Game Tech News

Last week, we wrote about the PC version of Assassin’s Creed Unity — coming November 11! — and its utterly ridiculous minimum hardware requirements. At a bare minimum, the game is meant to require an Nvidia GTX 680 — a $500 flagship graphics card from two years ago — and the recommended GPU is the GTX 780, a $500 card from last year. At the time, I wondered if the minimum specs were due to laziness on Ubisoft’s behalf, or whether Assassin’s Creed Unity, at higher resolutions that consoles can’t hit, is simply a very taxing game.

Now, a new in-engine gameplay demo*seems to put the argument to rest: Assassin’s Creed Unity is really, really pretty. Oh, and bad news if you have a Radeon: The game has certain graphics features that will only be available on Nvidia graphics cards.

I’m not a specialist in computer graphics, but I’d say that Assassin’s Creed Unity is one of the prettiest games I’ve ever seen. True, we don’t know what graphics card the game is running on in the video — it’s probably a new GTX 980, or maybe the GTX Titan — but clearly, we don’t need to worry about Unity on the PC being just a bad console port. (Of course, if it needs a $500+ graphics card that very few people own, then it doesn’t really matter how good the port is.)
Another thing you’ll notice is that the gameplay demo is powered by Nvidia, and that the game is clearly optimized for Nvidia GPUs. We don’t have the exact details yet, but it seems Ubisoft is leaning heavily on Nvidia-specific libraries (i.e. GameWorks) to implement certain rendering features. This means that, while AMD’s Radeon graphics cards technically support features like HBAO (horizon-based ambient occlusion), the use of Nvidia’s libraries mean that they’ll be much more efficient on Nvidia GPUs. In other cases, Assassin’s Creed Unity uses features that simply aren’t available on Radeon*GPUs, such as TXAA (temporal antialiasing) and PCSS (percentage-closer soft shadows). Whether Radeon GPUs will try to approximate these features (and take a big performance hit), or fall back to some older techniques, I’m not sure. In any case, at least on launch day, you’ll probably be best served by a recent Nvidia GPU.



This is some previously released artwork for Assassin’s Creed Unity. I’m not sure if it’s a render or a screenshot from gameplay footage.



This is in-game footage from the PC version of Assassin’s Creed Unity, showing a rather large scene (and fantastic depth of field).

Beyond all the various rendering tricks, the gameplay demo seems to show a pretty epic setting, with detailed textures, high polygon counts, and long draw distances. The big crowd scene*(screenshot above) would certainly suggest that Unity will indeed be very taxing on both your CPU and GPU, too.

Assassin’s Creed Unity is out on November 11 in the US, and November 14 in the UK. France, amusingly enough, gets it on November 13. As always, it will be priced ridiculously — and if you have about $150 burning a hole in your pocket,*there’s even a special Guillotine Edition that comes with, you guessed it, a model guillotine.


More...

The free-to-play business model is a rapidly growing phenomenon in the gaming world. Once quarantined to the PC and mobile, these new pricing structures are proliferating quickly, and altering expectations on even the most rigid of platforms. Consoles were once exclusively home to big-budget full-price games, and now the entire market is being turned on its head. The Xbox One is now home to a number of free-to-play titles, and today I want to give those games their due. Let’s jump in, and explore what the free-to-play model has to offer the Xbox One owner.


Killer Instinct

ULTRA COMBO! This classic fighting franchise has finally returned to the limelight, and this time it’s a free-to-play release exclusive to the Xbox One. Originally developed by Double Helix, its acquisition by Amazon left the dev team unable to offer continued support. Instead, the folks at Iron Galaxy stepped in, and now season two of Killer Instinct has begun.
Without dropping one red cent, you get to play as a rotating cast of free fighters, and you can slowly unlock more content from playing the game. Alternatively, you can buy in-game currency with real money to speed up the unlocking process, or simply buy an entire “season” worth of content for $40. It’s a pretty solid deal — especially compared to the traditional Capcom-style pricing model that fighting games have been burdened with in the past.


