Latest News - Page 2499

Doom is set to be one of the biggest releases of the year, but how will it perform on the ultimate gaming platform? Well, the idTech 6-based game runs entirely on OpenGL, which really changes things up. Why? Because AMD and NVIDIA optimize their drivers and goodies inside for DirectX, and with nearly all games being based on DirectX, id Software is changing things up with Doom.

Early benchmarks using the Doom alpha have been performed by GameGPU, where we see AMD dominating NVIDIA. These benchmarks are from an early build of Doom, without any platform-specific optimizations done, so things will only get better from here on out. As for the specs on the PC running the Doom alpha, this is what was used:

From these specifications, the benchmarks were run at 1080p (1920x1080), 1440p (2560x1440) and 4K (3840x2160). In both benchmarks, AMD dominates completely. AMD hits the 60FPS barrier in both minimum and average frames per second, with nearly all of its high-end and enthusiast GPUs. This includes the R9 290, R9 290X, R9 295X2 (dual-GPU), R9 Fury X, and R9 Nano. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti fall behind the R9 290 - which is a strange thing to see indeed.

To celebrate this week's release of 'Fear The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season' on Blu-ray HD and DVD, we have five Blu-ray prize packs to give away thanks to our friends at eOne Home Entertainment.

Fear begins here. Living in the same universe as 'The Walking Dead', 'Fear the Walking Dead' is a gritty drama that explores the onset of the undead apocalypse through the lens of a fractured family.

Set in a city where people come to escape, shield secrets, and bury their pasts, a mysterious outbreak threatens to disrupt what little stability high school guidance counselor Madison Clark (Kim Dickens, House of Cards) and English teacher Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis, Whale Rider) have managed to assemble. The everyday pressure of blending two families while dealing with resentful, escapist, and strung out children takes a back seat when society begins to break down. A forced evolution, a necessary survival of the fittest takes hold, and our dysfunctional family must either reinvent themselves or embrace their darker histories.|

A new development regarding the trademark dispute between Ubisoft and EA regarding the word "Ghost" in relation to video games has just come up. It seems that EA has completely withdrawn their dispute, "without prejudice," meaning they won't be allowed to pursue legal action in the future regarding this issue.

At the beginning of the month, we found out that Ubisoft had filed a trademark for the word Ghost in conjunction with gaming, to help to identify their Ghost Recon series of games from the mind of Tom Clancy, specifically Ghost Recon: Wildlands. EA filed an opposition to Ubisoft's application on the grounds that their internal studio, Ghost Games was the first to use the word in association with video games.

Now it seems they've resolved to withdraw that opposition entirely, letting the trademark, if it passes through further scrutiny, become Ubisoft's. Because of the association with the trademark, it might have an impact on Ghost Games, forcing them to change their name, or it could have little to no impact depending on how strict Ubisoft is regarding their win. We had thought the battle could be long and drawn out, but it seems to have been completed amicably, which is a surprise.

Airbnb has become a central source of professionals and everyday people getting accommodation, jumping out of the usual hotel bookings. With Mobile World Congress taking place last week, Airbnb was a popular choice for attendees with around 1/3 of MWC attendees using Airbnb accommodation.

Mike Curtis, VP of Engineering with Airbnb, said that around 30,000 people at Mobile World Congress used Airbnb to stay in and around Barcelona, Spain. With 100,000 people attending MWC, the 30,000 that used Airbnb represents 1/3 of the total MWC attendance - a number that simply can't be ignored.

Curtis said: "Airbnb is becoming a much more mainstream thing now. A couple of years ago, I would attend a conference like this, and everybody would ask what 'Air Boom' was". Curtis added that most MWC attendees that used Airbnb booked their accommodation at the last minute, and over their mobile devices. Curtis added: "It's just an expectation now that you're going to be able to reach in your pocket and book something on Airbnb more often than not, instantly".

With the Windows Store-based games not supporting multi-GPUs in games, with Rise of the Tomb Raider being the most recent example, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has come out trying to douse the flames.

Andre Miller (@BigMouthGamer on Twitter) asked Xbox boss Phil Spencer on Twitter: "Are you guys taking steps to resolve these issues? A lot of these limitations are on fundamental features...". Miller makes a very good point, with Spencer replying: "We know lists like this include features PC gamers want to see from us, we appreciate the feedback and have plans to improve".

