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Ubisoft revives the Heroes of Might and Magic game series with a prequel, Olden Era

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 07:52:34 +0000

The Heroes of Might and Magic series of turn-based fantasy games first launched in 1995 and was a spin-off of the Might and Magic RPG series. Today, as part of Gamescom, Ubisoft, the current owners of the franchise, announced a new game in the series, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. This game will be the first title in the main series since Might & Magic Heroes VII launched in 2015.

In a blog post, Ubisoft stated that in terms of the series' storylines and lore, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era will actually take place before the events of the first Might and Magic game. Players will control a hero who has to gather resources, build towns, and assemble armies. The game will then put those armies to work in fighting enemy forces.

Ubisoft added:

Expanding on the classic fundamentals of the series, Olden Era will introduce a number of new features: Players will have more control over how they level up heroes and their factions, for example, with faction-specific abilities, new systems for learning skills and magic spells, and artifacts that now impart bonuses if players equip more than one piece from a set.

The game will have a solo campaign but will also have one-on-one multiplayer arena modes or even bigger battles with up to eight players. The game will also support random map generation, and it will also come with an in-game editor so players can make their own maps and campaigns.

The game itself is being developed by the studio Unfrozen, who previously made the dark fantasy-themed roguelite RPG Iratus: Lord of the Dead.

Unfrozen and Ubisoft will launch Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era as an Early Access title on Valve's Steam service sometime in the first half of 2025. The full launch of the game will happen at a later timeframe.

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How to check if your Intel CPU is degraded... Step by Step [Video]

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:30:26 +0000

JayzTwoCents (4.09M subscribers)

August 23, 2024

Video length: 25m 47s

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Microsoft Flight Simulator Update 18 brings updates for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 19:00:40 +0000

Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting a new content update. Update 18 is now available on PC and Xbox, bringing high-resolution improvements, new landmarks, building updates, fresh airports, and more content from three European countries to the game.

Update 18 focuses on improving three games: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, three countries that feature diverse landscapes, beautiful architecture, and multiple landmarks and points of interest for exploration. To bring this update to the game, the Microsoft Flight Simulator team partnered with numerous companies, such as Bing Maps, Vexcel Imaging, Maxar Technologies, Gaya Simulations, and Orbx Simulation Systems. Together, they used new aerial photos, digital elevation models, surface modeling, and "hand-crafter" points of interest and airports.

With Update 18, Microsoft Flight Simulator received ten remastered cities:

Germany	Switzerland	Austria
Salzburg Berlin Frankfurt am Main Hanau Karow Potsdam	Bern Zurich	Linz Vienna

In addition to those cities, the game received higher-resolution elevation modeling, 116 points of interest: 42 in Germany, 38 in Austria, and 36 in Switzerland, and three new airports: Austria’s Salzburg Airport (LOWS), Germany’s Munich Airport (EDDM), and Bern Airport (LSZB) in Switzerland.

Like other updates for Microsoft Flight Simulator, today's release adds several new activities. There are three discovery flights, three landing challenges (F/A-18E Super Hornet in Germany, Daher TBM 930 in Switzerland, and DG Aviation LS8-18 in Austria), and three bush trips that will take you through Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

Finally, there is a new premium aircraft you can purchase in the in-game store for $14.99, the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, a German-made four-engine that was introduced in 1937.

You can now download Microsoft Flight Simulator Update 18 from the in-game marketplace for free as long as the game is updated to version 1.37.19.0 or newer. The game itself is available in the Microsoft Store on Xbox Series X and S and Windows 10/11, Xbox Game Pass, and Steam on PC. You can also play it using Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming if your computer cannot handle this resource-heavy flight simulator.

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No one’s ready for this

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 18:58:04 +0000

Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to go up in smoke.

An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full color. They are high-fidelity. There is no suspicious background blur, no tell-tale sixth finger. These photographs are extraordinarily convincing, and they are all extremely fucking fake.

Anyone who buys a Pixel 9 — the latest model of Google’s flagship phone, available starting this week — will have access to the easiest, breeziest user interface for top-tier lies, built right into their mobile device. This is all but certain to become the norm, with similar features already available on competing devices and rolling out on others in the near future. When a smartphone “just works,” it’s usually a good thing; here, it’s the entire problem in the first place.

Photography has been used in the service of deception for as long as it has existed. (Consider Victorian spirit photos, the infamous Loch Ness monster photograph, or Stalin’s photographic purges of IRL-purged comrades.) But it would be disingenuous to say that photographs have never been considered reliable evidence. Everyone who is reading this article in 2024 grew up in an era where a photograph was, by default, a representation of the truth. A staged scene with movie effects, a digital photo manipulation, or more recently, a deepfake — these were potential deceptions to take into account, but they were outliers in the realm of possibility. It took specialized knowledge and specialized tools to sabotage the intuitive trust in a photograph. Fake was the exception, not the rule.

If I say Tiananmen Square, you will, most likely, envision the same photograph I do. This also goes for Abu Ghraib or napalm girl. These images have defined wars and revolutions; they have encapsulated truth to a degree that is impossible to fully express. There was no reason to express why these photos matter, why they are so pivotal, why we put so much value in them. Our trust in photography was so deep that when we spent time discussing veracity in images, it was more important to belabor the point that it was possible for photographs to be fake, sometimes.

This is all about to flip — the default assumption about a photo is about to become that it’s faked, because creating realistic and believable fake photos is now trivial to do. We are not prepared for what happens after.

(left) A real photo of a stream. (right) Edited with Google’s Magic Editor.

(left) A real photo of a person in a living room (with their face obscured). (right) Edited with Google’s Magic Editor.

No one on Earth today has ever lived in a world where photographs were not the linchpin of social consensus — for as long as any of us has been here, photographs proved something happened. Consider all the ways in which the assumed veracity of a photograph has, previously, validated the truth of your experiences. The preexisting ding in the fender of your rental car. The leak in your ceiling. The arrival of a package. An actual, non-AI-generated cockroach in your takeout. When wildfires encroach upon your residential neighborhood, how do you communicate to friends and acquaintances the thickness of the smoke outside?

And up until now, the onus has largely been on those denying the truth of a photo to prove their claims. The flat-earther is out of step with the social consensus not because they do not understand astrophysics — how many of us actually understand astrophysics, after all? — but because they must engage in a series of increasingly elaborate justifications for why certain photographs and videos are not real. They must invent a vast state conspiracy to explain the steady output of satellite photographs that capture the curvature of the Earth. They must create a soundstage for the 1969 Moon landing.

We have taken for granted that the burden of proof is upon them. In the age of the Pixel 9, it might be best to start brushing up on our astrophysics.

For the most part, the average image created by these AI tools will, in and of itself, be pretty harmless — an extra tree in a backdrop, an alligator in a pizzeria, a silly costume interposed over a cat. In aggregate, the deluge upends how we treat the concept of the photo entirely, and that in itself has tremendous repercussions. Consider, for instance, that the last decade has seen extraordinary social upheaval in the United States sparked by grainy videos of police brutality. Where the authorities obscured or concealed reality, these videos told the truth.

The persistent cry of “Fake News!” from Trumpist quarters presaged the beginning of this era of unmitigated bullshit, in which the impact of the truth will be deadened by the firehose of lies. The next Abu Ghraib will be buried under a sea of AI-generated war crime snuff. The next George Floyd will go unnoticed and unvindicated.

(left) A real photo of an empty street. (right) Edited with Google’s Magic Editor.

(left) A real photo inside a New York City subway station. (right) Edited with Google’s Magic Editor.

You can already see the shape of what’s to come. In the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the defense claimed that Apple’s pinch-to-zoom manipulates photos, successfully persuading the judge to put the burden of proof on the prosecution to show that zoomed-in iPhone footage was not AI-manipulated. More recently, Donald Trump falsely claimed that a photo of a well-attended Kamala Harris rally was AI-generated — a claim that was only possible to make because people were able to believe it.