Pinball FX2

If you like pinball, Zen Studios has a treat for you. With Pinball FX2, you can play dozens of tables featuring some of your favorite franchises. From South Park to Star Wars to The Walking Dead, Pinball FX2 sports an incredible amount of variety, and rewards skilled play with a superb leaderboard system. And if you know other pinball enthusiasts, you can compete asynchronously against each other for the top spot.

When you download the core client, you automatically get access to the Sorcerer’s Lair table for free. If you only have a passing interest in pinball, this table is more than enough to satiate your desires. If you’re a hardcore pinball fanatic, you can choose to buy single tables or combo packs à la carte. For example, The Walking Dead table is $3, and the Avengers Chronicles four-pack is just $10. Now that everything is delivered digitally, collecting pinball tables is actually an incredibly affordable hobby these days.

More...

Feast your eyes on Sprout, a new all-in-one PC from HP that replaces the keyboard and mouse with a 20-point, 20-inch projected touchpad. HP says the Sprout is the first product in a new “Blended Reality” lineup that’s meant to re-envision the interface between real and virtual, analog and digital. Along with the projector, there’s also a high-res camera and 3D scanner, allowing you to easily “upload” objects into the Sprout just by placing them on the mat.

Let’s run through the tech specs first. The all-in-one PC itself is pretty mundane: It has a modern Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 23-inch touchscreen, and Windows 8.1. The large 20-inch touchpad (which HP calls a touch mat) supports 20-point multitouch (so more than one person can use it at once). The magic of Sprout, though, is in the visor-like appendage that sprouts out the top, which HP calls the HP Illuminator. Within, there are three different systems: an Intel RealSense 3D camera (which is a lot like Kinect), a 14.6-megapixel camera, and an HP DLP projector. There’s also an LED desk lamp in there, which will probably prove to be rather useful. Apparently the touchpad is made of a special material that is invisible/transparent to the cameras.

All of these systems combine to provide an interesting mix of functions, from projecting a touchscreen keyboard (or using the included stylus to draw some art), through to scanning objects and documents. Wired, which had some hands-on time with the Sprout, said that the projected keyboard “reacted well” and is “comfortable to type on.” The Sprout will obviously be popular with kids, but creative types will probably also like the ability to use the projected touchpad separately from the main screen — as far as Windows is concerned, it’s just like having two monitors, I think.


The Homer: The perfect car for the “average” American

As much as I want to be excited by the Sprout, I think that it just narrowly misses the mark, landing in the “eh, so what?” zone rather than “oooh, cool.” Clearly, the Sprout is meant to be some kind of personal computing Swiss Army Knife for kids, creatives, and office workers alike — but in the cold, harsh light of reality, it sadly feels more like Homer’s car from The Simpsons.

Yes, the idea of a 20-point touchpad is cool — but you can get much the same thing with a decent tablet from Wacom. The RealSense camera is neat — but why doesn’t it support gesture-based inputs, like Haptix? Yes, the projection element is certainly novel — but is it really better than, say, just having a second display?



Who knows. Maybe the Sprout’s various technologies will come together in a beautiful, paradigm-shifting amalgamation. Certainly, anything that attempts to redefine something as important as computer input needs to be properly tested in a variety of scenarios before any serious conclusions can be made. Don’t get me wrong: I think we’re long overdue an input method that can replace the physical 10-finger keyboard, and an output device that somehow goes beyond the mundanity of conventional displays and projectors… but at $1900, the Sprout might not be it.

The Sprout is available to pre-order now from the HP website, priced $1900. It ships on November 9 — and, more importantly, Best Buy and Microsoft Stores will have the Sprout on display, if you want to try it out. It’s also worth pointing out that, for $1900, you do actually get a wireless mouse and keyboard — but obviously, using them would be admitting defeat.


More...

Ever since the Xbox One and PS4 were unveiled as being based on 28nm technology, it’s been clear that both Microsoft and Sony would transition to smaller nodes as soon as those technologies were ready for prime time. It now looks as though Microsoft may make this jump before its rival. A sharp-eyed member of the Beyond3D forum picked up on the LinkedIn profile of one Daniel McConnell, an SoC designer at AMD, which discusses how he, “Successfully planned and executed the first APU for Microsoft’s Xbox One game console in 28nm and a cost-reduced derivative in 20nm technology.”

