Latest News - Page 2729

Sure, your flashy new GeForce GTX 980 has 4GB of VRAM, and so does the one next to it in SLI. But while you have a total of 8GB of VRAM between two cards, only one set of VRAM is being used, it's not being combined. That is, for now. Things could change according to a recent tweet from AMD's Robert Hallock.

Hallock teased that with the upcoming APIs in Mantle and DirectX 12, two GPUs in SLI or Crossfire could possibly act as 'one big' GPU. Hallock said: "Mantle is the first graphics API to transcend this behavior and allow that much-needed explicit control. For example, you could do split-frame rendering with each GPU ad its respective framebuffer handling 1/2 of the screen. In this way, the GPUs have extremely minimal information, allowing both GPUs to effectively behave as a single large/faster GPU with a correspondingly large pool of memory".

"Ultimately the point is that gamers believe that two 4GB cards can't possibly give you the 8GB of useful memory", he continued. He added: "That may have been true for the last 25 years of PC gaming, but thats not true with Mantle and its not true with the low overhead APIs that follow in Mantle's footsteps". This isn't confirmation that memory stacking is going to happen, but it's a much better direction to be heading in, that's for sure. Especially with 4K and beyond gaming, VRAM is more important than ever and wasting 4-8GB of VRAM on SLI/Crossfire setups is just silly.

We haven't even received GTA V on the PC yet, which was delayed from January to March, but now we're hearing the first rumbles of GTA VI. Yes, that's Grand Theft Auto 6.

During a talk with Develop, Rockstar Games' President, Leslie Benzies said: "We've got about 45 years worth of ideas we want to do. We don't know what GTA 6 will be, but we've got some ideas". Benzies continued, somehow thinking that teasing the world of one of the biggest franchises of all world would be fine, adding: "It comes from the idea first. Where is it going to be set is the first question. Then that defines the missions; you're doing different things in LA than in New York or Miami. The map and story get worked up together, and the story is a basic flow of how it works out so you can layer the missions in".

Now we have the pleasure of imagining where Rockstar could take GTA VI if it wasn't held back in shackles by the previous generation consoles. What could GTA IV turn out to be like if it were built from the ground up on the Xbox One, PS4, and the PC? What if Rockstar made it with the PC as the lead platform, with VR in mind and then just baked down to the consoles? I'm obviously making too much sense with that last bit, so I'll leave it at that.

H1Z1 and Planetside 2 developer Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has announced that it has snapped away from Sony, where it is now operating as an independent company.

How did this happen? Well, an investment management firm based in New York City, Columbus Nova, bought the company out from Sony for an undisclosed amount of money. The studio has said: "This means that effective immediately SOE will operate as an independent game development studio where we will continue to focus on creating exceptional online games for players around the world, and now as a multiplatform gaming company".

Yes, you read that right. SOE can now make games for the Xbox, mobile, and many more platforms. Jon Smedley, President of SOE has already said "Yes, that means PlayStation and Xbox, mobile, and more!". From this day forward, SOE is now known as Daybreak Game Company, with the new studio saying: "This name embodies who we are as an organization, and is a nod to the passion and dedication of our employees and players. It is also representative of our vision to approach each new day as an opportunity to move gaming forward".

We've been hearing the rumbles of an insane video card from EVGA for quite a while now, but here it is: the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 KINGPIN ACX 2.0. From the name alone, you can see that this is the top tier Maxwell-powered GTX 980 from NVIDIA, but the entire package is going to blow you away.

First and foremost, we have a custom designed PCB which has been tailor made to push things right to their breaking points. Under LN2, the new EVGA GeForce GTX 980 KINGPIN ACX 2.0 was capable of an insane 2.2GHz GPU clock, and 8.9GHz on the memory. Comparing this to the stock speeds of 1291MHz for the GPU and 7GHz for the GDDR5 RAM, this is an impressive result for EVGA and KINGPIN. The custom designed PCB is showing its strength here, but it'll be more interesting to see what it does with its ACX 2.0+ cooler.

