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Uncharted 4 smashes Halo 5 in first week sales with 2.7 million units

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 23, 2016 2:26 PM CDT

Uncharted 4 is a smashing success for Sony and Naughty Dog, selling an incredible 2.7 million global units in its first week. The game now holds the mantle as the fastest-selling first-party Sony game in North America.

Uncharted 4 smashes Halo 5 in first week sales with 2.7 million units

Sony broke the amazing sale figures on the PlayStation Blog, and the company is understandably peacocking the feat to the rest of the gaming world. Uncharted 4's 2.7 million sales are actual "sell-through" sales, meaning 2.7 million people across the globe actually bought the game digitally or on disc. After a bit of quick math we see Uncharted 4 (just the game, mind you) generated an insane $172.8 million in its first week.

But wait, there's more: Uncharted 4's sale figures reportedly smash the first-week sales figures of Halo 5, despite Microsoft's claims that Halo 5 sold $400 million worth of global software and hardware sales during its launch week.

Continue reading: Uncharted 4 smashes Halo 5 in first week sales with 2.7 million units (full post)

Anniversary Update will let Windows 10 run on more devices

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | May 23, 2016 1:37 PM CDT

Microsoft has changed the hardware requirements of Windows 10 in light of the looming Anniversary Update. On the whole, these are for the better, allowing a wider range of devices to use the operating system.

Once the update is live, Windows 10 Mobile devices up to 9'' will be able to run it (versus the previous 7.99''), whereas the desktop version can be installed on devices with screens as small as 7'' (down from 8'').

RAM requirements are now up for 32-bit versions of the OS: 2GB versus the previous 1GB. As for storage, that's now at 16GB and 20GB for 32-bit and 64-bit devices, respectively.

Continue reading: Anniversary Update will let Windows 10 run on more devices (full post)

Homefront: The Revolution's CPU scaling is bugged

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 23, 2016 12:28 PM CDT

Homefront: The Revolution has been suffering from performance issues on both console and PC. On PC at least, it turns out a major factor in this is uneven CPU core utilization; according to DSOGaming's testing, the game puts a lot of stress on one core while others are left to lag behind, dragging framerate down considerably.

To get around it, do the following after booting the game: Alt-Tab > Task Manager > Details tab > right-click Homefront > Set affinity > disable all threads > re-enable all threads. Once complete, you should notice an approximately 25 FPS boost.

Unfortunately, you'll likely have to do this every time you play the game, so you may just want to wait for patches, which are on the way.

Continue reading: Homefront: The Revolution's CPU scaling is bugged (full post)

Spotify matches Apple Music family plan pricing

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | May 23, 2016 11:39 AM CDT

Apple Music has been growing thanks in part to its $14.99/mo family plan, and Spotify has taken notice. As of today, the Swedish streaming service offers the same plan except it does Apple one better and supports up to six people instead of five.

At last count, Apple Music sat at 13 million subscribers (up two million over the previous count), while Spotify sat at 30 million.

If Apple's service continues to pick up Steam, both services should improve all the more for the competition, which is great news for users.

Continue reading: Spotify matches Apple Music family plan pricing (full post)

Final Fantasy X/X-2 mod improves texture quality

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 23, 2016 10:21 AM CDT

The game just keeps getting better: first there was the Japanese voices, English subtitles mod for Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, and now there's a texture improvement mod.

Created by modder Fraggoso with the use of Kalaiden's also sweet Untitled Project X mod, this one reworks all the game's low-resolution textures to bring them up to par with the rest of a given scene. To compare the work, head here and here (likely the best example) and mouse over and under the different shots. While Square Enix's remastering is fine work, the mod shows there was still significant room for improvement.

Hit the source for downloads and installation instructions.

Continue reading: Final Fantasy X/X-2 mod improves texture quality (full post)

Colorful teams with Bykski for the new GeForce GTX 1080 water block

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | May 23, 2016 9:39 AM CDT

NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition is one of the best video cards ever made, but it'll be even better when it's overclocked to its yet unknown limits. In blows Colorful with news that their new GTX 1080 Founders Edition water block is coming soon, with the company teaming up with Chinese water block manufacturer Bykski.

Their new water block is the first to market with full coverage, and is designed exclusively for the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. The company has teased its new series of iGame-powered GeForce GTX 1080 cards, that will be announced after May 27. The new Colorful GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition will be available soon for $699, while the new Bykski water block will be priced at $100.

Continue reading: Colorful teams with Bykski for the new GeForce GTX 1080 water block (full post)

The custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards will be priced at less than $699

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | May 23, 2016 8:41 AM CDT

We've been wondering what cost the custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards will be, with NVIDIA stating the lowest will cost $599, while their GTX 1080 Founders Edition card costing $699. Well, according to a recent Colorful press release, Colorful's "custom-designed GTX 1080 video cards" will "retail below the [price of] the GTX 1080 Founders Edition".

