Latest News - Page 2475

AMD laid out its GPU architecture roadmap through to 2019 at its huge Capsaicin event during the Game Developers Conference, but now we're hearing rumbles on its exciting new Vega GPU - due out in 2017.

Vega will reportedly rock a huge 4096 stream processors based on the Greenland GPU, with improvements in the way of the GCN 4.0 architecture, which are included in the IP v9.0 generation of graphics chips under development from AMD.

We should expect Vega 10 to be AMD's flagship product from the Greenland GPU era - rocking somewhere between 15-18 billion transistors, and the exciting new HBM2 technology which offers up to 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth. Vega looks like it'll be fighting against NVIDIA's compute-powerful GP100 (the Pascal-based successor to the GTX Titan X and GTX 980 Ti) - as Vega is the only HBM2-powered card on AMD's roadmap for 2017.

Oculus has just starting shipping the initial wave of Oculus Rift VR headsets, but Palmer Luckey had a big surprise in store for the very first Rift recipient.

As a means of saying "thanks for believing in us," Oculus founder Palmer Luckey traveled all the way to Alaska to personally hand-deliver the very first Oculus Rift VR headset. The recipient, a software dev named Ross Martin, was the very first person to pre-order the Rift, and is now the first person in the world to own a consumer-ready Rift headset. The HMD's box has been signed by Luckey, Michael Antonov, Brenden Iribe, and Nate Mitchell, turning it into an instant collector's item.

Luckey chronicled the entire adventure on Facebook (of course), saying: "This is incredible. I've been working on the Rift for so long, and you're the first person to actually get one. It's kinda like me taking all that work and handing it off to you, so you have to make sure you have fun with it!"

David Hayter, the immortal voice of Metal Gear Solid's legendary Snake, recently revealed what it was like to work with Hideo Kojima and Konami. And the results aren't so pretty.

Just about every MGS fan thought that David Hayter and Hideo Kojima were best buds, but Hayter revealed that Kojima actually tried to replace him on a separate occasion--way before Hayter was replaced by Keifer Sutherland. "I've got no particular love for Kojima," Hayter said, affirming he won't work with the beloved dev on his new game.

In a recent podcast interview with Game Informer, Hayter says that Hideo Kojima originally wanted Kurt Russell to voice Snake in 2004's Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Snake's original character was based on a number of heroic archetypes including Snake Plisskin, portrayed by Kurt Russell played in the iconic Escape from New York. Hayter says that he was forced to re-audition for his role as Snake, even when Russell passed on the opportunity.

William Shatner is an icon in science fiction, not the least because of his role in one of the largest franchises in Sci-Fi history. He's now lent his voice talent to the developers at Elite: Dangerous for a high-quality voice pack that'll replace the already gentle and rather marvelous voice inside the game. Now we can hear Captain Kirk himself narrate our journey, courtesy of HCS voicepacks.

Orion is more than just replacing the in-game ship voice with his commanding presence, but they've also created an in-game tour, of sorts, which is narrated by William Shatner while you go to certain waypoints throughout the galaxy. He's contributed over 1300 different phrases to replace the original voice. This voice pack is officially endorsed by Frontier Developments and a completely legal and authorized mod to put into your game. William Shatner has signed a few posters and his new book that, if you pre-order by April 8th, you'll be entered into a drawing to win. His new book Leonard is part of the prize pool and is a tribute to his co-star, colleague and friend Leonard Nimoy. Check it out, it's a fascinating voice-over that adds a new element, if not terribly exciting, that's quite unique to the game. If anything it can add something from your favorite Sci-Fi franchise to it. When Leonard Nimoy himself narrated portions of Star Trek Online it was a wonderful surprise as his voice lives on in ways that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

Virtuix is going in a different direction in raising funds for 2016, with the VR locomotion company launching its mini-IPO round of funding, allowing the general public to invest in the company and its future. Within the first 24 hours, Virtuix raised an impressive $2.5 million.

The $2.5 million raised happened thanks to over 500 private investors, and 5 institutional investors. Virtuix stock is available for $2.33 per share, with the company planning on expanding its team, and continuing to build VR motion technologies. Right now, the Virtuix Omni can be purchased, allowing people to strap on a special pair of shoes, stand on the Omni with the harness attached, and enjoy a huge physical additional to the virtual world.

