Setting up your 4K HDR TV for 'HDR Gaming'

So you have a shiny new 4k HDR TV and a console that can do HDR gaming (at the time of writing this would be the PS4, PS4 Pro and the XboxOne S). However it doesn't seem to be as simple as turning the machine on and letting it do its job. It might say your TV is not HDR compatible. The blacks might be looking crushed. Maybe its not looking like you expected? Well this article will hopefully explain two things. Firstly what HDR actually is meant to do (as opposed to what some marketing might tell you) and secondly how to set up your TV so that HDR both works and looks how intended.

I'm am going to keep things as basic as possible without confusing people with to many terms and numbers because most people out there don't need to know the nitty gritty details. They just want to know what to expect and how to get it to work.

So what is HDR

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It's not a new idea as it has been around in many forms for a long time but these days a standard has started to emerge. Well two standards really. HDR10 and Dolby Vision. HDR10 is the one that the consoles are targeting despite Dolby Vision being the more advanced tech. But despite the differences they are setting out to achieve the same thing. A higher dynamic range of colour, shadow, highlight and luminance.

What this means is that a non HDR TV (or SDR) has a set colour range within the RGB (Red Green Blue) space. HDR expands this so that the TV can now display a much larger variation of colours. But its not necessarily colours above or below this range, its additional colours in between. This means smoother and more realistic gradients of colour, shadow and highlight detail. They will look richer and more realistic.

The other thing it does is allow a much higher luminance. Basically it can go a lot brighter. Some to the point where you actually kind of need to squint. It's this luminance that some of the lower end TVs will miss out on the most but even with just the additional colour range and some luminance boost the image will look a lot higher quality than on an SDR TV.

To make it even simpler, an SDR TV might show you maybe 35% of what you can see with your eyes. An HDR TV might show anywhere from 50-90% depending on the TV you buy.

What should you expect to see?

This is where a lot of confusion comes in. I have seen plenty of people get their new TV expecting everything to POP on screen, colours to be out of this world and super bright. Well you can kind of make these TVs do that but that is not really what you should be expecting. HDR is actually meant to be about more realistic colour and brightness, not eye melting saturation. The biggest fault of this is marketing. It is a lot easier to sell something when you explain it as brighter, eye popping, high luminance etc because saying it looks more realistic wont sell. Most people look at their TVs and think it already looks realistic so what would they gain from that?

Well it's one of those techs that has to really be seen to appreciate. No fake mock up will really show you what to expect. Take the example below:

This picture is trying to show you what to expect with HDR. But its is hugely inaccurate. The biggest and most obvious flaw is you can not show HDR on a non HDR display. So what you see in the HDR example is completely false because clearly you can view that on a normal display. Secondly, HDR doesn't tend to add much new colour like that. Normally displays can clearly show that blue. What you would actually get is more versions of the colours allowing more realistic colour representation and gradients. Also the additional luminance is completely missing from all these marketing pictures because, again. a normal display can't show you this anyway. The only thing slightly honest about that image is that you should see additional details in the highlights and shadows.

Lastly, I believe this is a shot from Rise of the Tomb raider which I don't believe actually supports HDR in the first place so......It is clearly a normal shot that has been photo shopped to try and look better and claim it is what HDR will do.

I get what they are trying to do. But it's false. Like when HD TVs came out and they tried to show what it would look like by blurring the normal image because obviously you cant see what HD looks like on a non HD TV. It is marketing and inaccurate so please don't believe it.

So to sum up. What you should expect is more accurate, richer colours with increased luminance where required (such as bright lights, sunlight etc) and increased details visible in the shadows and highlights.

How to set up the TV

The Internet is full of opinions on this one because their are people trying to explain how to set up your TV to get HDR to view as intended and then there are many people trying tell people how to set it up as they personally like it. There is nothing wrong with not using the settings designed to show HDR accurately. But it is wrong to tell people that is how it SHOULD be set up. If you like higher saturation, brighter shadows, extra contrast etc then by all means set you TV up accordingly. But that is not necessarily the correct way to have it set up.

So I will pick out some key settings here that you should set up to get it working and if you want to tweak these then by all means do so. It's your TV after all.

First make sure your console is set up appropriately. For PS4 and PS4 Pro there is a video option for things like colour range. Set all of them to automatic. XboxOne S has its own check list it goes through so follow that for some of these settings. Then move on to the TV settings.

