Rumor: Diablo II remastered on the way, reveal set for Blizzcon 2019

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 20, 2019 3:14 AM CDT

Just as we advised, Blizzard is apparently going big at Blizzcon 2019, and Diablo will be a huge part of the show.

Rumor: Diablo II remastered on the way, reveal set for Blizzcon 2019

Blizzard plans to reveal two big Diablo games at Blizzcon 2019: A remastered version of the beloved Diablo II, possibly including the Lord of Destruction expansion with its runewords and extra Assassin and Druid classes, and the next mainline game in the series, Diablo IV.

The news comes from Overwatch streamer Metro, who attributes the info to inside sources at Blizzard. Metro's leaks were validated when they accurately predicted Ashe's reveal in Overwatch before Blizzcon 2018 aired, so the source appears to be genuine.

Continue reading: Rumor: Diablo II remastered on the way, reveal set for Blizzcon 2019 (full post)

Xbox Game Pass continues boosting full game sales

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 19, 2019 11:02 PM CDT

Gamers frequently buy outside the Xbox Game Pass lineup, making it hugely instrumental for Microsoft.

Xbox Game Pass continues boosting full game sales

Microsoft's $10 a month all-you-can-play Xbox Game Pass service is one of the most powerful forces in the industry. Not only does it make money from recurring subs every month, but it's actually leading to full game sales on Xbox LIVE. This phenomena was first highlighted by Phil Spencer, who confirmed Game Pass is sparking actual game purchases back in 2018.

Much to Microsoft's delight, Game Pass continues delivering. It's a kind of gateway to specific games that players wouldn't have tried otherwise, and when it turns out the games are good, players actually buy them outright to own them. Speaking at the GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit, Xbox indie lead Agostino Simonetta said this trend of Game Pass inadvertently leading to game sales is continuing.

Continue reading: Xbox Game Pass continues boosting full game sales (full post)

Xiaomi unveils 34-inch UltraWide gaming monitor

Anthony Garreffa | Displays & Projectors | Oct 19, 2019 8:48 PM CDT

Xiaomi has just stepped into the gaming monitor market with its new Mi Surface Display, a new 34-inch UltraWide gaming monitor with native 3440x1440 resolution and 144Hz refresh rate.

Xiaomi unveils 34-inch UltraWide gaming monitor

The Chinese giant has unveiled not just one but two new Mi Surface Displays with the 34-inch model joined by a 24-inch 1080p model. The larger 21:9 UltraWide monitor has a 1500R curvature, with its 144Hz refresh rate smoothed out even more with AMD FreeSync and 4ms (GtG) response time.

Xiaomi is using super-thin bezels on its 34-inch UltraWide gaming display, with around 2mm bezels used and a stand that is has height adjustment and tilt abilities. We should hopefully find both DisplayPort and HDMI connectivity, but Xiaomi is a little skinny on the details in that department, at least for now.

Continue reading: Xiaomi unveils 34-inch UltraWide gaming monitor (full post)

Unreal Engine 4 demo shows insane real-time storm effects

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 19, 2019 8:07 PM CDT

This Unreal Engine 4 storm demo shows incredible storm effects that are possible on older GTX 900 series GPUs...imagine what next-gen consoles will deliver?

Unreal Engine 4 demo shows insane real-time storm effects

Blue12 studios game developer Koola just released an amazing UE4 demo that looks like something right out of next-gen. The footage was captured in real-time and shows intense hurricane-force winds, with quite realistic effects like shaking trees, destructive debris, lightning and ambient lighting effects, and tons of collisions and particle physics going on.

Interestingly enough, this demo was captured on an older NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 GPU, not an insanely powerful rig. It's actually not even optimized, so the demo could look even better with more horsepower and higher-end tweaks.

Continue reading: Unreal Engine 4 demo shows insane real-time storm effects (full post)

John Wick, Neo in Mortal Kombat 11? Ed Boon wants it to happen

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 19, 2019 6:20 PM CDT

The murderous Baba Yaga or The One could show up in Mortal Kombat 11--at least that's what Ed Boon wants to see.

John Wick, Neo in Mortal Kombat 11? Ed Boon wants it to happen

Mortal Kombat 11's character roster has all kinds of crossovers: There's The Joker from Batman, the T-800, and even Spawn. Netherealm is far from finished expanding MK11's DLC characters...so what's next? Ed Boon teases Neo from the Matrix, John Wick, or even an epic crossover with the Street Fighter series.

At this year's Brasil Games Show, Ed Boon discussed who he'd like to see make the cut onto the Mortal Kombat 11 lineup.

Continue reading: John Wick, Neo in Mortal Kombat 11? Ed Boon wants it to happen (full post)

Spin a web for our 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' Blu-ray giveaway!

Ben Gourlay | Contests & Giveaways | Oct 19, 2019 6:06 PM CDT

Thanks to our friends at Universal Sony Home Entertainment, we have ten Blu-ray copies of the new release Marvel blockbuster 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' to give away!

