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Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Top Stories from the last 24 hours
Are You Eating Horse? Europe's Growing Horse Meat Scandal Explained
February 19th, 2013Top StoryAre You Eating Horse? Europe's Growing Horse Meat Scandal ExplainedBy Max Read
What is the horse meat scandal? A number of frozen meals and food products at supermarkets across Europe have been found to contain high levels of horse DNA—in some cases, as much as 100 percent of the meat was horse—indicating that the meat being marketed as "beef"... isn't. Gross. So people who thought they were eating beef were eating horse? Yes. Nearly all of the U.K.'s biggest supermarket chains have had to remove products from the shelves, and the head of the Food Standards Agency there says we'll never know how many ate horse without being aware of it. Are the people who ate horse going to be okay? They're going to turn... into... horses! No, they'll be fine. People across Europe eat horse, on purpose, and love it; celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay serves it at his restaurants in the U.K. Provided the horse is properly raised and slaughtered, there aren't any health risks to eating its meat. In this case, there is a minor health risk from the equine anti-inflammatory phenylbutazone, or "bute," which in extremely high doses can cause certain blood diseases—but this is an issue caused and exacerbated by the much larger and more disturbing scandal of fraudulently and misleadingly labeled meat with unclear provenance. Unclear provenance? How did the horse meat get into the food? No one seems to know entirely. Yet. In Ireland and the U.K., the fraudulently-labeled beef sold by supermarket chain Tesco appears to have entered the supply chain through beef processing multinational ABP, two subsidiaries of which produced the contaminated meat. ABP claims to have traced the horse meat through the Netherlands to Poland; Polish authorities strenuously deny that their slaughterhouses are responsible, and have undertaken tests and found no horse DNA in samples. An entirely different horse meat supply chain emerged in France, through another food processing company, Comigel, which was tasked with supplying a beef lasagna dish to the frozen food company Findus; Comigel—through a Luxembourgish subsidiary—ordered beef from a Spanish company, which ordered it from a Cypriot trader, who outsourced the job to a Dutch trader—a guy who'd already been convicted of selling horse meat—who (deep breath) finally placed the order to a Romanian slaughterhouse, where the horse meat originated. Sent back to Luxembourg through Spain, the horse meat was processed into the frozen lasagna dishes, ending up on shelves in the U.K., France and Sweden. No one knows how far up the chain the coverup went; the Dutch trader, Jan Fasen, has accused Comigel and its Spanish suppliers of being fully aware that they were passing off horse meat as beef. Two different supply chains? How widespread is this? It's hard to tell. Tens of millions of pounds of horse meat is processed and sold around Europe every year; beef is getting more and more expensive, and supply lines less and less direct; and with rolled-back and under-funded food safety operations in the U.K. and elsewhere, it's harder to detect when meat is adulterated. So how did anyone find out about it? Last November, Irish food safety authorities tested a range of supermarket beef products and found most of them to have some percentage of pork and horse DNA. The Irish regulators made their U.K. equivalents aware (Ireland says in November; the U.K. says in January), and the U.K. Food Standards Agency did its own testing—confirming the Irish discovery of the Tesco/ABP network and uncovering the Findus/Comigel supply chain. Wait—there was pork in the "beef," too? Yes. So why isn't it a pork-and-horse-meat scandal? Good question! One, because the general cultural squeamishness about eating horse on the part of the U.K. and Ireland (at least compared to continental Europe) means that unknowingly eating horse is regarded as totally grosser and worse than unknowingly eating pork; and two, because pork is unlikely to contain bute. (May I suggest, though, that if you are deeply bothered by eating mislabeled horse meat but not mislabeled pig meat, you should reconsider your attitude toward food.) Have I eaten mislabeled horse meat? If you live in Europe, well: maybe? Especially if you're getting a lot of your food from the pre-prepared frozen meal section of the supermarket. If you live in the U.S., though, probably not. "Probably"? Reassuringly, none of the companies involved in the European scandal—so far—export beef to the U.S. And since Americans don't love horse meat at the same level that—say—Italians do, and since there are currently no legal horse abattoirs in the U.S., there's just less horse meat available to contaminate the supply of beef. There aren't any legal horse