Spencer didn't provide any details, but the Windows Store-based games having issues that PC gamers shouldn't be putting up with is complete crap - IMO. With the release of Quantum Break from Remedy Entertainment right around the corner, after being an Xbox One exclusive and then announced for the PC recently - I expect there to be multi-GPU support on day one. But Quantum Break is launching on the Windows Store only - so if nothing is fixed between now and then, one of the biggest releases of the year will launch without support for multi-GPUs... and that sucks.

One of the fastest APUs from the Bristol Ridge family will be just as fast as the Xbox One, according to a new rumor from Bitsnchips.

AMD's new Bristol Ridge family will feature a powerful APU that will be quite powerful, easily taking on the consoles in providing a 1080p gaming experience, in a small package and price. AMD is expected to launch its new Bristol Ridge family at Computex, so we should expect more details in June.

As for the rumor, the flagship Bristol Ridge-based APU would feature 16 compute units that are based on the GCN 1.3 architecture. The 16 compute units would include 1024 stream processors, which is the same SP count as AMD's Radeon HD 7850. The HD 7850 launched in 2012, and was a great budget/mid-range GPU - if we see this performance in an APU, things could get very exciting for AMD.

Games launching with crappy multi-GPU scaling have become a new thing, with Street Fighter V launching with SLI and Crossfire support being KO'd.

Well, thanks to some users tinkering around with the NVIDIA Inspector Tool, you can find the game profile for "Street Fighter V" and do some changes to the SLI compatability bits (0x000000F5). DSOGaming ran Street Fighter V with the SLI fix on their NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 card (a dual-GPU) resulting in around 98% scaling.

Before they applied the SLI fix, the GTX 690 wasn't powerful enough to run Street Fighter V at 4K, anywhere near 60FPS. After that, the performance scales much higher and you can get closer to 4K 60FPS - especially on faster cards in SLI.

The ESA has just published the full list of E3 2016 exhibitors, giving us a nice prelude to what the show has to offer in June.

All of the biggest publishers, developers, and console-makers will be at this year's E3. The Big Three--Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo--will take the stage in full force, debuting their respective hardware and content. We'll probably see Nintendo tease some new details on its mysterious cross-platform NX console, and Sony will definitely discuss its PlayStation VR hardware. Microsoft, on the other hand, will most likely push its new Windows-centric Xbox-and-PC approach--but hopefully we'll see them address the awful Windows Store.

One of the more interesting about the list is that CD Projekt RED is showing up. The Witcher 3's latest Blood and Wine expansion is set to release before the show, so we'll probably see some new Cyberpunk 2077 action. Oculus will show up to tout its Oculus Rift headset, but HTC is absent. However you slice it, this year's E3 looks super exciting.

After Phoenix Credits were spotted in a recent Division video from Arekkz, gamers were alarmed that the shooter would be laden with microtransactions. Ubisoft affirms that this isn't the case, and The Division won't have any paid currency options to buy in-game items.

Although online games like The Division are prime territory for paid content schemes, Ubisoft Community Manager Natchai Stapper has officially confirmed that the online pre-apocalyptic shooter is microtransaction-free.

"There will be no microtransactions, and definitely no P2W," Stapper said in a recent Tweet regarding the game's mysterious Phoenix Credits. Although Stapper says paid currency is out, he didn't reveal what Phoenix Credits actually are, saying that "we'll communicate on this later, but don't worry." This directly clashes with the game's PSN page which clearly states "optional in-game purchases" are included.

Ubisoft's anticipated MMOFPS The Division is almost here, and gamers are avidly looking for any scraps of info ahead of the game's release. As it turns out, the beta tests were small morsels compared to the hearty meal of the full game, and the final release will hold some pretty key differences.

Redditor aGreatGambino has compiled a massive list that clarifies major differences between The Division's beta tests and the finished game we'll play in March. Gambino sifted through over 12 hours of past dev streams and footage to compile the info, which has been seen by thousands of gamers.

