Latest News - Page 696

AMD launched FSR 3 alongside the debut of the Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT last year, with support for the company's Frame Generation update available in two games at the time: Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum. That was back in September 2023, and with the next games to get FSR 3 support arriving in December 2023, it's no secret that FSR 3 adoption heading into 2024 was non-existent.

Now, it's worth noting that December 2023 saw FSR 3 arrive in Ubisoft's Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, a visually stunning title that also debuted an updated and improved version of FSR 3 technology, showcasing noticeably better results than what was seen in Forpsoken and Immortals of Aveum. So much so that its platform-agnostic approach to Frame Generation, much like its approach to Super Resolution upscaling, was embraced by Avatar players using Radeon RX and GeForce RTX cards alike.

And now, as 2024 kicks off (with AMD launching a brand-new GPU in the form of the Radeon RX 7600 XT), FSR 3 support in games is heating up.

Windows 11 is set to get a major update this year, codenamed 'Hudson Valley,' and it's so big it might end up being called Windows 12. Version 24H2 of the operating system is said to bring a suite of performance and security updates to Windows 11 and new features that will leverage AI and push the capabilities of Microsoft's Copilot even further.

A massive update that renames the OS to Windows 12 would be strange to see, and at this stage, this is just a rumor, but either way, by all accounts, Windows 11's big 2024 update will be a game changer. Yes, AI will play a major role in improving productivity, search, and how native Windows apps function - and will tie in nicely with all of the AI PCs launching this year.

Microsoft is targeting a September launch for this big update (via Windows Central), so a detailed list of all the features has yet to be made public - but several are set to be added to the new Insider Canary Channel build. Whether it becomes the long-rumored Windows 12 or simply a Windows 11 overhaul, it's said that Microsoft will market the release as its big 'Windows with AI' launch.

Apple is making significant changes to its electric vehicle (EV) project, with a far less complex design and delaying its release into 2028 at least.

The new information on the Apple Car project is coming from Bloomberg, where they've had sources that are "familiar with the situation," as always. Apple has hosted board meetings about its EV project, limiting its electric vehicle's autonomous features and downgrading its EV to Level 2+ autonomy. Previously, Apple planned to build a fully driverless car without a steering wheel or pedals... not anymore.

Level 2+ autonomy allows drivers to briefly take their hands off the wheel with adaptive cruise control, self-parking features, and lane-centering control. We already see that in multiple cars on the market, with most autonomous vehicles peaking at Level 2, while Mercedes-Benz received approval for Level 3 autonomous driving systems in late 2023.

AMD's latest Ryzen 9 7940HX "Dragon Range" mobile processor has been tested by Chinese reviewer "Mitsu" with a bunch of tests conducted that you can check out below:

Mitsu benchmarked the new ASUS Tianxuan 5 Pro gaming laptop, the Chinese version of the TUF Gaming laptop series from ASUS. Inside, it features the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX processor, 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU. ASUS focuses this gaming laptop on the budget gaming laptop market, with a 280W power supply included.

AMD's latest Ryzen 9 7940HX processor is the flagship "Dragon Range" chip with 16 cores based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a 2.4GHz base CPU clock and up to 5.2GHz max boost clock. AMD designs its new Dragon Range CPU for 55W TDP power consumption.

Samsung has officially announced its new 990 EVO SSD, a new hybrid storage SSD that supports both Gen5 and Gen4 standards with pricing starting at $124.99 for the 1TB model.

The latest Samsung 990 EVO SSD can provide you with storage goodness with either PCIe 4.0 x4 or PCIe 5.0 x2 standards, while there will be no changes in bandwidth if you put it in PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 SSD slots on your motherboard. We have up to 5GB/sec (5000MB/sec) reads and up to 4.2GB/sec (4200MB/sec) writes on the Samsung 990 SSD.

Jose Hernandez, Senior Director of Memory Product Marketing at Samsung said in the press release: "The 990 EVO delivers a hybrid storage solution that lets you easily bring flexibility and future proof your setup. These drives balance performance, power efficiency and reliability, making them a versatile choice for the latest interface, and great for a variety of everyday tasks, like gaming, working, editing and more".

TSMC has just announced its plans for 1nm process node production, where the company plans to build a new state-of-the-art fabrication plant in Taiwan to handle the influx of next-gen chip orders.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) reaching the "holy grail" of semiconductor leadership with its 1nm process node will only continue its dominance in the field, leaving both Samsung and Intel in their (1nm) dust. The new cutting-edge facility is expected to be developed in Chiayi County in southern Taiwan.

It's expected that TSMC's advanced new 1nm fabrication plant would cost somewhere up to 1 trillion won (around $32 billion USD) and should be built at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP). It's expected to take up close to 100 hectares, divided into a "60/40 ratio," where the facilities will handle both semiconductor and IC packaging production in the same facility.

