Last year, we reported on one of the most iconic releases from the Nintendo 64 era, Perfect Dark, receiving a PC port. With support for keyboard and mouse controls, 4K resolution, and the option to improve texture quality and other features, it was similar to the 'native' PC versions of Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

This was possible by decompiling the code from the original games to the more PC-friendly 'C' language. The result is that these games can be run without emulation, with greater support for modern hardware and displays. And now, another classic game from the Nintendo 64 era has been decompiled: the fan-favorite Banjo Kazooie.

Released in 1997, Banjo Kazooie from Rare is a 3D platformer similar to Super Mario 64 set in a stylized and comedic fairy tale world. Many view the game as one of the N64's best, and with its code successfully decompiled, it's only a matter of time before a full PC port arrives.

AMD is reportedly going to position its Radeon RX 8000 series "RDNA 4" family of graphics cards like it did with the first-gen Radeon RX 5000 series "RDNA" graphics cards.

In a new post from leaker Golden Pig Upgrade, who explained: "the positioning of RDNA 4 is similar to that of RDNA 1, so don't expect flagship-level performance. The focus is on reducing costs. If Navi 44 can improve the performance of mid-range GPUs, that would be a good thing. Otherwise, it could become common for NVIDIA to sell the AD107 as the RTX 4060 in the future".

AMD launched its Navi 10 XT GPU inside of the Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card at the time, its highest-end RDNA card (that didn't compete with NVIDIA flagship GPUs at the time). We've been hearing for months now that RDNA 4 could NOT be competing in the high-end, with AMD taking the mid-range route with its upcoming Radeon RX 8000 series graphics cards.

Microsoft is finally ready to enter the custom AI hardware race, a chip market in which NVIDIA has at least a 75 percent market share. At this year's Hot Chips conference, the company unveiled its first AI accelerator, Maia 100, built on TSMC's 5nm process node.

Designed to "optimize performance and reduce costs," Maia 100's architecture includes custom server boards, racks, and software for running AI services like Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Services.

"The Maia 100 accelerator is purpose-built for a wide range of cloud-based AI workloads," Microsoft's technical blog on Maia 100 details. "The chip measures out at ~820mm2 and utilizes TSMC's N5 process with COWOS-S interposer technology. Equipped with large on-die SRAM, Maia 100's reticle-size SoC die, combined with four HBM2E die, provide a total of 1.8 terabytes per second of bandwidth and 64 gigabytes of capacity to accommodate AI-scale data handling requirements."

NVIDIA launched the 'world's first GPU' with the release of the GeForce 256 back on October 11, 1999 after announcing the card on August 31, 1999. It's now 25 years old. Wow.

NVIDIA changed the entire industry -- technology and gaming -- with the release of the GeForce 256, fast-forwarding to today and the "little-known brand" reached a milestone $3.3 trillion market cap and has been leading the charge in gaming and AI for years.

The GeForce 256 at the time introduced hardware transform and lighting (T&L) features directly into the GPU, previously these calculations were run on the CPU or required dedicated hardware (like everything did back in the 90s: sound cards, networking cards, graphic cards, MPEG2 decoder cards, and more). NVIDIA introduced the 'world's first GPU' with the GeForce 256, and the rest is history.

Intel's next-generation Panther Lake CPUs have been in the headlines a few times this year, but now we've got some new information on CPU configurations of Intel's next-gen processors.

First up, we'll be introduced to the new Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" CPUs later this month for laptops, with the desktops getting Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" CPUs (200V = laptops, 200 = desktops) later this year. After that, is when we'll be introduced to the Core Ultra 300 series "Panther Lake" CPUs that will be unleashed in the second half of 2025.

The new information on the Panther Lake processors is coming from a Coreboot patch, detailing 4 different Panther Lake SKUs. Intel will be using its new Cougar Cove P-Cores and Skymont E-Cores, while the Skymont E-Cores featured on Panther Lake are expected to be optimized, or possibly updated so we could see a naming change of the E-Cores before Panther Lake launches in 2H 2025.

Concord's sales on PC may be even lower than originally expected, new estimates from Game Discover Co's Simon Carless reveal.

Given the current reception around the game, it seems fair to say that Sony's new shooter Concord has failed to make a dent in the billion-dollar live service market. Metrics from SteamDB estimate that Concord has sold around 17.7K copies on the high end, meaning Concord's sales revenues could be well below $1 million on Valve's platform, which has recently set a new concurrent peak record of 37 million players.

According to estimates from other analysts, Concord's Steam sales could be even lower. Game Discover Co's market expert Simon Carless believes Concord could have sold around 10K copies on Steam, which is a maximum revenue range of $400K - $600K, depending on which version that gamers had purchased.

Intel is considering splitting its product design and manufacturing businesses, as well as factory projects potentially being scrapped, led by CEO Pat Gelsinger.

In a new report from Bloomberg, we're learning that Intel is looking at splitting its chip product business from its foundry -- chip-making -- businesses, as it attempts to navigate its most difficult time in its 56-year history. The news of splitting its businesses saw Intel shares rise 9.5% on Friday, the biggest single-day gains since October 2022.

