NVIDIA rumored to be working on a new next-gen dual-GPU video card

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Sep 27, 2015 10:19 PM CDT

According to the latest rumors, NVIDIA is working on a new dual-GPU video card that would use two of the company's GM200 GPUs, the same GPUs that power the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Titan X, on a single card.

WCCFTech is reporting that NVIDIA held "secret" meetings in NYC last week, but they failed to report that there were meetings in LA, too. We were in LA and NVIDIA said nothing to us about a dual GPU card coming soon, as the event was all about the GTX 980 going into laptops. We might have been left out of the loop of course, but we are throwing a lot of salt across our shoulders on this one folks.

But, that doesn't mean it's not credible. NVIDIA is more than capable of releasing a new dual GPU card thanks to its super-efficient Maxwell architecture. Better yet, the "secret" meetings that were held did concentrate on how the company had shrunken down the board that the new GTX 980 goes onto, so what I will add to these rumors is that with two of these boards, a dual GTX 980 could be easily possible and not break through a 300W TDP.

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Ad-blocking apps accepting payments to let ads through their filters

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Sep 27, 2015 8:48 PM CDT

We all know advertising makes the world go round, but there are some people who pay to opt out of seeing ads, but what use is paying that bill every month if ad-blocking companies are allowing them to hit you anyway, all while making money out of it.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that ad-blocking companies are taking in payments from specific publishers that would see ad-free subscribers receiving ads anyway. The WSJ reports: "Eyeo GmbH, the company behind popular desktop ad-blocking tool Adblock Plus, now accepts payment from around 70 companies in exchange for letting their ads through its filter. Eyeo stipulates that they must comply with its "acceptable ads" policy, meaning their ads aren't too disruptive or intrusive to users. In total, ads from some 700 companies meet the acceptable ads policy".

Better yet, is that Eyeo has been contacting other ad-blocking developers to make deals that would see their ads pushed through their filters to more paying ad-blocking customers, for a fee of course. Eyeo reportedly "seeks payment from any firm that generates more than 10 million unblocked ad impressions a month". The WSJ reports that Eyeo's cost is associated revenue that their clients make from the ads that they allow through their filters.

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Fallout 4's install size is surprisingly light

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Sep 27, 2015 2:08 PM CDT

Fallout games have always been tremendous timesinks that demand hundreds of hours of play, but Bethesda has usually been pretty good about optimizing install sizes for all its games. Fallout 4 won't be any different: according to a listing on the Xbox Marketplace, Fallout 4 only weighs in at 28GB on the Xbox One.

Fallout 4's install size is surprisingly light

While the file size hasn't been revealed for PlayStation 4 or PC just yet, most multi-platform games stay within the same storage requirement ranges. We shouldn't see any major discrepancies other than a few gigabytes or so difference. With a number of high-profile games releasing on the coming months, Fallout 4 fans can at least rest easy knowing they won't have to make too much room for Bethesda's post-apocalyptic adventure.

Then again, Fallout 4 doesn't really tap that well of incredible fidelity that we see in most AAA games, so the devs have a lot less layered data to optimize. The lack of pristine graphics should shave off a good portion of the game's required storage. Bethesda has outright admitted that they had to water down the graphics as a trade-off to maintain other parts of the game.

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Xbox One's unlocked 7th core isn't that much of a boost, says dev

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Sep 27, 2015 12:00 PM CDT

Xbox One owners have speculated for quite some time that certain features could dramatically improve the console's everyday performance, being led to believe that things like DirectX 12, Windows 10 implementation and giving developers access to the system's seventh core could change everything. With the help of Microsoft, one dev team has tapped the Xbox One's seventh core and reveals that the performance gains are anything but dramatic.

"Yes, we are using [the seventh core]," Larian Studios' co-founder and CEO Swen Vincke said in an interview with Gamingbolt. "Not a lot [of benefits] apparently but we are using it. You can only use 60 or 70% of it so that is not big of a difference. Essentially it won't make much of an impact."

Right now Larian Studios is working on a PS4 and Xbox One console port of the cRPG Divinity: Original Sin, and during the dev cycle Larian has spent a lot of time getting intimately acquainted with current-gen console architecture. The bump in processing speed granted by the Xbox One's seventh core didn't seem to help very much, despite the speculation that the extra core could be responsible for some Xbox One games hitting PS4-level performance.

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Sony probably won't make another PS Vita handheld

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Sep 27, 2015 9:18 AM CDT

In an age where free to play mobile games dominate the handheld gaming space, Sony is extremely reticent to release another PlayStation Vita handheld. At EGX 2015, Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida said that the current mobile climate "isn't healthy" for a new PS Vita because the Japanese gaming titan would have a hard time finding a foothold in the competitiv emarket.

"That's a tough question," Yoshida said when asked outright if Sony is considerating a new PS Vita handheld. "People have mobile phones and it's so easy to play games on smartphones. Nany games on smartphones are free, or free to start. So I hope, like many of you, that this culture of playing portable games continues but the climate is not healthy for now because of the huge dominance of mobile gaming."

