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Game Tech News
The best free games on the PS4
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A few weeks ago, we went through and picked out twenty of the best free and free-to-play PC games available. After a few days of full-on F2P immersion, we started thinking about free games on other platforms. After all, the free-to-play model has expanded well beyond the PC and it’s now an important part of the gaming ecosystem.
The selection of free-to-play games on the PS4 is no where near as vast as the selection on the PC, but that’s to be expected. That business model is still relatively new to consoles, and the PS4 itself is still less than a year old. Even so, there are still plenty of good times to be had without opening up your wallet.
To get started, I went to PSN, and downloaded all six of the free-to-play games available. After a few dozen gigs trickled slowly into my console, I was ready to go. I explored all of the free-to-play goodness to get a feel for the value proposition, and I captured some footage on the PS4 itself while I was at it. Embedded above is a short video I made to show off what you can expect from these games, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you see. None of these titles could be described as breathtaking, but I was happy to see how polished these games look despite their price tags.
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If you’re in the market for a first-person shooter on your new console, you need to download Blacklight Retribution right away. With persistent unlocks, character levels, and customizable load-outs, this is very similar to the Call of Duties of the world. The biggest difference? You don’t have to pay a dime to play Blacklight. Sure, you can buy guns and XP boosts with real money, but the core gameplay is completely free. If you’re on the fence about investing in the same old franchises this year, give this a go before you drop $60 on something you might hate.
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DC Universe Online
How about something a little more exotic? DC Universe Online is a full-scale MMORPG that’s designed from the ground-up to work on a console. The game originally came out on the PC and PS3, but the PS4 release brings this comic book-themed MMO to a whole new audience. Unsurprisingly, Sony offers plenty of convenience perks and content packs in the cash shop, but that’s only needed for serious enthusiasts. If you just want to jump in, and play the part of your own custom super hero, DC Universe Online has a lot to offer for thrifty gamers.
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Game Tech News
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Over the last few years, there has been a steadily growing refrain from device makers and game developers that mobile devices — smartphones, tablets, portables – have processing power and graphics capabilities that are approaching that of game consoles. This bold assertion began in 2012 with Nvidia saying its mobile GPUs would soon overtake the Xbox 360, and with Apple saying its iPhone 5 has “console-quality graphics” — and by 2013 the PS Vita had indeed caught up with the PS3. Now, however, the head of EA’s mobile division, Frank Gibeau, has made a very interesting statement indeed: He says that the iPhone 6, with its improved processor” is “on par” with the Xbox One and PS4.
Is it really possible for a battery-powered device that’s 7mm thick to have comparable CPU and GPU performance to next-generation consoles that are still less than a year old, or is the head of EA Mobile a little bit deluded?
Sadly, even the iPhone is still beholden to the laws of physics
When it comes to raw computing or graphical performance, there are three main factors to consider: The technical proficiency of the chip designer, the size of the chip (i.e. the transistor count), and the chip’s power envelope (wattage, TDP). In other words, if you have the same AMD-designed GPU with 1 billion transistors, but one chip has a 5W TDP and the other has a 20W TDP, it’s fairly safe to assume that the 20W TDP chip will be (significantly) more powerful. Likewise, one CPU with 2 billion transistors is probably going to be a lot more powerful than a CPU with 1 billion transistors, assuming they were designed by two comparable teams. This is a gross simplification that ignores other important factors, but it will serve us well without having to dive much deeper than necessary.
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Infinity Blade III, on the iPad – an example of state-of-the-art mobile game graphics
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Destiny, on the PS4. Note the high number of models on-screen, high-res textures, particles, lighting…
Now, let’s take a look at the hardware inside the iPhone 6. The new A8 SoC — at least as far as we know, as Apple hasn’t released the exact specs — has a dual-core Cyclone CPU and hexa-core PowerVR Series6XT GPU. All told, the chip consists of around 2 billion transistors, built using a 20nm process on a tiny 89-square-millimeter die. We don’t know the exact power envelope, but generally the TDP limit for a smartphone form factor is in the 3-4W range. The A7
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NVIDIA announces GTX 980 and GTX 970 based on the new Maxwell architecture
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NVIDIA has announced two new graphics cards for the PC, the flagship single-GPU GTX 980 and the mid-range GTX 970. Both are based on NVIDIA’s 10th generation Maxwell architecture, which succeeds Kepler.
Other than being more powerful, the two new graphics cards also introduce some new technologies from NVIDIA, including Voxel Global Illumination (VXGI), which enables real-time global illumination. This enables the light to reflect off surfaces more naturally, and the resultant illumination is more realistic and accurate.
There’s also MFAA, or Multi-Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing, which is a more efficient form of traditional Multisample Anti-Aliasing. NVIDIA claims it offers the image quality of 4X MSAA at the performance of 2x MSAA.
Another new feature is Dynamic Super Resolution, which is generally known as supersampling. What this feature does is it renders the game at a higher resolution than your monitor. So if you have a 1080p monitor, the graphics card will render the game at 4K or higher and then downsample it down to fit your screen. The resultant image is cleaner and has less aliasing. This is sometimes present in games and available as SSAA or FSAA options within anti-aliasing settings but in this case, NVIDIA is doing it within its own GeForce Experience software rather than letting the game do it, assuming the game has the option.
There are also improvements to cater to VR applications, such as VR SLI where you can assign multiple GPUs for a specific eye, asynchronous warp that reduces latency in half, and auto stereo, which improves game compatibility with devices such as Oculus Rift.
The GTX 980 and GTX 970 will be available from various hardware partners, including ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac. The prices start at $549 for the GTX 980 and $329 for the GTX 970.
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Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Performance Overview by LinusTechTips
http://youtu.be/t2QpCtsL5L0?list=UUX...E6Xw-yeJA0Tunw
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ASUS ROG Z97 Motherboards – ROG Maximus VII Ranger, ROG Maximus VII Hero, ROG Maximus VII Gene Detailed
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ASUS Z97 Motherboards – ROG Lineup Pictured and Detailed
The first lineup we will detail is ASUS’s Z97 ROG motherboard lineup which includes ASUS’s Republic of Gamers branded products which are aimed towards enthusiasts, overclockers and gamers. The new motherboards from ASUS include some intresting features this round such as Intel Ethernet, LAN Guard, GameFirst III, Supreme FX, Sonic Radar II, KeyBot, TrueVolt USB and Gamer’s Guardian which will come in handy for easier connectivity and accessibility. The ASUS Z97 motherboards ‘ROG’ lineup includes the following products which will be detailed below:
- ASUS ROG Maximus VII Hero
- ASUS ROG Maximus VII Gene
- ASUS ROG Maximus VII Ranger
ASUS Maximus VII Hero
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Featuring a new improved ROG design scheme, the ROG Maximus VII Hero will be featuring the latest LGA1150 socket powered by the latest 12 Phase DIGI+ VRM design. Power would be provided through an 8-Pin connector while the 24-Pin ATX connector located next to the four DDR3 DIMMs will power the rest of the mainboard. The board is equipped with overclock switches which include the OC key, On/Off and Clear CMOS switches. Rest of the board includes three PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots (x16/x16/x8 electrical), three PCI-e 3.0 x1 and a M.2 PCIe SSD interface which will support Intel’s NGFF form factor drives.
For storage, ASUS has included 8 SATA 6 GB/s ports and a USB 3.0 header. The VRM and Z97 PCH are cooled by several heatsinks featuring the ROG emblem and theme. The ROG boards use a red and black color theme and the new boards stay loyal to the design.
