Latest News - Page 1475

NVIDIA has just released their very latest GeForce Game Ready driver, which provides optimizations and enhancements for NVIDIA's kick ass Reflex technology in Overwatch... and so much more.

The main part of the new official drivers is that NVIDIA and Activision-Blizzard are enabling NVIDIA's in-house Reflex technology, which you can read more about here, being enabled in Overwatch with these new GeForce 461.92 drivers. If you've got a Reflex-capable GeForce GPU then you will get a radically smoother, more responsive gaming experience in Overwatch.

You'll need to follow a few steps to enable NVIDIA Reflex technology in Overwatch, here's what you need to do:

Australian custom PC retailer AfterShock PC have crafted one of the most beautiful gaming PCs, no scrap that -- one of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen.

The company was tasked by gamer Ali Kaos, who wanted AfterShock to build the most insane PC they could with teh components available at the time. Inside, the PC has AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor at its heart which is inside of the flagship ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha motherboard.

AfterShock used not one but two ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards for the ultimate in GPU performance, which is staggering in its own part. It seems AfterShock has half of the global supply of GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards in this single gaming PC.

Activision-Blizzard is firing dozens of employees as it pivots away from live-based esports events in the Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues, sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

Activision made more money in 2020 than it's ever made before, raking in $8 billion in revenues (and over $2 billion in profits). That hasn't stopped the company from continually firing employees and chasing digital revenues. Activision-Blizzard plans to fire 50 employees across multiple divisions, including its esports live events teams and even developers at King, the maker of the mega-popular Candy Crush games.

"Players are increasingly choosing to connect with our games digitally and the e-sports team, much like traditional sports, entertainment, and broadcasting industries, has had to adapt its business due to the impact the pandemic has had on live events," a rep told Bloomberg.

A cursory glance shows that Apple's app store revenues have risen astronomically in the last 10 years, driven by massive consumer-level hardware adoption and widespread app access.

According to figures collected by journalist Jon Erlichman (sourced by Sensor Tower), Apple's app store earnings have spiked by 3500% in the last 10 years. In 2010, the app store made $2 billion, and in 2020 the digital marketplace raked in a whopping $72 billion. Over half of these earnings--roughly 66%, or $47.5 billion--was from games and in-game purchases sold on the storefront, Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad said.

This services growth is attributed to increased access points from more hardware availability, as well as the recent emphasis on digital sales and content from COVID-19 lockdowns. Apple has yet to reveal official data on its app store revenues, but CEO Tim Cook affirmed the store grew throughout 2020.

In a new paradigm-shifting policy, Google will now let app developers keep more of their initial revenues earned on the Play store.

Google today announced a new revenue split in favor of app developers. The company will now let devs keep 85% of revenues made on the first $1 million in earnings. Google has halved its collection rate from 30% to 15% for this range, but devs who make over $1 million will owe Google 30% of their revenues.

This new model will help smaller-scale developers avoid the current loss loop, which sees many of them paying out more to Google than they receive from apps and in-app purchases made on the Google Play store.

Industry vet Jade Raymond (producer on Assassin's Creed II, Watch Dogs) has opened up a new indie studio in Montreal called Haven. The team's first project is a game for Sony's PlayStation platform.

Today Sony and ex-Stadia leader Jade Raymond announced a new games studio based in Montreal, Canada. The new team is called Haven, and it's working on a new unannounced IP for the PlayStation ecosystem. Next to nothing is known about the game itself, however we expect it to target the PS5.

Raymond originally helped lead the team behind the first Assassin's Creed games and founded Ubisoft Toronto, then moved to EA to lead its Motive studio on a new unannounced project. Raymond left EA in 2018 when the company shook up management and added Motive to EA Worldwide Studios. She found a home at Stadia where she led the first-party games division, but also left after Google cancelled all first-party games and closed its games studios labels.

Intel has finally unleashed its next-gen 11th Gen Core CPUs, with the company promising unmatched overclocking and game performance out of the new Rocket Lake-S family of processors.

One of the most exciting things about the new 11th Gen Core CPUs is that Intel is debuting its new Cypress Cove architecture, with up to 19% more IPC performance over the current-gen Comet Lake-S offerings. Intel is also introducing PCIe 4.0 technology, faster memory, and more. Rocket Lake-S helps Intel catch up to Zen 2 and Zen 3 from AMD... for now.

Intel's new flagship Core i9-11900K processor is an 8-core, 16-thread CPU at up to 5.3GHz -- down from the 10-core, 20-thread CPU that is the Core i9-10900K. But the IPC uplift from the new Cypress Cove architecture alongside other improvements Intel has made under the hood of the 11th Gen Core CPUs is enough to overpower the lesser core and thread count.

