The developer behind hit martial arts games like Absolver and Sifu, SloClap, is going in a whole new direction for its next game. Announced at The Game Awards 2024 show earlier today, Rematch aims to bring action gameplay to the football/soccer sports genre, and drops all the boring rules like fouls and offsides. Watch the reveal trailer above.

Instead of long-form games with 22 players on the field, Rematch is going for fast-paced 5v5 matchups with short timers. It's played in a close-up, third-person perspective as well, which SloClap says offers a "unique immersion in the ebb and flow of the match."

"Football is a beautiful game, a precise choreography of bodies in movement. At its core, this game is all about being in the right place, at the right time, and in the right dynamic. And then of course, executing perfectly," says the studio.

With players only being able to control their own player at all times, ball control, tackling, shooting, dribbling, and shooting are a big aspect of the entry. However, despite the action and focus on solo, skill-based gameplay, players will have to cooperate heavily with their teammates to win against opposing teams.

However, some rules from soccer like offsides, fouls, and pauses are not here in Rematch, letting players pull off all the moves they WANT to win matches in this sports title with an arcade-twist. The online-only multiplayer title is planned to receive seasonal updates by Sloclap, bringing new modes, cosmetic options, and other elements following launch.

Rematch is coming out across PC, Xbox, and PlayStation platforms in summer of 2025. Sloclap is currently accepting sign-ups for beta invites on its official website for those wanting to jump in early.

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Following its work with The Last of Us, Uncharted, and a host of classic titles prior to that, Naughty Dog is moving on to a brand-new IP for its next project. Unveiled on stage at The Game Awards 2024 show today as its last surprise, the developer showed off a trailer for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, catch it above.

The trailer itself, with its odd product placement shots, doesn't make much sense, but thankfully, Naughty Dog had a blog post ready to go on PlayStation.com. The story has a certain Jordan A. Mun as the protagonist. A bounty hunter that is stranded on a planet that seemingly traps anyone who lands on it.

Here's how Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann studio described the setting:

Intergalactic stars our newest protagonist, Jordan A. Mun, a dangerous bounty hunter who ends up stranded on Sempiria – a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago. In fact, anyone who’s flown to it hoping to unravel its mysterious past was never heard from again. Jordan will have to use all her skills and wits if she hopes to be the first person in over 600 years to leave its orbit.

Anything more about the story and gameplay will not be shared by the Naughty Dog anytime soon, but it says the game will live up to the studio's "tradition of creating an emotional, character-driven epic journey."

Gameplay systems are a major focus in the game too, with the developer saying that Intergalactic will feature "deepest gameplay in Naughty Dog’s history, taking our learnings from our previous franchises and pushing them beyond anything we’ve ever done before."

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross will be scoring the game's soundtrack, while Tati Gabrielle will be playing the protagonist alongside a "stellar cast."

Naughty Dog did not share a release window for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet today, so this might even be a PlayStation 6 game. Expect to wait some time before more information about this sci-fi entry comes out of the studio.

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While a leak ruined some of the surprise, 2K and Hanger 13 unveiled the first gameplay of Mafia: The Old Country at The Game Awards show today. The trailer, seen above, shows off a prequel storyline set in the Mafia universe, taking players back 1900s Sicily.

Dropping open-world aspects, the Mafia: The Old Country will be a linear narrative experience being told from the perspective of Enzo. While many were expecting a classic Mafia character to return in their younger form to play the protagonist role, the studio has confirmed that Enzo is an original character that's new to the series.

Here's how the setting and Enzo's inception are described by Hanger 13:

Enzo's story unfolds in a time when skill with a stiletto blade was a deadly asset, a lupara sawed-off shotgun was a go-to firearm, murderous vendettas raged for decades, and mafiosi patrolled their protection rackets on foot, horseback, or behind the wheel of turn-of-the-century motorcars.

 

Through grit and determination, Enzo has survived a childhood of indentured labor in Sicily’s hellish sulfur mines. Now, through a twist of fate, he has the opportunity to join Don Torrisi's crime family, and will do whatever it takes to carve out a better life for himself.

“Mafia: The Old Country is a love letter to old-style, gritty Mafia stories where players can uncover the origins of organized crime,” says Hangar 13 president Nick Baynes. “Everyone at Hangar 13 is committed to creating the most authentic and intense story of the franchise, and we can’t wait for players to experience the journey with Enzo.”

Mafia: The Old Country is out in Summer 2025 across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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FromSoftware doesn't look like it's resting, with yet another Elden Ring experience being announced at The Game Awards today. Instead of an expansion though, this time, it’s a standalone entry that will focus on being a cooperative survival adventure. Catch the reveal trailer for Elden Ring Nightreign above.

The title has up to three players teaming up to defeat the Nightlord. But before that, the squad must survive a three day cycle in this unforgiving world exploring and leveling up to face the megaboss at the end. Elden Ring lore followers won't have to worry too much about the events of this game though, as FromSoftware is setting this experience in parallel universes.

"Players must choose from eight unique characters, each with their own unique abilities and powerful Ultimates," explains the studio. "Their journeys take them to Limveld, an ever-changing map, where they will have to make split-second decisions when it comes to combat and exploration in the face of a night cycle that shrinks the map with the coming Night’s Tide. "

Even being defeated during runs grants players with upgrade materials, so every session will offer something new to earn. FromSoftware is teasing some combo moves for co-op enjoyers too, perhaps letting players combine their powers for fancy moves.

