Latest News - Page 2096

Fortnite's success isn't stopping, with Epic Games revealing the game has passed 40 million players with 2 million concurrent players enjoying the other game that's not Battlegrounds, but is doing just as well.

The game has been out for less than 4 months and has racked up 40 million players, but remember that it's a free-to-play game, compared to the $30 cost of entry into PUBG. Fortnite's recently-released Battle Royale mode will be driving a huge load of those players, and according to the BR lead systems designer, Eric Williamson, this is only the beginning for Fortnite.

Williamson said: "Some of the folk around the office are saying hey, we could be the biggest Battle Royale game in the western world, which is crazy. Some people are saying we could be the biggest and most-played game, full stop, in the western world".

Destiny 2 just got a big roadmap layout for future updates, and Bungie devs highlight many of the key ways the game needs to change--especially weapons.

Guns are the prime driver of Destiny games. Not only do you use them nearly every second of the game--it's a shooter after all with very Halo-esque gunplay--but you're always, and I mean always, looking and finding new gear. But now that every weapon's stats are basically the same, the game has devolved into a boring grindfest that doles out similarly-attributed items that get broken down, or, on the off chance you find something new, fills up your stash.

Bungie has admitted that this system needs to be overhauled in some way, but hasn't outlined how this will happen--just why. "Destiny 2 needs more weapons that matter, both in power and the hunt to acquire them," Destiny 2 game director Christopher Barrett said on Twitter. "Exotics need to live up to their name. The most skillful or visceral weapons like Snipers, Shotguns, and Fusion Rifles need to return to glory. We're on it."

Although Nintendo has patented a VR headset for its new Switch handheld-hybrid console, it appears the company is still dubious about the still-young technology.

Having tried VR tons of times with the HTC Vive, I can say it's a great experience...but it has a few problems (it's expensive, requires a specific computer, and has lots of cords). Nintendo was seen as a mold-breaker with its Switch VR patent in that it combined the hybrid system with the worlds of mobile-based VR for on-the-go switchable gaming, but the company doesn't seem to be interested in the tech just yet.

That's according to Nintendo France managing director Philippe Lavoué, at least. "If you look at VR headsets, I doubt they can appeal to the mainstream. Consumers are not patient with entertainment if you're not able to deliver an all-inclusive package," he said in a recent interview with Les Numerique.

Cyberpunk 2077 could be in a semi-playable state by June, at least according to latest rumors.

Despite affirmations from CD Projekt RED that Cyberpunk 2077 is going to take a long, long time to develop and release, there's reports that the epic sci-fi shooter will not only be shown off at E3 2018 with a new trailer, but also be demo'ed behind closed doors to select journalists. This would be a guided demo, of course, and probably not an actual hands-on gameplay experience--devs would play the game and show off features to journos and answer their questions.

CDPR has been developing Cyberpunk 2077 for quite some time (the announcement trailer was revealed a whopping 5 years ago), and the dev has said that progress on the game is going great.

After going on a Twitter blast a few days ago with VideoCardz where I said I heard early rumbles of Intel working on its own next-gen discrete GPU, rumors are now floating out that Intel is indeed working on their own GPU.

Ashraf Essa from The Motley Fool is reporting that Intel is working on two new GPU solutions with codenames of Arctic Sound and Jupiter Sound, with the former being a 12th generation discrete GPU and the latter a 13th generation discrete GPU. Intel's Gen 9 solution is found on Kaby Lake while the Gen 9.5 solution is on Coffee Lake, while Gen 10 will come with Cannonlake soon.

We should expect them sometime after 2020, but with RTG boss Raja Koduri now on Intel's team, it makes sense. NVIDIA is fighting the good fight with their GeForce line up and virtually no competitor in the GTX 1080 and above space, but Intel could soon enter as a big competitor with their own Radeon-powered discrete GPU that does have me wondering: what's the future of Radeon under AMD if Intel can do better with Radeon GPU tech than AMD can.

In a recently published interview with Official Xbox Magazine UK, Hajime Tabata, Square Enix director shares his thoughts on a couple different topics. Some of the questions answered referred to loot boxes, as well as what Tabata would create for the Final Fantasy experience if he had unlimited resources.

Tabata begun by saying that he doesn't have a problem with loot boxes but more so it is the developers responsibility to not loose connection with their community as adding lootboxes could "jeopardize their relationships with players." "I don't have anything against them. However, I do think that loot box creators need to be careful not to jeopardize their relationships with players." said Tabata.

The director also commented on what he would do with the Final Fantasy world if he was given unlimited resources. Tabata said that he would create a entirely separate world that would allow players to have complete freedom within the game, but also cater for the enjoyment of individual player experiences however they liked.

Last week we saw Bandai Namco reveal the character Hit with some smooth jazz music behind him, this week Bandai has released another character trailer, this time it's Beerus the Destroyer.

