Game Tech News

For the past few weeks, there’s been a storm swirling in virtual reality between Oculus and HTC Vive owners. Last month, Oculus rolled out a DRM solution as part of the Oculus Store’s software. The purpose of the patch was to make it impossible to play Oculus Store games on headsets like HTC’s Vive, even if the games in question were legally purchased. The company has now reversed course on this strategy and removed the DRM lockout.

Oculus, however, hasn’t done anything to make that change public. The news came instead from the developers of the Revive project, which aimed to allow HTC Vive owners to play Oculus Store titles. Initially, Revive only allowed gamers to play titles they’d legally purchased. But when Oculus added its own DRM lockout, the Revive developers responded by implementing workarounds that allowed Oculus Store games to be pirated and run on HTC Vive headsets. While this wasn’t the original intent of the Revive project, it was the only way to maintain cross-platform headset compatibility.



Lucky’s Tale was supposed to be an exclusive. Thanks to these changes, it will be again.


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Optical discs have ruled console game distribution for decades, but recent trademark filings from Nintendo and a memory supplier report from earlier this year suggest that the company may be shaking things up with NX console. Nintendo is rumored to be adopting cartridges instead of discs for its upcoming platform, which is currently expected to launch at the end of Nintendo’s first fiscal quarter in 2017.
The most recent rumor comes courtesy of Nintendo’s trademark applications for the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As you can see from the filing below, video game cartridges are listed as one of the goods and services Nintendo wishes to trademark.


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When Microsoft launched the Xbox One, it showcased the console’s unique value-added proposition by partnering with a variety of companies, not just game developers. Xbox Fitness was a launch title for the platform that utilized the Kinect 2.0 sensor to provide feedback on user form and to track calories burned. Unfortunately, Microsoft just announced that it would sunset the service, effective immediately — and that includes removing all access to content that users may have spent a non-trivial amount of money on.
Here’s what the company announced - Starting now, Xbox Fitness content is no longer available to purchase. You can still use content you previously purchased, but only through June 30, 2017.


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The PS4K, also known as the PlayStation Neo, has been widely discussed for months now, and Sony has even quietly confirmed that it’s in the works. But what about a simple mid-cycle PS4 redesign along the lines of the Xbox One S or the PS3 slim? It seems as if that minor hardware revision might be on its way sooner than we expected.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Takashi Mochizuki reports that an analyst from Macquarie Securities believes that a slim PS4 could be released as early as September. In a Tweet, Mochizuki spells out that it might show up at the Tokyo Game Show. Considering that the PlayStation VR is launching in October, and some leaks point towards a 2016 release for Neo, this might be the single biggest year in the history of PlayStation hardware.



Two and a half years ago, we speculated on what a PS4 redesign might end up being. Beyond a die shrink and a new case design, we mentioned 802.11ac for improved streaming and the addition of Bluetooth 4.0 for low-energy wireless communication.
Those improvements still make sense, but there are a few more features worth considering in 2016. Ultra HD Blu-ray and HDMI 2.x support would help the slim compete head-to-head with the likes of the $299 Xbox One S. Since Sony would love to sell us UHD Blu-ray discs and brand new 4K UHD TVs, positioning this as an affordable entry point to these high-res upgrades would be a smart strategy.

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The idea of a portable PC gaming system that could handle a wide range of games and operating systems is an attractive one. But a recent Kickstarter that claims it can deliver such a product should be taken with an extremely large grain of salt.
At first glance, the Portable Game System for PC games (PGS), by PGS Labs, looks as if it ticks all the right boxes. It’s intended to boot both Windows 10 and Android Marshmallow, and it claims it can handle streaming from other devices.

The team behind the project claims to have done their initial testing on a Cherry Trail-equipped Surface 3 before settling on baseline specifications. The PGS, they say, will ship in two flavors: The PGS Lite will feature a 5.5-inch screen, 1280×720 resolution, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage, while the PGS Hardcore will feature a 5.7-inch screen, 2560×1440 resolution, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. The price on these two systems is supposedly $230 and $280, respectively, if you opt for Early Bird pricing.

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Last week, AMD launched its largest midrange hardware update in years, codenamed Polaris. Polaris isn’t a brand-new architecture — that’s Vega, which arrives late this year — but it’s arguably a larger update than anything we’ve seen from AMD since the original GCN debuted in late 2011. GCN 1.1 (Bonaire, Hawaii) and 1.2 (Tonga, Fiji) both improved on the original microarchitecture and integrated additional heterogeneous compute capabilities, but both were fairly modest improvements in the grand scheme of things. Polaris aims to deliver larger improvements across the entire GPU stack, while keeping some of the features first introduced with AMD’s Fury family of products.

The RX 480 is AMD’s first 14nm FinFET GPU and it brings a number of improvements to the table. HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.3 and 1.4 are both supported, as are emerging features like High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays, FreeSync (via both DisplayPort and HDMI), and a new H.265 / HEVC decoder block with support for up to 1080p240, 1440p120, or 4K60 (that’s the resolution followed by the maximum frame rate). DVI users will need an adapter if they want to use that form factor — unlike many of AMD’s older parts in this price range, the RX 480 packs one HDMI 2.0b port and 3x DisplayPorts.

