Page 31 - Campus Technology, January/February 2019

:: eSPORTS
RETHINKING HOW TECHNOLOGY IS USED IN EDUCATION
While it’s easy
to spend $5,000
for a gaming PC, machines costing between $1,500 and $2,500 “are more than sufficient for playing any of the competition titles.
gamer, was named assistant coach. And college president Scott Dalrymple has been known to talk smack and take on challengers — no matter what the title — to publicize the college’s commitment to gaming.
From there, all it takes is “talking to the right people from other universities,” said Stover, to get the insights needed for making a business case and pursuing funding for broader commitment — setting up a dedicated space, sending teams to tournaments and eventually hosting championships on campus.
GET THE “MATS”
These are the materials you need for building a gaming operation — after all, it can’t take place without computing gear. Three form factors are popularly available for gaming computers: laptops, towers and cubes. While the laptops and cubes are smaller, lighter and more portable, it’s the tower that tends to dominate in the world of gaming, said Stover. A big advantage is that it’s simpler to expand towers’ memory and upgrade certain key components, making the units more “future-proof.”
While it’s easy to spend $5,000 for a gaming PC, machines
costing between $1,500 and $2,500 “are more than sufficient for playing any of the competition titles,” Stover added.
When choosing a PC for this purpose, the most compelling features are the CPU and GPU. For the central processor, the latest from Intel (Core, generations 8 or 9) and AMD (Ryzen) serve the best user experience. For graphics, the NVIDEA GeForce and AMD Radeon processors lead.
Stover, who heads up development of Lenovo’s Legion series of gaming PCs, advised at least 16 gigabytes of RAM and the use of SSD or traditional spinning disks for better response and performance.
Monitors also play a special role in the gaming world. The optimal size, insisted Stover, is 25 inches. “The idea behind that is because if you go smaller, it’s harder to see certain details,” he explained. “If you go bigger, that’s when the player has to turn his or her head more. The 25-inch display is the sweet spot.”
Beyond size considerations, however, is the resolution (higher is better), refresh rate (faster is better) and synchronization (more responsive is better), “to make the game as smooth as possible.” The goal is to reduce the
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