Turn on UHD colour on your HDMI ports. The most important setting as it allows HDR to actually run. Each TV will be different and its likely not all your HDMI ports support HDR so read the manual (or sometimes the ports are colour coded) and plug your console into the correct port. Then go into the menus and find the setting to turn on UHD colour for that port.

Put your TV in Game Mode if it has one. This is a great setting that is a must for gaming. It turns off most the processing effects including some you don't have control over in the first place. This decreases input delay which is the time from when you press a button to something happening on screen. For example if I played on my TV in movie mode I would have a rather obvious half second delay from my actions when pressing a button. When in game mode it feels instant (although not actually being quite instant).

Black Level. This often has 2 settings. Sometimes called different things. But they basically mean black level support for full RGB or Limited RGB.  This is something that can also be different for each TV but the best things you can do is simply switch between them till one looks right. When viewing SDR content, an incorrect setting will either crush the blacks (excessive black and dark patches all over the screen) or wash out the blacks (they all appear a grey colour rather than black). If it looks normal its correct. I only mention this because on my TV if i set it to automatic it looks fine in HDR but terrible in SDR. Where as in 'low' it looks great in both. So find out which one works in SDR so you don't have to keep changing settings when switching between SDR and HDR games.

Backlight. It is common to suggest the backlight needs to be set to max. While this is often the case it also depends on the room you are in. Mine is reasonably well lit and I do fine with it on 15. Its mainly because HDR content appears darker at the same settings as SDR.

Standard colour options. For these I mean things like brightness, contrast, colour etc. These can be left the same as for SDR content. Default is normally fine for these but tweak as you prefer.

Sharpness. You really shouldn't need any as what this does is sharpen the image at the cost of artifacting on the screen. But when viewing higher resolution content this is really something that shouldn't be needed. Set it between 0-10. I have mine on 5 just because. It's like a tiny tiny amount so that in my head it makes a difference (it prob doesn't).

Colour space. Another one that will vary from TV to TV. I use native because that allows access to the TVs whole expanded colour space. The other option is Auto which uses the sources colour space. You will have to make your own choice on this one because each TV model is different. Native on SDR content can appear over saturated on some TVs while on others can make the colours look better. On my TV I use native for both as I prefer the odd over saturation to the mostly under saturation that occurs. In HDR however the difference is a lot smaller but again I prefer Native.

Dynamic Contrast. Turn this off. I keep seeing people saying you need this on for HDR to work but its just not true. The problem is that HDR seems darker than SDR. But the first thing you should tweak to fix this is the in game brightness setting. In my experience it always needs to be a fair bit higher than when in SDR. All you will do when turning on dynamic contrast is brighten everything to the point that you lose details in the highlights and shadows, removing a lot of what HDR is meant to do in the first place. So if you like it on then that's fine but please don't tell people you NEED to have it on as for the full HDR range to be shown it actually needs to be off.

Colour Tone. This should really be at 'Warm 2'. What this should do is make white actually white. However the problem is you may be really used the the 'Standard' setting which adds a lot of blue. When you first try 'Warm 2' you may feel it just makes everything really yellow. But try it and stick with it for a day or 2 then see how you feel. A lot of people adjust and realise it is actually accurate now but if you still feel it is to yellow then drop it to 'Warm 1' and try again. But if you can stick to 'Warm2' that is meant to be accurate. Years of too much blue in your screens has tricked your eyes.

Turn off all other TV processing options. If you don't have a game mode or your game mode doesn't turn off all additional processing options, then this applies to you as well. TVs come with various processing options to 'improve' your picture. I personally turn them off for everything as all they really do is remove detail, over saturate the image and cause things like artifacting. They mostly turn everything up to max to catch your eye when in the TV shop but if you turn them all off and get used to it you will likely realise how bad they look when on. These settings include smooth motion (has various names), dynamic contrast and noise reduction.

With the above in place your TV should now be able to display HDR correctly. I'm sure there are some TVs that have other settings I am unaware of but these should be the main ones and are the common problem areas I have seen online.

I am by no means a TV expert. Just someone who got a 4k HDR TV and wants others to be able to enjoy theirs as best as possible. As I said at the start, if you enjoy having different settings then go for it. But this is a baseline for getting HDR to work and look as intended.

