Gaming - Page 516

Star Fox brought enhanced 3D polygons to the SNES with its FX chip. Now a skilled engineer brings real-time ray tracing to the classic console, complete with reflections and impressive effects.

Ray tracing is all the rage right now on RTX cards and next-gen consoles, but did you know the Super Nintendo could handle it too? Software engineer Ben Carter created SuperRT, a custom expansion chip that uses a "DE10-Nano FPGA development board with a Cyclone V FPGA" to add hardware-accelerated raytracing to the Super Nintendo.

Carter recently showed off his creation with an impressive demo with effects like real-time ray-traced shadows and reflections, inverted reflections, and a whole manner of unique animations that mirror other scenes and objects. The result is high-tech sorcery on the age-old system. The SuperRT was built as something that could actually run on the SNES, and the chip only handles ray tracing due to the "image data conversion."

Epic Games has announced that with the new v15.10 patch coming to Fortnite that they're enabling 120FPS support for both Battle Royale and Creative modes in Fortnite for both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

You'll need to jump into the video settings in Fortnite and enable "120FPS mode" which will see both the flagship PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles dropping from their 4K resolution to 1440p -- but you'll get that silky smooth 120FPS goodness.

Epic adds that "shadow settings, postprocessing, and streaming distances are slightly reduced, but volumetric clouds, physical rim lighting, and high-quality shaders remain enabled". If you're gaming on the lower-end Xbox Series S console then you will experience 120FPS mode in 1080p (down from 1440p on the flagship Xbox Series X). Epic adds that "shadow resolution and other settings are reduced and volumetric clouds are disabled".

If you've played Cyberpunk 2077 enough then you will have come across some sex shops by now, but some players are seeing a "distracting" amount of dildos everywhere. Yeah, you read that right -- Cyberpunk 2077 has a dildo infestation problem.

While I've got some screenshots below of my adventures into just a single sex shop in Cyberpunk 2077, other players of CD PROJEKT RED's huge new RPG are noticing some major dildo problems. Dildos are turning up in random places in their games, including street corners, restaurants and everything in between.

The reason? In an email to Kotaku, Cyberpunk 2077 senior quest designer Philipp Weber explained: "We wanted Night City to be pretty open sexually where something by today's standards might be taboo or kinky is very normal and commonplace by 2077 standards". I guess that includes as many dildos as possible, eh?

CD Projekt RED admits to investors that it chose to hide footage of Cyberpunk 2077 running on last-gen consoles. Now it's paying the price.

Rather than celebrating the launch of their most ambitious game ever, CDPR is being raked over the coals and forced into damage control mode. The last-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 is in bad shape with substantial frame drops, blurry textures that don't pop in, and tons of glitches. CDPR now admits they neglected the PS4 and Xbox One versions, and worse, that they willfully hid evidence of the poor optimization from the public.

The reason? CD Projekt RED didn't show last-gen footage because they literally weren't finished with the PS4 and Xbox One version. This implies the game wasn't good enough to show off. So why was it released?

Cyberpunk 2077 is a big mess on Xbox One and PS4, and CD Projekt RED now admits they purposely neglected the game on these platforms.

Out of necessity, CDPR is being very transparent about its recent Cyberpunk 2077 controversy. The last-gen game launched in an unacceptable state with tons of bugs and massive perf hitches dropping to 15FPS with terrible textures. The dev has been publicly lambasted by the industry as a result, and investor's are very concerned.

Now CDPR is taking full responsibility for their actions. The developer admits they focused most of their efforts on making the game run on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S and neglected the last-gen version (CP2077 hits 60FPS on PS5, 15FPS on PS4). Remember, CP2077 was originally delayed because CDPR stressed difficulties with optimizing for so many platforms. Even as it admits full neglect, the dev says this is an "unanticipated situation," which is hard to believe.

EA plans to buy Codemasters for a huge $1.2 billion in an effort to dominate the racing game market.

EA today confirmed its plan to purchase Codemasters, the UK-based game developer behind F1, Project Cars, and DiRT, for a whopping $1.2 billion. EA plans to buy out 100% of Codemasters stock at 604p (roughly $7.98) per share, but there's no details on how this will be paid out (e.g. stock and cash payments).

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive originally made a bid on Codemasters. Take-Two was prepared to pay as much as $973 million to acquire Codemasters, but EA undercut Take-Two and exceeded the bid by some $273 million.

CD Projekt RED formally apologizes for Cyberpunk 2077's terrible performance on weaker PS4 and Xbox One consoles, and promises to fix it.

Cyberpunk 2077 runs really poorly on the base PS4 and Xbox One, with frame rates dropping to as low as 15 FPS in 720p resolution. The PS4 Pro fares better at 30FPS, and CP2077 can hit 60FPS on the PS5. The lower-end performance has frustrated tons of gamers to the point where Sony is offering refunds for the game (which is pretty rare).

