Gaming - Page 953

Microsoft's new 'monster' 4K-ready Project Scorpio console is fully compatible with all existing Xbox One games, but what kind of performance boosts can we expect? Will all Xbox One games hit full 1080p 60FPS right off the bat? Can we just pop in a game and expect improvements without any updates and patches? Let's find out.

Xbox One games will benefit from Project Scorpio's improved hardware and highly synergized Windows 10 software toolset in five key ways:

We already know that Xbox One games will natively run better on Project Scorpio right out of the box. Xbox One games won't need any updates, enhancements or Forward Compatibility patches to tap the 4K Xbox's new Scorpio Engine. Just pop in the game and the console will scale its hardware to improve performance accordingly. This native optimization is similar to the PS4 Pro's new Boost Mode feature.

Valve will make some key changes to Steam's trading card economy in an effort to stop "asset flippers" from making cash on badly optimized game clones.

Steam's digital trading card economy is quite lucrative. Instead of making their money from actual game sales, a portion of Steam Greenlight indie developers actually make their cash from trading cards. In fact, some developers go so far as to create "asset flips," or multiple versions of the same game with subtle variations, and release them onto the platform for the lowest price as possible. Steam users then grab the game simply for its trading cards and sell the cards onto the market, generating a little kickback for the devs.

According to Jim Sterling, the internet's favorite D-list video games pundit who recently took a trick to Valve's offices to preview Steam's new changes, Valve has known about this practice for quite some time, and plans to do something about it.

NVIDIA's new GeForce 381.65 WHQL drivers are here, with optimizations for Quake Champions, support for Windows 10 Creators Update, and Dolby Vision support for games. You can grab the new drivers right here.

Inside, the new GeForce 381.65 drivers include DTS X and Dolby Atmos support for 5.1.2 speaker setups, and NVIDIA Ansel for Snape Pass and Kona. There are the usual bug fixes as well, with Battlefield 1's shimmering issues on grass/trees with SLI owners and in-game TAA enabled being fixed, as well as GTX 980 Ti owners getting stuck in low power state when they Alt-Tab from a game, and the new drivers also fix the flickering issues in Serious Sam HD when V-Sync is enabled.

They also include support for the newly-announced TITAN Xp graphics card, with the full list of release notes below:

Microsoft detailed its mid-cycle Xbox refresh console, Project Scorpio, teasing that the new 6TFLOPs beast was a huge leap in technology and performance over the Xbox One - and even the PS4 Pro.

Microsoft's upcoming Project Scorpio console rocks a custom x86-based 8-core processor at 2.3GHz, with a GPU that rocks 40 CUs based on Radeon GPU technology at 1172MHz - a huge leap of the 12 CUs of Radeon GPU tech found inside of the Xbox One (at 853MHz) and the 36 CUs found in the PS4 Pro at 911MHz.

As it stands, it's the best showing of AMD's awesome APU technology inside of Project Scorpio - and the advancements that have been made since the 28nm design inside of the Xbox One, and the refreshed Xbox One S console with the 14nm FinFET tech being used. The new APU inside of Project Scorpio is nothing short of impressive, with both Microsoft and AMD putting in the hard yards to get it right. Microsoft has made some stellar choices with the architecture and design work in Project Scorpio, and AMD is able to perfectly showcase its APU prowess inside.

CD Projekt RED recently caught flak for trademarking the word "cyberpunk" to accommodate it's massive upcoming game Cyberpunk 2077. Now the studio clarifies exactly why it made the trademark, and promises not to use the trademark as a sledgehammer to smash other games and studios.

"We want to protect our hard work and we don't plan on using the trademark offensively. It's a self-defense measure only," CD Projekt RED writes in their official explanation.

The devs have spent an incredible amount of time, money and effort into the project so far, and the game itself will be the biggest project they've ever taken on--much bigger than The Witcher 3. The studio will spend the next four years working on the game, dedicating a huge portion of its staff--some several hundred people--to the goal, all while incorporating high-end next-gen technologies.