As an extra. If you simply want to see what HDR video looks like on your TV but have no 4k HDR blue ray player then I highly recommend the following. Go to http://demo-uhd3d.com/categorie.php?tag=hdr on your PC. Download some of those videos (the chess one is a great example). Copy them onto a USB stick. Plug that into your TV and watch. You will now get 4k HDR with no streaming compression. It really does look fantastic and is the best way to see what the fuss is all about.

Mayflash Arcade Fightstick F300 Modification

Back in April I decided to try and find a controller with 6 face buttons to help me out when playing Street FIghter V on PC. Using an XboxOne controller was OK but using the shoulder buttons is a real pain in a 6 button fighter. At first a tried a 6 button fight pad but it got returned pretty fast as the d-pad was horrible. Next I decided I would try a fightstick. I haven't played fighters with a stick in years (since the arcade days) but I do have fond memories of playing fighters in the arcades so I thought I would give it a go.

I had to take into consideration 2 main points, cost and size. I didn't want to spend to much money in case this ended up being something I simply abandoned after a short while (and I have certainly done that with many things in the past). I didn't want it to be to large because space is a something of a luxury that I don't want to take up with things like this. I have my entire gaming set up on a small laptop table and it ideally needs to fit on this.

After a little research my best bet seemed to be the Mayflash F300. It's hardly the prettiest thing in the world but it was the right price and a good size at roughly 30 cm wide. It also states that all the parts are upgradable to Sanwa parts if I later wanted to upgrade it. Not only this but it is compatible with PC, PS4 and XboxOne. As I also own a PS4 this may come in useful. The only downside to using it on one of the consoles is that it needs an official controller attached when playing for it to work. This is a limitation you have to accept if you want a universal fightstick though. Luckily for me I would be using this pretty much exclusively on PC where this is not an issue.

Well, after 3 months I have to say I have really enjoyed using this product. The stock buttons and stick are all adequate and its a lot easier to play fighting games with than a pad. However the urge to upgrade it took over. I not only wanted higher quality buttons and stick but I wanted to change the colour from that rather ugly blue.

I am sure there are various places you can order the required parts from but I purchased all mine from arcadeworlduk.com. The parts I needed were:

• 8 new buttons

• 1 New Stick with ball head

• A female to female 5 pin connector for the stick

I had to install the stick later than the buttons because once I opened it up the stock stick was connected in an entirely different manner and the jlf-h wire I purchased wouldn't work with this design (I later learned I needed a female to female version). Luckily the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) has an additional port for the Sanwas 5 wire connection as well as the stocks 8 wire connection. 

For the buttons I wanted the 6 main buttons to look different from the 2 on the far right. I went with 6 buttons that had a light blue surround and white plunger and 2 that were completely light blue. For the stick I went with a light blue ball head. 

Installation

Because the stick is designed with upgrading in mind its pretty simple to do. The only snag was with the stick where I didn't know at first how to wire it in until I found someone online who explained to me that it has a port already on the PCB, you just need the right connector. With that connector it is also rather easy to install.

Buttons:

Step 1:

Turn the fightstick upside down and remove the 8 screws from the base, then remove the base plate.

Step 2:

Pop each of the buttons out (they are held in by 2 push clips) so they hang out the bottom by the wires.

Step 3:

Detach the 2 wires from a button, then attach them to the new button. Repeat this for all 8 buttons. Once done clip them back into the shell. 

Step 4:

Put the base plate back on and attach the 8 screws.

Your buttons are now done

Stick:

A little trickier but still fairly simple.

Step 1:

Turn the fightstick upside down and remove the 8 screws from the base, then remove the base plate.

Step 2:
Remove the 8 wires for the stock controller from the PCB (should be 4 connectors with 2 wires in each). You will also need to cut the cable tie holding the wires all together. The picture below shows how it will look with all the stock sticks wires removed from the PCB.

Step 3:
Use a flat head screw driver on the centre screw attached to the stick in conjunction with the ball head to twist it. This will allow you to unscrew the ball head at the top. Once the ball head is off you can also remove the stick shaft and washer.

Step 4:
Remove the screws holding the stick to the shell and pull out the stick.

Step 5:
Put the new Sanwa stick in place and attach the screws to mount it in place. Have the 5 prong connector facing the buttons.