The list is a nice compendium that answers a lot of our questions and gives a better idea of how The Division will be at launch. For example, the game won't start out in Manhattan. There will be a prologue phase that bridges the story gap from the beta. The RPG mechanics will be much more dynamic, too. Players can equip up to two skills with a signature skill, and beef up stats and abilities with talents and perks. Be sure to check below for the full list, and we'll probably see Ubisoft spill more details before The Division's launch on March 8.

Some new evidence has surfaced that points towards the release of Nintendo's NX and even the next Legend of Zelda game sometime by the end of this year. A user on NeoGAF that goes by the username Trevelyan9999 spoke about having heard from someone reliable who's close to the information that we'll be seeing those soon.

The information stems from an internal US marketing budget and scheduling overview that has listed on dates of the projected release for both the NX and the new Zelda game, which will apparently be released on both consoles very close to the same date.

Such information would be dismissed at first glance if it weren't for a few key, yet slight details that they're also able to provide. The report by Trevelyan9999 which showed up at the beginning of the week also mentioned a 20th anniversary Pokemon game, which was indeed revealed. The codename mentioned in their post was Niji, which also happened to be the initial filename for the logo images released by Nintendo, as uncovered by Gematsu. The codename for these anniversary games has never been discussed or mentioned before, giving credence to the information at hand. It's unlikely that anyone that isn't close to Nintendo would have known that.

Gabe Newell has fired the production company and host of the $3 million DOTA 2 Shanghai Major competition, with host James "2G" Harding taking to Twitter announcing he'd been dismissed of his hosting duties, and that it was "Valve's decision".

The reason? There were several major technical issues, and questions raised over the dismissal of Harding for the English-language coverage of its group stages. This forced Valve boss Gabe Newell to step in and address it directly. As for the issues, it included major technical issues both on-set, and in-game. The hosts had mic levels that were either too quiet to hear or were cut completely. Harding was reportedly looking awkwardly at the wrong camera, and speaking to the on-set director to get the camera pointed where he wanted.

Harding "rambled self-deprecatingly about how little he knew or understood about Dota 2's current balance and accepted strategies, or meta, and sometimes insulted teams participating in the major or the players on them", reports Polygon. It gets worse, though. During the live match coverage, it was interrupted for various reasons. Medical reasons caused delays, with others going for hours at a time without explanation. The competition had multiple complete connection failures for the English-language streams, on both Twitch and DOTA 2's official website.

We've been waiting for AMD to show off its Radeon R9 Fury X2 in the flesh, and now we seem to have seen the first real photo of AMD's dual-GPU based on the Fiji architecture, powered by HBM.

AMD's Roy Taylor posted a picture of the Tiki PC, built by Falcon Northwest, to his Facebook page. Taylor teased "another peak at the world's best developer box for VR and DX12". We can see the R9 Fury X2 (if that's what AMD names it, Gemini has also been teased) is a much longer card than the R9 Fury X, with the cooler built-in like the R9 Nano.

It looks like the R9 Fury X2 is just a super-long R9 Nano - but with twice the horsepower. We should expect the R9 Fury X2 to have a 300W TDP, but with Fiji's thermal throttling, we shouldn't expect the card to be running too hot - hence why we're seeing AMD not use a watercooler like they did on the R9 Fury X.

I've already reported that NVIDIA would unveil its new Pascal-based Titan X successor at its GPU Technology Conference in early April, but we should expect a "surprise" Pascal demo at GTC according to the new rumors.

NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang will be kicking off his usual opening keynote on April 5 at 9AM PST, where we should be greeted by the next-gen GeForce GTX Titan X, based on the Pascal architecture. Now, NVIDIA is set to hit the 16nm process with Pascal, as well as using HBM2 - so we might see the Titan X successor unveiled, but not launched at GTC. When will NVIDIA launch the Pascal-based Titan X successor? According to the rumors, sometime around June - just like it did with the GTX 980 Ti last year.

The Game Developers Conference kicks off on March 14, with Valve announcing it will be hosting a programming session called "Advanced VR Rendering Performance". In this session, Valve will talk about maintaining 90FPS in VR applications, without resorting to reprojection techniques.

