Latest News - Page 2368

EVGA has been in the headlines for a few days over issues surrounding its GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 graphics cards catching fire over voltage regulation modules inside of EVGA's dual fans on the cards that supposedly overheat.

There have been multiple posts on EVGA's own forums, Reddit, and more - and now we have a video of an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW catching fire. But note: the card had no PCIe power connectors plugged in, so it could've been excessive power consumption through the motherboard, or it could be the card itself - it is hard to know right now.

Michael Duncan took the video, saying that his GTX 1080 FTW graphics card had been working for around a month without any issues before the card caught fire. He came home one day to find that his PC wouldn't boot up when it pressed the power button.

Intel's next-gen LGA 2066 socket has been detailed, with a tease of the upcoming Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processors, which will arrive in the second half of 2017.

Both of the new CPUs will support quad-channel DDR4, and while the Kaby Lake-X processors will take care of the mid/high-end markets, the Skylake-X is going to be a new beast. Intel's Skylake-X processor will be a huge 10-core/20-thread processor with undefined clock speeds for now, and 13.75MB of L3 cache.

Not only that, but Skylake-X is expected to support 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes for multi-GPU/enthusiast systems with add-on cards for RAID, 10GbE, etc. The Kaby Lake-X PCH itself has 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 10 x USB 3.0, and 8 x USB 2.0 - but the price of the Skylake-X is expected to reach around $1500, or more.

The first phone with Google's Tango platform is now available, making the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro the first phone with AR capabilities.

The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro was announced back in June, and now it's finally available for $500.

The phone comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, expandable with microSD card up to 256GB. It has a bit bigger screen than a standard smartphones - 6.4-inch with 1440x2560 resolution. The phone features a 16MP main camera and an 8MP selfie camera.

Leonardo DiCaprio's National Geographic documentary Before The Flood premiered two days ago and in case you missed it, you can watch it for free on YouTube.

The entire documentary talks about the fossil fuel industry and the effect it has on our planet, explains the devastating consequences, and tries to find a solution for inevitable climate change, who's effects we are already witnessing.

Elon Musk appears in the documentary (he also appeared in Racing Extinction, which you should watch if you haven't already) and leads DiCaprio trough Tesla's Gigafactory in Nevada.

A year ago, Tag Heuer introduced its first smartwatch - Tag Heuer Connected. The watch was pretty similar to other Android smartwatches on the market, but the price was set at $1500, which shouldn't be surprising considering it is Tag Heuer.

If you think that's expensive, you are right, but Tag Heuer can do better. And by better, I mean more expensive.

They recently launched a rose gold version of the smartwatch, and it looks like the color is the only difference compared to last year's model. However, the rose gold touch on your smartwatch comes with an insane price of almost $10,000, $9,900 to be precise.

When things go south, focus on something else. That's how Samsung has decided to handle to Note7 fiasco which ended with their decision to permanently end the production of the Galaxy Note7 devices.

However, Samsung has an ace up their sleeve. They boosted Galaxy S7 edge marketing, and they announced the device would be available be in a new color - Coral Blue. The specs of the phone will remain the same.

The Galaxy S7 edge in Coral Blue version will be available in Taiwan and Singapore on November 7th. Samsung still hasn't announced when the phone will be available in other countries, but it is expected that the Coral Blue variant of the phone will arrive at the US by the end of the year.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider could be the third installment in Square Enix's new Tomb Raider reboot series.

While riding on a subway, a Montreal Redditor noticed something quite interesting on a passenger's laptop: a presentation deck for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which may be Lara Croft's third adventure. The news broke earlier this morning, and the game's name has since been verified by multiple sources including Kotaku.

As Crystal Dynamics is based in California, not Montreal, it appears the studio may be handing the torch off to Eidos Montreal, Square Enix's Montreal-based team. Eurogamer has apparently confirmed that Eidos Montreal will be developing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but also notes that Crystal Dynamics is almost certainly still involved with the franchise.

Although Microsoft's new "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio Xbox console supports VR gaming, Microsoft plans on waiting until the VR market matures with better games and headset tech.

Xbox division head Phil Spencer has a clear idea on what he wants for Project Scorpio's VR games, and the current selection of virtual reality titles aren't just cutting it. Microsoft has no plans to follow Sony's footsteps with the PlayStation VR, which cashed in early on VR to make a more accessible console-powered VR headset that delivers "simple, small passive experiences".