CDPR has taken notice, and promises new updates are on the way. The developer just laid out a plan to fix the abysmal gameplay on last-gen hardware. CDPR will release two patches--one in January, and another in February--that "fix most of the prominent problems gamers are facing on last-gen consoles."

I've got over 10 hours in Cyberpunk 2077 so far with a GeForce RTX 3090 powering my 4K experience with ray tracing dialed to maximum and DLSS on performance I'm getting 50-60FPS. It is one of best-looking games ever made, but how does Cyberpunk 2077 compare now, against its E3 2018 gameplay? Check this out:

CD PROJEKT RED has done an incredible job between 2018 and its release in December 2020 -- with Cyberpunk 2077 looking much, much better now than it did then. The lighting system seems to have been radically super-charged, with some truly gorgeous graphics on display in Cyberpunk 2077.

It's not common that a game exceeds its debut at an E3 but CDPR worked some real magic with Cyberpunk 2077. The improvements between E3 2018 and the retail release in December 2020 are remarkable. The final version of the game looks worlds better, with more detail, better lighting, shadows, and of course ray tracing looks out-of-this-world in Cyberpunk 2077.

The team at iFixit have performed weeks of work on getting a teardown guide done for Sony's new PlayStation 5 console. It is gloriously detailed, which you can go and nerd out over (like I did) right here.

The photo above was taken by Creative Electron's X-ray cabinet, giving us an awesome look at the innards of the PlayStation 5 -- which is powered by semi-custom Zen 2-based CPU, custom RDNA 2 GPU, PCIe 4.0-based storage, and so much more.

iFixit reports that it wasn't too hard to open up the PS5 by popping off the white panels on the side with a "gentle lift-and-slide motion" that provides "immediate access" to the M.2 SSD expansion slot, the fan, and even some vacuumable dust ports.

Cyberpunk 2077 reportedly ignores SMT on multi-threaded AMD Ryzen CPUs, which leaves FPS on the table. But you can use a hex editor to make quick changes and get a nice little frame rate boost.

Redditors have apparently cracked the case of Cyberpunk 2077's dropped performance on AMD Ryzen CPUs. According to findings from Redditor u/CookiePLMonster, Cyberpunk 2077 uses GPUOpen to check CPUs and designate how many threads the game will use based on CPU type. The game assigns less scheduler threads for non-Bulldozer CPUs, so Ryzen CPU cores won't be utilized as much.

You can use a hex editor to bypass the check and get a boost of up to 20% in top-end FPS performance depending on your hardware/settings configuration. Low-end FPS can improve dramatically. One user with a 3800X CPU and RTX 3080 saw a 15-30 FPS spike in lower-end FPS while playing, especially in CPU-demanding areas like populated city areas.

More people are playing Cyberpunk 2077 than any other paid game on Steam.

Cyberpunk 2077 has more peak players than any other paid played game on Steam with 1,054,388 players, new SteamDB figures show. Right now CP2077 is in fourth place in all-time concurrent players, sitting behind free-to-play titans like PUBG (3.25 million), Counter-Strike (1.3 million), and DOTA 2 (1.29 million).

In fact, CDPR's new FPS has nearly 3x as many concurrent peak players as Grand Theft Auto V, and handily beats its nearest competitor, Terraria, by over 564,000 players. CDPR notes Cyberpunk 2077 has already generated $50 million in revenues on Steam, and the developer now gets to keep 80% of all sales earnings moving forward.

Insomniac is doing some awesome things with the PS5's ray tracing capabilities right out of the gate, and now matches higher FPS with ray-traced visuals in the new Spider-Man remaster.

First Spider-Man Miles Morales got a RT Performance mode, and now the Spider-Man Remastered re-release is getting it too.

A new update for the remaster (v 1.0002) adds the mode, and it essentially boosts frame rates when ray-tracing is turned on. The trade-off is resolution takes a hit. So the reflections and lighting will look great, and the game will feel more fluid at 60FPS, but the resolution will drop below native 4K and switch to dynamic resolution scaling.

The PlayStation 5 has smashed through multiple records, and is now the best-selling launch console in U.S. history.

Sony's PS5 is now the best-selling launch console of all time in the United States. It has sold more units and made more launch sales revenues than any other console in U.S. history, beating out contenders like the PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and the newer Nintendo Switch. The news comes from analyst firm NPD Group, who also says the PS5 helped drive November 2020 to a record $1.4 billion in earnings--the highest November in tracked history.

While Sony hasn't revealed exactly PS5 sales figures just yet (we'll get those in the Q3 earnings report), we do know the PS5 has outsold the PS4's 7.6 million launch sales. The PS5 is also the best-selling launch console of all time in the United Kingdom.

EA could be the new home of Codemasters as the publisher ousted Take-Two's huge $900 million acquisition offer.

A month ago, Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive offered to pay $973 million in stock and cash to buy Codemasters, the developer behind racing games like Project Cars, DiRT, annual F1 games, and GRID. Now EA has stepped in and outbid Take-Two's sizable buyout offer.