Although the PlayStation Vita is a big part of Sony's next-gen PS4 ecosystem, with Remote Play letting gamers stream PS4 games right to the handheld, sales for the Vita have flagged in all markets except for Japan. This is largely due to Sony's favoritism for their native homeland, with Japan seeing a steady influx of quality games and content that just don't come overseas. This lack of focus has made many PlayStation Vita owners feel abandoned throughout the years.

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YouTube Red to be the ad-free, subscription model launching on Oct 22

Anthony Garreffa | Internet & Websites | Sep 27, 2015 1:35 AM CDT

According to a report from Recode, Google is preparing for the launch of 'YouTube Red', the company's ad-free, subscription-based model for YouTube that has been in the pipeline for quite a while now.

Recode is reporting that numerous emails were sent out to channel owners, asking them to agree to a new set of terms and conditions by October 22nd or their monetized videos would be switched to private until the new agreement had been agreed upon. We don't know if the subscription-based YouTube Red will launch on that day, but it should be within hours of that.

The ad-free YouTube Red will launch in the US at first, after which it will float across the pond once Google begins sorting out the various legal issues associated with rights management. As for pricing, we can expect a decent price of $9.99 per month, something that will include Play Music Unlimited. As someone who shifted over from Spotify to Play Music Unlimited, I'm hoping my existing subscription will include YouTube Red.

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The first Oculus Rift will cost 'at least $300'

We've been hearing all about the Oculus Rift, the Oculus Touch controllers, some aweosme looking games like the Unreal Engine 4-powered 'Bullet Train' from Epic Games, and more. But now, we're beginning to hear more cemented details on pricing.

Oculus co-founder and VP of Product, Nate Mitchell, during a talk with PC Gamer said: "What I think about all day long is user experience, right? So if I'm going to promise you something and you're going to hand me a significant amount of money or whatever it is-we all know it's going to be at least $300-if you're going to hand me $300 today, I am not going to be excited to tell you: 'OK, in nine, 10, 12, 11 months, whatever it is, you're going to get something in return.' The longer you wait, the more you're like, 'This is obnoxious'".

We've heard previously that the Rift would launch with a $300-ish price, but now as we get closer to the official Q1 2016 launch, the $300 price is nice to hear. If you need a new PC and wanted to secure yourself an Oculus-ready PC, you can spend less than $1000 to prepare yourselves, plus the $300 for the Rift itself when it launches early next year.

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Oculus has no problems with VR porn on the Oculus Rift

It looks like porn is about to go next-gen, with the Oculus Rift to be released next year, we're finding out about VR porn. According to Oculus' VP of Product, Nate Mitchell, porn will be something Oculus won't have on their own store and apps, but it won't be banned from the platform itself.

Mitchell told Polygon: "We're actively barring, prohibiting adult entertainment content from being in the store, period. If you're on the Oculus platform, there's none of that content. We have a zero tolerance policy for that". So while Oculus won't be accepting VR porn on their Rift headset, the Facebook-owned company won't stop other people and developers from creating and selling porn-focused VR content on their own sites or storefronts.

"The Rift's hardware SDK is open," Mitchell continued. "But as for content that we're offering to people, and anything that's on what we would consider to be on the Oculus platform, we don't offer, we prohibit it".

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Halo 5 takes up a whopping 13% of Xbox One's total HDD

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Sep 25, 2015 5:09 PM CDT

The install size for Halo 5: Guardians has been spotted, and if you're an avid Xbox one gamer you might want to shell out for an external HDD or delete some games to make space.

Halo 5 will take up 46.19 GB of the Xbox One's memory, making it the console's eighth largest game to date. This means that Halo 5 will take approximately 12.7% of the Xbox One's 500GB hard-drive, which actually only has 362GB available. The lack of storage space is one of the major frustrations in this current generation of gaming, and as time goes by, it'll only get worse and worse.

If that wasn't enough, 343 Industries will likely roll out a day one patch to soak up even more gigabytes, so we might be looking at a 50GB+ install size just like the ill-fated Master Chief Collection. Gamers are already having to swap and re-install and download games in order to maintain space, and both Sony and Microsoft have attempted to put a band aid on the storage limitations with their respective 1TB PlayStation 4's and limited edition 1TB Halo 5 Xbox One, but they're just delaying the inevitable.

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Retro console Indiegogo campaign is asking for $1.95m of funding

Chris Smith | Gaming | Sep 25, 2015 4:02 PM CDT

Yes, you read that right. RETRO VGS is a retro console vying for your Kickstarter backing and it's asking for a hefty $1,950,000 from users in total, made up mostly of $299 - $499 donation packages which earn you different levels of console goodness.

Retro console Indiegogo campaign is asking for $1.95m of funding

The main selling point of this console seems to be the cartridges themselves. Pandering to a retro and collectible audience, the Kickstarter bio talks about how cartridges are great for buying and trading, centering also around the constantly-felt issue of release-day patches and other issues felt by many gamers who are playing on newer consoles or computers. Striving to do away with patches all together, RETRO VGS tells games that all compatible titles "are tested thoroughly before release, just like they used to be."

While also promising to never release a DLC, it just doesn't seem quite right that a never-before-seen retro console is going to be able to drum up almost $2 million in funding over a 45 day period. In saying this, almost $66,000 has already been raised in five days, so maybe this will gain some more traction in coming weeks. However, at a rate of $66,000 every five days, a successful outcome is looking bleak.

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