ASUS Maximus VII Gene
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Next up is the Maximus VII Gene which is the M-ATX board made for overclockers. It maybe small but it retains the overclocking features of the flagship ROG Z97 motherboard, comes with two PCI-e 3.0 x16 and a PCI-e 3.0 x4 slot while storage includes 8 SATA 3 Ports. There are several I/O options an the addition of THX audio within the backpanel ports. The CPU is provided power with a 8-Pin power connector which means that the design of DIGI+ VRM is quite beefy and the cooler includes a heatpipe for superior cooling performance. The board has a M.2 PCI E SSD interface and a add-in board of some sort which is most likely the sound card since we can’t spot the Audio jack on the headers.
There’s an additional add-in card slot on the top of the motherboard right next to the 8-Pin connector which could hint to a Wi-Fi / Bluetooth add in module or something similar like their Wi-Fi Go module that was available with their Z77 series motherboards.
ASUS Maximus VII Ranger
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The ASUS Maximus VII Ranger is a new addition in terms of naming scheme to the ROG lineup and is a cut down board which features a 8 Phase DIGI+ VRM powered by an 8-Pin connector which provided juice to the LGA1150 socket. You can note that ASUS has went with a new design for chokes and VRMs which means that the board will deliver more stability and overclocking performance as compared to Z87 products of similar range from ASUS.
Four DDR3 DIMMs will be able to support memory with XMP profiles for OC support. We can spot some OC and LED diagnostics switches near the 24-Pin ATX connector. Expansion slots include three PCI-e 3.0 x16, three PCI-e 3.0 x1 and a M.2 SSD slot for NGFF form factor SSDs. The large heatsink are placed on the PCH and VRM but we don’t get heatpipe solution on the Maximus VII Ranger. Storage includes six SATA 6 GB/s ports while SupremeFX chip powers the audio jack with high-quality sound output.
The ROG Z97 motherboards from ASUS will launch along side Haswell Refresh on 10th May 2014 and would be available at different price points. ASUS also plans to introduce their flagship Maximus VII Extreme and Maximus VII Formula motherboards over the course but we haven’t yet seen them in action so its better to wait a bit more for official launch next month.
Read more: ASUS ROG Z97 Motherboards - ROG Maximus VII Ranger, ROG Maximus VII Hero, ROG Maximus VII Gene Detailed
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Project Cars Is Coming to PC, Xbox One and PS4
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The upcoming racing video game Project Cars is apparently getting ready to rev engines on the PS4, Xbox One and PC starting November 21.
The news comes from a tweet from retailer GAME, who posted a message claiming that the UK division of publisher Bandai Namco provided them with information regarding the video game's launch date.
Bandai Namco has yet to announce (or confirm) the proper launch date for the racer, aside from the previous reveal of a November window, but if the news is legitimate, expect the official announcement to land shortly.
The video game started out as a crowdfunded project and ended up way beyond its initial scope, offering a detailed and realistic driving and racing simulation.
Developer Slightly Mad Studios previously worked on Need for Speed: Shift and Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends, two entries in some of the most recognizable and long-standing racing video game franchises.
The community-based racing sim includes a full-fledged dynamic weather system that influences gameplay, and aims to deliver a realistic driving simulation, with several high-profile professional racing drivers working as consultants to make sure that the experience ends up as faithful as possible.
The game is said to drop on November 21 for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and a Nintendo Wii U version is also in the works, slated for release sometime next year.
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A brand new video from EGX London offers us the chance to see the upcoming racing game Project Cars in action on the PlayStation 4 home entertainment system from Sony.
http://youtu.be/llgSsy21CWs
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Asus Strix GTX 970 DirectCU II Overview
JJ from Asus North America give us an overview of the latest "Maxwell" based high end NVIDIA GPU. Specifically the GTX 970. What sets this card apart is its full non reference design. The PCB, VRM and heatsink as well as the fan assembly. All of these combine together to offer a card that is cooler , quieter and faster than the reference GTX 970 and offer truly impressive high resolution and ultra high image quality PC gaming. Improvements in efficiency as well as architecure allow for much lower power consumption while improving performance to rival that of a GTX 780, 780Ti as well the new GTX 980.
We also take a look at the card from the inside out providing information on the custom PCB as well as the VRM and explain the benefits of the Digi+ VRM implementation and its utilization of SAP power components. We also detail the complete DirectCU II heatsink and fan assembly which includes fans featuring a Dust Proof fan design as well as 0dB fan operation.
This is seriously an awesome card for those of you looking for a cards that offers great 1080 , 2560 and light 4K gaming performance and offers tons of features and functions including G-SYNC, GeForce Experience, PhysX, Shadowplay, MFAA, TXAA, DSR , 3D VISION, VXGI, Surround and more.
In the overview JJ cover:
- General design and features and functionality
- Maxwell architecture and benefits as well as GPU Specifications
- Temperatures and acoustics
- Overclocking
http://youtu.be/OmgV3E1Lt8E
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On the Xbox One you can have next-gen graphics or next-gen gameplay – not both
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We’re nearly one year into the Xbox One’s lifespan, and major exclusive titles are still being released at sub-1080p resolutions. Despite the fact that some cross-generation games like Destiny and Diablo III can run at full 1080p on Microsoft’s latest console, many big-name Xbox One titles still can’t hit that resolution without significantly compromising another aspect of the game. Even with the recent 10% GPU boost, Insomniac’s Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive is only going to hit 900p (1600×900) at 30 frames per second. Frankly, this doesn’t bode well for the Xbox One’s longevity.
In an interview with our sister site IGN, Insomniac’s Ted Price makes it very clear that Sunset Overdrive‘s gameplay is pushing the Xbox One hardware to its limits, and the resolution and frame rate suffer because of that. “This is a game with a lot on the screen and we made the choice to be at [900p] because we wanted to push the level of detail, action, the size of the city,” Price said. Sadly, it seems nigh-on impossible to offer the scope and complexity of a true next-gen gameplay experience while offering 1080p visuals on the Xbox One. As it stands, you can have one or the other — not both.
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Even with the 10% GPU bump, last year’s 10% CPU boost, and next year’s DirectX 12 release, titles on the Xbox One will likely struggle to hit 1080p for the rest of the console’s existence. When it comes down to it, the PS4
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This weird exoskeleton adds the sensation of touch to virtual reality
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Virtual reality is so much more than visuals, but most of what we’re used to seeing is little more than head-tracking and 3D imagery in a head-mounted display. For real immersion, VR is going to need to take advantage of the other senses as well. Touch and smell are just as important as sight and sound, but those are much harder problems to solve. Thankfully, a company by the name of Dexta Robotics is developing a peripheral to simulate the sensation of touch in a virtual world.
We’re on the brink of a massive wave of consumer-friendly virtual reality solutions. The Oculus Rift has stirred up enough interest over the last year or two that everyone from tiny engineering projects to giant corporations are investigating VR.
However, nearly everything we’ve seen is focused on the motion-tracking and display parts of the VR equation. Thankfully, this mechanical exoskeleton dubbed the “Dexmo F2” is being designed specifically to give you the experience of touching a solid object.
In a Q&A on Reddit, a Dexta representative went into the details of how this oddball mechanical skeleton works. In this early model, the pointer finger and the thumb are fitted with a tiny disc braking system that prevents the joints from moving past a specific point. If you’re trying to pick up a virtual object, your finger and thumb will actually meet resistance like it would if you were picking up an object in the real world.
The Oculus Rift paired with an omnidirectional treadmill creates an extremely immersive experience — but the sense of touch would take things to the next level.
