We all know NVIDIA has an incredibly awesome and very powerful niche with its DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology -- but the new RDNA 2-powered consoles might have it in the future.

During a recent interview between Xbox Technical Fellow Andrew Goossen, and Digital Foundry, it was revealed that the DirectML-powered DLSS-style AI upscaler: "It's an area of very active research for us, but I don't really have anything more to say at this point".

In the picture above, we have Microsoft and its DirectML-based "super-resolution" AI upscaling technique on show. It is using Forza Horizon 3 to compare the DirectML super-resolution (on the left) versus the normal upscaling through bilinear filter (on the right). This was done back at SIGGRAPH 2018.

SAPPHIRE has just teased its next-gen Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards, with 5 new cards on the way -- the RX 6800 XT NITRO+ SE, RX 6800 XT NITRO+ (non-SE), RX 6800 XT PULSE as well as non-XT versions of the same cards.

The cards all use a large triple-fan cooler and 2.7-slot design, with dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors across the board. The flagship SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 6800 XT NITRO+ "Special Edition" has RGB lighting through the fans, with a USB Type-C connector like the reference Radeon RX 6000 series cards.

The other card is the Radeon RX 6800 XT NITRO+ which drops the RGB lighting from the front fans and has it around the back only -- and it also drops its USB Type-C connector.

Nope, even on that big bad new Xbox Series X not even Assassin's Creed Valhalla can render at native 4K, hell it's not even running on the highest graphics setting that the PC can.

The Verge's Tom Warren replied to 'MonsterWe' on Twitter, who said 'Xbox Series X at native 4K 60FPS. Wonder what settings?' to which Warren replies: "it's not native 4K for a start, and I'm imagine high but not ultra graphics".

Previously, Assassin's Creed Valhalla producer Julien Laferriere told VGC in a recent interview: "There will be shorter loading times and a good frame rate that make the game a lot more comfortable to play, as well as stuff like better draw distance, dynamic 4K and so on".

The first alleged Xbox Series X console hardware defects and issues are starting to pop up, and gamers are reporting strange noises and disc drive problems shortly after launch.

The Xbox Series S and Series X consoles just released, but like any console launch, there's bound to be flawed units. Every console gen has been marred by issues, whether its the Red Ring of Death in the Xbox 360 era or the Blue Light of Death of the PS4 era. Now we're seeing alleged disc drive issues affect the new Xbox generation.

Multiple users are reporting issues with the Series X and Series S ranging from weird clicking noises to faulty disc drives that no longer read discs. The disc drive issue was actually an issue that affected Xbox One consoles, and I myself had to pop my launch model open to repair the drive manually.

EA just revealed the first next-gen images for FIFA 21, and they look photorealistic and ultra-detailed.

The new FIFA 21 images show just how far EA is pushing next-gen optimization. The screenshots highlight impressive facial animations of star footballers Joao Felix of Atheltico Madrid and Trent Alexander-Arnold of Liverpool, both of which were rendered in DICE's upgraded Frostbite engine. We can only imagine how Battlefield 6 will look when it ships in 2021.

EA also confirms FIFA 21's free next-gen upgrade will release December 4, 2020. Anyone who buys FIFA 21 on PS4 or Xbox One will also get a free copy of the next-gen version on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Sony confirms the PS5 can only support a single external USB 3.0 hard drive at one time.

Unlike the Xbox Series X with its 1TB memory card, the PlayStation 5 is gridlocked on storage space for next-gen games. But what about legacy games? Luckily, the PS5 will support external USB 3.0 HDDs for expanded storage. You can hook up your PS4's existing external drive right to the PS5 and launch backward compatible current-gen games right from the HDD.

There's just one catch: PS5 games can't be stored on HDDs and must be put on the internal SSD--a drive that only has 667GB of available space. Sony could change this in the future, but it'll be this way at launch.

Fallout 76's big new free Steel Dawn expansion drops December 1 on all platforms, Bethesda recently announced.

The new Steel Dawn expansion is a landmark moment for Fallout 76. The game, which launched without a single human NPC, radically transformed with the Wastelanders expansion. Now things are getting kicked up a notch. The Brotherhood is back, and we're gonna be in trouble.

The expansion sees the Brotherhood of Steel crossing the huge 2,500 mile span from California to West Virginia to bring order to Appalachia. The clandestine and stoic military group will be another faction to rally behind--or to fight against--in Fallout 76, bringing more complexity to the always-online live game. The DLC adds in a new questline centered around the Brotherhood of Steel and its leader, Paladin Leila Rahmani, in their quest to collect technology and bring order to irradiated Appalachia.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla has an extremely addictive and fun dice game, and it's a lot like Magic: The Gathering.

