Nioh comes to PC with steep-ish spec requirements

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 3, 2017 8:26 AM CDT

Team Ninja's gruelingly challenging and amazingly executed samurai "Soulsborne" masterpiece is coming to PC, but not everyone will be able to play.

Nioh comes to PC with steep-ish spec requirements

NiOh is a great game that stands as a shining example of Team Ninja's development prowess, and the game's incoming arrival on PC in November fills a very real void left by Dark Souls' discontinuation. But there's an entry cost this time, and the PC spec requirements to run NiOh aren't super lenient; gamers will need a moderately decent graphics card on top of the huge 100GB file size.

According to NiOh's official Steam Page, the game will require at least an Intel i5-3550 CPU, 6GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 280 with at least 3GB of VRAM. This is somewhat surprising given NiOh ran quite well on PlayStation 4 consoles that notoriously feature older graphics hardware and components.

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Unsung Story to get PS4, XB1 & Nintendo Switch releases

Shaun Grimley | Gaming | Oct 3, 2017 6:00 AM CDT

Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians has been on a rollercoaster ride since reaching their funding goal via Kickstarter way back in 2014. If you're a backer (myself included) then you're probably aware of the path that Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardian has taken. There's good news however for the tactical-RPG, in August 2017 it was recently announced that Unsung Story has been picked up by new developer Little Orbit who has since shared their vision of the game and this weekend announced Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians will be released on consoles including Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Unsung Story to get PS4, XB1 & Nintendo Switch releases

"For me, I remember playing Final Fantasy Tactics from the couch on my PS1, and that format was quintessential to my experience enjoying that game,"Little Orbit CEO Matthew Scott said. Backers will also be able to update their platform preference via a survey.

In Little Orbit's Kickstarter update, Scott mentioned that they would be cancelling or modifying some backer rewards as it was "financially wasteful to produce" due to limited amount of backers. No need to worry though, partial refunds will be allocated for those tier backers.

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SteelSeries add new colors to Arctis 3 headset range

Shaun Grimley | Peripherals | Oct 3, 2017 4:46 AM CDT

SteelSeries have added three new colors to their award-winning Arctis 3 gaming headset range, solar red, boreal blue and slate grey. SteelSeries are celebrating this launch a little differently than most brands, with a great and selfless initiative. SteelSeries have partnered up with anti-bullying non-profit organization, Ditch the Label, by donating 10 percent of all Arctis Colors web shop sales, with their goal to raise $10,000.

SteelSeries add new colors to Arctis 3 headset range

"We questioned everything about gaming headsets when we designed the Arctis line - and because of that, it has driven the gaming audio industry forward to become the most sought after gaming headsets on the market with its beautiful, powerful features," said Ehtisham Rabbani, SteelSeries CEO. "With the new, trending colors of Arctis, we celebrate vibrant personalities and passionate gamers that help drive this culture forward, as well as support a worthy cause benefiting youth and gamers."

Featuring 7.1 surround sound, the Arctis 3 is able to deliver incredible sound via a range of devices including PC, consoles and mobile devices. The Arctis 3 also includes the SteeSeries ClearCast microphone, a retractable bi-directional system that delivers clear voice communication that is unmatched in gaming headsets.

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Sony in talks to have Battlegrounds on PS4 soon

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 3, 2017 1:30 AM CDT

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is one of the biggest releases of 2017, and has smashed all sorts of records in the gaming industry since it hit Steam Early Access in March earlier this year.

Sony in talks to have Battlegrounds on PS4 soon

PUBG developer Bluehole has signed a timed exclusive with Microsoft for Xbox One X, which will definitely boost sales of Microsoft's new flagship console with the hottest game right now as a console exclusive. Bloomberg is now reporting that Bluehole "has had talks with all of the major console companies", and then being very specific that the developer was "in talks with Sony" about a PS4 release of Battlegrounds.

Sony might not see a release of Battlegrounds on the PS4, but Bluehole even talking to them in the first place is promising. Microsoft might only have a timed exclusive on Battlegrounds for Xbox, and I'm sure Sony wants to make sure it's ready as soon as it possibly can with a PS4 version of PUBG. If we're seeing 1.5 million concurrent users on the PC right now, where would those numbers be if Battlegrounds was on both Xbox and PlayStation consoles?

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ECS' upcoming Leet Gaming Z370-Lightsaber teased

Anthony Garreffa | Motherboards | Oct 3, 2017 12:43 AM CDT

ECS is hitting the Z370 motherboard game with their upcoming lets-throw-all-the-cool-words-in ECS Leet Gaming Z370-Lightsaber, a new motherboard ready for Intel's eighth-gen Coffee Lake CPU architecture.

ECS' upcoming Leet Gaming Z370-Lightsaber teased

The new Leet Gaming Z370-Lightsaber rocks a pretty plain look given its burst-in-your-face name, but inside still supports 4 x DIMMs capable of memory at up to 3200MT/s, 3 x PCIe x16 ports, and 2 x M.2 ports that are connected to a PCIe 3.0 x4. We also have 6 x SATA ports, and 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports that are backed up by Realtek's ALC1150 codec and Killer E2500 Ethernet.

