Game Tech News

Nvidia made a number of announcements this week at GDC, and while the company didn’t make quite as much noise as Team Red, it did announce some significant updates and improvements. We expect to hear more from Team Green at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference, but here’s what happened this week.

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Over the past few weeks we’ve written about AMD’s XConnect technology, and its cooperation with both Intel and Razer to create an external graphics specification that wouldn’t depend on any one vendor, chassis, or technology. The Razer Blade Stealth and Razer Core are the first laptop and external chassis to come to market featuring this capability, and we’re already seeing some promising signs of cross-platform compatibility — but it doesn’t come cheap.

First, the good news: At GDC this week, Intel announced a new Skull Canyon NUC (Next Unit of Computing). This new device is built around a 45W Core i7 6770HQ CPU with Intel Iris Pro 580 graphics. That’s the largest graphics part Intel currently ships, with 78 execution units and a 128MB EDRAM cache. Based on the performance we’ve seen from other Intel GPUs, the Iris Pro 580 should be a formidable contender. The device also supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps), M2.SATA drives, HDMI 2.0 support, and comes with built-in Intel 802.11ac wireless.

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We’re only three months into 2016, and it’s already turning out to be a very strange year for console gaming. Two of the big platform makers seem to be flirting with the idea of releasing upgrades to their existing devices. Microsoft came out publicly in favor of upgrading the Xbox One, and a new report today says that Sony is planning on doing something very similar.

In a report on Kotaku, numerous unidentified developers have confirmed that an upgraded console is currently under development within Sony. Colloquially called the “PS4.5,” this device will have an upgraded GPU aimed at supporting both higher frame rates for the PlayStation VR and 4K gaming on UHDTVs.



Patrick Klepek, the reporter who broke this story, has a long track record of delivering big stories that turn out to be true (like the Xbox 180 and the Infinity Ward fiasco). Not only does Klepek have multiple sources for this revelation, but Kotaku’s Jason Schreier and Stephen Totilo were able to independently verify this information as well. There’s no doubt in my mind that this machine is being worked on internally — I’m just unsure whether or not it will ever see the light of day.
One of the sources for the original story felt that the PS4.5 was an exploratory device, and that makes a lot of sense to me. Sony should absolutely be researching the possibilities of an upgraded PS4, and getting feedback from trusted developers. That doesn’t necessarily translate directly into a retail product, so I advise coming to this with a fair amount of skepticism. Until we have more information, we shouldn’t expect any new hardware in the immediate future. For all we know, we might never see this come to fruition.

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Free PC games used to be dominated by oddball flash games or small-scale indie testbeds, but the free-to-play phenomenon has completely changed the landscape over the last couple of years. Now, the $60 AAA games that once ruled the roost are getting some real competition from games that offer large swaths of the experience for free.

There are innumerable free-to-play games available for the PC, and with that comes both good and bad. The large selection means that there’s something to fit just about any taste, but the signal-to-noise ratio is truly atrocious. Instead of trudging through dozens of clones and half-hearted cash grabs, let me separate the wheat from the chaff for you. Today, I’m highlighting 25 of the best free games on the PC. There’s a lot to cover, so follow along, and something here is bound to strike your fancy.



Killer Instinct

Released as a launch game for the Xbox One by Double Helix, it has continued to see significant updates under the care of Iron Galaxy. And with the launch of the third season on March 29th comes a Windows 10 version as well.


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Ever since the Xbox One and PS4 launched in 2013, it’s been clear that both consoles have problems maintaining a steady 30 FPS at 1920×1080 (1080p). Microsoft’s Xbox One has particular trouble with these settings and often runs at a lower resolution than its PS4 equivalent. Quantum Break was supposed to break this trend. The game was developed by Remedy Entertainment, the same studio behind Max Payne 1 & 2 and the critically acclaimed Alan Wake. Last year, Remedy went out of its way to state that Quantum Break on the Xbox One would run at 1080p native resolution, with some effects rendered at a lower resolution to maintain a steady 30 FPS.

Independent testing by Eurogamer suggests this isn’t what actually happened. The company spent hours with what appears to be the final game code. Eurogamer writes:

Curiously, the [SIGGRAPH 2015] paper also states Xbox One’s final output is 1920×1080, and that’s where there is some confusion — as we’ve yet to see evidence of full HD 1080p gameplay in close analysis — barring the title’s HUD elements and menus. In every scene tested so far, a native resolution of 720p is the consistent result found in each pixel count test — so while there’s every possibility of individual render targets operating at higher resolutions, basic geometry that we’re able to measure hands in a 720p result as things stand.

There are two versions of the SIGGRAPH paper in question — the smaller annotated version is available here, while the full version with embedded images is here.



Quantum Break is visually stunning in many respects.

According to Eurogamer, Quantum Break on the Xbox One is often visually stunning, with smart use of materials, lighting effects, and antialiasing. The game makes some use of dynamic resolution scaling to adjust GPU load depending on what’s happening on-screen, but Quantum Break pushes the envelope of what the Xbox One can handle in terms of outdoor environments. Again, here’s Eurogamer: “More open locations combined with continued use of advanced effects work can impact performance to a certain extent. Tearing and frame-rate drops result in judder and reduced controller response here, with this having a knock-on effect to gameplay. Performance suffers just as we take aim at surrounding enemies, and the variable levels of latency and visible stutter make it harder to take accurate shots. Once the engine catches its breath and frame rates stabilize these issues are fully resolved.”