Even before AI, those of us in the media had been working in a defensive crouch, scrutinizing the details and provenance of every image, vetting for misleading context or photo manipulation. After all, every major news event comes with an onslaught of misinformation. But the incoming paradigm shift implicates something much more fundamental than the constant grind of suspicion that is sometimes called digital literacy.

Google understands perfectly well what it is doing to the photograph as an institution — in an interview with Wired, the group product manager for the Pixel camera described the editing tool as “help[ing] you create the moment that is the way you remember it, that’s authentic to your memory and to the greater context, but maybe isn’t authentic to a particular millisecond.” A photo, in this world, stops being a supplement to fallible human recollection, but instead a mirror of it. And as photographs become little more than hallucinations made manifest, the dumbest shit will devolve into a courtroom battle over the reputation of the witnesses and the existence of corroborating evidence.

This erosion of the social consensus began before the Pixel 9, and it will not be carried forth by the Pixel 9 alone. Still, the phone’s new AI capabilities are of note not just because the barrier to entry is so low, but because the safeguards we ran into were astonishingly anemic. The industry’s proposed AI image watermarking standard is mired in the usual standards slog, and Google’s own much-vaunted AI watermarking system was nowhere in sight when The Verge tried out the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. The photos that are modified with the Reimagine tool simply have a line of removable metadata added to them. (The inherent fragility of this kind of metadata was supposed to be addressed by Google’s invention of the theoretically unremovable SynthID watermark.) Google told us that the outputs of Pixel Studio — a pure prompt generator that is closer to DALL-E — will be tagged with a SynthID watermark; ironically, we found the capabilities of the Magic Editor’s Reimagine tool, which modifies existing photos, were much more alarming.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Neil Armstrong, Dorothea Lange, Joe Rosenthal

Google claims the Pixel 9 will not be an unfettered bullshit factory but is thin on substantive assurances. “We design our Generative AI tools to respect the intent of user prompts and that means they may create content that may offend when instructed by the user to do so,” Alex Moriconi, Google communications manager, told The Verge in an email. “That said, it’s not anything goes. We have clear policies and Terms of Service on what kinds of content we allow and don’t allow, and build guardrails to prevent abuse. At times, some prompts can challenge these tools’ guardrails and we remain committed to continually enhancing and refining the safeguards we have in place.”

The policies are what you would expect — for example, you can’t use Google services to facilitate crimes or incite violence. Some attempted prompts returned the generic error message, “Magic Editor can’t complete this edit. Try typing something else.” (You can see throughout this story, however, several worrisome prompts that did work.) But when it comes down to it, standard-fare content moderation will not save the photograph from its incipient demise as a signal of truth.

We briefly lived in an era in which the photograph was a shortcut to reality, to knowing things, to having a smoking gun. It was an extraordinarily useful tool for navigating the world around us. We are now leaping headfirst into a future in which reality is simply less knowable. The lost Library of Alexandria could have fit onto the microSD card in my Nintendo Switch, and yet the cutting edge of technology is a handheld telephone that spews lies as a fun little bonus feature.

We are fucked.

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McAfee debuts 'the world's first automatic' Deepfake Detector exclusively to select Lenovo AI PCs: "No more wondering, is this Warren Buffet investment scheme legitimate"

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 18:50:11 +0000

McAfee partners with Lenovo to launch a Deepfake Detector tool to keep phishing scams at bay.

What you need to know

McAfee recently unveiled an AI-powered Deepfake Detector to help users identify deepfakes and AI scams deployed by threat actors.
The tool is featured exclusively in select Lenovo AI PCs for English language detection across the US, UK, and Australia.
It runs on-device by leveraging the dedicated NPU's capabilities to keep the user's data safe and private without compromising speed or battery life.
Users buying Lenovo's flagship AI PCs will get a 30-day free trial of the Deepfake Detector

You might know McAfee for its cybersecurity and online protection services, which are designed to help users protect their identities while managing their social media privacy settings. The company recently unveiled its AI-powered Deepfake Detector, shipping exclusively to Lenovo's Copilot+ PCs with dedicated neural processing units (NPUs) to help users identify AI scams and deepfakes.

With the rapid adoption of generative AI, it's increasingly becoming harder to tell what's real. AI-powered tools like Microsoft's Image Creator from Designer (powered by OpenAI's DALL-E 3 technology) can generate sophisticated structural designers, potentially rendering architects and interior designers jobless. However, the tools seemingly fail to accomplish simple tasks such as creating a plain white image.

McAfee's AI-powered detection tool will help mitigate the prevalent issues, including scams and misinformation, that stem from the broad adoption of AI. The company is also debuting a Smart AI Hub packed with resources and interactive elements, to help users build more awareness about deepfakes and AI scams.

According to McAfee's Senior Vice President of Product, Roma Majumder:

“Knowledge is power, and this has never been truer than in the AI-driven world we’re living in today. No more wondering, is this Warren Buffet investment scheme legitimate, does Taylor Swift really want to give away cookware to fans, or did a politician actually say these words? The answers are provided to you automatically and within seconds with McAfee Deepfake Detector.”

Why you need to be able to identify AI-generated deepfakes

Lenovo Yoga 7X Copilot+ PC. (Image credit: Windows Central | Zachary Boddy)

As more professionals adopt generative AI into their workflows, threat actors and hackers have joined the fray, too. Late last year, Microsoft published a new study revealing that hackers are warming up to AI and using the technology to deploy their attacks, making them more sophisticated and harder to identify.

McAfee's Deepfake Detector has been trained on over 200,000 samples. It will leverage the NPUs in Lenovo AI PCs to conduct the identification process directly from the PC, rather than depending on the cloud. This will help maintain the user's privacy without compromising speed, a prevalent issue preventing AI from advancing. "McAfee does not collect or record a user’s audio in any way, and the user is always in control and can turn audio detection on or off as desired," added the company.

McAfee's Deepfake Detector runs on-device like Microsoft's new AI features that just shipped to Windows 11 as part of the 24H2 release exclusively to Copilot+ PCs. This allows the tool to process the data faster while maintaining privacy. It also improves your device's battery life.

The tool shipped to broad availability on August 21, 2024, in the US, UK, and Australia for English language detection in select new Lenovo AI PCs. It's also worth noting that customers who buy Lenovo's new AI PCs will get a free 30-day trial of McAfee Deepfake Detector, with US pricing starting at $9.99 for the first year.

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard PC features unveiled, touts over 20k hours of performance testing

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 08:10:31 +0000

BioWare's next RPG fantasy epic, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, still has a couple of months left in the oven before fans can get their hands on it, but the developer is hard at work showing off the experience. Now, BioWare has unveiled what sort of features can PC players expect to see from the game, as well as just how much performance testing it is doing.

"Getting the PC experience just right was crucial to us and we created a dedicated team to focus on PC," says the company in a dedicated blog post. "The Dragon Age franchise started out on PC, and we wanted to make sure PC is a great place to play our game. Many of us at BioWare are PC players ourselves."

To that end, over 200,000 performance and compatibility testing has been done on the title to make sure it's ready for the platform. It adds that during its platform testing phase, 40% of the effort was given to PC specifically.

BioWare shared Dragon Age: The Veilguard's system requirements earlier this month. It showed off surprisingly low demands for the Frostbite Engine-developed RPG, giving credence to BioWare's PC optimization claims. Don't forget that the title has already claimed the Steam Deck Verified status too.

It was also revealed today that the game will include native Xbox and DualSense (with haptics) controller support, in addition to keyboard-and-mouse.

"There are many different ways to play our game; so, in order to allow you to find the most comfortable set-up, we’ve added the ability to customize class-specific keybinds that you can easily switch between," says BioWare. "This means that your Rogue Rook can use a different set of keybinds than your Warrior Rook, if you’d like!"

Support for Ultrawide monitors, an FOV slider, real-time graphics showcasing for when changing settings, a native Steam version without EA Play, as well as ray tracing features are confirmed for the PC version too. Moreover, DLSS 3, a "heavily modified" version of FSR 2.2, and XeSS upscaling tech, as well as DLSS 3 frame generation are incoming as performance enhancing features.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is coming out on October 31 across PC (Steam, EA App, Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, as well as PlayStation 5 platforms.