Most people don't really notice insects until they are being bothered by them, but many states across the US will soon become very familiar with this particular species of insect.

A new report from Science Alert has revealed that billions of one of the largest broods of 17-year cicadas will soon emerge from underground in a dozen states ranging from New York west to Illinois to south and northern Georgia. The cicadas will emerge from underground, and then for about four weeks, many people will begin to notice how annoying insects can really be with these bugs constantly whistling mating calls.

After the cicadas mate, the female cicada will lay hundreds of eggs in a small tree branch, then the eggs will hatch, and the cicada nymphs will fall to the ground, where they will then burrow underground to start the entire cycle all over again. According to Science Alert, the cicadas will begin to emerge from underground sometime between April and May. For more information about cicadas, and the coming storm of them, check out this link here.

Hulu is preparing to release the brand new season of its new hit animated show Solar Opposites and to kick things off, we have a new trailer to enjoy.

Solar Opposites is created by Justin Roiland, the co-creator of Rick and Morty. If you enjoy Rick and Morty, then there is no doubt that you will enjoy Solar Opposites as both of the shows are quite similar in terms of comedy. In the above trailer, we can see Korvo with his family of aliens attempting to get off Earth in their spaceship.

Before the launch, Korvo makes some offensive jokes about the current state of Earth. At the end of the trailer, we are shown the release date for season 2 of Solar Opposites, which will premier on Hulu on March 26th. If you are interested in reading more about Solar Opposites, or if you want to check out some more trailers for the show, visit this link here.

Elon Musk is trolling pretty hard right now and it's not even April 1... I mean we're weeks away from April Fools Day, and now Tesla has submitted a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with new titles for the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Tesla.

Tesla explained in its filing with the SEC: "Effective as of March 15, 2021, the titles of Elon Musk and Zach Kirkhorn have changed to Technoking of Tesla and Master of Coin, respectively. Elon and Zach will also maintain their respective positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer".

Yes, you read that right -- Elon Musk is now the "Technoking of Tesla" while CFO Zach Kirkhorn is the "Master of Coin".

PowerColor has a major leak of AMD's unreleased Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards, with PowerColor's various family of Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards leaking early onto second hand markets in Chechia.

The new PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT HELLHOUND graphics card is available for sale, with countless PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT Red Devil and HELLHOUND graphics cards teased in the background of the photo posted online. The new Radeon RX 6700 XT is said to offer 50MH/s of mining performance (unknown crypto) at just 120W.

The seller of the PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards says that the 50MH/s of mining performance @ 120W is better than NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070 graphics cards. For the power consumption numbers alone, the Radeon RX 6700 XT is also a great card against the GeForce RTX 3080 and even GeForce RTX 3090 when it comes to crypto mining.

It seems all that kerfuffle over NVIDIA's new mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 being a crypto mining rig beast is done and dusted, first it was supposedly secured by a handshake between the driver and BIOS that gimped the ETH mining hash rate power of the RTX 3060... and now it's gone?!

According to ComputerBase and HardwareLuxx who have both tested and played around with NVIDIA's new GeForce 470.05 drivers, which reportedly see the Ethereum hash rate limiter disabled. It was previously reported that you couldn't simply remove the hash rate limiter on the GeForce RTX 3060 by driver alone and required new firmware... but it seems it can be done.

The new driver isn't available to the general public just yet as it is available through NVIDIA's internal BETA program, with ComputerBase reporting: "ComputerBase can confirm that only the beta driver GeForce 470.05 distributed by NVIDIA to developers and via the Windows Insider Program ensures that the performance of the GeForce RTX 3060 in the Ethereum algorithm no longer drops. A BIOS update is not necessary".

Lack of quality games is the major reason PS Now subscribers move away from the service, analyst firm Ampere Analysis has found.

Sony may have to add more value to its PlayStation Now service to keep gamers interested. According to a new consumer survey from Ampere Analysis, PlayStation Now subscribers are churning out--that is, not re-subscribing and leaving the service--and the main culprit is the game selection according to Ampere analyst Louise Shorthouse, 25% of U.S. and Japanese users who choose not to re-subscribe make that decision because of the games offering.

"Ampere Games consumer research indicates that a lack of enjoyable games is the most common reason why users churn from PlayStation's cloud gaming and download subscription service, PS Now. Other popular churn rationales include perceived poor value for money and friends being on other services," Shorthouse wrote.