So what could it mean for Microsoft’s console to make a quick jump down to 20nm? In theory, such a shift could give Microsoft several advantages. Power consumption and die size both come down modestly at 20nm, which improves yields and price structure. The system chassis could theoretically be redesigned with new features or MS could target a cheaper model with certain capabilities removed. In the past, both Microsoft and Sony have used these periodic revisions to target modest improvements to storage capacity, performance, peripheral hookups, or other similar options.



The current Xbox One SoC – a 28nm APU made by AMD

But I think there’s an interesting question here, that strikes at the concept of what a console actually is and what Microsoft can or can’t get away with doing. For decades, consoles have been presented as fixed units. Sure, the external shell and some of the I/O hookups might change over time, but an Xbox 360 purchased in 2005 should be just as fast as an Xbox 360 bought in 2014. Consoles have been inviolate, even as PC hardware shifts fairly rapidly.

As Microsoft looks at its plans for a 20nm die shrink, it has to be asking if there’s a way to change the Xbox One’s design to better match the PS4. And it probably can — as we’ve previously discussed, there are two unused GPU partitions on the system that would give it a significant GPU performance boost. It might also be able to increase the size of the shared ESRAM cache.
The problem, though, is optics. Early adopters of the Xbox One can’t be particularly pleased that they bought a now-useless doorstop in the form of Kinect 2.0. No one is going to be happy if Microsoft rolls out a new version of the Xbox One (Xbox 1.5?). And the company would risk bifurcating its dev teams between haves and have-nots. For a company whose message has already been badly diluted and confused, the presence of two different types of console would be problematic at best.

Furthermore, McConnell’s profile makes it clear that Microsoft chose to drive engagements that would minimize costs over increasing performance in future iterations of the SoC.



Xbox One internals [Image credit: iFixit]

We’ve toyed with the idea of upgradeable consoles in other posts, but after the problems the Xbox One has had with brand and message, I think shifting the system’s design now would only confuse and frustrate users further. 20nm die shrinks are also expected to be relatively modest, with the following 14/16nm technology delivering more raw performance and the bulk of improved thermals.What about DDR4?

One intriguing option Microsoft might take would be to outfit the console with DDR4. There’s been a great deal of discussion over whether or not the Xbox One’s quad-channel DDR3 memory bus is a problem for most games, with some general consensus that it likely is. Microsoft could close this gap, at least in theory, by upgrading to a faster form of DDR4. 8GB of DDR4-2700 or even DDR4-3200 would improve memory bandwidth by 25-50%. The question, however, is whether games could be programmed to run equally smoothly on both sets of hardware.

Again, that’s problematic. If memory bandwidth is really the issue, Microsoft might wind up having one console that can run 1080p safely, while the other is stuck in 900p territory. Is it possible to build a resolution toggle into games? PCs certainly have done it for years, but it’s not clear if this is possible on the console side.

Microsoft could theoretically swap out the DDR3 on the Xbox One for DDR4 without changing any of the underlying specs, but I suspect this will be difficult. DDR3 and DDR4 have very different latencies and matching the two well enough to make them identical at the design level might be more trouble than it’s worth.


More...

Remember the big PS4 2.0 firmware release that shipped earlier this month? Well, it turns out there is a bug in this update that can prevent the PS4 from waking properly from Rest Mode (i.e. hibernation, sleep). Affected users are being required to hard boot their systems, and that could potentially cause major problems. There’s no official word on when we’ll see a bug fix, but thankfully there is a workaround for the time being.

Earlier today, I saw a report on CNET regarding a bug in the latest firmware that prevents the PS4 from coming out of Rest Mode. I’ve been using firmware 2.0 “Masamune” since it was released, and I’ve been using Rest Mode on and off since then without any issue. Incredulous, I grabbed my DualShock 4, and jammed on the PlayStation button. Nothing happened. I touched the power button, and the screen remained blank. I decided to hard boot the machine, and I was finally greeted with a screen scolding me for powering off the PS4 improperly. It did a quick scan of the file system, and everything worked out for me this time. Luckily, nothing was ruined.



