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GDC 2016 - AMD's commitment to VR is pretty damn strong, with the company announcing a partnership with Sulon Technologies for a new "spatially aware" head-mounted display. The new Sulon Q is powered by AMD technology, and will blend the world's of VR and AR.

AMD explains the Sulon Q as the "first and only all-in-one, tether-free, 'wear and play' spatially aware headset for VR and AR". The description for the Sulon Q reads: "When you experience augmented reality the Sulon way, your physical world is not replaced, its enhanced. Everywhere you look your full field of view is the physical world you know, seamlessly augmented with new realities. It s the best of both world's, literally".

The Sulon Q is powered by an AMD FX-8800P processor with Radeon R7 graphics that will make use of AMD's GCN architecture. Sulon Technolgoies CEO, Dhan Balachand explains: "The full performance of 4 compute cores and 8 GPU cores are unlocked through a revolutionary Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA), enabling the cores to share memory to work together for dramatic performance and efficiency. The result is a solution that is optimized for modern workloads and media formats, capable of driving the latest graphics APIs including DirectX 12 and Vulkan, and able to render stunning video game console-quality visuals on a beautiful 2560x1440 OLED display".

GDC 2016 - Just as I'm getting ready to leave my Airbnb accommodation and pick up my GDC pass, and then later in the afternoon head to AMD's Capsaicin event - the company will reportedly be teasing its Polaris 10 GPU at the event, running on a SteamVR benchmark.

The company will be unveiling its new Radeon Pro Duo video card during the event, with it based on two Fiji GPUs offering 12TFlops of performance - making it the perfect card for VR and 4K gaming. AMD will be using the next-gen Polaris 10 GPU running on Valve's Aperture Science Robot Repair which will be powered by the HTC Vive Pre headset.

Polaris 10 looks like the same GPU showed off at CES 2016 and the RTG event in Sonoma in December, which will compete against the likes of GeForce GTX 950. The Polaris 10 will be an entry-level/mainstream part based on the 14nm FinFET process with GCN 4.0 enhancements. As for availability, it should launch in mid-2016 right around the time of Computex - so expect plenty of new entry-level/mainstream laptops to be powered by Polaris 10.

You might already be potentially experiencing some of the best mobile VR on a Qualcomm chipset. It's inevitable with the kind of market share that they enjoy, but they want to make sure that the 3D enabled apps that you're using have the chance to be the absolute best when paired with the Snapdragon 820 with their new VR SDK.

Virtual and augmented reality are becoming more and more complex works of art, taking advantage of the creativity of their creators, becoming vivid abstractions of our minds eye. Btu all of that requires processing power, and access to the underlying hardware in easy to use, low-overhead ways. To do that we need SDK's that allow for that. That's precisesly what Qualcomm's new VR SDK sets out to do. Allow VR app and content creators to design into their apps the ability to take advantage of the inherent advantages of their processor.

One of the most important aspects is the reduction in latency from what's being rendered and what you see. If there's too much, speaking in the realm of milliseconds here, then it can cause a huge disconnect and contribute to motion sickness. Using the SDK provides a nice and healthy 50% decrease in latency compared to not using it. They've also allowed lower-level access to the DPS and have built-in lens correction functions. Another great feature of the SDK is a native way to generate menus and other overlays in apps so that they can actually be rendered correctly.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition for the PC got off to a pretty bad start when it was released at the beginning of the month. It was a complete mess for AMD cards and a slightly smaller mess for NVIDIA cards. DirectX 12 was there, but it didn't quite provide the performance boost that we thought, and expected, it would. But a new patch coming out soon should prove to fix quite a few of the more worse problems.

This new update will include a lot of performance optimizations, tweak Ambient Occlusion and disable mouse smoothing, some of the most requested additions to the game. Unfortunately, if you have a 60Hz monitor, you're still limited to the up to 60FPS, even with V-sync turned off. At the moment they're working on a fix for that. And they're also looking into adding an FPS counter into the game since very few external solutions support UWP or even being available in DirectX 12. FRAPS, a popular solution, doesn't work in DX12 enabled games, for example.

The most important fix in the patch are the performance enhancements, and under-the-hood changes they've made so that AMD cards don't result in a whole screen of graphical artefacts or other strange occurrences. Now it'll actually be playable, even if it's limited to the refresh rate of your monitor. And at least a smooth constant 60FPS is acceptable for playing, if not really for showing off.

Star Fox Zero for the Wii U is going to cater to the beginning gamer in all of us, allowing you to activate an in-game invincibility mode to let you get used to the controls and help you become more proficient without the worry that death can cause.

Shigeru Miyamoto, a designer from Nintendo, was asked by Time whether or not some Nintendo games tended to coddle players in certain situations. He responded that they aren't simply making the game easier, but are making some challenges more fun for those that otherwise could be overwhelmed by them. There's no sense in having a game that can't be fun for a wider audience. Younger gamers in particular, might benefit from having a bit of assistance once in awhile. And they don't want to lower the hurdle, so to speak, but just make it more accessible.

Invincibility will come from a difficulty level that allows a special Arwing that you can obtain so you can familiarize yourselves with the levels. He didn't quite go into detail as to how that would work, but higher difficulty levels will likely feature better rewards. But for the more hardcore player, they also seem to be adding in even higher difficulty modes as well.

Microsoft was one of the first major companies to accept a digital cryptocurrency as a valid payment method for their wares on the Windows app store. Though it wasn't a mainstream currency, they saw the growth potential, and wanted to give customers a wealth of choices. But they've recently decided to remove Bitcoin from their list of payment methods that are accepted.