Step 6:
Flip the fightstick over and place the washer over the stick and then the stick shaft. Then screw on the new ball head using the flat head on the screw until its on tight.

Step 7:
Attach the female to female connector from the stick to the PCB as shown in the picture below.

Step 8:

Put base plate back on and attach the 8 screws.

Your new stick should now be installed.

While the stock buttons and stick are adequate the new buttons feel and look a lot nicer and are more responsive. The stick has a tighter feel and limits accidental inputs. Overall I am very happy with this upgrade. The stick not only looks and feels nicer but it still comes in a fair bit cheaper than paying full price for a high end fightstick. You also wont get a high end fightstick with such a compact design as far as I can tell.

Alienware Alpha Performance Test - The Witcher 3

Alienware Alpha Model:
i5 | 8 gig RAM | 860m/750ti 2 gig RAM - Overclocked (+135 core clock & +400 memory clock) 

2015's game of the year, The Witcher 3, is a very taxing game to run well. By run well I mean 1080p and 30fps. If you were hoping for 60fps like the alienware alpha website promises then you not only need to be playing at the lowest settings but also a much lower resolution than 1080p. Infact you pretty much need to drop it down to 720p to achieve this. It's a bit of a missleading claim to make to be honest but its not techincally inaccurate.

This game runs at about 1080p and 30fps on the main consoles. I say 'about' because both have their own issues with frame drops and XboxOne is running at 900p rather than 1080p. My basic guide for how a game should perform on this model of the Alpha is slightly better than on PS4. This holds true most of the time but there are always exceptions to this rule.

It's getting more an more common for modern games to look fantastic even on low settings these days and The Witcher 3 is no exception. I use a mixture of settings but a lot of them are set to low with some set a bit higher and the game is still quite beautiful to experience. The games artstyle, lighting and almost constant movement within the game world (trees and plants swaying in the breeze for example) create what often feels like a living breathing world that is a pleasure to explore.

With the settings listed below you can get The Witcher 3 to run at 1080p and over 30fps 99% of the time. You will still get the rare hicup that drops it just below but its only for a split second here and there:

Postprocessing
Motion Blur: On
Blur: Off
Anti-Aliasing: On
Bloom: On
Sharpening: Off
Ambient Occlusion: None
Depth of Field: Off
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On

Graphics
VSync: On
Maximum Frames Per Second: Unlimited (don't use this to lock the framerate, see 'vedict')
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Display Mode: Borderless Window (Helps when locking to 30fps)
Preserve System Gamma: Off
NVIDIA HairWorks: Off
NVIDIA HairWorks AA: 0
NVIDIA HairWorks Preset: Low
Number of background Characters: Low
Shadow Quality: Low
Terrain Quality: Low
Water Quality: High
Grass Density: Low
Texture Quality: High
Foliage Visibility Range: Medium
Detail Level: Low
Hardware Cursor: Off

Verdict 

The Witcher 3 runs nicely as long as you are willing to accept playing at 30fps with a resolution of 1080p. As long as you lock the framerate using 3rd party software such as RivaTuner and use settings like motion blur then the expience is still nice and smooth. I wouldn't recommend using the ingame frame lock option as the frame timing feels off causing a slightly stuttery feel to the camera movement. You can of course just play with a variable framerate but it jumps around between 30-60 so much it becomes increadibly distracting. Going into a cave where the frame rate will rise making the game run super smooth only for it to plumet back down to 30 as you exit can bring you out of the exerience really fast. So lock it to 30 and you will stop even thinking about the frame rate at all.

Photographing the Kingfisher

I have enjoyed photography as a hobby for many years now but since my son was born a little over 3 years ago I haven't really had much time to get out with the camera. My father is also a big fan of the hobby and so we arranged a day out together at a nature reserve so we could spend some time together an give me the chance to get a few new pictures for my Flickr stream (My last upload was October 2015).

I have used a pretty humble set up for a long time now as far as DSLR equipment goes. I have just 2 lenses (albeit decent ones) an external flash and a 2 x converter. These lenses are the Tamron 18-50 F2.8 and the Canon 70-200 F4 L. My camera body is pretty aging as well (Canon 500D) but it still gets the job done. I have always believed that even the base line bodies are capable of producing great shots with the right lens attached and a little bit of user skill and creativity.