The session teases: "Reliably hitting 90 fps in VR is a significant challenge. This talk will present a method for adaptively scaling fidelity to consistently maintain VR framerate without using reprojection techniques, even on very low-end GPUs, while also having the ability to increase fidelity for high-end GPUs and multi-GPU installations. Valve's Aperture Robot Repair VR experience that was shown at GDC 2015 required an NVIDIA 980 to maintain framerate, but this talk will use that same experience as an example of how we now adaptively scale fidelity to maintain 90 fps on an NVIDIA 680, a 4-year-old GPU. The end result is an engine that appears higher fidelity throughout the experience, a lower GPU min spec, increased art asset limits, and a system that allows developers to stop focusing on framerate and instead spend their time increasing the quality and performance of their renderer while consistently maintaining framerate".

Developers will walk away from the Advanced VR Rendering Performance session with "several methods for adaptively scaling fidelity to keep their VR applications in framerate without using reprojection techniques". the Advanced VR Rendering Performance session with "several methods for adaptively scaling fidelity to keep their VR applications in framerate without using reprojection techniques".

Apple and Samsung have been battling it out over mobile technology patents for years now, with Apple winning more often than not. Today marks a victory for Samsung, who recently appealed a ruling that would've seen it pay $120 million for infringing on Apple's quick links (the functionality that allows one to make phone calls from numbers seen on screen, among other things), slide-to-unlock, and auto-correct patents.

The court ruled the quick links patent was not infringed upon, and that the latter two patents were invalid. More, Apple was found to infringe on a Samsung patent, although it's not clear which.

The decision was unanimous among three judges of the Federal Circuit, the country's top court specializing in patent cases. Nearly $99 million of the damages related to the quick links infringement.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a long way towards being finished, but the CD PROJEKT Red has already decided to bring back the composer who made the great soundtrack for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Speaking to Gamepressure, Marcin Przybylowicz revealed that he's already been playing around with ideas for the music for Cyberpunk 2077, because well, that's apparently his in his job description and being the house sound designer, he's just the man to do it. "My superiors already force me to do it, because I spend most of my time with Geralt; however, some first attempts with Cyberpunk were already made."

Aside from being "forced" by his superiors, he's incredibly talented and his unique style and methods will probably make for a great soundscape in the upcoming game. He was not, however, the only composer to work on The Witcher 3 though. Pedro Macedo Camacho composed the main theme, and is also the Star Citizen soundtrack composer as well.

You probably have a mechanical keyboard (if not, get on that), but we'll do you one better with an analog mechanical keyboard boasting what is undoubtedly the weirdest name around: Wooting One.

Currently in development and seemingly nearing launch, the main draw of the Wooting One is its pressure sensitive keys, allowing you to dictate exactly how fast a character moves in a game like The Witcher 3, or how precisely you turn in a racing game like Burnout Paradise. If you've used the Dualshock 3 controller before, it's basically that except with keys instead of sticks. Likewise, game support isn't a worry, as it comes at the hardware level. Lastly, if you dislike the feature or just want it off sometimes, you can disable it at any time.

The keys are described as "similar to CherryMX reds but not as light and not too heavy as [with] blacks", so by the sounds of it, you can expect custom keys.

A new cinematic trailer for The Descendant was just released and it shows how horrifying and terribly difficult life could be in the future should we seal our own fate with a man-made extinction-level event.

But never fear, because we're put people in stasis so they can live on and sustain the human race once everything boils over. This narrative-driven point-and-click adventure is rife with a story and a vast mystery that has to be solved. You're one of the Descendants, supposedly chosen to carry the torch for humanity in the future, and when you awake to explore the Ark you've been placed in cryogenic storage in, there's a lot of unanswered questions to seek the truth to.

The first of five total episodes is set to go live on March 24th with the rest being released gradually throughout the year. So you'll be exploring Ark-01, where you wake up, with plenty of puzzles to solve and try to rescue survivors as Donnie. You'll get to experience events in the past as well as "current" day events while you investigate. An incredibly fascinating concept, to be sure.

EA's Vault in their Origin Access program has just grown by one as they added Torchlight II to the family. That makes 16 games in total that can be played as part of the monthly subscription service.

Last month EA brought their Origin Access subscription service to the PC, something that was previously exclusive only to the Xbox One. You can pay $4.99 and get the privilege of being able to play all 16 of the games in the vault and you also get early access to EA games a few days before they're available to anyone else.

The full list of games that're now available in their EA Access program.