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Asus brings Wi-Fi 7 to its tri-band ROG gaming router

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 19:09:51 +0000

Asus updates its more affordable tri-band ROG Rapture line with Wi-Fi 7.

Asus announced three new Wi-Fi 7 products today, including a tri-band ROG Rapture GT gaming router, a dual-band router, and a new Wi-Fi 7 USB adapter.

The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 has a familiar ’80s retro-future look shared by predecessors like the quad-band GT-BE98, along with most of the same specs, including two 10Gbps and five 2.5Gbps ethernet ports. It also supports 320MHz channel bandwidth on the 6GHz band, which unlocks much higher throughput (although you’ll need a 2Gbps or higher connection to your ISP for that to shine).

The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 has seven ethernet ports.

Image: Asus

Since the GT-BE19000 uses Wi-Fi 7’s multilink operation feature, you can connect a supported device to the 6GHz and 5GHz band at the same time for increased throughput, less latency, and more stability.

Asus’ other new router is the comparatively modest dual-band RT-BE86U. It’s Wi-Fi 7, so it can support multilink operation across the 2.4GHz and 5Ghz bands. It also has a 10Gbps WAN port for connecting to your modem or fiber ONT, along with four 2.5Gbps ethernet ports for wiring up your gaming PC and whatnot.

The RT-86U, a dual-band Wi-Fi 7 router.

Image: Asus

Stick this in your PC and download with it.

Image: Asus

Finally, Asus announced the ROG USB-BE92, an external USB Wi-Fi 7 card. It connects using USB-A or USB-C, and Asus says it should work with Windows 10 or 11 PCs out of the box — just plug it in and go. It’s an easy way to add Wi-Fi 7 to a computer once you’ve upgraded to a Wi-Fi 7 router, unlocking features like MLO for better stability and faster throughput.

Asus didn’t announce any release dates or prices for these devices.

What is Wi-Fi 7?

Wi-Fi 7 is the next version of Wi-Fi to follow Wi-Fi 6E. Like Wi-Fi 6E, the protocol works on the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands, and it’s backward-compatible with devices that precede it. Wi-Fi 7 promises higher throughput, with features like 320MHz channel bandwidth (twice what’s offered on Wi-Fi 6E), Multi-Link Operation (which combines bands into one for greater throughput and more stability), and improved interference handling.

More Wi-Fi 7 routers have hit the market and prices are beginning to come down, though it’s still early days. Even if your devices don’t support it yet, you may benefit from Wi-Fi 7 mesh systems, which will be able to take advantage of the features listed above for faster, more stable wireless backhaul connections between nodes.

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"Microsoft has a knack for overcomplicating tech into a convoluted mess": We had ChatGPT roast Microsoft as 300,000 Instagram users feel the same heat

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 19:07:15 +0000

A viral Instagram trend shows ChatGPT roasting user feeds, so what does the model have to say about Microsoft?

What you need to know

A viral trend is emerging on Instagram, where ChatGPT roasts users based on their feeds and profiles.
Windows Central used the same premise and asked ChatGPT what it thinks about Microsoft.
ChatGPT says Copilot is "supposed to be an AI genius, but half the time, it's more like Artificial Irritant."

You've probably seen the recent viral Instagram trend where ChatGPT roasts users based on their profiles and feeds. Over the past few days, I've seen my friends hop on the same trend and share the results using the template. Per their comments, ChatGPT is extremely brutal.. but equally accurate.

For the culture, I also jumped onto the wave. And indeed, I got a taste of the chatbot's bitter but truthful pill — "So, congrats on the aesthetic, but don't be surprised if your followers are just there for the occasional trainwreck they can't look away from," in conclusion to ChatGPT's roast of my Instagram feed.

The trend has been received with mixed feelings with the vast majority looking it as a fun way to get a brief and brutal description of their feeds. However, emerging concerns among some users suggest the trend could be a "phishing scam to feed images to AI." Some users have even indicated they can critique their work better than a bot.

Privacy and security are the main deterrents that prevent AI from scaling greater heights and advances. Regulators and consumers have blatantly expressed the need for regulation to prevent AI from veering off the rails.

While interesting, I decided to move on from the trend and ask ChatGPT what it thinks about Microsoft and Copilot. Here are my findings:

Windows Central asks ChatGPT to roast Microsoft, Copilot, and Windows

Windows 11 Copilot (Image credit: Windows Central)

Out of pure curiosity, I asked ChatGPT to roast Microsoft and share its thoughts with me, and here's what I found out. ChatGPT refers to Copilot as "the clunky office intern who insists on helping but mostly just rearranges your desk and loses important files."

The chatbot disregarded Copilot's suggestions and indicated they are as useful as a paperweight in a hurricane. "It’s supposed to be an AI genius, but half the time, it’s more like Artificial Irritant," added ChatGPT. “Why did I even bother asking for help?”

Microsoft highlighted its plan to pump the brakes on shipping new experiences to Copilot. The company indicated it plans to use the time to improve and enhance existing experiences based on feedback.

And those infamous updates? It’s like Microsoft thinks your computer is a Netflix show that needs constant cliffhangers—except instead of entertainment, you’re left with anxiety about whether your computer will actually turn back on when you need it most. So, yeah, if Copilot is supposed to be our future, maybe it’s time to start stocking up on notebooks and pens again.

ChatGPT

While updating its Services Agreement, Microsoft stated AI isn't designed or intended to replace professionals and should be treated as a guide. The company further highlighted that the chatbot occasionally makes mistakes. For instance, it's previously been spotted spreading misinformation about elections.

What does ChatGPT think of Microsoft as a company?

Microsoft logo (Image credit: Future)

The chatbot acknowledges that Microsoft has been around the block for a hot minute — 49 years now. But the model compares the tech giant to "that one co-worker who’s been there too long, doing things the same outdated way because “that’s how we’ve always done it.”

Microsoft is arguably the world's most valuable company, though it often scrambles with Apple and NVIDIA. Market analysts attribute its success in the category to its early multi-billion dollar investment and adoption of the technology across its tech stack.

ChatGPT shares the same sentiments but dwindles Microsoft's efforts in the category by indicating:

"They’ve got a knack for taking promising technology and overcomplicating it until it’s a convoluted mess."

In the same breath, investors have started raising concerns over Microsoft's exorbitant expenditure on AI projects. Key stakeholders say they can't establish a clear and profitable path in the AI landscape.

Windows 11 was just chilling

Windows 11 Start Logo (Image credit: Windows Central / Zac Bowden)

"Just when you get comfortable with one version of Windows, they shove a new one down your throat—complete with a fresh batch of bugs and an interface that seems designed to make you question all your life choices," added ChatGPT.

Windows 11 is Microsoft's latest operating system, and it has struggled to grow its market share. Windows 10 remains the most popular operating system despite its end-of-support date slated for October 14, 2025. This can be attributed to its stringent system requirements and flawed design.

Microsoft recently patched the TPM 2.0 trick that allowed users to bypass the hardware requirement verification process when activating Windows 11 on unsupported devices.

Elsewhere, the company shipped crazy new AI features to Windows 11, including Windows Studio Effects, Live Captions, and the controversial Windows Recall feature.

It's worth noting that these features are shipping exclusively to Windows 11 users with Copilot+ PCs, ultimately adding a barrier to users who might want to settle for the conventional PC. Microsoft says these features depend on advanced PC components like a neural processing unit (NPU), prompting the need for a high-end device.

As Windows 10's death looms, Windows 11's market share is steadily growing and has now risen to 30% of the market share. Market analysts attribute the trend to Microsoft's aggressive ad strategy, Windows 10's looming death, and the hype building around Copilot+ PCs. It's worth noting the company promised to "temporarily" stop using ads in Windows 10 to lure users into upgrading to Windows 11.

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Microsoft releases Phi-3.5 family of models that outperform competing models

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 19:03:54 +0000

Today, Microsoft announced the release of the Phi-3.5 family of models, which includes Phi-3.5-vision, Phi-3.5-MoE, and Phi-3.5-mini. These lightweight models are built upon synthetic data and filtered publicly available websites and support a 128K token context length. All models are now available on Hugging Face under an MIT license.