Spin a web for our 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' Blu-ray giveaway!

Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) returns in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Our friendly neighbourhood super hero decides to join his best friends Ned, MJ, and the rest of the gang on a European vacation. However, Peter's plan to leave super heroics behind for a few weeks is quickly scrapped when he begrudgingly agrees to help Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) uncover the mystery of several elemental creature attacks. Spider-Man and Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) join forces to fight the havoc unleashed across the continent but all is not as it seems.

To go into the running to win a prize, post this article to your social media profiles, send your postal address to ben at TweakTown dot com and correctly answer the following question before the competition closes on 25 October.

Continue reading: Spin a web for our 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' Blu-ray giveaway! (full post)

The Outer Worlds PS4 Pro enhancements confirmed with 4K upscaling

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 19, 2019 4:00 PM CDT

Contrary to reports, The Outer Worlds will get enhancements on the PlayStation 4 Pro too.

The Outer Worlds PS4 Pro enhancements confirmed with 4K upscaling

Private Division confirms The Outer Worlds will tap the PS4 Pro's extra horsepower with graphical optimizations. Obsidian's new spacefaring RPG will support upscaled 4K resolution on the PS4 Pro, and hits native 4K with 3840 x 2160 textures on Xbox One and PC. The Outer Worlds will instead hit a native 1400p on PS4 Pro. It was previously reported the game would only be optimized on Xbox One X.

"The Outer Worlds is enhanced for both Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. It includes 4K textures and resolution on Xbox One X and PC, and upsamples to 4K from 1440p on PS4 Pro. It looks great across all platforms," the publishing label said on Twitter.

Continue reading: The Outer Worlds PS4 Pro enhancements confirmed with 4K upscaling (full post)

AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X destroys Intel's i9-10980XE in 3DMark Firestrike

Shannon Robb | CPU, APU & Chipsets | Oct 19, 2019 2:08 PM CDT

The news on the upcoming launches of AMD's new 3950X and Threadripper parts are heating up. This time with official results for Intel's new Cascade Lake-X parts having an official showing as well. The findings come from the 3DMark database, which has new results for both the flagship AMD mainstream CPU and the upcoming flagship Intel HEDT part as well.

AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X destroys Intel's i9-10980XE in 3DMark Firestrike

Different users ran the two tests, but they appear to be stock results from what the results entries show. Now do keep in mind this is less of a controlled environment than the reviews you read here. Each of these was from separate users with no in-depth information such as MCE status or anything else that may be configured. However, once we look at the scores and some of the specifics of each entry, we can extrapolate some useful information.

First up is the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X result which we see here was run on a X570 GIGABYTE Aorus Elite. The physics score, which for those unaware is your CPU test for Firestrike tests, shows a score of 32082. The maximum turbo clock shows just over 3,700MHz and the stock clock of 3,500MHz. The AMD rig was outfitted with 16GB of Kingston DDR4 at 3,200MHz and 16 cores with 32 threads active.

Continue reading: AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X destroys Intel's i9-10980XE in 3DMark Firestrike (full post)

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X performance leaked showing 9980XE level performance

Shannon Robb | CPU, APU & Chipsets | Oct 19, 2019 1:33 PM CDT

The team over at WCCFTech has "a friend" who somehow got hands-on with the upcoming AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 core mainstream platform CPU. They then tested the CPU in the popular Cinebench R20 benchmark. While Cinebench may not be the end-all tell-all for performance, it does give us a decent look at the relative performance in a heavy render style load.

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X performance leaked showing 9980XE level performance

It is important to note that this at this time must be treated as a rumor. But, it is worth noting that if you scale the relative performance, we have seen thus far from the new Ryzen 3rd gen parts, the numbers stack up to be credible.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is stated to have an R20 multi-core score of 8788 and breaks down to a per-core score of 549. while the current Intel flagship 9980XE came in at 8833 which breaks down to a per-core score of 490. As you can see, the 18-core flagship from Intel, when testing multi-core, is only less than half of a percent higher of a score. This is while having two more cores and four more threads. This breaks down to a per-core breakdown of a little over 11% per fore performance advantage for the 3950X.

Continue reading: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X performance leaked showing 9980XE level performance (full post)

The first real photo of a PlayStation 5 dev kit appears

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 19, 2019 2:58 AM CDT

We're finally here -- the first real photo of Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 development kit. Our good friends at LetsGoDigital have been all over the 3D renders of the PS5, but now this is the real deal.

The first real photo of a PlayStation 5 dev kit appears

The first real image of the PS5 development kit shows that the renders I have been reporting on have been indeed real, showing that awesome V-shaped design that doesn't just look good, but it should also be much better for keeping the high-end internals cool.

You can see this is "Prototype 1" and is "Not For Sale" (can you imagine how much this thing would go for on eBay?) and it has the On/Standby, Reset, Eject, System Init, and Network Init buttons on the front. Don't expect the System Init and Network Init buttons on your PS5 when it launches in December 2020, however.

Continue reading: The first real photo of a PlayStation 5 dev kit appears (full post)