Latest News - Page 2453

We all know the iPhone doesn't have expandable storage, but that doesn't stop companies like Sandisk thinking outside of the square with its new iXpand Flash Drive.

Sandisk's new iXpand Flash Drive is a flash drive that will ensure you'll never run out of space on your iPhone. It's a small, great looking dongle that expands the storage on your iPhone. It does this by featuring a flexible, fold-out Lightning port that will fit into "most" hard and soft cases.

When used with the Sandisk iXpand Drive app, which has been "completely redesigned" from feedback, pictures and videos you take on your iPhone will be saved to the iXpand by default, instead of your iPhone. Sandisk has also included a USB 3.0 connector to transfer your pictures, videos or music to your PC - which also lets you do things you can't do on your iPhone normally, like cut/copy/paste/deleting files onto your Sandisk iXpand Flash Drive.

VR is all the rage right now, with Square Enix wanting to jump right into the deep end, teasing Hitman GO in VR at PAX East 2016 over the weekend.

Destructoid were on site, reporting that all of the levels "are the same as they were in the original game, but the camera can now be rotated with analog sticks, and you can zoom in with the controller or by leaning your body forward to take a closer peak at GO's diorama-like environments".

Square Enix has said that Hitman GO VR will be exclusive to Oculus, which means it'll only work on the Rift and Gear VR (Oculus collaborated with Samsung on Gear VR). Hitman GO VR won't hit the PlayStation VR, or the HTC Vive. The company is hoping you'll reach deeper into your wallet to buy the potentially fourth version of the same game, something you might already own on mobile, consoles, and the PC - and now, VR.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst looks like utter crap on the Xbox One, but on the PC? It looks pretty damn good, especially cranked up to 4K, thanks to some screenshots from DSOGaming.

The site ran the closed beta of Mirror's Edge Catalyst at 4K, where they note that VRAM limitations happen at 4K, with the game requiring more than 6GB of framebuffer. At 1080p, the site reports that they were hitting a minimum framerate of 70FPS on Ultra settings on their GeForce GTX 690.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is using more of our CPU cores too, thanks to the Frostbite 3 engine scaling across multiple CPU threads more efficiently. There aren't many graphics options to tweak according to DSOGaming, with distance textures "kind of low-res". To finish, the site says that Mirror's Edge Catalyst "looks and play beautifully on the PC, even in its current beta state".

AMD is days away from pushing its Radeon Pro Duo into the wild, its first dual-GPU video card since the infamous Radeon R9 295X2. The press slides are now out - even before I received them (thanks, AMD...) and now we know the official specs - even though we kinda knew that from the constant flow of leaks on the Radeon Pro Duo.

The Radeon Pro Duo features 2 x Fiji XT cores built on the 28nm process, the same GPU powering the Radeon R9 Fury X. We have 4096 stream processors, so with two GPUs we have a total of 8192 stream processors on the Radeon Pro Duo. This is joined by 256 TMUs per GPU (512 TMUs in total) and 64 ROPs per GPU (128 ROPs total). This provides the dual-GPU video card with an insane 16.4 TFLOPs of performance, which is a huge jump on the 8.6 TFLOPs of compute performance from the R9 Fury X.

The GPUs are clocked at 1GHz, while the 4GB of HBM1 per GPU (8GB HBM1 total) is clocked at 500MHz, and with its 4096-bit memory bus, we have 1024GB/sec of memory bandwidth. There's a 350W TDP on the card, which is not too bad at all considering the R9 Fury X has a 275W TDP, while the price is a huge $1499. This isn't a card for gamers wanting to hit 1080p 60FPS, or even 4K gamers - this is a card for the serious, insane enthusiasts who want 4K 60FPS constant, or multi-monitor/VR gamers.

The researchers at CERN have just released an insane 300TB of data from the Large Hadron Collider, with the data itself from 2011.

A physicist who works on the Compact Muon Solenoid detector, Kati Lassila-Perini explains: "Once we've exhausted our exploration of the data, we see no reason not to make them available publicly. The benefits are numerous, from inspiring high school students to the training of the particle physicists of tomorrow. And personally, as CMS's data preservation coordinator, this is a crucial part of ensuring the long-term availability of our research data".