Phi-3.5-MoE: A Mixture of Experts Breakthrough

The Phi-3.5-MoE stands out as the first model in the Phi family to leverage Mixture of Experts (MoE) technology. This 16 x 3.8B MoE model activates only 6.6B parameters with 2 experts and was trained on 4.9T tokens using 512 H100s. The Microsoft Research team designed the model from scratch to boost its performance. In standard AI benchmarks, Phi-3.5-MoE outperforms Llama-3.1 8B, Gemma-2-9B, and Gemini-1.5-Flash and is close to the current leader, GPT-4o-mini.

Phi-3.5-mini: Lightweight and Powerful

The Phi-3.5-mini is a 3.8B parameter model that surpasses Llama3.1 8B and Mistral 7B and is even competitive with Mistral NeMo 12B. It was trained on 3.4T tokens using 512 H100s. With just 3.8B active parameters, this model is competitive on multilingual tasks compared to LLMs with many more active parameters. Additionally, Phi-3.5-mini now supports 128K context length, while its main competitor, the Gemma-2 family, only supports 8K.

Phi-3.5-vision: Enhanced Multi-Frame Image Understanding

The Phi-3.5-vision is a 4.2B parameter model trained on 500B tokens using 256 A100 GPUs. This model now supports multi-frame image understanding and reasoning. Phi-3.5-vision has improved performance on MMMU (from 40.2 to 43.0), MMBench (from 80.5 to 81.9), and the document understanding benchmark TextVQA (from 70.9 to 72.0).

Microsoft is expected to share more details on the Phi-3.5 family of models later today. Microsoft's Phi-3.5 release showcases advancements in AI model efficiency and capabilities. With a focus on lightweight design and multi-modal understanding, the Phi-3.5 family of models may get broader adoption across various AI applications.

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Nvidia is ditching dedicated G-Sync modules to push back against FreeSync’s ubiquity

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 02:58:30 +0000

But G-Sync will still require specific G-Sync-capable MediaTek scaler chips.

Back in 2013, Nvidia introduced a new technology called G-Sync to eliminate screen tearing and stuttering effects and reduce input lag when playing PC games. The company accomplished this by tying your display's refresh rate to the actual frame rate of the game you were playing, and similar variable refresh-rate (VRR) technology has become a mainstay even in budget monitors and TVs today.

The issue for Nvidia is that G-Sync isn't what has been driving most of that adoption. G-Sync has always required extra dedicated hardware inside of displays, increasing the costs for both users and monitor manufacturers. The VRR technology in most low-end to mid-range screens these days is usually some version of the royalty-free AMD FreeSync or the similar VESA Adaptive-Sync standard, both of which provide G-Sync's most important features without requiring extra hardware. Nvidia more or less acknowledged that the free-to-use, cheap-to-implement VRR technologies had won in 2019 when it announced its "G-Sync Compatible" certification tier for FreeSync monitors. The list of G-Sync Compatible screens now vastly outnumbers the list of G-Sync and G-Sync Ultimate screens.

Today, Nvidia is announcing a change that's meant to keep G-Sync alive as its own separate technology while eliminating the requirement for expensive additional hardware. Nvidia says it's partnering with chipmaker MediaTek to build G-Sync capabilities directly into scaler chips that MediaTek is creating for upcoming monitors. G-Sync modules ordinarily replace these scaler chips, but they're entirely separate boards with expensive FPGA chips and dedicated RAM.

These new MediaTek scalers will support all the same features that current dedicated G-Sync modules do. Nvidia says that three G-Sync monitors with MediaTek scaler chips inside will launch "later this year": the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQNR, the Acer Predator XB273U F5, and the AOC AGON PRO AG276QSG2. These are all 27-inch 1440p displays with maximum refresh rates of 360 Hz.

As of this writing, none of these companies has announced pricing for these displays—the current Asus PG27AQN has a traditional G-Sync module and a 360 Hz refresh rate and currently goes for around $800, so we'd hope for the new version to be significantly cheaper to make good on Nvidia's claim that the MediaTek chips will reduce costs (or, if they do reduce costs, whether monitor makers are willing to pass those savings on to consumers).

For most people most of the time, there won't be an appreciable difference between a "true" G-Sync monitor and one that uses FreeSync or Adaptive-Sync, but there are still a few fringe benefits. G-Sync monitors support a refresh rate between 1 and the maximum refresh rate of the monitor, whereas FreeSync and Adaptive-Sync stop working on most displays when the frame rate drops below 40 or 48 frames per second. All G-Sync monitors also support "variable overdrive" technology to help eliminate display ghosting, and the new MediaTek-powered displays will support the recent "G-Sync Pulsar" feature to reduce blur.

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Dying Light: The Beast announced, brings back Kyle Crane from the original game

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 02:54:48 +0000

Not many fans were expecting an announcement from Techland at Gamescom this year, but during the Opening Night Live presentation, the zombie franchise returned to life. Titled Dying Light: The Beast, this will be a brand-new game that brings back Kyle Crane as the protagonist. Set over 10 years after the events of the original game, Kyle Crane is now tasked with saving even more innocents. Check out the announcement trailer above.

"Dying Light: The Beast is a thrilling 18+ hours standalone zombie adventure set in the post-apocalyptic Castor Woods, a once-popular tourist destination," says Techland about the brand-new experience. "After 13 years of enduring experiments, you escape and hunt down your captors to seek retribution, only to discover there’s far more at stake."

While originally planned as the second DLC pack for Dying Light 2 Stay Human, the new story campaign had transformed into its own experience during its two-year development cycle. For those who purchased the Dying Light 2 Stay Human Ultimate Edition, The Beast will be available as a free experience, fulfilling the original promise of giving two DLCs for the mainline game.

Voice actor Roger Craig Smith is coming back to voice Crane too. "Stepping back into Kyle Crane's shoes feels like a reunion with an old friend," says Smith. "And even though he’s gone through a terrible time, there’s still plenty of legendary hero left in him.”

The new Castor Woods location players will be exploring this time, which has natural landmarks, villages, and industrial locations with plenty of options for the series' iconic parkour action to shine through. Crane will also be able to use some zombie-virus-enabled abilities to awaken "beast-like power," according to the developer.

A four-player co-op is confirmed, too, with the complete campaign available to play together with friends.

Dying Light: The Beast does not have a release date attached to it yet, but it is coming to both last-gen and current-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Of course, PC is confirmed as a platform too.

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Starfield: Shattered Space expansion lands September 30, update with land vehicle is out now

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 02:53:32 +0000

Microsoft had a surprise showing at the Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase today, attaching a release date to Starfield's first expansion, Shattered Space. It was also announced that the free update carrying the RPG's ground vehicle is available to all players now.

Starting with the expansion, Shattered Space will launch on September 30 across PC and Xbox consoles. Here's how the studio describes the standalone experience that's set in a single, hand-crafted planet:

The home planet of House Va’ruun remains a mystery to the vast majority of the citizens of the Settled Systems. This clandestine faction is primarily known only by their dangerous reputation and violent history. When a distress signal originating from a derelict star station leads you on a path to Va’ruun’kai, you’ll begin to uncover the secrets surrounding the followers of the Great Serpent and ultimately decide the future of House Va’ruun.

As for the latest free update hitting Starfield today, it is carrying the long-promised REV-8 land vehicle. It lets players explore the planets they land on with much more style and speed, with even Vasco getting a seat of his own. All they need is a vehicle module on the spaceship, which can be bought from a shop technician.

