Awaken the Force in our 'Star Wars' Blu-ray giveaway, thanks to Disney

Ben Gourlay | Contests & Giveaways | Apr 10, 2016 7:12 PM CDT

To celebrate this week's release of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' on Blu-ray HD and DVD, we have three Blu-ray copies to give away thanks to our friends at Walt Disney Australia.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away... Visionary director J.J. Abrams brings to life the motion picture event of a generation. As Kylo Ren and the sinister First Order rise from the ashes of the Empire, Luke Skywalker is missing when the galaxy needs him most. It's up to Rey, a desert scavenger, and Finn, a defecting stormtrooper, to join forces with Han Solo and Chewbacca in a desperate search for the one hope of restoring peace to the galaxy.

To go into the running to win a prize, simply answer the following question in 50 words or less:

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AMD's Radeon Pro Duo drops on April 26, dual-GPU goodness for $1500

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Apr 10, 2016 6:38 PM CDT

Last month during the Game Developers Conference, AMD hosted its huge Capsaicin event, where it officially unveiled the new Radeon Pro Duo.

AMD's new Radeon Pro Duo is a dual-GPU video card with two Fiji GPUs, 8GB of HBM1 (4GB per GPU), four DisplayPort outputs, and 16 TFlops of performance. Well, it hits retail on April 26 with a not-so-bad price tag of $1500.

This isn't a video card for most people, as it'll be the glory card for all things VR - gaming, production and engineering with VR, as well as the insane enthusiasts (like myself) who just want the most powerful video cards they can get.

Continue reading: AMD's Radeon Pro Duo drops on April 26, dual-GPU goodness for $1500 (full post)

Remedy admits it can't completely fix Quantum Break

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 9, 2016 5:49 PM CDT

Quantum Break currently suffers from a number of technical issues on PC, including inconsistent frame rates, poorly optimized monitor refresh rates, crashing, screen tearing, and more. We know that Remedy can't do anything about the problems caused by Microsoft's Windows 10 UWP platform (no FPS-tracking overlays, no FreeSync or toggling VSync), and it looks like the devs may not even be able to fix the issues caused by its own Northlight Engine.

Remedy admits it can't completely fix Quantum Break

Remedy Entertainment is well aware of Quantum Break's PC hiccups, and is currently collecting data and investigating fixes. Despite these assurances, man of Quantum Break's visual faults are byproducts of the game's Northlight engine, so they can't be fixed.

When asked if the texture pop-in could be addressed in a patch, Remedy's PR rep Thomas Puha said no. "That just unfortunately is a quirk of our graphics engine," he said in a Tweet. Texture pop-ins occur when ugly low-res textures serve as placeholders and eventually snap into the high-res textures you're supposed to see. The graphical ghosting issue can't be fixed, either: "Ghosting is just a result of the temporal reconstruction. Just the way we render things," Puha said.

Continue reading: Remedy admits it can't completely fix Quantum Break (full post)

MLB The Show 16 suffers from crippling server lag, Sony apologizes

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 9, 2016 4:40 PM CDT

Gaming sure has a trend, doesn't it? Another week, another broken game release. This time MLB The Show 16 has been rendered unplayable at launch thanks to horrible server optimization, but Sony jumped in and promised fixes.

MLB The Show 16 suffers from crippling server lag, Sony apologizes

MLB The Show 16 released on March 29, and for over a week now, the game has been riddled with horrible server lag. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the game didn't have to sync to online servers for basic singleplayer game modes like Road to the Show and franchise. Even if you're trying to play singleplayer, you're pretty much out of luck.

Rather than issue out refunds for the broken game's launch, Sony is making up for player troubles with free DLC. The developers further acknowledge the server problems and affirm that a fix is on its way. "We apologize that the excitement of launch and the start of the season has been soured by these issues. Our team is taking every step necessary and working around the clock to stabilize our online servers as soon as possible," Sony San Diego said in an official statement.

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Are broken PC ports Microsoft's new strategy to sell Xbox Ones?

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 9, 2016 3:46 PM CDT

Remember when we kept saying there's no reason to buy an Xbox One now that all Xbox games are coming to PC? Well, Quantum Break seems to be the exception to that rule, and could be part of Microsoft's new plan to keep Xbox One sales alive and kicking.

Are broken PC ports Microsoft's new strategy to sell Xbox Ones?

Overhyped and over-marketed, Quantum Break was supposed to be a proud flagship exclusive for Microsoft's Windows 10 PC platform. Instead, the game released as a total mess on PC; it can't even hit 60FPS, the 30FPS hard-lock doesn't work, there's crashing, screen tearing, ugly texture pop-ins, and other performance stutters marring the game. All of that is on top of the awful roadblocks of the Universal Windows Platform.

