Month: September 2024

Nvidia RTX 4090-powered gaming laptops will launch on February 8 starting at $1,999-

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As anticipated, Nvidia has just announced during its CES 2023 stream that mobile versions of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, RTX 4060, and RTX 4070 will be making their way into gaming laptops this year. Even the RTX 4080 and beastly RTX 4090 are already moving into the mobile gaming space, too, as “a new class of enthusiast laptops.”

CES 2023 is a next-gen laptop bonanza right now, so expect countless posts about powerful gaming laptops over this week. Impressively, Nvidia has managed to jam its latest, and bulkiest, Ada GPU innovations into some very small and highly portable machines. In fact, gaming laptops are going to be hitting us from every direction this week, touting mobile machines with Max-Q GPUs, and in some impressive form factors considering the size of their desktop counterparts.

Along with the announcement comes four new Max-Q innovations. Working to make all this mobile gaming possible will be DLSS 3, low voltage GDDR6 memory, on-chip memory optimisations, and even something called Tri-speed memory (for dynamic GPU memory power switching).

I’m looking forward to potentially being able to game on a 14-inch laptop this year, as Nvidia notes th…

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17 years after its release, the best Star Wars strategy game gets converted to 64-bit-

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November is a time for looking back at the past, whether that’s through Bonfire Night, Thanksgiving, or in a more recent tradition, randomly patching up old-ass games. Last week, Valve were patching decades-old bugs in Half-Life as part of the game’s 25’th anniversary celebrations. Now Star Wars: Empire at War is getting 64-bit support, 17 years on since its release.

Issued as a “maintenance patch update”, the headline change in the patch notes reads “Both games have been converted from 32-bit to 64-bit applications”. This has been done to “solve many out-of-memory bugs and crashes that players were experiencing.”

Alongside this conversion, the patch also addresses “multiplayer out of sync issues,” and makes a few balance changes, including fixing “incorrect unit behaviour”, because there’s nothing worse than your Rebel Alliance rebelling in the wrong way.

While this might seem out of the blue, Empire at War’s new patch is considerably less surprising than Half-Life’s recent bugfixes. The game has received small annual patches on Steam for the last few years, as a joint project between the game’s developers Petroglyph and Star Wars’ owners Disney. Last year’s p…

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Sonic may have just taken the crown for the coolest-ever Lego set-

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Sonic, please forgive me for all the times I’ve poo-pooed your games. Because holy hell, you sure do make for a cool-ass Lego set.

Yep, the blue blur has teamed up with Lego to create four new sets that are due to release this August. It’s not the first time the two have collaborated—the toy brick brand released a Green Hill Zone set back in 2021. We’re actually getting another Green Hill Zone set with this new batch of releases, but if you ask me this new rendition is significantly cooler. The “Loop Challenge” set comes with—as the name suggests—a loop, as well as other pieces to create a course. A hamster-wheeled Sonic can be strapped to a spring catapult and launched across the kit and straight into a meched-up Dr. Eggman. 

It’s easily my favourite—and I imagine it’ll be the favourite of many others—but cool contraptions come at a price. It’s the most expensive of the four coming in at $99.99 / £94.99. It does come with a fair few character figures, though: Sonic can be freed from his hamster ball chamber, Dr. Eggman can be pulled from his mech, and Amy is included, too. It comes with a few creatures too, like a flicky, poc…

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Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes- ‘I don’t get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business’-

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After a lot of wrangling with regulators, Microsoft recently spent $69 billion-with-a-b to acquire Activision Blizzard, after which it almost immediately cut 1,900 jobs across its gaming business. Not great news for anyone, unless perhaps you own MSFT stock. In an interview with Polygon about the driving forces behind layoffs at Microsoft and across the industry, Xbox boss Phil Spencer pointed the finger at—well, really, just capitalism in general.

The problem, according to Spencer, is a “lack of growth” across the videogame industry as a whole. “When you have an industry that is projected to be smaller next year in terms of players and dollars, and you get a lot of publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth—because why else does somebody own a share of someone’s stock if it’s not going to grow?—the side of the business that then gets scrutinized is the cost side,” Spencer said. “Because if you’re not going to grow the revenue side, then the cost side becomes challenged.”

If you can’t grow by making more money, in other words, then you can “grow”—in terms of profits, share pric…

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The Lord of the Rings- Gollum gets a big patch but it sounds like the developers are ready to wash their hands of the whole thing-

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Daedalic’s catastrophic Lord of the Rings: Gollum saga may finally be grinding to a conclusion. The patch notes for a beefy “major update” that dropped last week conclude with a note that, to my reading, pretty strongly suggests that the studio is putting a bow on it and calling it done.