The raw data from the detectors, as well as the "derived" data sets can be used with tools released by CERN. There's even an entire CERN Linux environment, where you can boot up a virtual machine and start playing with scripts and apps.

We have been all over DOOM news for the last few months, with our recent stories like the PC version of DOOM being neglected, and the game having the 'trademark id Tech texture streaming issues' on consoles. I don't know how Bethesda and id Software let this happen, but all developers are doing it these days.

Well, on the /r/pcmasterrace subreddit, user 'alkavan' asked "Hey, seriously, can someone actually explain to me what's wrong with the new DOOM? I pre-ordered it but for nice price with b-day discount voucher on GMG. And of-course I would never per-order any game now days, but in 1993 when I actually met a computer DOOM, then DOOM II were one of the few, first games I ever saw on PC. I just had to as a tribute. So am I gonna get lots of COD crap here? fuck (Will mention, I never actually played any modern COD game except first and second one)".

'Laxcc' replied with a golden reply, saying: "People expected fast skillful classic arena multiplayer shooter for PC, they got slow generic console multiplayer shooter clone with grind shit like loadouts etc..". '8oD' replied, adding "You level up, FFS" which is an obviously gameplay trait in today's games. 'Laxcc' replied back, adding: "Leveling/Unlocking etc. in shooters is a shitty feature. If game is good it does not need it. Its a shi**y crutch for nolifers to gain advantage just because they farmed first days by playing 3 days stright without sleep so they can stomp people without requiring player skill or training".

Project Quantum is one of the coolest things AMD has ever shown off, but it was never delivered to market. Project Quantum and an insane amount of power inside of its small, and super-unique chassis - but used an Intel CPU at the time, alongside the dual Fiji GPU when it was debuted at E3 2015.

But with AMD's next-gen Zen CPU architecture nearly here, the company can move away from using its competitors' faster CPUs, with one of its own. According to the latest rumors, AMD postponed the release of Project Quantum for two reasons.

First, an "internal decision to market the Radeon Duo Pro, not as a purely gaming product, but as a professional high performance solution". Second; "The lack of a high performance AMD CPU and Motherboard solution (the original Project Quantum uses an AsRock Motherboard) that could accompany the powerful dual GPU".

While early Oculus Rift adopters wait in uncertain limbo for shipping confirmations, retailers have ample supplies of Oculus Rift PC bundles and have started to ship orders.

Even if you bought an Oculus Rift just minutes after pre-orders went live, everyday consumers can actually get a Rift before you. Since retailers like the Microsoft Store and BestBuy secured their Rift stock early on, buyers can completely circumvent the massive line of frustrated early adopters by purchasing an Oculus Rift PC bundle.

"Placed order for Oculus Rift ASUS G11CD-WS51 bundle at Microsoft Store today morning. Received shipping notification about two hours later," reads a post on the Oculus Reddit. This isn't an isolated incident; the subreddit is full of similar cases, with early adopters chiming in on how they feel completely betrayed by the company. Some first-day pre-buyers have yet to be charged or given any kind of order updates on their Rifts.

UPDATE: The Persona Channel website has been hacked, and the apparent release date leak was fake. Sorry for the inconvenience. Persona 5's mysterious countdown timer is still up, and we should still get a major update on May 5.

Original story is as follows.

Persona 5 will see a simultaneous release in July according to the official Persona Channel website.

At a PAX East panel, Gearbox Software confirmed it will begin development on Borderlands 3 once Battleborn and all its accompanying DLC packs are completely finished.

"It's no secret, obviously there's going to be another Borderlands," Gearbox's Randy Pitchford said during the panel. "We don't even know if we're going to call it Borderlands 3. We could call it Borderlands 4 for all we know." Mike Neumann will be the lead writer for Borderlands 3, taking the mantle from Anthony Burch, and Scott Kester will helm art direction.