Elden Ring Nightreign is coming out on current and last-gen platforms sometime in 2025, with it landing across PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4.

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Microsoft surprised RPG fans with a trailer for The Outer Worlds 2 at The Game Awards 2024 showcase today. As always, the trailer delivered plenty of witty humor, and even gameplay. Catch it above.

Being developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the sequel RPG is taking players to a brand-new space colony this time, named Arcadia. It's described as "a colony teeming with factions, intrigue, and chaos."

"As a daring, undeniably good-looking, and questionably competent Earth Directorate agent, you’re tasked with uncovering the source of devastating rifts threatening the entire galaxy," says Obsidian. "Talk about stakes (not to be confused with raptidon steaks, those are very different)! The choice of how to deal with the rifts is up to you. “Your worlds, your way,” as we say at Obsidian."

Aside from the universe-threatening threat, The studio also teases a three-way faction war that's brewing in Arcadia, with players being able to choose who they support and who to backstab. In usual Obsidian fashion, choices are a major part of the RPG:

How you build your commander and chart your way through the narrative is uniquely yours as you plunge into this player-driven story. Whether you’re a disciple of diplomacy, a smart strategist, a crusader of chaos, or defiantly different (so we can keep the alliterations), the choice – you guessed it – is yours. Oh, and with this being The Outer Worlds, yes, you can dumb!

The Outer Worlds 2 will be out in 2025 across PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Game Pass. Considering the original RPG also landed on the PlayStation 5, it does make sense for the sequel to land on the platform too, despite Obisdian now being an Xbox first-party studio. Don't forget that the studio has its new fantasy RPG Avowed releasing in early 2025 too.

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About ten days ago, Intel officially announced the Intel Arc B580 & Intel Arc B570 graphics cards. The reviews for Intel Arc B580 are officially out.

The Intel Arc B series is a successor to the Intel Arc A series of graphics cards, which had launched more than two years ago. The Intel Arc Alchemist had a lot of issues which caused them to perform poorly or suboptimally despite having powerful hardware inside them.

While Intel did try to fix those issues with driver updates which did improve the gaming performance massively in some games, the main issues remained.

With Intel Arc B series, Intel has made massive changes to the GPU architecture and even improved the ray tracing performance further.

Before anything. Let’s look at the specs.

Intel Arc B580 & Arc B570 Specs

As one can see from the above specs. In the new graphics cards are lacking in hardware in almost everything when compared to previous-gen higher range models. Yet Intel claims the new graphics cards are far faster. This is thanks to the improvements in the new architecture and process.

Not only that. Intel claims the Intel Arc B580 is faster than the other budget graphics cards like Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and also AMD Radeon RX 7600. So much so that Intel is marketing it as a 1440p graphics card rather than a 1080p one.

But are all those claims true. Let’s check the reviews for the Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition graphics cards.

Intel Arc B580 Reviews

Tom’s Hardware

Tom’s Hardware called the Intel Arc B580 graphics card the new $249 GPU champion.

At 1440p in gaming, Intel Arc B580 beats Nvidia RTX 4060 by 10%, which is great. However, that difference is reduced to 3% at 1080p.

It’s 5% faster than RX 7600 XT at 1440p, however, that difference is reduced to zero at 1080p. However, it shines greatly against the 8GB AMD RX 7600 which is a massive 38% slower at 1440p and 24% slower at 1080p against Intel’s offering.

It’s also 17% faster than previous-gen Intel Arc A770 16GB graphics card at 1440p and 24% faster at 1080p.

In ray tracing at 1440p, B580 beats RTX 4060 by 16% and that gap reduces to 9% at 1080p.

When compared to RX 7600 XT, B580 is 40% faster at both 1440p & 1080p in ray tracing. RX 7600 isn’t worth even talking about in ray tracing.

Compared to the previous-gen Arc A770 16GB, it’s 17% faster at 1440p and 23% faster at 1080p.

However, at 156W, Intel Arc B580 uses 22% more power than RTX 4060. It also uses 10% more power than RX 7600. However, it’s 20% more efficient than RX 7600 XT and 30% more efficient than previous-gen Arc A770 16GB.

TechSpot

Steve Walton from the Hardware Unboxed fame posted a written review for the Intel Arc B580 on TechSpot. Those who want to watch the video review can watch here instead.

At 1440p in gaming in raster performance, Intel Arc B580 is 14% faster than Nvidia RTX 4060 and 20% faster than AMD RX 7600. It’s also 20% faster than Arc A770 16GB.

At 1080p, B580 is 6% faster than Nvidia RTX 4060 and 8% faster than AMD RX 7600 and a big 22% faster than Arc A770 16GB.

Here the ray tracing performance changed the rankings. Here, they tested with respective upscaling turned on and the outcome is that the Intel Arc B580 is 18% slower than the Nvidia RTX 4060 at 1440p and 20% slower at 1080p. It’s however 55% faster than AMD RX 7600.

However, they do mention how hard it was to even run Nvidia RTX 4060 in some games with ray tracing enabled, even at 1080p.

In terms of power usage, B580 ranged 240W to 270W in different games. Which is anywhere between 20% to 27% more than RTX 4060.