The Xbox One version of Quantum Break, however, is running smoothly. There's no hitches or hiccups, just the designated 30FPS hard cap and 720P upscaled to 1080P graphics. Normally, I'd just chalk this up to standard industry practices. Developers have long been releasing unfinished PC games alongside their more-optimized console ports simply because consoles take precedence. More people own consoles, which means more sales.

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PS4K would be a 'gigantic pain in the ass', says BioWare founder

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Apr 9, 2016 2:35 PM CDT

If the rumors are true, Sony is planning on changing the entire console industry with a mid-cycle PS4 refresh. While consumers have been buzzing about the prospect, the idea of PS4K or PS4.5 isn't too enticing to BioWare.

PS4K would be a 'gigantic pain in the ass', says BioWare founder

"I'd say that'd be a gigantic pain in the ass that flies in the face of the purpose of consoles," BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk told GameSpot. "It's funny, there's actually some stories behind that. For example, the original Xbox...Microsoft actually had multiple different DVD drives. They didn't tell anyone that, but as a developer, you discovered that you have different performance, and sometimes you'd have these boxes of refurbished drives and different brands and different equipment. It caused incredible variability."

The BioWare co-founder continued by saying that upgraded console hardware would make developer's jobs more difficult and confusing, especially the modular PC-like hardware swapping that Xbox boss Phil Spencer teased. "The whole purpose of consoles is the set of requirements that you work against from a hardware perspective. To change that is complete lunacy."

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NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce rumored to use GDDR5, not GDDR5X or HBM2

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Apr 8, 2016 8:28 PM CDT

NVIDIA unveiled its impressive Tesla P100 video card at GTC 2016, powered by the new Pascal architecture. P100 is built from the impressive 16nm FinFET process, as well as the hugely transformative HBM2.

Well, what about the consumer side? Well, the GP104 will reportedly be unveiled later this month or early May, but new reports are pointing towards NVIDIA using GDDR5 on the next-gen GeForce video cards. We should expect 8GB of newer, denser, faster GDDR5 RAM. Both the GP104- and GP106-based solutions should feature GDDR5.

The newer GDDR5 should be clocked at 8Gbps, which will provide a decent upgrade over the 7Gbps on the current GDDR5 used in the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X. We will bring you up to date information on all next-gen video cards, so expect a bigger wave of GPU related news in the coming months.

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Tesla rumored to reveal upgraded, more expensive Model S next week

Anthony Garreffa | Electric Vehicles & Cars | Apr 8, 2016 8:19 PM CDT

Tesla had a huge week with the unveiling of their Model 3 vehicle priced at $35,000 - but the company is now rumored to be unveiling a more expensive, upgraded Model S vehicle.

The news is coming from CNET, which is reporting that an upgraded Model S could arrive next week, based on information from sources within Tesla. The new Model S would have "luxury-minded" upgrades, both inside and on the outside.

What should we expect? Well, Tesla wants to continue its fight against Audi, BMW and Mercedez-Benz. The new vehicle would feature a redesigned fascia front, new seats and LED lights. As for the price increase, there's no word on that just yet.

Continue reading: Tesla rumored to reveal upgraded, more expensive Model S next week (full post)

John Carmack says he's 'just getting started' with VR

The legend behind Doom and Quake joined Oculus a couple of years ago as their Chief Technology Officer, but John Carmack has received the Fellowship at the British Academy of Film and Television Games (BAFTA).

Carmack receiving this award is the highest honor the Academy can provide, to those who have made truly outstanding achievements in their field - and Carmack, has done just that. Carmack delivered an awesome speech, but it was his mic drop moment that had me with goosebumps.

At the end of his speech, Carmack talked about VR, ending his speech with: "thank you very much for this honor, but I'm just getting started". It was the perfect way to end his speech, and has me excited for Carmack's future with not just Oculus - but VR in general.

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Corsair extends warranty on some PSUs to a whopping 10 years

Jeff Williams | Cases, Cooling & PSU | Apr 8, 2016 4:03 PM CDT

Corsair already has a good thing going with their high-end power supplies with tight tolerances and very good power delivery along all rails. They even throw in a seven-year warranty, or at least they did. Based on the confidence that they have regarding their PSUs, they're extending that warranty to a full 10 years on select lines.

The new extended warranty applies to the AXi, HXi, RMi and the RMx lines of power supplies, and of course, those are the higher-end units whose ODM is used to make them have much higher manufacturing tolerances resulting in something that can legitimately be used in future system upgrades until you need more power or higher efficiency for those new power hungry GPU's.

Crucially, you don't have to register (or re-register), provide additional information or do anything to benefit from the extended coverage. All PSU's from those lines are retroactively covered. Since the AXi range was introduced in 2012, the HXi in 2014 and the RMi/RMx lines in 2015, that means every single one they've manufactured and sold since then. That's a pretty big bet on Corsair's behalf and speaks to their confidence that these will work well for that long.

Continue reading: Corsair extends warranty on some PSUs to a whopping 10 years (full post)