Game Tech News

Over the last few months, Microsoft has been pushing game developers to bring titles to the Windows 10 Store with extremely mixed results. Most of the games published under the Universal Windows Platform(UWP) to-date have had significant problems, and even the handful that weren’t broken from the start have been far more limited than the version you can buy on Steam or from other digital download services. Today, Microsoft is releasing updates for Windows 10 that will remove some of these restrictions.

Starting today, Windows 10 applications will allow you to unlock the frame rate and can use both AMD’s FreeSync and Nvidia’s G-Sync technologies. The update can be downloaded here, though the blog notes that the games themselves will have to be updated to allow for them to function. “Once applications take advantage of these new features, you will be able to play your UWP games with unlocked frame rates. We expect Gears of War: UE and Forza Motorsport 6: Apex to lead the way by adding this support in the very near future.”

Microsoft’s blog post on this topic also dives into details on DirectX 12, Windows 10, and the future of the UWP initiative. One particular section on V-Sync states:

Does DirectX 12 and UWP support full screen exclusive mode?
Full screen exclusive mode was created back in the original release of DirectDraw to provide games with enhanced performance when using the entire screen. The downside of full screen exclusive mode is that it makes the experience for gamers who wish to do other things on their system, such as alt-tab to another application or run the Windows GameDVR, more clunky with excessive flicker and transition time.
We thought it would be cool if gamers could have the versatility of gaming in a window with the performance of full screen exclusive.
So, with Windows 10, DirectX 12 games which take up the entire screen perform just as well as the old full screen exclusive mode without any of the full screen exclusive mode disadvantages. This is true for both Win32 and UWP games which use DirectX 12. All of these games can seamlessly alt-tab, run GameDVR, and exhibit normal functionality of a window without any perf degradation vs full screen exclusive.

The lack of a fullscreen exclusive mode in UWP is part of why there’s been a push to adopt other frame presentation methods and why some performance monitoring software doesn’t always give feedback that matches what users see on-screen when playing DX12 titles. The FAQ notes that hybrid laptop users won’t see benefits from the new capabilities yet; Microsoft is working with vendors to create a solution to this problem.




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Friday night’s big GTX 1080 unveil was the talk of the tech community, but it’s not the only project that Nvidia unveiled this past weekend. The company also showcased a pair of software projects it’s working on to showcase both its efforts in VR and its ability to beautify game screenshots.

Nvidia’s Ansel (named after Ansel Adams, the famous American environmentalist and photographer) is a new tool designed to allow users to create screenshots and even 360-degree “bubble” images. The ability to take screenshots in games is nothing new, of course, but Ansel allows you to step “outside” your character and manipulate the camera position before settling on a shot.



One of the frustrating things about trying to create “perfect” screenshots in gaming is that how easy it is to do so largely depends on whether the camera is a flexible, powerful, and intuitive tool or something kludged together by three chimpanzees and a rat after six years of perpetual crunch time. Ansel aims to reduce this type of problem by giving gamers powerful tools to pose and create screenshots — provided that developers support the feature, at least.

Ansel allows you to freeze time inside a game and adjust the camera position to anything you like — even in games that don’t allow a completely free camera already. It then scales up the resolution of the final screenshot to as high as 32x native resolution (4.5 gigapixels). These truly enormous image files — because seriously, that’s going to be one hell of a file size — can then be downsampled for an incredibly high-resolution focus on one specific area.



Other features include the ability to apply specific filters (Instagram for games, we suppose), capture and export in OpenEXR, and the option to capture 360-degree “bubbles” for viewing in VR. Nvidia announced at the same event that it has released an Nvidia VR Viewer for the Google Cardboard app (sadly only Android is supported as of this writing). You’ll be able to adjust the yaw, pitch, and roll of the camera, change the brightness or color, and create 360-degree shots (a gallery of these is available on Nvidia’s website). It’ll be supported on all Nvidia GPUs from the 600 family forwards, which means Kepler and Maxwell users will still have access to this tool.