Nintendo expects to sell 250 million games next fiscal year, up 25% from the current goal, sources tell Bloomberg. If this growth trend continues at even a 57% rate, the Nintendo Switch will dethrone the Wii in mid- to late 2022.

Nintendo has lofty aspirations for the Switch in Fiscal Year 2022 (ending March 31, 2022). The company expects to sell 250 million games next year, an increase of 50 million units from the current game sales target. This trajectory could crown the Switch as the king of Nintendo's game sales.

First, we need to do a bit of math. As of Q3'21, Nintendo has sold 176.1 million games out of its conservative 200 million goal. Nintendo currently has to sell 23.9 million more games in Q4 to meet this goal. Past trends show this is undoubtedly doable (Nintendo sold over 45 million games in Q4'20, for example).

Toby Fox's legendarily weird indie Undertale is dropping on Xbox for the first time ever, and will also be included on Xbox Game Pass.

Undertale is coming to Xbox tomorrow for $9.99, with all of its hilarity, skeleton memes, and pixellated pacifism intact. The beloved indie is also dropping on Xbox Game Pass on the same day as an added bonus for GP users. Not much is different with the Xbox version, but there is a special exclusive area with a neat little slot machine that gives some extra bonuses.

Sadly, your existing PC saves won't be compatible with the Xbox version, and Undertale won't be a play anywhere title so you'll have to rebuy it for Xbox even if you bought it from the Microsoft Store.

Outriders, the new online co-op shooter-looter from Square Enix and People Can Fly, is coming to Xbox Game Pass at launch. This could be a risky move.

Game Pass is a powerful service for all kinds of games. Indies, singleplayer-only titles, and online games can benefit a lot from the massive exposure. Live games in particular can mesh well with the Game Pass subscription model and keep players stuck to the online network as they play--and pay--over time. But with great reward comes great risks.

Whether or not Outriders launching day one on Game Pass is risky comes down to a few basic things. Have the devs scaled Outriders so gamers won't consume all of the game's content during the free window? Is there a satisfying gameplay loop that adheres to the critical Engagement Cycle? Square Enix has two reasons to launch Outriders on Game Pass: To sell games and boost exposure.

While FPS Boost may seem like magic, the new feature can actually raises in-game frame rates at the cost of resolution.

Last-gen console game performance is all about balance. Higher FPS typically means lower resolution--or vice versa. Despite its technical wizardry, the new magical FPS Boost feature is still bound by these rules.

FPS Boost is exactly what it sounds like: Devs have updated old-gen Xbox One era games to run at double frame rates (sometimes even quadruple) on the Xbox Series X/S. Five Bethesda games support the feature and have been boosted from 30FPS to "nearly 60FPS," but there's a catch: resolution takes a hit at the cost of increased FPS. Games like Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 run at reduced resolution with FPS Boost turned on.

Ever wanted to take Final Fantasy 7 on the go, but can't afford a Switch? Just load it up on your smartwatch.

Emulation lets you do some awesome things, like loading up Diablo 1 on an Xbox Series X for example. Or you could be like YouTuber Lucky Seven GTR and get old-school PlayStation games running on your smartwatch.

The smartwatch in question is the Android-powered DM2019 that features a quad-core 1.1GHz ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of onboard space--perfect for running older PS1 titles and games from older generations too. It's likely the watch is running the Google Play version of Retroarch which offers straightforward and seamless setup.

Most people are aware that our time on Earth is limited, as the Sun will eventually run out of fuel and destroy itself.

Researchers have discovered through stimulation that Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere will expire before the Sun destroys itself. According to researchers from the Toho University and NASA Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, there is evidence that Earth will lose it's oxygen-rich atmosphere in approximately 1 billion years.

The researchers published the paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, and according to Kazumi Ozaki, "We find that the Earth's oxygenated atmosphere will not be a permanent feature". However, Earth's atmosphere will have high levels of oxygen for quite some time before it begins to drop off to levels similar to that of the Great Oxidation Event that occurred around 2.4 billion years ago.

NVIDIA's impressive Reflex latency reducing technology is making an appearance in Overwatch, with up to a gigantic 50% reduction in latency when NVIDIA Reflex is enabled.

Blizzard has provided an NVIDIA Reflex public test in the Overwatch PTR, with the March 11 update for the game boasting the new Reflex upgrades. You'll need to follow a few steps that I've got below in order to get it working, but once it's up and running you will see up to 50% less latency on the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER.

There's close to 50% latency reduction on the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER and close to that on the flagship GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card and the new NVIDIA Reflex upgrade for Overwatch.