Speaking of the custom designed PCB, we have a 14+3 Fully Digital VRM which will increase the stability, efficiency and the overall power capacity of the board, all while it runs at low temperatures of an average of 28C. The custom designed PCB has been made from 12 layers of copper, with two 8-pin PCIe power connectors backed up by a third, 6-pin PCIe power connector. All of this power will ensure that the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 KINGPIN ACX 2.0 has enough power when it is receiving a total thrashing in the overclocking department.

The New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks in a thrilling Super Bowl, and it looks like the game was a major success on Twitter and Facebook. There were more than 265 million posts, comments and likes on Facebook, generated by at least 65 million users, according to the company.

An interception to effectively end the game was the most popular Facebook discussion (1.36 million people per minute), while Katy Perry's halftime performance racked up 1.02 million people per minute discussing it.

There were more than 28 million tweets posted on Twitter related to the Super Bowl and Perry's halftime performance. Not surprisingly, Malcolm Butler's interception to seal the victory for the Patriots received 395,000 tweets per minute, earning the most generated Twitter moment of the event.

UNH-IOL has announced during the third NVM Express Interoperability Plugfest that twelve products were added to the UNH-IOL (University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab) NVMe 1.1b Integrators List. One item on the list that is sure to interest the enthusiast crowd is the Intel 750 SSD. News of the Intel 750 cropped up in a leaked roadmap, with release of the code-named 'August Ridge' product scheduled for Q4 of 2014. Of course, this time has passed.

There were no details in the leaked roadmap, but now we know that the August Ridge SSDs will feature the NVMe 1.1b interface. It appears, from the leaked roadmap, that the Intel 750 will be available in both the M.2 and 2.5" form factor, and come in capacities of 180, 240, 360, 480, and 600GB. NVMe will provide a low-latency interconnect that will allow Intel to finally break the SATA performance barrier. Even though the proposed release date on the leaked roadmap has passed, the Intel 750 SSD is clearly still on the way to consumers. It appears Intel is close to being the first SSD manufacturer with a consumer NVMe SSD on the market.

Another interesting inclusion is the Intel DC P3700 series of products (evaluated here). These products are already on the market with NVMe 1.1a, and will be upgradeable to offer NVMe 1.1b functionality with a firmware update.

In an effort to protect federal and private computer assets from cyberattacks, President Barack Obama wants to receive $14 billion in the 2016 fiscal year to put towards cybersecurity. The US government has increasingly called upon defense contractors and the private sector to provide next-generation software and hardware designed to help keep critical infrastructure safer from attack.

As part of his multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity effort, Obama wants to include additional intrusion detection and prevention solutions, along with increased intelligence sharing between the government and private sector.

"Cyber threats targeting the private sector, critical infrastructure and the federal government demonstrate that no sector, network or system is immune to infiltration by those seeking to steal commercial or government secrets and property or perpetrate malicious and disruptive activity," according to a White House summary.

Microsoft pleased the world at large by announcing a free upgrade to Windows 10 for consumers with Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. Unfortunately, Microsoft will not be extending that same offer to enterprise users.

Microsoft has released a statement on the issue, "Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise are not included in the terms of free Windows 10 Upgrade offer we announced last week, given active Software Assurance customers will continue to have rights to upgrade to Windows 10 enterprise offerings outside of this offer - while also benefitting from the full flexibility to deploy Windows 10 using their existing management infrastructure."

Microsoft is releasing a new two-tier enterprise updating feature. The 'Current Branch for Business' feature allows users to defer new updates for 120 days while they are thoroughly tested in client versions of the operating system. The operating system will still receive up-to-date security updates.

Unsure if the Raspberry Pi 2 is for you? Microsoft are putting their might behind this latest product offering - announcing that it's "delivering a version of Windows 10 that supports Raspberry Pi 2."

The 2nd generation of Raspberry Pi offers a more powerful processor and twice as much RAM. Often toted by retro-game emulators worldwide as an optimum product, you could always install versions of Windows on the device, however Microsoft is now working to directly offer up an Operating System tailored for this tiny computer system.

There will be more information released later as to how exactly Microsoft will be supporting the Raspberry Pi 2, with them stating this will come "in the coming months."