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Firaxis came out of nowhere today to announce that Civilization VI — the next iteration in the classic Civilization franchise that’s probably responsible for enough cumulative productivity drops to match the GDP of a small island nation — will be released on October 16, 2016.
For those who don’t follow Civilization or have only done so intermittently, it’s known as a 4X game (eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, and eXterminate). These types of titles are almost always turn-based and offer gamers the ability to begin as the ruler of a small city-state at the dawn of human history. Discovering new technologies and advances unlocks everything from world wonders (expensive projects that deliver a significant advantage once completed) to alternate forms of government. Each civilization in the game (Aztecs, Americans, English, Chinese, and Zulu are some of the common civilizations) has its own strengths and weaknesses, and players can further fine-tune the game by choosing specific cultural, social, and economic philosophies. Exactly how these traits impact game play varies from title to title, but the subtle changes Firaxis makes to the Civilization formula are what set each game apart from its predecessors.

Coming to a Civilization near you!

Here are the Civ VI features Firaxis has unveiled thus far:
Cities now expand across multiple tiles on the map. In the past, each city, no matter how large, occupied just one map tile while the surrounding tiles were used to implement various improvements. A city in a mountainous area might be surrounded by mines to increase production, particularly if there was a rare resource or two in that area, while a city in grasslands and river country would emphasize food production. Firaxis claims that players can now build cities to take advantage of local terrain, but it’s not clear how this will play out in practice.



Like Civilization V, Civilization VI will keep the one-unit-per-tile rule. This was a controversial change last time around, because it made it more difficult to protect units with low defense from enemy attacks (previous Civ games allowed you to stack units on the same tile). Civilization VI is tweaking the existing formula in one important way: It’s now possible to stack certain support units with other military forces. Warriors can “embed” with settlers, while an anti-tank unit can embed with infantry. This should help prevent some of the problems with 1upt that cropped up in Civilization V without returning to the days when an essentially limitless number units could occupy exactly the same space.



Other features of the series like diplomacy, multiplayer, and the technology tree are all implemented in Civ VI, along with a comprehensive series of tutorials that will teach new players how the game works.




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Blizzard has a long history of producing high quality multiplayer games, and Overwatch isn’t going to buck that trend. Last week’s open beta gave us a representative look at how the retail version of the game will be when it launches on the 24th, and it seems to work as intended regardless of which platform you plan on using.

For the better part of a decade, Blizzard was working on developing an MMO dubbed “Titan.” It was eventually canceled in 2014, but some assets from that project still live on in Blizzard’s new first-person shooter. And it’s not just Blizzard’s legacy that Overwatch is building on. In many ways, it also takes inspiration from Valve’s Team Fortress 2. It’s a team-based shooter focusing on wildly different classes, and the lively personalities of the characters evoke very warm feelings for many of us with hundreds of hours of TF2 under our belts.

From a technical perspective, Overwatch seems to be well-built. Both the Xbox One and PS4 versions feature dynamic resolution scaling, but they’re both sitting at 1080p most of the time. Based on the comparison done by Digital Foundry, the Xbox One appears to drop below 1080p more frequently, but it’s not a widespread issue. You’ll see a slightly fuzzier image for short stretches, but that’s certainly preferable to being stuck at 720p or 900p at all times.

The game targets 60fps on consoles, and it usually delivers. The PS4 version rarely budges from 60, and when it does, it seems to happen most often when you’re watching the kill cam. Over on the Xbox One, drops are a bit more frequent when you’re actually playing. Unfortunately, you’re going to get some screen-tearing, but it’s not enough to ruin the experience.

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Electronic Arts held its earnings call for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2016 yesterday, and shared its own thoughts on whether or not Microsoft and Sony are prepping new console designs, as well as information on how such plans might impact its own business. Historically, transitions between console generations have always been a bit rocky for game publishers. They must manage higher R&D costs associated with new platforms and modest initial sales due to an obviously limited install base. Then they must juggle additional costs related to supporting both older and newer platforms, until the last generation of hardware finally shuffles off to the great video game cabinet in the sky.

