Krynn are now special projects.
    • Krynn suffer a 20% penalty to labs research but gain a 20% bonus to government research
  • Minor Races
    • Changes to various minor races that play more into their background lore. Watch out for the Snathi!

Graphics

  • Updated race colors for Iconian Refuge and Krynn Consulate
  • Improved Rally Point indicator
  • Various UI tweaks

AI

  • Each race's AI has been tuned to better match their background lore and relative strengths
  • All AI opponents will now use the maximum amount of CPU possible
PC Gamer

In June I spent two days at The Imaginarium motion capture studio at Ealing Studios, London. Founded in 2005 by actor Andy Serkis, it has been used for Avengers: Age of Ultron and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It is also where Squadron 42 s substantial narrative component is being pieced together, using a cast that includes Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, Mark Strong, Andy Serkis and many others.

By the time I arrive lming has been progressing, on and off, for several months. Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies are working through what is left of their parts, and the production as a whole is coming to a close. It is the rst time I have seen what over $100 million in funding looks like. That number can be dif cult to parse, if you re not a big-budget game producer. In Ealing, I learned that it looks like a lot of very expensive cameras, skintight suits covered in ping-pong balls, and a cast of top- ight actors.

Bolted onto Squadron 42 s open-ended structure is a scripted narrative told through conversations in the open world and story missions. That world-class motion-capture rig is being used to map the likenesses of the cast into the game, striking for the sense that you re inside a sci- TV show. This is a modern way of achieving what Wing Commander struck for in the 1990s. FMV is gone, but Hamill and RhysDavies are back. They re no longer Christopher Blair or Paladin (and the aliens are no longer men in giant cat costumes) but this really does feel like a spiritual successor.

Right from the beginning it was something I wanted to do, Chris Roberts says. It s fun—I haven t done this in a game for quite a long time. We can take modern technology, fuse it with great acting... take it up a level, like Wing Commander took it up before.

I nd out while I m there that Roberts and both actors became friends during the production of Wing Commander. For Mark Hamill, returning was easy. I never expected to do this again with Chris speci cally, but I had such a great time the rst time around, he tells me. When he asked, I didn t need to see the script. I said count me in! Of course my agent said, you didn t tell him that, did you? Play hard to get for God s sake!

Hamill plays Lt. Commander Steve Old Man Colton, a veteran pilot and the player s mentor. I watch Hamill record conversations and dog ght dialogue, and every story sequence ends with him barking a series of orders for the player to get into the next elevator or get to the next ship. He s a blunt guy, a lifer, Hamill says. They say he doesn t teach people as much as hammer them into shape, but he s a true believer in the cause. My father was in the Navy, I knew a lot of guys like this—lifers—no-nonsense guys. Sometimes resentful of the more educated college boys.  

I m there for the lming of several conversations between Old Man and Rhys-Davies character, Graves, a former Navy colleague now working as a security chief for a private mining rig. Rhys-Davies describes Graves to me as adrift in civvie street : capable but a little compromised, cautious but willing to be dragged—by Old Man and the player—back into action. It s fascinating watching the two actors work. Rhys-Davies is tall and highly charismatic, dropping in and out of Graves Scottish brogue as he jokes with the crew. Hamill is focused and attentive. Colton s scowl falls across his face at the start of each take and lingers there for a while afterwards.

In the studio, scenes are played out on a grey mat covered in markings, with wooden frames and scaffolds standing in for desks, elevators and consoles. I watch Hamill record lines from the cockpit of his spaceship , really a wooden chair that looks like an unimaginative child s soapbox racer. The rst time I saw Mark Hamill he was sitting in a hand-crafted X-Wing cockpit: the cultural and technological road from that image to this one is fascinating. While the motion-capture sets are rudimentary—even a little silly—the performances are rendered in real time onto monitors surrounding the stage. On these, I can see the detailed model of the ship Hamill is in, get a sense of the lighting and the mood.

It s strange to see what the computer sees. It isn t their image that is being recorded, but their presence—and not even fully that, as the real-life height difference between Hamill and Rhys-Davies is removed and body shapes are changed. It feels like some intangible essence of the real actors is being beamed into the game.

You need the emotion, you need the performance, Roberts says. A lot of the technology is just having tools that allow you take that from the real world, and map it into the digital world where people can look at it from different angles. It really does look like we re back being ve years old again, pretending to y spaceships and blow stuff up—but trust me. It ll all look really good at the end of the day.

A production like this changes the way the actors ordinarily work, but both have taken to it positively.

This is really stripping it down to basics, Hamill says. It s very equalising to see everyone dressed exactly the same way—it doesn t matter if you re a principal player or a background artist. You spend a lifetime on movie sets, doing television and what-not, and you think you know something. Here you re going back and learning it all over again.

