Mid-range graphics cards

There are some good, powerful graphics cards available these days without having to break the bank. I recently purchased an ASUS AMD Radeon HD6670 1GB GDDR5 card from Novatech for just under £50.



It is a really powerful card which is able to play most modern games with the high quality graphics setting at the common resolutions. Even if this gives a jerky picture reducing the graphics quality to medium does not detract too much on most games. Also if you want to spend a bit more the AMD Radeon HD7770 and nVidia Geforce GTX 650ti offer a lot more performance for just about £100. They do need an additional power connection however.

With DELL Inspiron and Vostro mini-towers starting at less than £300 with Intel i3 CPUs, 4GB of RAM and 500Gb hard disk drives, adding one of these cards gives a suitable entry level gaming system for not much money. Unfortunately you also get Windows 8 included but you can't have everything. Luckily a year's warranty is also included.

Great games

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Far Cry 3
I've been playing some great games recently. Since Christmas, Far Cry 3 has been a fun return to the lush tropical island with plenty to shoot at, some wonderful graphics, a few puzzles and tasks and a good story.

Battlefield 3
I still keep going back to this game for some armoured action. Again great graphics and trying to attain the next rank gives the game lasting appeal. Provided that you don't die too often!

Borderlands 2
I played this game a lot before Christmas and still keep going back to it since then. Again the story line keeps dragging you back to the sequel of one of my all time favourite games. It was great to be back in Pandora and meeting Claptrap again.

The value for money that these quality games offer is amazing. All well produced and scripted. Fantastically modeled locations shown in the highest graphics quality. No bugs and crashes to spoil the action. Hours of play and virtual escapism. I suppose some people just play for a couple of days, finish the plot and then go onto the next purchase. It takes me months to get tired or complete these games. And not because I get stuck too often. The Tequila Sunrise outpost in Far Cry 3 frustrated me a lot until I learnt to place C4 explosive booby traps.

I know piracy is a problem with gaming but I usually buy the games that I want and are put off by excessive DRM on games like the latest SimCity. There are plenty of other quality games to play.

Windows 8 Start Menu

Coming to the rescue of the awful Windows 8 Start Menu is this neat, free utility from IObit. I've tested it on my only Windows 8 system and it works really well.

It forces the system to boot into the normal (Windows 7) desktop and disables the usual Start Menu and Charms bar. It adds all your program groups together with usual access to Documents, Pictures, Control Panel, etc.

Thank you IObit for providing this essential Windows 8 utility. Download from www.iobit.com/iobitstartmenu8