Eurogamer's Digital Foundry is quite impressed with Microsoft's new 4K-ready Project Scorpio console, and to be honest, so am I. Microsoft has found an incredible synergy between all facets of the console, binding everything together on a software and hardware level in an extremely efficient harmony. But Digital Foundry makes a bold statement about the system, claiming that Project Scorpio could challenge video cards like NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1070 and AMD's Fury-X GPUs.

Project Scorpio does indeed have raw power, but it's not spread out at any one point. The system's 6TFLOPs GPU is highly customized and mostly derived from AMD's Polaris architecture, not its enthusiast-grade Vega GPU technology. If we looked at the GPU alone there'd be high doubts the system could maintain the native 4K performance Microsoft promised; but that's only part of the equation. Project Scorpio's power doesn't lie in its parts, but the dynamic fusion that sees all components come together with a strong, centralized software base using Windows 10 UWP framework. Project Scorpio has been customized on the silicon level, but it also has an extremely potent and flexible software pipeline that ensures games don't waste any power, and only use the resources they need. Essentially Microsoft has completely re-written the rules in which consoles are not only made, but how they maintain in-game performance. Remember Project Scorpio is a Windows 10 machine, and uses the massive scalability and flexibility of the platform.

Project Scorpio's customization and efficiency is so impressive that Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter reckons the system could take-on higher GPU hardware like a GeForce GTX 1070 or AMD Fury X, both of which handle 4K decently.

Microsoft's high-end Project Scorpio console is indeed capable of pushing native 4K gaming, and sometimes even 4K 60 FPS, but any PC gamer knows that this perf can come at a pretty substantial thermal output. To keep the system from frying from high temps, Microsoft has assigned Project Scorpio it's own unique vapor chamber cooling array.

Vapor chamber coolers are typically used in enthusiast-grade video cards such as NVIDIA's Founder's Edition GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti. Since Project Scorpio is churning out much more performance than traditional consoles, it needs something better than the normal heat pipe-and-fan conjunction found in most consoles.

Project Scorpio's vapor chamber cooling is complimented by a blower-style fan--again resembling a reference desktop-grade video card--that pushes heat out through the back of the system. Unlike current Xbox One and Xbox One S consoles, Microsoft's 4K machine doesn't have vents on its top or sides: heat is only expelled through vents on its rear side.

Turn 10 ported Forza's engine to Microsoft's 'monster' 4K ready Project Scorpio console in just two days time. Two days. That's pretty insane on its own. But what's even more unprecedented is the engine just worked...it worked just fine after only two days of porting. "Not only did it work, but it was fast. Brutally fast. Without the benefit of any platform-specific optimization."

In order to stress test the engine on early Project Scorpio hardware to see its limits, Turn 10 created a specific demo that matches Forza 6's performance on Xbox One to use on Project Scorpio, and jammed as many cars as possible in a specific level. Within the stress test conditions the game ran at 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution at 60FPS at only 66% GPU usage. UPDATE: Leadbetter confirms that Project Scorpio can hit native 4K 60FPS at Xbox One's "High" graphical preset with "substantial overhead" with 66% of the GPU used, and 4K 60FPS Ultra.

"I've seen Microsoft's new console running a Forza Motorsport 6-level experience locked to 4K60 on the equivalent to PC's ultra settings - cranking up the quality presets to obscene levels was one of the first things developer Turn 10 did when confronted with the sheer amount of headroom it had left after a straight Xbox One port," Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter said during the exclusive Scorpio reveal.

Digital Foundry today confirmed specifications of Microsoft's "monster" Project Scorpio console. The system doesn't feature a Ryzen CPU, but no specifics were given on the exact Radeon GPU architectures the system will use.

Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter hypes up Project Scorpio's raw power, despite the fact the system uses an 8-core Jaguar CPU that's been "evolved" to target latency and synergy with the system's highly customized GPU. The GPU itself does indeed hit 6TFLOPs of power, and has 40 compute units at 1172MHz, giving the system an 11% increase in Radeon hardware and a 27% boost in frequency, totaling for a 47% compute advantage.

