Latest News - Page 2486

EverQuest next was supposed to be a return to form for the MMORPG that started it all, but Daybreak Games has decided instead to just cancel the project.

The decision hasn't been made lightly, it seems, but it hasn't quite been meeting the expectations that have been set both internally, and by fans. That said, they thought it best to just cancel this project and to instead focus on somethign completely new.

"Watching EverQuest's ability to entertain and bring people together has inspired and humbled us. It's shaped our culture and has emboldened us to take aggressive risks with our game ideas and products." Russ Shanks, the president of Daybreak Games said. "When we decided to create the next chapter in the EverQuest journey, we didn't aim low. We set out to make something revolutionary." And so they'll have to take a bit more time to make sure that the next EverQuest meets the high standards that people have for such a prolific MMORPG.

Courtesy of PC port masters Nixxes Software, DirectX 12 support has arrived for Rise of the Tomb Raider in the game's fifth patch.

"For Rise of the Tomb Raider the largest gain DirectX 12 will give us is the ability to spread our CPU rendering work over all CPU cores, without introducing additional overhead," Jurjen Katsman, Studio Head at Nixxes Software, says of the patch. "This is especially important on 8-core CPUs like Intel i7's or many AMD FX processors."

"When using DirectX 11, in situations where the game is under heavy load - for example in the larger hubs of the game - the individual cores may not be able to feed a fast GPU like an NVIDIA GTX 980 or even NVIDIA GTX 970 quick enough. This means the game may not hit the desired frame-rate, requiring you to turn down settings that impact CPU performance. Even though the game can use all your CPU cores, the majority of the DirectX 11 related work is all happening on a single core. With DirectX 12 a lot of the work is spread over many cores, and the framerate of the game will run at can be much higher for the same settings."

Titanfall may have fallen off the charts fairly early, but it still has a healthy following of gamers with plenty of servers up and running. And now the 2014 mechanical shooter is making its way into EA's Origin Access Vault on the PC side.

It's already available on the Xbox One version of the Access Vault, but now you'll be able to enjoy Titanfall and all the expansions on the PC if you happen to subscribe to the monthly EA Access service. The game will be playable without restrictions of any kind, as well. Just recently EA confirmed that Titanfall is on track for a release sometime in the 2017 fiscal year, and will have a single-player campaign that features a well written and very grounded story.

This will be the 17th game to enter the Vault, coming just after Torchlight II joined the family at the end of February. The $5 a month service has proven strangely popular with it's value increasing with every game added. The catalog now includes Battlefied 4, Battliefield 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Sims 3, Dead Space and Plants Vs. Zombies Garden Warfare, among others. All of fantastic games that warrant even a paying full price for.

Save the date, March 21st marks a new Apple event where they want to "loop us in" with the latest in innovations and products. And just what could those be?

We're expecting a number of different new things to pop-up, but of course the reality is that only one or two of these predictions are likely to come true, if at all. High on that list is the resurgence of a new 4" iPhone device. the iPhone SE as well as a smaller version of the iPad Pro, likely in a 9.7-inch chassis that mirrors the current iPad Air, but with force touch and pen support. Supposedly we'll also see new Apple Watch bands too, ones that are more durable and add a bit more flair. Because, why not.

And of course final versions of the next major steps in the OS's for the various iOS and OSX devices should be revealed as well. We're up to iOS 9.3, tvOS 9.2, watchOS 2.2 and OSX 10.11.4. What else is in store? Usually we see bigger and larger devices make their way into the stable, but we hope that this event is one that focuses on the refinement of the brand instead.

A recent eBay survey has uncovered that Australians love hoarding their old technology, or simply just can't be bothered getting rid of it. Information from this survey pointed out that Australians have a collective of approximately $4.8 billion ($6.4bn AUD) worth of unused phones sitting around.

This is backed up by worldwide research from Deloitte Global that says there is approximately $12.72 billion worth of handsets laying unwanted around planet Earth. This eBay survey and data analysis is part of a marketing plan for this website giant, trying to show users that their old phone is worth money and could possibly be sold on some form of online auction site (eBay, maybe?).