Virtuix founder and CEO, Jan Goetgeluk talked about the mini-IPO funding round: "We are thrilled to see the overwhelming response to our stock offering. We are excited that our community can now participate in our financial future and be part of the next chapter of our story".

Amazon surprised the world with its impressive Echo device, a personal voice assistant that has made waves - so much so, that Google is reportedly working on a device very similar, according to The Verge.

Considering Google owns connected thermostat and smoke detector company Nest, it will most likely leverage its $3.2 billion acquisition to better combat the Amazon Echo. The rumors have Nest wanting to work on an Echo-like product, but Google dismissed the idea, as it was working on its own. Nest has been struggling to expand on its product line since Google acquired the company in early 2014.

Google making an Echo-like product makes total sense, especially with its powerful Google Now service - involving Nest into this, would make sense - so I don't understand why this wouldn't happen. Google, what's going on?

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is finally here, with the movie beating both The Dark Knight and The Avengers at the box office on Thursday night.

During its preview debut on Thursday, Batman v Superman made $27.7 million at the domestic box office - beating out Age of Ultron which pulled in $27.6 million last year. It also beat The Dark Night, which made $18.5 million during its preview screenings. The all-time record for Thursday night screenings still goes to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which commanded a huge $57 million during its Thursday night screening.

Batman v Superman is still aiming at around $160 million for its opening weekend, even through a sea of negative reviews. It's already scooped up $7 million overseas, as it is flooding international markets. I've seen it and simply wasn't a fan - even after enjoying Man of Steel - seeing it a second time with the disappointment behind me had a more enjoyable feel - but it is definitely very messy with its editing, and its characters are constantly in impossible situations - which feels super forced. The last third of the movie however, is pretty much directly out of the comic book - which is awesome.

With only a few days until the Oculus Rift starts shipping to consumers, the VR company has announced that its SDK for the Rift now supports Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW). It might not sound like much, but it actually improves the VR experience.

ATW renders a scene before it reaches your eyes, but also handles head movement and shifts by your head, before the Rift renders it to your eyes. Thanks to ATW, we have reduced latency, smoother movements and improved efficiency. Oculus says that ATW reduces judder (in the form of shaking and vibration) that is produced when a frame is displayed out of sync, because the hardware wasn't capable of rendering the frame quick enough.

Oculus teamed with Microsoft, NVIDIA and AMD to make the best of GPU preemption (rendering a scene before it's required), to its new SDK. Our Rift should ship on March 28, so expect a constant flow of VR-related content starting in April.

It was only a matter of time before someone took advantage of the SteamVR interface and brought in a more interactive, and familiar, background. Surreal nature or space photos are great, but didn't we invent VR as a stopgap to a full-on holodeck?

The SteamVR interface allows you to interact completely inside the headset, and you've got the option of changing the grid background to something more pleasing, such as a 360-degree view of London, or New York, or even the Milky Way. But why wouldn't you want to recreate something more iconic and appropriate to the technology. Now all we need is a way to create a shimmering effect into your game as it loads.

The holodeck is nothing more than the usual black backdrop with yellow markers, but it's the simplicity that makes it so fun, that's what the holodeck is, after all. You can experience it yourself if you have any sort of VR device that's compatible with Steam, right here.

If you lack cooking skills but have $174, Pantelligent's smart frying pan is here to help you out. It utilizes the power of Bluetooth, an app, and a temperature sensor to tell you when to flip food or take it off the pan, as well as how to cook it.

With eggs for example, it tells you to stir them around in the pan instead of whisking them before dropping them in for fluffier eggs (the more you know).

Popular Mechanics didn't have any complaints about its results with eggs, but when it followed the instructions for cooking fish, it came out overcooked and dry. So, consider it a novel, sometimes useful but not perfect device.

Razer is going back to the basics with their newest line of keyboards, taking away the bells and whistles that drive up the cost of their normal Blackwidow line with the new Blackwidow X. Simplicity doesn't mean cheap, just less expensive with the same (improved) manufacturing techniques.

The new keyboards are part of a whole new line that's attempting to break into all manner of price points for mechanical keyboards by stripping away the top-plate and the accessory buttons that come with it. The exposed metal plate underneath is actually quite attractive, with a similar look to Corsair's keyboards. This new line is focusing on bringing the cost of Razer's keyboards, with their own designed switch, down to more reasonable levels. This one is full-sized, with numpad, and has Razer's Green switch, with a 50g actuation force requirement and a shorter breaking point. They're durable to up to 80 million clicks and each individual key is individually programmable to show 16.8 million different colors. You can find it for $159.99.

