Gaming - Page 988

Arkane Studios is still picking itself up after being blown into a million pieces at the launch of Dishonored 2 on the PC, which has horrible optimization and massive performance issues. The developer is distressed over the PC performance issues, but it looks like you'll still need a beefy PC to play Dishonored 2, no matter what.

You might remember that you need a GeForce GTX 1070 to run Dishonored 2 on Very Low at 1080p, barely hitting 40-60FPS. Dishonored 2 Game Director Harvey Smith tweeted at the time: "That rig on very low and 1080 should run around 60fps", when asked about a GTX 1070 level PC.

But in a recent tweet, Smith said: "game will always need a beefy pc for ultra, but there are a number of fixes we're making". So there you have it. You'll always need a monster PC to handle the game, proving that it's an unoptimized mess - because if it wasn't, then the graphics need to justify the huge GPU requirement to handle Very Low at 1080p.

NVIDIA has been working with Nintendo for two years on the design of their chip inside of the next-gen Switch console, something revealed during a chat between NVIDIA CEO and founder Jen-Hsun Huang, and VentureBeat.

Huang said: "We're dedicated to the gaming market and always have been. Some parts of the market, we just weren't prepared to serve them. I was fairly open about how, when this current generation of consoles was being considered, we didn't have x86 CPUs. We weren't in contention for any of those. However, the other factor is whether we could really make a contribution or not. If a particular game console doesn't require our special skills, what we can uniquely bring, then it's a commodity business that may not be suited for us".

He continued: "In the case of Switch, it was such a ground-breaking design. Performance matters because games are built on great performance, but form factor and energy efficiency matter incredibly because they want to build something that's portable and transformable. The type of gameplay they want to enable is like nothing the world has so far. It's a scenario where two great engineering teams, working with their creative teams, needed to hunker down. Several hundred engineering years went into building this new console. It's the type of project that really inspires us, gets us excited. It's a classic win-win".

Dishonored 2 is an honorable mess on the PC, needing an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 to barely handle 1080p 60FPS on very low graphics settings.

Dan Sebestyen posted on Twitter saying: "My build GTX 1070, i5 4690K, 16 gig of RAM. At 1080p and 1440p on "Very Low" i get drops to 40 fps in Karnaca". Pretty crappy performance for a high-end graphics card, and very low settings - not being able to hit 60FPS consistently in Dishonored 2? Pathetic.

Dishonored 2's Game Director Harvey Smith said yesterday he was "distressed" over the PC version of the game, saying that it wasn't a port from the consoles. He said that the performance issues aren't related just to graphics, so the issues are much deeper it seems.

It's finally here! The Fall Update for Battlefield 1 from DICE has been pushed out, which is "designed to make Battlefield 1 an even more fun, varied, stable, and balanced experience".

DICE explains that the Fall Update for Battlefield 1 has "different fixes and tweaks to gameplay, user interface, graphics, audio, and more". The biggest upgrade in the new update, in my opinion at least, is that the Fall Update includes the much anticipated Hardcore Mode.

There's also the introduction of Battlefield 1 Rent-a-Server Program, letting you set up your own private Battlefield 1 server with control over gameplay options, map rotations, and more. Squad XP Boost will be available in some of the Battlepacks, but if you want the full skinny on the patch, check out the Battlefield 1 Fall Update Notes PDF file.

EVE Online: Ascension has launched. The biggest update in the history of the game, it shifts EVE to a free to play model while adding a ton of new content.

Engineering Complexes have been added to the game and are said to fundamentally alter the economy and gameplay. In addition to that, visual feedback has been reworked, new explosion effects are on display, and there's more activity to be found in the asteroid belts of New Eden (think on-capsuleer resource gathering operations), just to name a few items.

If you're enticed by the free thing but are still intimidated by the learning curve, CCP has your back and says a new tutorial offers "more assistance and guidance than ever before as they take their first steps into the vast expanse of New Eden."

First we had reports that Sony's new PS4 Pro suffers noticable FPS drops while playing in native 4K, but it looks like the system's 1080p modes aren't safe either. Specific games like Watch Dogs 2 are getting hit with performance hitches while played in the console's 1080p super-sampling mode.

Sony has assured that its new PlayStation 4 Pro will benefit 1080p HDTV users, and you won't need to own a fancy HDR-capable 4K Ultra High-Def TV in order to tap the system's new hardware. Developers typically enable a trio of graphics and performance modes including 1080p 60FPS, super-sampled 1080p graphics that improve visual fidelity, upscaled 4K 30FPS with checkerboard rendering techniques, and even "native" 4K gaming. But all of these modes need to be optimized properly, and are tied to the same resolution vs frame rate balancing act that plagued the PS4 and Xbox One era with dynamic resolution scaling.

