Latest News - Page 1263

Game developers working with Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 will now be able to access AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and add it into their games.

A newly-released plugin for Unreal Engine 4 adds FSR support, with Unreal Engine 4 version 4.27.1, and is not hard at all to have game developers add FSR support into their projects. Developers will get access to FSR settings to their games including Performance, Balanced, Quality, and Ultra Quality.

Unreal Engine 4 support for AMD FSR will only see FSR adoption increase, which Team Red has quite the battle against Team Green and its dominant DLSS technology in many, many more AAA games than FSR. UE4 support will only help FSR over the coming months and years on both the PC and consoles.

The price of AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs is about to be a little worse, with AMD reportedly ramping up prices of its RDNA 2 cards by 10%.

AMD's increased pricing on Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs is reportedly starting with the next batch of GPU shipments from AMD to its AIB (add-in board) partners. We should expect the new pricing to be reflected online and in-store in the coming weeks, right as we lead into the holidays.

There was a 9% increase in pricing of AMD's new Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs in November 2021 over October 2021, and now we have another 10% increase moving into December. TSMC wafer costs increasing are being blamed, so AMD has got no other move to make other than take the hit -- which isn't nice -- or boost pricing (also not nice).

NVIDIA has just announced its new RTX A4500 workstation GPU, which uses the GA102 GPU with 7168 CUDA cores and 20GB of GDDR6 memory.

The introduction of the new NVIDIA RTX A4500 workstation GPU offers its 7168 CUDA cores alongside 224 Tensor Cores, and 20GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 16Gbps on a 320-bit memory bus which will deliver up to 640GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

NVIDIA says the new RTX A4500 workstation GPU will have 23.7 TFLOPs of FP32 compute performance, while it has 46.2 TFLOPs of RT performance. NVIDIA's new RTX A4500 workstation GPU has a 200W TDP, which is 15% lower than the RTX A5000 and 17% slower.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing a beefed-up GeForce RTX 2060 release in January 2022, which will see the card be released with 12GB of VRAM -- an upgrade from the 6GB of RAM by default.

But before its announcement or release, Russian YouTuber and modder VIK-on has upgraded his GeForce RTX 2060 6GB to a GeForce RTX 2060 12GB. The original GeForce RTX 2060 launched with the cut-down Turing-based TU106 GPU, rocking 1920 CUDA cores, and 6GB of GDDR5 memory on a 192-bit memory bus, clocked at 14Gbps.

NVIDIA is expected to make the GeForce RTX 2060 with 12GB official on December 7, with VIK-on testing the modded RTX 2060 with 12GB of VRAM in crypto mining and Unigine Superposition at first with roughly the same performance as the 6GB model -- duh. We should expect more official news and benchmarks in the coming weeks.

GALAX has just introduced the new GeForce RTX 3060 Metaltop Mini [FG] graphics card, a new GeForce RTX 3060-based graphics card on the super-small Mini-ITX form factor.

The new GALAX GeForce RTX 3060 Metaltop Mini [FG] graphics card rocks a single-fan design, while the "FG" in the name stands for "For Gamers". GALAX thinks by adding "FG" and it being "For Gamers" that the big bad crypto miners won't buy these... hah.

As for the measurements, we're looking at the card measuring in at just 16.8cm in length, 11.6cm in width, and 4cm in height. The single-fan design means it is nice and small and supports 0dB technology which means the single fan will disable when the GPU load is low enough (not gaming).

Intel is just getting its new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs onto shelves and into gamers' hands, with the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" dropping in 2022 while the next-next-gen 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" CPU has some new details from fresh rumors.

According to the Commercial Times, the new Intel 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" CPU will have a quad-tile design, which seems to point to the Meteor Lake CPUs having the GPU tile in the middle of the processor. There will be a CPU compute tile on top, and then on the bottom, we should find the SoC tile.

Intel will reportedly be using its in-house Intel 4 process which is launching in 2023, with Meteor Lake using a chip block design with some (but not all) of the chip blocks being built by TSMC. The new Intel 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" CPUs will integrate computing chips, graphics chips, and connection chips (SoC-LP tiles) into a single Intel Foveros advanced packaging technology.

It's that time of the year again when GoDeal24 comes with irresistible Black Friday sales offers. If you have been saving all year long to make sure you get the best discount promotions, there is no better place to spend your hard-earned bucks than at GoDeal24!

With unbelievable price cuts for Windows 10, Windows 11, Microsoft Office, and other Microsoft Products, this year should be the most rewarding Black Friday sale in years. If you want to get your hands-on the biggest discounts for software products, you better hurry up! This promotion is time-limited and ending soon!

Windows 11 is the latest operating system offered by Microsoft. For higher productivity, Windows 11 is here to be the best operating system of the future.