There's always some question of quality surrounding Razer. I myself have had bad luck in regards to Razer products failing, however, they're very adamant about increasing their quality control and making sure their manufacturing processes are far better than they were in the past. They're recognizing the shortcomings from the past. At E3 last year, I was able to see some of the different mechanisms they use to test their new switches, and they certainly put them through a torture test to ensure they work far more reliably than in the past. I'm currently investigating the durability of the Razer Blackwidow Chroma Tournament (tenkeyless) edition by not holding back on my clicking.

In January 2014, the Netflix catalogue boasted 6,494 movies and 1,609 TV shows. As of March 2016, it's dropped to 4,335 movies and 1,197 TV shows -- a 31.7 percent drop in a little over two years.

The company decided recently to sign deals with global rights only, which no doubt has increased its efficiency too, but with a significant impact on the amount of content it has available.

Some speculate the decline is also due to increased rights pricing caused by added competition from services like Amazon Prime. Whether this is true or not, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said last May that original programming -- like House of Cards -- "has been more efficient dollar for dollar" than licensed content and that "our appetite has only grown... we're moving (spending) from efficient to super-efficient."

Street Fighter V was marred by a terrible launch, with network performance issues and a lack of available content that was a bit off-putting to even the hardcore of fans. We were promised a story-mode that didn't quite materialize into the grand adventure we were told we'd get. It didn't even have the most basic of tutorials to tell the novice how to fight in the new Unreal engined game.

The first patch coming is completely free and will drop on March 28th. This adds a new Challenge Mode, a much needed alternative way to play, and tutorials that demonstrate some of the basic, yet essential components of beating up your friends in-game. The latter will culminate in a trial that's designed to test all of your knowledge. The reward is surviving, for what it's worth. These seem like basic components that should be included from the get-go, but we're consoled by the fact that the underlying structure and graphics were solid when it was released.

That second patch is coming on the 30th and is designed to add more content. Alex, a new playable character, is being added into the mix, someone who was very well-liked back in Street Fighter III. This too will be free, though you'll have to buy the right to use the new character with the in-game currency, Zenny, or your own cash. That system isn't quite ready for primetime, however, but you can "trial" him for free in the meantime. Capcom plans on fully implementing that at a later date, though quite soon.

The much-hyped iOS 9.3 update hasn't gone smoothly on older devices (specifically, the iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, and 5S; and the iPad 2, third- and fourth-generation Retina iPads, and the iPad Air), preventing users who forget their Apple ID passwords from activating their devices.

As such, they've pulled the update and in the meantime, they advise you try to reset your password or disable the Activation Lock feature via iCloud.com or by connecting your device to a computer with iTunes. Another option is to downgrade to 9.2.1 by clicking Update or if that fails, Restore, but be warned: this may erase your data.

A new version of the update has been released for the iPad 2, so users should be good to go on that front. The rest of you will be taken care of "in the next few days."

Yesterday, the graphics options for the PC version of Quantum Break were leaked. While the list was long and impressive, it was missing a few key items: FOV, V-Sync, and anti-aliasing. Well, now developer Remedy has officially unveiled the options, which are identical to the leaked ones except for a few appreciable additions: Graphics Preset, Lock to 30 FPS, and Anti-Aliasing.

Graphics Preset of course lets you be lazy and quickly turn down multiple settings with one toggle for better performance with minimal effort. Lock to 30 FPS means the game won't be capped at 30 FPS after all (unless you want it to be), which is great news. As for why there's no 60 FPS lock, we realize now that as this is a Windows Store game, this means the game will have V-Sync and therefore a 60 FPS lock by default. Finally, anti-aliasing is the much needed inclusion, especially as the game seems to offer only the taxing MSAA. A more performance-friendly option like SMAA or FXAA would be very welcome, but it's sure better than nothing.

While not pictured here, Remedy confirms 4K support.

If you were hoping to get into the action as soon as possible, there may be a few hurdles that prevent the fun from being, well, too much fun. Unless you can read Japanese and are okay with having to go it alone for those quests initially.