The vehicle touts a mounted turret, armor, boosters, and space for any NPC players to rescue in their travels. Catch it in action above. The changelog is below:

Features

Added the new Rev-8 Vehicle which can be purchased from the ship technician

Added Xbox Series S performance options

General

General performance and stability improvements

Creations UI fixes and improvements

Gameplay

Addressed an issue that could prevent fully scanning the planet Beta Marae I

Gameplay Options: Addressed an issue with Legendary weapons that could cause the Well Fed and Hydrated effects to refresh

Gameplay Options: Addressed an issue with switching weapons that could cause the "You are now Hydrated" notification to appear frequently

Gameplay Options: Addressed an issue that could cause Sustenance effects to stop working in NG+ variants

Fixed an issue with reloading the Novastrike sniper rifle

Resolved an issue that caused other characters to hold the Novastrike rifle incorrectly

Fixed a visual issue with the Magshot reload animation in zero-g

Extreme Temperature Entry Spacesuit can now be put on displays

Addressed an issue that could cause multiple items to spawn on display stands

The Rattler displayed on the Trackers Alliance headquarters wall can now be interacted with

Gravity Well no longer pulls NPCs into the ships in the Chop Shop

Adjusted map location markers in cities to improve fast travelling

The apartment in The Well in New Atlantis now has a map marker

The marker for Shepherd's General Store in Akila should display properly

Fixed an issue that caused the Rapid Legendary effect to not properly apply to melee weapons

Addressed an issue that could cause Lyle Brewer to become hostile to the player as a follower

Updated the status text for the Shielded Grip and Large Shielded Grip mods for the Plasma Cutter

Adjusted the balance on Mysterious Tracker’s Voice audio

Resolved an issue that could cause unexpected noises upon entering the Lodge for NG+ variants

Ships

Fixed an issue that could cause Ship docking bridges to remain extended

Addressed an issue with modifying a landed non-home ship that could cause a duplicate ship model to appear on the landing pad

Shipbuilder: Ship module variants and flip versions will now correctly revert to the original when pressing the Cancel button

Ship Decoration: Addressed an issue with the Ecliptic Claymore that could allow objects to be placed outside of the ship

Graphics

Fixed an issue that would cause the Frame generation setting to be turned off when DLSS was selected for Upscaling (PC)

Fixed lighting for ship and station interiors in photo mode

Improved quality of reflections in shallow puddles

Addressed an issue with upscaling that could cause visual artifacts on planets when viewed from space

Helmets will now toggle correctly for companions who are downed in photo mode

UI

Addressed an issue with the Ship and Inventory menus on 21:9 resolutions

Fixed an issue with how large Carry Capacity is displayed in the inventory with large font enabled

Addressed an issue with how The Cue Ball and Ping Pong Ball display in the inventory menu

Outposts

Flood lamps decoration items will now correctly toggle off and on at outposts featuring a power source

The August Update for Starfield is now available across PC and Xbox Series X|S systems for both owners and Game Pass subscribers.

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Monster Hunter Wilds' WILD new gameplay trailer reveals a range of new monsters

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 02:52:14 +0000

Brand new monsters make their grand debut for Monster Hunter Wilds and the return of NPC Support Hunter from Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak

What you need to know

A new trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds, the next-gen successor to Capcom's best-selling title of all time, Monster Hunter World, has been revealed at Gamescom 2024.
This trailer showcases a tiny glimpse of the game's story and characters, a new locale, NPC followers, and two new brand monsters to fight.
Monster Hunter Wilds is set to release in 2025 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.

The annual Gamescom 2024 convention is underway and brings with it a smorgasbord of announcements and trailers for a variety of games. One such game getting a new trailer during Gamecom's Opening Night Live ceremony is Monster Hunter Wilds, the next mainline entry in Capcom's Monster Hunter franchise.

The trailer begins by showing us a glimpse of the game's story. In Monster Hunter Wilds, a band of hunters are traversing a treacherous realm known as the Forbidden Lands in search of a hunting expedition that went missing there.

During our heroes' journey in this trailer, they encounter two terrifying monsters that have never been seen before in a Monster Hunter game. The first of these creatures is the Lala Barina, a giant spider monster that resides in the Scarlet Forest and attacks its prey using paralyzing poison and deadly stingers.

The second is a monster that we've only seen brief glimpses of in Monster Hunter Wilds' Summer Game Fest trailer, but now we know what is it - the Rey Dau. This gigantic beast of a Flying Wyvern is the apex predator of the Windward Plains and attacks its prey whenever the region's sandstorms occur by zapping its opponents with lightning bolts shot from its head.

In addition to these beasts being added to Monster Hunter Wilds' list of monsters, this trailer reveals that this game will include NPC Support Hunters. This was a mechanic that debuted in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak that allowed solo players to bring NPC hunters along with them during hunts and now it's coming back for Monster Hunter Wilds.

On top of that, the Turf Wars mechanic introduced in Monster Hunter World will be returning for Monster Hunter Wilds also. Turf Wars are when two certain monsters make eye contact in the same area and initiate a cinematic battle where they deal massive damage to one another. Players can take advantage of this mechanic by luring monsters together so they can beat each other up, and weakening them so the player will be able to finish them off quickly.

I can't wait to hunt these new monsters

Stay on your toes while fighting the vicious yet graceful Lala Barina. (Image credit: Capcom)

These new monsters coming to Monster Hunter Wilds look absolutely amazing. With Lala Barina, I'm happy to see a new large insect monster being added to the roster as giant monsters in most Monster Hunter games tend to have some most character designs and the weapons you get for killing them look stunning and offer useful status effects that can cripple monsters.

As for the Rey Dau, I am both awe-stricken over how cool it looks and terrified at how brutal its lightning attacks are. I have a feeling that this monstrosity is going to be the first major test of the player's skill and mastery of the Monster Hunter Wilds list of weapons and whether they have it takes to progress through the story.

However new players to the series won't have to worry too much about tackling these beasts as the NPC Support Hunters will be there to help them should they need it. The NPC Support Hunters were very competent and useful in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, so I have no doubt they will just be as helpful in Monster Hunter Wilds.

Either way, I'm extremely looking forward to challenging these monsters whether I'm fighting them solo, with NPCs, or with fellow players in online co-op when Monster Hunter Wilds launches next year for consoles and PC.

Monster Hunter Wilds, the next-gen successor to one of Capcom's best Xbox games and best PC games, Monster Hunter World, is scheduled to launch in 2025 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.

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How to Back Up Your Slack Archive Before Slack Deletes It

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:44:37 +0000

The app is going to delete older posts from free workspaces. Here’s how to archive everything—and, if you want to, move your community over to Discord.

Slack offers a free version of its workplace communication app that's used by plenty of online communities large and small. This free version hides all messages that are older than three months in age, meaning you can't search for or scroll up to see messages older than that. Until recently, Slack kept older messages on its server even though free users couldn't see them, the idea being that you could upgrade to gain access to your organization’s entire message archive.

That's changing this month. If you have a free workspace account, Slack is going to delete all messages older than one year on August 26, 2024. It's understandable you might want to keep an archive of your older conversations, and you can, but you need to act now.

Slack allows administrators of any Slack instance to export an archive of all messages in public channels. The archive isn't exactly easy to read or browse, but you can change that with the right software. You can also migrate all of your messages over to Discord, if you'd prefer to use a messaging service that doesn't limit access to your archive. Let's start by showing you how to back up your Slack archive and then explore the tools that give you access to it.

Export Your Slack Archive

Slack via Justin Pot

First you will need to export your Slack archive. To do this, you need to be an admin for the Slack you want to export. In Slack, click the name of your Slack in the top-left corner, hover over Settings & administration, then click Workplace settings. This will open the Settings & Permissions page in your browser, where you will see an Import/Export Data button.

Click that, then click the Export tab. Select the date range you want to download, and click Start Export. The export process could take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours, depending on how big your Slack archive is. You will get a Slackbot DM when it’s done, though, so don’t feel like you need to leave the window open. When it’s ready, the archive will be a ZIP file, which you should unarchive.

You'll notice that the archive is not easy to read—the exported archive is just a bunch of JSON files. If you want to browse or restore these conversations, you're going to need to do some work.

Browse Your Archive on Your Computer

ScreenshotCourtesy of Justin Pot

If you want a user interface to explore your old Slack archives I recommend Slack Log Viewer, which is a free download for Windows or Mac. It's a little rough around the edges, granted, but with it you can explore old messages by channel, search old messages, and even view profiles. Note that the Mac version is currently unsigned, so you'll have to right-click and click Open in order to open it.

