Latest News - Page 2577

CES 2016 - M.2 NVMe SSD's are all the rage. There are several products slated to hit the market this year and one of the drives we are most excited about is OCZ's upcoming RevoDrive 400. Rumored to be powered by a proprietary controller and 15nm MLC flash, the RevoDrive packs a punch that is sure to delight enthusiast's everywhere.

Early-adopting enthusiasts that feel held back by commodity SATA storage can't wait to get their hands-on the impending RevoDrive 400 series which was designed and engineered for ultimate next generation storage performance. The NVMe™ PCI Express Gen. 3 x4 SSD series redefines the boundaries of speed and the limitations of storage capacity with up to 2.4GB/s of bandwidth and up to 1TB on a single M.2 module.

OCZ was kind enough to give TweakTown a first look at a RevoDrive 400 512GB SSD in action. These benchmarks display an impressive 2.6GB/s sequential read performance and an equally impressive 1.6GB/s sequential write performance. Looks like the 950 Pro may have some serious competition coming soon from Team OCZ.

As it was forewarned last week, Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 are retired as of today; Microsoft will be focusing on Internet Explorer 11 and its Edge browser going forward.

You can still use the old browsers of course, but you'll be vulnerable to viruses and the like, and be nagged by Microsoft to update. Head here to download Internet Explorer 11 or Edge, or update through your browser (older versions may not let you, though).

CES 2016 - In a meeting room at Intel's CES 2016 Mega-Booth, I had a chance to go hands-on with Intel's latest small and tiny form factor PC offerings. This includes the new line-up of Compute Sticks, the latest 4th generation NUCs, and a secret NUC which we reported on last month called Skull Canyon.

The new lineup of Intel Compute Sticks is said to be night and day compared to the original model, which many agree has limited applications outside turning dumb-TVs into smart-TVs with a Windows OS. The original compute stick fell short in a few tasks, and Intel has worked to remedy these pitfalls. For starters, the entry Compute Stick, based on a Cherry Trail SoC, will have much more powerful graphics. One issue with the original was that the fan would turn on if it was stuck behind a TV after about 15-30 minutes of streaming, but Intel focused heavily on improving the graphics processor, so tasks such as streaming do not make the SoC work too much harder.

Intel has also introduced more powerful Core m3 and Core m5 (with vPro) variants, which they hope, will satisfy the demands for digital signage. All three new Compute Sticks address the slow Wireless N WIFI on the original with 2x2 Wireless AC. All three variants will also have a microSD card slot for storage expansion.

It's a long time in the making, but Metal Gear Online is finally getting it's much needed beta on the PC starting today at 10PM Pacific.

In order to be eligible to play you have to be the owner of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and you'll have to opt into the beta in order to play it. Because it's a beta, don't expect the smoothest of operations, but at least the stealthy cooperative shooter is finally available.

With Metal Gear Online coming to the PC, Konami wants to bring a new map that looks very similar to the Mother Base found in the main single player game and more weapons as DLC. Hopefully cross-play functionality makes it into the fray as well, though that's a bit more difficult to implement.

If having a good camera capable of 4K video weren't enough, you have to have the proper storage to actually record that. So if you plan on using a Sony A7R II or perhaps even the newly announced Nikon D500 or D5, then you might want to invest in some good storage media for that.

Sony's newest XDQ alone can reach read speeds of 440MB/s and writes speeds of up to 150mb/s, which is more than enough for moving large 4K files on-the-fly. It's massively fast compared to older generations of the portable media. You'll be able to find it in 32, 64 and 128GB capacities .

They're also introduction a new SF-M series of SD cards that can read at a rate of 260MB/s and write at a very swift 100MB/s. Just keep in mind that those speeds are ideal and are likely limited in older cameras with slower connective interfaces. But that's plenty fast, again, for writing high bit-rate 4K video, which is slowly becoming standard in DSLR's. The only competitor that needs to release a consumer 4K ready DSLR (or mirrorless) is Canon, and it's only a matter of time.

Good news DC universe fans, if you love MMO's and own an Xbox One, then you'll able to save the city from the super villains coming up this spring.

Daybreak Games' creative directory Jens Anderson took to a livestream to announce that they have plans to release their super hero MMORPG on the Xbox One, a platform that has somehow been skipped up until now. That'll open up the game to a much wider audience. They also announced that they'll be implementing cross-play between PS4 and PC on January 25th.

DC Universe Online lets you play as or alongside your favorite characters inside that universe, taking on a role either against the typical villains or heroes. It's your choice and there's plenty of story driven content available, though there are some complaints from veteran players about a lack of continued content. It has a 72 on metacritic and a very positive rating on Steam with over 8000 user reviews. Of course it's a free-to-play MMO with freemium elements.

Patch 1.12 for The Witcher 3 is out today with a lot of great bug fixes and other refinements and improvements to the game. They're citing over 70 changes to gameplay alone.