While EA obviously can’t comment on any launch plans Sony and Microsoft might be making, CFO Blake Jorgensen did share some insight on the potential refresh from EA’s perspective.

In terms of any mid-cycle upgrades, once again I can’t predict. But what I can tell you is that what was heard I think publicly from the console makers is they’re realizing that the compatibility issue across consoles is an important consumer issue. And as Microsoft has shown, they’ve tried to do with some backward compatibility on to older titles and new titles. I think that’s going to be an important part of what a mid-cycle might look like if there is one, which removes a lot of the risk associated with what we’ve seen historically with console cycles. We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it, because we feel like our ability to develop for whatever new technology comes, the risk of that’s been minimized because we’ve moved towards one single engine, Frostbite. And we’re able to port that to whatever platform or point that to whatever platform is evolving or is upgraded.
In addition, our business model is so much more diverse now than it has been historically, that the notion of a console cycle becomes somewhat irrelevant in our ability to generate strong earnings and cash flow. So we’ll all be interested to see where Microsoft and Sony come out if they do something at E3 or sometime in the year to come, but we’re excited about the continued growth in the business and not afraid of a cycle change if that was to occur.

In other parts of the call, EA predicted a net sale of 25 million consoles this year (compared to 55 million consoles already in-market since 2013), implying continued robust demand. AMD’s remarks at its own conference call last month also implied strong sales through the end of the year.




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We didn’t expect much from the 2016 version of Doom. The last iteration of the game, which shipped in 2004, felt like a hackneyed cross between System Shock 2 and an early 1990s shooter. The new Doom (originally Doom 4) has been mired in development hell for years, and early feedback on the multiplayer wasn’t very kind.

We can’t speak for the multiplayer, since we’ve yet to venture online, but the single-player campaign is much more faithful to the spirit of the original game than Doom 3 was. While there is a story, id Software opted for a framework that’s more-or-less an excuse to hurl weapons, power-ups, and abilities at you while you chew through the demons pouring through the portal.



Why not try a holiday on Mars this year? See the lovely ruins

Doom kicks off as you wake up chained to a block of stone, snap your bonds, and smash a few zombies (called the Possessed). It quickly becomes apparent that unlike in Doom 3, where the secret research that tapped into Hell was known only to a handful of base personnel, Doom staff and researchers were fully aware of what they were doing. At one point you’re actually told, “We exploited Hell and its resources because it was in the best interests of humanity to do so.”

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At CES Asia last week, Internet giant Tencent announced a new console gaming system, dubbed the TGP (Tencent Games Platform) Box. Tencent isn’t a well-known company in the west, but it’s a behemoth in the Asia-Pacific market. The company’s market cap hit $200 billion for the first time just over a year ago and it earned roughly $16 billion in revenue in 2015. That’s still significantly smaller than Sony or Microsoft, but it’s more than large enough to throw some serious cash at the console business.

TGP owns Riot Games, which produces League of Legends, and LoL has already been confirmed as a supported title for the new platform. The company hasn’t announced many other details, but we know that the system runs Windows 10 and is compatible with Intel’s sixth-generation Core i3, i5, and i7 processors. There’s no word of any supplemental GPU, implying that the platform will rely on Intel’s integrated graphics for performance. That’s less dodgy than it used to be — Intel’s GPU performance has been improving steadily for years — but Intel’s Crystal Well chips with 64-128MB of EDRAM are the only chips that can be said to compete against AMD or Nvidia’s low-end discrete GPUs.



