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Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
Biggest Video Games News From CES 2025 - Kinda Funny Gamescast
01:09:34
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- [00:01]
Tim Gettys
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- [00:30]
Andy Cortez
What's up? And welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, January 8, 2025. Of course. I am Tim Gettys. I am joined today by tech poppy Andy Cortez.
- [00:41]
Greg Miller
Good afternoon, Tim.
- [00:42]
Andy Cortez
How you doing?
- [00:42]
Greg Miller
I'm doing fantastic.
- [00:44]
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
- [00:45]
Greg Miller
Oh, good morning. Rather sorry.
- [00:46]
Andy Cortez
Good morning.
- [00:46]
Greg Miller
Got the time wrong.
- [00:47]
Andy Cortez
It's all good. What shirt is this?
- [00:49]
Greg Miller
Oh, this is a bloodborne one I got in Japan.
- [00:51]
Andy Cortez
Oh, that's cool. I like the kind of, like, fade on it. Yeah, it has a nice. I don't know what the word would be, but it's nice. A Patia.
- [00:59]
Greg Miller
Farewell, good hunter. May you find your worth in the waking world. That's what she says. Whenever you level up, Tim, you would know if you played it one day.
- [01:06]
Andy Cortez
One day.
- [01:07]
Greg Miller
I have that modded PS5. 60 frames per second.
- [01:09]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, yeah.
- [01:10]
Greg Miller
Still sitting there.
- [01:11]
Andy Cortez
Still sitting there. Yeah. Now you just have a PS5 that can only play Bloodborne, essentially in 60 frames per second.
- [01:18]
Greg Miller
There's a lot.
- [01:18]
Andy Cortez
We're talking a lot about frames today.
- [01:19]
Greg Miller
I'm excited.
- [01:20]
Andy Cortez
This is a big tech episode. Of course, we are Nvidia GeForce partners, as y'all very, very well know, over the last couple years, Nvidia has been very, very good to us. But in addition to that, we just love Nvidia. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. So Nvidia was like, hey, CES is happening. The Computer Entertainment Show. Consumer Electronics Show. That's what it is. That's what it is, right?
- [01:46]
Greg Miller
Entertain. They're just juggling up there. You got that lady, like, flipping bowls.
- [01:51]
Andy Cortez
Into the bowls payment system. You know what I mean? Electronics show show. I think it's a show because it's actually a show. Like, you know. You know, people get to go. I've never went. It happens in Vegas, beginning of the year, every year. I'm always a huge fan of watching the announcements from home, though. Like, I feel like this is. It's kind of like Tech Christmas. It's tech E3 in a lot of ways. A little different than E3, though, because I feel like E3, and maybe this is true sometimes, but E3, they announce things and Then there we know that they're actually going to come out. There's always. I'm still waiting on Agent. You know what I mean? I'm still waiting on some stuff that, like, sure, maybe it didn't actually happen, but ces, I feel, is a nice balance between, like, hey, here's the next lineup of products from all your favorite tech providers, but also here's some wild concept stuff. Like, here's some stuff that might not ever actually see the light of day, but it's possible, and it's possible now, or it will be possible soon. It's that conversation that I. That I always love and I know you love, too, as a big tech guy.
- [02:52]
Greg Miller
Oh, I love it. Especially at the end of the year when you notice all the things going on sale, like this laptop that I bought from Best Buy, bought this sucker hella cheap. And it's obviously because Asus is prepping their new line for new laptops, which we'll see coming up soon. Because I saw a bit of the Nvidia thing already, and they showed off the new sort of Asus Zephyrus line, or whatever the hell they call it. But the. Yeah, getting towards the end of the year, you start kind of expect. You start seeing things going on sale and you're like, okay, ooh, the new stuff is on the way.
- [03:23]
Andy Cortez
Right.
- [03:23]
Greg Miller
And anytime that I've talked to you, I mean, me, you and Kevin, I'd say, are like the biggest tech nerds when it comes to specs and just wanting the latest and greatest.
- [03:33]
Andy Cortez
I'll add Raj to that, too.
- [03:34]
Greg Miller
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [03:36]
Andy Cortez
Raj is the tinkerer. Like, he likes to. To. He might not necessarily want the biggest and best. He just wants to know about it, though, and he's very. It's all in there.
- [03:44]
Greg Miller
Oh, yeah. And so whenever we get towards it in the end of the year, and I'm, you know, I'm talking to you or Kevin or Roger, it's like, I. I want this new 4K monitor, but I want 32 inch instead of 27 inch, or I want 240Hz instead of 144Hz, and it's like, oh, wait for CES. There may be some stuff on the horizon, and luckily there usually is. I think what I'm excited about today is I. It's not only going to be Nvidia we're talking about, but also all the other cool sort of things being discussed by Xbox, Xbox and LG and everything like that.
- [04:16]
Andy Cortez
Exactly, exactly. A lot of. A lot of fun announcements, but I will say like it. This is presented by Nvidia and Nvidia are the ones that showed up the most debuting the 50 series cards. We're going to get all into that and I'm very excited because there's some really, really, really cool stuff there. But we'll get into that in just a second because this is the Kind of Funny Games Cast each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free. We'll us record them live and get a daily exclusive show called Gregory for a chance to be part of the show. Submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Remember, the Kind of Funny membership is now also available on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. Wherever you are. We want to try to be there and allow you to get the shows ad free and that daily exclusive. Greg Way thank you so much for all of your support. Our 10th anniversary went so very well and now we're just kind of kicking off with is sure to be the best year of Kind of Funny and y'all have been awesome getting the Kind of Funny membership on Apple Podcast and Spotify. There was some issue with Apple Podcast not showing y'all showing up and I was like what is wrong here? It kicked in today and I see you there. So thank you very, very much. We've been working hard and we appreciate y'all being there. A little housekeeping for you. You already got Greg and Bless's gaming therapy session on Kind of Funny Games Daily. They've been in a little bit of a rut where they want to play games but don't know what to play. So can check out the fun conversation the two of them and Barrett had there.
- [05:47]
Barrett Courtney
Craig wants to play a Western RPG when we're a month away from aow and you know, there's just a lot of conversations that spewed off from that where it's like do you really want to start up a game a month.
- [05:59]
Andy Cortez
Before a that's always rough to the.
- [06:01]
Greg Miller
Point you don't want to like with anything. I think Barrett's in the right mind and I, I feel like a lot of other gamer sort of share that sentiment when this, when a certain genre is coming out. I don't want to, I don't want to blow my load on that.
- [06:16]
Andy Cortez
I get it.
- [06:16]
Greg Miller
You know, I don't want to feel burned out, even though some games are just so damn good that it's kind of impossible to feel burned out by. But yeah, I told I definitely feel that sentiment.
- [06:26]
Andy Cortez
Remember, you can super chat as well. If you have any questions about any of the things we're going to be discussing today or any thoughts yourself, please super chat them in. If you're a kind of funny member, of course you can get today's Greg Way as well. Thank you to our Patreon producers Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. After this, we're going to be doing a stream of Marvel rivals and if I understand correctly, I think Stella Chong will be joining us for that.
- [06:47]
Greg Miller
Nice.
- [06:48]
Andy Cortez
That is going to be a lot of fun today. We're brought to you by Rocket Money and of course Nvidia. But we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's get into it. The biggest video game news from CES 2025. The topic of the show, the Nvidia keynote was done of course by the CEO Jensen Hong Kong, who came up and just dropped a whole bunch of stuff. I'd say the big ticket items that we're going to be discussing here, the jacket are of course, the jacket, the jacket, my man style and profiling out there. Okay, that was a big win. That was a big win. But dropping the 50 series cards, talking all about it, what we're getting here, DLSS4 and then also what I think is a very, very big deal. Nvidia GeForce now, full compatibility on Steam Deck and amongst other systems as well, other places. Very, very exciting stuff.
- [07:41]
Greg Miller
Make it so that I don't gotta do some weird workaround on the desktop mode and all that. This is so exciting.
