Latest News - Page 316

Video game developers, especially smaller-scale ones, are less likely to ship their full game on a Switch 2 cartridge for one big reason: Price.

We've known for a while that full capacity Switch game cartridges are expensive. Publishers and developers have gotten around these costs by using smaller capacity Switch cartridges and splitting their games between the data on the cartridge and a digital download. The costs haven't come down for Switch 2 cartridges especially now that the new console uses MicroSD Express.

Nintendo has innovated with the Switch 2 by introducing Game-key Cards, which are basically special ultra-low capacity Switch 2 cartridges that come with an authentication key to download the game. This trend mixes both physical cartridges with digital downloads in a more uniform, low-cost way.

F1 25 is the latest edition of EA SPORTS' premier Formula 1 racing game. This year, it's stepping up its realism in-game visuals with a Full Ray Tracing or Path Tracing mode. Available now in Early Access, this new cutting-edge graphics option is optimized to run on GeForce RTX hardware thanks to its support for DLSS 4, Ray Reconstruction, and Multi Frame Generation.

Path tracing takes the game's ray tracing to the next level. All lights reflect and bounce around the scene realistically, leading to more accurate shadows and other effects. The results are stunning, with some of the shots in the video above from the YouTube channel Compusemble looking just about photorealistic. The video compares the same scenes with ray-tracing turned off, regular ray-tracing turned on, and full path tracing.

The difference is night and day, and F1 25 joins a growing list of path-tracing-enabled games that look stunning. Interestingly, F1 25 also uses NVIDIA's AI-powered ACE Audio2Face-3D technology for lip synching and facial animation based on voice actor recordings, which we'll probably start seeing more of in the months and years ahead.

Battlefield is currently undergoing regional playtesting on various platforms, with recent reports pointing to it being tested on PlayStation consoles, specifically the PS5 Pro.

A new report from MP1ST cites information from one playtester who showed the publication the new Battlefield is targeting 120FPS on the PS5 Pro. MP1ST writes while it cannot share the gameplay as it can be traced back to the leaker, it can confirm that by what its seen the game was running between 100 and 110FPS consistently, with the lowest drop being down to the high 80's, and this was only momentarily before it jumped back up to the hundreds. Notably, these high framerates were achieved even with a lot of destruction occurring around the player.

What is even better news is that in infantry combat, the new Battlefield was able to achieve a super-smooth 120FPS on a Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) enabled display. As for the dips to 80 FPS, the leaker said these occurrences were "rare." Unfortunately, while this is all fantastic news for PS5 Pro owners, the leaker didn't provide a resolution at which the game was running to achieve this framerate. We can only presume it will be 4K, or a resolution close to it.

Once again, the G.SKILL OC World Cup 2025 Grand Final took place at Computex 2025 in Taipei, and if you were anywhere near the G.SKILL booth at the event, you've probably never seen so much liquid nitrogen (LN2) in a single location. And after a series of extreme overclocking challenges, CENS from Germany claimed the crown as OC Champion alongside the cash prize of $10,000.

CENS is a legend in the OC community, and this latest win sees him take the G.SKILL OC World Cup for the second year in a row. In the finals, CENS faced off against overclockers from around the world, tackling a series of performance and stability benchmarks with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor and ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 Apex motherboard.

Plus, G.SKILL's high-performance 24GB DDR5 module, built with SK Hynix ICs, saw CENS achieve up to DDR5-10266 CL32 2x24GB with LN2 cooling. However, this wasn't the fastest speed achieved during the competition.

The launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 is right around the corner, and some people have already received their console ahead of the official June 5 launch day. However, none of these consoles work.

A new leak shows a Nintendo Switch 2 box being opened, with the console and Joy-Con 2 controllers inside. According to the person who shared the video of the Switch 2 being out in the wild, the console is locked and "needs an update to function". The individual said they are waiting until June 5th to unlock it. Additionally, X user Wario64 recently wrote that another user shared they have obtained a Nintendo Switch 2 console and that when they attempted to boot a Switch 1 game, the following message appeared: "Please connect to the internet and update your system."