It s like being back in school, says Rhys-Davies. You come along and think eh, I ve done a few lms, I know what I m doing and you get there and very patiently your director has to spell it out to you.

Somebody on set today held up a sign that made me laugh, Hamill says. It said, I love the way you act like you know what you re doing . I thought boy, does she have my number . It s like being a child again, playing Robin Hood in your backyard. It s all pretending.

Rhys-Davies agrees. There we are, with our suits full of these little pimples, and these planks of wood, going RIGHT! THEY RE COMING! KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN! QUICK SHOTS!

Neither actor plays games regularly, but talking to both I get a sense of their interest in the medium and the way it can tell stories. Rhys-Davies is excited by the potential for games to train doctors, soldiers, and diplomats, to allow for the simulation of history. Hamill is interested in the way acting can provide a reactive backdrop to the player s actions. You re part of this gigantic puzzle, in a way. You re providing each little piece so that the player can put together their own scenario. I nd that fascinating.

They express infectious enthusiasm for the project and for working with Chris Roberts. Once you ask the technical people to show you the images, you are lled with awe, Rhys-Davies says. I mean, a spaceship a kilometre long. A mining station ve, six, seven kilometres. He pauses so dramatically I almost laugh out loud. Our dreams will have to be pretty big to keep up with the size of space , though, won t they?

Star Citizen and Squadron 42 warrant a little scepticism, to the extent that any massively ambitious crowdfunded production does, but the project as a whole seems much more real to me, coming away from Ealing. When will we play it? I don t know—but I m more con dent that we will, particularly in the case of Squadron 42. After all, these three people have already made a game like this before.

It was a very interesting experience last time around, Rhys-Davies says. You had the sense that it was state-of-the-art, and there was the slight question of whether it would work or not—and it worked, and it worked brilliantly.

This one has its own feel, Hamill adds. It s still as much fun, but what was cutting-edge a couple of decades ago probably looks antiquated to modern-day game players. He gestures to Chris Roberts. He s right on the edge again with this one.

Dragging two bewildered actors with him, Rhys-Davies adds.

PC Gamer

How memory leaks happen, and what to do about them

You may have heard the phrase, "You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much RAM." RAM is a vital part of a computer system, providing for computer data storage via volatile memory. The current recommended minimum for a new system build is 8GB of RAM, with 16GB quite common these days for those who want to "future-proof," or have more advanced needs, such as multitasking, CAD, or video editing. For even more advanced users, 32GB or even 64GB of total system RAM may be easily justified.

Our computer systems have large amounts of RAM at their disposal, all to avoid running low on this all-important resource. A shortage of memory on a desktop will grind the system to a performance halt. This is because when the computer is running low (or out) of available RAM, it performs a process called paging, in which it swaps out data that s in RAM to the storage drive. This creates virtual memory, which then allows the computer to continue its task. All of this shuttling of data back and forth between RAM and the slower virtual memory has a negative impact on performance, as you might guess. So the recommendation is to have plenty of RAM installed, with "the more RAM, the better" being the mantra. One rule of thumb is to figure out how much you really need, and then buy twice as much, to be certain you ve always got enough.

Despite having this overabundance of RAM in modern computer systems, there can still be situations where the system runs out of memory. The most obvious is simultaneously running multiple memory-hogging applications—4K video editing software, or a ridiculously large number of tabs open in a browser—that use up all available memory resources. The solution to this issue is to install more RAM, and/or have the computer run fewer programs simultaneously.

What is a memory leak?

However, despite having adequate RAM and not running resource-intensive software, there can be another situation where all available RAM gets used and performance degrades. This is known as a memory leak, and it happens when software fails to manage the available RAM correctly. With the computer functioning normally, RAM gets used by software in a dynamic fashion, and memory resources are allocated as needed. When software no longer needs the RAM resource, it is then returned, so that it can be reallocated to the next program when needed. In a situation with a memory leak, RAM gets allocated to the software but is not freed up when no longer needed. It s akin to the memory getting stuck in a roach trap— Roaches get in, but they can t get out. As this continues, a large chunk or even a system s entire complement of RAM can be tied up in this dysfunctional process.

This is ultimately caused by a software bug. Last year, the Google Chrome browser developed a memory leak issue. Thankfully, subsequent versions of Chrome addressed it, and the issue was resolved. Firefox has also experienced memory leaks in previous versions. While it certainly seems a common issue in browsers, it can happen in all types of software, including drivers, as was the case recently in AMD s Catalyst driver.

What does the user experience? Unfortunately, no version of Windows flashes a popup to alert the user that a memory leak is occurring, so it s not a simple issue to diagnose. The system can have a myriad of symptoms that point to a leak, though: decreased performance, a slowdown plus the inability to open additional programs, or it may freeze up completely. This is often exacerbated by having lots of available memory; if the leak only consumes a few MB of RAM each minute, it could be a day or two before the problem reaches the critical level.