TechPowerUP

TechPowerUP, known for its great reviews, tested and reviewed the Intel Arc B580 and called it a great value.

At 1440p in gaming in raster performance, Intel Arc B580 is 8% faster than RTX 4060, 9% faster than RX 7600 XT, 12% faster than Arc A770 16GB and a big 20% faster than RX 7600.

At 1080p, that gap reduces again. It’s 4% faster than RX 7600 XT, 5% faster than RTX 4060, 13% faster than RX 7600 and 14% faster than Intel Arc A770 16GB.

In ray tracing performance at 1440p, here the Intel Arc B580 is a massive 22% faster than RTX 4060 and 35% faster than RX 7600 XT. It’s also 14% faster than previous-gen Arc A770 16GB. These results are because many of the 8GB cards cannot do ray tracing easily at 1440p.

At 1080p, the difference is more expected ways. Here B580 is only 3% faster than RTX 4060, 14% faster than A770 and 29% faster than RX 7600 XT.

In power consumption, it seems TechPowerUP managed to make a proper use of the TDP that Intel has set. In gaming, it used 185W average in raster and 195W in ray tracing, which is far higher than the highly efficient RTX 4060 which used 128W in both.

TechPowerUP had a lot to say about the issues it faced in it’s concluding remarks. It ranged from driver issues to overclocking issues.

They also mentioned how it uses high amount of idle power because the VRAM keeps running at the same speed no matter what the load is. Intel recommends enabling ASPM in BIOS to fix the issue somewhat. Even the OS power profile needs to be changed.

KitGuru

KitGuru posted a written and a YouTube video review for the Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition graphics card.

At 1440p in gaming in raster performance, Intel Arc B580 is 16% faster than RTX 4060, 9% faster than RX 7600 and 26% faster than Arc A750.

The difference reduces at 1080p, where B580 is 9% faster than RTX 4060, faster than RX 7600 and 29% faster than Arc A750.

In ray tracing, at 1440p, B580 is 7% faster than RTX 4060 and 32% faster than RX 7600 and Arc A750.

At 1080p, B580 is, in fact, on average 2% slower than RTX 4060. Particularly due to two specific games. Otherwise, it’s still far faster than RX 7600 XT and A750.

In terms of power usage, B580 used 160W in raster to 165W in ray tracing at 1440p. RTX 4060 on the other hand averaged 110W to 116W.

In terms of issues with the graphics card, KitGuru too has complaints. It gave constant crashes in some games. While some games refused to disable ray tracing. Some games gave inconsistent frame times. Some games had single digit performance and so on.

Conclusion

Those who are not satisfied with the reviews shared above can check out VideoCardz and 3DCenter, who have posted a larger list of reviewers with their links.

As for our opinion, we think that Intel Arc B580 is one of the greatest budget graphics card that has released in recent times. Its performance is excellent, both in raster and ray tracing. In all, Intel Arc B580 is faster than Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 3060 12GB and also faster than the likes of AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT and RX 7600. Not to forget, Intel has released its own frame generation tech to increase the performance further.

Also, it has 12GB VRAM, which is higher than Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and AMD Radeon RX 7600 that come with 8GB VRAM. Honestly, we feel Nvidia and AMD should be ashamed of themselves for almost cheating the budget gamers by providing just 8GB VRAM. It’s rumored that RTX 5060 might continue to use the same 8GB of VRAM. Even AMD might do that with RX 8600.

A reminder, Intel Arc B580 at $249 is far cheaper than RTX 4060 and RX 7600 XT graphics cards.

Some issues for Intel Arc B580 remain, though. First are the drivers. While the Intel Arc drivers have improved massively over the couple of years, they need to improve further.

The second issue is that the GPU inside B580 is still quite bigger than the ones found in RTX 4060 and RX 7600. Because all of them are made at the same TSMC, it’s likely that Intel is not going to make too many profits out of it.

Another major problem is that there are rumors that Intel might shut down the Intel Arc graphics division after this or next series. We hope not. They should look at the reviews.

We aren’t quite sure about the availability, either. Whether they are in a proper stock or not.

While we aren’t quite sure when B570 reviews are going to release. We are also excited to see what Intel has to offer when it releases B750 and B770 graphics cards next year.

Either way, Intel Arc B580 is a great graphics card. We are happy to see Intel doing excellently on it.

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The first major surprise at The Game Awards turned out to be from CD Projekt. While it is probably years away from launch The Witcher IV, previously known as Project Polaris, received an official reveal at the show. Catch the Unreal Engine 5-based pre-rendered trailer above. The studio says that it has been rendered using an unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU.

As many suspected, Ciri from The Witcher 3 will take the protagonist role over from Geralt in this new trilogy.

"We're kicking off a brand-new Witcher saga, this time with Ciri as the heart of the story," said Sebastian Kalemba, Game Director. "It feels so good to finally be able to say those words — for the longest time we knew that we wanted Ciri to be the protagonist of The Witcher IV; it just felt natural to us and we believe that Ciri deserves it. In this game we want to explore what it means to truly become a witcher by following Ciri on her Path. This trailer is a taste of both that, and just how dark and grounded the world of The Witcher can be."

The dual sword-wielding Ciri can be seen taking out a monster tormenting a highly religious village. She can be seen using multiple magical powers and even taking a swig of Cat Eye to see in the dark at one point.