slaughterhouses in the U.S.? No—in fact, slaughtering horses for meat was rendered de facto illegal between 2007 and 2011, when tax dollars were forbidden from going toward the mandatory inspections. (Some states, like California and New Jersey, have their own statewide horse-slaughter bans.) Since that ban was lifted no abattoirs have opened, putting horse meat in a sort of legal grey area, subject to conflicting and changing regulations. As of the latest information we've been able to uncover, any horse meat to be sold or served to the public must have been inspected by the USDA at the point of slaughter; this effectively outlaws it, as imported meat hasn't been inspected, and there are no domestic abattoirs subject to USDA regulation. That being said, horses are still exported to Canada, Mexico and Europe for slaughter. In fact, there's been speculation that some of the horses that were ultimately slaughtered in Romania and Poland and ended up in freezers across England may have come from the U.S. According to one survey, something like 138,000 horses were exported from this country in 2011 to be slaughtered for their meat—many of them still containing bute in their bloodstreams. Wouldn't I be able to taste the difference? What does horse taste like, anyway? It's leaner than beef, softer, and a bit sweet and gamey. Think something between venison and beef. If you were told it was beef, especially some kind of cheap beef drenched in tomato sauce, you probably wouldn't notice. How's it usually cooked? In Europe, it's most often cured and put on sandwiches or made into sausages and salami, though you can also find it cooked up like a steak or made into a stew. In Japan, it's frequently served raw. Let's say I want to try horse meat. Where can I find it? The last restaurant we know of that tried to sell horse meat here in the states was the Queens restaurant M. Wells, which planned on serving a horse meat tartare with Canadian meat before it found itself subject to wide public outcry, and a last-minute change to U.S.D.A. regulations. For now, if you want to eat horse, your best bet is to hop over the border to Quebec, where it's still relatively widely consumed.  |
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Let's Look At What Sony's Past Console Reveals Could Say About Tomorrow's PS4 Reveal
February 19th, 2013Top StoryLet's Look At What Sony's Past Console Reveals Could Say About Tomorrow's PS4 RevealBy András Neltz
Of course, Kotaku will be covering tomorrow's event. But for now, let's do some guesswork. The PS3 Reveal (E3 2005)The first big announcement, the unveiling of the PS3, happened at E3 2005. Let's take a look at what went on there. What They RevealedSpecs Lots of hard data was shown concerning the console's technical specifications—CPU, memory, networking capabilites, display output, actual physical dimensions, ports, compatibility with various media, etc. Included were explanations of the technologies involved in actually putting the graphics on the TV screen. Special attention was given to the new Nvidia GPU and the Blu-ray player. The PS3's online capabilities—the introduction of the PlayStation Network, an online service dedicated wholly to the PS3, which would be supported by every game, and other services such as personal homepages and media streaming—were also described in some detail. Backwards Compatibility The fact that the console would play both PS2 and PS games was revealed. Media Center Capabilites The PS3's ability to stream and to play HD movies was demonstrated. Demonstrations These made up the bulk of the presentation. The demos showed off the technical capabilities of the new console. Trailers A staggering amount of trailers, at that. Games from a wide variety of genres were represented, among them Final Fantasy XIII, Devil May Cry 4, Motorstorm, Killzone 2 and Heavenly Sword. A Release Date While they did announce a window for the PS3's release, the console's actual release was eventually delayed anyway—from 2006 spring, to 2006 fall. Concepts The event was capped off by a batch of concept images of the console, which included the god-awful banana controller that was ultimately abandoned in favor of the SixAxis Wireless Controller. What They Didn't RevealActual Gameplay The closest thing would be a tech demo controlled on-stage via the EyeToy, but other than that, nothing. The Price The big reveal of the console's price was left to next year. Rather infamously. The PS2 Reveal (TGS 1999)Of course you can't draw proper conclusions from just one event. So let's have a look at what happened in 1999, at the Tokyo Game Show, where Sony first unveiled the PlayStation 2. Details get a bit more sparse at this point, seeing it's the last millennium, but there are still several points to glean: What They RevealedSpecs The brand new Emotion Engine chip, which powered the console, was unveiled and the console's internet capabilities were discussed—specifically online multiplayer, available