Latest News - Page 2392

With all of the teases of NVIDIA's upcoming Volta architecture and Pascal 2.0 refresh aiming for 2017, we now have news of Team Red and their upcoming Vega GPU architecture. Our friends at Fudzilla have said that their "well-informed sources have confirmed that Vega 10, AMD's first HBM 2 card will by announced before the end of this year, at least for the professional market".

Now, the professional market launch arriving before the consumer Vega graphics cards makes sense, especially with HBM2 in tow. NVIDIA did the same thing with the Tesla P100 earlier this year, their first Pascal-based graphics card powered by HBM2, except it launched for the professional market first. Consumer graphics cards with HBM2 are still a while away, so expect them sometime in 2017.

AMD's upcoming high-end Vega 10 graphics card would feature 16GB of HBM2, the same type and amount of HBM2 used on NVIDIA's Tesla P100 professional graphics card.

It looks like the launch of AMD's new Polaris GPU architecture is doing wonders for the company, with Wells Fargo's David Wong taking a detailed look at Mercury Research's latest numbers on the discrete GPU market.

After reviewing the data on GPU market share from Mercury Research, Wong noted that AMD has already made significant gains. He said that the data proves AMD is stabilizing, where he said: "According to Mercury Research, AMD's unit share of the discrete GPU market increased from 26.2% in the December 2015 quarter to 29.4% in the March 2016 quarter. AMD's discrete GPU market unit share increased 4.8pp sequentially to 34.2% in the June 2016 quarter".

When it comes to the high-end graphics cards, AMD still isn't competing against NVIDIA yet, at least not with the Polaris architecture. AMD's new Vega architecture is the one that will compete with NVIDIA's enthusiast graphics cards, but won't hit consumers until 2017. Wong added: "Despite having apparently reached a plateau in unit graphics market share some quarters ago, NVIDIA's gaming GPU continued to demonstrate good revenue growth, in the 17-25% year/year range in each of the last 4 quarters (Oct 2015 through July 2016). AMD began to regain unit share in the graphics card market in 1H2016".

In the same purchase that bagged them the 'Star Wars' franchise, Disney now holds the rights to LucasFilm's 'Indiana Jones' too and while they've promised that a fifth film is on the way in 2019, what I'd really love to see is more of this.

Developed by animator Patrick Schoenmaker acting without approval by Disney, the minute long short shows how freaking awesome an animated 'Indiana Jones' adventure could be. And with star Harrison Ford pushing 80, who knows - maybe he'd be open to voicing the classic character for a few years.

Schoenmaker's YouTube channel says the short was five years in the making, but with the support of Disney, this could happen pretty fast. Fans can dream.

CD Projekt RED plans to completely one-up themselves with Cyberpunk 2077, smashing the likes of Witcher 3's amazing open world with an extremely ambitious new type of city-building technology and seamless multiplayer that will likely make Destiny's social hubs look like child's play.

Cyberpunk 2077's open world and city hubs could be the most immersive spaces ever created in a video game. CD Projekt RED has filed for a grant to help fund its new City Creation technology, which features "living cities" with real-time interactions with dynamic AI. That's not it, though: CDPR is also crafting a new kind of seamless multiplayer for the futuristic RPG.

City Creation is described as: "Comprehensive technology for the creation of 'live' cities of great scale playable in real-time, which is based on the principles of artificial intelligence and automation, and takes into account the development of innovative processes and tools supporting the creation of high-quality games with open worlds."

Remedy's recent overhyped time-busting Quantum Break won't be pushing any of your rigs to their limits any time soon.

Months after launching as a hot mess on Microsoft's Windows 10-exclusive storefront, Quantum Break is now available on Steam. But even after this long sojourn between the Windows Store and Steam, some of the game's most disappointing technical issues are still intact and haven't been fixed: Quantum Break's Steam port won't support multi-GPU setups in SLI or CrossFire and is locked at DirectX 11 instead of leveraging the new DirectX 12 API.