Unfortunately, this prototype doesn’t have the ability to convey exactly how firm the object in question is. As it stands, the brakes are either on or off — there is no middle ground. It’s disappointing, but remember that this is extremely early on in the life of virtual touch. To keep costs down, this early model doesn’t even have the ability to simulate touch on the other three fingers. The prototype will supposedly be available through a Kickstarter campaign later this month for under $200, so keep that in mind before you go off and pre-order a Dexmo F2 for your very own.
This implementation is bulky, cumbersome, limited in scope, and extremely unattractive, but don’t let that fool you. If we want real virtual reality, we have to go through some growing pains. Of course your grandpa is never going to strap on this weird mechanical spider, but this kind of research is a stepping stone to true Matrix-style immersion.
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Microsoft’s RoomAlive makes your whole room a video game
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Early in 2013, Microsoft showed off IllumiRoom, its concept peripheral that took what was displayed on your television and extended it to the surrounding room. We haven’t heard much from IlllumiRoom in a while, but now Microsoft is back with the newest version of technology, RoomAlive.
IllumiRoom didn’t purport to put you into the game like a virtual reality headset, but it did aim to create an experience more immersive than playing a game displayed within the finite bounds of your television. The original IllumiRoom used a Kinect to record the geometry and colors of a room, then used a projector to extend the video displayed on the TV to the surrounding environment. Many people speculated that IllumiRoom would be the Xbox One’s (then referred to as the Xbox 720) killer feature, as IllumiRoom appeared to be the next evolution of the Kinect. Instead, we got a more evolved Kinect that was eventually dropped in favor of lowering the price of the flailing Xbox One. Though the Kinect wasn’t really accepted by gamers (or utilized well by game developers, to be fair), the IllumiRoom has the potential to provide a much better — and more utilized — experience. Now, with RoomAlive, we get to see the next evolution of that potential.
RoomAlive is still a concept, but it’s more advanced than IllumiRoom. It uses a similar rig — a Kinect strapped to projector depth-camera, known as a procam. Like the IllumiRoom, the Kinect is used as a sensor, and the projector is used to display imagery. Whereas the IllumiRoom uses one procam rig to extend the bounds of your television, RoomAlive uses six rigs to animate the whole room, and the Kinects’ sensor capabilities are used to make the whole display interactive. There’s a video of IllumiRoom at the end of the story, if you want to see how the two projects compare.
Essentially, RoomAlive — like IllumiRoom before it — is simply projection mapping used in an innovative way. With its animated wedding cake, Disney recently showed that projection mapping — even when relatively simple – can be impressive so long as it’s creative. RoomAlive is more complicated than projecting video onto the 3D surface of a cake, as it uses the Kinects to sense the shape of any room, then dynamically project the video onto the newly acquired geometry. Even more impressive, the Kinects track the head of the user as he moves around the room, and shift the image to his perspective.
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Installation is easy enough as well. Normally, someone would have to manually calibrate a project mapping system, but once the six procam rigs are set up, the Kinects do the calibrating themselves.
RoomAlive is still a concept, and doesn’t look like it will be the new gaming peripheral for a long time coming. However, the concept works — as seen in the above video — and it’s just a matter of refinement at this point, however long and arduous that process may be.
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Xbox One is selling in China, but can emerging markets help Microsoft compete with the PS4?
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After the end of a 14-year game console ban by the Chinese government, the Xbox One was finally introduced to that market in an official capacity late last month. On the first day of the console’s release, it sold a very respectable 100,000 units, and it’s anticipated that the Xbox One will continue to sell well over the next year. Will this early lead for Microsoft translate to domination in the growing Chinese market, or will Nintendo and Sony outpace the house that Halo built?
Chinese news site 17173 is reporting the “100,000
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How does PlayStation Now on the PS3 compare to the PS4?
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In September, Sony rolled out the PlayStation Now beta service to the PS3. The public beta has been available on the PS4 for a while now, but this additional release spurred me to take another look at the service. This time, I wanted to test the latency on both the PS3 and PS4. The former is practically ancient technology in 2014, and it’s WiFi configuration tops out at 802.11g. I was curious if that would make a difference when it came down to streaming a game.
Previously, I’ve written extensively regarding how PS Now feels shockingly responsive. Maybe I had extremely low expectations going in, but I’m consistently surprised at how well streamed games control over Sony’s service. If I play for more than a few minutes, I eventually forget completely about the crazy technology behind it, and just enjoy the game itself. I wanted to know more, though. The subjective “feel” test is undoubtedly important, but I wanted to know how well PS Now on PS3 stacked up to the experience on the PS4, so I began testing.
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Methodology
To get an idea of how the PS3 and PS4 stand up against each other, I wanted to perform three tests on each platform. So, I decided to test the latency of a PS Now in-game menu over an ethernet connection, the latency of a PS Now in-game menu over WiFi, and the latency of the local main menu on each device.
So, how am I estimating latency here? I don’t have access to high-end capture equipment, but I do have a video camera. I set up the shot with both my TV and controller in-frame, and then I hit “record.” From there, I pressed the D-pad ten times in a row, and then started the next test. I then imported the video to my computer, and counted the number of frames between a button press and a visual change on the screen.
My camera only shoots at 30 fps, but that’s beside the point. I’m by no means attempting to do extremely precise measurements here — all I need are ballpark results. 33 millisecond units of measurement are perfectly fine for this specific test. After all, I’m trying to compare multiple results against each other — not trying to calculate the purest latency data in a vacuum. In any case, the exact amount of latency would differ drastically depending on the quality of your connection, the distance from Sony’s server farm, and your specific network environment. Diving any deeper on this seems like a huge waste of time since it would only apply to people with my exact setup.
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Results
Across the board, the results were consistent with every test. With my set-up, it took roughly four frames (~115*milliseconds) for the screen to update on a wired connection on both platforms. Over WiFi, there was a tiny bit more latency at five frames (~150 milliseconds). For the local menu? One frame (0-33 milliseconds). The latency seems very consistent in my experience, and ultimately that makes even faster-paced games functional. As long as everything remains consistent, you can compensate quite effectively.
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Of course, these results shouldn’t be interpreted as gospel. I have a fiber internet connection, my router is only a few feet away from my consoles, I live in a relatively secluded area, and I had exclusive use of my home network during this test. If any part of the chain is sub-optimal for you, your gaming experience is bound to change on PS Now.
All of that said, I was very pleased to see the PS3‘s performance match up with the PS4‘s. Even with the 802.11g limitation of the PS3, it worked surprisingly well over WiFi. A wired connection is obviously preferable for any kind of streaming, but it shouldn’t make that much of a difference as long as your signal is strong, and there isn’t too much interference in your area. If you’re packed into a crowded apartment building with dozens of WiFi access points, you’ll want to stick to a wired connection, but that’s a small price to pay for top-drawer game streaming.
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Super Smash Bros. Launches on Wii U on November 21 in US, December 5 in Europe
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After a long wait, the development team at Nintendo has finally announced that it plans to launch the Wii U version of Super Smash Bros. on November 21 in the United States and on December 5 in Europe, with gamers able to also get the new Amiibo figurines in late November on both major markets.
Until then, fans of the series will be able to play the 3DS version of the title, which shares some characters but has different gameplay mechanics and a line-up that includes some different characters.
The information comes from the official site of the game and from a trailer which has been apparently posted a bit earlier than the company expected.
Rumors, including listing on online stores, have been talking about a November 21 launch date for Super Smash Bros. on the Wii U in the United States, but no one was expecting for Nintendo to introduce a two-week delay for the European market.
Probably the move is designed to make sure that the company has enough copies to satisfy initial demand in North America before it needs to also deliver big shipments to another continent.
The title is seen as the big launch which can boost sales of the Wii U home console all over the world and make it competitive with the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony.
