Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster brings the iconic Doom-era shooter back with improved visuals
Star Wars: Dark Forces is a first-person shooter set in the iconic Star Wars universe developed by LucasArts and released for MS-DOS computers in 1995. It launched at a time when every release in the genre was labeled a 'Doom-clone'; however, the development team at LucasArts managed to inject the game with plenty of stories, cutting-edge multi-level stages, and incredible visuals and sound design (for the time).
This week, the game is getting a remaster courtesy of the retro gaming wizards at Nightdive Studios, collaborating with Lucasfilm Games, for the release of Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
Nightdive, who recently remastered Quake II and Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered, once again ports a classic to use its versatile KEX engine, allowing for up to 4K 120 FPS on current-gen consoles and PC hardware, with fully remastered artwork, including the cinematic sequences (or cut-scenes), presenting and preserving this classic for a new generation.
Microsoft is adding the ability for Windows 11 to update without having to reboot your PC
According to a new report at Windows Central, Microsoft is currently testing a new feature that will allow it to deploy security updates and other patches to Windows 11 systems without forcing a reboot or restart. We've all suffered through having to restart Windows as part of every minor update for years, so this is excellent news.
The latest Windows 11 build on the Dev Channel notes that Insiders with the Virtualization Based Security (VBS) feature turned on will be able to "receive Build 26058.1400 (KB5036080) and may not experience a restart upon installing the update." Very cool.
Hot patching is a brand-new feature for Windows 11 desktop users, and how it works is pretty simple. "It works by patching the in-memory code of running processes without the need to restart the process," Microsoft writes. Which lowers the workload impact, offers better protection, and reduces the time it takes to update.
Cooler Master launches the 'Ultimate Mechanical Gaming Keyboard' with its new MK770
The Cooler Master MK770 Hybrid Wireless Keyboard is described as a 'state-of-the-art mechanical gaming keyboard' with 'unparalleled customization' and 'outstanding gaming performance.'
And sure, companies love to talk up new releases. Still, with Cooler Master's mechanical keyboard track record and the fact that the new Cooler Master MK770 also comes in a stylish (and not for everyone) pastel color option, like me, you probably want to know more.
This is a premium feature-packed mechanical keyboard with a reasonable price point of $129 USD. With this, you get hot-swappable switches for that extra layer of customization, a gasket structure, pre-installed KailhBox V2 switches, silicon dampers to keep noise levels down, per-key customizable RGB lighting, double-shot PBT keycaps, stabilizers, and more.
DROP CSTM65 mechanical keyboard features a magnetic decorative top case you can swap out
The new CSTM65 Keyboard from Drop is a compact 65% mechanical keyboard that aims to take customization to new heights thanks to its interchangeable magnetic case (available in polycarbonate or aluminum) that can easily slip on or off the keyboard while covering the entirety of the board.
It's an excellent addition to a customization-focused keyboard, with various keycap options, switches (Gateron Brown Pro 3.0 Switches or Gateron Yellow KS3 Switches), weights, and even cables. This mix-and-match design lets users personalize theDrop CSTM65 Keyboard to suit their style. Polycarbonate cases are sold separately, in a range of colors, for $25 each, with aluminum cases available in silver or black for $59 each.
The specs here are impressive, with a gasket-mounted design, ABS keycaps, PCBA-mounted stabilizers, and 5-pin switch support. The Drop CSTM65 Keyboard is available in a barebone (MSRP $79) and fully assembled (MSRP $129). Fully assembled includes the keyboard, keycaps, switches, stabilizers, and black polycarbonate case.
GIGABYTE details AORUS FO27Q3: 27-inch 1440p 360Hz QD-OLED gaming monitor
GIGABYTE teased an entire new fleet of gaming monitors back at CES 2024 earlier this year, and now the company has detailed its upcoming AORUS FO27Q3 gaming monitor.
The new AORUS FO27Q3 gaming monitor will feature a 27-inch 1440p (2560 x 1440) QD-OLED panel, with a blistering 360Hz refresh rate. Playing games at 1440p and 360FPS won't be easy, so you'll want to team the new AORUS FO27Q3 gaming monitor with a higher-end GPU like NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080, RTX 4080 SUPER, or RTX 4090, and on the AMD side the Radeon RX 7900 XT or RX 7900 XTX graphics cards.
GIGABYTE's new AORUS FO27Q3 with its QD-OLED panel also features anti-reflective coating, with the 10-bit panel capable of pumping out 10.7 billion colors, and certified for DisplayHDR True Black 400, with a typical brightness of 250 cd/m² and a contrast ratio of 15,000,000:1.