The GPU has features derived from AMD's Polaris technology, which in PC terms is basically the Radeon RX 480. Project Scorpio's GPU is 4.6 times more powerful than the Xbox One's. This GPU has 36 Compute Units versus the Scorpio's 40. But the dedicated RX 480 video card has 1266MHz, which is 94MHz faster than Scorpio's GPU. So I couldn't really believe Microsoft has squeezed that much frequency out of a console part.

I put thousands of hours into the Quake franchise in the 90s, after diving right into the 3dfx Voodoo 1 at the time and running Quake (the original) in Glide - an alternate API to DirectX and OpenGL at the time. Fast forward to now, and we have Quake Champions - and it's not slow like the first-person shooters of today.

The latest Quake Champions raw gameplay footage is a great thing to see in a world of spruced up bullshots of games and PR-driven trailers: it's real, it's super-fast, and it's on the PC. Bethesda and id Software promised that Quake Champions has PC-specific features, with the developers building Quake Champions around the quick movement of a mouse and keyboard. Music to my ears.

STALKER used to be one of the original 'can your PC run it' games, but it disappeared and remerged with fragments of its original developers forming 4A Games and working on the Metro series of games - but now, STALKER could be rebooted, running Crytek's awesome CryEngine 3 graphics engine.

HardOCP reports that it is "unclear what the original source of these clips is, who is running the project, or if it is intended to actually have a public release". The videos were uploaded with the official CryEngine logo onto the Achieved with CryEngine channel, and a Facebook page.

If STALKER powered by CryEngine 3 becomes a real thing, I will have my eyes glued to the monitor for more news and any images and videos of a CryEngine-powered STALKER.

Warner Bros. Interactive's Avalanche Software is currently hiring for some interesting positions for a new British-based triple-A game, and it could be a Harry Potter RPG.

NeoGAF user Nirolak spotted the job listings, and speculates the studio may be crafting a next-gen Harry Potter RPG for PS4, Xbox One and PC. There are actually three job listings that give us evidence of the new project: a listing for a senior game writer, an Unreal Engine lead animator, and a senior environment artist.

The first clue comes from the writer position: "We are looking for a talented storyteller with a deep understanding of British culture and grammatical presentation," reads the listing, and "provide British authenticity to the tone of the project," is listed as a key responsibility.

PC gamers don't typically like clients, and I don't blame them. In the world of PC gaming we have a sea of publisher-made clients: Origin, uPlay, Bethesda.net, Blizzard (aka Battle.net), and storefronts like Xbox Game Store, GOG.com, and the mega-popular grand-daddy Steam. Now Twitch is consolidating its games-sales business by folding a game-launching client with its desktop app.

The Amazon-run streaming giant Twitch.tv now sells PC games, and like any digital distribution service, specific games can only be played in a specific client. Using Twitch, Amazon wants to get in on Valve's mega-earning distribution business model.

Right now the list of games requiring the Twitch.tv client are basically indies and double-AA titles like Telltale series games, and Ubisoft games still require uPlay. The company affirms the catalog will grow, and this is just the beginning.

Persona 5's release is a massive day for Atlus, but instead of celebrating, the publisher rolled out some draconian and outlandish streaming rules for gamers to follow, proving whoever is in charge simply doesn't understand the current generation of media content consumption.

Atlus has a tight stranglehold over Persona 5 content. Not only did Atlus block Persona 5 screenshots, video recordings, and streams on the PS4 itself, but now the publisher has rolled out some pretty harsh restrictions for streamers who circumvent the block with capture cards. If you break the rules, the publisher has threatened to deliver a copyright strike on your YouTube channel, which can lead to account suspension.

So what are the rules, and why are they so bad? Remember that weird agreement Warner Bros made YouTubers sign with Shadow of Mordor? The one that controller what YouTubers could say and show? Atlus is treating every single Persona 5 gamer and streamer the same way, upholding them to this weird phantom agreement.

Microsoft's "monster" native 4K Project Scorpio console will be revealed tomorrow, and we should see major Xbox exclusives like Forza 7 and Crackdown 3 exemplifying the console's raw power.