The solutions at this point are to close the offending process in the task manager, or a system reboot, which will free up all the RAM so that the process can start again. While a reboot as a solution will get the system running again, it does not precisely diagnose the issue, nor give the user a good idea of what happened or how to avoid it happening again. It is analogous to lighting your lawn on fire just to get rid of some dandelions—too much treatment for the problem at hand.

Finding a Memory Leak

Tracking down a memory leak can be a difficult process. Let s say a program runs for a brief amount of time and has a memory leak. As the process terminates, it may not be an obvious issue if there is more than adequate RAM to support other processes. However, with a longer-running program that grabs more RAM, it can eventually grab all the system s RAM and grind your rig to a standstill.

Using Window's Resource Monitor

To find a memory leak, you ve got to look at the system s RAM usage. This can be accomplished in Windows by using the Resource Monitor.

In Windows 7:

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Resource Monitor

In Windows 8.1/10:

Press Windows+R to open the Run dialog; enter "resmon" and click OK.

With Resource Monitor open, select the Memory tab.

Looking at Physical Memory, start by confirming the correct amount is displayed as installed, to ensure that there isn t a hardware issue. Now look at the amount of available memory, and the amount that s in use. This will show if the system is running low on memory, or if there s plenty available.

Next, we turn our attention to the processes running that are using the memory. Rather than scrolling through the whole list, you can click "Commit (KB)," which will reorder the list so that the most memory-intensive tasks appear at the top. This makes it easy to see which software is using the most RAM. In the above example it s "Firefox.exe," better known as the Firefox browser (for the record, there were four tabs open at the time of the screenshot). Also note that at the top of the Processes, 39 percent of physical memory was being used, indicating adequate reserves for additional processes.

Displayed on the right side of the screen are the monitors over time, which indicate the last 60 seconds. The top panel shows the "Used Physical Memory," and we can see that it is slightly increasing over time, but there s still a significant portion available, allowing the system to remain stable.

Limitations of Window's Resource Monitor

It s certainly worthwhile to keep an eye on the Window's Resource Monitor, as it can show the available memory and the processes that are using the most resources. However, it also has some significant limitations.

The first is that it is not continuously monitored. It requires opening the Resource Monitor, and doesn t run continuously in the background. As an aside, Windows Gadgets, which were introduced in Windows Vista and continued in Windows 7, offered a gadget that did this. As it turned out, these gadgets were vulnerable (as most software is), so they were discontinued and are no longer available from Microsoft. While we never thought we d pine for Vista, this was truly a useful feature that may have been dropped a little too soon.

The other limitation is that it only goes back 60 seconds. If a memory leak occurs and the software is closed, chances are it will not be caught in the act and correctly identified as the culprit.

CleanMem Mini Monitor

So, with Windows not having a robust tool to tackle the memory leak issue, we turn our attention to a third-party software solution. It's called CleanMem Mini Monitor, which you can download here.

CleanMem Mini Monitor is designed to sit just above the Windows System Tray in the lower right-hand corner. It s flexible, and can be toggled on and off. This is useful, because it provides real-time status of total memory and the amount that is committed to running processes. As software is opened and closed, it s useful to be able to see how the RAM that is used is impacted, and also to see when there s little or no free memory available. This can also be used as a guide in your decision of whether you need to purchase additional RAM for your rig.

In the general tab of CleanMem Mini Monitor, you can choose to run the program automatically at system startup. The background colors of green for 0 50 percent usage, yellow for 50 75 percent usage, and red for greater than 75 percent usage give a good visual indication of the RAM that s being used, and if it s getting critically low.

In the free version of the program, the Advanced Monitor settings are locked and not user configurable. However, they do give insight into what CleanMem Mini Monitor is doing. We can see that it is set to Auto Run every five minutes when memory usage is 75 percent or more. It s also set to Auto Clean the file cache every five minutes when the file cache is 50MB or more. While this is generally used as a set-it-and-forget-it program, you can right click the program and run it manually as needed, too.

The more you know about what to look for and how to deal with memory leaks, the better. While CleanMem will not eliminate every memory leak issue, it does a good job of getting committed memory back to available status. While a full system reboot is the ultimate solution for RAM that is erroneously misallocated, you can improve your system stability with CleanMem, and make the reboot solution much less common.

The permanent solution of course is to get software updates for any applications or drivers that happen to have a memory leak, fixing the problem. In an ideal world, leaks wouldn't happen, but with software becoming increasingly complex, sometimes things are missed. Often, a leak will simply result in the offending application crashing (this has happened with many games where playing for hours ultimately leads to a crash-to-desktop, at which point the memory is reclaimed), but there are many other factors that can also come into play. If you're routinely getting "out of memory" errors, however, keep an eye on your memory usage using the above tools and you will likely discover a leak that needs to be plugged.

