Latest News - Page 2361

Arkane Studios is still picking itself up after being blown into a million pieces at the launch of Dishonored 2 on the PC, which has horrible optimization and massive performance issues. The developer is distressed over the PC performance issues, but it looks like you'll still need a beefy PC to play Dishonored 2, no matter what.

You might remember that you need a GeForce GTX 1070 to run Dishonored 2 on Very Low at 1080p, barely hitting 40-60FPS. Dishonored 2 Game Director Harvey Smith tweeted at the time: "That rig on very low and 1080 should run around 60fps", when asked about a GTX 1070 level PC.

But in a recent tweet, Smith said: "game will always need a beefy pc for ultra, but there are a number of fixes we're making". So there you have it. You'll always need a monster PC to handle the game, proving that it's an unoptimized mess - because if it wasn't, then the graphics need to justify the huge GPU requirement to handle Very Low at 1080p.

In just the first seven episodes, HBO's 'Westworld' has amassed a rabid cult following thanks to its motion picture quality visual effects, sets and acting. In news that will be widely celebrated, the network has announced the show will continue on - although there'll be a bit of a wait.

Based on the 1973 film written by 'Jurassic Park' creator Michael Crichton, 'Westworld' has enjoyed strong support and the highest ratings the Network has received in years - but it doesn't come cheap, with a projected $100m budget for 10 episodes. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, HBO's programming president Casey Bloys has confirmed that the show will return with a further 10 episodes - although it won't likely hit screens until 2018.

With three more episodes to air in the current season, 'Westworld' is sure to have even more surprises in store for viewers - many of whom will be reeling from the big reveal in this week's episode. Hopefully the second series continues to shock and surprise.

NVIDIA just continues to smash the GPU and supercomputing game, with the announcement of their newest DGX SATURNV supercomputer that is designed from the ground up on building smarter cars and next generation GPUs.

The new DGX SATURNV is ranked 28th on the Top500 list of supercomputers, but thanks to the use of the Tesla P100-powered DGX-1 units, it's the most efficient supercomputer in the world. Up until now, the most efficient machine on the Top500 list is at 6.67 GigaFlops/Watt, but the new NVIDIA DGX SATURNV is capable of a massive 9.46 GigaFlops/Watt, a huge 42% improvement.

Inside of the NVIDIA DGX-1 we have:

Apple has built up even more courage leading up to the holidays, releasing a new $299 book that has 450 photos of Apple products - announcing the book 'Designed by Apple in California' on Apple.com, and select Apple retail stores.

There are two books available, with a $199 book that is a smaller 10.2-inch x 12.75-inch book, while the larger 13-inch x 16.25-inch book sells for $299. All of the photos were snapped by Andrew Zuckerman, showing off 20 years of Apple design "in a deliberately spare style".

Apple's chief designer and slow talker of courage, Jony Ive, explains the book as "a gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years", hoping that the book will be a "resource for students of all design disciplines".

NVIDIA has been working with Nintendo for two years on the design of their chip inside of the next-gen Switch console, something revealed during a chat between NVIDIA CEO and founder Jen-Hsun Huang, and VentureBeat.

Huang said: "We're dedicated to the gaming market and always have been. Some parts of the market, we just weren't prepared to serve them. I was fairly open about how, when this current generation of consoles was being considered, we didn't have x86 CPUs. We weren't in contention for any of those. However, the other factor is whether we could really make a contribution or not. If a particular game console doesn't require our special skills, what we can uniquely bring, then it's a commodity business that may not be suited for us".

He continued: "In the case of Switch, it was such a ground-breaking design. Performance matters because games are built on great performance, but form factor and energy efficiency matter incredibly because they want to build something that's portable and transformable. The type of gameplay they want to enable is like nothing the world has so far. It's a scenario where two great engineering teams, working with their creative teams, needed to hunker down. Several hundred engineering years went into building this new console. It's the type of project that really inspires us, gets us excited. It's a classic win-win".

Dishonored 2 is an honorable mess on the PC, needing an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 to barely handle 1080p 60FPS on very low graphics settings.

Dan Sebestyen posted on Twitter saying: "My build GTX 1070, i5 4690K, 16 gig of RAM. At 1080p and 1440p on "Very Low" i get drops to 40 fps in Karnaca". Pretty crappy performance for a high-end graphics card, and very low settings - not being able to hit 60FPS consistently in Dishonored 2? Pathetic.

Dishonored 2's Game Director Harvey Smith said yesterday he was "distressed" over the PC version of the game, saying that it wasn't a port from the consoles. He said that the performance issues aren't related just to graphics, so the issues are much deeper it seems.

It's finally here! The Fall Update for Battlefield 1 from DICE has been pushed out, which is "designed to make Battlefield 1 an even more fun, varied, stable, and balanced experience".

DICE explains that the Fall Update for Battlefield 1 has "different fixes and tweaks to gameplay, user interface, graphics, audio, and more". The biggest upgrade in the new update, in my opinion at least, is that the Fall Update includes the much anticipated Hardcore Mode.