Spencer describes existing VR games as more like "demos and experiments," and he's not wrong: the tech is still quite early, and so is the software--that required killer app doesn't yet exist. With a 6TFLOPs GPU that's likely built on AMD's new Vega graphics architecture to enable 90FPS in VR, Microsoft has essentially future-proofed Project Scorpio for the types of "killer" VR games that don't really exist yet.

Although Nintendo's new Switch handheld-and-console hardware clashes with traditional smartphone gaming, the Japanese console-maker aims to have synergy between the two platforms.

Nintendo's new smartphone gaming push may actually see some sort of parity across its new Switch system, possibly bringing some aspects of its mobile games lineup including Pokemon GO, Super Mario Run, and more to the handheld via cross-platform interactivity.

Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima has confirmed the Switch can be tethered to mobile devices via My Nintendo, the company's new Nintendo Account user framework.

Google Chrome has received some performance improvements applied, with help from Microsoft and its PGO technology that makes Chrome's startup time around 17% faster. Chrome now loads web pages 6% faster and is 15% faster with new tab loading times.

Microsoft's PGO technology is 'Profile Guided Optimization', which measures just how users use the application, and then with this data in-hand it will re-compile an application that focuses on optimizing the most-used functions. Another feature of PGO is that it speeds apps up by keeping the most-used functions inside of the CPU's fast instruction cache.

Google took to the Chromium Blog, explaining in a new article called 'Making Chrome on Windows faster with PGO'. The team added: "To gather this data, the nightly build process now produces a special version of Chrome that tracks how often functions are used. PGO then optimizes those high-use functions for speed, in some cases increasing the binary size of those functions. To balance out that increase, PGO also optimizes less-used functions with smaller, though slightly slower code. These trade-offs result in higher overall performance, and a smaller overall code footprint".

Seagate has announced its new 512GB SSD for the Xbox One and Xbox One S, with super-fast load times for console owners at a price of just $200.

The new 512GB SSD plugs into one of the USB 3.0 ports on the Xbox One or Xbox One S consoles, and requires nothing but the single USB 3.0 cable to give your Xbox One a massive increase in game load times. Seagate says: "Slow-loading screens are for newbs. Built for elite gamers, the Seagate Game Drive for Xbox SSD uses flash storage to help you decimate game load times and get into the action quicker. Designed exclusively for Xbox®, it lets you store the hottest titles in one thin and ultra-portable drive".

Seagate continues:

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

Season two of Outlander begins as Claire and Jamie arrive in France, hell-bent on infiltrating the Jacobite rebellion led by Prince Charles Stuart, and stopping the battle of Culloden. With the help of his cousin Jared (Robert Cavanah), a local wine merchant, Jamie and Claire are thrown into the lavish world of French society, where intrigue and parties are abundant, but political gain proves far less fruitful. Altering the course of history presents challenges that begin to weigh on the very fabric of their relationship. However, armed with the knowledge of what lies ahead, Claire and Jamie must race to prevent a doomed Highland uprising, and the extinction of Scottish life as they know it.

To go into the running to win a prize, simply correctly answer the following question:

Civilization VI and NBA 2K17 have been big sellers for 2K Games this year, but when you look at the larger flops like Mafia III and Evolve, what's going on with the company? According to an ex-developer from 2K, the company "can be so incompetent".

Hacker Noon reported that the ex-2K developer said: "Basically what had happened was that Ken had been pushed past his limits with the stress of running BioShock Infinite - the team was so huge and unwieldy that he wanted to go back to basics and build a game with a skeleton crew like in the old days. He basically tried to quit, but 2K said "no, don't go, you can do whatever you want - just stay with us", with the post not finished yet.

"2K should have managed that situation better. If you have a big team who work well together in Boston, why not put a new studio head at the top and keep the team together? It could still be called Irrational - it would still have the majority of the original staff. Then Ken could go and do his thing, and everyone else could continue to do theirs - you know - making successful games for 2K...", and we're just getting started.

Cyan Games has an update for Obduction which is packed with technology features and updates, expanding the already immersive world they created.

Obduction's latest patch includes VR support, letting Oculus Rift users (sorry, HTC Vive owners) play the game in VR. Not only that, but the patch includes support for both HDR, and NVIDIA's screenshot-taking Ansel feature.