I grew up playing Magic: The Gathering and still think it's the definitive card game. MtG has everything: Luck and chance, skill and strategy, and social elements like being able to predict movements based on body language/playstyles. In MtG you have lots of choices like racing an enemy to the finish, or taking a more slow and methodical approach to your victory.

It's these elements I instantly recognized in AC Valhalla's Orlog mini-game. Orlog is a more simplistic and rudimentary version of MtG. The goal is to kill your opponent, and you start out with 20 health. Instead of creature cards with lots of triggers and complex effects, Orlog uses dice and straightforward damage-and-defense tactics. There's life totals, direct damage, and defense.

AMD has just launched its new Zen 3 architecture that powers the Ryzen 5000 series, with the new flagship Ryzen 9 5950X rocking 16 cores, 32 threads at 4.9GHz for $799. Insanity... and AMD isn't finished, not by a long shot.

AMD's continuing pummeling of Intel will continue into 2021 where Zen 3 will stomp all over everything Intel has, and will release in 2021 -- while Zen 4 will drop in early 2022 to combat whatever Intel can scrape together to fight AMD back with.

My sources tell me Intel won't have anything to fight AMD back with properly, to ensure dominance, until at least 2022 and more like 2023. That is a very long time for AMD to dominate with not just Zen 3 that will be what I will call now the most-sold processor family of 2021 -- but well into 2022 with Zen 4.

AMD is about to unleash its RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, with the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 graphics cards launching on November 18.

The company already teased back just a couple of weeks ago that its RDNA 3 teams were "in execution" and getting things done. But now during an interview between AMD's Executive Vice President, Rick Bergman, and The Street, has some big bombs dropping about the next-next-gen RDNA 3 architecture.

Bergman said: "Let's step back and talk about the benefits of both. So why did we target, pretty aggressively, performance per watt (improvements for) our RDNA 2 (GPUs). And then yes, we have the same commitment on RDNA 3".

We continue to hear more and more about the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, where according to the latest rumors it'll be dropped in January 2021.

But now we're hearing some specs on the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, where it will reportedly be powered by the GA102-250-KD-A1 GPU and pack 10496 CUDA cores. This CUDA core count on the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti would give it the same CUDA core count as the GeForce RTX 3090, and way more than the RTX 3080 which packs just 8704 CUDA cores in comparison.

The new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti would be released with 20GB of GDDR6X memory, on a 320-bit memory bus while it will reportedly have a TGP of 320W. This new RTX 3080 Ti would battle AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 6900 XT and Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards.

Last week, we reported that it looked like EK was building a thermoelectric cooling solution for extreme overclocking fans. It turns out that cooler isn't EK's technology, although the company will sell it. EK just announced the QuantumX Delta TEC water block with Intel Cryo Cooling technology.

The EK QuantumX Delta TEC water cooler features a new "large surface flow-through cooling engine," which allows fluid to rapidly pass through the block to extract heat from the hot side of the TEC plate. EK had to redesign its cooling engine for this purpose because of the extreme heat load that the TEC plate produces. Unlike regular EK water blocks, the QuantumX Delta TEC block can withstand sub-ambient temperatures.

Thermal-electric cooling works by sending an electrical current through a plate with dramatically different temperatures on either side. In this case, the heat from a CPU and the cooling from a water block. When you run a current between the two conductive surfaces, the cold surface absorbs heat, and the hot surface dissipates heat much faster.

Sony confirms the PS5 currently doesn't have a web browser, one of the basic functions and features of the PS4. But this could changer farther down the line.

The PlayStation 5 makes big improvements over the PS4 in various ways, including faster load times, astronomically more powerful CPU and GPU performance, and a dramatic adjustment in UI features. There's some things the PS5 is missing, though: It won't have a web browser, for one, and for two, it won't let you store PS5 games on regular external hard drives (they can only be stored on the internal SSD).

Why doesn't the PS5 have a web browser? Sony doesn't really think you need it. At least that's the public answer. The real answer might have something to do with web-based vulnerabilities. To wit, the PS4's browser on v1.76 allowed you to access the console's kernel by visiting a web page on the browser.

Like Origins and Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Valhalla has an in-game microtransaction storefront where you can buy items, gear, and content with real money.

Valhalla is a game built around monetization. The new RPG-based Assassin's Creed games (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla) were created as grindy experiences that are practically never-ending. Ubisoft then sells you shortcuts to reduce the time needed to progress or unlock content. This is the nature of Ubisoft's business models with AC, but the monetization is actually somewhat reasonable.