Despite the poor weather as of late we got rather lucky and summer decided to finally show up. The place we visited was primarily for bird photography which I am hardly equipped for on any sort of high end level but I have taken plenty of bird shots in my time as the opportunity presented itself. My favorite being on a holiday to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina where I was able to witness and photograph Osprey catching their morning meal.

However the big attraction at this particular nature reserve we visited was that it currently had Kingfishers nesting there. Having barely ever seen one, let alone caught one on camera, I was looking forward to seeing what would happen. I had my doubts I would come away with any shots I would be very happy with as even with the 2x converter I would only be hitting 400mm and my widest aperture would be a rather small f8. But as always I was determined to give it ago.

Well we had a great time and managed to witness the Kingfishers Hunting several times throughout the day. At first they would only be landing on perches at the other end of the pond which was far to great a distance to get any high detailed shots but it was great to see them in action anyway. Luckily for me, later on one of them decided to venture a bit closer and that gave me a little hope of producing something I was at least mildly happy with. When I got home and developed the shots I was actually pleasantly surprised that they had turned out better than I could have possibly hoped for and i got my self a nice little series of the Kingfisher hunting near its nest.

The Kingfisher surveys the hunting grounds looking for a potential target.

After selecting the target the Kingfisher dives down at lightning speed.

After each attempt it would shake off all the excess water on its feathers.

The Kingfisher would then take one final look around.

And then it would return to the nest.

While waiting for the Kingfishers to show their faces I was visited by two other interesting creatures. Firstly I saw this Reed Warbler show up near by. Its nice to see how they cling on to the reeds with their feet.

Even more interesting than that was this grass snake the decide to swim across to the other side of the pool. Another great sight for me as I have never seen a grass snake before so getting a picture of it in action was a pretty great moment.

Alienware Alpha Performance Test - Overwatch

Alienware Alpha Model:
i5 | 8 gig RAM | 860m/750ti 2 gig RAM - Overclocked (+135 core clock & +400 memory clock)

The new IP from Blizzard is unsurprisingly popular, as all their games seem to be. They are known for running only a small number of franchises (in fact this is their first new IP in years) but all are made to a very high standard from gameplay to visual artstyle and kept updated for years after release. But also like all Blizzard games it is designed to be able to run on a very wide range of hardware as they want as many people as possible to be able to purchase their games. Luckily for us Alpha 860m owners that means it runs like a dream on this tiny gaming PC.

Overwatch is a competitive team based first person shooter, so ideally you want to be playing at 60fps and 1920 x 1080 resolution. I played around with the settings and to be honest, in a game like this, it looks great no matter what settings you have (as long as you keep the resolution high). So for this reason I set it up to something where it would comfortably sit around 60fps. Here you can tweak to suit your own preference. For me I really don't notice the odd drop into the 50's so I left a few settings higher than needed, But if those minor drops bother you they are easily solved with turning one or two settings down another notch.

So for me I use the following settings to achieve 1080p with 60fps most of the time with the odd minor drop here and there:

Display Mode: Borderless Window
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Field of View: 100
Vsync: On
Triple Buffering: On
Render Scale: 100
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filtering Quality: Epic - 16x
Local Fog Detail:  Medium
Dynamic Reflections Low
Shadow Detail: Low
Model Detail: High
Effects Detail: Low
Lighting Quality: Medium
Antialias Quality: Low - FXAA
Reflection Quality: Medium
Local Reflections: On
Ambient Occlusion: On



Verdict

Overwatch runs like a dream on the alpha. Its a very scalable game that should give you no problems getting a 1080p 60fps experience all while retaining high quality textures and highly detailed characters. Its a pretty damn good game to boot. Just don't spend any money on there somewhat dubious random loot box system.

Alienware Alpha Performance Test - Rise of the Tomb Raider

Alienware Alpha Model:

i5 |  8 gig RAM | 860m/750ti 2 gig RAM - Overclocked (+135 core clock & +400 memory clock)

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a fairly demanding game and a good test of what you can squeeze out of this tiny little gaming PC. I was expecting to match something close to the Xbox One Performance of the game and I think it even runs a little bit better overall.

For a game like this my target is hitting 30fps at 1080p. If you get the odd drop here and there below, I would still class that as acceptable just so long as it’s not to frequent.