- [07:47]
Andy Cortez
It's going to be big. We've been talking a lot and again we're kind of all over the place already, but we've been talking a lot recently about how Steam Deck might not be in everyone's house right now. There's still only a handful of million out there in the wild, period. But as more devices kind of adopt the Steam OS and as Steam pushes that even more and everybody kind of works together, including Nvidia, with the tech that they have and, and offering all the different cloud systems, but in addition to that, backing it up with all of this tech, the RTX tech and the DLSS tech, etc. Etc. Like we're just about to get to a really, really special place and I'm excited what this means for Nintendo and PlayStation and Xbox adopting these, these systems and stuff.
- [08:29]
Greg Miller
So have, have you used Nvidia GeForce Now? Yes, it's by far the best cloud.
- [08:35]
Andy Cortez
I mean it's wild.
- [08:35]
Greg Miller
I mean, here's my thing.
- [08:37]
Andy Cortez
I, I feel like a lot of the cloud things have gotten pretty good recently. But Nvidia, it's almost cheating because they have so much of their own tech to back it up to start with and especially now. I mean them just straight up using the Steam library, I feel like gives them a leg up in a specific way if that is. What if your home is PC gaming? Yeah, GeForce now is awesome. If I remember correctly. Like Roger's really, I know Roger's really into all the cloud stuff, but like he is, he swears by the stuff too.
- [09:03]
Greg Miller
So I think the Homie Washy almost plays exclusively on cloud and that's wild that that's possible.
- [09:10]
Andy Cortez
And, and we'll get into later like how crazy it is that it's not just, oh, streaming games on cloud, it's streaming games now. We're talking 4K60 RTX. Like all the things you want to hear, they're there. But let's get into it here. There's a bear. If you want to bring up the reveal video, we can kind of just show this as I talk about it here. So it's powered by the Nvidia Blackwell RTX architecture. GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards and 50 series laptops. Accelerate frame rates by up to 8 times using the new Nvidia DLSS4 with multi frame generation. Reduce latency by up to 75 using Nvidia Reflex2. Enable next level graphical fidelity for gamers and creators with Nvidia RTX neural shaders. So hard for me to say that word for something. Neural, neural, neural and much more. The new big thing here is neural neural rendering. It's the next era of computer graphics by integrating. Oh my God, how many times is it the word come up neural?
- [10:09]
Greg Miller
You point to me every time you.
- [10:10]
Andy Cortez
Say you do it. By integrating neural networks into the rendering process, we can take dramatic leaps forward in performance, image quality and interactivity to deliver new levels of immersion. The very first example of neural rendering that was good was DLSS where they used lower resolution rendered frames as an input to a neural network which was trained to output a full resolution frame. We're now evolving DLSS on the fourth generation of it all. And now DLSS is just the beginning of its integrating neural networks inside of programmable shaders to create neural shaders. RTX neural shaders will drive the next decade of graphics Innovations, they can be be used to compress textures by up to seven. No, no, sorry, I'm using the hand by up to seven times saving massive amounts of graphics memory and be used to create cinematic quality textures and even more advanced lighting effects in games. Cool, that's great. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Andy, what does this mean?
- [11:09]
Greg Miller
Okay, so after watching their video, after watching a bit of even Digital Foundry's small breakdown that they don't fully have out and great work to them, just sort of breaking down whatever videos that they could show and they always have the caveat that I always give out as well. It's like this is still YouTube. You can't fully see exactly what's happening. But here, you know, this is the effect that we're trying to get across to you. What I'm excited about with these new GPUs is obviously DLSS4 is, is massive and DLSS4 is also I think backwards compatible to the 20 series. I think, I think I saw it on their, on their own sort of like video. Yeah, I'm looking right here.
- [11:53]
Andy Cortez
DLSS of yeah, Evermore Dylan in the chat saying nothing's outdated and a lot of DLSS improvements are coming to every RTX card.
- [12:01]
Greg Miller
Yeah, I'm seeing like enhanced rate reconstruction is going all the way back to the 20 series. DLS has super resolution beta all the way back to the 20 series. Multi frame generation is a 50 card series thing period though. And I think the most shocking thing there is with frame generation. Frame generation uses AI to insert a frame wherever a frame wasn't. So if you wanted to play a game at 30 frames per second because it's easier on your PC, you flick on frame generation and now you're playing at 60 or more. Whatever you're sort of limiting your frame rate to. And that's great.
- [12:39]
Andy Cortez
And with that, before we get even to the new stuff, like even just talking about DLSS3 and below the frame generation, I mean you care about the stuff deeply and you, you, you tinker with these type of settings all the time.
- [12:52]
Greg Miller
All the time tinkering.
- [12:54]
Andy Cortez
So you, when you play a game you are playing with dlss.
- [12:58]
Greg Miller
I am always playing with dlss. That is the preferred option. That's my preferred rescaling option. I'll, I'll take the other options if they're there. But DLSS is always the main one to go for. And what DLSS does is it again, it's really, really costly and hard to run a game at full native 4k with all of the full path Tracing where you're getting the most accurate lighting possible. It's really tough for a PC to do that on its own. For a GPU to do that on its own. It's so much computation, it's really, really expensive. And you're going to be maxing out, most likely, and probably crashing your PC. So instead of running all of those amazing visuals at 4K, you click on DLSS and it takes that depending on the DLSS setting you're going for. So you might go for DLSS performance or balanced or quality mode or whatever, but if you go for performance, it's usually taking that 4K image, dialing it down to, I don't know, 900p or 720p, and then uses AI to reconstruct the image to make the image look just as sharp as the 4K image was. And the cool thing about that is we've seen all of the advancements we've, they've had in the last several years going from DLSS 2 to 3 point to 3 to 3.5, and we are seeing the improvements happening where you might be running dlss and you might notice some ghosting on some images. You might notice that whenever you see, you know, I remember when you swing the camera or you see NPCs walking in cyberpunk, they might leave a trail kind of behind them. And for me, it's like those little issues were totally okay with me because I'm still getting this game running at the most advanced it possibly could in a 4K frame. It looks beautiful, it's sharp, it looks amazing. And I'll deal with those little issues here and there if I see some artifacting here or there OR whatever. But 4.0 DLSS4 is seemingly cleaning so much of that up based on the video that we saw that I watched with Digital Foundry earlier with Richard.
- [15:03]
Andy Cortez
And that is because of the multi frame generation, correct?
- [15:06]
Greg Miller
Well, multi frame generation, I believe, is just a more advanced version of frame generation where you click that sucker on. Instead of going from 30 to 60, you're going from 30 to 200. In some cases, the DLSS is just kind of improving on taking away a lot of the ghosting and the artifacting that you would see in to clean up the image and make it less noisy in some circumstances.
- [15:35]
Andy Cortez
Because watching the, the keynote last night, I was seeing that he was talking about how the, the new multi frame generation is actually generating frames like before they even happen. So it's like getting ahead of it so that it can kind of be prepared to be Able to even run smoother than you would expect it to.
- [15:51]
Greg Miller
Yeah. And I, I just, I don't understand any of that. Like that sounds illegal. Like, I don't know that, that, that shit.
- [16:00]
Andy Cortez
We're breaking the visual triangle here.
- [16:02]
Greg Miller
That sounds crazy to me and it's kind of the same feeling I had when I first saw DLSS in action. When you and I saw DLSS in action when we went down to Nvidia and saw them demo Death Stranding for us and we were like.
- [16:13]
Andy Cortez
And control.
- [16:13]
Greg Miller
How, how does this, how is it running this way? You know, I think that was like the 30 series.
- [16:18]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, I mean I remember we were playing on a. We were playing an 8k at one point.
- [16:22]
Greg Miller
Like, which is wild and. Yeah. So not only is multi frame generation sort of, it's using AI to create multiple and multiple frames so that, you know, if you're running a, a 30 frame per second, you know, gameplay scenario with like the most advanced lighting and rendering possible, then you turn on your advanced frame generation and it's using dlss to just crank your frame rates all the way up to as you're seeing right here on the screen from 27 frames to 246 frames per second. And obviously there's. It's just a still image. You're not really getting a whole lot of benefit. And also we're not showing you or broadcasting this to you in high frame rate. But that's how the thing operates, I think. Not only dlss, but I watched the Homie Niles video on Reflex and what they're doing to shorten the, the response time seems like also black magic where they are assuming. And in a way when I hear them talking about we are predicting that next frame that will be rendered, I'm like, okay, well can I fake you out? Like, I don't know. I don't. It's so hard for me because I'm not, I'm not as advanced as anybody at Digital Foundry. I'm a big fan and I, it's an enthusiast. I'm more on the enthusiast side of it more than I am on the, you know, I'm going to try to, you know, check out frame times or anything. Like, I'm not doing analysis like that. But when we talk about predicting the frame that you. That was is gonna pop up next based on the mouse movement, I just, I can't even comprehend how that works.