Of course, not everyone will be so lucky. Hard booting can cause serious problems, and lead to corrupted data. If you’re currently running the 2.0 firmware, you should refrain from using Rest Mode. When you’re done using your console, turn it off completely. Until Sony issues a patch, consider Rest Mode armed and dangerous. It’s a bit of a hassle, but it’s a lot better than dealing with an unresponsive PS4.

If you’re having problems getting your console to boot properly, Sony recommends using safe mode to fix your issue. If you’ve already been bitten by this bug, I recommend that you wait until Sony releases a patch, and then sideload it onto your PS4 with a USB stick to prevent further headaches.

Combine this firmware faux pas with the Driveclub disaster, and October has proven to be a difficult month for Sony. Of course, this isn’t the first time Sony has pushed out a bad update for its consoles. Just last year, firmware 4.45 caused huge problems for PS3 owners. This just serves as a reminder that blindly installing updates isn’t a good idea. Next time, let’s wait a few days before we install that big, feature-rich firmware update.


More...

Sledgehammer Games, the developer of the newly-released Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare first-person shooter, confirms the actual resolution details of the game on the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft, stating that the title runs at a native 1920x1080 on the PS4 and 1360x1080 on the Xbox One.

The PS4 and Xbox One have been engaged in a pretty strong war in terms of performance, and the battle has mostly been won by Sony's console, as quite a few games are running at a better resolution or framerate on the PS4 than on the Xbox One.

After a lot of uncertainty, especially due to the controversial Call of Duty: Ghosts from last year, the performance figures for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare have just been revealed by its developer, Sledgehammer Games.

Advanced Warfare runs better on PS4 than on Xbox One

As part of a special Reddit AMA session, Sledgehammer's Glen Schofield goes in detail about the game's technical performance on the two new consoles, confirming that the Xbox One version has a dynamic resolution that goes from 1360x1080 to the full 1920x1080 figure. Meanwhile, the PS4 edition of Advanced Warfare runs natively at 1080p and no scaling is required.

Schofield also emphasizes that, even with these resolutions, the game's framerate remains at the solid 60fps figure, which is a traditional feature for the first-person shooter franchise.

"Minimum XboxOne resolution is 1360x1080, and dynamically scales from there to full 1080p. That’s over 50% increase from last year. Advanced Warfare runs native 1080p on PS4. Both running at rock solid 60fps."

Getting the game on the new consoles was tough

Schofield also confirms that working with the two new consoles from Sony and Microsoft was a tough job, but thanks to the extended three-year development cycle, the studio's staff were able to ensure that Advanced Warfare ran great on the new devices.

"Just getting the game onto next gen platforms was tough. All new engine and tech, learning our way around that was time consuming but that's where the three years came in handy."

Last year's Call of Duty: Ghosts, which arrived from series founder Infinity Ward, ran natively at 1080p on the PS4, thanks to a day-one update, while the Xbox One edition ran at a much lower 720p resolution that was upscaled to 1080p and resulted in an oversharpened image.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare launches this week across PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. a Day Zero Edition of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is set to release today. It will feature double XP for the first day and two exclusive guns.

If you are intended to play Call Of Duty : Advanced Warfare on PC here is the system requirements :

Minimum
CPU: Intel Core i3-530 @ 2.93 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 810 @ 2.60 GHz
RAM: 6 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 (1 GB) or AMD Radeon HD 5870 (1 GB)
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit / Windows 8.1 64-Bit
Free Disk Space: 55 GB
Sound Card: Yes

Recommended
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30GHz
RAM: 8 GB
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit / Windows 8.1 64-Bit
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (4 GB)
Sound Card: Yes
Free Disk Space: 55 GB

The development team at BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts announce that they will launch Dragon Age: Inquisition on the EA Access service, which is only offered on the Xbox One, on November 13 of this year and will allow all those who subscribe to play six hours of the game.

