Latest News - Page 2520

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.

Following its recent 15 million viewer NFL live stream, Yahoo is partnering with the National Hockey League (NHL) to stream free, live out of market hockey games via Yahoo Sports to US viewers. Starting tomorrow with the Tampa Bay Lightning-Philadelphia Flyers game at 730 PM ET, it will offer up to four games per week on top of the current Wednesday and Sunday national games (in partnership with NBC Sports).

"This alliance brings us one step closer to providing fans a live professional sporting event every day, on Yahoo, completely frictionless and for free - no cable subscription or authentication required," says VP of Media Partnerships at Yahoo Phil Lynch.

Yahoo will also provide highlights and condensed games.

We all want to be able to game on our laptops, even if we don't necessarily admit it readily. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to fire up one of our favorite games for a quick spin when we're bored in a hotel room. It's possible, and gaming laptops exist that are both powerful and also not that massive, but they too are still limited in their abilities. And mobile GPU's aren't exactly the most powerful chips even if they can provide a good framerate. You can upgrade them, but an MXM module is far more expensive than a typical GPU. It's a problem that really wasn't being asked, but the solution to that might

AMD is introducing their XConnect technology that allows any laptop with Thunderbolt 3 to be able to have a discrete GPU connected to it. And there's a huge market for thin and light laptops out there because they're far more convenient to lug around. External graphics is actually a sound idea, too. When traveling, the external enclosure can be completely separate and safely ensconced in another piece of luggage completely, setup only when you're at your destination or when you really absolutely must have that extra GPU power, and AMD is the first to bring you this power. Plug-and-play GPU's are finally here, and they don't require a reboot anymore.

And they've done this by partnering with Razer and Thunderbolt in order to do this. Their innovations in allowing for graphics information to be passed via this interface isn't a closed-source method, either. They're staying true to their GPUOpen initiative and pushing their innovations out to be available to everyone. That means that yes, NVIDIA, can make use of their plug and play GPU technology.

Yesterday, Google's DeepMind AI took the first game against Go world champion Lee Sedol, to the shock of many. You might think it's just one game and Sedol could just as well come back to trounce 4-1, but today DeepMind did it again, putting itself up 2-0. Sedol, who after yesterday's loss commented he was still very confident he could beat the AI, is now very much on the backfoot.

"Yesterday I was surprised but today it's more than that - I am speechless," Lee remarked after the game. "I admit that it was a very clear loss on my part. From the very beginning of the game I did not feel like there was a point that I was leading."

DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis said the AI was confident in victory from the midway point onward.

Not content with having totally redefined the RPG genre with The Witcher 3, CD Projekt RED is already laying out its plans for the future of RPG greatness.

In a recent earnings call, company president Adam Kicinski highlighted CDPR's development strategy for 2017-2021. This multi-year roadmap not only includes the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, but also a brand new unannounced AAA RPG whose details are pretty much unknown.

Since the timeline is a full eight years after the release of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, listeners speculated that CDPR's new AAA RPG could be for the upcoming next-generation PlayStation 4 and Xbox Two consoles. Kicinski wasn't able to comment on this, saying that the plans of new consoles are "closely guarded secrets", and that he had no clue what Sony or Microsoft are planning.

Traffic app Waze has arguably been the best of its kind for some time now, except for two major flaws: a wretched interface and high battery consumption. Both are fixed today with the new 4.0 update, which brings numerous quality of life improvements:

If you haven't tried it yet and are wondering why you should over Google Maps, those who prefer it say they enjoy the more aggressive rerouting and reports on police activity, hazards (including potholes), and so on.

You can grab the new version at the source.

When the minds behind The Witcher 3 says they're working on a project that "no one else has done before", we can only imagine what kind of awesomeness the studio is cooking up.

During CD Projekt RED's financial earnings call, company Adam Kicinski revealed that the Polish dev team will release a brand new game in 2016, and it'll be completely different than anything we've seen so far. Presentation slides reveal that the new game will be "a new type of video game format previously unexplored by the studio".

Kicinski didn't deliver concrete info, but teased that the new game will be "experimental", and it'll be something "no one else has done before". The Witcher 3's second Blood and Wine expansion is still on track to release this year, and will be the last of Geralt's adventures.

The Legend of Zelda for the Wii U was one of the most anticipated games of 2015, and now it retains that status for 2016. The producer for the game, Eiki Aonuma, says we should expect something new compared to the previous games, maybe even something more mature than we're used to.

In the latest issue of Famitsu, the producer was excited to report that progress for the game has been very good, and that the whole game is taking shape very well. He likens the change to how different The Ocarina of Time was compared to A Link to the Past on the SNES. It was dramatic, but it was also quite enjoyable. He even hinted at seeing a possible western influence to shake up the franchise.

He emphasized that we should look forward to what he has in store for us, that the differences will be good for Link and Zelda. "Perhaps, players will be surprised. Please look forward to it, because I think we'll be able to make 'something new' like Ocarina of Time was." Aonuma said to Famitsu.