It's possible to use an exploit or "loophole", to download Dark Souls III via the Japanese Xbox Store, and it's even in English, except for the menus, but it actually works. That's not the worst problem, though the most persistent until it comes out in NA and you swap out downloads. The other issue is that the multiplayer portion hasn't quite been finished just yet, which could pose a problem for the less experienced of fighters our there.

That issue will be resolved eventually, but the prospect of being able to partner up with your friends to take on the more difficult bosses was particularly tantalizing. It's a hard game, you need your friends to survive in some cases. There'll be a day one patch that'll deliver further optimizations to the game as well as adding in the now missing multiplayer and cooperative aspect, though you'll have to wait until April 12th for that.

The more I see Doom in action, the more I realized just how much I've missed its bloody carnage. The latest footage shows off a tasty look at the kind of fast-paced mayhem you'll be able to wreak in multiplayer, and gives us a glimpse at the coveted BFG in action.

Bethsoft recently showed off all of Doom's multiplayer modes, and now we get a fresh look at the kinds of weapons and powerups we can expect to wield on the hellish arena.

The new footage teases the different kinds of playable demons available in the Evolve-esque Demon Mode like the ferocious Hell Baron or the ultra-quick Prowler. Then there's powerups--Doom wouldn't be Doom without powerups. This time around we can expect full camo and a brutal one-shot kill powerup, plus two unrevealed boosters. Last but not least is the immensely satisfying power weapons: turn enemies into slabs of sliced meat with the chainsaw, or annihilate them on an atomic level with the BFG.

Along with Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare is working on a secret new IP--and both of them are looking "stunning".

According to BioWare design and art dev Alistair McNally, the studio's mysterious unannounced IP is currently in a playable state, proving the devs are making significant strides in the new game. While the gaming community scratches their heads trying to figure out the new IP, McNally actually revealed it at GDC 2016--although in a subtle way that no one noticed.

So what exactly is BioWare cooking up? Thanks to a recent job listing, the new secret IP isn't so secret. BioWare is hiring a new server engineer to create a backend for a its new IP, and mentions "extensive online components". So we could be looking at a MMORPG of some sort, but since it's a new IP, it won't be set in existing Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or Star Wars universes. Check out the Secret IP thread on the BioWare forums for more tidbits.

Final Fantasy XV is a treat on the eyes, with the wildly stylized hair and well-designed backdrops. But being a graphical showcase of what Square Enix is capable of producing as the primary developer also means that it has the potential of running a bit slower. But considering the genre and the type of action on screen, the targeted framerate will be 30FPS, for that cinematic feel, and because it's probably all the consoles can manage at higher resolutions.

That's at least their objective. At the moment, the game sometimes dips below that target, but they believe that further optimizations can help keep things well within 30FPS with no trouble. It's possible, however, that they may not be able to hit that target enough of the time for it to be viable, in which they might have to do something else completely to satiate fans. The final resolution that it'll be running hasn't been revealed yet, but it's looking more likely that it won't be 1080P if they want to hit that 30FPS target.

The game engine they're using, the Luminous Studio engine, is a very capable and impressive piece of technology. It's been the underlying engine that underpinned the Witch Chapter 0 [cry] demo that was shown off at Microsoft BUILD last year, with four Titan X's rendering a scene filled with 8Kx8K textures and nearly 63 million polygons. One Titan X was only able to push it to 35.9FPS, so imagine how even a less potent version of the engine would fair on the hardware inside the Xbox One and the PS4. Even a mere 5 million polygons per frame is still impressive, and not easy to render considering the other effects that are put on top of that. It'll be interesting to see how well it runs when it's finally released. Of course we'll have a performance analysis as soon as is feasible on the PC.

Like its JRPG predecessors, Final Fantasy 15 will be a pretty meaty game with plenty of content to chew on.

In a recent livestream with Famitsu, Square Enix game director Hajime Tabata confirmed that Final Fantasy 15's main story will take about 50 hours to beat. This is up from the original 40-hour estimate, with Tabata citing that the final game has "more volume" than originally projected.

Tabata continues by saying Final Fantasy 15's frame rate hasn't been fully optimized just yet. The devs are targeting 30FPS for the final release, but the current build often breaks the 30FPS threshold. Square Enix expects to lock down the frame rate before the game goes gold, but if they're unable to hit a consistent 30FPS Tabata affirms the studio will "do something different".