PC Gamer

On the surface, the 2015 Steam Winter Sale seems fairly mundane as these things go: Good deals, cute comic, but nothing we haven't seen before. But maybe—just maybe—there's more to it than meets the eye. The Steam Sale Detectives on Reddit have discovered a rabbit hole, and at this point there's no telling how deep it goes.

The rabbit hole is actually a hidden password prompt that can be reached by going to any Steam store page and typing search (without the quotes) and pressing enter. The prompt is apparently handled by this bit of nothing to see here javascript, which includes a link to store.steampowered.com/actions/clues. Entering the correct password will presumably lead to a different page, but there's no hint as to what it might be.

Or is there? Of course there is! The first page of the Northpole Noir comic originally featured a barcode, which closely—but not perfectly—matched the barcode tattooed on Agent 47 of Hitman fame. Entering that code on the Steam store page for Hitman: Codename 47 results in another code, and that, appended to the Winter Comic URL, leads to an audio file:

"I was on the right track. I could feel it. Tomorrow, I was going to search again."

That's not all: The incorrect Hitman bar code replaces three numbers—6, 0, and 4—with three 9s, which also happen to figure prominently and in a similar sequence in a string of text hidden in the Northpole Noir Sending a Message trading card: 794E2CEA991. There are other potential clues as well, like the nesse printed very faintly in the bottom-left of the first page of the Northpole Noir comic, which just happens to be under the part of the cover that was torn away. Some or all of them may be red herrings, but one thing's for sure: There's a mystery here, and we need to solve it.

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN
COVER OF INADVISABLE SCENCE's MGS 5 ISSUE (1934)

Click upper-right hand corner to enlarge

As I mentioned last time, I was out doing some last-minute shopping on a cold, dark, possibly magical night, when I stumbled into a strange little store called "Curios, Rarities, Bibelots & Old Sci-Fi Magazines That Inspired Games From 2015". I chatted with the shopkeeper, who told me he used to own a store deep underground that sold bombs, parachutes, cameras, and personal teleportation devices. He also told me that several games from 2015 had been inspired by old pulp sci-fi magazines from the 1930s, and he had several for sale. He really stressed the word sale as he kept one hand on his loaded shotgun. I paid him in gold nuggets.

One of the old magazines I purchased that night was from 1934. It was called Inadvisable Science and contained a story called Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. It sounds bizarre, almost as if I'm completely making it all up, but the story appears to have been an inspiration for the game of the same name.

There are a number of odd things about this issue of Inadvisable Science. First, it's 786 pages long, very unusual for a magazine, though fitting for a tale that is long, rambling, at parts completely nonsensical and very hard to follow. Having not read several of the previous installments, I'm not even sure what the protagonists name is. Snake? Punished Venom Snake? Ahab? Big Boss?

Odder yet, at the start of the magazine, there are a number of pages like this:

Even stranger, the magazine's publisher insisted I read every single one of these pages every single time I opened the magazine. Granted, I didn't read them, really, I'd just flip through them as quickly as possible. Who the hell wants to look at bunch of annoying notes every single time they want to read a story? Stick them in an index or something.

A lot of the story details exciting combat, some great stealth missions, and a number of cool weapons and gadgets Snake uses, though there's tons of text about Snake looking over the stats of his staff members and assigning them to tasks at Mother Base. It's nice when the story gives a little insight to some of the captured soldiers he recruits, however:

Of course, there's also a lot about balloons.

Oddly, the last fifty pages of the magazine are completely blank. I have no idea why.

By the way, if you're interested in making your own covers of sci-fi magazines, there's a great online tool called The Pulp-O-Mizer! Note: this is for creating a fake cover, not a real cover like the one on this page.

PC Gamer

Rain World follows the travels of a creature called a slugcat (which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like) as it struggles to survive in a grey, grimy, industrial world. Despite that unhappy description, it's a surprisingly beautiful game, and in a year-end holiday update on Kickstarter the developers say they're continuing to expand on that with two huge late-game regions filled with unique creatures and art.

The Rain World team says in the update that the map, a relatively new addition to the game, is still in an early graphical state but is otherwise fully functional. Interestingly, they don't want players to have it open all the time as they explore, so they've worked in a mechanic that's meant to make it function more like visual memory: Slugcat must find a safe place to hide, and then concentrate on where it's been in order to visualize its surroundings. (You can see the system in action starting at the 1:50 mark in the video.)

The video also reveals the new food UI, which better indicates slugcat's hibernation requirements, and shows off some work-in-progress scavenger animations. In all, it looks very promising, although unfortunately there's still no word on when the game will be released. At this point it seems unlikely that Rain World will make the hoped-for six-month target that developer James Primate mentioned during our PAX Prime interview with him in September, but the update hints that a date will be announced soon, as we go down this final stretch.

PC Gamer
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