With the cost of the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition from NVIDIA set at $699, this means we should see a varying cost between $599-$699 for the overclocked GeForce GTX 1080 cards. That might sound like news, but think about the cost. The GTX 1080 costs $599, but the Founders Edition which is capable of over 2GHz on its new 16nm-based GP104 GPU, so what will custom cards be clocked up to if something with a single fan and 1x 8-pin PCIe power is already the best card on the market?

The custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards should, in theory, be faster than the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. But, it looks like they'll be priced cheaper than the Founders Edition, which is - well, great? NVIDIA loses out because most gamers and enthusiasts will buy a custom GeForce GTX 1080, while system builders and more professional customers will find comfort in the new NVIDIA reference design GTX 1080 in the form of the Founders Edition.

Continue reading: The custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards will be priced at less than $699 (full post)

AMD's next-gen Zen APUs reportedly 50% faster than their predecessor

Anthony Garreffa | Processors | May 23, 2016 8:27 AM CDT

AMD is ramping up for quite a large Computex 2016, with the big reveal of the next-gen Polaris-based video cards, and then the exciting new Zen architecture on the CPU side of things. Well, it looks like the new Zen APUs will be exciting, with a purported 50% increase in performance than the previous Kaveri-based APUs.

AMD's new processors will arrive on the AM4 socket, with the flagship SKU offering 12 compute cores, with 4 of them Compute-based, while the rest will reside on the GPU side. The flagship APU will have 4 x CPU cores at 3.7GHz, with Turbo boosting it to 4.2GHz, with 2MB of L2 cache. On the GPU side, we'll have 8 x GCN 3.0-based compute units, with 512 streaming processors and a TDP of 65W. According to the latest leaks, AMD will have a low-power version that consumes 35W with a default clock of 2.9GHz and Turbo boost of up to 3.8GHz.

The performance tier SKU will be kicked down to 10 compute cores, with 4 dedicated to the compute side, and 6 to the graphics side. These chips will arrive in two different variants, with the highest APU hitting 3.5GHz and 3.8GHz on boost, while the 35W version will have a clock speed of 2.8GHz and boost of 3.5GHz. The budget ones will have 6 compute cores, at up to 3.5GHz and 3.8GHz on turbo, with 1MB of L2 cache. The graphics side has 4 compute units, and 256 GCN 3.0-based stream processors.

Continue reading: AMD's next-gen Zen APUs reportedly 50% faster than their predecessor (full post)

Don't be a hater - enter our 'Hateful Eight' Blu-ray giveaway now

Ben Gourlay | Contests & Giveaways | May 22, 2016 11:23 PM CDT

To celebrate this week's release of 'The Hateful Eight' on Blu-ray HD and DVD, we have ten Blu-ray copies to give away thanks to our friends at Roadshow Home Entertainment.

The 8th film by Quentin Tarantino. Six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as 'The Hangman', will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town's new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie's Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie's, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Demian Bichir), who's taking care of Minnie's while she's visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all...

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

Continue reading: Don't be a hater - enter our 'Hateful Eight' Blu-ray giveaway now (full post)

GIGABYTE teases next-gen X99 motherboards ahead of Computex 2016

Anthony Garreffa | Motherboards | May 22, 2016 4:32 AM CDT

With Computex 2016 a little over a week away, GIGABYTE is getting out and ahead of the competitors with a much bigger tease of its beautiful new X99 motherboards, with its new X99 motherboards that will be compatible with Intel's next-gen Broadwell-E processors.

GIGABYTE X99 Designare EX, X99 Ultra Gaming and X99 SLI Phoenix motherboards will have various features and abilities - with the biggest feature of them all being that they'll work with the upcoming Broadwell-E processors from Intel. We'll also have updated I/O connectivity, with the X99 Designare EX motherboard taking the new flagship X99 motherboard spot.

GIGABYTE's new X99 Designare EX motherboard is a larger E-ATX form factor, with 8+1 phase PWM power, that will help power the Broadwell-E processor and its socket through a required 8-pin power connector. There are 8 x DDR4 DIMMs, with the entire motherboard being covered with a large heat sink that will keep those temps low during those all-night gaming or benchmarking/overclocking sessions. GIGABYTE has adopted an awesome-looking blue/white theme on the X99 Designare EX motherboard, with some RGB LEDs and a new feature called Ambient Surround LED that will let users customize colors on specific parts of the motherboard.

Continue reading: GIGABYTE teases next-gen X99 motherboards ahead of Computex 2016 (full post)

NVIDIA's new Tesla M10 video card features 4 x GPUs, 32GB of RAM

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | May 22, 2016 2:42 AM CDT

NVIDIA has just unveiled their latest Tesla M10 video card, which crams a huge 4 x Maxwell-based GPUs onto the single PCB. The new Tegra M10 card isn't for normal, or even enthusiast gamers, but it's aimed at virtual PCs and virtual application workloads.