Not quite the next Angry Birds, but Indie developers Hipster Whale have burst into the app scene with a big bang - seeing over 30 million global downloads and topping $1 million in profit since launching their game Crossy Road late last year.

Seeing them officially form only four months ago, Hipster Whale are certainly an indie success story - with ten million of their total downloads occurring in the last fortnight alone, seeing this free game draw in massive profits through in-app purchases and advertising. It's reported that users will pay between $1.29 AU and $3.99 AU to purchase new characters for use alone, alongside the various advertising avenues taking place.

Co-founder Matt Hall said to reporters that "we wanted a game that was influenced by popular culture and crazy. We put a lot of effort into a game that people want to share," further mentioning that they didn't heavily promote or advertise Crossy Road - simply relying on social media networks, user reviews and recommendations to push their product to the masses.

We recently published an article stating that former-Epsilon CS:GO team member Robin "GMX" Stahmer dug up some dirt on his ex-team mates - claiming that they threw a match on purpose in order to win in-game items in a bet against themselves on CSGOLounge.

Stahmer has taken to Facebook, explaining how he believes that his former teammate Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom wasn't involved in the scandal - stating "I did this under anger, and in this act, I forgot to say that my former team mate ScreaM, didn't know about this throw. I've talked a bit with Adil [ScreaM], and in my anger, I forgot he didn't know about it. I don't know yet if they told him about it or not, but I didn't."

Stahmer went on to express his sympathy and regret, stating "I want to apologize toward the community, and toward ScreaM who doesn't deserve all this hate."

We're seeing a massive trend here - yet another Cooler Master modified case jam-packed with Bitspower rigid tubing watercooling goodies.

H²OC Project has just shared their Silencio 652S Edge Mod - now with newly added blue dye in the watercooling and more strips of LED lights.

Supported by Cooler Master, Bitspower and Avexir Memory, this case features four sticks of RAM coupled with a single GTX 780, rigid tubing throughout and custom sleeves on all cables. As you can easily tell by the pictures, blue is the common theme here - with all watercooling and LEDs being blue in color, accentuating all parts of the case whether metal or acrylic.

This brings the term "keyboard warrior" to a whole new level. The front lines are most commonly publicized, however what's going on behind closed curtains? Here's an insight - The British Army have just implemented a whole battalion of soldiers described as "Facebook Warriors."

Named as the 77th battalion, this number has some historical background. Claimed by the Financial Times as a "guerrilla unit led by the swashbuckling British commander Major General Orde Wingate, one of the pioneers of modern unconventional warfare. They operated deep behind Japanese lines in Burma between 1942 and 1945 and their missions were often of questionable success."

This new battalion will be responsible for implementing "'reflexive control', an old Soviet tactic of spreading specifically curated information in order to get your opponent to react in the exact way you want them to," as described by Gizmodo.

Recently there was a massive match-fixing and betting ring scandal that rocked the whole North American and Canadian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) scene, seeing numerous players and a manager be banned for life from all Valve major events, ESEA tournaments and more.

In recent news, French-based eSports organization Epsilon has suspended their whole CS:GO division pending a current match-fixing investigation.

Their world-class CS:GO squad has been unearthed by former teammate Robin "GMX" Stahmer, with him stating that his old team purposefully lost a match on the ESEA platform against rivals OverGaming in order to profit from weapon skins. These skins were achieved through bets made against themselves on the popular website, CSGOLounge.

The world has been waiting to see what Microsoft would do with the Devices and Services division of Nokia, but it looks like we'll be waiting a little bit longer to see the fruits of that expensive labor.

According to the latest reports, the first Microsoft-branded Lumia smartphone will be unveiled at Mobile World Congress, which isn't too far away. We're being told that the Lumia 1330 will be unveiled, while the more affordable and mainstream Lumia 830 will also be shown off. These will be the first Microsoft Lumia smartphones, with Windows 10-powered handsets rolling out their own devices later in the year.

We don't know much about the new Lumia smartphones except for the fact that they'll be rumored to sport a "3D-Touch" feature that will let you use your smartphone with your hands, without touching the display itself.