These rumors fall in line with previous reports that reviewers were not going to get samples from Nintendo until the launch day, and that systems will require a day-one update. It seems the day-one update will be to actually enable the console to function. The consoles arriving locked until June 5 is no mistake by Nintendo, and is in part being used as a strategy to prevent early coverage or leaks about the console before it officially launches on June 5. Quite smart.

SpaceX has conducted its ninth test flight for Starship, the world's most powerful rocket, and while the flight ended in fiery explosions, the flight was deemed a major milestone.

The Elon Musk-led space-faring company launched Starship on its ninth test flight at 6:36 p.m. CT on Tuesday, May 27, marking the first time that a Super Heavy booster has been reused for a launch, with the first time this particular booster was used being in Flight 7. SpaceX wrote on X that Flight 9 was intended to push Super Heavy to "intentionally push Super Heavy to the limits," in order to gain real-world data to improve the next-generation booster. So, what happened to Super Heavy and the upper stage, Ship?

Super Heavy performed adequately, demonstrating its ability to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent back to Earth. Super Heavy separated from Starship correctly, and upon its re-entry back to its designated splashdown area within the Gulf of America, Super Heavy relit its 13 center and middle ring Raptor engines. Unfortunately, the booster was lost just after the landing burn began, resulting in an unscheduled disassembly, or boom, only 6 minutes and 20 seconds after launch.

Apple plans to release its own dedicated gaming app shortly after the Nintendo Switch 2's launch, sources tell Bloomberg.

Apple's gigantic $14.8 billion gaming empire has been jeopardized by recent court rulings; first in the Epic v Apple case, which found that Apple's App Store policies were anti-competitive, and then a federal judge found Apple's post-trial conduct to be in clear violation of an injunction order. Apple has also recently been found to have violated the Digital Markets Act by the European Commission.

It's fair to say that Apple's role in being a passive gatekeeper that rakes in billions upon billions of dollars a year via fees is over. A new era of gaming at Apple may be on the way (the company did recently just buy its first games studio), and now Apple will launch a centralized gaming app that aims to bring its content and services in one place.

CLEAResult is North America's largest energy efficiency, energy transition and energy sustainability services provider, announcing its new 80 PLUS "Ruby" certification, the highest level of energy efficiency certification ever established for data center server PSUs worldwide.

We have all been hearing and reading about the supersonic rise in data center storage and AI-powered applications, which has been driving a greater energy efficiency in data center operations. CLEAResult says that data centers make up approximately 0.4% of the total US electricity consumption, with this figure expected to "rise dramatically" to somewhere between 6.7% and 12% by 2028 as storage, data processing, and AI workloads expand.

Divakar Jandhyala, CLEAResult's Chief Product & Technology Officer said: "Achieving the highest standard of operations for data centers is critical as energy demand quickly grows and we are proud that the 80 PLUS Ruby certification is setting the example of what optimal data center energy efficiency can look like worldwide".

Bosgame has just announced its new Mini-PC powered with up to AMD's new flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" APU, and the powerful small system costs just $1699 when its Strix Halo APU-powered Mini-PC competitors START at $2000. Check it out:

Inside of Bosman's new M5 AI Mini Desktop Ryzen AI Max+ 395 system features AMD's new high-performance Strix Halo APU with 16 cores and 32 threads of Zen 5 processing power, with an RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 8060S integrated GPU with 40 CUs of graphics power compared to 16 CUs inside of the Strix Point APUs.

The RDNA 3.5-powered Radeon 8060S integrated GPU provides gaming performance similar to what you'd get out of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070, joined by a rather large 128GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory and dual Gen4 SSD slots, you've got quite the (tiny) gaming powerhouse with the new Bosgame M5 Mini-PC.

Apple has violated the European Union's Digital Markets Act, regulators find, and must pay a €500 million fine by July.

The EU recently released its 70-page determination on Apple's ongoing conduct. Last month, European Commission enforcers found that Apple has violated the Digital Markets Act of 2024, and now the agency has published their findings on the matter.