But really they've dropped this update to smash a lot of bugs that have been lying around on the underlying framework. This is more of a quality of life update than anything, but the list of bugs that have been properly fixed is really impressive.

Though performance initially was horrible, and was on our list of gaming fails of 2015, CD PROJEKT Red has been committed to improving performance despite the inclusion of GameWorks.

We've spotted some decent discounts on some higher-end video cards from AMD's R9 series fleet, including the ultra-small but potent Radeon R9 Nano and the beefy 8GB VRAM toting Radeon R9 390X.

Newegg is currently holding a sale on a few powerful, future-proof GPU's that are perfect solutions for ultra gaming and beyond. The sale includes a PowerColor Radeon R9 Nano for just $456 with a $20 mail-in-rebate promo code BTEMEFD32, and a Sapphire TRI-X Radeon R9 390X for just $369 after a $15 mail-in-rebate.

Both cards reap the benefits from AMD's R9 series, including support for the DirectX 12 API, FreeSync support for ultra-fast low-latency monitor refresh rates, and EyeFinity technology for multiple monitor setups. Either Radeon R9 card is a great solution for 1080p, 1440p and 4K gaming.

Amazon has opened a special sale for Prime members on select video game pre-orders.

If you're an Amazon Prime member and are looking forward to upcoming games like Kingdom Hearts 3, Dark Souls 3, Zelda Wii U, and the insanely anticipated Final Fantasy VII: Remake, then we've got some good news for you. Amazon is currently discounting a ton of video game pre-orders by 20%, which could indicate that the online retailer wants to counter Best Buy's money-saving Gamer's Club Unlocked membership.

The sale was originally spotted by notorious discount-finder Wario64, who announced that Amazon's pre-order sale has expanded to "almost every game". The list has grown by the minute, including a smattering of upcoming console games, from the Xbox One-exclusive ReCore to Square Enix's cross-platform Final Fantasy 15, and even Ubisoft's new Stone Age fantasy game, Far Cry: Primal.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has been on a Reddit AMA spree, saying that the PlayStation VR isn't as high-end as the Rift, and that Nintendo's Virtual Boy 'hurt' the VR industry.

But when it came to the Rift headset itself, he said: "Our OLED displays and control over the viewing environment make it one of the most accurate displays you can get. In the near future, VR displays are going to surpass traditional displays in almost every way".

Palmer continued, saying that the Rift display is calibrated out of the box, so that PC gamers won't have to do it themselves. As for virtual desktops, Palmer did tease that developers are building virtual desktop applications right now. He said: "There are several people building virtual desktop applications. The biggest limitation is resolution per degree and lack of 1:1 pixel mapping compared to traditional displays. You can do it, but applications like PS and Maya are better on a normal monitor for now".

SAPPHIRE has just unveiled the best Radeon R9 Fury yet, with its new Nitro Radeon R9 Fury, something it says is "faster and quieter than any competing product".

The Fiji Pro-powered Nitro Radeon R9 Fury has 3584 stream processors, with the GPU overclocked to 1050MHz. The included 4GB of HBM has the usual 4096-bit memory but resulting in 512GB/sec memory bandwidth, ensuring smooth performance in the latest titles.

SAPPHIRE's new Nitro Radeon R9 Fury features the company's impressive Tri-X cooler, something the company calls "the most efficient cooling solution ever built by the company". The GPU and core components are cooled by a solid copper plate and a slew of copper heat pipes, including the industry-leading 10mm one.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has been giving some golden nuggets of information thanks to his AMA session on Reddit, where he even referenced the failed Virtual Boy from Nintendo.

Palmer responded to a Reddit member asking on his comment for the Virtual Boy, where he said that it doesn't qualify as true VR. Palmer said the Virtual Boy had "[no] head tracking, low field of view, [and was] essentially a monochrome 3DTV". He added that the Virtual Boy failing was a "real shame, too, because the association of the Virtual Boy with VR hurt the industry in the long run".

Palmer did say one positive thing about Nintendo's 'VR' device, is that "It did have the first LED display in a consumer device, though - probably the best contrast of any display up to that point!"

CES 2016 - TweakTown visited Patriots suite at CES 2016 and got a first look at Patriot's upcoming Hellfire PCIe-based SSD. This soon to be released SSD has generated a lot of buzz in the enthusiast community. TweakTown's storage editor, Jon Coulter, was given the opportunity to run a couple of benchmarks with a 480GB Hellfire PCIe SSD.

Featuring capacities of 240GB, 480GB and 960GB, these new products promise read speeds of up to 3000MB/s and write speeds measuring in at a maximum of 2200MB/s. With the Hellfire utilizing PCIe 3.0 x4 technology, check out our benchmark results in the full news story. Enjoy!

Patriot states the Hellfire should hit retail channels in Q1 2016.