The policy is similar to that used for both FIFA 15 and NBA Live 15 and is designed to show hardcore fans the core features of the game and persuade them to then buy it.

EA Access offers a 10 percent price cut on all Electronic Arts games for subscribers and costs 5 dollars or Euro per month and 50 dollars or Euro for a full year.

The official announcement states, "The six-hour trial lets you create your hero, form your Inquisition, and take your first steps into Thedas, exploring the world and battling evil in both real-time and tactical combat. Discover the Hinterlands, where the war between Templars and mages has hit a fever pitch, or gather materials and schematics for crafting your arsenal. You can even jump into Inquisition’s cooperative multiplayer missions."

The only problem with a six-hour trial for Dragon Age: Inquisition is that the game is so complex and offers so much content that it is hard to get a solid look at everything it has to offer.

Dragon Age: Inquisition expands the RPG genre

Dragon Age: Inquisition will be launched for North American gamers on November 18 and for those in Europe on November 21, playable on the PC, the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 and last-gen consoles.

The title asks gamers to deal with a massive tear in the Veil, which is allowing all kinds of demons to flow into the world of the living and to prey on the innocent.

BioWare says that it is combining elements from the previous two titles in the series with Dragon Age: Inquisition, allowing gamers to choose between a tactical and a dynamic approach to combat.

At the same time the world includes more choice that ever, and as the campaign progresses, gamers will be able to see how their decisions impact characters and the various locations.

At the moment the EA Access service is performing very well on the Xbox One and has surpassed the expectations of the publisher, but there are still no plans to bring it to the PlayStation 4 or to use it to bolster the features of Origin on the PC.

It’s that time of year again! The smell of gun powder and Doritos is in the air, and that can mean only one thing: Call of Duty. After the disappointing next-gen debut of Call of Duty: Ghosts last year, all eyes are on Sledgehammer Games to see if the franchise will return to form. Based on early analysis, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is exactly what fans have been waiting for, but there are some notable technical compromises on the Xbox One and PS4.

Earlier this week, Michael Condrey from Sledgehammer Games confirmed that the Xbox One version of the game is running at 1360 x 1080, and will scale dynamically to 1920 x 1080 in less busy areas of the game. Does that sound weird to you? It certainly should.



The vast majority of HDTVs have an aspect ratio of 16:9, but a 1360 x 1080 image is in the oddball 34:27 aspect ratio. So, what gives? Well, it seems that the game is rendering a horizontally squished image natively at 1360 x 1080, and then being stretched to 1920 x 1080 to correct the image. As you can see in the animation embedded above, this trick is very reminiscent of the anamorphic techniques used for some widescreen movies.

Stretching and scaling quirks aside, this is good news for Xbox One owners. Call of Duty: Ghosts maxed out at 1280 x 720 (921,600 pixels) on the Xbox One, so the upgrade to a minimum of 1360 x 1080 (1,468,800 pixels) is a big improvement. That’s a 1.59x increase in the number of pixels being output. The more visual fidelity, the better.


The resolution difference between the Xbox One and PS4 is noticeable, but it’s a relatively minor ding overall. According to the Digital Foundry analysis, the Xbox One version of the game might actually be preferable due to the performance issues with the PS4 version. What’s the price for native 1920 x 1080 rendering? Apparently, it’s the frame rate.

During busy action scenes, the PS4 version of Advanced Warfare frequently dips into the 50s. By comparison, the Xbox One version stays pegged at 60 nearly the entire time. This might be possible to fix with a patch, but as it stands, the PS4 version has a little bit of a stuttering problem. It’s just a shame that we’re nearly a full year into this console generation, and 1080p60 is still a rarity among major AAA games.



More...

The game runs at 1080p and 30fps on both PS4 and Xbox One

Rockstar Games confirms that, as a special treat for those who get Grand Theft Auto 5 on the PC, PS4, or Xbox One, a first-person mode is included in the game, complete with all sorts of modifications to ensure that the title runs great in this new perspective, in addition to the third-person one.