NVIDIA AI GPU customers 'offloading' chips, selling hard-to-buy excess AI GPU hardware
NVIDIA has greatly improved AI GPU shipments over the last few months, which were swelling out to 8-11 months and now down to a better 3-4 month waiting period. But some AI GPU customers are offloading their high-end AI chips... yeah, they're selling the H100 AI GPUs they've paid for.
Why? Some companies purchased oodles of NVIDIA's flagship H100 Tensor Core AI GPU, noting that it's now easier to rent AI processing power from AI cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
A new report from The Information states that some companies are reselling their NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs or reducing their future AI GPU orders due to the scarcity of AI GPUs and the huge costs of maintaining unused hardware. If we rewind to just 6 months ago, companies were tripping over themselves trying to get as many of the most powerful AI GPUs made. Still, even though increased AI GPU availability, reduced waiting times, and next-gen AI GPU hardware are on the horizon, companies are selling their AI GPUs.
GPU shipments 6% over Q4 2023: 76 million GPUs shipped, biggest gain in over 25 years
Jon Peddie Research's latest report is on the PC GPU market, which has been doing surprisingly well over the last quarter. PC GPU shipments increased by 6% in Q4 2023, with a total of 76.2 million graphics cards shipped.
The new report detailing 76.2 million GPU shipments over Q4 2023 is a huge 24% year-over-year increase, which JPR notes is the "biggest year-to-year increase in two and a half decades". Overall, JPR reports GPUs will have a compound annual growth of 3.6% during 2024-2026, where the outfit estimates that almost 5 billion GPUs will be in the wild by 2026.
Over the next 5 years, JPR estimates the penetration of discrete GPUs inside of PCs will hit 30%.
AMD confirms ultra-fast HBM3e memory is coming to Instinct MI300 refresh AI GPU
AMD has teased it's working on a refresh of its just-released Instinct MI300 AI GPU family, which will feature the latest ultra-fast HBM3e memory standard that Micron and Samsung are gearing up into.
We heard rumors of AMD's next-gen Instinct MI400 series AI GPU just a couple of days ago, along with a refreshed MI300 AI GPU with faster HBM3e memory, and now AMD's own Chief Technology Officer, Mark Papermaster, has confirmed just that. A refreshed AMD Instinct MI300 AI GPU is on the way, with HBM3e memory.
AMD Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster said during a presentation at the Arete Investor Webinar Conference, which Seeking Alpha reported on: "We are not standing still. We made adjustments to accelerate our roadmap with both memory configurations around the MI300 family, derivatives of MI300, the generation next. [...] So, we have 8-Hi stacks. We architected for 12-Hi stacks. We are shipping with MI300 HBM3. We have architected for HBM3E".
Samsung teases industry-first 36GB HBM3e 12-Hi memory stack, coming soon
Samsung has just announced it completed the development of its new 12-Hi 36GB HBM3e memory stacks; on the heels of Micron's announcement, it's started mass production of its 8-Hi 24GB HBM3e memory... what an announcement.
Samsung's new codename Shinebolt HBM3e memory features 12-Hi 36GB HBM3e stacks with 12 x 24Gb memory devices placed on a logic die featuring a 1024-bit memory interface. Samsung's new 36GB HBM3e memory modules feature 10GT/s transfer rates, offering next-gen AI GPUs up to 1.28TB/sec of memory bandwidth per stack, the industry's highest per-device (or per-module) memory bandwidth.
Yongcheol Bae, Executive Vice President of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics, said in the press release: "The industry's AI service providers are increasingly requiring HBM with higher capacity, and our new HBM3E 12H product has been designed to answer that need. This new memory solution forms part of our drive toward developing core technologies for high-stack HBM and providing technological leadership for the high-capacity HBM market in the AI era".
AMD's latest Radeon drivers aims to stop Helldivers 2 crashing and fix stuttering in many games
AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 is available now for Radeon GPU owners, and it's one to definitely check out if you've been running into issues when gaming, as it's chock full of fixes and updates.
Those playing the smash hit co-op, democracy spreading, bug squashing Helldivers 2 on PC will be pleased to know that this new driver update fixes 'intermittent driver timeout' issues on Radeon RX 7000 Series GPUs while also fixing crashing while playing. These are the sort of problems that are way more annoying when playing an online title, so kudos to AMD.
Another big fix covers those playing Counter-Strike 2, where the game would crash when enabling FSR on some Radeon GPUs. AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 also fixes 'excessive stutter' across a range of titles, including Battlefield 2042, Destiny 2, Overwatch 2, Monster Hunter: World, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, and STAR WARS Battlefront II.