According to the Commission, Apple broke the Digital Markets Act's Article 5(4), which is related to anti-steering provisions (Apple must allow developers to freely communicate with consumers, including offers available outside of the App Store). Apple must pay a sizable 500 million euro fine, the Commission has decided.

It probably didn't escape your attention that Microsoft has made a big deal out of how Windows 11 is a much tougher nut to crack than its predecessor in terms of security, and now the company is bolstering those defenses in an improbable sounding way.

This is the announcement that Windows 11 will benefit from new countermeasures designed to fend off the threat of quantum computers.

And yes, you're quite correct, those are machines which don't actually exist yet - at least not in any real form which is better than a traditional computer. What we have now in the way of quantum computers do work, but they're limited.

Apple has confirmed that it has purchased its first video game studio, which consists of two developers behind a popular Apple Arcade title.

Digital Trends has reported that Apple has acquired RAC7, a two-person team that is behind the Apple Arcade title Sneaky Sasquatch. Apple informed the publication that the acquisition has gone through, with an Apple spokesperson writing, Apple loves Sneaky Sasquatch, and that the company is excited the RAC7 team has joined Apple to continue working on the title. Moreover, the acquisition was done to assist the two developers in growing their team and expanding Sneaky Sasquatch on Apple Arcade further.

RAC7 was founded in 2014 by Jason ennis and Jesse Ringrose, and while Apple's aquisition of the company marks its first purchase of a video game studio, it's not indicative of a new plan for Apple to scoop up major developers, as it informs the publication the RAC7 purchase was due to a unique circumstance. Notably, Apple still plans to work with many third-party studios to increase the number of games on Apple Arcade.

The launch for the Nintendo Switch 2 is less than 10 days away and as retailers gear up for what will be undoubtedly a stampede of excited Nintendo fans grabbing their new console, we now have the first pictures of the Switch 2 at US retailers.

In a Reddit post that has now been deleted, but unsurprisingly reuploaded to X, formerly Twitter, an employee of retailer Target has captured a picture of Switch 2 consoles within a cage that's presumably used to transport large quantities of stock from one section of the store to another. According to the post, the store received "around 40" consoles, 20 Mario Kart Bundles, and 20 regular Nintendo Switch 2 bundles.

For those wondering what games will be available at launch, Nintendo is kicking off the fun with Mario Kart World and Switch 2 Editions of its current-gen games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Additionally, there will be a selection of third-party launch games such as Split Fiction, Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, Street Fighter 6, Sonic X Shadows Generations, and more. As for more first-party Nintendo titles, Donkey Kong: Bananza is slated to release in July. The Nintendo Switch 2 is scheduled to launch globally on June 5.

SpaceX has announced that next Tuesday, the world's most powerful rocket will take to the skies once again in an attempt to recover the Ship part of the rocket, a feat that has never been achieved.

That rocket is Starship, and when the 400-foot-tall rocket takes to the skies next Tuesday, it will mark the ninth launch of the megarocket. SpaceX's goal for this launch is to fly the upper stage or Ship part of the rocket halfway around Earth and land it in the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, this has never been achieved by SpaceX as the upper stage always burns up upon reentry into the atmosphere.

Elon Musk elaborated on this problem during an appearance on the Joe Rogan Podcast. He explained that the problem is the heat shield not being sufficient and that recovering the upper stage so engineers can examine it may provide the answers to designing an appropriate heat shield that prevents the stages' destruction. Until then, SpaceX engineers just have to try different designs and configurations of the heat shield tiles and implement what data they can acquire throughout the re-entry process.

There were many new and interesting products on show at Computex 2025, but one that may have slipped under your radar was MSI's new neutered motherboards, designed to reduce injuries.

MSI had many new products on display at its booth at Computex, and one that caught Tom's Hardware's keen eye was the new flat-design motherboards, which feature what MSI calls a "PinSafe Design." In a nutshell, these new boards have had their spiky pins flattened, creating a smoother surface that is starkly different from the typical motherboard. MSI says this new design is intended to prevent PC builders from being injured throughout the building process, while also having performance improvements such as greater system stability and ESD protection.