Wii U versus 3DS
The 3DS version of Super Smash Bros. was launched first on all markets because the amount of bugs that the Quality Assurance team had to deal with was very high and one of the titles needed to be prioritized.
At the moment, the currently available version of the game has sold very well in Japan and will probably also do so in the West, where some stores have been reporting that they are running out of copies.
Nintendo has said that it has carefully chosen the characters that are included in both titles and that the core mechanics have been redesigned in order to attract a wider number of players while also keeping long-term fans satisfied.
For the first time, gamers can create their own custom fighters.
Super Smash Bros. will also get a lot of support from the development team in the long term, with updates that are designed to fix any issues that the community finds and reports and downlodable content that can add new fighters.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U & amiibo - Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0XfJJjAY6c
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Assassin’s Creed Unity locked to 900p @ 30 fps, due to Xbox One and PS4
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Ready for yet another Assassin’s Creed game? Too bad! Ubisoft is releasing Assassin’s Creed Unity on the Xbox One and PS4 later this year, but it might not be the next-gen experience you’ve been hoping for. A Ubisoft representative caused an internet uproar earlier this week when he explained that the game is currently limited to 900p at 30 fps on both consoles. Sub-1080p game releases are slightly disappointing in general, but the specific wording around this game lead many to believe that the PS4 edition is being intentionally hobbled for the sake of platform parity.
In an interview at Video Gamer, Ubisoft’s Vincent Pontbriand explains the large amount of AI computation required for Assassin’s Creed Unity is what’s impacting performance the most. The CPU — not the GPU — is the bottleneck here. If that’s true, that certainly explains why both versions of the game are running at a lower resolution and frame rate. While the PS4 does have a superior GPU, both consoles are using very similar AMD Jaguar CPUs.
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The crux of the issue comes down to the way Pontbriand explained the limitations. Specifically, he said “We decided to lock [both versions] at the same specs to avoid all the debates and stuff.” To some, that was PR-speak for “The PS4 is being hobbled to make it look on par to the Xbox One version.” However, that doesn’t actually seem to be the case.
In a statement made to Kotaku, a Ubisoft representative unambiguously states “We did not lower the specs for Assassin’s Creed Unity to account for any one system over the other.” Considering that Pontbriand claims in the original article that the engine could run at 100 fps on the current hardware if the bottleneck around AI computation wasn’t in the mix, I believe Ubisoft’s denial. This seems like a legitimate limitation of the CPUs in the current crop of consoles — not a back-room business deal.
It is notable that it’s the relatively wimpy Jaguar CPU that’s being scrutinized, and not the usual my-GPU-is-bigger-than-yours argument that has dominated Xbox One/PS4 hardware*spec debate so far. If developers are already running into issues with complex CPU-limited tasks, then it doesn’t bode overly well for the rest of the eighth generation.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a recurring issue for this generation of consoles. For many developers, there is a choice that has to be made between next-gen graphics or next-gen gameplay. Ubisoft is obviously willing to sacrifice frame rate and resolution in favor of drastically improved AI, but that seems to leave a bad taste in the mouths of many gamers and members of the enthusiast press. Frankly, it’s just disappointing to see so many games fail to hit 1080p60 in a world where 4K televisions and high frame rate video are proliferating so quickly.
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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Xbox One Digital Download Size Gets Revealed
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The size of the digital download for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has been revealed, less than a month before the game goes live.
The reveal comes from Reddit user RpLayy, who noticed the game's listing on the Xbox One store, showing that the size of the digital download is no less than 45.84 GB.
This seems to be the standard size for big releases these days and for the foreseeable future, which means that if you don't already own an external drive to help with your gaming needs, you would do well to start saving up for one, especially if you plan on getting multiple AAA blockbusters in the near future.
The game's Season Pass also popped up on the store page, and the thing is priced at $50 / €39 / £35, the traditional rate, but for the time being, no information related to its content is available. However, as we inch even closer to launch, developer Sledgehammer Games is bound to reveal more.
For the time being, the listing states that the Season Pass will grant buyers access to four "action-packed" downloadable content packs, to be released over the course of next year.
Packed with a new kind of action
If you're wondering what you're getting for that hefty 45.84 GB download, well, Sledgehammer Games aim to revitalize the series by taking it in a different direction, just like Visceral Games is doing with the Battlefield series, in the upcoming Battlefield Hardline.
While Hardline will shift from DICE's usual military-based action to an urban setting, focusing on playing cops and robbers, Advanced Warfare is a much more exciting departure from the Call of Duty series' usual setting, with its action taking place in the near future.
This enabled Sledgehammer Games to toy around with the base package, and the introduction of many exciting technologies has spruced up multiplayer gameplay quite a bit. The annual installments in the series saw many people complaining that the action, although fun, was getting a bit stale, not warranting the serialization that publisher Activision decided to make the norm.
A ton of exciting additions
Apart from a huge pack of new tricks to pull off in multiplayer clashes, including jump boosts and side boosts, cloaking technology, multi-purpose hand-mounted rockets and grenades, the developer also intends to deliver a gripping story in the single-player campaign.
The storyline won't feature the usual clear-cut heroes versus villains dynamic of previous episodes, but will instead explore a morally gray area where power subtly turns into abuse, and where former protectors slowly turn into oppressors.
The engrossing story will be supported by performances by talented voice actors, with Kevin Spacey playing the role of Jonathan Irons, the game's main antagonist.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is scheduled to come out on November 4 worldwide, headed to the PC, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 home consoles from Sony, and the Xbox 360 and Xbox One entertainment devices from Microsoft.
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Sony Will Be Selling PS4 Console To China By December
Attachment 10123
Bloomberg - Sony Corp plans to start packaging new video game consoles for the China market from December as it seeks to win sales in the world’s most populous nation after the end of a 14-year ban on the machines.
Sony’s venture for China intends to package 200,000 consoles annually, according to a filing on the website of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. Masaki Tsukakoshi, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., confirmed the document’s authenticity and said actual production amounts may differ.
Gaming is one of the few bright spots for Sony, which is headed for its sixth annual loss in seven years despite selling more than 10 million units of its PlayStation 4 console. Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has already started selling its Xbox One in China, with a limited range of titles because of government restrictions.
“There’s an opportunity” in China, said Atul Goyal, a Singapore-based analyst at Jefferies Group LLC. “But it remains to be seen if the upside is large or small.”
Sony said it agreed to form two ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group Co. (600832) to start making and selling consoles after China lifted its ban, according to a filing by the China partner in May. Sony will have a 70 percent stake in one venture for hardware production and 49 percent in the other, for software sales and networks.
“We have not disclosed the launch date in China yet,” Sony’s Tsukakoshi said.
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Dragon Age: Inquisition PC System Requirements Revealed, Accessible to Most Gamers
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The title will also be playable on home consoles
The development team at BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts are ready to reveal the PC system requirements for the upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition, allowing gamers to see how their configurations measure up and to maybe get in an upgrade before the November 18 launch date.
According to the official site the minimum specification required for the role playing game powered by the Frostbite 3 engine are:
Windows 7 or 8.1 64-bit
AMD quad core CPU @ 2.5 GHz or Intel quad core CPU @ 2.0 GHz
4 GB of RAM
AMD Radeon HD 4870 or NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB RAM
26 GB of free hard drive space
DirectX 10
The recommended system requirements include:
Windows 7 or 8.1 64-bit
AMD six core CPU @ 3.2 GHz or Intel quad core CPU @ 3.0 GHz
8 GB of RAM
AMD Radeon HD 7870 or R9 270 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 with 2 GB of RAM
26 GB of free hard drive space
DirectX 11
A one time authentication also requires a connection to the Internet.