- [18:00]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, I mean, so Bear, can you bring back up that DLSS from off all the way way to four here? Because I mean, you have so much experience playing games with the different eras of dlss. Like looking at this, like with it off on the left and four on the the right here, like the numbers jumping from 2 having 70ish, 3.5 having 140 all the way up to 245. Like that is, that is absolutely wild right now. Are you expecting like this is going to like change your gaming?
- [18:30]
Greg Miller
Personally, I mean. Well, whenever I'm. Well, absolutely. First off, yes, but I'm always sort of figuring out what whether I want more dlss or maybe I want more frame generation or maybe I want more ray tracing. Like I'm always kind of like finding the right balance for me. And that's why I love sort of getting in the system and tinkering. I see somebody in the chat asking does anybody even need 200 frames per second? And the question is the high end, you know, esports players absolutely do. And I've gotten to the point where I was unplugging, I was resetting up my monitor setup at home and I have a 4K 240Hz display and boot up Marvel Rivals. And I immediately get in the game and I'm like, oh, this is at 60 and that's. And you can feel it. You could definitely feel it. You can feel like, ooh, something's chugging right here because it's not responding as quickly as it can. Right. I think the displays that we just saw right now, it's more of a flex, right. I don't think it's definitely a possibility that if you want to play cyberpunk at the most max settings to get 200 frames or something like that, I think that's still absolutely nuts. And a lot of people don't have 240Hz monitors to display that. But I think the next wave for people is to see as Sony has already sort of started saying, hey, get 120 frames per second on your LG TV or whatever, right? Like that's already kind of becoming the norm. Getting more than 60 frames per second is becoming less and less of a rarity these days.
- [20:05]
Barrett Courtney
And as someone who like does claim to not notice these things, I remember when the first time I played Fortnite on 120 like on PS5 and stuff like it does, it does feel different and it does feel like you're, you're getting more to help you game better.
- [20:20]
Greg Miller
Yeah, frames win games, we all know that. But it's a lot of it is the response for me whenever I, when I hop in somewhere because if you are at 60 frames per second, it is going to just take longer to feel that input from when you move your mouse because there's less information there. So it's catching the next time that a frame displays on screen. There's a lot less. There's a lot less information to work there as opposed to 240Hz where when I play Valorant, I play it, you know, because Valorant is just one of the lightest things you could play and plays on really any PC you could play on a crappy laptop. I get like 300 frames on Valorant.
- [21:02]
Andy Cortez
So on top of that though, you're talking about, you know, the top end esports. Like you want as many frames as possible just because it's like that twitchy. But there is the other side of it that is the, the. The more like single player premium. Just like let's look at how beautiful this game can be. And I saw power GPU over on Twitter saying that the, the RTX 5090 on how it works with DLSS4 with Black Myth Wukong at 4K and he was saying that Black Myth Wukong is kind of a. This generation's crisis in a lot of ways where it's. It is kind of the benchmark of like yo, this game's kind of. It's hard, difficult to, to really, really push. And yeah, Barrett here, I mean obviously there's compression and stuff, but this is showing Blackmouth Wukong running with DLS4 full. Sorry DLSS4 with full ray tracing on at 220 frames per second. Whereas if you playing it Even with the 50 series cards natively you're getting less than 30 like 28, 29 frames per second on that. And like I think that is a perfect example of where that boost up in frames can really, really, really help while still maintaining the resolution and ray tracing. Right?
- [22:14]
Greg Miller
Yeah, that's absolutely nuts to. To think of anything running with full ray tracing on and getting above 60 to 70. Like when I, when all of. When the enthusiast side of me started really popping out with, with ray tracing and just Nvidia tech in general, I was happy to play. I think I streamed my cyberpunk playthrough. I was limiting myself to 1080p and I had not even the full ray tracing on because they didn't even offer that it was the limited ray tracing that you might see in a, in a Sony PlayStation game where it's hey, we'll do certain materials might be reflective or certain lights might have ray tracing properties. Well, they'll they'll bounce accurately, but we're not going to do everything because that's really, really tough to do and very taxing on the machine. And I was happy to get over 60 frames per second there. With DLSS on, you turn that sucker on, it's like, oh wow. Suddenly I'm going from 28 frames per second to 65. This is amazing. To see anything running with full ray tracing on in the 200 frame per second area.
- [23:23]
Andy Cortez
Exactly.
- [23:24]
Greg Miller
Is crazy. Yeah.
- [23:26]
Andy Cortez
Bear, can you bring up the, the RTX demo video there? Because the rtx, it's on clip because it's just wild. I love that they are flexing so hard obviously because they got the stuff, but there's this game Black Slate and there's just so many things to reflect so many different things to bet. Like look at, look at the floor. Look at the lighting bouncing off the floor. Like that's. That's wild.
- [23:51]
Greg Miller
Yeah. And, and all that also benefits from FR from ray reconstruction. Where earlier in the days where you would see ray traced reflections. It might get noisy in some circumstances, but to see what seems to be like a near 100% ray traced reflection resolution. A lot of times whenever you see ray tracing in games, when you're getting the accurate ray tracing, it might be running at 50. You know, the reflections might be half resolution to kind of ease on the costs, but the, the reflections we're seeing look so sharp and, and the fidelity on there looks incredible. And I got to assume it's definitely over 50% resolution on the reflections. It looks insanely sharp. Black states. That one game where it's. It looks like Metal Gear or whatever, but the, the visuals look fantastic in all those environments. And you're right. It's. When you get to that point when you know that the tech can kind of carry that load for you, it's like, oh my gosh, let's just flip on every switch possible.
- [24:55]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. There's another video too, Bear, that shows other games like Indiana Jones, Witcher 4, Doom, the Dark Ages and the Doom part specifically for me. I was like, oh my God. Oh man.
- [25:04]
Greg Miller
I mean ID engine is already insanely optimized. Like it Doom. Doom Eternal and doom. What's the prior one version?
- [25:15]
Andy Cortez
What's Doom?
- [25:15]
Greg Miller
Is it just Doom? Okay. 2016. Yeah. What video are you. Did you want me to.
- [25:23]
Andy Cortez
The RTX showcase one on the dock.
- [25:25]
Greg Miller
Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, that version of the.
- [25:29]
Andy Cortez
I was wrong.
- [25:29]
Greg Miller
From those last two versions of Doom. Those games are insanely optimized and they run great with ray tracing. And all that on. I can't even fathom how the next version is going to look and operate and perform.
- [25:42]
Andy Cortez
My bad, Barrett. I just added, added one on the dock.
- [25:45]
Greg Miller
Gotcha.
- [25:46]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, so like this one, we're about to look at Doom as well, which. Yeah, exactly like it's very, very, very impressive.
- [25:53]
Greg Miller
And Doom is exactly one of those where if you're playing on PC mouse and keyboard, you want more than 61,000% like this. That's a fast, twitchy type shooter that feels like a dream to kind of run and perform on. But the level of fidelity we're seeing so much of it still looks like, it looks like just pre rendered cutscenes. Like the, the Witcher one blew my mind. And we saw that little notifier on the bottom running on an unannounced.
- [26:21]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, exactly. And now it's announced, baby.
- [26:23]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [26:24]
Andy Cortez
So actually speaking of the announcement, Bear, can you bring up the, the pricing clip there and you can even just pause it on it because as is kind of tradition, we have the different levels of, of the card as well. We have the 50 RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, 5090 topping out just shy 2000, $2000. It's a lot of money.
- [26:48]
Greg Miller
It's a lot of money.
- [26:50]
Andy Cortez
That is a beefy, beefy investment. Right? But you're seeing what you're getting for that. Right? Like that is the top of the line. It is the number one.