Ansel lets you set up, compose, and take ridiculously high-resolution in-game screenshots - and then adjust them and add post-processing effects, and even 360-degree shots that can be viewed through a smartphone, PC or VR headset.

We're getting some more insight into the future of Xbox from the head of Xbox himself, Phil Spencer, where he said during an interview with Game Informer that the PC version of Battlefield 1 was the best-looking version of the game.

During the interview, Spencer was asked about his comments during E3 2016 where he used the phrase "gaming beyond generations", with Game Informer asking: "Does this mean that in the future, console gamers will need to buy hardware more regularly if they want to play the best possible version of a game?"

Spencer replied: "It's hard to tell. Clearly in the case of Xbox One, Xbox One S and Scorpio, the answer would be, I don't know if it's more regularly, but you're going to want Scorpio to run the game at the highest resolution or framerate - whatever the developers decide to do with that game".

Activision is preparing for the big launch of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and over the last few weeks they have together with developer Infinity Ward taken loads of information from the multiplayer beta of Infinite Warfare leading up to the official launch.

The day one patch for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare includes:

WEAPONS

Battlefield 1 is one of the best-looking games ever made, and it looks and runs absolutely beautifully on the PC - so it seems fitting when Xbox boss Phil Spencer praises the PC version of BF1.

During an interview with Game Informer, Spencer was asked "One of the reasons that people choose consoles over PC is because they don't like that feeling of missing out on the best possible version on their platform. Is there a danger that you're introducing that into the console space with Xbox Scorpio?"

His reply: "The best-looking version of Battlefield is going to be PC. Somebody's going to be able to throw enough hardware at Battlefield to get it to outperform what any of the consoles on the market are going to do. I guess you could say, as a console person, that you feel like you don't get to play the best version of Battlefield so somehow you're disappointed".

Titanfall 2 has flown too close to the sun, and by sun we mean the releases of Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Skyrim Special Edition (which only runs at 30FPS on the Xbox One and PS4, by the way). The first-week sales numbers are in, and it's not looking good at all for EA and Respawn Entertainment.

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Titanfall 2's physical sales in the UK are "well below the ones achieved by its predecessor", which it should be reiterated - was released on the Xbox One and PC only. GamesIndustry.biz reports: "In fact, the game's launch sales are barely a quarter of the ones achieved by its original - despite the fact that this sequel has the added benefit of launching on PS4. Titanfall 2 debuts at No.4 in the GfK Top 10, while the original reached No.1".

Now we have to question the future of not only the Titanfall franchise, but of developer Respawn Entertainment - their sequel to Titanfall looks like it won't be something that's remembered, but will EA continue throwing money at them?

It has been five years since Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but now the developer has their remastered version of the game on current-gen consoles, and while it looks better than it did when it was released, it's only capable of 1080p 30FPS.

Skyrim Special Edition runs at 1920x1080 on the PS4 and Xbox One at a targeted frame rate of 30FPS, with Digital Foundry noting in its technical analysis of the game that the Xbox One hits 1080p with "some degree of overhead left over", meaning it could run at anywhere up to 60FPS, but they added it's "almost certainly not enough to sustain 60fps frame-rates, necessitating the 30fps cap".

The newly polished version of the game looks "pretty solid" according to Digital Foundry, with Bethesda using some of the temporal anti-aliasing that was used in Fallout 4, also released by the developer. The report says: "It can be viewed as an enhanced PC port for the current-gen platforms and in comparison to the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, there's a night and day improvement in terms of performance and stability, not to mention resolution, art quality and overall levels of detail".

EA is experiencing quite a week, with the successful launch of Battlefield 1, a limped launch of Titanfall 2, and then in the middle of it all the company has banned an entire country from its digital distribution service, Origin.

A post on the /r/gaming section of Reddit by 'trivial_sublime' paints a pretty bad picture for EA, with the poster saying: "I live in Myanmar, and I own about 20 games on Origin, and have spent hundreds of dollars on the platform. I've bought the full editions of all of the Battlefield games up to this point, with their season passes. I was trying to log into Origin a few days ago, and got a bizarre "Access Denied" message. I googled it, and found that "Origin is no longer available in Myanmar".

A post on EA's own website from '1guntra' said that they were getting "Access Denied" error messages when connecting from Yangon, Myanmar. An EA representative responded, saying: "We are working to restore access to Origin for our players in Myanmar. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we'll share updates on timing as soon as possible".