NVIDIA's new Tegra M10 has 4 x GM107 GPUs, with each core featuring 640 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR5 for a total of 2560 CUDA cores and 32GB of GDDR5. The four GPUs would normally suck up a considerable amount of power, but the Tesla M10 has a TDP of 225W, which is pretty amazing considering how much technology is crammed onto this card.

The card can support up to 64 x virtual GPU instances, and 28 x H.264 1080p 30FPS streams at once. Each user will have 512MB of VRAM, with the entire GPU filled with vGPU instances. If you've got 2 x Tesla M10 cards in your machine, then you can support 124 separate vGPU instances.

Continue reading: NVIDIA's new Tesla M10 video card features 4 x GPUs, 32GB of RAM (full post)

Impressive new 'Star Trek Beyond' trailer resets the course

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | May 21, 2016 7:06 PM CDT

Unlike the release of the initial teaser trailer which was derided by its fanbase and casuals alike, the latest trailer for this summer's 'Star Trek Beyond' has just been released, and it's a massive improvement which serves to reignite interest in the upcoming sci-fi film.

Starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, along with Zachary Quinto as Commander Spock, Simon Pegg as Scotty and Karl Urban as Bones, and Idris Elba as the big bad Krall, 'Beyond' is the third film in the J.J. Abrams multiverse and directed by Justin Lin.

'Star Trek Beyond" hits cinemas in 2D, 3D and IMAX from July 21.

Continue reading: Impressive new 'Star Trek Beyond' trailer resets the course (full post)

Fallout 4 DLC's volumetric fog is crippling FPS performance on PS4

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 21, 2016 12:04 PM CDT

Fallout 4's new Far Harbor DLC is causing major frame rate drops on PS4 thanks to dense environment lighting effects, and PS4 owners aren't happy.

Fallout 4 DLC's volumetric fog is crippling FPS performance on PS4

Fallout 4's new $25 DLC Far Harbor is putting a lot of console owners through hell. The DLC's intense volumetric fog and atmospheric lighting effects are the main source of the FPS drops, and PS4 owners have taken to Reddit to share their woes. Bethesda promised that Fallout 4 would hit 30 FPS on consoles, but PS4 owners are swearing that the fog triggers massive frame rate drops that "feel like 10-15 FPS", pretty much making the game feel quite torturous.

Far Harbor's fog isn't a cakewalk for PC, either. The fog can drop my frame rates down from smooth 60 FPS to ~41 FPS at 1080p Ultra with a Radeon R9 390. At 1440p, I hit about ~30FPS while in the fog.

Continue reading: Fallout 4 DLC's volumetric fog is crippling FPS performance on PS4 (full post)

GALAX begins its unique campaign for its GeForce GTX 1070/1080 line

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | May 21, 2016 9:48 AM CDT

GALAX has started its big push for its upcoming GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1080 cards, where it has used an interesting style of four strange figures as its marketing push.

The red guy in the hat is the new face of the GALAX GTX 1070 line, while the blue clown looking guy is going to be the face of the GTX 1080 series. We haven't heard what the other two guys will be used for, but we're sure it's going to be the GTX 1060. Earlier today, we reported on Inno3D's upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 cards, while we also reported on the mid-range GTX 1060 being a price/performance champion when it comes to VR gaming.

Continue reading: GALAX begins its unique campaign for its GeForce GTX 1070/1080 line (full post)

Inno3D teases their custom iChill GTX 1080 video card

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | May 21, 2016 8:33 AM CDT

The official GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition is a beast of a video card, but the AIB partners are cooking up some delicious alternatives, like the iChill GTX 1080 from Inno3D. This is on top of the news that the mobile GTX 1080M will be a beast, beating out the Titan X, and the mid-range GTX 1060 being a mainstream VR champion.

Inno3D's upcoming products based on the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 will feature a triple-fan cooling solution, with two LED stripes on either side of the fans. We could even see the two LED strips acting as GPU load or temperature indicators, and not just there 'just cos'.

Inno3D's iChill GTX 1080 will sport a custom board with a 6+8-pin PCIe setup, which will fly past that 120% TDP limit and really begin seeing the legs on the GP104 stretch. We should hopefully see Inno3D unveil its new video cards at Computex 2016.

Continue reading: Inno3D teases their custom iChill GTX 1080 video card (full post)

GeForce GTX 1060 will have 4-8GB RAM, will offer affordable VR gaming

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | May 21, 2016 7:30 AM CDT

We've just reported on the exciting promise of the GeForce GTX 1080M, offering Titan X level performance in a notebook, but what about the mid-range market? That's what the GTX 1060 will be for, as well as doubling as a price/performance VR monster.