CD Projekt RED says that the in-engine trailer uses the same tech it's using the build The Witcher IV, adding that "it aims to provide players with a cinematic look at the kind of experience the game is aspiring to provide."

The studio did not give a release window for when fans can enter the dark fantasy of The Witcher IV at the show though. Even platforms it's targeting are unknown right now.

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Alongside award presentations, musical presentations, and celebrity cameos, the show will also carry major announcements from game publishers, with everything from surprise reveals to new trailers for upcoming titles. Here's how to catch it later today, December 12:

The Game Awards 2024 show kicks off at 7:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm PT /12:30 am GMT. It can be caught live for free across YouTube, Twitch, X, Facebook Live, Steam, Instagram and many other major streaming platforms, alongside plenty of co-streams from creators. The show is slated to go on for two hours.

As for what gaming fans can expect to see from the show, 2K's Borderlands 4 and Mafia: The Old Country will both show up with reveal trailers. The new Josef Fares-directed game from Hazelight Studios, rumored to be called Split Fiction, is also confirmed to be getting an announcement at the showcase.

Outside of confirmed reveals, rumors have surfaced regarding some potential major announcements, too, with Industry insider Jason Schreier even saying two of them will blow some minds. It's likely that Sony and Microsoft will have some trailers to show off at the event, perhaps some new hardware, too, if they are daring. One of the most out-there rumors has been a Valve showing at The Game Awards 2024, finally unveiling a full-fledged Half-Life sequel. As always, take everything, especially that last one, with a grain of salt until any official confirmations arrive.

Do you have anything you're excited to see, or at least hoping to see, at The Game Awards 2024? Sound off in the comments below.

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Next-generation Apple TV and a refreshed HomePod mini speaker will be the first to pack Apple's combined chip for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (codenamed Proxima). The chip will be Wi-Fi 6E compatible, as per the report.

Some of the primary objectives are the in-house chip will give Apple more control over wireless hardware and how its devices connect to wireless networks, talk to each other, and pair with other devices.

The transition might come as a significant blow to Apple's current supplier, Broadcom, whose 20% of revenue comes from Apple. However, their friendship will not break entirely as Broadcom will continue to provide radio frequency filters for modems. The two companies are also working on a next-generation cloud server chip.

Proxima has been in development for several years and is a separate effort from the modem chip Apple is planning as an alternative to the one offered by Qualcomm. iPhone SE 4 is speculated to be the first device to arrive with Apple's in-house cellular modem.

While Apple might bring the chip to the market next year, there are doubts about whether Apple will be able to match Broadcom's prowess on its first attempt. Things might get dirty for Apple if problems show up on its primary devices, such as the iPhone or Mac.

It's worth noting that Proxima won't be Apple's first attempt at wireless chips. The company has been designing its custom wireless chips for Apple Watch and AirPods. The report further adds that TSMC will manufacture Apple's in-house wireless chip; it is expected to arrive for iPhone, iPad, and Mac by 2026.

However, this contrasts with the information from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that Apple plans to bring its custom Wi-Fi chip to the iPhone 17 series next year. He added that Apple is expected to complete its in-house wireless chip transition over the next three years.

Source: Bloomberg

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Like with much of physical media, the onslaught against optical media is ongoing. In the latest hit against physical media fans, LG has discontinued its remaining Blu-ray players. However, this doesn't spell the end for Blu-rays, which, in at least some categories, are seeing growing interest.

LG has no plans to make more Blu-ray players, FlatpanelsHD reported on Wednesday. Its most recent players, the UBK90 and UBK80, came out in 2018 and are no longer available for purchase on LG’s website. You can still find them at third-party retailers, but when stock runs out, LG won’t be replenishing. Trying to access LG's "Blu-ray & DVD Players" webpage now results in a redirect to LG's 4K TVs. We can take a hint, LG.

FlatpanelsHD spoke with LG Korea, which reportedly didn’t commit to a permanent exit from Blu-ray players. But for the foreseeable future, the company won’t be selling a type of device that it hasn’t updated in almost seven years.

Other tech companies have also shown reduced interest in the Blu-ray business. Panasonic, Sony, and Oppo also haven’t released a Blu-ray player since 2018. And Samsung stopped making new Blu-ray players in 2019. Video game consoles don’t even automatically include disc readers like they used too. The features are optional for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. And Sony said this year that it's ending the development and production of recordable Blu-rays for consumers.

This makes sense, considering that Blu-ray sales peaked in 2017 at 884,000 units sold, according to US sales data from the Consumer Technology Association shared in 2020.

Even worse for the Blu-ray player market is the fact that Blu-rays have become harder to find as users increasingly rely on the instant gratification and massive libraries available online. Best Buy stopped selling Blu-rays and DVDs this year. Blu-ray and DVD rental kiosk business Redbox went out of business this year, and many of the discs that its defunct kiosks had remaining have been donated. Disney also stopped releasing Blu-rays and DVDs in certain geographies last year.

And to expand to other optical discs, Target announced this year that it would only sell DVDs during special times, like holiday seasons or upon new releases. Target still appears to sell Blu-rays online and in stores, though.

But just because a consumer tech is no longer mainstream, and more immediately accessible and convenient alternatives are available, doesn’t mean that the older tech is totally forgotten (just look at the apparent resurgence of older digital cameras and even VHS tapes).

