CES 2025: HP Will Use AI to Handle Your Game Settings For You
Whenever I log into a game, the first thing I do is hop into its settings and toy around with my options to try to strike a good balance between performance and graphics. It’s not exactly the most exciting first impression for a new title, but it can make my actual time spent playing a lot more seamless. Now, HP wants to automate that first hurdle away, so I can jump right into gameplay instead.
Omen AI beta optimizes your settings for you
As part of its CES 2025 announcements, the company announced its "Omen AI Beta," coming to the HP Omen Gaming Hub this week. According to HP, this AI will use “machine learning to provide customized adjustments to operating system settings, hardware settings, and in-game settings” in just one click. That’s a lot to balance all at once, but the idea is that HP will scan your system to find out how to get max performance in your games, taking your individual setup into account, then make the needed changes for you.
Like other AI, it'll need training data to pull that off. According to a spokesperson, Omen AI will use hardware specs, game configurations, and performance metrics from "millions of gaming systems" to come up with its optimizations, which it'll then apply across your game and certain compatible parts of your wider system. In order to avoid conflicts with other companies' products, its operating system changes will be limited to adjusting the "booster" settings already present in the company's gaming software, while hardware setting changes will initially only work with Omen PCs. In other words, your optimizations might be a little less effective if you don't have the right computer, but you also won't need to worry about the program breaking hardware it's not familiar with. (If you do encounter issues, there's an undo button to change back to your setting from before you enabled the AI.)
Even with those limitations, the feature is only set to work with Counterstrike 2 at launch, so expect a measured rollout. Still, promotional material does show the tool working in Valorant as well, so hopefully HP won’t abandon it after just a proof of concept.
That’s really what’ll make or break something like this. If it only works on a few titles, it’ll be great for headlines, but gamers will quickly forget about it. Integrations with other PC makers and companies like Nvidia are also possible down the line, I'm told, which could help widen the tool's user base.
A wider user base also means more data to help train on, which does raise the issue of privacy. According to HP, Omen AI doesn't use any personally identifiable information to train its AI models, and users can manage their data collection consent options from within the Omen Gaming Hub software. Still, even with the promise that data is anonymous and aggregated, it's worth double checking your privacy settings if you have HP's Omen Gaming Hub installed, even if you don't plan on using AI.
It's interesting seeing something like this come first from a computer manufacturer rather than Microsoft or Nvidia, although the tool will be open to anyone with Omen Gaming Hub installed, whether or not they have an HP PC. Both in and out-of-game, it looks like you’ll be able to use Omen AI to access a quick toggle that will tell you your current fps as well as what fps you can expect to get upon enabling the tool. Even if these are just mock-ups for now, they do show a commitment to ease of use. That said, maybe a bit of fine control would be helpful here—what if I’m OK with the program adjusting my in-game settings but would rather have my operating system and hardware left alone?
How well Omen AI will work in reality depends on how the beta plays out and continued support. I'm rooting for it: It’s also a good example of the type of AI I actually like, since it's more about eliminating tedium than replacing human creativity.
New mice from HP
HP also announced the HyperX Pulsefire Saga and Saga Pro mice at this year's CES, which both look pretty standard on the surface, with 8K polling, six programmable buttons, and support for up to 26,000 DPI. There are some premium features, like magnetic weights, but what really sets them apart is their 3D-printed cases. You’ll get eight case parts in the box, which is enough for a full mouse, but you’re also free to swap out and customize options at your leisure, by downloading new open-source case parts from HP’s Printables account.
The HyperX Pulsefire Saga and Saga Pro mice will both be available in March. The former costs $80, while the latter hits $120, thanks to its added wireless functionality.