Dragon Age: Inquisition can also be played on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 as well as last gen consoles and is the most important role playing launch of the year, a very ambitious title which aims to blend the complexity and the dynamics of previous entries in the series.
8 Minutes of Dragon Age Inquisition Gameplay - Gamescom 2014
http://youtu.be/cuR2zMuUBaY
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Destiny Is Still Enjoyed by 3.2 Million Players Every Day
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It’s been a month since developer Bungie released Destiny, the overhyped science fiction first-person shooter destined to become publisher Activision’s third multi-billion dollar franchise, joining the likes of Call of Duty and Skylanders.
Since then, the publisher reports, players have been relentlessly exploring the Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars, in spite of the game being criticized for its lack of compelling story or engaging and interesting gameplay, at least compared to gamers’ expectations.
A lot of action
Activision revealed that Destiny has 3.2 million daily players, who spend an average of three hours immersed into the futuristic world imagined by Bungie.
“It’s been an incredible first month for Destiny,” said Pete Parsons, COO at Bungie. “Players are logging more hours per day then any game we have ever made, our servers have withstood millions of guardians experiencing Destiny and none of it would have been possible without our amazing community.”
Along with other achievements and statistics, the developer revealed that the average Destiny player has logged into the game at least 21 times since launch, and that the game is played 1.8 times per day on average.
Bungie also mentioned that in the past three weeks, Destiny had more active players than Halo 3 and Halo: Reach combined, for the entire time span of the two titles.
And a lot more still to come
The developer is committed to improving its customers experience, and the Iron Banner, the latest event hosted by Bungie, was criticized for not delivering on people’s expectations, and as such the company promised to fix things going forward.
The main beef gamers had was with the fact that although the Iron Banner event was advertised as giving a shot at immortality to high-level players, it turned out to still make skill a big factor in the equation, which lead to a lot of low-level proficient gamers taking out hardcore looters with ease, which annoyed a portion of the game’s fanbase.
The team explained that the main goal was to keep things somewhat balanced in the Crucible, and to offer raiders a palpable advantage, but not one that would be impossible to overcome, even for new characters.
Bungie is grateful to its fans
In any case, the numbers published by Bungie are impressive nonetheless, especially when you consider that people are still enjoying several hours of content each day, a month after the game’s release.
The developer thanked its fans for building such a strong community and for the passion and enthusiasm with which they engage in playing the game, mentioning that just looking at the raw numbers made them feel like the journey was well worth the effort.
Read more....
Destiny is available for purchase on disc or via digital download on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®3, Xbox One and Xbox 360.The official website is here Destinythegame
Official Destiny gameplay trailer
http://youtu.be/jv7vqCmt6wY
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Wii U's Big October Exclusive, Bayonetta 2, Gets a Demo Today
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Wii U action game Bayonetta 2 is now just about two weeks away from launch, but you needn't wait any longer to try it out for yourself. Today's eShop update in North America and Europe brings with it a demo of Platinum Games' latest effort.
Bayonetta 2 has been positioned as an important exclusive for Wii U--not on the tier of Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart, but the sort of hardcore game Nintendo's platforms are often accused of not having enough of. Reviews out of Japan, where the game has now been available for several weeks, have been positive, though early sales were not especially strong.
The original Bayonetta, which was also developed by Platinum, was released only on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Fortunately for those who have only owned Nintendo hardware--or those simply eager to replay a very good game--the game is packed in as a bonus with Bayonetta 2.
For its part, Platinum is interested in working again with Nintendo, Bayonneta 2's publisher, in the future. "I feel that it's important to let your creativity flow and Nintendo has been able to provide us with the freedom to do what we had originally envisioned," director Yusuke Hashimoto said earlier this year.
Bayonetta 2 launches in North America and Europe on October 24.
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Wii U - Bayonetta 2 Launch Trailer
http://youtu.be/MEyuZ6Kf2u4
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How Can Wii U Beat PS4, Xbox One? It's all About Content, Nintendo Exec Says
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Nintendo executive says selling systems comes down to having compelling software.
Nintendo's Wii dominated the last generation of consoles, selling 100 million units, compared to around 80 million each for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. But so far in this generation, the PlayStation 4's 7 million units sold is already ahead of the Wii U's latest confirmed sales figure of 6.17 million, despite Sony's console launching an entire year after Nintendo's. How can Nintendo improve its fortunes and come out on top this console generation? That's the question IGN put to Nintendo of America executive Reggie Fils-Aime during a recent interview.
"It's all about content," Fils-Aime said. "For us, if you look back at what we were able to do during the Wii generation. What we're able to do with DS. What we're doing now with 3DS. It's about content. It's about content that widens the footprint for the platform. It's about content that drives the install base. And as we do that, guess what? People buy hardware."
Reggie said as people buy Wii U consoles, they'll talk with their friends about the "great experiences that they're having," and this will in turn lead to even more sales, he argued. He went on to suggest that though the Wii U has gotten off to a slower start than Nintendo might have wanted, it doesn't mean the console can't reach 100 million units sold someday.
"That's what we did with the Wii. That's what we did with the DS on a global basis. That's what we're looking to do with both 3DS and Wii U, but it starts with content," Fils-Aime said. "And that's why, for us, at events like E3, our developers spend so much time talking about the content and how we're driving innovation there."
Explaining why the Wii U may have gotten off to a slow start, Fils-Aime acknowledged that games like Super Mario 3D World, Wii Fit U, Pikmin 3, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD were all late to market. "These are all games that we wanted to launch earlier in the system's life," he said. As a result, Nintendo was unable to gather sufficient momentum.
But this is now changing. Mario Kart 8 launched in late May and sold more than 2 million copies during its first month. The game also drove some "very nice momentum" for Nintendo's business overall, Fils-Aime said. Looking ahead, Nintendo will look to games like Bayonetta 2 and the new Super Smash Bros. game for continued growth. "We think it's this pace of product launch that we need to really drive momentum for Wii U," Fils-Aime said.
But it's not just about games for Nintendo. The company will launch an ambitious toys-to-life initiative called amiibo later this year.
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The best SSDs of 2014: A buyers guide
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When I sat down to write this article, I thought it would be straightforward: “Write an SSD guide,” my editor said. “Make some recommendations!” he said. What could be simpler?
It turns out, quite a bit — but the good thing about getting hip-deep into a product segment is that I get to wade back out and describe the thinking process that ought to go into choosing an SSD. This guide is written for those of you who bought a small SSD back in 2008-2010 and are now looking for an upgrade, as well as those who are hopping in for the first time and are looking for a basic primer.
What SSD should I buy? (The short answer)
If you’re a consumer who wants a high-capacity drive with high performance and you’re comfortable applying a drive firmware patch, buy a Samsung 840 Evo. Buy nothing smaller than 256GB unless you’re absolutely sure you won’t need it. If you don’t want TLC NAND (more on what TLC is later) but you do want a cheap high-capacity drive that doesn’t skimp on performance, Crucial’s M550 1TB is a good alternative.
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Samsung 850 Pro SSD
Even those of you looking for a simple answer should be aware that performance can vary significantly between drive families — the 840 Evo 1TB and M550 1TB are roughly the same speed, but the 840 Evo 256GB is much faster than the M550 256GB. More data on this is shown below.
As of October 2014, and probably into 2015, if you want the highest performing drive money can buy today, buy a Samsung 850 Evo.
SSDs: What’s changed (and what hasn’t)
There have been several significant shifts in SSDs since the drives first began to hit the very top of the consumer market. First and foremost, prices have come down drastically. The cheapest SSDs are now close to 40 cents per gigabyte, while expensive high-performance drives are hitting around $1.