ECS is aiming the Leet Gaming Z370-Lightsaver at overclockers, with some beefy VRM heat sinks, and on-board power and reset buttons. Next to the power and reset buttons, ECS has placed diagnostic LEDs that will help you know what's happening to your motherboard when your overclock fails. There are three other buttons that provide you with an update BIOS, reset CMOS settings, or a "quick OS" button.

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COD: WWII developer says PC will 'excel' this year

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 2, 2017 10:44 PM CDT

Call of Duty: WWII's beta has wrapped up, with developer Raven putting in the extra mile for the PC version of the game. You don't need a supercomputer to run the game, either.

COD: WWII developer says PC will 'excel' this year

Raven Software worked on the PC port of the game, with Raven CTO Dwight Luetscher talking with PCGamer recently where he said: "The World War 2 setting, and this game in particular I think, is very well suited for the PC community, in the way some of the recent releases haven't (been)". He continued: "We really believe this is the year where the PC is going to excel. This is the year that we're going to give it our best shot to win the hearts and minds of the PC community".

I don't believe a word about "this game" being "very well suited for the PC community", but I see it as more that PUBG is doing so well it's going to drag the entire PC gaming market out of the slump that Raven thinks it was in, and into the limelight. Not another Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V development job on the latest COD because it has some additional PC features that gamers have been complaining were missing from the series for YEARS.

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Samsung to make more money from iPhone X than Galaxy S8

Samsung has some of the best flagship smartphones on the market and available right now to buy, with the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, and even the new Galaxy Note 8. Apple on the other hand, is still a little while away from unleashing its new iPhone X.

Samsung to make more money from iPhone X than Galaxy S8

Right now, Samsung is the only company in the world that is capable of making enough OLED displays, NAND flash, and DRAM in the quantities that Apple need for the mass sales of its iPhone. This is a huge profit driver for Samsung, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that these massive orders chalk up big profits for Samsung's component business, which is around 35% of Samsung's revenue.

So when your friends say "but the iPhone X is way better than your Samsung junk", you can reply with "well, your iPhone X wouldn't even exist without Samsung" and then link them to this article. Boom.

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Futuremark reveals 3DMark Time Spy Extreme: 4K DX12 test

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 2, 2017 8:21 PM CDT

I awoke to an email this morning from Futuremark that announced they have a new entry into the 3DMark family of benchmarks, with Time Spy Extreme launching on October 11. What is Time Spy Extreme?

Futuremark reveals 3DMark Time Spy Extreme: 4K DX12 test

Futuremark's new 3DMark Time Spy Extreme benchmark run is a 4K DX12 benchmark run of the current Time Spy benchmark that will stress multi-core processors, countless GPU combinations, and more. Futuremark explains: "A decade or so ago, hardware sites were asking, "Will dual-core processors enhance your gaming experience?" Today, we're looking at new processors from AMD and Intel that can have up to 18 cores in some cases".

The company continues: "The CPU test has been redesigned to let processors with 8 or more cores perform to their full potential. Compared with Time Spy, the Extreme CPU test is three times more demanding. It also lets processors use more advanced instructions sets up to AVX2 when supported".

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GIGABYTE's custom Radeon RX Vega 64 GAMING OC spotted

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 2, 2017 6:53 PM CDT

It was reported last week that GIGABYTE and MSI weren't working on custom AMD Radeon RX Vega graphics cards, but that rumor was wrong. I quickly reached out to my contacts at GIGABYTE which confirmed they were indeed working on custom RX Vega.

GIGABYTE's custom Radeon RX Vega 64 GAMING OC spotted

Now we have some photos to show courtesy of our friends at VideoCardz, with the GIGABYTE Radeon RX Vega 64 GAMING OC graphics card. We can see that it rocks what will surely be an updated Windforce 2X cooler, but it is pretty damn massive compared to AMD's sleek Radeon RX Vega 64 reference board.

GIGABYTE will be throwing DVI away (yay) and using just 1 x HDMI 2.0 and 3 x DP ports, while GIGABYTE seems to be using a custom PCB on their RX Vega 64 GAMING OC variant.

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Rare Witcher game prototype uncovered

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 2, 2017 6:33 PM CDT

Ten years before CD Projekt RED made The Witcher series a beloved name in gaming, another game development studio called Metropolis tried to make an adaptation on Sapkowski's works back in the 1990s.

Rare Witcher game prototype uncovered

The Metropolis Witcher project was believed to be lost in the ravages of time, but two developers give us a rare look into the early days of PC games development--back before CDPR thought about plunging headlong into making a series that would become their magnum opus. Polish game dev Metropolis Software started developing their Witcher adaptation in 1996, but apart from a few pictures, nothing had ever surfaced--until now.

In a recent interview with arhn.eu , ex-Metropolis game devs Kacper Reutt and Jarek Sobierski not only discussed key points about the failed project, but also managed to get an early tech demo prototype up and running in the stream. What followed is an early look at what could've been the very first Witcher game. The interview is about 13 minutes of interesting game development tidbits and I advise any Witcher fan to give it a watch.

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