There's also the introduction of Battlefield 1 Rent-a-Server Program, letting you set up your own private Battlefield 1 server with control over gameplay options, map rotations, and more. Squad XP Boost will be available in some of the Battlepacks, but if you want the full skinny on the patch, check out the Battlefield 1 Fall Update Notes PDF file.

EVE Online: Ascension has launched. The biggest update in the history of the game, it shifts EVE to a free to play model while adding a ton of new content.

Engineering Complexes have been added to the game and are said to fundamentally alter the economy and gameplay. In addition to that, visual feedback has been reworked, new explosion effects are on display, and there's more activity to be found in the asteroid belts of New Eden (think on-capsuleer resource gathering operations), just to name a few items.

If you're enticed by the free thing but are still intimidated by the learning curve, CCP has your back and says a new tutorial offers "more assistance and guidance than ever before as they take their first steps into the vast expanse of New Eden."

First we had reports that Sony's new PS4 Pro suffers noticable FPS drops while playing in native 4K, but it looks like the system's 1080p modes aren't safe either. Specific games like Watch Dogs 2 are getting hit with performance hitches while played in the console's 1080p super-sampling mode.

Sony has assured that its new PlayStation 4 Pro will benefit 1080p HDTV users, and you won't need to own a fancy HDR-capable 4K Ultra High-Def TV in order to tap the system's new hardware. Developers typically enable a trio of graphics and performance modes including 1080p 60FPS, super-sampled 1080p graphics that improve visual fidelity, upscaled 4K 30FPS with checkerboard rendering techniques, and even "native" 4K gaming. But all of these modes need to be optimized properly, and are tied to the same resolution vs frame rate balancing act that plagued the PS4 and Xbox One era with dynamic resolution scaling.

For 1080p support, the Pro down-samples the 4K mode for all of these titles, offering enhanced image quality via super-sampling. However, the areas where performance is degraded remain impacted when running on a full HD display - meaning that there's nothing that Pro owners can do to get a smoother experience overall on these titles. In fact, the base PlayStation 4 will run these releases at a higher performance level overall at the expense of some image quality.

Qualcomm has been on the bleeding edge of pumping as much power into your smartphone as possible - in both its Snapdragon processors and Quick Charge technology - but now Quick Charge is about to step up to another level.

Our friends over at Fudzilla are reporting that Quick Charge 4.0 will roll out with the upcoming Snapdragon 830 processor, and that the information they have comes from an "accessory manufacture that wants to remain silent". They said that the new charge will support up to 5V/4.7A~5.6A, or 9V/4A in similar configurations.

Quick Charge 4.0 hitting 28W will be a big deal, as it'll charge smartphones even quicker. Quick Charge 3.0 on my Pixel smartphone is incredibly awesome, and so much faster than my previous iPhone 6S smartphone which charged so slowly in comparison.

If last week's Presidential campaign has taught us, it's that anyone can run for President. They might also win. And that has former WWE star, and Republican supporter Dwayne Johnson interested... Very interested.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, the wrestler turned actor has flagged that he might very well run for U.S. President in the future saying that he "wouldn't rule it out. It would be a great opportunity to help people, so it's possible. This past election shows that anything can happen." He's also provided other tantalising quotes on social media in the past year.

If he indeed runs (and makes it), he certainly wouldn't be the first actor to get the top job. The 40th U.S. President, Ronald Reagan appeared in some 50 films from 1937 to 1964.

Editor's Note: These impressions are based on a PlayStation 4 copy of the game which we received from the publisher. Our upcoming review will also be based on this same platform.

Watch Dogs 2 is a breath of fresh air. It's rebellious, vivacious, colorful, and overall, it feels alive. Ubisoft has gone great lengths to make the experience actually fun to play, and genuinely makes players feel like they're a kid on a playground.

We get the tools to play how we want and hack the entire world around us, from traffic signals to taking control of self-driving cars and even making NPC's phones explode like Samsung's ill-fated Note 7.

Sony added an additional 1GB of DDR3 RAM to the PS4 Pro, and now we have Crytek's Technical Director saying that it is "somewhat substantial", freeing up 1GB of the DDR5 RAM inside of the console.

Out of the 1GB of additional RAM, Sony is letting developers use 512MB of it for PS4 Pro games, while the other 512MB is used to render the interface at 4K. During an interview with Gaming Bolt, Crytek Technical Director Rok Erjavec said that the additional RAM in the PS4 Pro is benefitial for the gaming side, but also development.

He said: "The system gives us back an additional 0.5GB over thePS4, which is enough to fill in the increased requirements from things like 4K, higher quality rendering features, etc". Erjavec added: "Coming out at about a 10% increase, it can be seen as somewhat substantial relative to the base console, but mainly it's there to transparently allow for PS4 Pro-specific improvements without developers having to jump through complicated hoops".

Alright... most of you will know that I'm beyond pumped for AMD and their next-gen Zen architecture, but there are some new details that have surfaced on the /r/AMD subreddit, and it has me even more excited.