People are holding onto their physical media

Lack of control, uncertainty, and frustration associated with online media has long persuaded some TV fans and movie buffs to retain physical media. Streaming services tend to hike prices, even after suggesting that they won’t. They also pull content from their platforms regularly and are even known to delete on-demand purchases, (which, per licensing agreements, are really just indefinite loaners).

The infiltration of ads into streaming services and changing rules and features of streaming subscriptions have also led people to yearn for a simpler time. And the necessity for strong Internet connections and demands for 4K and/or HDR can also push people to opt for physical media, which should work the same way every time.

Speaking of things staying the same, Blu-rays and DVDs also won’t have their content altered after purchase, as we’ve seen happen to digital versions of media.

While certainly in decline, the US Blu-ray and DVD disc market made $1.34 billion in the year ending in March 2023, according to market research group Circana. Data from the first half of 2024 from entertainment trade association The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) found that while overall Blu-ray and DVD sales declined 22.2 percent during that time period, there were some areas of growth, too:

Consumers continue to show strong demand for collectible disc formats with SteelBooks, [or Blu-rays sold in collectible steel cases], up 44 percent and 4K UHD Blu-ray catalog sales growing by 16 percent.

Furthermore, sales of newly released Blu-rays decreased more slowly, at 14 percent, according to DEG. A look at the top-selling Blu-rays for the week ending on November 30 based on data from Circana shows recent films, like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Deadpool & Wolverine, topping the list.

And it was only about a year ago that 4K Blu-rays of the megahit Oppenheimer actually sold out.

There are still options

For those interested in a new Blu-ray player, though, the options are more limited with LG exiting the market, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. Even though brands like Panasonic and Sony haven’t made new Blu-ray players in years, they continue to sell them. And the market still sees the occasional new release, such as the Magnetar UPD900 that came out last year.

With the benefits of physical media still present, the demise of LG Blu-ray players is notable, but not defining, for physical media aficionados.

For those who don’t want to use their Blu-ray player anymore, there’s always the option to turn it into a laser-scanning microscope.

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Large language models have found great success so far by using their transformer architecture to effectively predict the next words (i.e., language tokens) needed to respond to queries. When it comes to complex reasoning tasks that require abstract logic, though, some researchers have found that interpreting everything through this kind of "language space" can start to cause some problems, even for modern "reasoning" models.

Now, researchers are trying to work around these problems by crafting models that can work out potential logical solutions completely in "latent space"—the hidden computational layer just before the transformer generates language. While this approach doesn't cause a sea change in an LLM's reasoning capabilities, it does show distinct improvements in accuracy for certain types of logical problems and shows some interesting directions for new research.

Wait, what space?

Modern reasoning models like ChatGPT's o1 tend to work by generating a "chain of thought." Each step of the logical process in these models is expressed as a sequence of natural language word tokens which are fed back through the model.

In a new paper, researchers at Meta's Fundamental AI Research team (FAIR) and UC San Diego identify this reliance on natural language and "word tokens" as a "fundamental constraint" for these reasoning models. That's because the successful completion of reasoning tasks often requires complex planning on specific critical tokens to figure out the right logical path from a number of options.

In current chain-of-thought models, though, word tokens are often generated for "textual coherence" and "fluency" while "contributing little to the actual reasoning process," the researchers write. Instead, they suggest, "it would be ideal for LLMs to have the freedom to reason without any language constraints and then translate their findings into language only when necessary."

To achieve that "ideal," the researchers describe a method for "Training Large Language Models to Reason in a Continuous Latent Space," as the paper's title puts it. That "latent space" is essentially made up of the "hidden" set of intermediate token weightings that the model contains just before the transformer generates a human-readable natural language version of that internal state.

In the researchers' COCONUT model (for Chain Of CONtinUous Thought), those kinds of hidden states are encoded as "latent thoughts" that replace the individual written steps in a logical sequence both during training and when processing a query. This avoids the need to convert to and from natural language for each step and "frees the reasoning from being within the language space," the researchers write, leading to an optimized reasoning path that they term a "continuous thought."

Being more breadth-minded

While doing logical processing in the latent space has some benefits for model efficiency, the more important finding is that this kind of model can "encode multiple potential next steps simultaneously." Rather than having to pursue individual logical options fully and one by one (in a "greedy" sort of process), staying in the "latent space" allows for a kind of instant backtracking that the researchers compare to a breadth-first-search through a graph.

This emergent, simultaneous processing property comes through in testing even though the model isn't explicitly trained to do so, the researchers write. "While the model may not initially make the correct decision, it can maintain many possible options within the continuous thoughts and progressively eliminate incorrect paths through reasoning, guided by some implicit value functions," they write.

That kind of multi-path reasoning didn't really improve COCONUT's accuracy over traditional chain-of-thought models on relatively straightforward tests of math reasoning (GSM8K) or general reasoning (ProntoQA). But the researchers found the model did comparatively well on a randomly generated set of ProntoQA-style queries involving complex and winding sets of logical conditions (e.g., "every apple is a fruit, every fruit is food, etc.")

For these tasks, standard chain-of-thought reasoning models would often get stuck down dead-end paths of inference or even hallucinate completely made-up rules when trying to resolve the logical chain. Previous research has also shown that the "verbalized" logical steps output by these chain-of-thought models "may actually utilize a different latent reasoning process" than the one being shared.