All you need to do is launch the application and point it to your Slack archive—both directories and ZIP files are supported. You can now browse and search every public message from your Slack archive.

Export Your Slack Archive to Discord

Maybe it's not enough to have a local backup of your Slack history—maybe you want to make it available to your entire community by porting your archive to Discord. You can do that using an application called Slackord.

The downside: It’s a little bit complex to get started. There are instructions on the GitHub page that I struggled through, and what follows is my attempt to simplify things. I’m using the Windows version for this tutorial; the application also works for Linux and macOS if you’re willing to use the command line.

First, download Slackord. Before you open it, though, you’ll need to set up a Discord bot—here’s a link to get started. Click New Application, naming it whatever you want. Click 0Auth2 in the left hand panel. Click Bot under Scopes. A new subfield titled BOT PERMISSION will open; click Administrator. Copy the Generated URL and open it in a new tab to add the bot to your server.

Go back to the tab where you were building the bot and head to the Bot section in the sidebar. Make sure that Public Bot and Requires OAuth2 Code Grant are both turned off and that Message content intent is turned on. Next click the Reset Token button, then click Do it. You may need to enter your Discord password at this point. You will see a new token appear. Copy the token and save it in a text document. You will be asked if you want to save your changes—click Save.

Courtesy of Justin Pot

Now open Slackord on your computer. Next click Import Server. Browse to the Slack archive you downloaded earlier, making sure to unarchive the file if you haven't already. The parsing process may take a while, depending on how large the archive is.

When parsing is done, click the Set Bot Token button and paste your token when asked. Next, click the Connect button. This will connect Slackord to Discord—you can tell it’s working if the bot you created shows up as online in Discord. Now you can type “/slackord” in Discord. The app will get to work immediately importing everything in your Slack archive into Discord, meaning now you just need to lean back.

The bot will create a Discord channel for every single one of the channels you had on Slack, then automatically post all of your messages in the appropriate channel, complete with profile pictures, usernames, and timestamps. This process takes a while, and if Discord is open, prepare yourself to hear notifications for every single post. You can close the Discord application if this gets annoying—Slackord will keep on keeping on. Just know that your complete Slack archive will live on in Discord. Now you just need to get your friends to make the switch. And if your friends are new to Discord, we have a guide to help them get started.

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Nvidia launches RTX 4070 with 'extra-fast' GDDR6 memory to 'meet strong demand'

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:35:24 +0000

In addition to announcing a new graphics driver with Black Myth: Wukong support and GeForce NOW upgrades, Nvidia today launched a new version of the RTX 4070 graphics card. The GPU was unveiled quietly in the release notes for the latest driver, which is hardly surprising, considering how little change it contains.

You may remember that Nvidia released the RTX 4070 SUPER in January 2024, but the regular RTX 4070 remained in production. Now, there is a third variant of the RTX 4070 that is almost identical to the original model. The only difference between the two is the memory standard. The new RTX 4070 features "extra fast" GDDR6 memory, while the old model has GDDR6X memory. Other specs are unchanged:

	Cores	Memory	Clocks	TGP	Price
Nvidia RTX 4070	5888 CUDA cores	12 GB GDDR6X 12 GB GDDR6 128-bit, 20 Gbps 480 GB/s	1920 MHz base 2475 MHz boost	200W	$549

Cores

Memory

Clocks

TGP

Price

Nvidia RTX 4070

5888 CUDA cores

12 GB GDDR6X
12 GB GDDR6

128-bit, 20 Gbps
480 GB/s

1920 MHz base
2475 MHz boost

200W

$549

Nvidia says that the new model features "extra fast" GDDR6 memory that should perform close to its GDDR6X-powered sibling. Real-life tests will show the performance difference, but Nvidia claims the new model "offers similar performance in games and applications." As for why make a new RTX 4070 model with GDDR6 memory, Nvidia cites the need to improve supply and availability in light of the strong demand for these graphics cards.

To improve supply and availability to meet strong demand, we’re introducing the GeForce RTX 4070 with extra fast GDDR6 memory. All of the other specs remain the same. It offers similar performance in games and applications.

You can expect the first RTX 4070 GDDR6 models from Nvidia's partners in early September. Although the graphics card is not coming out for a couple more weeks, its support is already there in the latest 560.94 WHQL Game Ready driver.

You can learn more about the RTX 4070 GPU family here.

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Borderlands 4 is launching in 2025

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:31:51 +0000

The next mainline game in the Borderlands series is coming to PC, PS5, and Series X / S.

Gearbox is planning to launch Borderlands 4 sometime in 2025, the company announced at the Gamescom Opening Night Live show on Tuesday. The game is set to launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X / S.

The reveal trailer was pretty mysterious, and the trailer’s description on YouTube doesn’t offer much in the way of specifics, either. “In this next installment of the definitive looter shooter, players will assume the role of a legendary Vault Hunter as they blast their way through hordes of enemies in search of new treasures to loot on an all-new planet,” according to the description. At the very least, this new game seems like it will continue the legacy from other titles in the series.

The announcement follows the Borderlands movie’s generally poor reception and bad box office sales. Borderlands 3, the last mainline game in the franchise, launched in September 2019.

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Nvidia and MediaTek partner to bring G-SYNC to more monitors without G-SYNC modules

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:29:34 +0000

Nvidia's G-SYNC capabilities are coming to more monitors. At Gamescom 2024 in Germany, Nvidia and MediaTek announced a partnership that will equip more displays with G-SYNC with no need for a dedicated G-SYNC hardware module.

For those unfamiliar, G-SYNC is a feature suite that offers several benefits for gamers with compatible monitors and Nvidia graphics cards. G-SYNC synchronizes your monitor's refresh rate with the current frame rate to eliminate visual screen "tearing" or artifacts. There are also several additional features that a dedicated G-SYNC module enables in supported displays, such as 12b color accuracy, ultra-low motion blur, low-latency HDR, latency analyzer, and more.

Although there are so-called G-SYNC Compatible monitors that partially support the feature without dedicated G-SYNC modules, they do not have access to all capabilities. Thanks to the partnership with MediaTek, the complete suite of G-SYNC features will be available on displays without physical G-SYNC modules. Nvidia says this will make the "industry's best gaming display technologies" more accessible by lowering the cost of supported displays.

In addition, Nvidia announced G-SYNC Pulsar, a new technology aimed at reducing ghosting and making your gaming experience clearer:

A highlight of this collaboration is the introduction of G-SYNC Pulsar, a new technology that offers 4x the effective motion clarity alongside a smooth and tear-free variable refresh rate (VRR) gaming experience.

Gamers can expect superior image quality, unmatched motion clarity, ultra-low latency, highly accurate colors, and more cutting-edge benefits on their displays.

The first fruits of Nvidia's partnership with MediaTek will come to the market in the form of the ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG27AQNR, Acer Predator XB273U F5 and AOC AGON PRO AG276QSG2 monitors. They are coming later this year with a 2,560x1,440 resolution, a 360Hz refresh rate, and HDR support.

You can learn more about Nvidia G-SYNC technology and its capabilities on the official Nvidia website.

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Nvidia reveals over 20 future PC games with support for its RTX and DLSS graphics tech

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:27:01 +0000

Nvidia may be making tons of money from its generative AI GPUs right now, but the company has not forgotten its PC gaming graphics roots. Today as part of its Gamescom 2024 announcements, it has revealed that over 20 upcoming PC games will support its RTX and DLSS graphics technologies.

That list does not include the just-released action RPG Black Myth: Wukong, which as of this writing now has over 2 million concurrent players on Steam. The game supports both Nvidia DLSS 3 along with full ray tracing for supported GeForce RTX graphic cards.