- [26:58]
Greg Miller
But then, and that's more than, I think we have to reiterate that that's more than the general consumer would ever fully necessarily even need. Again, for a lot of these people who might be wanting to get into PC gaming, you'll also have to invest in a really good monitor. And if you don't have a 240Hz monitor, then what are all those frames even for? Right? And for me, I always tell people don't feel like, oh, if I don't get the 50 90, then what's the point? No, no, no, no, no. Like the, the 50 80, the 5070 ti, those are all going to be extremely viable and will definitely serve you for three, four years, you know.
- [27:38]
Andy Cortez
And what they were saying in during the keynote is that even the, the 5070 coming in at $550 is comparable to the 40 series cards, the high end 40 series cards. And that's using different tech. And so it's not necessarily one to one. We'll have to see exact that price coming in there with Those cards being a lot more expensive than $550. Like this is great that there is this kind of like range from 550 all the way up to which 550, I would say used to be kind of like the top end of graphics cards, but we're just advancing that much where there is so much in the power of this type of AI to be able to really. I mean, again, we keep saying this, but like talking about resolutions as high as 4K and frame rates over 60.
- [28:22]
Greg Miller
With ray tracing, playing Balacha is going to be crazy.
- [28:25]
Andy Cortez
Oh, it's going to be wild, man.
- [28:27]
Barrett Courtney
Also, nothing less than a 5090 for Nick Scarpino, please.
- [28:30]
Greg Miller
Of course he needs two of them.
- [28:31]
Andy Cortez
Of course.
- [28:32]
Greg Miller
Of course. Yeah. And a lot of the comparisons that they've been making numbers wise and it's kind of, it's kind of hard to put on a graph because they have like three sort of different versions of tech rendering what you're seeing on the screen. So they have so many amount of teraflops for ray tracing and then they have all of those AI like tensor cores. I'm probably just botching all of these, these terms, but they have. But so much of the, what these cards are doing is using the AI to also render a lot of what you're seeing and that's how you're getting a lot of this power.
- [29:12]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. Moving on from the cards, unless you have any, anything more to say about the.
- [29:18]
Greg Miller
I'll take three.
- [29:19]
Andy Cortez
I mean real talk, like, how hyped are you for these cards?
- [29:23]
Greg Miller
Very excited. Oh yeah, super stoked. I'm. I'm stoked to see how we could, you know, see our PCs here getting a boost for whether we're not. Whether we're even playing games or whether we're like running, shuttering stuff.
- [29:36]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, we've been having a lot of incredibly exciting conversations about. We don't need to get too into the nerdy weeds on this, but AV1, which is this like, I mean, new ish kind of format for video encoding that is just, I mean way smaller file sizes for similar, if not exactly the same quality. And a lot of that's possible due to a lot of the, the tech indies cards and 40 series and above. So I mean we've been excited about like what the 40 series is doing can do, but like, God, now there's even better, stronger, newer ones. I'm like, let's freaking go, right? Very, very exciting stuff, but jumping off of the cards. The thing that I am even more excited for is this GeForce now full support for Steam Deck Barrett, There's a video there too if you want to play that. But while I read this here, this is massive. GeForce now turns any device into a GeForce RTX gaming PC and is bringing cloud gaming and AAA titles to more devices and regions we've been seeing everything's an Xbox and it's like, yo, everything is a high end gaming PC, right? Like that's kind of a wild proposition. Announced today at the CES Trade show, gamers will soon be able to play titles from their steam library at GeForce RTX Quality. With the launch of a native GeForce now app for Steam Deck, Nvidia is working to bring cloud gaming to the popular PC gaming handheld device later this year. In collaboration with Apple Meta and ByteDance, Nvidia's expanding GeForce now cloud gaming to the Apple Vision Pro spatial computers, Meta Quest 3 and 3S and Pico virtual and mixed reality devices with all the bells and whistles of Nvidia technologies including ray tracing and dlss. In addition, they're launching the first GTX RTX powered data center in India, making gaming more accessible around the world. Plus, GeForce Now's extensive library of over 2100 supported titles is expanding with highly anticipated AAA titles Doom the Dark Ages and Avowed joining the cloud when they launch on PC this year. I mean, what do you have to say about this?
- [31:38]
Greg Miller
I'm. It's very exciting because there's certainly a lot of games that you want to play in your Steam deck and you want to play portably, but your Steam deck just can't handle it. I think back to my time trying to play Dragon's Dogma 2 on Steam Deck or trying to play Dragon Age Inquisition and you know, you're having to make some sacrifices visually or just performance wise. You're not getting maybe even 30 frames per second in some circumstances. But I, I'm most stoked for this because Nvidia GeForce now is the only cloud thing that I've ever used that I've been really, really impressed with and I've, I've tried them all over the years and sure there's been a lot of improvements, so it's been a while since I've even tried, you know, Xbox's version of it. But this is just super exciting because I don't have to do any weird, wonky stuff in my Steam deck and.
- [32:27]
Andy Cortez
Whenever that's the case, it's the best. I play cloud gaming. Like I don't want to say exclusively, but probably A majority, definitely a majority of my gaming these days is using the cloud to some extent, using streaming to some extent. And yeah, I'm very excited to see this, having it have native support. And again, with all these bells and whistles with the tech to back it up. In addition to things like Steam Deck, gamers can now gain access to all the same benefits as RTX4080 GPU owners with the GeForce Now ultimate membership, including DLSS3 for the highest frame rates, Nvidia Reflex for ultra low latency. And this is the cool part, because GeForce now streams from an RTX gaming rig in the cloud, the Steam Deck uses less processing power, which extends the battery life. So you can just sit there and play forever. Yeah, with these insane. It's kind of just like best of every world, you know.
- [33:15]
Greg Miller
Right. And the I, I believe. Are you getting 4k whenever you dock it?
- [33:21]
Andy Cortez
Let me tell you this.
- [33:22]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [33:23]
Andy Cortez
Whether it's in handheld mode for HDR quality graphics, connected to a monitor for up to 1440p, 120 frames per second HDR or hooked up to a TV for big screen streaming at up to 4K 60 HDR GeForce now members can take advantage of RTX on with the Steam Deck as well as HDR10 and SDR10 when connected to a compatible display for richer, more accurate color gradients. So like those are beefy, beefy specs.
- [33:48]
Greg Miller
There and HDR on that OLED Steam Deck. Oh my God, Tim.
- [33:52]
Andy Cortez
Oh. Oh, yeah.
- [33:54]
Greg Miller
Very exciting stuff against I think early on when Nvidia GeForce now first launched, I didn't really even understand a whole lot of what these services were. But GeForce now is a cloud service where you are essentially borrowing a PC in the cloud somewhere that has all these gigantic, incredible specs. They're super high powered machines and you're playing games that you own in your Steam library or on your Xbox library or your Ubisoft library. I forget what other options that they offer, but anytime that I've logged in a GeForce now, it shows me, you know, hey, refresh your library because you have two more new games that you have on Ubisoft Launcher and so you essentially have access to all the games that you own.
- [34:39]
Andy Cortez
Roadrunner, the chat says, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. So you can play steam deck on TV at 4K60 with GeForce?
- [34:44]
Greg Miller
Yes, yes.
- [34:44]
Andy Cortez
Like it's, it's via the cloud and it is streaming. But yes, like it is. And these things are incredibly impressive. Like the last couple years we've had such dramatic increases. Like we're so far from where stadia was. That's like essentially proof of concept, right? But, yeah, sorry, I don't know what.
- [35:02]
Greg Miller
Sort of trials they offer or anything like that. I implore you, if they. If you ever see a coupon offer for two months free, or a month free, or a week free, whatever, give it a shot. Because again, I've. I was never a big fan of cloud computing just because it. It rarely worked for me. And I would always feel the latency and I would. You'd push. You'd push jump, and your character would jump a full second after. Never felt responsive. And you need that responsiveness to just kind of like, not throw you off or whatever. And I would say if, again, if you have any opportunity to give it a shot, give it a shot. Because you may be extremely impressed by how far this technology has gotten, but also, even when I did try it, like a year ago, whatever, I was by far the most impressed by Nvidia GeForce now, as I was compared to the other cloud services.