Beerus appears in the trailer with the very same character traits he possesses in the TV show: tired, hungry and wanting to put in as minimal effort in as possible. This can be seen through the almost relaxed fighting stance the character takes, as well as the movements for his respective attacks can be seen to not require him much physical effort at all.

In the description of the published video, Bandai Namco says "Beerus is here to eat & fight. And we're all out of food.. .Get ready, BEERUS HAS JOINED THE FIGHT! Will you be able to keep up or perish under his pawesome power?." It is also mentioned that for players that have pre-ordered the game they will receive "SSGSS Goku & Vegeta + 2 exclusive lobby avatars!"

Dragon Ball FighterZ recently had the PC requirements announced along with a reveal for the character Hit, now the games open beta is experiencing "network issues" and according to the developer it "cannot be addressed quickly."

Bandai Namco US tweeted about the recent open beta saying that the problems the game is facing might result in the beta being extended as the issues can't be addressed immediately.

As of this moment the developer has not revealed any details regarding the network issues, or if there will be a extension to the open beta. All that players have to go on is what the developer has posted to their Facebook and Twitter pages, the Facebook post reads as follows:

The recent announcement of Dark Souls Remastered coming to PC, Xbox One, PS4 and the Nintendo Switch has created speculation of the game being released discounted for PC owners. Sadly, that speculation has been subsided with a response from a Bandai Namco official.

Bandai Namco EU's community manager, Izmar, has taken to the Steam forums to crush the chances of PC owners receiving discount on the Dark Souls re-master. Izmar says that nothing has been discussed within Bandai Namco surrounding the topic of a discounted release, with the community manager continues by saying that PC Gamer's source "isn't in the loop about what's going on."

Even though the community manager has said that nothing has been discussed about a discount on the game, that doesn't mean it is impossible. As we move closer to the release date I'm sure that more information regarding the upcoming release will be announced, this would include a official price listing.

SteamSpy has been a gamers and reporters best-friend for finding out whether a game has an active community or if the game is underperforming in terms of statistics. The third-party site scrapes information from Steam, the numbers cannot be counted as exactly correct but it is an approximation nonetheless.

According to SteamSpy, Steam has had 7,672 games released on their platform over the course of 2017, meaning that on average there has been 19 games a day uploaded to the Steam Store. That number might be hard to eat if you are in agreement with there being too many games on the Steam store and not enough curation, but sadly that is the reality of it.

From the below chart, we can see that there were 4,207 games released on Steam in 2016 which equates for 38% of all games released on Steam. In 2015 only 2,964 games were released, knowing these statistics gives a great perspective on just how many games were released in 2016 and more worryingly how many were released in 2017.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing some new GeForce GTX 1050/GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q products, which would really hit the mainstream gaming laptop market and crush everything AMD is hoping to do in the space with their recently-revealed Radeon RX Vega M GL product.

If you remember, Intel unveiled their new CPUs with Radeon RX Vega M technology inside, so NVIDIA shifting quickly with their GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q makes total sense. NotebookCheck have predicted GPU clock speeds of the purported GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q designs, where they think we'll see GPU boost clocks of 1417MHz on the GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q compared to the 1392MHz on the desktop GTX 1050 Ti, 1620MHz on the full GTX 1050 Ti mobile and 1455MHz of the GTX 1050 on desktop.

I don't even know what I'm about to write, but here goes: Virtual Currency Girls. Virtual Currency Girls is a new J-pop (Japanese pop) group that features 8 girls, who each individually represent different cryptocurrencies.

Virtual Currency Girls' first single is called "The Moon and Virtual Currencies and Me" and educates listeners of the problems and fraud associated with cryptocurrencies online, with the bank promoting the idea that cryptocurrency isn't a "tool of speculation", and is instead a "wonderful future".

NVIDIA Tesla V100: $8000 card is the BEST to mine Ethereum

NVIDIA has one of the best single graphics cards on the market with the Tesla V100, a card that costs a whopping $8000 and isn't for gamers or even most people on the market. It's a card destined for workstations and servers, for AI and deep learning workloads - and strictly not for mining.

That however doesn't stop people from testing out these graphics cards for mining, with BuriedONE Cryptomining putting NVIDIA's Tesla V100 to work on various crypto mining adventures, with Ethereum mining hitting a 94MH/s. Considering that an overclocked TITAN Xp can achieve somewhere around 40-42MH/s and an overclocked Radeon RX Vega 64 can do anywhere between 38-42MH/s, this is a huge achievement for the Tesla V100.

NVIDIA's super-fast Tesla V100 rocks 16GB of HBM2 that has memory bandwidth of a truly next level 900GB/sec, up from the 547GB/sec available on the TITAN Xp, which costs $1200 in comparison. AMD trails behind with 483GB/sec of bandwidth with its 8GB of HBM2 on the Radeon RX Vega 64.

CES 2018 - AMD hasn't said much more about what's going on with the desktop Radeon GPU side of things since the departure of RTG boss Raja Koduri, but Scott Wasson (the owner and ex-journo of The Tech Report) has worked for AMD for over a year now and was at CES 2018 where he had some things to say about Radeon, and Vega.