in only a few choice games, via the separately available Network Adapter. Backwards Compatibility Sony announced that their new console would play games from the PS1. At the time, this was a brand new concept. Media Center Capabilities They spoke about the console's ability to play both music CDs and DVD movies. Demonstrations / Actual Gameplay Several PS2 titles were showcased as playable demos, among them Dark Cloud, Gran Turismo 2000, and Tekken Tag Tournament. A Release Date Sony advertised March 4, 2000 as the Japanese release date for the PS2, which they met successfully—however, due to manufacturing delays, store inventories were inadequate. The Console The hardware itself was put on display, and people could try out the new DualShock 2 controller. Price The actual price was revealed then and there—although in Yen only: ¥39,800. What They Didn't RevealThe American Price/Release Date Neither were mentioned at the TGS. The PS2 eventually landed in North America on October 26, 2000, at a price of US$299. The PS1 Reveal (May, 1994)Now, there's the matter of the first PlayStation's reveal. The pre-release announcements Sony made, which seem to have been sent to the press for the official reveal, mostly concern the console's technical specs. In fact, these announcements only started popping up about half a year before the console's Japanese release, around May, 1994. What They RevealedSpecs The technical specs of the PS1 were described, going into details about the CPU, and the fact that there are separate chips for video and audio (a big thing at the time!) was revealed. These were accompanied by claims of photorealism and a processing power of 500 million instructions per second. Price Vague hints were dropped about the price, mentioning that it would be "under ¥50,000." Release Date They also hinted at the release date; something about the console arriving in Japan that year. It did, on December 3rd. Games 23 games had been in development for the console's launch, and it was promised that at least 10 would hit their deadline. For the Japan launch, they managed 8—Ridge Racer among them. For the US launch almost a year later, they had 11—for example, Rayman and Air Combat. What They Didn't RevealThe American Price/Release Date Once again, America was neglected. Eventually, the PlayStation launched on September 9, 1995, and it was sold for US$299. Games While they talked about how many games there would be, they didn't name any of them. They didn't show them off, either. No footage, no trailers, nada. But then again, it was 1994. The PS4 Reveal (?)Alright then, let's get down to business. What are they gonna say about the PS4 (or, if you're superstitious, the Orbis)? What They Might RevealSpecs Judging by their past reveals, Sony's practically guaranteed to talk about the inner workings of the PS4. They might choose to demonstrate the console's power by running a few simulations as well. Hardware Something about the console itself—and the controller—will most likely be said. They might even straight up show us what the final product looks like—hell, even unveil an actual console. Games The PS4's launch titles might be announced, and shown off via trailers, or even demos if we're lucky. Online Capabilities They could talk about new PSN features, or other, entirely new online features, such as video sharing or game streaming. Backwards Compatibility This will probably be mentioned, if it's an included feature. Both the PS3 and the PS2 announcements talked about backwards compatibility at some length. Media Center Capabilites Before they move on to the games, they might talk about how the PS4 will work as a media center. What They Might Not RevealA Release Date Or they might reveal it, only for it to turn out to be wrong later. Let's admit; Sony isn't good at giving specific release dates. They'll likely aim to release in time for the holiday season, but they could very well pull a "some time this year" move, or even give a season or a month timeframe. Price This one's hard to tell. They might still be undecided, or they might choose not to say anything. Of course, don't forget to take what Sony says with a grain of salt. As we've seen above, they can't always deliver on their promises, and sometimes, they even change their mind and decide to do something else entirely. So, with that in mind, while you wait, discuss your own theories below.  |
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Get More From Your Games: A Beginner's Guide to Graphics Settings
February 19th, 2013Top StoryGet More From Your Games: A Beginner's Guide to Graphics SettingsBy Whitson Gordon