- [35:53]
Andy Cortez
And I think what's awesome is them showing this level of support for not only Steam Deck, which is huge, But Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro. It just shows that that level of native support, this isn't going anywhere. It's only going to get better. It's only going to have a larger library with more bells and whistles. And like, that is just. This is huge news just because of what it means for the ongoing support and future of this technology. And as these cards just get better, and as the AI of it all gets better, it's like, yeah, this is about to be very, very cool.
- [36:26]
Greg Miller
Barrett. Maybe we get Kevin over to fix our WI fi. Make our WI fi better.
- [36:29]
Andy Cortez
You do need good WI fi. You do need good. Or not WI Fi. Dude, why you. Ethernet, baby.
- [36:35]
Greg Miller
You can't ethernet. You definitely can.
- [36:37]
Barrett Courtney
Also, the way, like, we moved into this apartment in the middle of, like, it being renovated seven years ago. And so, like, do Ethernet ports work in our walls? No. Are our walls so thick that WI fi doesn't work super well when you're not in the same room as the router?
- [36:56]
Andy Cortez
I mean, it does. No, Look, I'm gonna say something, and you guys aren't gonna like it, and you guys probably aren't able to.
- [37:02]
Barrett Courtney
Actually, I don't want to move, Tim.
- [37:03]
Andy Cortez
Well, no, not. But I had this problem, too, and I did call little Kev Dog over, and he got a drill with some special thing that burst it through the wall.
- [37:14]
Greg Miller
Like the Kool Aid, man.
- [37:15]
Andy Cortez
We straight up in my closet, there is a hole that goes downstairs and I have a 50 foot ethernet cable. So I have wired Ethernet.
- [37:24]
Barrett Courtney
Our, our rooms do have like wired Ethernet. Like I have a, we got a hundred foot cable and it is routed throughout our entire apartment to go into our bedroom. So we have things.
- [37:36]
Greg Miller
The one time I did, and this was when Barrett was on vacation, but I played Final Fantasy on my Steam Deck through the deck through that app. And it was like playing off my PS5 using Wi Fi or whatever. And I was like, holy, this feels amazing.
- [37:56]
Andy Cortez
That's how I played Rebirth the majority of the time.
- [37:58]
Greg Miller
And that's like one of the more jankier solutions we're talking about, you know, Nvidia using a lot of their incredible tech. And I, I'd be, I, I, I'm so excited to at least try it out on the Steam deck and if it, if we're still having those WI fi issues. But again, we have, it's, we have a type of WI fi where it's like I could be legitimately right on the other side of the wall getting two or three bars. Like, man, I'm right there, dude.
- [38:23]
Barrett Courtney
Like, that was working well for you. And then we came back from vacation and then it stopped working for you because more things were connected to Barrett's back on.
- [38:32]
Greg Miller
Yeah, Logged on.
- [38:34]
Andy Cortez
We got a super chat from Alex Fraser saying power line adapters are the way they turn outlets into the ethernet ports that those, that's.
- [38:39]
Greg Miller
I used to sling those at Best.
- [38:40]
Andy Cortez
Buy all the time too.
- [38:41]
Greg Miller
I'll tell you what.
- [38:43]
Andy Cortez
All right, well, any, any final words on the Nvidia stuff? We have amazing 50 series cards coming very soon. End of January they're talking about. Right?
- [38:51]
Greg Miller
Yeah, I, I'm, I guess I'm most excited to just sort of see the more recent suite of games that may not have been being pushed to their fullest to kind of see those games fully running. Like, I'm so stoked to see Final Fantasy 16. I'm so excited to see whenever Last of Us Part two or whatever, you know, like any of those games that, you know, that could benefit from that extra boost of horsepower, in this case, like AI power. Very exciting, Tim.
- [39:21]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. Yeah.
- [39:22]
Barrett Courtney
Barrett, any thoughts on the neural face stuff?
- [39:27]
Greg Miller
I don't like it. I didn't like that.
- [39:28]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, so actually, hold on. That's a good call getting into this. The, the, sorry, the neural rendering and all of the spatial stuff. It's interesting because it's like there's multiple levels to this, right? We have the, the Neural shaders which are compressing the textures and all of that. But then there also is this Neural Faces which offers an innovative new approach to improve face quality using generative AI instead of traditional rendering. Neural Faces takes a simple rasterized face plus 3D pose data as input and uses real time generative AI model to infer a more natural face. This generative AI stuff, that's where it's like for me where I oftentimes feel like we start crossing the line of light. I don't want this. I don't like this generative bit.
- [40:12]
Greg Miller
I was under the assumption this is for developers. Yeah. So the.
- [40:17]
Barrett Courtney
I was reading more into it and it seems more like from my understanding, it seems that developers would have to opt into this and from my understanding of how they would have to make that work, it seems like it would be a lot more work for them since this would be a from the ground up type of thing, especially for tech that is seemingly to make NPCs look quote unquote prettier. I just. I don't know. I think it's just such a weird direction to try to implement this.
- [40:46]
Greg Miller
I don't. I don't think that's the goal. I think the goal is to maybe circumvent if you don't have incredible face modelers and animators or if you don't have. If you're a small developer that doesn't have full access to face rigging, that this is a way to help alleviate that. That if you have just a simple character mouth flap that says I am Tim. That the face can kind of re. I think the goal is to just kind of. Hey, we don't have the most. We're a bunch of programmers. We don't have access to a whole lot of artistry in our team. Can we use their shit to make our stuff look better? But the thing that I really hate about this presentation is that the. The AI that they chose to go with it still gives me like that warble. Yeah, warble's a perfect word. Like neural warble. It still gives me that look that anytime that I'm scrolling tick tock and I see how Dragon Ball Z would look if it were in. If it were real life. And it's just people kind of dark fantasy. It's just people doing like a same move and it's the same sort of movement.
- [41:55]
Barrett Courtney
You always isn't moving with the skull.
- [41:57]
Greg Miller
What it reminds me of is how I see stuff in my dreams. Like I can't. It's.
- [42:06]
Andy Cortez
It's how I get it.
- [42:09]
Greg Miller
It's how. It's how people look like in my. In my dreams. Like they just. It's. There's a semblance of a person there. There's a semblance of an object that I feel like I'm looking through a filter that is kind of obscuring my vision. I don't know that.
- [42:26]
Barrett Courtney
Sorry, I meant that like your dreams are so vivid that you remember what people look like and they look like that.
- [42:31]
Greg Miller
No, it's just nothing looks real. Like nothing looks real. And I. I also think that they. That effect that they chose, they could have gone for a much better thing to show off because it still is giving me a lot of the same sort of. Yeah. Like you mentioned how to. Here's how Cowboy Bebop would look in a real life movie. And it's. It's just like a version of like Simulio doing a move like a look up. Yeah.
- [42:55]
Andy Cortez
One more link at the. The bottom there. Here I have it highlighted. This is more about this actual neural rendering with the. The shaders and the. The faces combined with their. The Zora demo, which is the new era of rendering. And we saw this a little bit throughout the. The keynote presentation.
- [43:13]
Barrett Courtney
But I think this might be the wrong one.
- [43:15]
Andy Cortez
No. Yeah, it's the wrong one. It's the one I have highlighted on the dock.
- [43:20]
Greg Miller
Here's how.
- [43:20]
Barrett Courtney
No, that's the one I pressed.
- [43:22]
Greg Miller
Here's my hero academia and AI. That same fucking AI voice.
- [43:27]
Andy Cortez
I like how you sound like moisture critical there.
- [43:30]
Greg Miller
Yeah, kind of.
- [43:31]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. All right. There I added.
- [43:32]
Greg Miller
Hey, kind of funny games. Thanks to the resub. Hey, thanks for the resub.
- [43:38]
Barrett Courtney
Yeah, this, this could fit onto our wall.
- [43:41]
Andy Cortez
Oh. Oh yeah. Like super ultra wide, huh? Yeah. So this if you go to like 42nd mark.
- [43:51]
Greg Miller
Oh yeah. I think it's like an extended kind of version of what we.
- [43:55]
Andy Cortez
We're seeing it all together.