For 1080p support, the Pro down-samples the 4K mode for all of these titles, offering enhanced image quality via super-sampling. However, the areas where performance is degraded remain impacted when running on a full HD display - meaning that there's nothing that Pro owners can do to get a smoother experience overall on these titles. In fact, the base PlayStation 4 will run these releases at a higher performance level overall at the expense of some image quality.

Editor's Note: These impressions are based on a PlayStation 4 copy of the game which we received from the publisher. Our upcoming review will also be based on this same platform.

Watch Dogs 2 is a breath of fresh air. It's rebellious, vivacious, colorful, and overall, it feels alive. Ubisoft has gone great lengths to make the experience actually fun to play, and genuinely makes players feel like they're a kid on a playground.

We get the tools to play how we want and hack the entire world around us, from traffic signals to taking control of self-driving cars and even making NPC's phones explode like Samsung's ill-fated Note 7.

Sony added an additional 1GB of DDR3 RAM to the PS4 Pro, and now we have Crytek's Technical Director saying that it is "somewhat substantial", freeing up 1GB of the DDR5 RAM inside of the console.

Out of the 1GB of additional RAM, Sony is letting developers use 512MB of it for PS4 Pro games, while the other 512MB is used to render the interface at 4K. During an interview with Gaming Bolt, Crytek Technical Director Rok Erjavec said that the additional RAM in the PS4 Pro is benefitial for the gaming side, but also development.

He said: "The system gives us back an additional 0.5GB over thePS4, which is enough to fill in the increased requirements from things like 4K, higher quality rendering features, etc". Erjavec added: "Coming out at about a 10% increase, it can be seen as somewhat substantial relative to the base console, but mainly it's there to transparently allow for PS4 Pro-specific improvements without developers having to jump through complicated hoops".

Zelda: Breath of the Wild is practically the biggest exclusive game for Nintendo's new Switch console and handheld hybrid system, but new reports indicate the game may not be a launch game for the Switch, instead opting for a release later in the year.

Launch games are incredibly important for new consoles, and can easily make or break the system's initial success and adoption rate. The new Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the first game Nintendo showed off with its new innovative swapping Switch console, and that's no coincidence: Nintendo has said that the new Zelda will be an "immediate reason to buy a Switch."

Sadly, it looks like the new open-world Zelda game may not release alongside the Switch system. Sources have told well-known games insider Emily Rogers that the game isn't progressing nearly as well as Nintendo had hoped, and that it's much bigger and more ambitious than the company had planned. Given this new info, Rogers predicts Zelda: Breath of the Wild will launch in Summer 2017, not in March.

Although Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro supports SATA III with up to 6 Gbps transfer speeds, the console's stock hard drive only rocks 5400 RPM, meaning it can't even leverage the full transfer speeds of the SATA III protocol.

This bit of news was uncovered by iFixit, who recently tore down the PS4 Pro to reveal its innards. The PS4 Pro's 1TB internal platter drive is rated 3.0 Gb/s, which is actually SATA II speeds...but some outlets seem to report the HDD supporting 6 Gb/s speeds instead. Either way, the 5200 RPM isn't enough to hit the max blistering fast rates of SATA III.

Remember that the SATA III protocol was established for SSDs that were bottlenecked by SATA II speeds, and most new platter hard drives will use SATA III regardless if they can fully tap the protocol or not. To get the most out of the PS4 Pro's transfer speed capabilities, you'll need to pick up a fairly expensive solid state drive.

Ubisoft has confirmed on Twitch and Twitter that another season of Rainbow Six: Siege is happening, complete with free content, as you'd expect. Rumors indicating as such have been bandied about for awhile now, but now we have the official word.

Details on what the season will entail are not yet known, but possibly it will follow the same formula as before, which is to say four new maps and eight new operators over the span of one year.

Siege will receive its fourth DLC pack later this month.

Although Sony has promised its new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro runs super cool and hits max temps of 35C, one gamer reports that the console got so hot that it burned part of the system's outside plastic chassis.

Twitter user @enMTW has kicked off #meltgate for Sony's new PS4 Pro, claiming that the system's heat mitigation malfunctioned and melted part of the console's casing. We can't verify if this is true or not, and it could simply be a hoax made with a simple torch lighter, but we looked a bit closer to see how this could've possibly happened.

Upon comparing the meltgate images with multiple teardown images, we see that the melted area on the chassis' left side corresponds with the system's fan placement. This side is also where the PS4 Pro's vertical attachment slides in, meaning a portion of the system's ventilation will be somewhat obstructed while mounted on the stand.

UPDATE: We've been contacted by multiple readers who say that the aforementioned blank screen issue can be corrected by changing up TV settings. You can also start the console in Safe Mode and change HDCP 2.2 to HDCP 1.4, and both 4K and HDR will apparently work afterwards.

Although Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro rocks a highly efficient custom 4.20 TFLOPS Polaris GPU that enables native 4K gaming, the system apparently can't display an image on many 4K TVs.