Dataminers have revealed the full list of Halo Infinite season 1's storefront unlocks, which amounts to 88 pieces of content including armor cosmetics, weapon skins, charms, and more.

Microsoft reminds us that monetization is a big reason why Halo Infinite exists. Dataminers have uncovered what can be purchased in Halo Infinite's first season from the in-game store, which includes 88 items of varying pricing. None of the items can actually be earned by playing and are exclusive to the store.

According to an excellent breakdown by Redditor samurai1226, buying each individual piece of content would cost as much as two Xbox Series X consoles--or roughly $1,035.

Despite all of the praise, Halo Infinite is mired by a poorly-designed progression system. Players are already needing a break from the relentless grind.

Halo Infinite is designed to be a 10-year Halo game. 343i calls it Halo-as-a-service. The game isn't even a month old yet and gamers are already starting to get burned out, and it's clear that 343 Industries needs to address the situation ASAP.

Fans agree that Halo Infinite's gameplay is immensely fun. The problem is that fun isn't being properly utilized in a tangible way towards progression. Playing matches is a great time, but gamers are constantly aware of the challenges they need to meet in order to actually rank up and earn XP. However, ranking up doesn't always give good or appealing rewards and there's not a lot to look forward to insofar as customizations. You could, however, avoid the grind and buy the armor skins yourself with Halo Credits.

Amazon has expressed interest in making a live action series based on BioWare's beloved Mass Effect sci-fi franchise.

Following the success of The Wheel of Time, Amazon's entertainment division is looking for new IPs to adapt for its video streaming services. Deadline reports that Amazon is eyeing EA's mega-hit Mass Effect franchise for one such show.

Details on the proposal are slim, but reports say the show's negotiations are progressing. EA hasn't officially greenlit the project and once that happens we should see an official announcement. There's no information on what subject or era the show may focus on, or whether or not Commander Shepard will be involved. EA and BioWare are currently developing a Mass Effect sequel that continues the original trilogy's continuity and it's possible there will be some sort of cross-media tie-in.

DICE has addressed Battlefield 2042's hugely controversial launch and promises that fixes are on the way...but some of them like PC optimizations won't be here for a while.

In a lengthy post, DICE has outlined a ton of Battlefield 2042 issues and reveals a plan on how it plans to fix them. Right now Battlefield 2042 is one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam due to poor performance on PC. Gamers are reporting sub-60FPS gameplay at 1080p with higher-level hardware like RTX 3070s and a Ryzen 3600 CPU, which is almost directly opposite of the optimizations that older Battlefield games have.

The reality is Battlefield 2042 is CPU-bound and apparently limits what kind of perf you can get from GPUs. DICE says that a Battlefield 2042 PC performance fix will take some time...so don't expect it any time soon.

Gaming's Big Three have all spoken out against Activision-Blizzard's alleged sexual abuse scandals.

Nintendo, who typically stays out of public affairs to keep up its wholesome family-friendly image, is the latest to speak out against Activision-Blizzard's ongoing controversy. In a private internal email sent to employees, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser tells workers that he is disturbed by the reports on Activision-Blizzard, which include multiple instances of sexual harassment, discrimination, and even rape.

"Along with all of you, I've been following the latest developments with Activision Blizzard and the ongoing reports of sexual harassment and toxicity at the company. I find these accounts distressing and disturbing. They run counter to my values as well as Nintendo's beliefs, values and policies," Bowser said in an email acquired by Fanbyte.

Among all the new deals going online this week ahead of Black Friday, a massive range of Sony lenses have gone on sale with up to 22% off across Amazon.

Sony's range of lenses top out at $2,898 and scale down to $223, and with large or small form factor options, full-frame and telephotos options, wide angles or standard, and many aperture sizes and focal length to choose from, there's bound to be a lens to suit your needs.

Sony's FE range refers to full-frame options and is compatible with its line of full-frame sensor cameras, including A1, A7C, A9 II, A9, A7R IV, A7r III, A7S III, A7sII, A7III, and more.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is primarily used to take images of the Moon has been used to spy on Saturn from an extreme distance.

On October 13, 2021 the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) snapped the above image of Saturn, and while the image could be somewhat disappointing to the eye, it's a representation of a significant technological achievement. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) are line scan cameras, which means that instead of viewing the image as a whole it reviews it precisely line by line.

The LROC cameras have very short exposure times and are designed to take advantage of the speed of the spacecraft as it travels 1 mile per second. So, how did it take an image of Saturn? The orbiters cameras were pointed towards one side of Saturn and then to the planet's other side. The image that was taken showcases Saturn's iconic rings which appear to be above the equator. For those that don't know, Saturn's rings are only 10 to 100 million years old and mostly consist of water ice.

NASA's Mars rover has been climbing a mountain since 2014 and has sent back an incredible image of the progress it has made.

NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars back in 2012, and in 2014 it began its journey up Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall mountain. In a new press release on the NASA JPL website, the space agency explains that Curiosity is equipped with two navigation cameras that capture a 360-degree view of the rover's location after it completes a drive. The team saw the image that Curiosity snapped from its recent perch on the mountain and decided it was too stunning of a spot not to capture the scenery in the highest possible quality.

The team ordered the rover to snap two images with its Mastcam instrument; one at 8:30 a.m. and again at 4:10 p.m. local Mars time. NASA explains that the two times of day revealed different details in the landscape, so they were combined together to include elements from both the morning and the afternoon. The artists added in the blue and orange colors to the image to represent what the scene would look like at different times of day, not what the human eye would see if an individual was standing next to Curiosity.

Researchers have used the instruments on the back of NASA's InSight probe to create the first-ever map of Mars underground.

The team of geophysicists used the instruments onboard NASA's InSight probe that landed on the Elysium Planitia back in 2018 to study "marsquakes". From the data already acquired by InSight, researchers have been able to get a basic idea of what Mars' core consists of and the other important information about the Red Planet, such as the mantle and the thickness of the crust.

The Swiss geophysicists used InSight to conduct a technique that is used on Earth to "characterize places for earthquake risk and to study subsurface structure", says Cedric Schmelzbach, a geophysicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and corresponding author on the study. Schmelzbach explains, "The technique is based on ambient vibration. On Earth, you have the oceans, the winds, that make the ground shake all the time, and the shaking that you measure at a certain point has an imprint of the subsurface."

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has announced its plans for its next space tourism event, where it will take six individuals to a place very few humans have ever traveled.

Blue Origin is gearing up for its next space tourism event and has announced all of the individuals that will be boarding the company's New Shepard rocket sometime next month. Blue Origin took to its website and social channels to announce the members.

The following are booked in; Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of the first American to reach space, Michael Strahan, an NFL hall of famer and a co-anchor on ABC's "Good Morning America". Dylan Taylor, CEO of Voyager Space, Evan Dick, Managing Member of Dick Holdings, LLC, and first parent-child duo, Lane and Cameron Bess.

A new press release has revealed that a white dwarf star some 500,000 miles away is pummeling a companion object.

Astronomers from Taiwan used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton Observatory to analyze some "unusual X-ray activity". The article explains that white dwarf stars usually give off low amounts of X-rays, but the three white dwarf samples that were being investigated had surprisingly high amounts of X-ray readings. One white dwarf named KPD 0005+5106 was found to be giving off more high-energy X-rays compared to the other two white dwarfs.

Additionally, the astronomers found that KPD 0005+5106's X-ray emissions were increasing and decreasing every 4.7 hours. This increasing and decreasing indicates that an object is orbiting around the white dwarf star. The astronomers suspect that the object could be a very low-mass star or a planet. Either way, the astronomers write that whatever the object is, it's being devoured by the immense gravitational pull of the white dwarf star, as it would be ripping and tearing material from the object's surface.

Earlier this month, Vive rolled out a handful of new features for the Vive Focus 3 standalone VR headset. Focus 3 is a business-oriented headset, and the latest updates are business-focussed. However, consumers ultimately reap the benefits of these changes because they are meant for the arcade market.

HTC shipped the Vive Focus 3 with standard Wi-Fi 6 support, but the headset came equipped with a Wi-Fi 6E module. Pending certification, HTC plans soon to unlock the full capabilities of the modern wireless chip. Wi-Fi 6E operates in the 6 GHz frequency range and offers low latency and high-bandwidth data transmission, ideal for VR devices.

HTC also revealed LBE (Location-Based Entertainment) Mode, which would enable a much larger tracking space for multi-user experiences. When the Focus 3 shipped, the maximum tracked space was 15m x 15m. That's not a small amount of space, roughly the size of a tennis court. However, the new maximum is over four times the size, at 33m x 30m. LBE Mode also removes the automatic redraw feature, meaning the headset will retain the boundary settings between users.

IO Interactive has announced that Year Two of Hitman 3 will kick off with the PC VR version of the game. Hitman 3 players on PlayStation VR have always had the option to play the game in VR. Next year, gamers with a strong enough PC and room-scale VR system will be able to experience the game in total immersion.

IO Interactive just announced its plans for Year Two of the Hitman 3 game. The developer revealed that more than 50 million people have now played the game, but so far, they haven't experienced the game with a VR headset connected to a powerful PC. That's about to change in January when the PC VR update will go live.

The developer didn't have much to say about the PC VR version, but the teaser video gives you an excellent glimpse of what to expect. The teaser showed the game played on an Oculus Rift S and a Valve Index headset. Presumably, it should work with any PC-compatible VR headset, such as an HTC Vive or a Quest 2 with Oculus Link.