Gollum was on unsure footing almost from the start, as gamers questioned (rightly, I would say) why anyone would want to assume the role of Tolkien’s tragic, clammy villain in the first place. A planned 2021 release gave way to 2022 and then 2023, pointing to some serious problems in development, and while I held out hope that the game would surprise us all as a sleeper hit (or even just with basic competence), it was not to be. It bombed badly: We scored it a relatively high 64% in our review, saying that for all its flaws, Gollum “is an oft-beautiful and oddly endearing adventure,” but it currently holds a 39 aggregate review score at Metacritic, and a “mostly negative” user rating on Steam.

It was bad enough that Daedalic quickly apologized for the mess, saying it “deeply regret[s] that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves or for our dedicated community.” It…

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Embracer’s talk about The Lord of the Rings says one thing- ‘Fly, you fools!’-

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In 2022 Embracer acquired the rights to most media relating to The Lord of the Rings, a complex deal that nevertheless gives it control over pretty much everything to do with the series outside of the original books (which among other things remain controlled by the Tolkien estate). This operation is managed by a subsidiary set up for the purpose, Middle-earth Enterprises, and so far their main output has been a bit of a hangover from before it acquired the rights: a Gollum game so dodgy that it more-or-less killed Daedelic as a developer.

Lee Guinchard is the CEO of Embracer Freemode (the parent company of Middle-earth Enterprises) and is basically now in charge of the franchise. Videogames, movies, board games, and merch based on the series will all involve this company from hereon out, and Guinchard is the man with the final say.

And it goes without saying that he’s got the Tolkien-praising down to an art. In a new interview with VentureBeat Guinchard says a lot of words, but you’ll struggle to find much purchase therein. “The fans who experience this see it as the greatest world ever made outside of our own,” is one such meaningless paean. “W…

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The 2023 Steam Spring Sale is live-

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The first day of spring, according to Google, is March 20. I find that hard to believe because it’s only four days away, and when I look out my window I see snow. Lots and lots of snow. “Spring,” my ass. But it must be true, because Valve says so: The 2023 Steam Spring Sale is now underway.

Are you surprised? You should not be. Unlike the years of long ago, when the start of a Steam sale was a paroxysm of surprise and excitement, Valve is fully transparent about Steam sale dates these days: We’ve got a full list of all the upcoming Steam sale dates in 2023, from the big seasonal blowouts to the smaller, themed events like the SHMUP Fest coming in September.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. The 2023 Steam Spring Sale features deep discounts across every genre you care to name, several of which can be seen in trailer above:

  • Against the Storm
  • No Man’s Sky
  • RimWorld
  • Kena: Bridge of Spirits
  • Astlibra Revision
  • Bendy and the Dark Revival
  • Deep Rock Galactic
  • Dying Light 2: Stay Human<…
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Super cute colony farm sim Echoes of the Plum Grove is inspired as much by Oregon Trail as Stardew Valley-

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Gather round, cozy farm sim players, we’ve got a mashup I’ve not seen yet. Echoes of the Plum Grove is a colony farm sim that its publisher Freedom Games is calling part Paper Mario, Stardew Valley, The Sims, and even Oregon Trail. And yeah, I do actually see all the ingredients in there. Plum Grove turned up to the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted in a montage of other upcoming Freedom Games releases scheduled for next year, and it has a demo on at the moment too.

Obviously that big, green “download” button in Steam was calling to me, so I did take the demo for a very short whirl. The “Oregon Trail” part of the equation is that I’m the sole survivor of a shipwreck who’s conveniently washed up right beside the town where I’d already bought the deed to a disused farm plot. Lucky me! My new home Honeywood is a cartoonified version of the North American colonies—buckle shoes and schoolhouses and all—where I’ll settle down in typical farm sim style by befriending all my fellow locals.

The Stardew inspirations obviously come into play with the set of tools on my hotbar that I can use to rehab the property and plant new crops. Tragically I don’t own the place free a…

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Twitter finally purges blue checks from formerly ‘verified’ accounts, including many game studios and developers-

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After months of build-up and increasingly exhausting fake-outs, Elon Musk’s Twitter has finally flicked the little blue checks off of many of the accounts that had them. The checks previously indicated that an account had been “verified” to belong to the person it claimed to represent, and wasn’t an imposter. 

Starting today, blue checks primarily mean that a person has paid for Twitter Blue, an $8 per month subscription.

Some Twitter accounts that represent organizations, such as PC Gamer’s account, now have a gold check to indicate that they’re affiliated with a paid “Twitter Verified Organizations” business account. It’s also possible for individuals on Twitter to receive a blue checkmark through association with a paid, verified organization. The account of Xbox head Phil Spencer, for instance, still has a blue check because “it’s an affiliate of @Xbox on Twitter.”

Otherwise, blue checks indicate that a user has paid for Twitter Blue and verified their phone number, and that their account is more than 30 days old and in good standing. The complete “verification” guidelines can be read here.