GTA 5 launched worldwide back in September of last year and delighted tens of millions of PS3 and Xbox 360 owners through its huge open world, its pretty nice visuals, and the array of things that were possible both in the single-player campaign as well as in the GTA Online multiplayer mode.

While developer Rockstar has launched many different updates for the game, filled with new activities, weapons, vehicles, and other items, it's also worked really hard on bringing the game to a few new platforms, in the form of the PC, PS4, and Xbox One devices.

A first-person mode is included in the new versions of the game
After confirming that it will launch first just for the PS4 and Xbox One in November, and then for the PC in early 2015, Rockstar now reveals that it's prepared a special surprise for fans who get the game on the new platforms, in the form of a first-person mode.

More specifically, in addition to the regular third-person view that's standard in recent Grand Theft Auto games, players can opt to play in a brand new first-person perspective that allows them to play GTA 5 just like any regular first-person shooter.

"Exclusive to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions of Grand Theft Auto V, this new mode gives players the chance to explore the world of Los Santos and Blaine County directly through the eyes of their character, revealing all the world's glorious details in an entirely new way," Rockstar reveals on its Newswire.

Rockstar worked hard to implement the new mode successfully

Don't think this is just a quickly put together mod for the regular GTA 5, as Rockstar emphasizes that it's worked quite hard to make sure that the new perspective brings alongside it a fresh cover system, a new targeting one, a special control scheme similar to other first-person shooters, and much more.

Available in both GTAV and GTA Online, we've made a host of changes to accommodate this new perspective, including the creation of an optional first person cover system, a new targeting system, a more traditional FPS control scheme, and integrating thousands of new animations into the existing game. It's also available at the touch of a button so you can easily switch back and forth between perspectives," the studio adds.

Last but not least, Rockstar also flat out confirms that GTA 5 runs on PS4 and Xbox One at a 1080p resolution and a 30fps framerate, in order to settle that debate.

Read more....

Check out the first-person experience in GTA 5 in the video below.

Sony confirms right on release day the different free games that will be offered for PlayStation Plus members in November, and also reveals some of the big titles that will be made available in the months of December and January 2015.

The PlayStation Plus membership has been a huge hit for Sony, as not only has it attracted many PS3 and PS Vita owners in previous years, but it's also quite popular amongst PS4 owners who need such a subscription in order to access multiplayer gaming on the new home console.

Thanks to the myriad of free games offered by the company to all subscribers, more and more people are signing up to enjoy all of its benefits and perks.

For the month of November, Sony has been particularly silent about what's coming in the regular update for the Instant Game Collection for PS Plus owners, although a leaked video did confirm the titles for a temporary period.

The November PS Plus update is official

Now, Sony has actually posted a statement on the PS blog, confirming that the titles leaked last week were valid and that quite a few great independent titles are coming to the PS4, PS3, and PS Vita platforms.

First up, there's The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth that's available on the PS4, as well as on the PS Vita via cross-buy. The new title reimagines the original Binding of Isaac action role-playing game, with a new graphics engine, better visuals, way more gameplay options, and a new soundtrack.

There's also Steamworld Dig for the PS4 and PS Vita, which delivers a platform mining adventure in which players take on the role of Dusty, an old steamboat that needs to dig for many treasures.

PS3 owners can enjoy Frozen Synapse Prime and lead a team of rebels through a turn-based tactical adventure against an evil corporation. They can also enjoy Luftrausers on PS3 and PS Vita, the delightful arcade shooter that allows for deep customization.

PS Vita users can enjoy Escape Plan on both the mobile console as well as on the PS4, which tasks them with making sure that two loveable creatures, Lil and Laarg, escape from a series of challenging rooms. They can also enjoy The Hungry Horde, a pixelated zombie game that can offer some intense experiences.

December and January games are also confirmed

Sony also reveals that it's preparing some big titles for the months of December and January, so PS Plus owners should avoid buying them as they'll get the titles for free in just a few weeks.

In December, PS4 owners will get Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition and Secret Ponchos, while in January Infamous: First Light and The Swapper will be available for free. More titles from both those months will be confirmed in the future.

Read more....