Pitchford went on to tease that we could see Borderlands 3 easter eggs in Battleborn. "There's already a lot of Borderlands easter eggs in Battleborn, but they're all from previous Borderlands games. So what if we put easter eggs for future stuff in the DLC?"

CD Projekt RED drops a new batch of Witcher 3: Blood and Wine screenshots, showing even more of Toussiant's enchanting world.

Blood and Wine isn't only the last DLC pack for The Witcher 3, but it also concludes the story of Geralt of Rivia. In order to send off the legendary witcher out with a bang, CD Projekt RED promises that Blood and Wine will be "even better than the main game". Considering how magnificent Witcher 3 already is, this is a pretty hefty claim.

"I can already tell you Blood and Wine is a fascinating story, with every sort of twist and turn you'd expect from our writers," CD Projekt RED's Marcin Momot said in a new update. "Toussaint, the new realm we're creating for the expansion, is unlike anything you've seen in Wild Hunt - carefree and colorful, but your gut never stops telling you that there's some real dark stuff happening underneath all that."

According to a leaked post on Steam's official developer forums, Valve will start accepting Bitcoin crytocurrency as a valid payment option for purchases on the digital storefront.

"We are excited to announce that Steam is going to start accepting payments via bitcoin," Valve wrote on the leaked forum post. "We're using an external payment provider to process bitcoin payments to help partners reach more customers on Steam. Bitcoin is becoming an increasingly popular online payment method in some countries, and we're enabling a system that insulates partners from risk and volatility while still providing value to the end customer."

The way it works is Valve will charge users like normal, and the third-party payment provider then converts the charged currency into bitcoin based on a daily currency-to-bitcoin exchange rate. The provider keeps the bitcoin and pays Valve the traditional currency value. This way Valve never holds any bitcoin, and the provider essentially converts and exchanges money for bitcoin.

AMD has had a great week, topping it off with a huge 52% rise in stock to $3.99. This is the highest gain in a single day since AMD stock was listed, all the way back in 1979.

For the day, AMD was the biggest gainer and the most active stock on the NASDAQ exchange - with 140 million AMD shares traded. This is 10x the 50-day average of 12 million or so. Why the sudden and huge spike in AMD shares? The company just landed a joint venture deal to sell high performance enterprise x86 processors to the Chinese market.

This move will see AMD compete with Intel on a grander scale, as it has AMD providing the technical knowledge, while THATIC provides the resources, and financial support. The licensing deal should see AMD secure $293 million, plus royalties.

After seven years of development, Blizzard cancelled its ambitious Project Titan MMO in 2014. Now Blizzard dev Jeff Kaplan sheds some light on why Titan collapsed, and how the "devastating failure" inspired the team to create Overwatch.

"You had a really amazing group that was working on Titan. They were really talented individuals, but we failed horrifically in every way ... In every way that a project can fail. It was devastating," Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan said in a recent interview with GameSpot.

"You had these people who either came from other companies or from within Blizzard, and were used to working on games that were very successful like a World of Warcraft, for example. To go through such a complete and utter failure is very hard for people who are used to experiencing success."

The last time we reported on the GPU market share, NVIDIA dominated with 82% of the dGPU market in November 2015.

During AMD's Q4 2015 earnings call, company CEO Lisa Su said: "We have clear opportunities to regain GPU share in 2016 based on the performance per watt of our new GPUs and software leadership". AMD has teased just a few hours ago that their Polaris 10 will be for the gaming PC and high-end notebook market, while the Polaris 11 will find its way into standard notebooks.

Now, for AMD to regain GPU market share, it would have to hit NVIDIA where it hurts: the mainstream video card market. This is the GeForce GTX 950/GTX 960 and GTX 970 markets - where AMD didn't do too much with the Radeon 300 series last year. The Radeon 300 series were mostly rebrands, but the new Polaris 10-based Radeon 400 series should be something completely different.

While the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are the current flagship smartphones from Apple, we're months away from the purported iPhone 7 - and years away from the iPhone 8. That however, doesn't stop the rumor mill from spinning out rumors on the iPhone 8.