What does a console have to do among all else? Display a picture, of course. And the main reason to get a PS4 Pro is to play games in 4K UHD with brilliant HDR gamuts. It seems that Sony's new Polaris-enabled PS4 Pro is having a problem with this basic feature, which happens to be the console's main selling point.

No Man's Sky has been out for more than three months now, and the game's expensive $150 collector's editions still haven't shipped out.

Just when you think No Man's Sky couldn't get any worse, we can now confirm that the collector's editions won't be available until December. Pre-orders for the collector's edition went live back in March 2016, so gamers have been waiting about eight months--an absurdly long time--for their products. A good portion of these buyers have refunded their pre-orders, but the few who have kept them active will have to wait until the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Hello Games still has yet to deliver any sort of updates or info about No Man's Sky's impending content patches. The dev did break their 2-month long silence when their account was briefly hacked, leading to a fake Tweet entitled "No Man's Sky was a mistake", but since then it's just been radio silence like usual.

Nintendo's new handheld-and-console hybrid, the Nintendo Switch, may have two different models at launch: a $249 starter option, and a $299 deluxe version that comes with an extra game and more memory. Both SKUs are expected to be identical in terms of power and performance.

This latest report comes from Let's Play Video Games' Laura Kate Dale, who has apparently been told the Switch's UK price tag from an inside source at UK retailer GAME.

Sources tell Dale that the Nintendo Switch will essentially follow the same duo launch plan as the Wii U, offering two different SKUs with matched performance and specifications. Sources pinpoint £199.99 for the basic set, and £249.99 for the bigger model. For comparison's sake, the Wii U launched at $299 for the base 8GB white version, with the black Wii U Deluxe offering 16GB at $349.

Microsoft might have a more powerful console on its hands with the upcoming Project Scorpio, but don't think you'll be gaming at 4K 60FPS on it anytime soon.

id Software's Lead Renderer Programmer, Tiago Sousa, fielded some questions on Twitter about the 6 TFLOPs of performance that Project Scorpio has, and whether developers should be aiming for 4K, or higher fidelity 1080p gaming. Personally, better-looking 1080p 60FPS gaming (with AA maxed out and all in-game details maxed out) would be better than lukewarm (30FPS or less) 4K.

Sousa said: "yes, even more on on tvs/consoles where player sits at distance. 4K is a waste of resources". He tweeted again: "but good to see ppl looking into approaches to decouple costs, that's the good approach imo".

Has there been a game released this year that has been problem free? Bethesda is back again with Dishonored 2 now out, but Arkane Studios slipped with the PC version of the game which is experiencing all sorts of performance issues.

Dishonored 2 Game Director Harvey Smith isn't happy with the PC version of the game, fielding questions on his Twitter account. Smith said he's distressed over the PC performance issues, saying his team are hard at work getting the performance issues fixed. He said that Dishonored 2 was tested on PC before its release (because we haven't heard that before), and that it's not a port from other platforms.

Smith said: "I'm happy people are raving about the game. The majority are loving it. But I'm distressed that some PC users have problems", adding: "really feeling it for the folks affected - working over the weekend and such". Smith tweeted: "we care deeply about pc (as pc players ourselves). we are working on the issues".

The release of Watch Dogs 2 is nearly here, so we're finally finding out about the performance of Ubisoft's surely near-perfect game after the watered down, gimped original Watch Dogs... nope. Wrong.

Some gamers are reporting from the Watch Dogs 2 focused livestream by Eurogamer that there were various performance-related issues. At the 1:55:00 mark of the video below, Watch Dogs 2 is running at less than 30FPS.

Then there's the PlayStation Access video that shows Watch Dogs 2 off, where you can see it drops below 30FPS a few times.

NVIDIA blew the doors off of the financial world with record-breaking Q3 2016 numbers, and now the company is pushing behind Nintendo and its new Switch hybrid console handheld due in 2017.

During NVIDIA's recent earnings call, company CEO and founder Jen-Hsun Huang said that the relationship between NVIDIA and Nintendo will last for quite a while. He said that the relationship will last at least two decades, as Nintendo wants to stay with a single architecture for a while - and that would be music to NVIDIA's green ears.

Huang said: "And so that's a real advantage and we're really proud of them. I guess you could also say that Nintendo contributed a fair amount to that growth. And over the next - as you know, the Nintendo architecture and the company tends to stick with an architecture for a very long time. And so we've worked with them now for almost two years. Several hundred engineering years have gone into the development of this incredible game console".

Customers looking to purchase the Sony PlayStation VR headset via the Amazon UK website will have to unfortunately wait for now.

Direct from the official site, reads: Temporarily Unavailable as all stock of the headset have been exhausted until early next year.

Due to the popularity of PlayStation VR, gamers will have to either wait it out or buy the product through another site and most likely Internationally. With no information regarding Amazon UK's availability on re-stocking the item, it's unclear as to how long into 2017 customers will have to wait.