Just how is 4K gaming affecting AMD internally right now? According to Robert Hallock who is part of the Technical Communications division for AMD Radeon graphics, he said that gamers are adopting 4K gaming nicely, but the R&D department for AMD is already planning for the future.

For Hallock, the Radeon R9 290X was a major step in that direction, allowing for gamers to play at 4K with a single GPU. Lower-end parts of the market aren't quite there yet, so GamingBolt asked him some questions where he replied with the future of 4K gaming is an evolution of GPU horsepower, which is something AMD is working on. He said: "If you think back to the launch of the AMD Radeon R9 290X, our video card marked arguably the first time anyone could reasonably expect to play games at 4K on a single GPU. Sure, there were some games that needed two for peak image quality, but one was and is pretty solid for the majority of titles. We were also the first company to offer full support for 4K SST displays in our driver".

"4K adoption is very popular amongst the elite enthusiasts, but understandably slower being adopted in lower-end segments. I couldn't characterize the rates with hard numbers as that's not my area of expertise, but this is the sense I'm getting from interacting with the AMD community every day", he continued. Hallock added: "Ultimately, the evolution of GPU horsepower is the biggest factor in driving 4K forward. Graphics being such an important part of our business, of course, you can count on great progress on that front as the years wind on".

Ye olde trusty wooden pirateship has sailed back! The Pirate Bay, hailed as "The galaxy's most resilient BitTorrent site", is now back online at thepiratebay.se. This long hiatus has come to an end after a Swedish police raids shuttered the site, and employee infighting led to several of the original cast and crew heading for bluer waters.

The latest Pirate Bay saga began when Swedish police raided the servers, which were housed in a converted nuclear shelter in Nacka, Sweden. The Pirate Bay was taken offline and its web ratings plunged from being the 88th largest website in the world to 176. In recent weeks a timer appeared that counted down to the time that the site came online, letting the world at large know that The Pirate Bay may have been down, but it certainly was not out.

The familiar pirate ship logo can still be found throughout the site, but upon resurfacing The Pirate Bay is sporting a new homepage logo with what appears to be a Phoenix, which is unsurprising since The Pirate Bay has once again sprung from the ashes.

Islamic extremist groups still enjoy using the Internet and social media to spread propaganda and recruit, but are becoming more skilled in flying under the radar. Intelligence experts are collecting information from previous reckless Internet posts, and that is something the terrorists want to avoid in the future.

To help share propaganda, the groups are largely turning to the Dark Web - and using Skype, WhatsApp, and software that isn't as open. ISIS went a step further by issuing guidelines to its members posting on social media, such as blurring out faces, ensuring geographic tagging is disabled, and being careful what information they are providing on current operations.

"We realize that the people we are interested in are increasingly specialized in computing," said Philippe Chadrys, the head investigator of France's judicial police responsible for fighting terrorism, in a statement to the AFP. "They master encryption software and methods to better erase data. That makes our probes much more complicated."

A new cyber threat victimizing users is the 'RansomWeb' attack, which leaves compromised websites encrypted - and they will remain that way until the victim pays a ransom to cyberattackers. The threat was first detected by cybersecurity firm High-Tech Bridge, investigating a client website, which displayed a database error.

The cybercriminals demanded a $50,000 ransom in exchange for decrypting the database, despite it being compromised six months prior. A closer inspection found that several server scripts were edited so data was encrypted before it was submitted to the database, and data was decrypted after being pulled from the database.

Instead of an immediate ransom demand - like ransomware attacks against business users - the cybercriminals patiently waited until backups were also overwritten.

By now I'm sure you've read about the VRAM issues surrounding the GeForce GTX 970, and AMD taking a stab at NVIDIA because of it, but now the former is offering gamers special discounts if they return their GTX 970s and pick up a Radeon card.

AMD's Roy Taylor has taken to Twitter, offering GTX 970 owners who return their cards special discounts if they swap them out for Radeon cards, including the R9 290 and R9 290X. Taylor tweeted "Anyone returning their GTX970 and wanting a great deal on a Radeon with a full 4GB please let us know" and even tagged the @NVIDIAGeForce Twitter account at the time.

Are you a GeForce GTX 970 owner? Will you be trading in your GTX 970 for the Radeon R9 290X?