The iPhone 8 will reportedly feature a system-on-chip on the 7nm process, which should deliver a huge jump in performance, and hopefully, battery life. The iPhone 8 will reportedly feature wireless charging, and the lack of the TouchID-based home button.

Barclay's analyst Mark Moskowitz has said that there might not be an 'S' cycle next year, with Apple skipping the 'S' series smartphone and jumping directly from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 8. Moskowitz said: "Silver lining - there might be no "S" cycle in C2017. Our conversations with industry participants suggest Apple could skip the "S" cycle next year and instead jump to IP8. The jump could showcase major form factor changes, including OLED, no home button, and wireless charging. In our view, these potential changes could drive a mega cycle, underpinning our C2017 iPhone unit growth estimate of 10.3%, vs. 6.3% previously".

Upcoming PS4-exclusive RPG Horizon: Zero Dawn may be delayed into 2017 if an industry insider can be believed.

It's practically a tradition in the games industry today for high-profile titles to get delayed, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that Guerrilla Games' post-apocalyptic RPG Horizon: Zero Dawn may not release in 2016. According to renowned industry insider Shinobi602 will be delayed into 2017, with a release on Sony's new PlayStation Neo console (PS4K/PS4.5).

"Well...Horizon: Zero Dawn's getting delayed to early 2017 from what I'm told. Going to look splendid on PS4k though," reads Shinobi602's Tweet.

We now have a better idea of what AMD's next-gen Polaris architecture will be when it arrives on video cards next month, thanks to AMD's recent press release.

There's on specific paragraph that's worth discussing, where AMD said: "AMD demonstrated its "Polaris" 10 and 11 next-generation GPUs, with Polaris 11 targeting the notebook market and "Polaris" 10 aimed at the mainstream desktop and high-end gaming notebook segment. "Polaris" architecture-based GPUs are expected to deliver a 2x performance per watt improvement over current generation products and are designed for intensive workloads including 4K video playback and virtual reality (VR)".

But as VideoCardz notes, we need to focus on the word 'mainstream'. AMD has stamped the word 'mainstream' onto everything between casual and enthusiast segments, where back in 2014, mainstream was associated with the Radeon R7 260.

Every single day seems to bring something new to the table when it comes to next-gen GPUs, with today being no exception - in the last 14 hours or so, we've gotten our first look at the GP104.

NVIDIA's GP104 GPU is the Pascal-based consumer GeForce GPU, which will power the upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 video cards. The GP104 is made on the 16nm FinFET process, but it looks like the GP104 will power two very different video cards.

The GeForce GTX 1080 is expected to arrive with 8GB of GDDR5X, while its sibling in the GTX 1070 will reportedly sport 8GB of GDDR5 - both with 256-bit memory buses. The GTX 1080 with its 8GB of GDDR5X will have it clocked at 2GHz (8GHz effective), an increase from the 7GHz effective speeds on the current GDDR5-based offerings.

The PC version of DOOM wasn't exactly the shining example of graphics tech that it should have been, and that we expect from id Software. They're usually the paragon of PC gaming, advancing graphics tech above and beyond the norm. Recently it seems they've fallen to the wayside and been surpassed by the likes of Crytek and others. id Software hasn't forgotten us PC gamers it seems, they just didn't design the beta to be a showcase of the final graphical specs.

A new blog post by id Software tells us to not fret, because they're just as much PC gamers as they once were, and as we are. "PC gaming is in our DNA here at id. Just like so many of you, we also love to tinker with settings to get the exact experience we want - and every ounce of performance our systems can handle." Robert Duffy, the chief technology officer, said in the post. That being said, the final build will be full of the options that we tend to want and enjoy. And the framerate will be uncapped. They detailed the advanced settings that we'll get to play with, and it's quite extensive.

We're told to expect much more information about the underpinnings of idTech 6. This stuff is really fascinating, and it'll be great to see how the rendering pipeline works and see how, or why, the streaming texture issue happened and how they plan on fixing it for the PC. And to reiterate for everyone (myself included): the framerate won't be locked on PC at launch.