Graphics settings, as you might expect, tweak how your computer draws images on your screen in any given game. They can make blurry textures sharper, jagged edges smooth, and even let you see further into the distance. However, all these things come at a cost: performance. If you have a rather low-powered computer you may want to lower the graphics intensity so your games run smoother, or if you have a beast of a gaming PC, you may want to turn them up so your game looks as epic as possible. Some games will optimize your settings for you, and other tools out there—like NVIDIA's Optimize webapp or their GeForce Experience app—will scan your system, find games, and tell you what settings you should run in those games for best performance. If you don't want to do any work, that'll give you a good enough experience, but armed with the knowledge of what each setting does, you can potentially get better performance out of your game and tweak the things that matter most to you. In this post, we'll talk about some of the most common settings, what they mean, and how to find the perfect balance between looks and performance. How to Tweak Your SettingsBefore you dig into your settings, you should familiarize yourself with the process we're going to go through. Here's what you need to know about finding these settings and measuring your game's performance. Where to Find Your Graphics SettingsDifferent games offer different levels of customizability. Some games will offer you a plethora of settings to tweak as you choose, while others may only offer one or two—or even none at all. However, even if you don't see any in your game's options, you may still be able to tweak them. Here's where you should look for these settings:
What you use will depend on your game, the settings you want to tweak, and how much work you're willing to do, but these are the first places to look. How to Measure Your Game's Performance
When we talk about "performance," we generally mean how many frames per second your computer can display in the game. You can measure this using a tool like FRAPS or our favorite video card overclocker, MSI Afterburner. What frame rate you're comfortable with depends on you. I personally consider a game "playable" at 25-30 FPS, below which is too choppy for my tastes. I consider a game "optimal" at 60 FPS, however, since higher frame rates offer diminishing returns in terms of looks (and, if you have a 60Hz monitor, you won't see more than 60 FPS anyway. See "Refresh Rate and VSync" for more information on this in the next section). Find a frame rate that you're comfortable with and aim for that as you tweak these settings. The Most Common Graphics Settings and What They DoThere are more variables out there than we can shake a stick at, but the majority of games have a similar "basic" group of settings that are a good place to start tweaking. In this section, we'll go through some of the most popular, what they do, and note our recommendation on how to get the best performance from them. Be sure to see the Further Resources section at the end of this article if you want information on more advanced graphics settings, as this is just a beginner's list. Where applicable, we'll also show some comparison images so you can see what each setting does. Click on the images to see a bigger view. We'll be using Skyrim as an example, since it's a very visually intensive game, but the best way to see how the settings affect your particular game is to try them out yourself. These images are merely meant to help explain what each setting does. ResolutionWhat It Does: You're probably familiar with the resolution on your monitor—the number of pixels it uses to make up your screen. Well, you can choose the resolution of your game, too. Higher resolutions will produce sharper images with smoother edges, as you'd imagine, and can also give you more screen real estate for toolbars and other shortcuts. How It Affects Performance: Moving your resolution higher will provide the biggest decline in performance, but they'll also make the entire game look significantly better. With each step up in resolution, you'll see a fairly dramatic decrease in performance. Our Recommendation: If your computer can handle it, we recommend running your games at the native resolution of your monitor. That is, if you have a monitor that is 1920x1080, run your game at 1920x1080—any lower and your game won't look nearly as good. However, if you're running your game on a particularly old computer, and the smaller settings tweaks just aren't doing it, changing your resolution can be the difference between a game that is unplayable and a game that runs somewhat smoothly. Anti-AliasingLeft: anti-aliasing off, Right: anti-aliasing set to 4x. Notice the jagged edges of the stairs on the left, which have been greatly diminished on the right. What It Does: Anti-aliasing (AA) aims to cut down on the pixellated, jagged edges you see in the game. It's one of the more popular graphics tweaks you'll find, and helps smooth out objects when you can't increase the resolution any further. There are a ton of different types of AA, which we won't get into here, but if you want to read about the different types, check out this article at the Build a PC forum on Reddit. It goes into a lot more detail. Most often, you'll see "multisample