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When Microsoft announced the Xbox One, it unveiled a vision of the future in which all games would essentially be digital and could be shared between multiple people via a friends and family account. This vision failed to catch fire with the public for a number of reasons, including Microsoft’s insistence that the console must remain always-on, and the inability to resell games. It’s interesting, therefore, to see a rumor that Microsoft might revisit the concept of a digital marketplace from an entirely different angle — one based on explicitly allowing gamers to resell their used games, albeit at a pittance of the purchase price.

The rumor comes from a NeoGAF user who claims to have seen it on Reddit. Obviously it’s rather far from official, and it doesn’t offer much in the way of detail. Heck, it could even be fake.


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For almost a decade, Apple and Imagination Technologies have been joined at the hip. Every iPhone from the original 2007 model has used a version of a PowerVR graphics core, as has the iPad. Apple’s business has been a huge boon for Imagination Technologies, but the company’s efforts to diversify outside of graphics by buying the MIPS architecture and developing real-time raytracing hardware have met with very limited success. Recently Imagination announced that it would lay off 350 staff and restructure its business. Now, reports suggest that Apple may be negotiating to buy the company outright.

As reported by Ars Technica, this wouldn’t be a dramatic shift for Apple, who already owns 8.4% of the company and designs its own custom CPUs. It would, however, be a significant change for the rest of Imagination Technology’s current licensees, who depend on the company for IP. Intel has made use of Imagination Technology in multiple products, as has Samsung. ARM develops its own graphics core, dubbed Mali, but plenty of ARM-based SoC manufacturers still choose to pair with a different graphics core. Imagination Technologies lost money in both 2014 and 2015 as its efforts to grow its MIPS, raytracing, and IoT businesses came to little while the market for smartphones and tablets that use its IP shrank. Still, the company has decades of experience in graphics, particularly power-efficient GPUs. The PowerVR2 powered the Sega Dreamcast, while Series 3 drove the short-lived but well-received Kyro GPU family.



Imagination Technologies has powered every iPhone, including the iPhone 6S/6S Plus.


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Yesterday, a report from the Nikkei claimed that Nintendo might sunset the Wii U as early as this year, to make room on store shelves for its upcoming console, the Nintendo NX. While not implausible, given the Wii U’s anemic sales to-date, it was a surprising move given that the NX is still months away from its E3 unveil and still-unknown launch date.

Nintendo has since released a statement to IT Daily that the Nikkei announcement is not a formal announcement from the company and claims it plans to continue Wii U production into the next fiscal year and beyond. But is this true?
Historically, Nintendo tends to end-of-life its previous consoles far more quickly than either Sony or Microsoft. Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are still in production, even though both the PS4 and Xbox One are now roughly 28 months old. Sony didn’t stop making the PS2 worldwide until January 2013, over 12 years after launch, and the original PlayStation was in production for roughly a decade.



Image by VGChartz. Wii U sales have never matched the Wii.

Nintendo launched the GameCube in February 2001 in Japan and discontinued the N64 a little over a year later, in April 2002. The US dates were similarly spaced, with a November 18, 2001 launch date for the GC and an N64 discontinuation on November 30, 2003. The Wii debuted in November 2006, the GameCube was discontinued in February, 2007. The Wii lasted a little longer against the Wii U, but was still discontinued less than a year after its successor hit store shelves. The longest-lived “old” platform of the past 16 years would be the Nintendo DS, which was available in Japan for more than two years after the 3DS launched.

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4K gaming isn’t a realistic possibility

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front. Regardless of whether Sony calls this a PlayStation 4K, there’s no modern GPU that can pack into a console and offer a consistent 30 FPS at 4K within a $400 system price point. Teardowns of the original PlayStation calculated a $121 bill of materials (BOM) cost for its various processors. Even if we assume AMD’s next-generation Polaris architecture could deliver a 2.5x performance increase, the power envelopes and raw frame rates just don’t add up. Sony wasn’t willing to go deep into debt on the PS4’s hardware at launch (the console’s estimated bill of materials cost was $332 on a $400 launch price) and unless the company changes that philosophy, it’s going to be significantly constrained in what it can offer.

14nm should bring real improvements, but it’s not good enough in and of itself to drive the leap from 1080p to 4K. Our performance tests with Metro Last Light Redux illustrate why:



Even top-end cards stagger when hit with 4K workloads. Granted, you could improve these figures by dialing back detail levels, but remember — the cheapest GPU on this list retails for over $300. Consoles are historically better than PCs at squeezing maximum performance out of lower-end hardware, but the GPU inside the PS4K still has to fit within that $100 – $120 price point.

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The launch of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive has VR enthusiasts salivating for both headsets and content, but these platforms are anything but inexpensive. The Rift (without motion controllers) is $600, while the Vive (with motion controllers) will sell for $800. The third major VR player, Sony, has announced a $400 standalone VR headset and a $500 kit that includes the motion controller and camera you need to actually use VR. Even that $500 price is considerably below the HTC Vive, but the fact that PlayStation VR is tied to the PS4 is a no-go for many PC gamers. Sony is dropping hints that it might address this problem by bringing its kit to the PC space as well. This would be an unusual move for Sony; Microsoft has typically been more willing to bring its console peripherals to the PC space.

In an interview with Nikkei (as translated by Gamesindustry.biz), Sony Computer Entertainment executive vice president Masayasu Ito suggested that PC compatibility could be added at a later date, even if it wasn’t present on launch day. “Since the PS4’s internal parts are similar to those of a PC, this is a possibility,” Ito said. “Right now we’re focused on games, so we’re not at the point of announcing anything, but there’s a possibility to expand into various field.”




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