Mark Bulgin from eBay commented that "now is the perfect time for Aussies to sell their older models to fund the upgrade," citing releases of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and iPhone 7 that may interest users. He also discussed the currently strong Australian second-hand market, stating that "The average selling price of the Apple iPhone 6s has only fallen $50 since September 2015 and is still fetching over $875 for a single handset, while the Samsung Galaxy S6 is fetching around $526."

It was tragic news this week for PC gamers and Xbox One gamers when we heard of the shuttering of Lionhead Studios. But shutting down a studio isn't the end of the talent that worked there. Sony, in this case, is looking at opening its doors to the now former employees, to pick up some of the talented people that are now free-er agents.

In fact, they're specifically targeted those employees to see if they'd be a good fit and have taken to social media to voice their interest. There's a lot of talent in that studio, such that has worked on a number of high-profile and very well remembered games. The Fable series in particular was well received and Black & White nearly helped create the God-game genre, or at least refined it into something very enjoyable. It would be a shame to have such talented individuals fade away.

To help you get in the mood or seal the deal when you're deciding what to watch, Netflix will soon be adding auto-play video trailers to your home screen whenever you're hovering over a movie, TV show or documentary.

As seen on Gizmodo, there was a bit of discussion based on advancements to the whole Netflix user experience at MWC 2016, particularly that of the home screen and how users choose what media to watch. This auto-play trailer feature is said to be taken from 'traditional' TV practices, meaning that there is always something engaging happening on the screen.

This announcement comes alongside our recently discussed mobile data saving feature, with these features both said to be currently in beta testing.

Sometimes even older games need some love from the original developer. Diablo II is getting just that with a new update. Though 16 years old, it was actually last updated in 2011 with varaious fixes that made it more reliable on modern systems.

This update, version 1.14a happens to concentrate on fixing even more glitches and bugs that might have made it completely unplayable on any modern PC or Mac. And, they say you can finally move onto a modern Mac, just in case you've been saving that PowerPC based one just for Diablo II.

They're also hard at work looking to catch up on preventing new and improved hacks and cheats from ruining the game. But that's an ever evolving project and they'll have a good solution soon.

Described by Gizmodo as measuring in at "one two-thousandth the thickness of a human hair," we have recently learned that some Australian scientists have just created the world's thinnest camera lens.

Lead by Dr Yuerui (Larry) Lu from The Australian National University, this research project was made possible thanks to the utilization of molybdenum disulphide crystal. The exact measurement for this invention sits at 6.3 nanometers, with new lens being explained by Dr. Lu to be "the perfect candidate for future flexible displays," further commenting that it can withstand "high temperatures, is a lubricant, a good semiconductor and can emit photons too."

Seemingly being created as a 'wonder lens', don't expect this to be hitting the retail shelves anytime soon, but it's a groundbreaking study nonetheless.

Oculus has announced that one of their launch titles is going to be the very fine Internet spaceship simulation game, Elite: Dangerous. That means the game will support the latest Oculus SDK when the headset releases at the end of the month.

Elite: Dangerous is a game that had a VR experience at the heart of it from the very beginning. It's a natural fit for a simulator to be able to move your head around and, at least, track targets, and even interact with menus that'll light up when you look at where they'll be. It's a natural fit, and it already had Oculus support when the DK 1 was released what seems so long ago. This means it'll have underlying support for the latest SDK.

This'll be a natural fit for the release of the Oculus Rift which is happening on March 28th. The $600 price tag for the consumer version of the Rift might seem prohibitive, but it compares to the cost of a good gaming monitor that might be bought instead, though offering a far different and potentially better experience. Just make sure you have a PC that's up to snuff to play Elite: Dangerous in VR, with it's more intense processing requirements.

With companies now publishing teaser news while leading up to CeBIT 2016, Lian Li has announced the pending release and showcase of some new cases. This article will be mainly looking at the newly-announced Q series PC-Q34 SFF chassis to hit the shelves, while this case manufacturer has also announced that its O Series PC-O9 and J Series PC-J60 cases will also be on offer.

