Latest News - Page 3

AMD has finally talked about its next generation "Big Navi" graphics cards, which from now on in will be called RDNA 2 or "Navi 2X" -- I kinda liked the name Big Navi, though.

During its recent Financial Analyst Day, AMD came out swinging talking about its warpath against its competitors in Intel and NVIDIA -- where it revealed that its next-gen discrete graphics cards will be based on the RDNA 2 architecture.

The company is referring to RDNA 2 as "Navi 2X" which will arrive on the 7nm node, but it also teased RDNA 3 or "Navi 3X" on an "Advanced Node", too. RDNA 3 / Navi 3X should be on the 7nm+ node, or the 5nm node -- something I'm going to need to clarify.

Gamers absolutely love cross-play support for their titles, as it opens up a whole new realm of enjoyment when gamers can enjoy the game they love with people from other platforms.

It's even better when gamers can share save files between platforms as well. Well, that's exactly what Gearbox Software is giving Borderlands 3 players, according to the developers' recent announcement. Gearbox says that when players launch Borderlands 3 on Steam for the first time, and on Epic after installing a brand new patch, they will be prompted with a "PC Cross-Play" screen.

This prompt will give players the option to enable/disable cross-play between these platforms. If a player chooses to enable cross-play, he/she will be able to queue up with fellow gamers on the other platform. I think the 'disabling' part is quite self-explanatory. On top of that juicy cross-play goodness, PC players will be able to transfer save data between Steam and the Epic Games Store. This means players won't have to worry about starting all over again if they decide to jump platform. Side note - Gearbox does warn players who decide to do this have a risk of loosing their save files. So backups will be necessary if this is what you want to do.

While Microsoft's Flight Simulator is still in its alpha phase, that hasn't stopped the game from looking simply gorgeous.

In the entirety of this article, you will find a fresh set of screenshots reinforcing how incredible Flight Simulator looks. The screenshots show off next-gen graphics in the form of environments, airplanes, cities, landscapes, and more. If you didn't know, Microsoft's Flight Simulator will have dynamic seasons. This means as players are flying around the game world they will experience what it's like to operate a vehicle while having to deal with seasonal weather difficulties such as rain, snow, heat, and more.

Microsoft Flight Simulator will also use real-time weather data, which means if a storm is happening in your area, players will be able to take a plane and fly right into to see what happens. On top of that incredible technology, Microsoft is introducing an amazingly realistic world, as seen in the screenshots. At the moment, there isn't a release date in place for Microsoft's Flight Simulator, but as soon as there is one, I will be sure to update you in a follow-up post.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is sparking fear in many people and companies across the globe and rightfully so. Now, another company has pulled out of a trade show due to worries over contracting the virus.

According to a report by CNET, HBO will now join Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Twitter by pulling out of South by Southwest (SXSW). At the moment, despite big companies such as the ones previously mentioned, SXSW is still going ahead, but the event organizers are "working closely on a daily basis with local, state, and federal agencies to plan for a safe event."

SXSW is scheduled to begin on March 13th, and even if the festival goes ahead it will be one of the smallest years in its history. If SXSW ends up being canceled it will add to a growing list of industry events being canceled due to fears of the spread. At the moment, the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Mobile World Congress (MWC) and Google I/O event have already been canceled.

The world of streaming is getting very, very interesting as big-name streamers are being fought over by streaming platforms.

As other companies begin to slowly build their streaming platforms, they have been poaching streamers from Twitch. A couple that spring to mind at Ninja, and Shroud who have both gone over to Microsoft's Mixer. Another streamer that could be mentioned is the biggest Super Smash Bros. streamer, ZeRo, who has now gone over to Facebook Gaming. As you can see, Twitch is losing some of its biggest players when it comes to streaming, so they have now decided to consolidate.

Most, if not all, of these streamers that have left Twitch, have been offered big paychecks or even bigger opportunities over at respective platforms. As business people, it would be silly to not test the waters over a competing platform, as more growth could come to fruition out of nowhere. Twitch now wants to offer streamers the same kind of opportunities to stay on its platform, and a great example of that is Pokimane, who recently announced that her feet are firmly planted in the world of Twitch streaming. Check out the above video to find out why.

