Origin, the PC games client of Electronic Arts has a brand new beta update, ushering in a variety of community requested features. Although most of these have already been available in competing services for some time, it"s never a bad thing to receive some extra components to play around with.
First up is an FPS counter, where instead of using a third party app"s overlay, such as FRAPS, Origin users can now use an inbuilt one. Once enabled, the FPS counter is displayed in the user"s desired corner of the screen, as seen below.
Next are a couple of bandwidth managing settings for Origin, which will come in handy when downloading games or updates. Users can now set the maximum download rate that Origin will make use of when playing a game, as well as set the rate for when being out of one. The setting offers a range of download speeds to choose from, and with the option to completely halt all updates if a game is currently open, which is the default behavior.
And last but not least, is a brand new feature that isn"t actually available on other game clients such as Steam, going by the name "Cross-game party invites". Players will now be able to invite others into a game even if the invited party is already inside a different game. Interestingly, if the invited player accepts the request, Origin will automatically close the player"s game and join the invitees" game instead. The feature does give a grace period to cancel the original game"s shut down to minimize any accidents.
As these features are currently being tested in the Origin beta, there may be some bugs that may pop up, but anyone interested in trying them out can opt-in to the beta by going into Origin"s Application Settings menu and enabling "Participate in Origin client betas" option.
Source and images: EA