"Like mentioned on other topics, the game doesn't support SLI. But even with one GTX 1080 and the right settings, you should be able to get an enjoyable experience out of the game. I recommend comparing visual differences between 'high' and 'ultra' options in different areas of the display settings page," said a Remedy dev on the Steam forum page.

Nintendo's mysterious new NX console will propel the Japanese console-maker into the big leagues dominated by Microsoft and Sony, says Ubisoft.

Ubisoft has seen Nintendo's new NX hardware, which is purportedly a transforming console handheld hybrid, and the publisher is extremely impressed. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has praised the NX vocally in the last few months, delivering practically the only real meaty bits of information outside of unverified rumors and reports. Now Guillemot drops even more praise in Ubisoft's most recent earnings report, saying that the NX will be good enough to put Nintendo back in the Big Three.

"Nintendo will be back in the race with the NX," Guillemot said. Just a few weeks ago the Ubisoft CEO called the NX a "fantastic totally new approach," strongly hinting at the unique handheld hybrid theory that's been rolling around.

For those old enough to remember the Commodore 64, can you believe that one is still being used to run a small auto repair shop?

Commodore USA's official Facebook page reads: "This C64C used by a small auto repair shop for balancing drive shafts has been working non-stop for over 25 years. And despite surviving a flood it is still going...". That's a great achievement, because most PCs wouldn't last 25 more years and still be operational like that (for the most part, anyway).

The Commodore 64 was released all the way back in 1982, featuring a whopping 64KB of memory at the time, with its CPU running at a blistering 1MHz, with a 16-color graphics chip. It was the highest-selling single computer model of all time according to the Guinness World Records.

Apple has unleashed its iPhone 7, so now its onwards towards the next-gen MacBook Pro laptops which are looking to be announced sometime next month.

The new MacBook Pro is expected "some time in the second half of October", with Apple working on macOS 10.12.1 so that it fully supports the purported Touch ID sensor, and OLED touchbar. Apple is expected to fully revamp their 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which should rock Intel's new Kaby Lake CPUs - making for thinner, lighter MacBook Pros.

Apple is expected to unveil their Touch ID fingerprint sensor onto the next-gen MacBook Pros, borrowing the security side of things from the iPhone and iPad. The fingerprint sensor would allow MacBook Pro owners to log-in to their laptops using their fingerprint, or they would allow for Apple Pay purchases with your fingerprint, which is now supported by macOS Sierra, and iOS 10.

Microsoft has been touting the 4K gaming abilities of its new Project Scorpio Xbox console, but when Microsoft's Albert Penello spoke with The Guardian recently, he talked about Microsoft's full 4K gaming on the Xbox Scorpio, and how developers will have to deal with new challenges.

It looks like we won't be seeing 4K 60FPS on the Xbox Scorpio anytime soon, and nowhere near the launch in 2017, as it will be up to developers to decide where to use the additional horsepower provided by Xbox Scorpio, in their games. Penello said: "But we've said very clearly that it's up to the developers how they want to take advantage of that power. Some developers focus on effects, some on frame rate some on resolution - it's up to them what they want to do".

Penello continued, saying that developers will be able to meet, and master 4K gaming on the Xbox Scorpio after a while. He added: "If you look at game engines like Frostbite and Unreal, developers have got really good at scaling - they're excellent at figuring out how to build textures at very high resolutions, then being able to optimise that artwork for various platforms. With that in consideration, it will be easier to take advantage of the performance difference of Scorpio because these guys are already building games that far surpass what consoles can do today".

NVIDIA has used its marketing prowess perfectly with the impending release of Titanfall 2, by teasing exclusive 4K 60FPS gameplay from the PC version of the game, powered by their new Titan X graphics card.

NVIDIA's own "NVN", or NVIDIA Gaming Network, posted the gameplay footage of Titanfall 2, with every single graphics setting maxed out on a single Titan X at 4K, hitting 60FPS. As for the graphics settings available in Titanfall for PC gamers, we have:

We've been hearing lots of nuggets of information on Volta, NVIDIA's next generation GPU architecture, and now the company has just pushed its first Volta-based product out with the announcement of Xavier, its new supercomputer designed for autonomous cars.