This new research joins a growing body of research looking to understand and exploit the way large language models work at the level of their underlying neural networks. And while that kind of research hasn't led to a huge breakthrough just yet, the researchers conclude that models pre-trained with these kinds of "continuous thoughts" from the get-go could "enable models to generalize more effectively across a wider range of reasoning scenarios."

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Paul's Hardware (1.49M subscribers)

December 13, 2024

Video length: 10m 48s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Hardware - Intel Arc B580 Review

1:01 Intel Arc B580 vs Nvidia RTX 4060 (specs and why the 4060 sucks)

2:00 Closer Look - Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition model

2:47 BENCHMARKS - 3DMark Time Spy Extreme and Port Royal

3:31 Shadow of the Tomb Raider

4:52 Cyberpunk 2077

5:33 F1 24

7:18 Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Starfield

7:53 Summary, Conclusion, Closing Thoughts

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Gamers Nexus (2.36M subscribers)

December 13, 2024

Video length: 41m 02s

00:00 - Intel Arc Battlemage B580 GPU Review

02:42 - Price Comparison & B580 Alternatives

04:24 - Test Methodology & Updates

07:23 - FFXIV 4K GPU Benchmarks

08:43 - FFXIV 1440p GPU Comparison

09:29 - FFXIV Dawntrail 1080p Benchmarks

10:54 - Starfield 1080p - B580 vs RTX 4060, 7600

11:35 - Resident Evil 4 - 4K Benchmarks

11:59 - Resident Evil 4 - 1440p Best GPUs

12:32 - Resident Evil 4 - 1080p GPU Comparison

13:01 - Baldur's Gate 3 4K Video Card Benchmark

13:50 - Baldur's Gate 3 1440p Best Graphics Cards

14:37 - Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty 1440p Benchmarks

15:17 - Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty 1080p

15:33 - Black Myth Wukong 1080p

16:29 - Black Myth Wukong 1440p

17:08 - Dragon's Dogma 2 - 1440p

17:43 - Dragon's Dogma 2 - 1080p

18:04 - Dying Light 2 1440p

18:35 - Dying Light 2 1080p

19:02 - Ray Tracing GPU Benchmarks

19:44 - RT: RE4 4K

20:16 - RT: Resident Evil 4 1440p

21:18 - RT: Resident Evil 4 1080p

21:54 - RT: Dying Light 2 1080p

22:38 - RT: Dragon's Dogma 2 1080p

23:12 - RT: Dragon's Dogma 2 1440p

23:32 - RT: C77 PHL 1080p Medium

24:57 - RT: Wukong 1080p (Experimental)

26:06 - Frametimes: Baldur's Gate 3 4K

26:51 - Frametimes: Dying Light 2 1440p

27:14 - Frametimes: RT Cyberpunk 1080p

27:54 - Frametimes: Starfield 1080p

28:22 - Frametimes: FFXIV 1440p

28:44 - Power & Efficiency Testing (Experimental)

29:52 - Power: Idle

30:47 - Efficiency: BG3 1440p

31:54 - Efficiency: FFXIV 1440p

32:50 - Efficiency: FFXIV 1080p

33:10 - Efficiency: BMWK 1080p

33:33 - Efficiency: C77 PHL RT

33:55 - Conclusion

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Google Trends is a handy tool for checking popular search terms around the world, and Google has just revealed the most searched games of 2024 in its Year in Search—a summary following the trend of Spotify Wrapped and Xbox Year in Review. The list features some predictable entries and a few surprises. My biggest shock? Palworld landing at number two. And as if that wasn't enough to irk Nintendo, we also have another contender, PokéRogue, sneaking into the end of the chart. But which game claimed the top spot? Here's a rundown of the games the world was 'Googling' in 2024, and to not keep you in suspense, I'm starting from number one.

1. Connections

Nvidia's GPUs are incredibly popular among developers for AI workloads, not just because of their hardware capabilities but also because of their software support. To make Trillium TPUs popular among AI developers, Google has made several improvements to its software layer. It has optimized the XLA compiler and AI frameworks such as JAX, PyTorch, and TensorFlow so that developers can achieve price-performance across AI training, tuning, and serving.

Compared to the previous generation TPU, Trillium offers the following improvements:

• Over 4x improvement in training performance
• Up to 3x increase in inference throughput
• A 67% increase in energy efficiency
• An impressive 4.7x increase in peak compute performance per chip
• Double the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) capacity
• Double the Interchip Interconnect (ICI) bandwidth
• 100K Trillium chips in a single Jupiter network fabric
• Up to 2.5x improvement in training performance per dollar and up to 1.4x improvement in inference performance per dollar

Google also claimed that Trillium TPUs can achieve 99% scaling efficiency with a deployment of 12 pods consisting of 3072 chips and can achieve 94% scaling efficiency across 24 pods with 6144 chips to pre-train gpt3-175b.

Trillium is now available in North America (US East region), Europe (West region), and Asia (Northeast region). For evaluation, Trillium is available starting at $2.7000 per chip-hour. With 1-year and 3-year commitments, it is available starting at $1.8900 per chip-hour and $1.2200 per chip-hour, respectively.

With its ability to scale to hundreds of thousands of chips and improved software support, Trillium represents a significant leap forward for Google in the cloud AI infrastructure market.