anti-aliasing," or MSAA for short. How It Affects Performance: Anti-aliasing can affect your performance pretty significantly, just like raising the resolution of your game. It's also one of the first tweaks people gravitate toward, because jagged edges are very noticeable and make your game look bad. Our Recommendation: Anti-Aliasing makes a big difference in both the look of your game and the performance. You should have a number of AA levels to choose from, like "2x," "4x," and "8x," so you can choose how much of a performance hit you take. Generally, 8x provides the biggest drop in performance, with minimal improvements over 4x. The higher your resolution, the bigger hit you'll take to performance when increasing AA. So, we recommend raising your resolution as high as it can go first, then applying AA as needed. Try keeping AA down to 2x or 4x for the best graphics-to-performance ratio. If your game is performing very poorly, however, we recommend disabling AA completely for a significant speed boost. FXAALeft: FXAA off, Right: FXAA on. It has eliminated some of the jagged edges, but everything looks just a little blurrier. What It Does: FXAA stands for Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing, and it's one of the many types of anti-aliasing noted above (which is so popular that it deserves its own section). Like anti-aliasing, it aims to reduce jagged edges around objects. However, it uses a different method of doing so, which requires almost no processing power—but it also looks a bit blurrier. How It Affects Performance: FXAA will not affect your performance very much. In some cases may still cause a small performance hit, but most people will not see a noticeable difference in performance. Our Recommendation: If your computer isn't powerful enough to handle other types of anti-aliasing, and those jagged edges are just driving you crazy, you try enabling FXAA. You may like it, but I find the blurriness angers me even more than the jagged edges do. If you have a powerful computer, leave FXAA off and use regular anti-aliasing instead. Texture QualityLeft: Texture quality set low, Right: Texture quality set high. What It Does: Textures refer to the "picture" you see on top of the models in your game. For example, your game renders the "shape" of a set of stairs, and then overlays a texture that makes those stairs look like wood or stone. In the example above, it's what allows you to see the individual pine needles on a tree. Lower resolution textures will look blurry or dull, and high resolution textures will look sharp and lifelike. How It Affects Performance: Texture quality won't likely affect your frame rate, because it doesn't stress the graphics card's processor very much. However, texture quality does require more video RAM, so if your video card doesn't have a lot of VRAM you may experience more intermittent stuttering (rather than a constant decrease in frame rate) as you raise the setting. Our Recommendation: Texture quality can make a game go from okay-looking to beautiful pretty fast, and without a huge drop in performance. We recommend raising this as high as you can go without experience stuttering. If you get the occasional pause, lower this setting until the stutter goes away. Shadow QualityLeft: shadow quality set low, Right: shadow quality set high. What It Does: As you might expect, shadow quality determines how good shadows look in your game. At a low setting, you'll see a less defined, blocky shadow that sort of fits the outline of the object casting it, while higher settings will produce sharper, more realistic shadows. How It Affects Performance: Shadows are really difficult to compute, since the game needs to take into account where light is coming from at all angles, how far away you are from that light, and so on—not to mention how your character is moving. As such, it can have a significant affect on your game's performance. Our Recommendation: Shadows are cool, but probably aren't as important to you as the benefits you get from other draining graphics settings like anti-aliasing. If you need to sacrifice somewhere, this is a good place to start, by setting shadow quality to low or disabling them altogether. However, if you have power to spare, keep it in the middle or high end for enhanced realism. Anisotropic FilteringLeft: anisotropic filtering off, Right: anisotropic filtering set to 16x. Notice the blurriness of the road and the shrubs in the left image, as well as the lack of smoke emanating from the torch in the distance. What It Does: Anisotropic filtering affects textures that you see from an angle, like a stone path in front of you. Right below your feet, the texture will look sharp and crisp, but as you look down the path, it starts to blur. Anisotropic filtering blends textures together in a way that lets them stay sharp and crisp the further away they are from your character's "eyes." How It Affects Performance: On modern cards, anisotropic filtering shouldn't cause