NVIDIA unveiled Xavier out of the blue at its GPU Technology Conference in Amsterdam, with the Volta-based system-on-a-chip wicked fast, thanks to the new 512 cores from the next-gen Volta architecture. Volta allows the Xavier chip to support dual 8K HDR video inputs, with NVIDIA saying in the past that Volta would be much more memory bandwidth efficient, and smaller than previous designs.

Xavier also supports NVLink thanks to the Volta GPU, with the GPU being joined by IBM's upcoming Power9 chips, with both being installed into the U.S. Department of Energy's Summit supercomputer in 2018. NVLink is 7-10x faster than PCIe 3.0, so the Summit supercomputer will be a huge chunk faster than ever thanks to NVIDIA's new NVLink tech.

We all know Chris Roberts can say some pretty crazy things, where during my exclusive interview with him at PAX Australia 2014, Roberts said "I don't care about consoles" when it came to Star Citizen.

The guys over at Gamers Nexus recently visited the CIG offices, talking with Roberts where he said: "Right. It's not even 'best damn space sim' anymore, it's 'best damn everything sim.' Especially with the way the procedural planets [...] we were able to do that with everyone's support, which allowed us to open up the Frankfurt office and hire up people that are incredibly talented".

He continued: "That's the iterative way that Star Citizen works, because I wasn't thinking we were going to be able to do what we are going to be able to do now, but the additional play possibilities that come with it and what players will be able to do by themselves, it's really exciting. You've opened up a much bigger palette of things you can do because you have planetary locations, you can do things, recover things, rescue people, create your own little place - whatever you want to do.

If the massive array of Volta GPU architecture leaks weren't enough yesterday, we had teases of the purported Pascal 2.0 refresh coming in 2017, as well as the massively fast graphics cards from NVIDIA sometime in 2018, and beyond - well, now we're hearing more concrete information about the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti... the card everyone has been waiting for.

The new report has NVIDIA releasing the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in January 2017 (most likely at CES 2017 in early January), with very similar specs to the blazingly fast Pascal-based Titan X. NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti will reportedly rock most of the same specifications as the Titan X, so we have 12GB of GDDR5X being used at 10Gbps on a 384-bit memory bus that will provide 480GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

NVIDIA's purported GeForce GTX 1080 Ti will have some CUDA cores shaved away, down to 3328 CUDA cores from the 3584 CUDA cores on Titan X. The GP102 GPU used will be clocked at 1503/1623 for Base/Boost clocks, respectively - providing 10.8 TFLOPs of compute performance, all with a 250W TDP. So we're looking at a very close competitor to Titan X, but cheaper.

As I type this news from a Windows 10-powered desktop PC, news has landed that Microsoft has hit a milestone of 400 million active devices running Windows 10.

It has taken Microsoft around 14 months to hit 400 million users on Windows 10 since its launch, with 100 million users poured into the Windows 10 pool since May 5. Towards the end of March, there were 207 million active devices running Windows 10 - now remember, "active devices" is a considerable team of products.

We're talking about desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, Surface Hubs, HoloLens devices, and more. Microsoft isn't quite at its 1 billion goal yet with Windows 10, but the latest desktop OS is definitely the fastest-growing Windows platform in history.

Following the surprise success of Jon Favreau's live action/ CG feature film hybrid 'The Jungle Book' earlier this year, the company has announced that the director's next project will be a similar "reimagining" of the 1993 animated smash-hit 'The Lion King'.

According to the studio's official announcement today, Disney has agreed to fast track the production of 'The Lion King', which is expected to feature live action backgrounds alongside CG animated animals, similarly to 'The Jungle Book' . Unlike that film however, 'The Lion King' doesn't feature any human characters. Disney has also confirmed that the film will feature some of the animated films original songs, so Hakuna Matata on that.

There's no current release date for the feature, but I'd be surprised if this won't be hitting theatres sometime in 2018.