Eurogamer's Digital Foundry has confirmed that it will reveal Microsoft's Project Scorpio tomorrow at 9AM EST / 6AM PST, but what about the games? Windows Central previously reported that the monster 4K console would showcase high-end native 4K gameplay in major Xbox exclusives such as Forza 7, as well as third-party games like Shadow of War, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Battlefront 2. We're not sure if Microsoft will show off any third-party games during tomorrow's reveal, but it's highly likely we'll see a game that's been MIA for quite a while: Crackdown 3.

Crackdown's official Twitter recently teasedsome new info on the horizon, and we're pretty sure Crackdown 3 will be shown off alongside the system's big spec reveal. "2017 is shaping up to be great! #Crackdown3 info is on the horizon, and we're ready to bring the boom!" the Twitter post reads.

Zelda may never return to its overhead top-down roots, and Breath of the Wild's massive open-world scope will likely become the new mainstay for the Zelda series.

Nintendo went through incredible lengths to make Zelda: Breath of the Wild's open world feel alive. The devs created a new dynamic physics engine that's incredibly realistic. The team added interactive weather and atmospheric effects that actually affect the game, not to mention the amazing creatures and animals that truly add depth to the world.

In fact, I'd go so far to say that Zelda: Breath of the Wild's open world feels more alive than almost every other open-world game I've ever played. Exploration is so organic and genuinely enchanting, and so many games could learn so much from Nintendo's approach.

If you've been paying attention to our recent coverage, then you'll know Mass Effect: Andromeda is a mess. The game needs tons of fixes, and BioWare will kick off its wave of obligatory patches and updates starting on Thursday.

BioWare has pledged to fix Mass Effect: Andromeda and right on queue the devs have revealed a roadmap of how they plan to do that. Like Square Enix did with Final Fantasy 15, BioWare will rely on a series of download updates to shore up the game's rough edges. At this point, I think it'd take 20GB+ to fix the game...and that might even be too small.

For BioWare's credit, though, the changes are heavily based on community feedback. Patch 1.05 is the first major patch of the fusillade of updates, and it'll bring a host of fixes players have been asking for since day one. Gamers will soon be able to skip ahead while traveling between planets in the galaxy map, have boosted inventory space (this one hit me hard), improving the eyes for humans and asari, voice-over bugs, and more. Check below for the full patch notes, and the full post from BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn.

Dark Souls is finished. Wrapped-up. Kaput. Game over. But there's a small ember of hope flickering in the franchise's ashes that could one day ignite a roaring bonfire. If, of course, From Software supplies the fuel for the raging inferno.

As we reported back in 2015, Hidetaki Miyazaki, the godfather of the Souls series, considers Dark Souls 3 to be the "big closure of the series." Dark Souls 3's Ringed City DLC signifies the end of an era of death, rolling, git gud memes, and sunbro worship: Dark Souls is officially over.

"Dark Souls series is completely done as of DS3: The Ringed City," Miyazaki recently said in an interview with Japanese games magazine Famitsu.

NieR: Automata's high-caliber action and interesting storyline are captivating gamers across the world, achieving strong sales and shipments in little over one month.

Square Enix today announced that NieR: Automata has passed one million combined worldwide shipments and digital sales. The dystopian action game action game hit this milestone in a month after it's February 23 launch, and has garnered extensive critical acclaim and commercial success.

So what makes NieR: Automata so great? As the game's director Yoko Taro explains, NieR: Automata is about doing the exact opposite of modern-day triple-A games.

Gearbox Software is wary of releasing another Duke Nukem game, and for good reason: Duke Nukem Forever was a huge mess.

Duke Nukem makes an appearance in Bullestorm's Full Clip remaster, but that's really the extent that Gearbox has planned for the Ultimate Alien Ass-Kicker. If you pre-order the Bullestorm remaster, you get access to "Duke Nukem's Bullestorm Tour," a new mode that replaces the game's protagonist with Nukem. Like a washed-up actor, Duke's future might dissolve into cameo spots like these.

In a recent interview with Dualshockers, Gearbox's Vincent Slaven pretty much confirmed the dev-turned-publisher has no interest in tackling a new Duke Nukem game: "Duke Nukem 2... no, but Bulletstorm 2, I think: maybe."