- [43:56]
Greg Miller
Yeah. Right. Yeah, there's. They're showing off the full suite of options right here. For the audio, this is. Which is more accurate lighting with more accurate materials and making everything sort of react to the world in a more natural way.
- [44:11]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. I mean that's just wild.
- [44:12]
Greg Miller
Yeah. And also the fact that these them using like neural materials to lessen the load on the PC as well. We saw one of them was like a 48 mega texture. And now this one, this neural texture or whatever is 16 meg. So.
- [44:26]
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
- [44:27]
Greg Miller
Also kind of making it easier for the even run these things.
- [44:29]
Andy Cortez
16 megs. But anyway, there we go. So that. That's been Nvidia's bit of the CES stuff. We have a lot more to talk about, though. I'm very excited to get to some of this after a quick word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. You sign up for something, forget about it after the trial period ends and then you're charged month after month after month. The subscriptions are there, but you're not using them. In fact, 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused each month. Thanks to Rocket Money, you can see all of your subscriptions in one place and cancel the ones you're not using anymore and save more money. Rocket Money has helped multiple members of Kinda Funny learn they were still paying for things that they totally didn't even realize. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. It monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to Rocket Money.com kinda funny today. That's RocketMoney.com kindafunny Rocket Money.com/kind of funny. Coming back here we got some fun stuff from Lenovo. Lenovo put out the Legion Go a couple years back that's essentially the beefiest of the little portable handheld gaming devices. Gigantic screen. I think it's 8.8 inches OLED. It's more of like it has Joy Con type controllers like the like Switch does that are detachable. They have a you can turn it into a mouse essentially like the right one. Like you put it down and hold it like a joystick.
- [46:22]
Greg Miller
That's a whole nother best buy. When I was back home in the rgb, we don't play no games. Really kind of beefy and huge.
- [46:29]
Andy Cortez
It's a chunker for sure.
- [46:30]
Greg Miller
It's massive.
- [46:31]
Andy Cortez
But so no, I'm talking about even the old one.
- [46:33]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [46:33]
Andy Cortez
This though is the newly announced Lenovo Legion GO S and it's the first third party Steam OS handheld. Again we've been talking a lot about this Steam deck are Steam are opening up the OS they use on Steam Deck to be able to be on a bunch of other devices as well, which is really really incredible and I think going to be great going forward because I think personally one of the biggest disadvantages so far has been like of the the the Raj, Ally or the the Legion series is just that I feel like the more places can kind of have this like shared ecosystem, the better. Especially when we're talking about Steam, which is the go to on the PC side of things.
- [47:13]
Greg Miller
So right, you can.
- [47:14]
Andy Cortez
The options are great.
- [47:16]
Greg Miller
Yeah. I mean Windows definitely opens you up for a lot more just customization and obviously it's essentially a full suited PC. But you are also gonna have power optimization issues because Windows is just. It takes more to run essentially.
- [47:33]
Andy Cortez
So what's cool about this is it is still a chunker. It is 8 inches instead of 8.8 though. But I do think that that's going to be enough of a difference to make this feel like closer to the Steam Deck OLED than it being like this like monster of a device. 120Hz OLED display.
- [47:51]
Greg Miller
That's wild.
- [47:51]
Andy Cortez
Hell yeah. With the 1920 by 1200 resolution and VRR instead of the 2560 by 1600 144Hz panel on the original, it doesn't have detachable controllers or the kickstand. The benefit of this is the whole system feels much sturdier, which should make you feel better about like having it all be portable. I'm taking this from the Engadget article from Sam Rutherford, but I'm excited about this. I feel like the detachable controllers are a downside to me because it does have that kind of like shitty switch feel of it just being loose. Very excited about these potential magnetic joy cons on the Switch, but very excited about this because we're getting a version of IT that has CMOs. There's also a Windows 11 Legion Go coming out in white as well. But I like that there's competition here and I like that there's good quality products out there. So Steam Deck's not the only game in town.
- [48:47]
Greg Miller
I mean it's the current gold rush, man. How do you feel about the a lot of these devices not going for 16. 9 ratio?
- [48:57]
Andy Cortez
It's interesting. I. I don't quite understand the why of it unless it's an ergonomic thing. You know, I feel like it. There has to be some type of reason of just like, oh, this feels better in the hands. Because real talk, these devices feel good. Like I feel like there's. There is something nice about how it sits and I feel I can say that about all three of the devices we're talking about in comparison to the 16x9. And I feel like a lot of games run in this 16 by 10 ish or whatever resolution it is. What do you think?
- [49:26]
Greg Miller
I. At first I thought it's kind of odd, but I think it is only going to be more and more utilized and I think it is maybe a form factor thing or maybe it's just easier for whoever's making these displays to pump out these screens at that resolution in 16:10 ratio. Because, yeah, we're seeing 1920 by 1200 instead of the usual 1920 by 1080 on this. And I think the Steam deck is.
- [49:53]
Barrett Courtney
I think it's the same.
- [49:54]
Andy Cortez
No, no, it's not that.
- [49:55]
Greg Miller
It's definitely 1610.
- [49:57]
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
- [49:57]
Greg Miller
Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. And so you're seeing a bit taller of a screen. But I think what's great about everybody going for it now is that it's only going to make developers optimize their game to do that.
- [50:10]
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
- [50:10]
Greg Miller
Because not every game will do that. You'll see a lot of games kind of cut off the top bars and it'll only be in 1280 by 800 is. Exactly.
- [50:18]
Andy Cortez
And so the thing with this of them cutting it off, something that I think, not to be incredibly annoying, but this is where OLED go far here. Right. Like, I feel like when you have a. A black device and you have oled, the letterboxing means a lot less because it just blends and just kind of like disappears into it.
- [50:34]
Greg Miller
So shout out to Super Giant because HADES runs in in 1610. And so that's a nice game that.
- [50:39]
Andy Cortez
Oh my God. Hades 2 is insane looking on the Steam deck. Oh yeah. Because of that.
- [50:44]
Greg Miller
And I, I'm just so blown away that these devices are going to keep on getting more and more impressive because I, as of right now, anytime I boot up my Steam Deck oled, I'm always blown away by the visual quality.
- [50:55]
Andy Cortez
Sure.
- [50:56]
Greg Miller
I'm blown away by the damn OLED visual quality on the switch.
- [50:59]
Andy Cortez
I know.
- [51:00]
Greg Miller
You know, and that's insane. Yeah. So I'm. I'm very excited to kind of see everybody competing with each other because it's the current gold rush and hopefully we are going to be the winners because everybody's going to try to put out the best thing possible.
- [51:13]
Andy Cortez
I mean, I kind of think right now, this moment, even with this legion go to like we're there, I think that we're winning already. Like so many of like the, the asks that people have had are being checked off and I just think it's going to get better and better going forward. The next cool device I want to bring up is the. The corsair. Xenion Edge. If you could bring this guy up there. It's the 14.5-inch LCD touchscreen that you just love.
- [51:40]
Barrett Courtney
Edge.
- [51:41]
Andy Cortez
I love it so much. This thing looks super freaking rad. It has multiple functions. You can put it on your desk or you could put it in your computer. So you can like kind of mount it on the inside of like the transparent gotcha side of like your NZXT case and get information and specs about what's going on in your, your PC or you can just customize it to do whatever you need it to. And it also has HDMI support. It's 12, 25, 60 by 720. Like this is just one of those cool things that I feel like you look at the Steam deck, sorry Stream deck, and how it kind of just is limitless potential for however you want to use something. I think that this is going to kind of be that in a different way of like even looking at this image here, you know, having kind of like your calendar and time on stuff on one side, weather, but then music controls, like just giving people more options for cool looking stuff I think is rad. And it being a touch screen like this just looks like a touch. A very cool product.