During a video interview with PCGamesHardware.de, Wasson said that Vega 10 is capable of being used in a gaming notebook, and seemed to tease the news during CES. Wasson said: "I can't pre-announce products for our partners. It is possible to take a Vega 10 GPU and put it into a notebook. So we'll have to see".

If we take into consideration just how damn hot Radeon RX Vega 56 and 64 get in reference form, I can't see how in the hell laptop manufacturers will be able to use a full Vega 10 + 8GB HBM2 if they require 250-400W of power. Even if its heavily throttled, it would lose to a GTX 1060 or GTX 1070-powered gaming notebook.

CES 2018 - With multi-monitor gaming setups, bezels are like a wrench tossed into the gaming experience.

Instead of one large slightly curved display, you get three displays with easy to notice separation. Some vendors have tried to minimize the width of bezels, but separation is still visible. Now there is a solution to this issue.

As you can see on the left, ASUS is using three monitors with typical bezel sizes. However, we if take a look at the image on the right, we find that the bezel has totally disappeared. ASUS will sell the kit soon, and it is adjustable so you can use it on different monitors. However, you need the monitors to be at the same exact height.

CES 2018 - SilverStone is going into SFFPCs strong with their VT03 Micro-STX case. The Micro-STX form factor allows for desktop CPUs and MXM based CPUs to work together in a very tiny case.

Many Micro-STX motherboards have external PSUs, just as a notebook would, but they carry desktop sockets and MXM card slots, so they can offer high performance computing. The VT03 had an ASRock LGA1151 STX motherboard with a GTX 1070 MXM GPU loaded into it.

SilverStone also showed us two beefed up Strider Platinum 1000W and 1200W PSUs, both are rated 80 Plus Platinum. They are both single rail PSUs, which makes them great for overclocking. They are also are fully modular, which is great for cable management and modding.

CES 2018 - At CES 2018, we spotted an Intel Optane drive discretely placed in the M.2 slot of an ASUS motherboard. While neither Intel nor ASUS was willing to discuss specifications with us, we were allowed to take a snap of the drive, hinting that release is imminent.

When Intel initially released their Optane SSDs, they were meant to be used as system accelerators working with hard drives and predictive software to enhance user experience at an introductory level. Intel wanted to give consumers the option to use Optane+HDD rather than a full-blown SSD. However, many people wanted Optane as a system drive.

The SSD is perfect for small file workloads, but with only 16GB and 32GB variants launched, most people were not able to use them as standalone drives. While you can currently find Intel's 900p series Optane drives in larger sizes, they only exist in the U.2 or add-in-card (AIC) form factors and are very expensive.

CES 2018 - During CES 2018 we stopped by the SteelSeries suite and took a look at their newly released products.

The first is the Rival 600 gaming mouse. It features their custom True Move 3 Plus with Lift sensor, which means it has an added lift sensor, so you can pick up the mouse and move it without issue.

To show off the capabilities of the new mouse, SteelSeries used a custom servo setup as well as real-time graphs of movement to display how their mouse measures up to their competition. The competitor mouse was not able to maintain a steady path like their mouse could, showing us that their new sensor is great for gamers who pick up their mouse and start anew in another area of their mouse pad.

CES 2018 - At CES 2018, SuperMicro's subsidiary, SuperO, showed us a glimpse of their C9X299-PG300. The new C9X299-PG300 will replace any X299 motherboard we might have showed you at Computex, and will be available shortly. The new motherboard has enhanced VRM and M.2 cooling, as well as simple and straightforward aesthetics.

The motherboard's revamped VRM supports 300W TDP CPUs, and it's designed for overclocking. It features eight DDR4 DIMMs rated at up to 4000Mhz+, and you can load it up with 128GB of DDR4. The motherboard features four x16 PCI-E 3.0 slots, but bandwidth will vary depending on which CPU you use. We also find six SATA6Gb/s ports, two U.2 slots, two x4 PCI-E 3.0 M.2 lots, 10Gbit LAN, 1Gbit Intel LAN, and two customizable RGB LED headers.

CES 2018 - Hot on the heels of the RGB LED craze, Lian-Li is kicking things up a notch with the introduction of two new PC cases with some stellar aesthetics.

The new O11 Dynamic is the first one we will talk about, and it's designed to maximize case performance as well as aesthetics. The O11 Dynamic uses SECC, Aluminum, and temperature glass for build materials. It and supports three 3.5" drives and up to 5 2.5"SSDs. You also get support for up to nine 120mm fans and two 140mm fans.

Lian Li teamed up with overclocker Der8auer and XFastest to custom-mod this monster PC case. We get custom Bitspower watercooling, a bunch of RGB Bora fans, and some amazing water cooling bends. The front reservoir is also custom. The O11 Dynamic will cost $129.99.