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• Path of Exile 2, has announced some forthcoming changes.
• The team has announced modifications to a host of in-game features.
• Some of these changes are already live, while others will come later.

After a record-setting launch for Path of Exile, the team comes forward to address some of the player base's most pressing concerns.

Path of Exile 2 had an explosive launch, selling over a million copies before early access launched and reaching nearly 600,000 players in its first weekend. Not only that, but the game continues to find success with over 400,00 playing on a Tuesday morning; so much for a work day!

While we're in the opening stages of early access, it's safe to say Path of Exile 2 has acquired a level of success that players expected it to. Heck, it even plays well on Steam Deck. However, with praise comes complaints.

Suleyman has also hired other DeepMind alumni, including Christopher Kelly, a clinical research scientist at DeepMind and a neonatal intensive care doctor. Two other DeepMind alumni have also joined Microsoft's health AI unit.

According to the FT report, Microsoft has identified healthcare as one of the most critical use cases for responsible AI development, with a mission to "inform, support and empower everyone" with these advanced technologies.

This also represents something of a homecoming for Suleyman and went on to lead its health-focused work. However, the DeepMind health unit was subsequently mired in controversy about data privacy related to its deals with the UK's National Health Service-to the point where it was ultimately spun out as an independent Google subsidiary back in 2019.

Suleyman left DeepMind the same year, joined Google's California headquarters to take a policy role, and later left in 2022 to become a venture investor. He went on to found the AI startup Inflection, from which he and most of his team were poached by Microsoft earlier this year.

The establishment of this new division underlines the race in the tech industry to develop AI applications for everyday consumer use, especially in healthcare. According to a recent Deloitte survey (via FT), 48% of respondents have turned to generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude to address health-related queries around conditions, symptoms, and mental health.

Source: The Financial Times

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While things naturally vary from year to year, the Game Awards has traditionally brought some major announcements from publishers across the industry. Last year's 2023 awards saw the reveal of Marvel's Blade from Xbox and Bethesda's Arkane Lyon, as well as the Valhalla DLC for Sony Santa Monica's God of War Ragnarök.

I'm expecting a heavy third-party presence this year, and based on what we've seen from confirmed attending developers and publishers, that's bearing out so far. Here's everything confirmed to appear during the Game Awards 2024:

Borderlands 4

The next entry in the iconic looter-shooter franchise from Gearbox Software is confirmed to be appearing, with a new trailer for Borderlands 4 on the way during the show.

Hazelight's next game

Hazelight Studios, the team behind A Way Out and It Takes Two, is confirmed to be revealing its next game during the Game Awards 2024.

Mafia: The Old Country

2K's Hangar 13 is working on a new Mafia game, telling the story of the Sicilian families in their home territory of Italy. We'll be getting a new look at this game during the awards.

Warframe: 1999

During the awards, there'll be an update on Warframe: 1999, an expansion to Digital Extremes' ongoing free-to-play multiplayer title.

Last month, Ubisoft gave a deep dive on how Assassin's Creed Shadows aims to shake up the stealth elements that have been established in the franchise. Today, the studio dove into the combat side of things instead, offering looks at the style differences and similarities that the two protagonists offer, enemy types, different weapons, and more.

Both Naoe and Yasuke have light and heavy attacks, which are pretty self-explanatory, as well as posture attacks. That last one requires players to hold down on the input to essentially charge up the light or heavy attack to do much more damage in exchange for leaving yourself open. On the defense side, the duo can dodge, parry, and block attacks.

Of course, special attack skills can be unlocked by both characters too, which can be attack combos, special attacks that deal extra damage or takes down multiple enemies, and weapon-based offensive abilities. "Active abilities are by far the most powerful skills to acquire" says game director Charles. "They look cool, they hit hard, and they all offer additional opportunities like gap-closing, armor-breaking - even health regeneration."

The two protagonists split apart when it comes to their fighting strategy though. Naoe's shinobi training lets her take on individual or small groups of enemies effectively, even in head to head combat, but suffers in long brawls. However, Yasuke's Samurai background lets him keep taking on enemies without much issue, even gaining bonuses for long-form combos.

"Yasuke has a few unique samurai tricks up his sleeves," adds Charles. "One of them is the Sheathed Posture Attack, where he will charge-up an opening attack while his katana is still in its sheathe. On top of looking quite iconic, most enemies won't see that one coming if timed correctly."

As for weapons, Naoe can wield the Assassin's Hidden Blade, a Katana, as well as the ball-and-chain weapon the Kusarigama. Meanwhile, Yasuke has the Long Katana, as well as the Naginata and Kanabo heavy weapons. He can also use a Yumi Bow or Teppo Rifle for powerful long-ranged attacks.

The studio also detailed what sort of enemies will our duo take on during the storyline. This can range from the general goons and conscripts with light training to different levels of Samurai (Daisho or Guardians) that can utilize unique fighting styles to surprise players. Like in previous Assassin's Creed games, enemy weapons have distinct glows when using flurry or unstoppable attacks, letting players block or evade depending on their skill level or unlocked abilities.

Enemy fighting styles will also depend on if they have backup around them or not. "Generally, the more enemies are involved in a fight, the less defensive actions each of them will perform, confident that their numbers will be enough to overwhelm you," says the game director. "But in a one-on-one duel against a highly skilled warrior, defensive actions will be numerous and nearly constant, pushing you to diversify your attacks and utilize every move you learnt along the way."

Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Shadows is out February 14, 2025, across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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Starfield and Doom are probably not the first games that come to mind when thnking of official crossovers, but Bethesda has decided to bring the Doom Slayer's equipment and more to its latest sci-fi RPG with a surprise add-on. Celebrating the 31st anniversary of the Doom franchise, a unique crossover mission named At Hell's Gate is now available for download from Starfield's official Creations lineup.

Presented by Bethesda Game Studios and developed by well-known community group Kinggath Creations (Sim Settlements), this comes in as a new downloadable quest that adds a slice of Doom into Starfield.

"A band of mercenaries has narrowly escaped an encounter with something that can only be described as beyond evil," says the Creation page's description. "Investigate this mysterious happening and prevent a vile force from invading your universe."

The Creation page for the "At Hell's Gate" quest can be found here, or it can be downloaded straight from the in-game Creations menu on both Xbox consoles and PC.

Players can start the quest by visiting any SSNN broadcast pillar in a major city (New Atlantis, Cydonia, Akila City, or Neon) across the galaxy after downloading it.

By completing this quest, that involves some lore-friendly encounters, players will receive the iconic Praetor Suit from the new Doom games, the legendary Super Shotgun for decimating foes, as well as the handy Crucible Blade for slicing up any opponents, from hell or otherwise. At the same time, the Industrial Workbench can be used to craft six plushies from Doom for decorating player homes, outposts, and ships.

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However, Google's CEO is now using this to take a dig at Microsoft. Speaking at The New York Times' Dealbook summit, Sundar Pichai said Microsoft uses AI models developed by someone else, and he likes to compare Google and Microsoft models all the time.

"I would love to do a side-by-side comparison of Microsoft's own models and our models any day, any time. They're using someone else's models."

Sundar Pichai's taunting Microsoft AI efforts could be a response to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Back in March, Nadella said Google should have been the "default winner" of the AI race thanks to its resources, talent, and computing (via Business Insider.)

Microsoft's investment in OpenAI was a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Redmond firm promptly integrated ChatGPT into its products, gaining a competitive edge in the AI race. Simultaneously, OpenAI received the necessary financial backing to continue its work on more advanced LLMs.

On the other hand, Google had a pretty rough start in the AI race. The early AI models released by the firm were not generating accurate answers, with even a leaked internal document showing that a senior Google engineer has said the products are not positioned to win.

The rivalry between Google and Microsoft has revolved chiefly around Internet browsers in the past decade, with Google conquering the market with Chrome and Microsoft throwing much weight behind Edge, hoping to take a bigger bite. Meanwhile, AI has taken the world by storm in the past two years and marginalized any other competition. Google and Microsoft have both poured dozens of billions of dollars into developing advanced LLMs.

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NVIDIA announced its current-gen RTX 4000 "Ada" graphics cards (GPU) in September 2022, unveiling first the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 cards that launched just a couple of weeks later. NVIDIA's RTX 4000 hardware is regarded as making up the bulk of the best GPUs available today, at least for those who want ultimate performance.

NVIDIA's 40-Series GPUs have now been on the market for more than two years, and rumors surrounding the next-gen RTX 5000 "Blackwell" cards have been picking up in recent months. Until NVIDIA confirms anything, I urge you to take the information here as nothing more than speculation. Here's what I know so far.

NVIDIA RTX 5000 release date rumors

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The update adds the CrystalCoat color customization system to Herrera, Mizutani, Quadra and Villefort vehicles owned by V. The feature lets players dynamically change the color of cars and save presets while driving. It's also being expanded to allow players to copy the colors of any vehicles they see on the road. When being chased by cops, the color change can also be used to drop heat levels for easier getaways.

Next, Johnny Silverhand can spawn (around 25% of the time) when driving vehicles now, giving players a buddy to drive around within the open world. He will even respond to players depending on their driving actions. If there's already a passenger or if the player enters combat, though, he will disappear. The photo mode will capture Johnny when he's riding a shotgun as well.

Speaking of photo mode, these options are new to the game:

• Drone Camera is now a free camera instead of an orbital camera centered around V.
• Increased camera range.
• Full Collision (ON/OFF) - determines whether the camera respects in-game object collisions.
• Lock Camera (ON/OFF) - locks the camera to avoid misclicking and ruining the frame.
• Precise Camera (ON/OFF) - slows the camera down for easier aiming.
• Aspect Ratio (PC-only. Custom-resolution screenshots are not available on consoles. Console systems can only export images in the standard 16:9 format.)
• Characters tab: Spawn up to 3 NPCs for your photo, with a list of over 20 characters to choose from. You can adjust their expression, pose and position.
• Lighting tab: Spawn and adjust light sources.
• Fixed the Depth of Field ghosting issue.
• Added an Effect Intensity slider.

Moreover, screenshots from photo mode can also be hosted inside player apartments inside the new Smart Frames to add a personal touch. Depending on the apartment, the number of customizable frames available, as well as their sizes, will change.

As for V, players will find a range of new customization options when creating (or editing) the protagonist. This includes 32 new eye colors, 44 new makeup types, fresh face scars, eyebrow shapes, tattoos, and much more. A randomizer option is included now as well.

Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.2 is now available across PC and console platforms. Find the complete patch notes for it over here.

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