Yesterday, NASA announced that they would be revealing the official name for their Mars rover, and now that its live-stream is complete, we know what to call Curiosity's successor.

If you haven't been following along with the naming process, NASA took to the public, and more specifically, school children from the years of kindergarten to year 12 to figure out a name for the new Mars rover. The rover's name was decided by an essay contest. Participants across the country were required to write an essay detailing why they believed NASA's new rover should be named whatever name they chose.

Those 28,000 essays were then voted on by 4,700 volunteer judges, and that 28,000 was boiled down to just 155. From there, judges then managed to get the 155 down to just nine finalists, then those finalists were voted on by the public. The winner was the seventh-grader Alexander Mather from lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Mather chose "Perseverance" for the rover's new name, and has also been invited to watch the launch of the rover this Summer from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

AMD knocked Intel for a six with its 7nm node in 2019, but don't worry -- Intel has a plan up its sleeve, it just won't be able to get there until 2022 or so.

Intel CFO George Davis said during a recent conference that Intel's 10nm productivity will be less than its 22nm and 14nm nodes. But don't worry, as there is a good side to this as Intel plans to hit process parity in late 2011 with its 7nm node, while making a "stronger" process node than AMD.

Intel is aiming for 2022 where it'll have process leadership again, as it has promised 5nm chips without the +++ attached to them, at least at first. Intel says that it will be shifting from 10nm to 7nm, which is a total shocker (sarcasm) and that the jump down from 7nm to 5nm will most likely hurt Intel's gross margin, but the process leadership must be worth it for Intel to do this.

Gears of War 5 will have next-gen enhancements on Xbox Series X, possibly with new features like ray tracing, 120FPS support, and even 8K resolution gaming.

Phil Spencer recently took a trip to Gears of War developer The Coalition to check out a new upgraded version of Gears 5, confirming the game will be boosted on the next-gen Xbox Series X. This isn't a surprise though. Microsoft recently announced that all of its first-party studios would upgrade their games on the Xbox SX through Smart Delivery, a new content delivery pipeline that transports enhancement patches online.

The Tweet was vague and the image is fuzzy, and there's lots of enhancement possibilities here. The Xbox Series X's new tightly synergized 7nm SoC offers a wealth of potential optimizations including boosted frame rates, variable refresh rates and variable rate shading, and ray tracing for improved lighting and visuals. Given AMD's recent presentation, the most likely upgrade is ray tracing.

In a rather bizarre but not surprising move, Nintendo has teamed up with Levi's to make officially branded Super Mario clothes.

Levi's is making Mario jeans, shirts, jackets, scarves, and hats, complete with a stylish flair right out of the video game series. Some of the articles in the Super Mario x Levi's collab are bright, colorful, and extremely eye-catching, especially the jacket that comes packed with a ton of old-school Mario characters.

This cross-brand promotion will turn fans into walking advertisements for Nintendo with a stylish flair to boot. It's a great way to increase visibility, especially during this year's vital Olympics in Tokyo. Nintendo is also opening its Universal theme part attraction, Super Mario World, in Japan this year.

Microsoft could unveil its cheaper next-gen Xbox console pretty soon, offering a new mid-gen refresh at launch instead of years down the line.

Ever since 2018 there's been rumors of two next-gen Xbox consoles launching in 2020, not one. The two consoles would include the monstrous 12TFLOP Xbox Series X, which will be an expensive enthusiast solution that hits 8K resolution and delivers 120FPS, and a lower-end, cheaper system codenamed Lockhart with a dramatically reduced 4TFLOP GPU that targets 1440p 60FPS. Gamers have dubbed the cheaper model as the Xbox Series S because it's basically the Xbox One S of the next generation.

Now there's rumblings that Microsoft could pull the curtain off of Lockhart (aka Xbox Series S) quite soon. Sources tell Dealer Gaming, a YouTube and gaming personality that keeps a close eye on Xbox, that the cheaper next-gen Xbox will be announced momentarily. It's possible Microsoft wants to formally unveil Lockhart ahead of E3 2020 to avoid mixed messaging at the event.