Star Wars Battlefront install size is 27GB on PC, less on consoles

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Nov 10, 2015 5:29 AM CST

Halo 5 is here, and so is Fallout 4 - but there's still one seriously large game around the corner; Star Wars Battlefront. It has been revealed that on the PC, it will come in at 27GB.

On the Xbox One, Star Wars Battlefront will be a 19GB installation while on the PS4 it'll clock in at 23GB. The beta from last month was 7GB on the now current-gen consoles, while the PC download was 11GB. Why is Star Wars Battlefront so small? Well, it is a multiplayer-only title, which would shave some of the installation size - but it's a breath of fresh air for sure, with these 50GB+ installations lately.

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Corsair's new GPU cooler will liquid cool your Titan X or GTX 980 Ti

Anthony Garreffa | Cases, Cooling & PSU | Nov 10, 2015 1:31 AM CST

Corsair has just unveiled the availability of its new Hydro Series HG10 GPU N980 and HG10 N970 cooling brackets, which liquid cool your NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X, GTX 980 Ti, GTX 980 or GTX 970 video cards.

The new GPU coolers are designed to work with any stock PCB layout from the GTX Titan X, GTX 980 Ti, GTX 980 and GTX 970 where it will replace the stock air cooling on the video card with a new liquid GPU cooler. The bracket allows for a CPU cooler to be used (as you can see in the image above), directly onto the GPU.

The Corsair Hydro Series HG10 is capable of handling up to 250W of heat, so you could drastically lower the temperatures of your GPU, as well as the noise - all while providing more overclocking headroom. The HG10's aluminum bracket and integrated 70mm low-noise blower fan will actively cool your GPUs other heat-producing components. Corsair's Hydro Series HG10 cools your video card's memory and VRM, and not just the GPU.

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Twitch secures its users with optional two-factor authentication

Anthony Garreffa | Software & Apps | Nov 9, 2015 9:31 PM CST

Twitch has just announced optional two-factor authentication on its user profiles, with the streaming giant offering it as "100 percent voluntary" to its user base.

The new security measure is meant to scale down the need for conventional, easily hackable passwords, all while improving the Twitch experience. The company is partnering with security firm Authy, with Authy running the new two-factor authentication system. While it's similar to Google's two-factor authentication, where Twitch is doing it different is that you'll receive push notifications through its app to confirm it's you that's logged into your Twitch account.

It was only a week ago that Twitch announced a new datacenter in Sydney, so we can't be more happy with the news of Twitch's increased presence and move to look after its users' privacy.

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Google Hangouts video calls upgraded with better quality, start times

Anthony Garreffa | Software & Apps | Nov 9, 2015 7:31 PM CST

As a heavy Hangouts user, these types of upgrades are always welcome: Google has just introduced an improved, redesigned web calling experience that has a simpler interface, and more.

Not only is it better to look at, but the other person on the other side of the webcam is better looking thanks to improvements Google has made on the video side of things. It has been noted that the new Hangouts "renders video more sharply, and streamlines the interface so you can focus less on where to click and more on what to say".

The post comes directly from Google Software Engineer Eduardo Fernández on his Google+ page. He also notced that calls will start faster, and stay more clearer with higher quality video than ever before.

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Gamer spends $30,000 on Star Citizen so far, says he'll spend more

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Nov 9, 2015 5:11 PM CST

With close to $100 million in funding so far, Roberts Space Industries is going to infinity and beyond with Star Citizen, but so is one gamer in particular, who has spend $30,000 on the unfinished game so far, with no signs of stopping.

Ozy311, or Chris spoke with PC Gamer, where he said that he has taken up second jobs to fund his Star Citizen adventure, where he calls Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts one of the most influential people of his life. Even after spending $30,000, Ozy311 says that he'll continue to spend more on the game. Ozy311, or Chris, spent $15,000 on highest package in the game 'The Completionist with the Million Mile High Club', and many ships after that.

Chris explains where his interest started when it comes to Star Citizen, where he said: "Well, we're all of the era growing up with Star Wars, Star Trek, just the fantasy of not being stuck to this planet. Through growing up with all the different flavors of Star Trek, and Star Wars, Battlestar: Galactica, and Starship Troopers, and Firefly. All these science fiction movies, and you just wish you could live that life. There's always been stabs and attempts at it and, it's not been done correctly yet. Chris Roberts came back after being gone for so long, and had a vision, saying that he felt the technology and the PC market was there now to try to create his ultimate dream. He put forth a Kickstarter and it's done amazingly well. He only asked for $2 million and here we are, over $94 million later, and it's going strong".