Sources tell Sky News that EA has made a buyout offer and is currently working with brokers at UBS to layout specific financing terms. The deal hasn't been made public, and EA's SEC filings haven't been updated with any information on the potential buyout.

PlayStation support is reportedly offering full game refunds for Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4, so if you're upset you may want to call them.

Cyberpunk 2077 is suffering from terrible performance on base PS4 and Xbox One, strongly indicating the game should've either been delayed or made exclusive to next-gen consoles. The game can drop as low as 15FPS on base PS4 systems, but maintains a somewhat solid 30FPS on PS4 Pro. Cyberpunk 2077 can hit 60FPS on PS5, and on Xbox Series X it benefits from a performance and a quality mode.

PC is the best place play, but even on PC there's tons of bugs. PS4 buyers aren't happy with Cyberpunk 2077's dismal performance on the lower-end hardware and the game has been review-bombed on Metacritic. According to a number of users on Reddit, Sony is stepping in and offering refunds.

Google has released its new Google Trends data for 2020, showing the world what Americans were searching for in the US -- as well as what was the most-searched globally in 2020.

The results reveal that the US election results and coronavirus were the two most-searched for things in not just the US, but globally -- meanwhile the PlayStation 5 was the most-searched for when it comes to 'Where to buy' -- beating out 'where to buy toilet paper' and 'where to buy face masks'.

The fourth highest 'where to buy' search was for the Xbox Series X, while the fifth highest was hand sanitizer. So we're looking at wiping your butt, buying a face mask or hand sanitizer mixed in with next-gen consoles for the most-searched 'where to buy' in Google Trends.

J.J. Abrams' production company has just announced it is launching a new in-house game development studio, with the introduction of Bad Robot Games.

Bad Robot Games will have Michael Booth as the general manager, with Booth previously at Valve, Blizzard, EA/Westwood, and the founder of Turtle Rock Studio. Booth has been the project lead of some big games including being the creator and lead designer behind Left 4 Dead.

Back in September 2019, Abrams signed a $250 million deal with WarnerMedia that would include new movies, digital content, original TV shows and movies, as well as video games. It seems we're seeing the next stages in that, with Bad Robot Games starting to acquire talent.

We know that Cyberpunk 2077 runs like junk on the base PS4 console dropping to 15FPS at times, but how about the Xbox One S? Yep -- the same, check it out:

The side-by-side comparison of Cyberpunk 2077 running on an Xbox One S and Xbox Series S console was made by Wccftech, with a great 5-minute 45-second comparison of the game running on the two consoles. Remember that Cyberpunk 2077 on the Xbox Series S is just running the Xbox One S/X version of the game.

Back in January 2020 we wrote that CD PROJEKT RED was having issues optimizing Cyberpunk 2077 for current-gen consoles, especially the base Xbox One and PS4. It seems nothing improved on that, but that's not surprising given Cyberpunk 2077 is a next-gen game playing on a potato box like the original Xbox One/S and PS4.

Cyberpunk 2077 takes up 101.9GB of space on the PlayStation 4, and if you have a next-gen console, your space is even more limited.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a big game. The physical version comes on two discs and it clocks in at ~70GB at launch, but that quickly skyrockets to 101GB after the day one update. Cyberpunk 2077 joins the ranks of storage-hungry games like Red Dead Redemption 2 (100GB+) and Black Ops Cold War, which requires a staggering 145.8GB on the PS5 without Warzone installed.

CDPR's new FPS-RPG is best played on PC, but if you have to play on console, you want to do it on PS5 to hit 60FPS and not the PS4 or PS4 Pro--the former of which drops as low as 15FPS and the latter is capped out at 30FPS. There's just one problem: The PS5's SSD space is limited. Luckily Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't load tremendously faster on PS5 (about 44% faster with saves loading in 24 seconds) so you can pop CP2077 on an external HDD and play it on the PS5 that way.

Cyberpunk 2077 runs poorly on base PlayStation 4 consoles and can drop to as low as 15FPS. Luckily the game is drastically improved on the PlayStation 5.

Cyberpunk 2077 is capped at 30FPS on the base PS4, but can maintain 60FPS on the PS5 along with more favorable dynamic resolution scaling. A new video from Digital Foundry shows how radically different Cyberpunk 2077 can run on the PS5 thanks to the console's built-in boost mode. As is the case for many games, the PS5 automatically adjusts CP2077 to push the PS4 Pro profile settings to the max. Dynamic resolution scaling variables are pushed between 972p - 1188p which are upscaled to fit 1080p and 4K resolution displays. This scaling allows Cyberpunk 2077 to hit 60FPS on the PS5.

The boosted FPS takes away from other parts of the game, though. Population density in Night City is reduced on PS4 Pro/PS5 when running at 60FPS. Heavy use of temporal anti-aliasing and film grain make for blurry graphics, too.