- [52:41]
Greg Miller
More and more screens all over the damn place. Yeah, I'm going to send through a link to Barrett right here in a second. But it's, it's something that I've, I've always wanted to have as a purchase or have as an option to purchase but the tech just hasn't quite been there and I hope that we are getting there soon. And it's essentially a. Anytime that I bust out my Steam Deck on a plane or I have my gaming laptop, like ah, it's just a little too large. Kind of wish the keyboard wasn't there. I wish it was just everything packed into that screen. And Asus has been putting out a tablet slash laptop transformable thing for a while and I'm blanking on the name of it right now. So that's why I'm just like massively stalling. But apparently the newer one that they unveiled at CES and I believe it's the Asus Strix. You gotta have a cool sounding sci fi word. I think it's a Rog Strix. Some bullshit. And apparently this may be the one that you know because it's always like hey, we have this transformable tablet but not only is it kind of underpowered, you can't customize anything. It's, you know, it may be a little Bit thicker than it needs to be. Maybe the battery life is absolute shit. But I've always just kind of wanted a device that can be a screen with the laptop kind of built in. And then if I want the laptop or the keyboard that I can attach later on, sure, let me do that. And I, but those are always like Microsoft services which are not meant to do gaming or any, you know, usually those lines of laptops are essentially a more glorified netbook or whatever. This will be a good web browser, a web, you know, note taker, document machine. But I, I, this new version of the Rog Strix seems to be one that I'm like, oh, maybe this is the one. Because I just always want to, I essentially just want a switch. But a PC without the freaking handheld, without the controllers on the side, just give me a screen that, if it's a, an inch thick or half an inch, whatever, like put everything you need to inside that machine. Just really, really hard to do so because whenever you are making these devices, even something like the Steam Deck, there's a lot of hardware that kind of goes into, it's using all that real estate for all of those little chip sets and everything like that.
- [55:14]
Andy Cortez
It is interesting because I do think, you know, a second ago we were talking about how we're in this like really nice kind of glory period of the handhelds, gaming PCs, kind of learning from each other and realizing what the needs of the consumers are and kind of meeting that checklist. I do think, for some reason, and the reason is money, that we're still at a place where the hardware manufacturers want tablets and laptops to be separate devices and they keep doing hybrids as opposed to just going all in and just being like, this tablet's a laptop, like, this tablet is a PC, right? And they don't want to do that. They want to have their own os. They want it to be separate. It's like, you know, specifically look at Apple with the MacBooks and iPads. It's like the, the brand new M2 iPads are incredibly powerful. Why don't they just have a normal Mac OS on them? Like, why can't I treat it that. Why, why not have that option? And it's like they, they know why they want to have two different products, they want to have that. But I do think that we're getting closer and closer. I still think we're a couple of ways out, but, or years out. But there will come a point that what you're asking for will be the norm, where tablets just do have like PC functionality, like straight the fuck up. Not some weird almost version, but it's not quite what we're looking for.
- [56:31]
Greg Miller
Yeah. Give me that larger screen with a kickstand that I could just. Bluetooth controller or connect a controller to the side. I. You know, that's how I would prefer. As opposed to. As much as Steam Deck has brought me back to handheld gaming, I would still prefer a screen that I could kind of hold up somewhere or kickstand or mount up or whatever with whatever my hand.
- [56:51]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, yeah.
- [56:52]
Greg Miller
Big ass screen as well, you know.
- [56:54]
Andy Cortez
And real quick, Bear, can you bring up the first picture you showed from Andy's thing where it's like all the laptops next to each other at some point. Andy, I want me and you in this room. Photo shoot.
- [57:08]
Greg Miller
Okay.
- [57:09]
Andy Cortez
Of us. I can't believe I haven't been here yet. You know what I mean?
- [57:12]
Greg Miller
Oh, you. Like in front of. At ASUS headquarters.
- [57:15]
Andy Cortez
I feel like this is like this, you know where they shot the Dark Knight. No, but real talk, like Dark Night joke aside, like, I'm pretty sure this is just a studio in Los Angeles that like everyone uses because, like Unbox Therapy. Used it for a while. Music videos are shot here.
- [57:31]
Greg Miller
I didn't know that.
- [57:32]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. This is a somewhere in Los Angeles. I need information. If you guys have information, get these men in this room.
- [57:39]
Greg Miller
Morgan Freeman's there right now.
- [57:43]
Andy Cortez
Moving on to LG, obviously, I'm a big LG OLED fan. They announced their 5 series, their 20, 25 series. So we got the G5s, M5s, all that stuff. And I gotta say, one of the things about CES that's exciting is new announcements come out. But sometimes they're the type of announcements that are like, you know what? I don't need to upgrade. And that's good. That makes me happy.
- [58:07]
Greg Miller
Right.
- [58:08]
Andy Cortez
We're kind of there. I feel like this is a weird year for lg. We'll have to wait to see. They haven't announced pricing yet. Horrible says, are they making the 93 inch OLED more affordable? It's a 98 inch. And the answer is no.
- [58:19]
Greg Miller
That's 29,000.
- [58:20]
Andy Cortez
Well, it's dropped to 15,000.
- [58:22]
Greg Miller
Oh.
- [58:23]
Andy Cortez
But I don't see it dropping past that anytime soon. Which is if you're a major bummer.
- [58:28]
Greg Miller
You'Re thinking getting that Camry or.
- [58:30]
Andy Cortez
Or a nice oled.
- [58:32]
Greg Miller
Yeah. Trying to get the Yaris.
- [58:35]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. Yeah. Not the Lysander says yes. I love. I don't need the new $3,000 purchase. Feeling real Talk man. Yeah, it is interesting because with OLED tech there's been a big fight between Sony and lg. I'd say over the, the last couple years Sony have really, really showed up and showed out there. The Bravia TVs are absolutely amazing. But with the, the LG side of things that I do to this day still think are the, the right call for gamers. The brightness has been the big push. Like how do we get these lg, how do we get OLED brighter? They came out with a new technology I think last year, the year before called MLA that just kind of allowed brighter oled and this year they're getting off of it. This year doesn't have those. They're introducing something different. So I kind of feel like this might be like a wait and see where this all kind of adds up. But what I think the good news is these new TVs coming out are going to continue to drive down the price of the, the previous generations, last couple years of LG TVs and like honestly I would say anything from the C1 on, so C1, C2, C3, C4, obviously they're better, like every year is better, better, better. But like they're incredibly high quality and are going to get you what you're looking for. If you're specifically trying to get some frame rate or something, you should like look into the details. But like OLED TVs are starting to get affordable to the point that they're a baseline at Best Buy, which is awesome. But then speaking of lg, I think one of the bigger news stories from CES was Xbox. Xbox cloud gaming is going to come to LG TVs. We don't have much info on this. We just know that it's going to happen this year. We don't know if it's only going to be the new LG TVs or if this is going to be a backwards compatible type thing like a firmware update. But similar to what Xbox has been doing with Samsung the last couple years. You're now going to be able to access your Xbox cloud gaming straight from the LG tv. So their big pushup, everything's an Xbox continues to be more and more true in simple ways of you buy a tv, you could play Xbox games.
- [60:41]
Greg Miller
Now can you imagine Nvidia GeForce?
- [60:44]
Andy Cortez
I mean native app. Yeah, I, I, I would not be surprised if that's going to, that would.
- [60:50]
Greg Miller
Like disrupt a whole lot of, I feel there would be problems.
- [60:55]
Andy Cortez
Well I, I do. The reality is that PC gaming Still is a niche thing to the people that are that don't understand what it is, don't understand how big and how easy and accessible it is. Especially when if we're talking about there's two apps on the same TV and there is no difference between clicking into this or clicking into that. I still think the Xbox brand feels a little bit more comforting and safe to if you don't know what you're doing, jump into. Right. But I do think that Nvidia will be there eventually. I just love that Xbox is taking it this seriously. And I also love that, you know, I have been saying LG TVs are great for gaming. It's a nice partnership there. So I want to see how this kind of plays out.
- [61:39]
Greg Miller
You can download that app.
- [61:41]
Andy Cortez
What's up?
- [61:41]
Greg Miller
You're going to download the app?
- [61:42]
Andy Cortez
No, because I don't need it. Again, I think this is a major win because of how LG OLED TVs are becoming like one of the de facto standard TVs that are being pushed and sold to the general public. That just means more people have Xbox accessible to them. So I think that that is a major win. But yeah, no, I don't have a use case for this because I mean I have an Xbox, an actual Xbox anyways. That's the Xbox side of things. Nintendo. I feel like Both Nintendo and PlayStation are interesting because over the last couple days on Games Daily we've talked about a lot of what they've done. I do want to talk a little bit though about Nintendo here because we essentially know what the Switch 2 is like. We have for a while now, but now it's like, oh, now we really, really know. Do you have any thoughts, Andy, on what we're seeing here from Genki, who is the third party accessory developer? I'm a big fan of their products. They put out a lot of really good stuff. They were the first to put out the super slim dock back in the day that like actually didn't fry your Switch, like was cool. So I love seeing them kind of be an early adopter here. But.