Intel will present its various options during a board meeting this month, according to the usual "people familiar with the matter" reports Bloomberg. The site adds that no major moves are imminent and that discussions are still in the "early stages" with an Intel representative declining to comment (of course).

For Capcom, there may not be room for two big dino-based franchises on the market--at least that's what original series director Shinji Mikami seems to think.

Despite its status as a quadruple-platinum franchise, it could be a long time before Capcom revives the Dino Crisis series. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Shinji Mikami, who directed both Dino Crisis 1 & 2, said that he believes that the survival franchise could stay on ice a little longer. The reason? The colossal dinosaur-ridden Monster Hunter is the apple of Capcom's eye with over 100 million sales.

"The awesomeness of dinosaurs and the stuff you can do with dinosaurs, that's been kind of really nailed down by Monster Hunter in recent years. So even if I were to decide to make a remake or a new version of Dino Crisis, I don't really feel like there's a whole lot of space for that kind of game right now, just since Monster Hunter has become such a big game," Mikami told Eurogamer at Gamescom 2024.

Comments from Warner Bros. Discovery executives indicate that we could see more F2P games roll out soon, and that WB Games could license out key properties like Batman and Superman to third-party publishers.

WB Discovery has had huge success with its games division. According to company CEO David Zaslav, WB Games has been profitable for the last 15 years. The division has produced multiple best-sellers, including the Batman Arkham titles, and more recently with Hogwarts Legacy, which generated over $1 billion in revenues since release.

Despite these milestones, WB Games has had some big misses. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League failed to meet expectations, and the game's underperformance actually led to some interesting comments from WBD executives.

One of Capcom's powerhouse creative forces is leaving the company.

Hideaki Itsuno, director of hit franchises like Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma, has announced that he is leaving Capcom after more than 30 years with the Japanese video games publisher. Itsuno will start development of a brand new game throughout September, and it has not yet been revealed exactly which company that he will be moving to, or what project he is currently working on.

On Twitter, Itsuno announced his departure from Capcom with the following message:

WB Interactive Entertainment is not developing a new game based on 2022's The Batman, DC has now confirmed.

A bit ago, rumors started circulating about a new Batman game. Following the lower-than-expected sales of the Suicide Squad live game, reports indicated that WB games could be shifting focus back on the Caped Crusader--more specifically the modern rendition of the Dark Knight universe as shown in the 2022 film starring Robert Pattinson. The reports came from news site Puck, which said that a new game based on Matt Reeves' The Batman film was happening, and that it would be based on the Penguin character in some capacity.

These rumors have been proven false, however. There is no game based on The Batman in development at Rocksteady Studios or WB Games. The confirmation comes from DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, who has taken over a big portion of the company's superhero focus.

Intel has been suffering of late, we all know it, but the "Royal Core" project was meant to destroy Zen 5... and rumor has it, CEO Pat Gelsinger killed the project.

Intel hired Jim Keller years ago -- the father of the Zen CPU architecture from AMD -- who worked on the "Royal Core Project" which was an architecture that moved past Core, which would be the largest upgrade in CPU architecture for Intel in decades.

2024: Arrow Lake was (meant to be) the bridge architecture to "Royal Core". Hyper-Threading was removed with the knowledge that it was going away soon anyways, and so it was time to focus on any extra single-threading you can get by simplifying the core design.

AMD is expected to unveil its new RDNA 4 GPU architecture later this year, with a smaller, mid-range focused range of Radeon RX 8000 series GPUs. One of those will be the Navi 44 XL GPU-powered card that should materialize into the Radeon RX 8600.

In a new shipping manifest, the Navi 44 XL GPU has been spotted, the second most powerful RDNA 4 GPU other than the Navi 48 that should power the Radeon RX 8700 or Radeon RX 8800 series graphics cards. Data miner "Orlak29" spotted the new Navi 44 XL entries in a new shipping manifest that you can see above.

The purported Navi 44 XL GPU would power the mid-range Radeon RX 8600 if AMD doesn't go through any name changes in the meantime, while Navi 48 will take the slightly higher-end, but no RDNA 4 cards will be competing in the high-end against NVIDIA. Hell, AMD's new RDNA 4 cards won't even be competing against AMD's previous-gen RDNA 3-based high-end Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.

At Gamescom, NVIDIA announced that RTX technology, including DLSS, was now available in over 600 games and apps. In 2024, it's unusual for a PC game release not to include support for DLSS upscaling - to the point where no DLSS is potentially a bigger news story than having DLSS. One of the biggest PC gaming stories surrounding Starfield's launch in 2023 was the existence of a mod that replaced FSR in the game with DLSS, as it took a few months for Bethesda to add DLSS to the game officially.

DLSS is NVIDIA's AI-powered upscaler that offers a free performance boost without sacrificing visual fidelity. In the case of newer versions and DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, it can improve visual fidelity alongside boosting performance.