The Small Form Factor PC-Q34 comes with "Lian Li's hallmark brushed aluminum" external design, showcasing a minimalistic feel. While the specifications announced to the public so far are extremely limited, I can tell you that this chassis is designed to suit Mini-ITX motherboards, will contain the ability to "accommodate large components and CPU coolers" and is based on Lian Li's PC-V33 chassis of old. Seemingly packing USB 3.0 ports on the front of the side panel, this chassis will also feature a hinge-opening front panel to allow for full builder access.

Set for showcase on March 14 to 18th at CeBIT, Lian Li will be found at Hall 17, Booth H24/1.

With a plethora of companies announcing additions of complete pre-built and chassis-only small form factor products recently, ZOTAC has joined the charge with its MAGNUS EN980, featuring 6th Generation Intel processors, an NVIDIA GTX 980 video card and more.

The Skylake processor and GTX 980 are met with equally powerful and useful USB 3.1 Type-C ports, dual gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and factory-installed water cooling. Further options include support for four displays thanks to HDMI and DisplayPort options. While ZOTAC did make sure to mention that the included water cooling will feature a 'minimalistic design', there was no word as to who will OEM this product, nor any word on what motherboard, storage or RAM options we can expect in this model.

This Small Form Factor PC will be shown off by ZOTAC at the upcoming Cebit 2016 and GDC 2016 events. Without any pricing currently released, I can't help but think it's going to be costly.

GALAX has just announced their latest member of the Hall of Fame lineup, with the new GeForce GTX 980 Ti HOF GOC. The new GTX 980 Ti HOF GOC competes against the likes of EVGA's GTX 980 Ti Kingpin which has 14+3 phase power, and against MSI's GTX 980 Ti Lightning with a 12+3+1 power design.

GALAX has provided 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which can consume a total of 525W of power - for the serious enthusiasts and overclockers out there. The card features a dual-slot design, with two fans to keep it cool. It features a beautiful white theme, with the card being longer than usual cards - so it can handle the two large 10cm fans that keep the GM200 core and VRMs nice and cool.

The heat sink contains five heat pipes that keep the card cool, which are hidden under a new HOF-branded cooler shroud. The GALAX GeForce GTX 980 Ti HOF GOC has a GPU clock of 1203MHz, with a Boost Clock of 1304MHz, with the 6GB of GDDR5 RAM not overclocked at all.

When the rumors first started flying about NVIDIA's next-gen video cards, I was one of the first to say that the mid-range cards would not be using the super-fast HBM2 VRAM, but they would use GDDR5 (and it was later revealed, GDDR5X was on its way). Well now we're here again, with rumors on NVIDIA's purported GeForce GTX 1080.

The GeForce GTX 1080 will be built from the GP104 GPU that NVIDIA should unveil at its GPU Technology Conference in April, where it should rock 8GB of GDDR5X. The new GDDR5X standard is capable of 14Gbps of bandwidth, compared to just 10Gbps from the current GDDR5 technology. We should expect the GeForce GTX 1080 to be unveiled next month, with a shipping date of somewhere in May/June.

Marvel has dropped the latest official trailer for Captain America: Civil War, which is filled with so much goodness, that any Marvel or comic book geek is going to require a change of pants.

The new trailer gives us a better look at the conflict between The Avengers, with Iron Man and Captain America getting up in each other's faces. We have a much better, but not-so-long look at Black Panther, and we get a better glimpse of Ant-Man. But the best bit is in the last few seconds, where we see Spider-Man join in on the fun... saying "hey everyone".

Spider-Man sports an all-new suit, with moving eyes - just like Deadpool (something Deadpool took from Spider-Man in the comics). Spider-Man can now show emotions through his suit, which is a great evolution over the previous Spider-Man movies (both of the Spider-Man franchises from Sony, the original Spider-Man movies, and The Amazing Spider-Man reboot).

Crytek's impressive VR demo 'Back to Dinosaur Island' is now available on Steam, with the Oculus Rift DK2 exclusive VR demo requiring the Oculus Rift DK2 (with SDK v0.8) in order to run.