- [62:46]
Greg Miller
Well, one thing, the first thing I noticed for, for old Timmy over here, bigger face buttons but the sort of underlying color underneath the joystick. Great little touch, great touch, great little splash.
- [62:59]
Andy Cortez
I was talking to Roger about this. Like what a great way to define Switch two versus Switch one. Just this thing looks like it's adults. Well, I mean I'm loving what I'm seeing here. Yeah, I'm getting like the bigger grips. Obviously this is not the official Nintendo side of things. This is the third party option. But Macman Jones says. Is this real? Yes, this is real. Like this is what Genki is showing at ces. This is not Nintendo showing it. These are third party things here. But this is all mock ups of what they are saying is real. And they know so very, very exciting stuff. And it does make me feel like we're getting some real soon.
- [63:35]
Greg Miller
Dude, it's gotta be right on the horizon, dude. Yeah, like, well, I'm talking like four days.
- [63:41]
Andy Cortez
I mean, wow. I love it because it was at the point where anybody can say anything and it just feels like, oh, that's likely. But some people were saying Thursday this week and I'm like, another thing to.
- [63:52]
Barrett Courtney
Consider is that this is a mock up, but I'm pretty sure this is like also including accessories that they are making in particular. Like the casing around you see there. I do wonder what this circle in the back is though. And that seems to be like the case that this third party developer made. So I'm wondering.
- [64:12]
Greg Miller
That's got to be why.
- [64:13]
Andy Cortez
Yeah, it looks like wireless charging, which is so crazy.
- [64:16]
Barrett Courtney
And it's so weird that it's offset.
- [64:18]
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
- [64:20]
Greg Miller
Yeah. I don't know, maybe that's where the battery is in the switch. Easier access.
- [64:24]
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
- [64:24]
Barrett Courtney
Because it does look like a mag safe charger, which is just interesting.
- [64:28]
Andy Cortez
God, I love MagSafe. But yeah, very, very cool stuff here. And then, yeah, if you could bring up the Switch 1 next to Switch 2 video. I think this is interesting too because you look at it and out of context, when you just look at it, oh, it's a switch. Right.
- [64:40]
Greg Miller
But big deal.
- [64:41]
Andy Cortez
It's a big difference. Size wise. We're getting a pretty substantial screen size increase. Like I think like an inch or maybe even a little bit more than that. But like, that's insane on diagonal. It's like, yeah, look at that there. Right? Like. And granted that's. That's comparing a original Switch, not the oled, which had less bezel, thank God. But yeah, big, big fan of this. Excited to see it all kind of come together. Big fan of the idea of the magnetic joy cons clipping in and seeing it in that video, I'm like, oh, this is gonna be sick.
- [65:12]
Greg Miller
I want to feel some impro. Some new and improved little joysticks. I want them to feel good and not just like a means to an end.
- [65:21]
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
- [65:22]
Barrett Courtney
You know, especially with like platforming and you, you have to be so like twitchy with like a lot of things and I Don't want to feel like the thumbstick is going to slip right under my thumb.
- [65:31]
Greg Miller
Yeah, yeah.
- [65:32]
Andy Cortez
Maximus Polyglot says wireless charging was not on my bingo card. I don't think it's going to be on the switch itself.
- [65:37]
Greg Miller
I think that's a gy.
- [65:38]
Andy Cortez
It's a ganky accessory.
- [65:39]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [65:41]
Andy Cortez
And then. Yeah. So moving to. To PlayStation here to kind of close things out, really. They didn't announce much in terms of games or in terms of PlayStation tech. A lot of movie conversation, TV conversation. Horizon Zero dawn film adaptation from Columbia Pictures who made Uncharted a Hell Divers 2 film adaptation Ghost of Tsushima anime on Crunchyroll is coming. All cool stuff. We gotta look at Last of Us season two. A little teaser trailer there. But the last thing I want to talk about is this Sony future immersive entertainment concept for the Last of Us. If you can go to the next picture here, it's a LED wall room where every wall is LED screens that are incredibly high resolution. And you go in and they pump in smells and stuff. And like, it just makes you feel like you're there. And it's wild because we have this video also.
- [66:32]
Greg Miller
We can kind of.
- [66:33]
Andy Cortez
Kind of. But like, it's even just. You're just.
- [66:36]
Barrett Courtney
It's a. It's almost like. Andy, what was the cool thing in Downtown Disney where you could go in and they had like a Star wars thing that made you feel super immersed.
- [66:44]
Greg Miller
You told me about years ago, the. The.
- [66:48]
Barrett Courtney
I want to call it like the.
- [66:49]
Greg Miller
Void, but the Void, that's what it was.
- [66:51]
Barrett Courtney
It was. It looks like a combination of the void, but 40x as well. Whereas, like the Void, they actually like built out landscapes. But this implementing more screen stuff, that's fascinating.
- [67:01]
Andy Cortez
So it's not VR, right? It's just like you're just in this, but it's. You're surrounded by it, so it's going to feel like it's there. I mean, we use this wall sometimes and it's like it. You look on the camera, it's like, whoa, it looks like we're somewhere else.
- [67:12]
Greg Miller
You know, and what. But what's the theater that Regal owns? What's the tech that Regal has that nobody really likes? That sort of full wall surrounding thing?
- [67:21]
Andy Cortez
Screen X.
- [67:22]
Greg Miller
Screen X. Yeah. That's why I said 48.
- [67:25]
Barrett Courtney
You got to ask Alyssa about that because she'll watch some K pop in.
- [67:29]
Andy Cortez
Screen X. Oh, yeah.
- [67:30]
Barrett Courtney
And they love that.
- [67:32]
Andy Cortez
I don't think there's no way there's. Screen X is. It's just it's horrible.
- [67:38]
Barrett Courtney
Yeah. It's got the screens on the sides, which.
- [67:40]
Andy Cortez
It stretches the image in, like, this horrible AI way. Yeah, I. I don't.
- [67:46]
Barrett Courtney
Maybe it's something else.
- [67:47]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. I don't know.
- [67:48]
Barrett Courtney
Stone. Stone.
- [67:49]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. Oh, really?
- [67:50]
Greg Miller
Yeah.
- [67:51]
Barrett Courtney
So when they see K Pop, like, concerts there, they don't stretch out that image. Those other screens are different camera angles.
- [67:58]
Andy Cortez
Oh, see, that's cool.
- [68:00]
Barrett Courtney
Yeah.
- [68:00]
Andy Cortez
Yeah. I saw Fast 10, and they made Vin Diesel's head just. Oh, no, dude, it was so bad it hurts.
- [68:08]
Greg Miller
I can't do this. I remember everything about my father.
- [68:13]
Andy Cortez
Well, everybody, this has been our breakdown of all the big gaming news from CES so far. Exciting stuff ahead. I am really, really stoked to see how this all kind of plays out, whether it's the handheld PC gaming race or all of the Nvidia AI stuff that's going on with DLSS and ray tracing and all that stuff. So, really excited for it. Andy, thank you so much for kind of taking all these abbreviations and acronyms and numbers and letters and. And kind of making them make more sense.
- [68:41]
Greg Miller
It's hard. I did my best. I did my best. I'm definitely excited for more Digital Foundry breakdowns.
- [68:47]
Andy Cortez
Yes. Shout out to Digital Foundry. The goats when it comes to any of this stuff, and they make all of us feel very stup it very quickly, but it's all for the love.
- [68:55]
Greg Miller
Neural.
- [68:55]
Barrett Courtney
Neural.
- [68:56]
Andy Cortez
Neural. Anyway, we're about to do a Marvel rival stream, so stay tuned for that. If you're on Twitch, you can stay where you are. If you're on YouTube, you got to make the jump over to the next video. But until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve.