NVIDIA's DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, which debuted in 2023, has been a game changer for PC games with multiple ray-tracing effects - particularly those with ray-traced reflections. It's an AI-powered denoiser, a part of the rendering process that cleans up an image.

NVIDIA's Ray Reconstruction AI model was trained on over 6X the data used for DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation. It's a game-changer that 'fills in the gaps' in a way that dramatically improves the image quality of ray-traced effects. Reflections become sharper and more detailed, and the lighting looks more realistic and cinematic.

The difference is so big that games with ray tracing look better on GeForce RTX rigs - plain and simple. The good news is that AMD is working on a similar-sounding AI denoiser that could be part of RDNA 4's new "AI capabilities." Also, its FSR super-sampling or upscaling is going AI.

Yesterday, we reported on AMD's Q3 2024 financial results, which showed revenue and growth once again driven by its Data Center segment. Regarding AMD's Gaming business, which covers Radeon products for PC and console production for Sony and Microsoft, revenue was down 69% - with extremely thin profit margins.

As part of the earnings call, AMD CEO Lisa Su addressed the slump in the company's gaming business by teasing its next-generation RDNA 4 products. She confirms that RDNA 4 GPUs are on track to launch "in early 2025" and has teased what to expect.

In addition to a "strong increase in gaming performance," Lisa Su has confirmed two RDNA 4 features for next-gen Radeon RX 8000 Series GPUs that should bring its capabilities closer to the NVIDIA and GeForce RTX juggernaut.

EA's chief executive, Andrew Wilson, is pretty stoked about the prospects of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and who could blame the CEO following some of the reviews we've seen.

The game launches tomorrow and Wilson believes it has 'breakout potential' and we wouldn't bet against that right now.

Wccftech reports that the CEO made the comment in a Q2 2025 earnings call (as transcribed by The Motley Fool).

Apple just took off the wraps from new MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch models with the M4 chip, which can pack an even faster SoC than we've already seen - namely the M4 Max - plus a move has been made to a minimum of 16GB of RAM with the 14-inch flavor of the laptop (finally).

All of this was rumored - indeed Apple itself accidentally leaked the M4 Max yesterday, via its own website - and the 16GB of Unified Memory for the entry-level MacBook Pro 14-inch with M4 is, of course, very welcome.

The good news is that there's no price hike with the move to 16GB on that base MacBook Pro 14-inch, with Apple maintaining the MSRP at $1,599.

Activision has announced via its blog when the first season of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will begin and what will be within the "colossal amount of free content" on the horizon.

The blog post explains that Season 1 will begin on November 14 and will add new multiplayer maps and modes, along with the next Zombie map, a slew of updates to Warzone, a new Warzone map, Area 99, the original Nuketown map, and more. More specifically, the new game mode is Infected and is currently available right now. Infected will spawn one player as a zombie, and they will infect other players until there are no players left in the game or the time runs out.

Area 99 is the new Warzone map, and it is set in the Nevada desert. The location will let players scourer over a top-secret government site, while also taking players through peculiar locations such as a mannequin assembly plant, factory warehouse, and other locations that will feature references to the iconic multiplayer map, Nuketown. The original Black Ops Nuketown from 2010 will also be returning to Call of Duty on November 1, and it will arrive with fresh new graphics.

Beijing has claimed it has discovered "underwater lighthouses" and other devices that are allegedly being used for surveillance purposes by China's adversaries.

China's Ministry of State Security took to WeChat to make the accusations, explaining Chinese authorities discovered several devices that were all designed to gather information on their surrounding area, which was in the ocean. More specifically, China explained that it found drifting devices capable of "detecting and grasping the real-time situation in the sea area," with others that acted as "underwater 'lighthouses' to show the direction of submarines of other countries that have intruded into China's waters."

Beijing said the discovered devices were designed with the purpose of "covertly collecting marine hydrological information and data on the activities of various ships around them and serving the preset of the battlefield environment." Additionally, China alleged it discovered a base embedded into the seafloor, which is reminiscent of an allegation the nation made back in May of this year where it said it discovered "maritime espionage" within its waters when a fishermen allegedly said he found the above device.

Homeworld 3 is the latest PC game to drop the controversial Denuvo DRM protection.

Neowin noticed the move and reports it was made in a stealthy manner, with no formal announcement of the ditching of Denuvo by developer Blackbird (or publisher Gearbox).

Homeworld 3 arrived back in May 2024 to a very lukewarm reception from fans, who particularly rubbished the game's storyline. Also, as you might imagine, the inclusion of Denuvo was not popular in some quarters - well, many quarters, let's face it - as the DRM system is often blamed for dragging down the performance of the games that incorporate it. (And substantially, at least if some theories are correct - and we should note they are just theories).

The release of the PlayStation 5 Pro is right around the corner, and ahead of the highly anticipated release, Dying Light director Tymon Smektala has revealed what has excited developers about Sony's new console.

The director of Techland, the studio behind the Dying Light franchise, spoke to GamingBolt and explained the studio is beginning to understand the capabilities of the new console, and with the increase in hardware, developers now have much more "flexibility with graphics and performance". Smektala specifically pointed out the increase in GPU power in the PS5 Pro compared to the standard PS5 as being what has enabled Techland to increase the visual fidelity of its upcoming titles. Moreover, Smektala pointed out that "complex environmental details" benefit immensely from the GPU power.

However, an increase in GPU power isn't the star player Sony has on its PS5 Pro team, as Smektala highlights the future potential of PSSR, or PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, which is Sony's new upscaling technology that's essentially the company's version of NVIDIA's DLSS, or AMD's FSR. Smektala explains that PSSR enables developers to focus less on performance, enabling more creative liberty.

Microsoft's new super resolution ability - which was recently applied (in preview) to the Photos app in Windows 11 - has suffered from a seemingly botched rollout by the software giant.

This is a new AI ability - one for Copilot+ PCs, as it requires a beefy NPU for acceleration - and it allows for enhancing or enlarging images, by a factor of up to 8x. The idea is you can blow up a photo for a large print, or improve very low quality photos to something a bit sharper and more palatable.

This was supposed to be in testing for Windows Insiders, but as leaker PhantomOfEarth reports, super resolution was appearing on some devices that it wasn't supposed to be on. Presumably, that means non-Copilot+ PCs, rather than the feature coming to users outside of the Windows Insider programme.

Microsoft has taken to its security blog to shine a light on the company's recent observations in the cybersecurity space, and according to the Redmond company, a known hacking group is now going after US government officials in a series of highly-targeted spear-phishing email waves.

According to Microsoft, the hacking group is Russian government-backed bad actors Midnight Blizzard, which have been on Microsoft's radar since October 22, 2024. Microsoft Threat Intelligence is quite familiar with Midnight Blizzard, as the hacking group targeted Microsoft servers on January 12, 2024, which ended up becoming compromised and Midnight Blizzard gaining access to federal government email accounts, Microsoft's corporate email accounts, and more.

At the time, Microsoft described these attacks by Midnight Blizzard as a "sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor's resources, coordination, and focus." Now, Microsoft has put out a new warning that Midnight Blizzard is sending a series of highly targeted spear-phishing emails to individuals in government, academia, defense, non-governmental organizations, and other sectors. Microsoft writes this activity is ongoing, and the likely goal of this operation is to collect intelligence.

Google revealed its quarterly revenue recently was approximately $88 billion, and while that is certainly an incredible amount of money, it falls extremely short of what a Russian court has ruled Google owes Russian media outlets.

A Russian court has ruled that Google owes Russian media stations an astonishing $2.5 decillion, which if you thought a million dollars was hard to mentally picture, is unfathomable amount of money. For perspective sake, the World Bank reported Earth's global revenue over a year, or the amount of money the planet generated as a whole was approximately $100 trillion. So, if Earth as a whole paid every cent to Russia, it would take the planet 200 quintillion years, or 200,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, to pay off the fine completely.

How did Russia arrive at this number? The ridiculous fine is the conclusion of a four year court battle that began after YouTube banned the Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020 in response to US sanctions. Additionally, more Russian-owned or backed channels were banned from Google's platform in 2022 following Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion into Ukraine. So far, seventeen Russian stations have been banned from YouTube.

In a recent episode of the "On With Kara Swisher" podcast, Oscar winner and Marvel superstar Robert Downey Jr. revealed he plans to sue any Hollywood executive who uses his likeness in the form of a digital AI replica to recreate him after his death.

Downey was asked about what he thinks the future of Hollywood will look like with the emergence of AI technologies and how he feels about the technology being used to recreate popular actors after they have passed away. The topic presented itself through questions asked about Downey and his tenure as Iron Man. Downey said he is confident that Marvel executives won't recreate him as Iron Man, as he believes the people in control know him very well and "they would never do that to me, with or without me."

However, when asked 'what about future executives?' Downey acknowledged there will certainly be a push, at one stage or another, for his likeness to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) after he has passed away. But that push by future executives will be met with legal ramifications by Downey's law firm, as the Oscar-winning actor explained,"I would like to here state that I intend to sue all future executives just on spec."You'll be dead," Swisher noted. "But my law firm will still be very active," responded Downey

The CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment has officially given an update on what's happening at PlayStation Studios, and within it is the confirmation of Concord's fate.

Concord is one of the biggest video game flops of all time and has been identified as Sony's biggest flop ever. Reports indicated that the title cost as much as $400 million to develop, but upon release, it only generated a few million. Concord didn't even reach a critical mass to sustain players, resulting in Sony pulling the game down from public access and refunding any buyers of the title. Since then Concord has remained in somewhat Limbo, as Sony considers what to do with its multi-million investment.

Firewalk Studios, the developer behind Concord, also went quiet while Sony deliberated on its decision: spend more money implementing free-to-play infrastructure into Concord or cut its losses and abandon the tile completely. It appears Sony has selected the latter, as Hermen Hulst, the CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, explained in a new blog post the decision has been made to "permanently sunset the game."

OpenAI is working with Broadcom and TSMC on building its first in-house chip designed to support its extensive AI systems.

The news is coming directly from Reuters, which is reporting from its sources who "requested anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss private matters" (but I guess, did so with one of the largest publications in the world). OpenAI did consider building everything in-house, with CEO Sam Altman having ambitious plans to have a global network of dedicated chip fabrication plants, but that is now not happening.

Reuters reports that OpenAI "dropped the ambitious foundry plans for now due to the costs and time needed to build a network, and plans instead to focus on in-house chip design efforts".

The Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot is a brand-new premium wireless and wired controller for Xbox consoles, Windows PCs, and Bluetooth devices. Its unique design includes "rotating thumbstick and button control modules," so you can switch between a traditional stick and button layout and one optimized for fighting games and other 2D titles.

Turtle Beach notes that "modules can be easily rotated and locked back into place," giving the Stealth Pivot controller seamless 2-in-1 functionality and control over the layout. As a premium controller, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot's $129.99 MSRP is higher than that of standard pads; it includes things like built-in Hall Effect sensors and AntiDrift thumbsticks for optimal performance and a 'Connected Command Display' that offers access to onboard customization options without the need for software.

Of course, in-depth customization is also available via the Turtle Beach Control Center 2 app for Xbox, PC, iOS, and Android. "Turtle Beach's Stealth Pivot delivers a new level of innovation in controllers by giving gamers the ability to play more of their favorite games using one controller," said Cris Keirn, CEO, Turtle Beach Corporation.

With the arrival of Intel's new Core Ultra Series 2 processors and the Z890 motherboard platform expanding and pushing DDR5 memory to new heights - it's currently world record season for memory overclockers. A few days ago, we reported on Kingston's new FURY Renegade DDR5 CUDIMM memory setting a new 'insane 12,108MT/s speed' with Intel's Core Ultra 7 265KF processor and MSI's MEG Z890 UNIFY-X motherboard.

Today, G.SKILL and the ASUS ROG team have announced that they've broken the DDR5 frequency record with an even more insane 12,112 MT/s speed. The new record has already been submitted to HWBOT and CPU-Z, detailing the hardware used and DDR5 timings of CL52.0 92-92-12.

The 'unprecedented' DDR5-12112 record was recorded by ASUS ROG extreme overclocker Safedisk, using G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB DDR5 memory, an ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 Apex motherboard, and the new flagship Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU. And lots of LN2 cooling.

Phanteks has been cooking with its new power supply family for high-end workstations, introducing the new Revolt 2200: offering up to 2200W of power for dual Intel Xeon CPU + dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards in a single workstation. Check it out:

The company hasn't officially announced its new 2200W power supply just yet, but it looks like the Phanteks Revolt 2200W PSU has been unleashed in China. Phanteks hasn't designed its beasty new 2200W power supply for a regular gaming PC, as it's aimed at the workstation PC market with configurations like dual Intel Xeon CPUs and dual RTX 4090 graphics cards.

Phanteks' new Revolt 2200W PSU meets the ATX 3.1 specifications (its 1600W PSUs are only ATX 3.0 compliant) and feature the new PCIe 5.1 specification for GPU power connectors (12V-2x6). The company includes two native 12V-2x6 power connectors for the GPUs, which means no nasty adapters need to be used.

BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out this weekend, and based on reviews (the game is currently sitting on an 84 rating on Metacritic), many critics are hailing it as a return to form for the studio that made a name for itself for creating engaging single-player RPGs. Outside of the actual content, the good news for PC gamers is that it's one of those rare releases that is well-optimized and pushes the visuals much further than what's possible on consoles.

The gaming tech gurus at Digital Foundry have posted a new video praising the PC version's visuals, performance, and stability. In addition, NVIDIA's latest DLSS round-up for the week shows that the game runs incredibly well on GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs with full ray-tracing without DLSS - a rare feat for a modern AAA cinematic release.

At 1080p, everything from the GeForce RTX 4070 and up can run the game with Ultra Settings and Ultra Ray Tracing at 70+ FPS without DLSS. Bump this up to 1440p, and the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER hits an average of 61.4 FPS without any DLSS action. Bump things up one step further to 4K, and one GPU delivers 4K 60+ FPS Ultra Ray Tracing without DLSS.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has come out blasting AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA recently calling their hardware "buggy" and now has said that the AI industry is full of it and that it's "90% marketing" and "10% reality".

During a recent interview at the Open Source Summit with TFIR, Torvalds talked about the hype surrounding AI, and how the technology has been shadowed by the overwhelming marketing of tech giants (of which I agree).

He said: "I think AI is really interesting and I think it is going to change the world. At the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there. So, my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it because I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position, and its 90% marketing and 10% reality. And, in 5 years, things will change and at that point, we will see what of the AI is getting used for real workloads".

AMD has reported its Q3 2024 or third quarter financial results, and as expected, Data Center segment revenue drove the overall year-over-year growth to 18% compared to Q3 2023. With $3.5 billion, AMD's Data Center segment revenue was up 122% compared to Q3 2023, thanks to strong AMD Instinct GPU and AMD EPYC CPU sales. Bolstered, of course, by the AI boom.

"We delivered strong third quarter financial results with record revenue led by higher sales of EPYC and Instinct data center products and robust demand for our Ryzen PC processors," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "Looking forward, we see significant growth opportunities across our data center, client and embedded businesses driven by the insatiable demand for more compute."

Although the response to Zen 5 and the latest Ryzen 9000 Series has been mixed, AMD's Client segment revenue of $1.9 billion represents 29% year-over-year growth attributed to Zen 5's launch - another win. That said, it's a very different story regarding AMD's Gaming segment revenue.