Hideo Kojima is assembling a dream team of horror icons to collaborate on his new game OD, and Junji Ito could be one of them.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima has an ambitious idea: What if games and films were combined in one experimental package? Throw in cloud streaming technology and some sort of mysterious gimmick, and Kojima could have a breakout success that defines a brand new medium.

Kojima's first game-film hybrid is OD, a horror game that's built off the bones of PT and features a star-studded cast. It's not just Kojima working on OD, though; he's conscripted macabre mavens like Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us, NOPE) to help make it happen. At The Game Awards 2023, Kojima said he was assembling a kind of Avengers team of horror:

Pocketpair reveals a big content roadmap for mega-hit Palworld, confirms various new features and modes that in development.

No live service game would be complete without a plotted list of updates, features, and content. Palworld is no different, and Japanese studio Pocketpair has outlined a timeline of fixes, adjustments, and new updates for their popular survival-crafting game.

Palworld is still in early access, but Pocketpair still wants to considerably update the game over time. That being said, there's some immediate fixes that the studio is targeting. The biggest problem is server congestion--the game has been purchased by 7 million people, but some gamers are still having a hard time actually playing.

Whether or not Square Enix achieves its full-year profit targets depends largely on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's sales.

Following Final Fantasy XVI's successful release and subsequent 3 million+ sales, Square Enix has one more big tentpole release up its sleeves to maximize sales revenues and profits. The Japanese games company will launch Final Fantasy VII Rebirth next month, sending off its FY25 timeline with a potential sales surge.

As far as profits, Square Enix has set a 55 billion yen operating income target for FY24, which amounts to roughly $372 million. The company booked 17 billion yen in net income (roughly $117 million) for the first two quarters of the year, leaving the lucrative holiday period and the Q4 period in which FF7 Rebirth will release.

Intel has a new graphics driver incoming and it's going to be another in a line of releases that seriously bolster the frame rate shifting power of Team Blue's Arc Alchemist graphics cards.

VideoCardz reported that Intel has sent out a note to some press outlets about the imminent new driver - which might be coming as soon as later today - enthusing about the performance boosts it contains.

We are talking about an average of 30% faster frames rates - yes, that's the average gain, not a best-case 'up to' percentage - for DX11 games.

Is MachineGames working on a new Quake? No one knows for sure, but the studio has dropped a teaser for the next Quake game.

MachineGames, the team behind the successful and action-packed Wolfenstein revival duology, just announced its new Indiana Jones adventure game. It's called Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and the reveal trailer actually hosted a surprise tease for the Quake franchise.

The recent Developer Direct '24 showcase took players behind the scenes of Indiana Jones' production and gave us a direct look at MachineGames' offices. Around the 11:35 mark of the dev direct, the words "Quake 6" can be seen written in huge letters on a dry erase board. It's possible that MachineGames is involved in Quake 6's development, and that the studio may be co-developing the project alongside id Software.

NVIDIA has released a new GeForce Game Ready GPU driver that brings in support for the just-released RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics card, and does a lot more besides.

Probably the most eye-catching trick here is the introduction of RTX Video HDR, which uses the RTX graphics card's Tensor cores to take video in Standard Dynamic Range and seriously jazz it up with far more vivid colors HDR-style.

It also ekes out additional detail that may have been lost thanks to video compression on the likes of YouTube, NVIDIA notes, and you can see RTX Video HDR in action in the video above.

NVIDIA's RTX 4080 Super is the only Lovelace refresh left to be released in January - it comes out in a week's time, on the last day of the month - and we're now starting to see leaked benchmarks for this graphics card.

Benchleaks has flagged up a number of results for the RTX 4080 Super with the main caveat being that these are Geekbench runs - not the best way of evaluating a GPU's gaming chops, of course.

We also need to add seasoning to any leaked benchmarks, but with all that noted, the scores are obviously still worth examining.

WhatsApp, the hugely popular instant messaging app and service that offers cross-platform messaging abilities is getting ready to allow the app to work with third-party messaging services as well. That's according to a new report that highlights a change in a new beta that has been made available for the iPhone. A previous Android beta added the same functionality.

The report, by WABetaInfo, highlights that WhatsApp is getting ready to abide by the European Union's Digital Markets Act with laws set to require that messaging apps like WhatsApp work with others, removing the so-called "gatekeepers" of the market. WhatsApp is working to comply with interoperability requirements and will allow its app to communicate with people who are using other messaging apps so long as those messaging apps do the same - WhatsApp will only work with iMessage, for example, if Apple allows it to. Apple might be forced to do so, but that's out of WhatsApp's control.

In an image shared by WABetaInfo we can see a new section within the Chats portion of the WhatsApp app on iPhone called "Third-party Chats," and that is where these conversations will take place. It isn't possible to test that functionality yet because nothing is currently live and other platforms will also need to make the same interoperability changes, too.