As a result of today’s purge of “legacy” blue checkmarks…

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Wordle hint and answer #646- Monday, March 27-

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However you’d like to play today’s Wordle, you’ll find hints and tips below designed to help. We’ve got general advice for newcomers looking to improve their daily game, today’s answer in big, bold letters if you’re struggling, and a helpful clue written just for the March 27 (646) game.

For a few guesses, today’s Wordle looked like it might be unsalvageable, just a messy scramble of yellows and one green that made no sense—until it all did. It was something of a relief to see the Wordle answer pop up immediately after that classic “lightbulb” moment. 

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Monday, March 27

You might not want to think about animal excrement while solving your Wordle, but I’m afraid you’ll have to today. This particular term is used specifically for bird and bat poo, and contains three different vowels. 

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Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

No letters are used twice in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

If you’ve decided to play Wordle but you’re not sure where to start, I’ll help set you on the path to your f…

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Watch Nvidia’s GTC 2023 keynote right here today-

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With the Game Developer Conference in full swing just down the road, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang will be kicking off the company’s own event today, March 21. And you can watch the whole of the Nvidia GTC keynote right here.

The conference will start at 8am PDT (11am EDT | 3pm GMT) and is scheduled to last for a full ninety minutes. The description for what we’re to expect is pretty vague right now, stating that Jen-Hsun will be unveiling “the latest advancements in generative AI, the metaverse, large language models, robotics, cloud computing, and more.”

So expect a lot of talk about the democratisation of computing thanks to ChatGPT, and probably a good chunk of Nvidia patting itself on the back for putting such a focus into this area for so many years?

But what about gaming? There are a few more RTX 40-series cards still to launch and even to be officially announced, so there is a slight chance that there will at least be some passing reference to the RTX 4070.

The rumours are the kinda mid-range RTX 40-series GPU is set to launch on April 13 this year, with reviews of the Founders Edition cards going live the day before. 

What suggests that we…

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Sims competitor Life By You delayed to June to refine gameplay and ‘add more life’ to character faces-

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The life simulation game in development by Rod Humble and team at Paradox Tectonic, Life By You, is sliding back a few months in the release calendar of new 2024 games. Previously planned for early access in March, it will now launch on June 4. 

In a video message to fans alongside the announcement, Humble says, “As a team, we are so stoked for this date change,” which is definitely unlike the apologetic tone that delays are usually couched in. “It gives us a little bit of extra time to really focus on a quality player experience and a fun game right from the start of early access.”

In the blog post announcing the delay, Paradox outlines quite a few areas for improvement from player feedback that it wants to spend the extra few months addressing. As expected that list includes bug fixes and addressing performance and stability. Improvements to modding tools are also on the list, which Life By You has continued to make a core part of its identity.

Paradox Tectonic also wants to address a lot of feedback on character designs including proportions, facial animations, clothing clipping, and animations. “We’re looking to add more life to th…

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Your RTX 40-series GPU will face its biggest challenge yet next month-

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At GDC, CD Projekt Red is showing off the future of ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077, one bouncing neon light at a time. It’s set to arrive with a new graphics preset, Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode, which will come to the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 on April 11. This gives you enough time to track down an RTX 4080 and its powerful frame-generating magic. You’re going to need it.

In what Nvidia calls a “technology preview,” Overdrive Mode will feature path tracing, aka full ray tracing, announced last year, that’ll “accurately simulates light throughout an entire scene.”. Light sources will now cast “physically correct soft shadows,” and colored lighting will bounce multiple times in a scene. In a game like Cyberpunk that’s drenched with neon lights, it’ll create more realistic direct and indirect lighting.

You can see in this video exactly what Nvidia is talking about, with various light sources bouncing off multiple surfaces like water and metal in ways that are closer to real life. Nvidia says improved physically based lighting should remove the need for other occlusion techniques, which can be taxing on a GPU. 

Path tracing has been around for a while and …

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Wordle today- Hint and answer #897 for Sunday, December 3-

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Turn your daily Wordle into a guaranteed win with a range of help designed to suit your needs. Prefer a lighter touch? Then you’ll enjoy our general tips. Need a bit of guidance? Take a look at a clue for the December 3 (897) game. Just want to savour a speedy win? Click or scroll your way to today’s Wordle answer.

There’s nothing quite like a peaceful bit of puzzling to start off a Sunday morning. No drama, no last minute problems to trip me up, just a smooth game of Wordle that gave me plenty of clues and quickly led to today’s answer. Let’s hope I can keep this relaxed streak going into next week.

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, December 3

If someone or something adjusts or alters itself to better suit its new surroundings or changed circumstances, it would _____ to them. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

Yes, a letter is used twice in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

Anyone can pick up and play Wordle, but if you want to do it well and make all of your guesses count, these quick tips will help get you start…

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