The Animus Store in Assassin's Creed Valhalla uses premium currency called Helix Credits to acquire items. The more pay-to-win style purchases center around the maps and crafting materials. Users can buy maps that offer tremendous advantages like unlocking the location of all unique gear and all skill tomes, which can be used to level up and unlock more abilities.

Battle Passes might not be enough for Epic Games, and now the company is asking gamers what they want to see in a monthly paid Fortnite subscription.

Fortnite might be free to play, but there's tons of opportunities to spend money. New cosmetics pop up seemingly every week on the microtransaction store, and gamers can also buy into a seasonal battle pass for V-Bucks, cosmetics, and extra goodies. Now Epic could take things a step further to help offset those missing millions from Apple iOS devices.

Epic is currently surveying players on a possible $15.99/month subscription plan for Fortnite. The billion-dollar developer is collecting feedback on what should be included in this kind of month-to-month plan. The selections on the survey range from V-Bucks, battle pass previews, battle pass level skips, or just an included battle pass.

Sony plans to support the PS4 alongside the PS5 for roughly 3 years, meaning first-party games will continue releasing on both platforms.

For Sony, a smooth transition from current- to next-gen is extremely important. Sony has to be careful not to displace its huge 100 million PS4 install base and try to carry these users over to the PS5. That means a period of overlap--a time where both consoles will live alongside each other and share both old and new games. This overlap period could last as long as 2023, Sony says.

In a recent interview with AV Watch, Sony Interactive Entertainment Vice President Hideaki Nishino confirms the PS4-to-PS5 transition period should last around 3 years. During that time Sony will release a mix of next-gen exclusives and cross-gen releases.

Apex Legends is expected to hit $1 billion in total lifetime earnings in 2021. Now EA expects the game to rake in $1 billion per year thanks to its current trajectory.

Apex Legends will soon become EA's latest billion-dollar franchise and join the likes of Madden and FIFA. The BR sensation is expected to hit $1 billion in total revenues just two years after launch, but EA expects Apex to amass serious money-making momentum through next year and beyond. $1 billion is just the start. EA forecasts Apex could start earning a billion dollars every single year from here on out.

The main driver is diversification and access. Apex's mobile version will launch in 2021 and offer a huge new window of spending opportunities to millions of gamers, and the China launch may follow soon after. There's also the launch on Nintendo Switch. EA wants Apex on every storefront, every platform, and everywhere gamers play.

It was only yesterday that we reported that Assassin's Creed Valhalla couldn't reach 4K 60FPS on some of the fastest hardware on the planet... yeah well, it does, I just did it myself.

I've just run Assassin's Creed Valhalla's built-in benchmark with the Ultra preset at 4K and reached 62FPS on the Intel Core i9-10900K processor and MSI GeForce RTX 3090 GAMING X TRIO graphics card. The previous reports were from GameGPU that couldn't reach 60FPS at 4K, and were hitting just 56FPS average.

I'll be running all of the cards I have here (including some other Big Cards that may or may not have just arrived) with Assassin's Creed Valhalla and will have a deeper dive into the performance at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K in the next few days.

Split Light Studios dropped a teaser trailer for its upcoming game Pirate VR: Jolly Roger, and it looks fantastic. It almost seems too good to be real.

The Pirate VR: Jolly Roger Steam page describes that game as a Robinson Crusoe-style story, in which you find yourself on an island in the Caribbean Sea. The developer said that Pirates VR: Jolly Roger is a linear game, which implies that you won't get to wander freely throughout the island. Still, the trailer depicts a wide range of environments that you'll encounter, such as jungle scenes, dark caves, and a sunken ship.

The trailer also shows off impressive graphics, although it's unclear if the visuals were dressed up for the video. The clip appears highly scripted, so it remains to be seen if the final game looks this good.

Seeya Technology is now offering a lineup of OLED microdisplays for use in VR and AR devices. Seeya's new displays are as small as half an inch, with resolutions higher than QHD.

Seeya Technology is a relatively new company. It was established in 2016 to develop OLED microdisplays for future technology devices. Seeya invested $300 million in its fabrication plant in 2017, and it's now up and running with a production capacity of up to 20 million displays per year.

Seeya Technology's current OLED microdisplay offerings include a 0.49" color panel with Full-HD resolution; a 0.62" OLED with 1728x1369 pixels; and a 0.83" 2560x1440 (QHD) OLED panel. At the top of Seeya's product stack sit a pair of 2560x2560 panels available in 1.03" or 1.4" options.