Polaris positioning

Normally, we dive into the architectural details of a new GPU design first and tackle the market positioning later. In the RX 480’s case, however, AMD has chosen to lead with a midrange product that targets mainstream enthusiasts rather than launching high-end hardware first, with midrange parts launching later. AMD’s entry and midrange products are definitely due for a refresh, but it’s important to put the RX 480 in perspective — at $199 and $239 for the 4GB and 8GB versions of the RX 480, AMD isn’t trying to overtake the likes of the R9 Fury X or GTX 980 Ti. Instead, the company’s goal was to create a GPU that would offer improved performance and significantly better power consumption for the majority of users.

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What a year it’s been for virtual reality: The HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift are available now, Google and Microsoft are investing heavily in its future, and the PlayStation VR is only four months away from hitting store shelves. In preparation for the third major VR launch of the year, Sony is demoing its headset across the US and Canada, and we finally had the opportunity to try out the PSVR.

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Once AMD launched the RX 480, it was inevitable that Nvidia would follow suit with its own new card. The company officially announced its GTX 1060 today, based on the GP106 die, and pushing Pascal into lower price points (at least in theory), while matching the performance of Nvidia’s GTX 980. Given that the GTX 980 launched as a $500 GPU, that’s a significant improvement in terms of performance per dollar.

The GTX 960 packs 1,280 GPU cores with a 1.5GHz core clock and 192GB/s of memory bandwidth courtesy of its 192-bit memory path. The chip’s boost clock is 1.7GHz and Nvidia’s PR release claims that the chip can “easily be overclocked to 2GHz for further performance.” TDP is just 120W, though NV is still sticking to a dual-slot cooler for this GPU. Like the RX 480, the GTX 1060 has a single six-pin connector, though the lower overall TDP should be enough to keep the card in spec.



Nvidia is claiming that partner boards will be available from July 19 forwards from a wide variety of manufacturers, while its Founders Edition will only be available in limited edition cards sold directly from Nvidia.com. We’re still seeing very limited availability on the GTX 1080 and 1070 (the 1070 has been a bit more common of late, but the 1080 remains hard to find). GP106 is a smaller chip, which typically means stronger yields, but we’ve heard rumors that Nvidia pulled this launch in to match the RX 480. This could limit availability. SLI also isn’t supported on the GTX 1060, whereas AMD does support Crossfire on the RX 480.

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EA recently ran a closed alpha test of Battlefield 1, and allowed certain outlets access to the game in its unfinished form. So far, the response has been positive, and if the team at DICE follows through for the final release, this could be a proper return to form for the series. And if you have access to a high-end gaming PC, this might just deliver the smooth 4K gaming experience you’ve been waiting for.

Battlefield 1 is taking EA’s storied franchise out of the modern world, and placing the game during the first world war. With both Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Titanfall 2 doubling down on the sci-fi side of first-person shooters this year, a return to a historical setting makes a lot of sense for Battlefield. While there was strong skepticism surrounding the move to more primitive weaponry when it was first announced, it seems that DICE has been able to translate the Battlefield formula to WWI seamlessly.

During an EA event, the Digital Foundry team cranked up the settings to ultra on a machine with a Core i7-6700K and a GTX 1080, and captured the footage for analysis. When the resolution is jacked up the 5K, and then scaled down to 1440p, the alpha build was able to run at over 30fps. Even better, taking the resolution down to 4K was able to boost the frame rate to the low-to-mid 50s. With only a little bit of tinkering, it seems likely that people with top-of-the-line gaming gear will be able to enjoy a full 2160p experience without sacrificing a solid 60fps.

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One of the advantages to being a PC gamer is the vast array of mods and user-created content available for many titles. While not every game is moddable, titles that support modding are more likely to spawn robust, long-lasting communities. Grand Theft Auto V was a huge success that people would be playing no matter what — but the fact that it supports modding is why we’re getting a major graphics overhaul courtesy of Grand Theft Auto V Redux.



According to the mod author, Josh Romito, GTA V Redux features a completely rewritten weather system, simulated global illumination, better tonemapping, improved fog implementation, reduced lens artifacts, chromatic aberration, noise, and environmental blur, new motion blur, depth of field, and bokeh effects, and volumetric lighting for times of day. Weather and particle effects, water, and custom timecycle edits to specific areas of the cityscape, and improved environmental tessellation have also been added.



The mod will be available with a series of presets via ReShade, allowing end users to choose which modes they prefer and to switch between them on the fly if you prefer different settings at different times of day.



This isn’t Romito’s first time behind the helm of a major modding project, but his previous effort to build 4K texture support into GTA V was cancelled after debuting to much acclaim. According to a message posted at the old board, other modders apparently stole his work. Instead of killing his GTA V modding plans altogether, Romito retooled and came back with GTA V Redux. Textures, damage overlays, ground debris, and a full set of 4K textures are all incoming as well.

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