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NASA releases stunning photos of Antares rocket explosion

A little more than a year ago, Orbital Sciences and NASA teamed up to launch the Antares rocket from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The unmanned mission -- intended to deliver food and equipment to the International Space Station (ISS) -- was not successful: the rocket exploded within seconds of launching. The ISS was said to be "in no danger of running out of food or other critical supplies", however.

While unfortunate, the event did produce some stunning photographs, which NASA released last week. Our choice favourites are below; you can see the full batch of photos in extremely high resolution here.

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Microsoft unveils first wave of Xbox One backward compatible games

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Nov 9, 2015 9:16 AM CST

Playing Xbox 360 games on Microsoft's Xbox One console has been a hugely requested feature since the console released in 2013. Now Microsoft is making good on their promise by releasing the full list of the first 104 Xbox 360 games that have made the cut. Sadly it looks like a good portion of popular favorites are absent--most notably Red Dead Redemption and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Microsoft unveils first wave of Xbox One backward compatible games

Backward compatibility is here, but it's not coming with the huge bang we all expected. Sure Microsoft is going to release it on November 12 with the advertised "over 100 Xbox 360 games", but I must say that the list is pretty underwhelming. But don't worry, Xbox fans: Microsoft affirms that this is just the beginning of backwards compatibility, and "more titles will be revealed starting December". That seems to be a big trend with Microsoft and the Xbox brand, always telling us great things are coming later on.

Anyway, let's take a quick scan of the games. There's a ton of Xbox LIVE Arcade titles on here with games like Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3, Super Meat Boy, Metal Slug 3, Perfect Dark, Doom II and Ikaruga. Then there's the gimmicky Kinect games that probably don't interest much of anybody. The main AAA games include old gems like Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Borderlands, Just Cause 2, Assassin's Creed II, Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2, and Fallout 3...which no one will likely play with Fallout 4 releasing tomorrow. But hey, when Halo: Reach becomes playable, maybe we'll finally have a good Halo game on the Xbox One?

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Snapchat has over 6 billion video viewed per day through its app

Anthony Garreffa | Software & Apps | Nov 9, 2015 12:33 AM CST

Snapchat is huge. Back in May of this year, Snapchat was racking up 2 billion video views per day, but now the messaging app giant is reporting that it's pulling in a huge 6 billion video views per day.

The news is coming from The Financial Times, but Snapchat has confirmed the 6 billion figure. It's not known where the views are coming from, and whether they're mostly user-generated views, from viewers watching Snapchat's live events, or through its Discover section. Wherever they're coming from, 6 billion is a lot.

With Facebook seeing 8 billion video views per day, Snapchat is quickly catching up, and at this rate should overtake them before the end of the year. But where will it begin to taper off is the real question.

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UK governments wants all citizens to have 10Mbps Internet by 2020

If you live in the UK and have subpar Internet, that will hopefully all change in the next few years if the UK government has a say about the matter.

The UK government is working on a Universal Service Obligation that would see all UK residents with at least 10Mbps Internet connections by 2020, where providers would be required to connect you, even if you live in a remote area. Starting early next year, consultations will begin, where it will hopefully see Internet access being branded as a basic utility, just like electricity and water.

But even by 2017, the UK expects to have around 95% of people connected to broadband. But, this expansion needs to be large enough to encompass the rest of the UK residents, and at least 10Mbps. The UK government says the Internet would be "affordable", but didn't state where pricing will start.

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Fallout 4 already seeing users complain about performance on PS4

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Nov 8, 2015 4:15 PM CST

Well, we knew this would happen - well at least I did - and here we are, Fallout 4 is experiencing performance problems on the Xbox One and PS4. Users are reporting that the frame rate drops to well below 30FPS, even when there's no on-screen action.

One user 'Kenzodielocke' reported that on his PS4 the game "has massive problems holding the 30fps when inside buildings, cages or whatever you have a load time when you get in". He continued: "This get's way worse when people shoot at you or throw molotow cocktails. I am no technical expert, but I think this game might be locking itself like The Witcher 3 did. Firefights in buildings feel exactly like fights in The Witcher 3 in the swamp when it's raining. In the open world the game has hiccups too, but not as bad as in buildings. This just isn't fun, when you can't even aim properly because of the frame rate".

The thread on NeoGAF is huge, so feel free to read through it for more people complaining about the performance and FPS in Fallout 4. There are people without problems, but it seems like even with the day one patch, performance issues are there.

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