If you happen to have a balance of Bitcoin in your wallet already, you can use those at the Microsoft Store or App store, though you can't refill the internal wallet with more Bitcoin nor can you get a refund if you wanted to get those out. That seems to indicate that the infrastructure used to process Bitcoin no longer happen to be in place. You were able to use them for any Microsoft branded store.

This is another bold move considering they were advocates of choice in 2014, and this escape from the market is quite the shock. Though there are probably practical reasons as to why they did so. Microsoft hasn't announced why they made the decision though we've reached out for comment.

Ubisoft is getting tired of the rampant cheating that seems to happen in Rainbow Six Siege. They've already released one patch that took care of a lot of latent exploits in the various levels, and it also made it possible to report people for alleged cheating. But that doesn't seem to have been enough. Now they're expanding their criteria when looking for cheaters in their game. So cheaters beware.

To help to prevent cheating on the scale that it already seems to exist, they're implementing new algorithms to identify cheaters. That algorithm looks at how you play, where you aim compared to where the bullet seems to strike and so on. They're becoming much more strict in their effort. And if you've been identified as a cheater mid-game, you're immediately pulled from the game and given a temporary suspension. There's no word whether punishments will become worse as more instances are found, or if there's the possibility of banning you from the game completely.

Cheating is an issue in any kind of game but games of a competitive nature that have a rank structure attract more due to the want, or perceived need, to be the absolute highest even with the absence of skill. And of course, that can potentially ruin the game for others, who want to play it within their skill level amongst those that are like-minded. It can be incredibly frustrating playing against those that are using assistance. It's a bit easier to be more strict with Rainbow Six Siege being purely a multiplayer competitive experience. It's great to see them wield that ban-hammer a bit more surely.

To celebrate this week's release of 'Game of Thrones: The Complete Fifth Season' on Blu-ray HD and DVD, we have five Blu-ray prize packs to give away thanks to our friends at Roadshow Home Entertainment.

'Game of Thrones: Season Five' begins with a power vacuum that protagonists across Westeros and Essos look to fill. At Castle Black, Jon Snow struggles to balance the demands of the Night's Watch with those of newly-arrived Stannis Baratheon, who styles himself the rightful king of Westeros. Meanwhile, Cersei scrabbles to hold on to power in King's Landing amidst the Tyrells and the rise of a religious group led by the enigmatic High Sparrow, while Jaime embarks on a secret mission. Across the Narrow Sea, Arya seeks an old friend while a fugitive Tyrion finds a new cause. And as danger mounts in Meereen, Daenerys Targaryen finds that her tenuous hold on the city requires some hard sacrifices. This season features some of the most explosive scenes yet, as the promise that "winter is coming" becomes more ominous than ever before.

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

Have you forgotten about the Half-Life and Portal movies? Well, they're still in development according to The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams.

During a chat with IGN, Abrams said: "Nothing that would be an exciting update". So while it's not new news, it's something - acknowledging that they're still in development. J.J. Abrams first said he was working with Valve on Half-Life and Portal movies during DICE 2013, during a chat with Gabe Newell.

At the time, Abrams said at the time that they had talks with Newell about storytelling in film and video games, which is why they started working together. At the time, Abrams said: "We're not looking to make a movie in the gaming world. We're not looking to impose what we do on that".

Valve will have quite a lot to show off at the Game Developers Conference this week, with the company teasing through email over the weekend that it will be showing off SteamVR Desktop Theater Mode.

In an email, Valve said: "SteamVR Desktop Theater Mode is in early beta, and will be showcased at next week's Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. Desktop Theater Mode enables users to play non-VR games with VR systems such as the upcoming HTC Vive and others".

No screenshots or videos have been released, so we should expect a complete unveil this week during GDC. But what should expect? Being able to play all of your Steam games in VR is going to be a huge win for not just Valve, but HTC - the company making the SteamVR-powered Vive headset.

With the performance-related issues surrounding Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, it's good to hear that the upcoming patch for the game will address at least some of the performance problems. The upcoming patch will have performance optimizations, Ambient Occlusion tweaks, and more. Here's the full list:

As for what's coming in the future, The Coalition will be adding 21:9 support, NAT problems and more. We should expect these improvements in the coming weeks.

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ASUS held an event in Sydney, Australia over the weekend - where it collected a bunch of companies including InWin, NVIDIA, Cooler Master, Kingston and Bitspower - where it was teaching Australian IT retailers about water cooling.

The event included letting IT store staff building a water-cooled PC into the InWin 805 or 909 chassis, where they will display their work in their store for 3 months. Not only that, but they get a certificate in water cooling training, too. There was an afternoon session that allowed local residents to come in and check out the modded PCs, learn about water cooling, talk with ASUS staff, modders and retailers - culminating in a Q&A session.

If you can't make this year's Coachella music festival in Indio, California but have the money for tickets, you can still watch the show: in virtual reality. And if you are going, VR could enhance the experience.

Once you purchase a ticket, you'll receive a unique VR headset (pictured here) that can be used in combination with a Coachella VR app (which can be found in the iOS, Android, and Samsung Gear VR stores), which you can then use to take in photos from previous events, virtual tours, interviews, and of course, performances, among other things. A 5mbps or higher Wi-Fi connection is recommended.

Unfortunately, no reduced cost VR ticket only option is available.

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.