Collecting gaming merchandise is more than an art-form. Individuals who are serious about game specific figurines, art & graphic works, clothing and accessories will tell you that all of these items are crucial when it comes to collecting. With the recent game success of Nintendo's: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, in affiliation with Good Smile, has recently launched their new line The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Figures

The titled-themed collectables will be offered to the public in various stances and expressions. The Zelda and Link Figmas as seen in the image above will be available, along with Link having his own 'DX' editions that includes: Ordon Sword, Hero's Bow and Arrow, Ball and Chain, Hawkeye and the Clawshot.

This vast selection can be pre-ordered as of now until 27th October on the official Good Smile website and until 22nd October on the Play-Asia site. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Figures collectables are due to be shipped in May 2017, and will set Nintendo customers back between $50-$60 US, depending on the style and type of Figma as the DX Link editions will cost a little more to purchase.

The highly anticipated Dragon Quest Builders game brought to us by Square Enix, can now be downloaded in a free demo available to trial before the launch of the title in two weeks. In the latest news from Sony PlayStation Lifestyle, the Dragon Quest Builders demo is obtainable today for users living in North America and Europe. The game trailer: Become a Legendary Builder, provides visuals of the exclusive title and what to expect this coming October.

Direct from the source regarding the free download was this: "With the demo, you'll find the introductory chapter of the game, letting you explore a large open island, restore a town, battle hordes of monsters, and complete quests. Square Enix didn't say if progress from the demo would transfer over to the full game. The PlayStation Store description adds that the PS Vita version of the demo isn't compatible with PlayStation TV".

The game will challenge players with the rebuilding Alefgard in the wake of its destruction at the hands of the Dragonlord. Dragon Quest Builders officially releases on October 11 in North America and October 14 in Europe for PS4 and PS Vita. For those customers who pre-order the PS4 version via the site, will receive some featured DLC bonuses added into the purchase.

SpaceX CEO and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk is dreaming big as usual: his newly unveiled long-term plan is to colonize Mars, among other planets.

The first phase: launch an upgraded, unpiloted Dragon spacecraft toward Mars in 2018, with the aim of obtaining flight experience, while developing advanced boosters, spacecraft, and subsystems necessary for what Musk calls his "Interplanetary Transport System".

A later phase: building a 400 foot tall rocket to send large crew capsules into low-Earth orbit. The capsules are to be fueled for a trip to Mars by the same rocket, which will also carry unpiloted propellant tankers. One of the principles behind the mission structure is to make the trips much more affordable: $200,000 per ticket versus the previous standing $10 billion.

Inxile Entertainment today announced Wasteland 3, which is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC in just a few weeks with a brand new feature: co-op.

Wasteland 3 is happening, and it'll arrive across the triumvirate of gaming platforms on October 5. Inexile pushed out a huge press release revealing key details on what the new tactical RPG has to offer, and for the first time in the history of the franchise you'll be able to brave the post-apocalyptic world with a friend in fully-fledged story-driven synchronous co-op or asynchronous competitive-style multiplayer.

The devs promise that Wasteland 3 will be an evolution over Wasteland 2, offering new additions like vehicles, environmental hazards, a new action system and more fluid turn-based combat. The co-op is quite interesting, and you can play offline singleplayer, or even play your co-op game while your friend is offline and actively sabotage them...but Inxile warns that there's consequences to whatever actions you choose to take.

You an now buy and search all Xbox 360 backward compatible games on the Xbox One store, Microsoft has announced.

(Please excuse the photo, I had to take a picture of my screen because the Xbox One doesn't let you take screen captures of the storefront or main screen.)

In an effort to consolidate convenience with a nostalgia tax, Microsoft now makes it easier than ever to purchase and search through the Xbox One's full backward compatible Xbox 360 games library. The full listing of backward compatible Xbox 360 games are now up on the Games on Demand section on Xbox One. While this sounds like a great idea on the surface, Redmond didn't waste any time in mucking it up: the Backward Compatible games list is seven rows below all the other pre-order junk and miscellaneous crap Microsoft tries to peddle, and the games are often higher in price than they should be.