Here's the list of new and upcoming games that will add support for Nvidia DLSS and RTX:

Arena Breakout: Infinite (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Avowed (DLSS 3. Reflex, and Ray Tracing)

Black State (DLSS 3. Reflex, and Ray Tracing)

Concord (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Dragon Age: The Veilguard (DLSS 3. Reflex, and Ray Tracing)

Dune: Awakening (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Empire of the Ants (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Eternal Strands (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

FINAL FANTASY XVI (DLSS 3, DLAA, and Reflex)

FragPunk (DLSS 3. Reflex, and Ray Tracing)

Funko Fusion (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Greedfall II: The Dying World (DLSS Super Resolution)

Killing Floor 3 (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Kingmakers (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Marvel Rivals (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Mecha BREAK (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Once Human (DLSS 3. Reflex, and Ray Tracing; patch available now)

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Retrieval (NVIDIA RTX Dynamic Illumination)

SPINE (DLSS 3)

Test Drive Unlimited (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

Solar Crown

Unawake (DLSS 3 and Reflex)

In addition, people who buy any new Nvidia GeForce RTX Series 40 graphics card, or buy a new PC or laptop with a new Series 40 GPU or card, will be able to get a digital code for the PC version of Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws. The offer will end on September 19. You can get more info on this offer at this website. The game will support DLSS 3.5, along with Reflex, Ray Tracing, and RTX Dynamic Illumination (RTXDI).

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Black Myth: Wukong has become the most played single-player game ever on Steam [Update]

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:25:51 +0000

Black Myth: Wukong, the Unreal Engine 5-based action-RPG, launched on Monday for the PlayStation 5 console and also on the PC via Valve's Steam service. The game, from developer and public Game Science, has already broken a major record for Steam in its first 24 hours.

The game is on top of the most concurrent online players list on Steam. More importantly, its current (as of this writing) amount of 1,444,429 players on Steam has set a new record for the most concurrent players on Steam at once for a single-player online game.

That number blows away the amount of online Steam gamers for CD Projekt RED's Cyberpunk 2077, which was the previous record holder on Steam in this single-player category. SteamDB shows it had 1,054,388 concurrent players when it launched in December 2020.

Right now, not only is Black Myth: Wukong the most-played game on Steam at the moment, but it's also the fourth most-played game on the service ever. Only PUBG: Battlegrounds, Palworld, and Counter-Strike 2 (all multiplayer-themed games) have had higher online concurrent player numbers.

Just in case you are unfamiliar with Black Myth: Wukong, here's a quick summary:

Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology. The story is based on Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. You shall set out as the Destined One to venture into the challenges and marvels ahead, to uncover the obscured truth beneath the veil of a glorious legend from the past.

The game also debuted on the PS5 Monday but so far there's no word on how many gamers have played that title on Sony's console. The game also launched for the PC via the Epic Games Store where it is currently listed as the top selling game. However, there's no word on how many online players are playing tha title on that storefront.

Update: 9:06 am Eastern time, August 20 - SteamDB now shows that Black Myth: Wukong has surpassed Palworld as the second biggest concurrent player record holder on Steam with 2,111,104 online players.

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HW News - AMD 5500X3D, Steam OS on ROG Ally, RTX 4070 VRAM Downgrade, AMD Vulnerability [Video]

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 09:14:50 +0000

Gamers Nexus (2.26M subscribers)

August 20, 2024

Video length: 23m 31s

00:00 - Recapping the Week

01:31 - New Tests Added (Rodinia CFD & FSI)

07:52 - Rumor: AMD R5 5500X3D CPU for AM4

10:45 - Rumor: RTX 4090D & 4080 Double VRAM

11:57 - GPD Equips Zen 5 APU to Pocket 4 Handheld

14:10 - US Govt. Attacking Subscription Cancellation

15:44 - Meta Quest 3S Leak

16:45 - AMD CPU Vulnerability Sinkclose

18:49 - SteamOS Coming to ROG Ally

20:23 - Rumor: RTX 4070 VRAM Downgrade

21:36 - Google Builds Ping Pong Robot

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AMD signs $4.9 billion deal to challenge Nvidia’s AI infrastructure lead

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 08:00:52 +0000

Company hopes acquisition of ZT Systems will accelerate adoption of its data center chips.

AMD has agreed to buy artificial intelligence infrastructure group ZT Systems in a $4.9 billion cash and stock transaction, extending a run of AI investments by the chip company as it seeks to challenge market leader Nvidia.

The California-based group said the acquisition would help accelerate the adoption of its Instinct line of AI data center chips, which compete with Nvidia’s popular graphics processing units (GPUs).

ZT Systems, a private company founded three decades ago, builds custom computing infrastructure for the biggest AI “hyperscalers.” While the company does not disclose its customers, the hyperscalers include the likes of Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon.

The deal marks AMD’s biggest acquisition since it bought Xilinx for $35 billion in 2022.

“It brings a thousand world-class design engineers into our team, it allows us to develop silicon and systems in parallel and, most importantly, get the newest AI infrastructure up and running in data centers as fast as possible,” AMD’s chief executive Lisa Su told the Financial Times.

“It really helps us deploy our technology much faster because this is what our customers are telling us [they need],” Su added.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2025, subject to regulatory approval, after which New Jersey-based ZT Systems will be folded into AMD’s data center business group. The $4.9bn valuation includes up to $400mn contingent on “certain post-closing milestones.”

Citi and Latham & Watkins are advising AMD, while ZT Systems has retained Goldman Sachs and Paul, Weiss.

The move comes as AMD seeks to break Nvidia’s stranglehold on the AI data center chip market, which earlier this year saw Nvidia temporarily become the world’s most valuable company as big tech companies pour billions of dollars into its chips to train and deploy powerful new AI models.

Part of Nvidia’s success stems from its “systems” approach to the AI chip market, offering end-to-end computing infrastructure that includes pre-packaged server racks, networking equipment, and software tools to make it easier for developers to build AI applications on its chips.

AMD’s acquisition shows the chipmaker building out its own “systems” offering. The company rolled out its MI300 line of AI chips last year, and says it will launch its next-generation MI350 chip in 2025 to compete with Nvidia’s new Blackwell line of GPUs.

In May, Microsoft was one of the first AI hyperscalers to adopt the MI300, building it into its Azure cloud platform to run AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4. AMD’s quarterly revenue for the chips surpassed $1 billion for the first time in the three months to June 30.

But while AMD has feted the MI300 as its fastest-ever product ramp, its data center revenue still represented a fraction of the $22.6 billion that Nvidia’s data center business raked in for the quarter to the end of April.

In March, ZT Systems announced a partnership with Nvidia to build custom AI infrastructure using its Blackwell chips. “I think we certainly believe ZT as part of AMD will significantly accelerate the adoption of AMD AI solutions,” Su said, but “we have customer commitments and we are certainly going to honour those”.

Su added that she expected regulators’ review of the deal to focus on the US and Europe.

In addition to increasing its research and development spending, AMD says it has invested more than $1 billion over the past year to expand its AI hardware and software ecosystem.

In July the company announced it was acquiring Finnish AI start-up Silo AI for $665 million, the largest acquisition of a privately held AI startup in Europe in a decade.

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Commandos: Origins gameplay trailer is here, game is also coming to Xbox One and PS4

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 18:59:40 +0000

It was last year that Kalypso Media and Claymore Game Studios unveiled Commandos: Origins, an unexpected return of the real-time tactics series that debuted in the 90s. With Gamescom around the corner, the project received a brand-new trailer that finally shows off the returning iconic stealth gameplay; catch it above. Moreover, fresh platforms have been announced for the title too.

"Prepare for battle as the time has come to unveil the latest gameplay trailer for Commandos: Origins, also being shown at gamescom 2024," says the developer. "The highly anticipated instalment in the acclaimed Commandos series offers an exclusive look into the tactical stealth gameplay set to captivate fans later this year."

This entry offers players a prequel storyline telling the tale of how the original Commandos squad from the classic games was formed. The Green Beret, Sapper, Sniper, Driver, Marine, and Spy are returning with all of their skills and more to give new and returning players plenty of opportunities to take down Nazis in WW2.

The developer promises multiple paths to victory in the over 10 missions that are incoming and challenging combat scenarios that require utilizing everything that the Commandos have to offer. Moreover, two-player cooperative play is also incoming as a brand-new feature of the series. The entire game can be played on a local split-screen or in an online co-op.