Well, the GeForce GTX 1060 is expected to be unveiled in the near future, with the GP106-based card set to feature a 256-bit memory bus. The 256-bit memory bus will find itself with either 4GB or 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, which will handle most games thrown at it, including VR headsets. We could also expect NVIDIA to fill the bigger gap between the GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 with the GTX 1060 Ti, which would allow the company to possibly offer the GTX 1060 with 4GB of RAM, while the GTX 1060 Ti could have its framebuffer bumped to 8GB.

We should expect around 1280 CUDA cores on the GTX 1060, knocked down from the 1920 CUDA cores on the GTX 1070 and 2560 CUDA cores on the GTX 1080. The GTX 1060 will fight off the slew of mid-range Polaris cards that AMD is preparing for launch, so expect a huge battle in the mid-range graphics market from both NVIDIA and AMD in the coming months.

Continue reading: GeForce GTX 1060 will have 4-8GB RAM, will offer affordable VR gaming (full post)

NVIDIA rumored to launch GeForce GTX 1080M for notebooks at Computex

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | May 21, 2016 6:32 AM CDT

NVIDIA has been ramping up towards a big Computex 2016, but the news just got much more exciting, with rumors that the company will unleash its next-gen GeForce GTX 1080M graphics solution at the show. We already know that the GeForce GTX 1080 is the new king, but it looks like the GTX 1080M will be the new mobile king.

The GeForce GTX 1080M will reportedly be faster than the GTX Titan X, which sells for $999 and is a desktop video card, not a notebook solution. The new GTX 1080M has been spotted on the ASUS website, with the company teasing benchmarks for a gaming notebook that beats everything else on the market.

NVIDIA had a fantastic mobile solution with the desktop GTX 980 being unleashed into notebooks last year, but this new GTX 1080M is demolishing everything else in its path. It's faster than AMD's Radeon R9 Fury X, R9 295X2, and NVIDIA's own GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Titan X - oh, and I have mentioned already, it's a notebook part - not a desktop part, which makes it even more incredible. The GTX 1080M pushes a huge 20,811 in 3DMark 11, while the Titan X and R9 295X2 trail behind.

Continue reading: NVIDIA rumored to launch GeForce GTX 1080M for notebooks at Computex (full post)

Lost Nick Valentine in Fallout 4? Here's how to find him

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 21, 2016 5:08 AM CDT

Fallout 4's new Far Harbor DLC pretty much requires the use of Nick Valentine, the game's synth companion. But what happens if you can't find Nick? Before you start scouring the Wasteland looking for the gumshoe schweetheart, try these easy steps. NOTE: these steps are for PC players, as console players will still have to manually look around.

Lost Nick Valentine in Fallout 4? Here's how to find him

I was one of the many players who lost Nick Valentine. I did all the steps I'm about to show you, but they didn't work. Then I tried something different, and lo and behold, the synth was back in my digital life. It turns out at some point I had accidentally deleted Nick using the console commands, putting me in a pretty hairy situation. Thankfully it's an easy fix!

The first thing you want to do is pop up the console by pressing tilde (~) and then enter the following commands:

Continue reading: Lost Nick Valentine in Fallout 4? Here's how to find him (full post)

Homefront: The Revolution performance will be patched, says developer

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 20, 2016 4:25 PM CDT

Homefront: The Revolution launched this week to reports of performance issues on all platforms (although PC is said to suffer the least). Developer Dambuster Studios has acknowledged as such on its forums and noted patches to address the situation are forthcoming.

"Performance - particularly frame rate - is not currently where we want it to be, and we are working on additional patches to help address these issues and more," they write. "Patch notes per platform will be available on the community forums and on Steam when they go live."

Easing the sting some is the release of some free DLC today (new outfits and boosters), with some Resistance Mode mission DLC coming down the pipe next month, and even more over the next year or so.

Continue reading: Homefront: The Revolution performance will be patched, says developer (full post)

Vulkan support on its way to DOTA 2

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | May 20, 2016 2:43 PM CDT

Support for the much-celebrated Vulkan API is on its way to DOTA 2, according to AMD software developer Fletcher Dunn. You shouldn't have to wait long either: he says it will arrive "probably sometime next week." Hopefully, Dunn doesn't mean next week in Valve Time.

Don't know about Vulkan? It's a low-level programming API that effectively replaces OpenGL and Mantle, and allows programmers to squeeze quite a lot of extra performance out of their games, resulting in smoother gameplay for you. So there's that to look forward to. Unlike Mantle and DirectX 12, Vulkan is cross-platform, so it can be used industry-wide.

We should have an article up when the update goes live, so keep an eye out.

Continue reading: Vulkan support on its way to DOTA 2 (full post)

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