Intel has been dominating the CPU world for what feels like forever, but when AMD does throw down - Thunderbird, Duron, Athlon X2 - it does it in a big way. Zen is the biggest stomping yet, with multiple things to be excited about. It looks like we can expect an 8-core/16-thread Zen CPU at around $300, which would be freakin' amazing.

Some of the bigger notes from the post is that Zen will arrive in a purported 6850K with 8 CPU cores/16 CPU threads for around $300. This is amazing if it's true, and I believe we are looking at this price bracket for Zen's higher-end SKUs. But then the tease that AMD's Hyper-Threading equivalent is something called SMU and that it's "******* good" with the "same efficiency as Intel's HT", should have everyone excited.

To celebrate this week's release of 'Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season' on Blu-ray and DVD, we have 10 Blu-rays to give away thanks to our friends at Roadshow Home Entertainment.

Summers span decades. Winters can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne continues. It stretches from the south, where heat breeds plots, lusts and intrigues, to the vast and savage eastern lands, where a young queen raises an army. All the while, in the frozen north, an 800-foot wall of ice precariously protects the war-ravaged kingdom from the dark forces that lie beyond. Kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars, lords and honest men...all play the 'Game of Thrones.' Season 6 sees the Three-Eyed Raven accompanying Bran Stark into the past, to a Winterfell in the height of summer. A divided Night's Watch is left in turmoil after a bloody Jon Snow is found lying under a sign that reads "Traitor". Having survived their leap from the Winterfell wall, Theon Greyjoy and Sansa flee through the woods, hoping to leave behind the nightmarish Ramsay Bolton. Meanwhile with Daenerys isolated in Essos, Tyrion Lannister and Varys must use all their cunning to maintain control of Meereen as the former Masters look to regain control.

To go into the running to win a prize, simply answer the following question in 50 words or less:

Zelda: Breath of the Wild is practically the biggest exclusive game for Nintendo's new Switch console and handheld hybrid system, but new reports indicate the game may not be a launch game for the Switch, instead opting for a release later in the year.

Launch games are incredibly important for new consoles, and can easily make or break the system's initial success and adoption rate. The new Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the first game Nintendo showed off with its new innovative swapping Switch console, and that's no coincidence: Nintendo has said that the new Zelda will be an "immediate reason to buy a Switch."

Sadly, it looks like the new open-world Zelda game may not release alongside the Switch system. Sources have told well-known games insider Emily Rogers that the game isn't progressing nearly as well as Nintendo had hoped, and that it's much bigger and more ambitious than the company had planned. Given this new info, Rogers predicts Zelda: Breath of the Wild will launch in Summer 2017, not in March.

Although Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro supports SATA III with up to 6 Gbps transfer speeds, the console's stock hard drive only rocks 5400 RPM, meaning it can't even leverage the full transfer speeds of the SATA III protocol.

This bit of news was uncovered by iFixit, who recently tore down the PS4 Pro to reveal its innards. The PS4 Pro's 1TB internal platter drive is rated 3.0 Gb/s, which is actually SATA II speeds...but some outlets seem to report the HDD supporting 6 Gb/s speeds instead. Either way, the 5200 RPM isn't enough to hit the max blistering fast rates of SATA III.

Remember that the SATA III protocol was established for SSDs that were bottlenecked by SATA II speeds, and most new platter hard drives will use SATA III regardless if they can fully tap the protocol or not. To get the most out of the PS4 Pro's transfer speed capabilities, you'll need to pick up a fairly expensive solid state drive.

Hot on the heels of the news that the Blu-ray disc association is pleased with initial disc sales that are "beyond expectations" comes news that the format has enjoyed an early milestone.

According to The Digital Bits, the format has sold through its one million disc in the United States alone, which represents more than $25 million in consumer spending" - no mean feat considering that there's less than 100 discs available to purchase today.

The Digital Bits also goes on to say that the last of the big studios to commit to the format; Disney, is expected to release product in 2017 - which is great news if you care about 'Star Wars', or the Marvel films, or any of the Walt Disney animated classics.

Google Play Music receives an overhaul today, complete with personalized music, a new home screen, and an auto generated offline playlist.

The new version of the app exploits machine learning to curate song lists for you based on what you like, where you are, what you're doing, and the weather, among other things. So whether you're chilling at home or about to work out, it has the soundtrack for you (or claims to, anyway).

The reworked home screen also takes advantage of Google's machine learning and is designed to always present you with the music you care about most at any given moment, whether it's your favourite new album or the after work playlist you listen to regularly, or whatever else.

Releases 25 years ago this year, Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' remains one of its most adult and lavish of the Disney animated features, and next year it's getting what appears to be an almost shot-for-shot remake starring 'arry Potter' star Emma Watson.

Interest in the film seems to be very strong, with the previously released teaser trailer generated 1.8 million views worldwide in its first 24 hours, which bested the 2014 teaser trailer for 'The Force Awakens'. Disney have been on a huge remake program of late, announcing the development of feature film adaptations of classics such as 'The Lion King, 'The Little Mermaid', 'Dumbo', 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Aladdin', 'Cruella' and 'Mulan'.

'Beauty and the Beast' hits 2D and 3D theatres worldwide from March 2017.