Ahead of the launch, the game's Xbox version will be playable at Gamescom for attendees, and it will be available at the Xbox booth located in Hall 7 at the tradeshow.

While originally only announced for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5, Commandos: Origins is now also coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms. According to the developer Claymore Game Studios, this decision was taken due to "extensive feedback" from the community and its aim to reach a bigger audience.

Commandos: Origins is also coming to Xbox and PC Game Pass, and it will hit Microsoft subscription services on day one. Unfortunately, the game does not yet have a firm release date outside of a broad 2024 launch window.

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Revealed: These UK cities have the fastest and slowest broadband speeds

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 18:57:20 +0000

When choosing somewhere to live different considerations need to be made. One fairly new consideration is the quality of the broadband in the area. Thanks to Broadband Genie, we now know which UK cities have the best and worst broadband speeds. The gap between the best and worst is stark.

Before we get onto the list, it's worth noting that despite the results, Broadband Genie thinks the broadband landscape in the UK is "looking positive". It noted that 62% of homes have full-fiber broadband access and gigabit broadband is also widely available.

Based on over 149,000 speed tests (per second) conducted around the country, the five fastest cities were Lichfield, Staffordshire (359 Mb); Newry, County Armagh and County Down (138 Mb); Ely, Cambridgeshire (118 Mb); Dundee, Angus (100 Mb); and Lisburn, County Antrim (99 Mb). What's good about these results is that these places are fairly well distributed around the United Kingdom, with Wales being the only nation not represented.

Inversely, the worst cities for broadband in the UK are Canterbury, Kent (22 Mb); Ripon, North Yorkshire (28 Mb); Perth, Perthshire (37); Norwich, Norfolk (38 Mb); and Winchester, Hampshire (40 Mb). These cities are overwhelmingly in England. It's also worth noting that it is Canterbury's second year as the worst city for broadband.

Explaining why Canterbury ranked so lowly, Broadband Genie said:

The area lacks the otherwise widely available Virgin Media and almost a third of premises don’t have access to full fibre broadband. However, other factors can influence the results. Faulty infrastructure and Wi-Fi connectivity issues can dampen the performance. Plus, a lack of awareness of better speeds, unwillingness to pay for an upgrade, and confusing terminology may put off some customers. This results in more people staying on slow broadband deals which aren’t fit for purpose.

In the case of Ripon, the UK's second slowest city, Broadband Genie explains that there may be hope for residents because CityFibre is connecting thousands of premises to full fiber broadband and Zzooomm is planning to build in the area too.

In terms of big cities, Liverpool did the best with broadband speeds of 81 Mb. Edinburgh achieved 78 Mb, Belfast scored 76 Mb, Manchester got 72 Mb, the capital of the UK, London, came in at 57 Mb, Cardiff came in at 50 Mb, and Birmingham, one of the worst performers, came in at 41 Mb.

As an average consumer, you may not even need the fastest packages, Broadband Genie recommends that 1-person households get 35 Mb average download speed packages, up to 3-person households should aim for 35 Mb - 64 Mb, up to 5-person households should aim for 50 Mb to 100 Mb, and 5+ people households should get 100 Mb download speed packages. This is so that multiple people on the network don't overburden it and slow it down for other users.

You can check out Broadband Genie's announcement for a complete overview of how all the UK's cities performed in terms of broadband download speeds.

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Raspberry Pi 5 gets a 2 GB variant priced at $50

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 18:41:33 +0000

Raspberry Pi has just announced a new 2 GB variant of its Raspberry Pi 5 computer. The organization said that it has managed to make it available for $50, down from $60 which is what its next-lowest Raspberry Pi 5 costs. While 2 GB may sound a bit limiting in this day and age, Raspberry Pi OS is optimized to be extremely lightweight and will still work fine with 2 GB.

Cutting the memory was one way in which Raspberry Pi was able to cut the price of this computer but it also used a cost-optimized D0 stepping of the BCM2712 processor, a 16 nm application processor built by Broadcom.

Explaining what it did to reduce processor costs, Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said:

"BCM2712C1 is a hugely complex and powerful device, with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 application processor running at 2.4GHz, and the latest iteration of the VideoCore multimedia platform. Alongside the features required to power a Raspberry Pi, it also contains functionality intended to serve other markets, which we don’t need. This ‘dark silicon’ is permanently disabled in the chips we use, but takes up die space, and therefore adds cost.

The new D0 stepping strips away all that unneeded functionality, leaving only the bits we need. From the perspective of a Raspberry Pi user, it is functionally identical to its predecessor: the same fast quad-core processor; the same multimedia capabilities; and the same PCI Express bus that has proven to be one of the most exciting features of the Raspberry Pi 5 platform. However, it is cheaper to make, and so is available to us at somewhat lower cost. And this, combined with the savings from halving the memory capacity, has allowed us to take $10 out of the cost of the finished product."

While it's excellent that Raspberry Pi has lowered the cost barrier for its computers and the 2 GB edition will be suitable for many, there are some people who will want to go for the higher-RAM variants. For example, if you want to connect dual 4Kp60 displays, open a hundred browser tabs, or compile complex software from source, then you will be better off with the better-spec Raspberry Pi 5.

If you are tempted to buy this lower-cost Raspberry Pi 5, you can find approved retailers on the Raspberry Pi website. Even if you aren't in the US, check the website because Raspberry Pi is available in lots of countries.

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Your 10-year-old graphics card can run Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 18:40:51 +0000

2014's Nvidia GTX 970 is still a "minimum requirements" workhorse.

When Dragon Age: Inquisition came out nearly 10 years ago, PC players could have invested $329 (~$435 in today's dollars) in a brand-new GTX 970 graphics card to make the game look as good as possible on their high-end gaming rig. Surprisingly enough, that very same 2014 graphics card will still be able to run follow-up Dragon Age: The Veilguard (previously known as Dreadwolf) when it launches on October 31. If you're using AMD cards, an even older Radeon R9 that you purchased back in 2013 will be able to run the game.

Veilguard's minimum specs are just the latest to show the workmanlike endurance of the humble GTX 970, which is currently available used on Newegg for as low as $140. Relatively recent big-budget PC releases like Baldur's Gate 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 both use the old card (or the less powerful follow-up variant, the GTX 960) as their "minimum requirement" benchmark.

Not every big-budget PC game these days is so forgiving with its minimum specs, though. When Cyberpunk 2077 and Doom: Eternal launched in 2020, they both asked players to be sporting at least a GTX 1060, which had come out around four years prior.

For a bit of context, the GTX 970 was used as the "recommended" baseline spec for the mid-range "Oculus Ready" PCs needed to power the then-new Rift VR headset when it launched in 2016. Today, a $500 Meta Quest 3 headset gives you much better graphical performance in a self-contained portable package, no gaming PC required.

Veilguard players sticking with a GTX 970 shouldn't expect to get the best graphical experience, of course. EA suggests an RTX 2070 (circa 2018) or a Radeon RX 5700Xt (circa 2019) to run the game at "recommended" specs. And you'll need at least 16 GB of RAM and 100 GB of storage space.

Since work on Veilguard began in earnest in 2015, the game has suffered a string of high-profile staff departures: Creative Director Mike Laidlaw left in 2017; Executive Producer Mark Darrah and BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson left in late 2020; Senior Creative Director Matt Goldman left in late 2021; replacement Executive Producer Christian Daley left in early 2022; and producer Mac Walters left in early 2023.

The full requirements for Dragon Age: The Veilguard are as follows.

Minimum Requirements
OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 3 3300X* (see notes)
Memory: 16GB
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 970/1650 / AMD Radeon R9 290X
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 100GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD preferred, HDD supported; AMD CPUs on Windows 11 require AGESA V2 1.2.0.7

Recommended Requirements
OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (see notes)
Memory: 16GB
Graphics: Nvidia RTX 2070 / AMD Radeon RX 5700XT
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 100GB SSD available space
Additional Notes: SSD required; AMD CPUs on Windows 11 require AGESA V2 1.2.0.7

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