a very big performance drop, if at all—even at higher levels like 16x. Our Recommendation: Chances are your video card can handle high levels of anisotropic filtering, so go ahead and crank this one up. If it does cause a performance hit—say, on an old card—lower it down to 2x instead of off completely. You should still get a noticeable difference without a big loss in frame rate. View Distance and Field of ViewLeft: view distance set low, Right: view distance set high. Notice the extra trees in the distance on the right. What They Do: These are two settings that determine what you can "see" in-game. View distance, shown above, determines how far into the distance you can see. Open up your game of choice, and look off at the horizon. As you raise the view distance, you'll see more objects near the horizon. On low view distance settings, those objects still exist, they just abruptly "appear" on screen as you run toward them. Field of view is slightly different, and has more to do with gameplay than graphics. Field of view determines how much peripheral vision your character has as well. Higher field of view angles mean you can see more to your sides, though things directly in front of you will seem smaller or farther away. How They Affect Performance: These settings may affect your performance a small amount, but chances are you won't see too much of a hit on your frame rate. So, unless you're running very low power hardware, you probably tweak them to your heart's content. Our Recommendation: There's little reason to turn view distance down, unless you notice performance benefits from it. Field of view depends more on your personal preferences: higher field of view lets you see more at once, but makes it harder to aim at your target in first person shooters. Refresh Rate and VSyncAbove: a simulated image showing screen tearing. Image by Vanessaezekowitz. What They Do: Refresh rate refers to how many times your monitor refreshes the on-screen image every second. If you have a 60Hz monitor, for example, your screen will refresh the monitor 60 times per second. That means, essentially, that you're always seeing 60 frames per second—even if you're getting more than that in your game. Your game's FPS reading refers to how many frames your graphics card is producing, not necessarily how many you're seeing. 120Hz monitors exist for those that want a really smooth experience, since they can show 120 frames per second. If you're getting more frames per second than your monitor can handle, you'll get what's called "screen tearing" (see the above image for a simulated example). VSync solves this problem by "syncing" the monitor's refresh rate to your graphics card's output. That means it'll cap your game at 60 frames per second, and wait until your monitor is ready for a new frame before it generates one. How They Affect Performance: VSync will change your frame rate to 60 FPS, provided you usually get more than 60 FPS. This isn't a problem, since on a 60Hz monitor, that's all you can see anyway. However, if you get less than 60 FPS at any time, VSync will cap it at 30 FPS instead, which would be a significant performance drop. So, if you regularly experience frame rates under 60 FPS, VSync will hurt your performance. However, if you have the option to turn on "Triple Buffering" in your game, you should do that in addition to VSync. Triple buffering can help you keep the benefits of VSync while negating some of the performance loss, keeping your game smooth and tear-free. Our Recommendation: If you have screen tearing issues and you're getting well over 60 FPS on a 60Hz monitor, turn on VSync. If you don't have problems with screen tearing (or if your game ever drops the frame rate below your monitor's refresh rate), you might be better turning it off. If you can turn on triple buffering, we recommend doing so, but some games won't support it. Refresh rate and VSync can be pretty complicated, and there's a lot more to the subject than the basics we've outlined above. If you're interested, check out this section of TweakGuides' Graphics and Display guide, or this Reddit thread for a more in-depth look at everything that goes into refresh rate and VSync. Further Resources You Should ReadThis barely scratches the surface of the settings you can find and tweak (hence why we call it a "beginner's guide"), so once you feel comfortable tweaking these, we recommend moving on to see what other kinds of fun effects you can play with. Here are some sites, articles, and tools we recommend checking out:
Of course, no graphics guide would be complete without mentioning that the #1 best way to improve your graphics is to upgrade your hardware, or at least overclock it. However, unless you have top-of-the-line components, you're going to need to tweak your settings, so try the above steps, learn the process, and you should be a pro in no time. Title illustration by Tina Mailhot-Roberge.  |
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