According to AllChinaTech, this iteration of the TGP Box is called the Blade and is the result of a partnership between Haier, which built the hardware, Intel, which provided unspecified “sensing and smart home technology,” and Tencent, which provided both system development and game titles. A number of other titles have been confirmed for the Blade, including FIFA Online 3, NBA 2K, Monster Hunter, and Need for Speed. The company will announce additional titles later in the year.
Fighting for the Chinese console market

It hasn’t even been a year since China officially lifted the ban on game console imports. Previously, consoles were only allowed in-country if you lived within an eleven-mile trade zone surrounding Shanghai and if the console was assembled locally. Microsoft and Sony are now theoretically free to sell into China, but there are difficulties selling into that market. Content needs to be localized and Chinese gamers are much more likely to use either smartphones or PCs. Tencent’s decision to standardize on a PC-like device running Windows 10 makes sense in that context: It’s the gaming platform users are actually more familiar with.
Given China’s economic growth and millions of gamers, there’s good reason for the established manufacturers to go after the market — but Tencent’s launch demonstrates that native manufacturers have their own sights set on a piece of the metaphorical action. There’s no word on whether or not Tencent will launch its platform in the*US, but hopefully we’ll see some benchmarks and additional information as the platform moves towards launch.


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Blizzard has confirmed to us that this give-away includes all of the latest expansion packs and a free month of game play, though this last applies only to new players. Current players can still score a free copy of the game to share with a friend or launch a second account if they so desire.

Blockbuster movies have leveraged tie-ins to physical toys, food, clothing, and collectible glasses ever since the first Star Wars movie demonstrated that these additional products could be formidable sources of revenue. Video games, in contrast, have tended to get the short end of the stick — the list of great video game movie adaptations isn’t a long read.

Blizzard, in contrast, has come up with a method of tying the upcoming World of Warcraft movie directly into the already-existing World of Warcraft game. First, existing players who just log into the game between May 25 and August 1 will receive new transmogrification (transmogs for short). These are visual skins that make your weapons or armor look different, but don’t actually change anything about your character’s in-game performance.



The bigger prize is the free copy of World of Warcraft that Blizzard is handing out to anyone who buys tickets for the movie. WoW is currently $19.99 for a version of the game that includes all previous content and expansion packs with a maximum level cap of 100 and hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of content. Put differently, Blizzard is willing to give you a $20 game if you go and see a movie for significantly less than that.

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It’s been over two years since Microsoft’s Project Spark was launched publicly, but this free creation suite is already being shut down. We’ve already seen numerous Microsoft-owned studios shuttered earlier this year, and this latest move reiterates that Redmond isn’t interested in keeping struggling games and teams on life support.

When Project Spark launched in 2014, it was a free-to-play game that was built around micro-transactions. Different set pieces and tools could be used to make your own levels that could be shared with other Xbox One and PC gamers, but all of that changed last September. All of the existing content was made completely free, previous purchases were refunded, and plans for future updates were halted.

While that was a short-term boon for frugal enthusiasts, it spelled doom for the long-term prospects of the game. Without any way to make money, it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. Last week, Microsoft removed Project Spark from the Windows Store and Xbox Marketplace. Existing users still have access to the game, but all of the online functionality is scheduled to end on August 12th.




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The first consumer VR headsets are just starting to ship, but choosing between the two options is an important call for early adopters. Both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift cost $600 and there’s already some exclusive software. Oculus recently added a “platform integrity check” to make sure its exclusive games could only be played on Oculus hardware, but it may have inadvertently made VR piracy infinitely easier.

Oculus released its new VR DRM on Friday, and it was cracked wide open just a day later. This is thanks to a popular user-created software package called Revive. Its goal is to make games from the Oculus store function on the HTC Vive. It does this by porting functions from the Oculus Runtime to OpenVR, an API that’s compatible with the Vive. Prior to the platform integrity check, this allowed Vive owners to use the software they paid for on the hardware of their choice. The method of bypassing the new DRM doesn’t just circumvent the integrity check, it skips the ownership check altogether. It works for pirated game just as well as ones you bought.


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