Second, drive performance has both improved and become more consistent. Back in the dawn of the SSD era, it wasn’t unusual to find test cases (typically random read/writes) where certain SSDs would fall off a proverbial cliff. In severe cases, SSDs might even lag traditional mechanical hard drives.
Third, SSD performance is hitting a significant wall. The SATA 6G interface that first debuted in 2010 is largely tapped — even modest drives are capable of saturating its 600MB/s (in practice, more like 550MB/s) in at least some tests. This is one reason why the manufacturer specs on two drives can be so similar, even when they perform quite differently in real-world tests.
One critical factor to keep in mind when buying a modern SSD is that capacity and performance are often linked — but the size and significance of that link varies greatly. The following chart from Tech Report’s review of the Adata SP610 illustrates this very well.
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Look at Crucial’s M500 drive. At 240GB, it’s the slowest drive in TR’s data set. At 480GB, the same M500 family is nearly 60% faster. The M500 960GB variant is 11% faster yet, with the lowest overall price per GB. The M500 960GB is approximately 1.8x faster than the M500 240GB across Tech Report’s entire benchmark suite.
Now, contrast that against the 840 Evo family. While there’s still a gap between top and bottom, the 250GB Evo ranks in at 800% of standard HDD speed, the 500GB drive is around 940%, and the 840 Evo is around 980%. The gap between the top and bottom products is perhaps 20% as opposed to 80%.
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Turn your PS4 into a laptop for $1100
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If you’re sick and tired of playing your PS4 in the living room, the solution is finally here. The man who brought you the Xbox One laptop has finally developed a very similar device designed for those of us who prefer gaming on the PS4. This so-called “PlayBook 4″ doesn’t come cheap, though. Converting your existing console into a laptop form factor will end up costing you around $1,100 plus shipping.
Ed Zarick, the man behind some of the most well-known laptopified consoles, has done it again. This PS4-based laptop is modeled in 3D on a PC, and made with a combination of 3D-printing, laser cutting, and CNC milling. Each one is made to order, so you can choose exactly how it looks. The core unit color can be either black or white, and 3D-printed trim can be just about any color imaginable. Based on what Zarick has shown off, the PlayBook 4 looks just as polished as his previous efforts, so the aesthetically-minded among us will be very pleased.
http://youtu.be/f20p5BOm4P0
Along with the guts of a PS4 and the custom housing, this console laptop also uses a 22-inch 1080p display from Vizio. It’s not exactly the same experience as playing a game on your 65-inch TV at home, but with a pixel density of roughly 100 PPI, those games are going to look incredibly crisp.
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PS4 system software update 2.0 brings music playback and better voice commands
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Sony’s upcoming 2.0 firmware update for the PS4 is bound to be a doozy. Not only will it add support for multiplayer game streaming with Share Play, but Sony has just announced a handful of surprisingly solid features slated for this fall. From music playback to better social features to improved voice commands, PlayStation enthusiasts are in store for some significant new features in this release, codenamed “Masamune.”
Back at Gamescom, Sony first teased the 2.0 update. Share Play and built-in YouTube export were the headlining features, but this release will offer much more than that. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony’s Scott McCarthy outlines some of the new features that system software 2.0 brings to the PS4, and it looks very promising.
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Much ado was made over the PS4
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Analyzing the iMac 5K Retina display: How do you squeeze 5K out of a last-gen GPU?
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Apple announced a new 27-inch iMac yesterday, and it packs a significant wallop on the display front. As we’ve already detailed, these new 5K displays are thinner, cheaper, draw less power thanks to a more-efficient LED backlight, and, perhaps most importantly, Apple is selling the whole 27-inch iMac system at a mind-blowing price of $2500. That’s the same price tag on Dell’s 5K monitor.
In other words, either Apple is going to sell this display at an incredible loss, or Dell was making an incredible profit. The latter is distinctly more likely than the former — and despite Apple’s claim that it’s developed an entirely new TCON (Timing Controller), this is distinctly unlikely.
A late-2014 display hooked to an early 2012 GPU
The GPU powering the 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display is the R9 M290X, with the R9 M295X offered as an optional upgrade. The R9 M295X hasn’t technically been announced, but rumors from months back suggested this would be a Tonga-class GPU. Regardless, the R9 M290X is the minimum spec — and that chip is a rebranded HD 8970M, which was a rebranded HD 7970M, which is functionally equivalent to a desktop Radeon HD 7870.
In other words, the GPUs inside the new iMac are going to be limited to DisplayPort 1.2. That matters, because it takes roughly 17.2Gbps of bandwidth to drive a 4K @ 60 fps signal in a single stream (Single Stream Transport). To summarize the difference between SST and MST, an MST display creates two half-width tiles on the monitor and interleaves two different DisplayPort streams together to create a contiguous image, while an SST display functions like a standard monitor. MST and SST displays typically look identical in common applications, but some games support MST poorly, resulting in menus or functions crammed into half the monitor, or movies playing back in a squashed, half-width format.
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Critically, however, MST is the only way to drive a larger-than-4K panel. DisplayPort 1.2 has just enough bandwidth to support a single 4K @ 60 fps SST stream, but 5K is far too large for the standard. When Apple talks about a 40-gigabit TCON, it may have designed a single TCON to output to two DP 1.2 streams — that’s not technically impossible — but it’s not being done with a single stream within the DP 1.2 spec.
Since Tonga doesn’t support HDMI 2.0 or DP 1.3 (which does support 5K SST), DP 1.2 is the only available standard to piggy-back. If Apple had somehow redesigned the TCON to compress a 5K stream into existing DisplayPort 1.2 bandwidth, it wouldn’t need a 40Gbps TCON in the first place. Anandtech notes that there’s another possibility — Apple may indeed have designed its own TCON, overclocked it, customized it for low overhead timing, and be pulling just enough bandwidth out of DP 1.2 to get it done. Here, the question of refresh rate becomes critical –5K @ 60Hz requires far more bandwidth than 5K @ 30Hz does.
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This kind of issue is common with MST — but did Apple overclock DP to hit higher bandwidths and avoid MST?
Either way, Apple would have to overclock the DisplayPort signal by 50-100% to hit the bandwidth it needs for 5K on single stream transport.
Refresh rates, gaming, and scaling
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The many clever layers of the iMac with Retina display
One major point that Apple left out of the discussion is whether or not these monitors are 30Hz or 60Hz. Hopefully 60Hz — I expect 60Hz — but 30Hz wouldn’t surprise me. The overwhelming majority of video in the US is shot at either 24p or 29.97p, both of which would be supported by a 5K @ 30Hz monitor.
Scaling is another potential issue — but Apple has always done this one better than Microsoft and 5120×2880 has exactly four times the pixels of the old 2560×1440 monitors, which should make scaling up relatively simple.
Finally, gaming — and here’s where the reality is going to bite. You aren’t going to be doing any gaming on a 5K display at anything like high detail levels. You may not even pull it off at low detail levels, and for a very simple reason: The R9 M290 is a midrange GPU from 2012 boxing way, way out of its weight class on this one. Despite the term, 5K is not 25% more pixels than 4K — it’s almost two times as many pixels.
Not even dual GTX 980s in SLI could drive 60-fps high-detail gaming on that kind of rig. And that means there’s no chance any AMD mobile GPU — even if the R9 M295 is a Tonga implementation — is going to be able to do it either.
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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Gets a Gameplay Launch Trailer Two Weeks Before Actual Release
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The development team at Sledgehammer Games and publisher Activision are delivering an official gameplay launch trailer for their upcoming Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which is designed to show both newcomers and long-term fans the core features that are being added to the title this year.