Not only that, but you'll need an Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller in order to play it, as the mouse and keyboard are not supported (what the hell, Crytek?). Crytek explains Back to Dinosaur Island as: "Mysterious landmarks on the horizon and stunning vistas on every side combine to immerse gamers in an entirely new reality". You can grab Back to Dinosaur Island here, while the minimum system requirements are as follows:

ASUS has just unveiled their new GeForce GTX 980 Ti STRIX Gaming Ice video card, something that is water cooled courtesy of a huge water block from Bitspower.

The new GeForce GTX 980 Ti STRIX Gaming Ice from ASUS features the usual GM200 GPU with 2816 CUDA cores, 176 TMUs and 96 ROPs - the GPU is clocked at 1216MHz with a Boost Clock of 1317MHz. There are two profiles on the card, with the gaming profile clocking the GTX 980 TI STRIX Gaming Ice at 1190MHz with the Boost hitting 1291MHz.

When the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 TI STRIX Gaming Ice is in its gaming mode, it will use slightly less power, but in OC mode it will suck down everything it can from the huge 14-phase PWM design. The power consumed by the card is courtesy of 2 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which will let the card consume as much power as it requires in OC mode. We have the usual 6GB of GDDR5 RAM which is clocked at 7.2GHz compared to the stock 7Ghz on most other brands. This provides the card with 345.6GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is shaping up nicely, with EA sharing a new developer diary on the game recently, detailing the reasoning behind Catalyst featuring no weapons, and how gameplay connects with the music dynamically, as well as how the movement in the game has changed from Mirror's Edge.

The developer diary video also tackles the combat in Mirror's Edge Catalyst, as well as the free roaming side of City of Glass. The fluid movement in Catalyst, mixed with the first-person combat create an experience that's different to traditional games - something that will be amplified by the dynamic audio. During the DICE art panel at the National Museum in Stockholm, Mirror's Edge Catalyst's concept artist, Per Haagensen explained that the team wanted to show off "her skill, confidence and attitude in a dynamic manner, without her looking like a martial artist or super hero".

He continued: "When I set out to sculpt her for the Key Art, aside from the realistic aspects of her appearance, more than anything it was to convey the pose with enough action, tension, and interest to make the audience curious about who this person is". Haagensen continued, saying that DICE wanted Faith to look "more mature" than she did in the first game. He finished off by saying: "She also needs to appear more mature than in the first game, so there was some work on getting a focused look on her face, maybe even some concern about the situation she is in".

CD Projekt RED promises that Cyberpunk 2077 is going to eclipse The Witcher 3 in every possible way--a feat we didn't know was possible.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the most ambitious project that the Polish devs have ever taken on, and CDPR has taken many opportunities to open up about the game's depth. At a recent earnings meeting, company president Adam Kicinski and studio head Adam Badowski said that Cyberpunk 2077 will be "even better, even bigger, even more revolutionary" than The Witcher 3.

All of that effort will take time, however, and Badowski says that the studio still has "a lot of work to do", and Cyberpunk 2077 is "still a long ways away from the premiere". CDPR is taking their time to make the game as amazing as possible, stating that the darkly futuristic game will be absolutely huge and push the bar even higher.

It was a bit concerning when it was annoucned that only the newest of Nintendo's 3DS models could support playing SNES games through the Virtual Console, but apparantly there's a really good reason for this.

And those reasons are technical in nature. The CPU, though only slightly less powerful than the new 3DS, just isn't quite powerful enough to actually handle SNES games at all. Those games are emulated using a Perfect-Pixel mode which allows you to play them at the original resolution that they were made in, which theoretically shouldn't be such a technical hurdle. But with the added overhead of emulation in an already limited environment, that just adds to the processing requirements, making it a bit more difficult.

But then, perhaps it's that they don't want to compromise on the experience that users would have. Why let the original 3DS users play it with a horrible experiences, because that would only lead to accusations of "unoptimized" games and poor development when in fact RAM might be limited by just enough to make a substantial difference, or that one more usable core is needed to make it run at the original framerate, and not a frame below. In retrospect, it's not really a bad idea to limit it if you want your customers to actually enjoy the experience and not complain too much.