Unfortunately, MSI didn't provide any numbers to back up these claims, so we will just have to take the manufacturer's word for it until independent testing is conducted. Until then, the neutered motherboards will, at the very least, mean less dust is accumulated in clumps on the surface of the board, along with an improvement in being able to move the board around throughout the building process. Both of these are positives.

MindsEye has finally had a rather large 6-minute introduction to the game which you can check out below, from developer Build a Rocket Boy, with the founder of the new studio an ex-former producer of Rockstar who worked on the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

In the video above, we get a look at MindEye's gameplay, details of its expansive story, and some teases of the post-launch content coming from the developer, as well as the all-out PC version of the game that has level-creation tools that allow players to create pretty much "anything" they want.

The PC version of MindsEye gives gamers access to all of the game's assets, which allows players to create "anything" their imagination can come up with, as the developer is "passionate about democratizing video game development". Sounds like a huge step towards what we can expect from GTA 6 in 2026, but dropping on June 10.

Intel's high-end Battlemage graphics card is still incoming according to the latest from the rumor mill.

That's the word from Dutch tech site Tweakers (as flagged by VideoCardz) which during Computex 2025, chatted to multiple sources familiar with what's going on at Intel, and apparently the Arc B770 flagship is still in the pipeline from Team Blue.

Seemingly Intel is looking at a launch in the second half of 2025 for the B770, with the expectation being that Q4 is the most likely release timeframe, assuming there isn't any slippage from where the company is currently at with the development of this GPU.

That SteamOS is a much better bet for running games smoothly than Windows 11 on a PC gaming handheld is a conclusion that'll surprise no one - but some new benchmarking on this topic highlights just how much of a difference there really is.

As you might have noticed last week, a milestone arrived for a couple of handhelds that run Windows 11, namely official support for SteamOS from Valve.

This arrived primarily for the Lenovo Legion Go S, as part of an official partnership between Valve and Lenovo, and Dave2D (hat tip to Windows Central) was quickly on the case. The YouTuber carried out some comparative testing of Windows 11 versus SteamOS gaming performance with this portable, as you can see in the clip above.

Computex 2025 wasn't all that exciting when it came to memory products. Most of what we saw were evolutionary updates with higher DDR5 speeds and new heatspreader designs, but that doesn't mean the show was boring on the memory front. Computex never is.

Patriot showed off some interesting products, including a peek at some next generation SODIMMs, speedy desktop memory and an interesting little device that combines storage, USB-C with PD, HDMI support and a MicroSD card reader in one.

With Intel readying its Panther Lake mobile CPU family for an early 2026 release, it's confirmed that some models will come with SODIMMs with integrated clock drivers. In other words, CUDIMMS in laptop form factors. That's great news as currently available SODIMMs cannot scale anywhere near the speeds of desktop memory even without a CKD. And, being able to upgrade is a welcome advantage over soldered laptop memory.

AMD licensed the first-generation Zen CPU design and the X86-64 architecture in 2016 to a Chinese company called Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co, which goes by "Hygon." AMD and Hygon intended to create server-grade SoCs for the Chinese market with the Zen CPU design, and in the following years, Hygon created server CPUs called Dhyana.

Dawning Information Industry Company Limited (Surgon) took the Dhyana silicon and created what was once ranked the 38th most powerful supercomputer. Surgon is also known for building servers. Notably, Surgon was Hygon's largest shareholder, and as of Monday, the two companies have now officially combined through swapping stock, meaning China has obtained a new giant company capable of creating integrated servers, CPUs, and supercomputers.

This isn't all just hot air, either. It was only recently that Chinese media reported that Hygon is preparing to release a CPU with 128 cores capable of running 512 threads, four threads for each core. Currently, Intel and AMD are running simultaneous multithreading with two threads per core, with both companies suggesting it may be something they may adopt in the future, but showing no progress thus far.