The weird element of the release is that the two companies are offering a launch-related trailer even if the game is only supposed to be offered on the PC, the PlayStation 4, the PS3, the Xbox One, the 360 and other platforms on November 4 all over the world.
Those who are interested in getting access to the first-person shooter 24 hours earlier can pre-order the title and get the Day Zero Edition of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which is unlocked on November 3 and also introduces double experience for a 24 hour period.
The new title is designed to take gamers to the future, with the art of combat revolutionized by a range of technological innovations which also disrupt the normal government process.
Activision states, “Rising from the chaos is Atlas, a Private Military Corporation led by the cunning Jonathan Irons. With the most powerful military force in the world, Atlas has effectively become a superpower for hire. Playing as Jack Mitchell, suit up in an advanced exoskeleton and join a highly-trained unit committed to restoring order.”
Exo-skeleton and the future of Call of Duty
The new exo-skeleton element of the franchise is designed to make it easier for players to explore levels and gain positional advantages in multiplayer battles.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare also makes it easier to dodge and dash in order to avoid enemy attacks, and a new powerful melee attack has also been introduced.
The use of the exo-skeleton also means that it’s easier than ever for players to customize their abilities and their weapons in order to suit their play style.
Sledgehammer Games has promised that the new game modes, Momentum and Uplink, are designed to offer new experiences on the launch maps and that there are also more classic choices for long-term fans.
More attention has also been lavished on the single-player campaign, which is longer and introduces more emotion-driven elements.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has been lagging behind previous releases in the series in terms of pre-orders and the delivery of a launch trailer so soon might be a sign that Activision is looking to get the community to engage more with the title.
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Official Call of Duty®: Advanced Warfare Gameplay Launch Trailer
http://youtu.be/YSp8ZqIKEIM
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AMD slashes APU prices: Are they finally better value than a dual-core Intel Core i3?
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When AMD launched its Kaveri APU back in January we praised the innovative heterogeneous design and its improved CPU and GPU, but expressed reservations over the relatively high price. Today, AMD is cutting prices across its APU product lines — and tossing in free games as well. Buy an APU between now and the end of October, and the company will include a coupon for one of three games — Murdered: Soul Suspect, Thief, or Sniper Elite 3. All of these are Gaming Evolved titles, with both Thief and Sniper Elite 3 supporting the company’s Mantle API as well.
AMD’s new price chart looks like this:
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AMD’s new prices. GPUs with an asterisk next to the core count are based on AMD’s older VLIW4 architecture.
These new prices haven’t made it out to all the retailers yet, but the cuts are significant. AMD is slashing its top end prices by 15-25% — and in the process, it’s aligning itself to be more competitive against both Intel and its own FX family. Part of what made the A10-7850K a hard sell at $189 is that the chip was going toe-to-toe with AMD’s FX-8370 — an eight-core processor with a 4.3GHz top frequency compared to Kaveri’s 4GHz. Toss in superior multithreaded performance from the Core i3-4330 parked at $140, and the APU line was difficult to justify for the average buyer.
With the A10-7850K now dropping to $143, it’s positioned squarely against the Core i3-4330, and while the Intel dual-core will still win that comparison on the CPU side, the A10-7850K’s GPU is far more powerful than anything Intel can summon. Consumers who want lower TDPs and are willing to pass on overclocking also have the option of the A10-7800, a 65W chip with the same GPU core, a very slightly slower CPU, and an even lower price.
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Chipzilla vs. AMD
Combine these prices with the fact that AMD motherboards tend to be cheaper than their Intel counterparts (an Asus Z97-P motherboard at NewEgg is $120 while an Asus A88XM-Plus runs $88), and there’s a real argument to made for AMD. It’s particularly strong if you’re considering a Richland-class CPU + standalone GPU (the A10-6800K is a good contender for this spot). Conversely, if you want something low-power but with stronger gaming than an Intel standalone CPU, the A8-7600 is hard to beat at $93 and 45W.
If you primarily care about strong single-threaded CPU performance, these new price points aren’t going to change your buying preferences, but AMD has just made it considerably easier to argue for an APU. There may come a point in the future where CPU and GPU cores can be equally weighted when choosing a chip, but for now there’s a distinct lack of consumer-level GPGPU applications. These cuts should stimulate adoption of AMD’s GCN-equipped, Kaveri-class APUs at all price points and thereby serve AMD’s own long-term interests admirably.
AMD has also cut the price on its lowest-end chips, with the A4-5300 coming in at $31 and the A4-4000 at $27. While these are likely too underpowered for most users, if you need a*really*cheap dual-core system, the chips are there.
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Microsoft: Gears of War on Xbox One Goes Back to the Franchise's Roots
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Microsoft, the new owner of the Gears of War franchise rights, confirms that the next installment in the series that's set to debut on the Xbox One at some point in time is going back to the slightly darker roots of the series, doubling down on the core elements and what its initial experiences were all about.
Gears of War appeared for the Xbox 360 back in 2006 and sparked a revolution in the third-person shooter genre, introducing elements such as cover-based shooting, not to mention one of the best exclusive experiences for the Xbox platform.
Last year, Microsoft surprised quite a lot of people when it confirmed that it had acquired the rights to the Gears of War franchise from developer Epic Games, and that it was tasking the newly formed Black Tusk Studios with making a new title in the series for the Xbox One platform.
Gears of War for Xbox One goes back to the franchise's roots
Now, after hearing statements from the likes of Rod Fergusson, who led the production of the series at Epic Games and now is in charge of the new title at Black Tusk, Microsoft Xbox boss Phil Spencer shares his own thoughts on the new game.
First up, he tells IGN that Gears of War is about quite a few big elements, such as the "epic scale, the settings that I was in, the massive destruction moments."
What's more, he hopes that the new title is going to go back to the slightly darker roots of the franchise, such as in the first title, where "it was more what I would call soulful and maybe even a little dark."
"I think [about] the story and the setting and what they’re going through as a band. Gears of War, the name really meant something to what that game was about. We need to get back to that," Spencer explains.
The new game is the first step in a new decade-long experience
Spencer also confirms that the new Gears of War for Xbox One will spark a fresh decade-long experience for fans.
"I think we can continue, but we also have a new team. Rod’s there to really help with the continuity. We can really invest in this thing for the next decade, which is how I want to think about it."
It's going to be interesting to see just how Gears of War is shaping up, although Microsoft might not share anything concrete until at least summer of 2015, probably at E3.
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http://youtu.be/voOX7vCjOCo
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Assassin’s Creed Unity’s crazy minimum PC specs: $500 GPU, $200 CPU, 50GB storage
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Ubisoft has announced the minimum requirements for the PC version of Assassin’s Creed Unity — and, well, they’re a little bit puzzling to say the least. At a bare minimum, the new Assassin’s Creed game will require an Nvidia GTX 680 or AMD Radeon HD 7970, 6GB of RAM, and a Core i5-2500K or Phenom II X4 940 CPU. The recommended specs take that up to a Core i7-3770 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a top-of-the-line GTX 780 or Radeon R9 290X. We know that the Xbox One and PS4 struggle with Assassin’s Creed Unity — they are both locked to*900p @ 30 fps — but even the*minimum*PC specs are about twice the*processing power present in the Xbox One. What on earth is going on?
To round out the minimum PC specs for Assassin’s Creed Unity, it also requires 50GB of free space, and a 64-bit version of Windows 7 SP1. Your GTX 680 or HD 7970 needs 2GB of RAM, too. To put the hardware specs into perspective, the GTX 680 is Nvidia’s top-end single-GPU card from 2012 which retailed for $500. The same GK104 GPU then got reused in the GTX 770 in 2013 — which cost $400 at launch, but is available for around $300 today. It’s pretty much the same story for the Radeon HD 7970; two years ago, it was AMD’s top-end $500 card.