This is what makes the new open-source DLSS Updater tool so useful. It scans your games across various launchers to update outdated DLSS DLL files with the latest version. And yes, it works with Steam, EA, Ubisoft, Epic Games, GOG, and Battle.net launchers.

Okay, so this is more for marketing than something you'd consider practical - Cooler Master has used its Cryofuze 5 thermal paste to paint a landscape mural on a CPU. Available in a range of colors, the Cryofuze 5 Prism lineup promises high-performing thermal conductivity, and here, we see the various colors mixed up and used by an artist to turn a CPU into a work of art.

Naturally, once the cooler is on, the PC fires up, and the thermal paste binds to both the cooler's cold plate and the CPU; the art is basically ruined, but this is cool nonetheless. If the scene of a mountain surrounded by clouds in the sky and trees in the foreground is reminiscent of painter Bob Ross's iconic TV show, you're not alone. Cooler Master even includes the theme song from the show at the end of the clip.

We don't expect this to become a "thing," but it does show that mixing various thermal pastes of different colors could be a way to add some flair to a new build - just for fun.

With the launch of the Nintendo 64 in 1996, Super Mario 64 presented a seismic shift in how games are played - especially for those considered 'platformers.' It spawned a new genre, the 3D Platformer, which saw an influx of Super Mario 64 clones in much the same way that Software's Doom saw the arrival of countless new first-person shooters.

The list includes games like Banjo-Kazooie (also for the N64)m, Spyro the Dragon, Glover, Sonic Adventure, Gex: Enter the Gecko, and many more. One of the first to arrive on the scene was Croc: Legend of the Gobbos for the original PlayStation from Argonaut Games. The veteran studio had an impressive run throughout the 1990s, which included the developer creating the iconic Star Fox for the Super Nintendo - one of the very first 3D games for the console.

The studio closed in 2004, reportedly due to financial troubles. Fast-forward to 2024, and Argonaut Games is back with new CEOs Gary Sheinwald and Mike Arkin, resurrecting the developer as a "boutique publisher." Its first game is set to be a remaster of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos.

GeForce NOW, NVIDIA's cloud gaming service, allows you to stream games running on up to GeForce RTX 4080 hardware with DLSS and G-SYNC support. This week, it expanded its library with 26 new games, including Star Wars Outlaws and the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Open Beta.

Star Wars Outlaws is an excellent addition as the game supports several RTX technologies, including full ray-tracing, DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex. With the graphics settings maxed out, it looks fantastic - presenting a richly detailed Star Wars game with multiple planets to explore.

Another significant addition is Square Enix's Visions of Mana, a new action RPG and the latest installment in a series that dates back to the Super Nintendo era with the iconic Secret of Mana. And for gamers jumping into the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Open Beta this weekend, GeForce NOW lets them jump straight into the action without downloading or installing the game.

AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 24.8.1 is available now for all Radeon owners and supports a range of new games. The highly anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Open Beta kicks off this weekend for gamers who have pre-ordered the latest Call of Duty or are subscribed to Xbox or PC Game Pass, and support is included here.

There's also support for the dead-on-arrival Concord, the new Sony and PlayStation multiplayer title struggling to find an audience. Plus, popular new single-player games Star Wars Outlaws from Ubisoft and the long-awaited PC debut of Final Fantasy XVI from Square Enix.

AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 24.8.1 also adds new HYPR-Tune profiles for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which will automatically configure settings and enable AMD FSR 3. Also, AMD Radeon Anti-Lag 2 support for Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT has been added, and the company's low-latency tech is similar to NVIDIA Reflex.

Intel has shared a new update on the instability issues plaguing its 13th-gen and 14th-gen processors, soothing the doubts of those who are paranoid that Arrow Lake might suffer from the same problems - and Lunar Lake laptop CPUs get a clean bill of health, too.

The new statement from Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford relates to the "Vmin Shift Instability issue investigation," pinned down as a root cause of the mentioned stability woes (though not, we should note, necessarily the sole root cause).

At any rate, we're told in no uncertain terms that:

A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters details a hole that was created in Earth's atmosphere following the Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) of SpaceX's Starship rocket during it second orbital test flight.

The study was published in the scientific journal on August 26, and claims SpaceX created a hole in Earth's ionosphere, which is located between 50 and 400 miles above Earth's surface. This region of Earth's atmosphere is where gasses are stripped of electrons and turned into plasma, but following the explosion of SpaceX's Starship rocket researchers detected a first-of-its-kind disturbance.

According to the study multiple ground-based instruments and satellites detected the disturbance in the region of the atmosphere where the rocket exploded, with it lasting for anywhere between 30 to 40 minutes before fully recovering. The team explained the ionospheric holes aren't particularly new with chemical rockets exploding, as researchers know that carbon dioxide and water vapor can result in ionized oxygen atoms reforming into normal oxygen atom. The region this occurs in causes a "hole" to form in the plasma sea that is the ionosphere.