After working through one of the more demanding areas in the game I managed to settle on what I feel are the best settings for a solid 1080p 30fps performance.

Recommended settings:

Fullscreen:	ON
Exclusive Fullscreen:	OFF (this makes it full screen in a borderless window)
Resolution:	1920 x 1080
Anti-Aliasing:	FXAA
Vsync:	Triple Buffered
Texture Quality:	Medium
Anisotropic Filter:	8x
Shadow Quality:	Medium
Sun Soft Shadows:	OFF
Ambient Occlusion:	OFF
Depth of Field:	OFF
Level of Detail:	Medium
Tessellation:	OFF
Screen Space Reflections:	OFF
Specular Reflection Quality:	Normal
Dynamic Foliage:	Medium
Bloom:	ON
Vignette Blur:	OFF
Motion Blur:	ON
Purehair:	ON
Lens Flare:	ON
Screen Effects:	OFF
Film Grain:	OFF

In the Video below there are a few settings that are different. The main one is textures were set to high and I later realised that this was causing the hitching you see at times in the video. Its simply that the 2 gig of Graphics Ram the Alpha comes with is not enough to keep up with high textures. As soon as I changed it to Medium the hitching stopped. A few other settings are different (such as motion blur and exclusive full screen) because the video is to show the game running with an unlocked frame rate. When locking it to 30 it's best to play using borderless windowed mode and have motion blur as it makes the game feel smoother at half refresh rate.

To lock the framerate to 30fps I recommend using RivaTuner in conjunction with MSI Afterburner. This software combo will give you all the tools needed to overclock your gpu, monitor your hardware performance and lock specific games to a certain frame rate and maintain decent frame times. Many ingame options I have used to lock the framerate to 30 often give poor results and make the game feel sluggish and jittery due to poor frame times.

Verdict

Rise of the tomb Raider is a pretty demanding game so it should be expected that you will need to turn a lot of settings to low or even off when using hardware such as what is in the Alpha. Despite this the game still looks very detailed even at lower settings and you will soon get drawn into the game worlds visuals regardless.

1080p is something I personally like to hit because even on lower settings, the crisp look it gives adds a lot more to the overall visual experience than some additional particle effects or slightly higher quality shadows. Lowering the resolution to below the monitors native setting introduces blurring which I find distracting.

A locked 30fps is also a good target to aim for. While you can just leave the framerate unlocked so that you experience those moments that hit close to 60fps (and it does at times), as soon as it drops back down it can be very distracting. I personally find it better to just get used to 30fps so that it never becomes a distraction. This however is very subjective and you will have to judge for yourself what you prefer. People have different tolerance levels for frame rate variance. For me, if the game can stay above 45fps for the majority of the time I will normally be fine with it. But if it is constantly dropping back down to the 30’s then I will lock it to 30 and be done with it.

The Alpha offers a very playable 1080p 30fps experience with this game as long as you are willing to make some visual sacrifices.

Alienware Alpha Performance Test - Street Fighter V

Alienware Alpha Model:

i5 |  8 gig RAM | 860m/750ti 2 gig RAM - Overclocked (+135 core clock & +400 memory clock)

My first performance test for the little Alpha is Street Fighter V. It's a game that really demands one thing above all else. That is a solid 60fps performance during gameplay. Luckily the Alpha is perfectly capable of achieving this at 1080p and medium / low settings. The game still looks great and its artstyle crisp and clean thanks to hitting 1080p. You will get some dips from 60fps but these are all out of combat so don’t really matter. For example, during some of the canned animations for super moves the frame rate might drop a bit.

But the 1080p 60fps mark is hit during gameplay which is pretty much a requirement for this game. It's not just that it’s a very fast game that would feel sluggish at anything less but the game actually goes into slow motion if that 60fps target is not reached due to how it is designed.

The in game settings are as follows:

Resolution:	1920 x 1080
Full Screen Mode:	On
Resolution Scaling:	100
Anti-Aliasing:	Medium
Post-Processing:	Low
Shadow:	Medium
Texture:	Medium
Effects:	Low

In the video you will notice some hang ups here and there but that is nothing to do with the Alpha. Those were lag related due to a poor connection to my opponent.

Verdict

Street Fighter V plays fantastically on this model of the Alienware Alpha. As always with a lower end PC you have to make some concessions with regards to visual effects but its still looks great while running silky smooth.