Netflix's video games strategy is taking off, but the business isn't yet strongly impacting the core subscription model.

Did you know that Netflix offers free games to all members? The streamer has a variety of mobile games that can be accessed for free. The content selection is growing, and Netflix has plans to eventually bring games to other platforms with the main goal of offered extra value to promote retention (and eventually justify another price increase).

While Netflix's games ambitions have typically seen muted responses from subscribers, everything changed with the free release of the Grand Theft Auto trilogy on mobiles. Suddenly, Netflix was the #1 mobile games company on the App Store and Google Play--and Netflix didn't even make the game, they're only distributing the game's free license.

Apple's Siri might not be the best digital assistant around right now, but it could be about to get a big boost when iOS 18 ships later this year. That's according to a new Financial Times report based on information from the analysts at Morgan Stanley.

The report suggests that Apple will sue iOS 18 to give Siri a leg up thanks to new Large Language Model features that will allow Siri to make use of generative AI for the first time. That, in theory, could see Siri able to better compete with similar digital assistants as well as ChatGPT, the OpenAI tool that has taken the world by storm over the last year or so.

There have been reports of an AI push from Apple in 2024 for months now, and this report appears to back that up. Apple is thought to be gearing its devices towards an AI future with the latest chips offered in iPhones, iPads, and Macs according to analysts at semiconductor consulting firm SemiAnalysis. With Apple's Vision Pro on the horizon, we can expect that Siri will play a big role in the world of spatial computing, too.

Then the European Union's deadline for Apple to allow apps to be sideloaded on iPhones comes around in early March, the company will have no choice but to comply. And comply it will according to reports, but there will still be some considerable caveats according to a new report.

Apple has until March 6 to enable sideloading but a new Wall Street Journal report claims that Apple intends to enforce the same limitations on sideloaded apps as it does on those that are available via the App Store. That will include plans to review every app and even collect money from developers, the report suggests.

It isn't immediately clear how Apple intends to make this work, however. It's possible Apple may try to collect commission on all sales made outside of the App Store just as it intends to do after allowing developers to point users to alternative payment methods - a change that is coming about after complaints that developers must pay 30% to Apple whenever they sell an app or in-app purchase. However, sales made outside of the App Store are going to be subject to a 27% commission anyway, making the whole process somewhat pointless. It seems Apple intends to go a similar route with sideloading.

Apple's iPhone 16 Pro Max isn't expected to be officially unveiled until this coming September, but the leaks are starting to come thick and fast ahead of that time. The latest suggests that buyers can look forward to a sizeable camera upgrade that won't be part of the smaller iPhone 16 Pro's arsenal.

That upgrade will reportedly see the new iPhone 16 Pro Max gain an upgraded main camera sensor that will make it an "image flagship," a quote that suggests Apple could be about to lean heavily on camera performance for its upcoming model.

The report, via MacRumors, comes from Weibo leaker Digital Chat Station and suggests that the iPhone 16 Pro Max's main camera will be based on a customized 48-megapixel Sony IMX903 sensor. The sensor will offer advanced features including a 14-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and Digital Gain Control (DCG). The two improvements should ensure higher-quality image data conversion and improved noise control and dynamic range respectively.

Google's Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro have only been on sale for a few months at this point and the company isn't expected to announce the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro models until the second half of this year. But that hasn't stopped the best of the bunch from leaking ahead of time with brand-new renders appearing online.

The renders show the Pixel 9 Pro model in a black finish and we have to say that the phone looks pretty stunning. In fact, it's fair to say that there is more than a little of the iPhone 15 Pro look about this thing which isn't a negative by any stretch.

The leaked renders come via MySmartPrice and leaker OnLeaks and come with a few details of note. Things start with a large 6.5-inch flat display which is smaller than the previous Pixel 8 Pro. A centered hole-punch camera will also reportedly be offered while bezels will be suitably thin on all four sides of the display.

Apple's Vision Pro is currently available for preorder but it won't go on sale until February 2. That hasn't stopped Apple from continuing to work on getting visionOS into an even better state ahead of time though, and visionOS 10.0.1 will be ready and waiting once the headset goes on sale.

The new software isn't expected to be a big update and it's believed that the release is a delta over-the-air update rather than a full one, suggesting yet further that we shouldn't expect any big changes. However, any new software update is a good thing because it means that Apple has improved some facet of the Vision Pro experience to the point of wanting to ensure that it is available for early adopters.

The Vision Pro headset is Apple's first foray into the world of mixed reality, or spatial computing, and it's clear that it wants to make as big of a splash as possible. The headset comes with a high $3,499 price point which also means that it will be scrutinized more than any other headset of its ilk, and Apple is right to try and make sure its visionOS software is as stable and functional as possible.