Palmer Luckey, the flip flop wearing founder of Oculus, has come out slamming the PlayStation VR during his Reddit AMA. During the AMA, he also said that jump scares in VR are "such a cheap way to get a reaction in VR".

Talking with the International Business Times, Luckey said that PlayStation VR isn't as high-end as the Rift. He said: "It's also worth noting that their headset isn't quite as high-end as ours - it's still, I think, a good headset - and the PlayStation 4 is not nearly as powerful as our recommended spec for a PC". I agree, the PS4 just isn't anywhere near as powerful as a PC - and so the PlayStation VR will suffer in some way.

He continued, saying that the PlayStation VR itself is good, but the Rift is better quality - as it requires a better PC than what the PS4 contains, hardware wise. He continued: "I think that there's not many people who already own a PS4 who don't own a gaming PC who are going to go out and make that roughly $1,500 all-in investment in the Rift. It really is a separate market. They're bringing virtual reality to a different group of people who I don't think were ever really a part of our market anyway".

With the release of the Oculus Rift now cemented on March 28, Palmer Luckey has been doing some damage control - an AMA on Reddit.

Luckey said that jump scares in VR are a tool that developers will use, but he recommends they don't. Luckey said: "... We are strongly discouraging developers from using jump scares. They are such a cheap way to get a reaction in VR".

Personally, jump scares are what VR horror games should be about. Oculus has promised to keep jump scares out of its games, but I'm sure we'll see developers using them to their advantage.

CES 2016 - The latest innovations from touch-pad creator Synaptics were shown off at CES this year, and they have a heavy focus on security and in integrating fingerprint sensors further into the PC and gaming markets to let everyone enjoy the ease with which biometric security can allow for.

Biometrics are an interesting technology that's really come into focus recently because of how Apple built a 360 degree fingerprint sensor into the home screen button that allows for using biometrics in an easy way that, mostly, just works. It's a seamless part of the experience, so Synaptics is looking at bringing that to enterprise laptops, so that the strength of biometrics can be an easily integrated daily part of using the device.

Their first generation of integrated finger-print readers is visually embedded into a specific part of the touchpad, and the raised area doesn't take away from the scrolling area either. Just like most modern consumer fingerprint sensors, it's 360 degree readable, so you can place your finger in on it in any direction, and so long as the necessary amount of points can be read, then it'll work. The best part is that it literally saves OEM's money to implement, because they don't have to engineer separate wrist rests with and without a sensor.

The Division will hopefully be one of the best-looking games of 2016, thanks to its impressive in-house Snowdrop engine. Ubisoft Massive has spent years on the engine, with it paying off for The Division.

During the "Tom Clancy's The Division" session at this year's GDC, Nikolay Stefanov, Technical Lead at Ubisoft Massive will detail more about the Global Illumination effects in the game. We already know that there is the great physically-based rendering pipeline for The Division, too.

The briefing teases some details on the GI effects in The Division: "Our implementation is based on radiance transfer probes and allows real-time bounce lighting from completely dynamic light sources, both on consoles and PC. During production, the system gives our lighting artists instant feedback and makes quick iterations possible".

CES 2016 - During our CES 2016 travels, we spotted a big GPU - the big version of Polaris. Not the 1080p 60FPS version that the company showed off in Sonoma at its RTG Technology Summit, but the enthusiast version of Polaris.

We don't know anything about it just yet, but this could be either the Radeon 400 series GPU, or the successor to the Fury X. I'm leaning on the side of the Fury X successor, but it could very well be the Radeon R9 490X - the Polaris-powered successor to the Radeon R9 390X.

We weren't allowed to take pictures of it, and the person showing it to us had a huge grin on their face the entire time. Maybe because of my good looks, but probably because they knew how much I wanted to steal it.

It looks like NVIDIA is already playing around with its next-gen Pascal GPUs, with a new listing spotted on a shipping manifest from Zauba.

NVIDIA's upcoming GP104 will be the mid-range part, just like the GM204 which resulted in the GeForce GTX 980. The new GP104 GPU arrives in a 37.5 x 37.5mm BPA package, which is smaller than the GM204 which arrived in 40 x 40mm. It has more pins than the GM204, with 2152 vs 1745, which will be thanks to the 16nm FinFET process.

The report from 3DCenter says that the GP104-based card will use GDDR5X, where I was the first to ponder that the mid-range (GP104 and under) will be powered by GDDR5X while the higher-end offerings will be powered by HBM2. This will make the GP104 and cards under that much cheaper, versus the more expensive HBM2 technology on the enthusiast products.

A transparent, voice-activated, moving display from Panasonic has been spotted at CES 2016, and it's about as futuristic as it gets.

Starting at about 25 seconds in the video above, you can see how easily it blends in with the entertainment center behind it, while allowing the option for subtle information like news and weather.

Later in the presentation, music is brought on screen via voice activation, which is then complemented by a colourful rolling sea background.