Unity’s minimum CPU requirement is a little less insane — the Core i5-2500K was a mid-range part that retailed for $220 — but still, when we factor in the 6GB of RAM, the minimum specs equate to a*pretty serious gaming PC in 2012; something in the $1000+ range. Heck, even today a GTX 680 or 770 is a pretty decent card that will play just about anything at 1920×1080. (And let’s not even discuss that insane 50GB storage requirement; I think we’ll talk about that in a separate story.)
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Assassin’s Creed Unity should be very pretty on the PC
So, what’s going on?
Clearly, Assassin’s Creed Unity is a beefy game — while the Xbox One and PS4 aren’t exactly cutting-edge hardware, it’s still telling that they’re locked to just 1600×900 @ 30 fps. Still, bear in mind that Ubisoft’s minimum PC requirements ask for a GPU*that’s capable of around*4 teraflops — or twice the theoretical processing power of the PS4
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PS4 leads Xbox One by at least 40% in global sales: Has Sony already won this console generation?
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Both the Xbox One and PS4 will celebrate their first birthday next month, and as they head into their second holiday season and first full fourth-quarter availability, it’s interesting to take a look at how the two consoles have performed so far. All evidence suggests a significant advantage for the PlayStation 4, with a sales gap of at least 40% between the two systems, and possibly as large as 100% (2:1 in favor of the PS4).
That figure — a total sales gap of 40% between the two consoles — comes courtesy of Ars Technica, which performed some analysis based on reported sales of all consoles, previous sales figures, and remarks from executives from both Microsoft and Sony. The data, which tallies nicely with our own analysis of eight-gen console sales, represents the best-case scenario, using figures that maximize the Xbox One sales results and minimize the PS4′s performance. In reality, the PS4 could be running at 2:1 advantage or even more, and that’s before we head into the holiday season.
Is this a problem? In the short term, no. The fact is, the Xbox 360 had an equally large lead over the PS3 for years. Sony’s console wasn’t just plagued by its high price, it was stuck with minimal attach rates and, initially, lower-quality titles. It was difficult to optimize for the PS3′s Cell processor, and a number of its first games struggled to match the Xbox 360′s quality, much less surpass it. Throw in Sony’s epic screwup around rumble (and the unmourned, incredibly-annoying Sixaxis controller), the initially uncertain value of its Blu-ray player, and a host of hubris and jaw-dropping statements, and the Xbox 360 was the odds-on favorite to win the console generation. In reality, the two systems ended up at rough parity with the PS3 actually outselling the Xbox 360 over the very long term.
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Battlefield Hardline Launches on March 17, 2015
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Video game developer Visceral Games and publisher Electronic Arts are confirming that they are now aiming to launch their already delayed Battlefield Hardline on March 17 of 2015, on the PC, the Xbox One from Microsoft, the PlayStation 4 from Sony and last-gen consoles.
The two companies are not ready to offer more details about the core features of the game or how they have been transformed since it was first pushed back from its original date.
Battlefield Hardline was supposed to arrive this fall in order to provide competition to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, but the beta test revealed some issues with the experience which prompted the development team and the publisher to announce a delay.
Visceral Games says that since then it has made a number of changes to the mechanics, all of them based on the feedback that the community has offered.
The single player of Battlefield Hardline will take gamers to Miami where they will take on the role of officer Nick Mendoza, who has just been promoted to detective and finds himself in the middle of a major drug operation.
Alongside partner Khai Minh Dao, he needs to investigate a cartel and quickly finds how deep corruption can run and how it affects even those who say they serve the law.
The developers are saying that the core structure of the campaign is inspired by both Hollywood movies and by recent top level television-based episodic dramas.
A focus on multiplayer for Battlefield Hardline
The Battlefield series is best known for the complex multiplayer experiences that it offers and Hardline is no different.
Visceral Games states, "You’re on one side of the law or the other — a baton or bat, stun gun or rifle, armored police truck or powerful muscle cars. But either way, teamwork is going to be essential if you’re going to want to pull off that perfect heist or big time bust in this new take on Battlefield multiplayer."
In the initial beta, gamers complained that the two sides were too similar and that some weapons were not balanced correctly.
Since then, Visceral Games has made changes which will themselves be tested in another beta period which is set to take place during the winter of this year.
It will be interesting to see how Battlefield Hardline will perform when it arrives on March 17 and what other titles might get launched at the same time to compete with it.
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Far Cry 4 Stands Out from Previous Titles Through Story, Choices
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Ubisoft believes that the upcoming Far Cry 4 stands outs from its predecessors by offering a much more complex story that's more about meaningful choices and less about the quest of the main protagonist against the world.
Far Cry games have delivered some vastly different experiences over the years, starting with Far Cry 1, which focused on a mercenary that needs to stop mutants from escaping a tropical island. Far Cry 2 retained the mercenary focus but shifted the action to Africa, while Far Cry 3 opted to go the tropical island route while putting players in the shoes of a regular guy.
With Far Cry 4, things change altogether, as players take on the role of regular guy Ajay Ghale, who goes back to his native country of Kyrat, located in the Himalayas.
Far Cry 4 stands out from its predecessors
Ubisoft now explains the differences between Far Cry 4 and the previous titles in the series in a more detailed way, thanks to Creative Director Alex Hutchinson, who has talked with IGN about the new title.
According to the developer, the complex story and the choices that can be made throughout it distance Far Cry 4 from the rest of the series. However, some actual gameplay mechanics are retained, such as the crafting or skill systems from Far Cry 3, so fans shouldn't expect that big of a departure.
"Far Cry 4 is much more focused on the player and allowing you to solve problems and make choices that feel right to you, so there is much less of a traditional hero’s journey. We’ve brought back the crafting and skill systems from Far Cry 3 with many improvements, and we’ve applied these to the story as well: Ajay is your introduction to the world, but the choices he makes are up to you as a player," he explains.
The new shooter also offers more feedback to players
Besides allowing players to go through the story, the game also offers more feedback to them, in the form of consequences for the actual choices, not to mention extra tools to really interact with the world of Kyrat.
"Far Cry 4 is different to both," Hutchinson says in regards to Far Cry 2 and 3. "We are aiming to give the player more tools and toys and options than ever before, but to show them that these choices have consequences: Who do you choose to elect as leader of the Golden Path? How do you choose to conquer Pagan’s empire?"
Far Cry 4 debuts on November 18 in North America and November 20 in Europe and the rest of the world for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One platforms.
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Assassin’s Creed Unity is beautiful on the PC – and tuned exclusively for Nvidia GPUs
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The best free games on the Xbox One
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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.
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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.
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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.
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HP’s Sprout attempts to replace the keyboard with a built-in 3D camera and projector
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Xbox One readies shift to 20nm – but can a smaller node help it match the PS4’s performance?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Watch out: If you installed the PS4 2.0 firmware update, don’t use Rest Mode
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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.
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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.
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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Runs at 1080p on PS4, 1360x1080 on Xbox One
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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
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Dragon Age: Inquisition Comes to EA Access on November 13 with Six-Hour Trial
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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.
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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is running at a bizarre resolution on the Xbox One
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Grand Theft Auto 5 Has First-Person Mode on PS4, Xbox One, and PC
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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.
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Check out the first-person experience in GTA 5 in the video below.
http://youtu.be/7oFmRN0oadI
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Sony Confirms PS Plus November, December, January 2015 Lineups
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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.
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