AMOLED displays now cheaper to produce than LCD

Sean Ridgeley | Displays & Projectors | Mar 24, 2016 2:07 PM CDT

As enthusiasts know, AMOLED displays offer all kinds of benefits over LCD (thinner, more energy efficient, and arguably better colours, to name a few), but price has held them back from becoming the technology of choice for manufacturers. That's now changed, as production costs have dropped below LCD production costs for the first time, as predicted they would this year.

IHS Technology data tells us a 5'' "full HD" smartphone display cost $17.10 with AMOLED and $15.70 with LCD to produce as of Q4 2015, but Q1 2016 shows $14.30 and $14.60, respectively.

With this shift, it's expected AMOLED will quickly become the default display technology for manufacturers in regards to mid-range and low-end devices. LCD likely won't go anywhere anytime soon, but it's going to take a hit.

Continue reading: AMOLED displays now cheaper to produce than LCD (full post)

Curious what Polaris' rear connectors looks like? Check inside

Jeff Williams | Video Cards & GPUs | Mar 24, 2016 1:06 PM CDT

AMD's Capsaicin event at GDC was quite the blast, if not for the reveal of their Radeon Pro Duo dual-GPU, VR-focused monster card, they also took time to show off just how potent Polaris 10 actually was. And someone was lucky enough to get a close-up of its behind. And it looks like any other GPU's derrière.

Looking closely, which is easy here, you can see that the connectors include three DisplayPort (presumably 1.3) one HDMI (likely 2.0) and a DVI-D port. And we get our first peek at the prototype PCB as well. Though it's only a prototype, and this could change. There it is. It is an engineering sample, so things could change in the future. The best part is the small form-factor it happens to be in. AMD is definitely committed to bringing more power to smaller form factors.

This is "Big Polaris", or Polaris 10, that's running the newest Hitman using DX12. It's stuffed in a Cooler Master Elite 110 case, meaning the board is minuscule to be able to fit into that case. The PCB is probably around the size of the R9 Nano and should consume less power than any Fiji based board to date.

Continue reading: Curious what Polaris' rear connectors looks like? Check inside (full post)

Internet turns Microsoft's Tay AI into pro-Hitler sex robot

Sean Ridgeley | Science, Space, & Robotics | Mar 24, 2016 12:28 PM CDT

Yesterday Microsoft launched its teen girl 'Tay' Twitter AI. It's designed to interact with followers and become smarter for it, so naturally it was doomed to fail. Within 24 hours, the Internet transformed it into a pro-Hitler sex robot, as the Internet is wont to do.

Internet turns Microsoft's Tay AI into pro-Hitler sex robot

The tweets in question are deleted now, but screencaps like those below give you a healthy idea of what occurred. Warning: they're not for the easily offended.

Since this happened, Tay temporarily went offline, so Microsoft could "make adjustments." A cursory look through her current feed shows nothing out of the ordinary, so the situation is under control...for now.

Continue reading: Internet turns Microsoft's Tay AI into pro-Hitler sex robot (full post)

The Division's game-breaking glitch locks players out of accounts

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Mar 24, 2016 11:31 AM CDT

If you play The Division, don't make High-End backpacks. If you do, you could be locked out of your uPlay account for an indeterminate amount of time.

The Division's game-breaking glitch locks players out of accounts

The Division players are suffering from a substantial game-breaking glitch that's locking them out of their accounts and preventing further play. The glitch leads to an endless looping loading screen and prevents users from signing in to the game's servers.

The bug is widespread, affecting countless players across the globe who are barred from playing. Oddly enough, the bug seems to be caused by crafting High-End grade backpacks, so stay away from crafting these items at all costs. Who would have thought an in-game item could cause so much trouble?

Continue reading: The Division's game-breaking glitch locks players out of accounts (full post)

Microsoft gives up more details on Shader Model 6.0 for DirectX 12

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Mar 24, 2016 11:10 AM CDT

Shader Model 5.0 is old, having come out in 2009 with DirectX 11. It's long overdue for some innovation and a few changes to make it better than it is. Sure, games look great using the underlying model, but wouldn't it be nice to have something a bit more advanced to go along with the improvements made to the lower level graphics API?

Microsoft has been working diligently to get Shader Model 6.0 out the door, but not too quickly, of course. They're quickly putting the finishing touches on the next set of technologies and talked about them at GDC this year. The biggest change that will greatly affect game development is the switch to using Clang as the frontend for compilation of applicable programs. That alone can increase the actual speed and efficiency of programs by a few percentage points, if not more. It does mean that drivers have to be re-worked by AMD and NVIDIA to make it backwards compatible, but that's also actively being worked on as well.

The new shader model is also going to have some very intriguing benefits for VR as well. There's the ability to change the pixel size and use procedural textures, so that anything that's calculated as being on the periphery of your vision can simply be a bit lower resolution, saving precious processing power. Our peripheral vision is blurry anyway, so it likely won't make a difference to the experience aside from increased framerates. And there's even more improvements too.

Continue reading: Microsoft gives up more details on Shader Model 6.0 for DirectX 12 (full post)

Dark Souls 3 on Xbox One runs at 900p with stuttering frame rates

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Mar 24, 2016 10:35 AM CDT

Dark Souls 3 is the latest game to have underwhelming performance on the Xbox One, once again earning Microsoft the ire of an entire community of gamers.

Dark Souls 3 on Xbox One runs at 900p with stuttering frame rates

It looks like Miyazaki's final Dark Souls chapter is riddled with optimization problems on the Xbox One. Digital Foundry's in-depth performance analysis reveals that Dark Souls 3 runs at a native 900p (upscaled to 1080p) on the Xbox One, which isn't so surprising given the console's track record. What is surprising is how awkward and inconsistent the game's frame rates are, dropping well below the targeted 30FPS and leading to stutters.

Frame rate drops are most prevalent during environmental effects such as volumetric fog, and in some demanding sequences the Xbox One port dived down to 20FPS. The site notes that the drops are rather annoying, but aren't game-breaking, but it's still rather worrying given the fact that Dark Souls 3 requires split-second reactions. I doubt Miyazaki originally meant for gamers to fight stuttering frame-rates in order to survive--the games are already hard enough.

Continue reading: Dark Souls 3 on Xbox One runs at 900p with stuttering frame rates (full post)

GDDR5X coming closer to reality, sampling begins to customers

Jeff Williams | Video Cards & GPUs | Mar 24, 2016 10:06 AM CDT

The dream of higher-bandwidth it a slightly lower cost compared to HBM is coming closer to reality now that Micron has begun shipping samples of their GDDR5X chips to customers for inclusion in prototypes. This means that AMD and NVIDIA are now able to properly test the increase in bandwidth compared to normal GDDR5 and even HBM(2).

It looks like at the moment they're able to ship two different densities, 8Gb and 16Gb that can allow for VRAM of up to 16GB over a 256-bit wide memory bus. Each chip would be relegated to a single 32-bit channel. Don't fret, however, because even though it's a comparatively small memory bus, the internal changes to the structure still allow for far more bandwidth traveling over that bus. It's akin to increasing the speed limit, despite the lane being the same size. The result is that we could see up to 448Gbps of bandwidth, which is similar to first generation HBM, though without the restrictions on memory die size. Power-consumption, too, has been reduced slightly to offset any increase from higher clock speeds and more memory chips on the board.

As of right now it looks like both AMD and NVIDIA are interested in using GDDR5X in their next generation products. From the Capsaicin event, we learned that HBM2 will not be making an appearance until Vega even though the first generation HBM has been confirmed to be part of Polaris alongside traditional GDDR5 and GDDR5X memory. NVIDIA on the other hand will be making great use of Micron's faster tech by likely including 8GB of it in their upcoming GTX 1080, which should be revealed at GTC in April.

Continue reading: GDDR5X coming closer to reality, sampling begins to customers (full post)

Even more sources claim PlayStation 4.5 is real

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Mar 24, 2016 9:33 AM CDT

Another major source says that Sony's upgraded PlayStation 4.5 console is indeed real, adding even more credence to the validity of past reports.

Even more sources claim PlayStation 4.5 is real

Eurogamer claims it knows for a fact that Sony's 4K PS4 refresh is happening. "We know PlayStation 4.5 is real," reads the headline of a new article, adding even more assurance on Sony's updated 4K PS4. While the website claims to know the PS4.5 is genuine, it doesn't know any key details about the hardware, and speculates on three different console configurations while tying in AMD's new Polaris GPU tech and 14nm FINFET chips.

We've reported that Sony's PlayStation 4.5 could be powered by a custom new-generation AMD Zen APU, which would harness the power of AMD's Zen CPUs and Polaris graphics architecture baked into the 14nm FINFET node, which provides significant boosts across the board. With this tech under the hood, Sony's PS4.5 would be a competitor right out of the gate and provide native 4K gaming for years to come.

Continue reading: Even more sources claim PlayStation 4.5 is real (full post)

There are three different ways to buy Killer Instinct Season 3

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Mar 24, 2016 8:55 AM CDT

Killer Instinct on the Xbox One, and soon on the PC via the Windows Store, is entering its third season, and with that evolution comes three distinct ways to buy into the iconic fighting game. Naturally.

Depending on how much extra you'd like to tack on, and what kind of extra costumes or experience boosts, the three tiers will differ drastically. $20 is the price of entry, getting you the game and little else. The largest package includes every piece of content from all previous seasons, 18,000 of the in-game currency, Killer Instinct Classic and Killer Instinct Classic 2 that's playable on the Xbox One. All for a mere $60. Not terrible for a game that's had a pretty significant visual upgrade and that provides hours of enjoyment in the fighting genre anyway. Season 3 starts on March 29th, which is the same day that it'll be available on the PC.

Continue reading: There are three different ways to buy Killer Instinct Season 3 (full post)

Amazon's second wave of PlayStation VR pre-orders go live today

Sony's PlayStation VR is selling like hotcakes, and Amazon sold out the first wave of headsets in just four minutes flat. Luckily Sony has envisioned such a scenario and is pushing out the pre-orders in waves, and Amazon will have a fresh batch of pre-order bundles available later today.

Amazon's second wave of PlayStation VR pre-orders go live today

Amazon's new stock is expected to arrive this morning, and the retailer has announced you'll be able to pre-order the $499 PlayStation VR Launch Edition bundles starting at 2PM today. We're not sure if that's 2PM Eastern or Pacific, so you'll want to make accommodations either way.

If you don't manage to get a PSVR from Amazon, don't panic: pre-orders are available at Target, GameStop, and BestBuy. Remember that Sony is rolling out these pre-orders in waves and phases, so don't be alarmed if you don't get a pre-order--just check our PSVR pre-order timeline to see your next opportunity. Be sure to avoid those ridiculous $1,000 eBay listings at all costs--there's no reason to spend double or triple MSRP just because stock is limited right now.

Continue reading: Amazon's second wave of PlayStation VR pre-orders go live today (full post)

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