Video content is the most efficient and direct way to get a first impression of a game. Videos are the record of real-time scenes that contains far more information beyond words. Among today's gaming videos, which will be your choice to watch?
Coatsink, the developer of telekinesis-themed first-person VR puzzle game Esper 2 today released a developer video, unveiling the role of two of their main voice actors: Nick Frost and Eric Meyers
Stunning or fashionable objects are always so attractive that many games are counting a lot of income by providing customization items such as mounts, pets and costumes. The latest big feature of Overwatch called Player Progression System seems to follow this trend.
League of Angels - Fire Raiders is celebrating its one-year anniversary with special in-game events and free celebration gifts for 10 straight days. With over 5,000,000 downloads in 2015, Fire Raiders has become GTArcade's most successful mobile game
League of Angels' brand new Magic House system is now live! Full of mysterious power, Amulets and the Inscriptions they hold will allow your Heroes to ascend to even greater heights
Do you still remember Scarlet Blade, the adult MMORPG features a mass of stunning and sexy female characters? After almost 3 years online, this sexy MMO once swept the world is now coming to an end
The latest update of Smurfs Epic Run, Ancient Forest, is released by Ubisoft. Ancient Forest is a new zone full of Smurfy content, 15 levels to complete and a new hero to unlock – Pilot Smurf!
A new Balance Update will be released on March 1, 2016. The update brings buffs to Nova's Snipe damage output, while nerfing Rehgar that will make him on par with other Support Heroes, by touching his most powerful Lightning Shield Talents.
Riot Games recently unveiled a brand new mobile app League Friends which connects directly to your existing League of Legends account and friends list. Okay, download the app when you think all your leaegue friends are ready to come into your daily life!
Neverwinter: The Maze Engine, the ninth expansion of this Dungeons and Dragons-based MMORPG is coming to PC on March 15. Today MMOsite is honored to have an interview with the lead designer of Neverwinter to talk about this upcoming expansion
Felspire of 37Games will release its Version 1.26 on February 26th. After launching on November 2015, Felspire has become a popular role-playing game and been nominated for numerous awards
WEBZEN announced today that the second Closed Beta for its mobile MMORPG, MU: Origin will start on Android and the iOS platforms on the 4th of March, 2016 (UTC).
Obsidian Entertainment and publisher My.com have announced that the newest update is now available on Armored Warfare. This update includes new Asian machines of destruction that will battle in close quarter combat in the coastal urban areas of the newest map for PvP. Zhang Feng, Armored Warfare's latest Arms Dealer, will update player garages with Main Battle […]
The Hamburg-based developer Playa Games has released its award-winning online game Shakes & Fidget on Steam. Following a successful Greenlight campaign, the MMORPG is now available on Valve's digital distribution platform. The multi-platform title is also still available for browsers, smartphones, and tablets. With the aim of getting MMO fans excited about Shakes & […]
WEBZEN announced today that the second Closed Beta for its mobile MMORPG MU: Origin will start on Android and the iOS platforms on the 4th of March, 2016 (UTC). Starting from today, WEBZEN is now taking registrations for the second Closed Beta Test, which runs for 3 days from March 4, through to March 6, 2016 […]
The free-to-play anime MMORPG Aura Kingdom just got even bigger thanks to the latest content update. The level cap has been raised, and players can now work their way up to level 90! Not only that, but the level cap has gone up for Eidolon companions as well – the spunky sidekicks can now shoot […]
Yesterday we did an in-depth look at Ashes of the Singularities' new marquee feature, Explicit Multi-Adapter support, which allows the engine to potentially use any DX12 GPUs it can find to improve performance. In practice, you'll want to stick with similar performance cards, but you're not beholden to AMD or Nvidia. All of our testing was done using relatively modern AMD and Nvidia cards, but what about pairing things like Kepler with earlier GCN 1.0 hardware, or Maxwell with Kepler? We may not have had the time—or hardware—to test all of the permutations available, but opening up the beta to the general public will provide far more manpower.
The game is currently available via Steam's Early Access as well as GoG, and as an added bonus, it's on sale for $25 via Steam instead of the regular $50 asking price, at least through February 29. As a DX12 technological marvel, Ashes is certainly interesting, but there's a game lurking beneath all the glitz and glamor. Most of the pre-launch commentary has discussed similarities to Supreme Commander, and rightly so. There are tons of units on screen, with sizes ranging from tiny drones to massive ships. Even in beta form, there's enough going on to keep things interesting.
The current build adds the Substrate aliens to the previously existing PHC (Post-Human Coalition), which livens things up quite a bit from the earlier builds where it was all PHC, all the time. But if you're looking for a story to play, right now that aspect of the game isn't in place. The game at present offers single-player and multi-player modes, which consist of pretty standard RTS fare, on one of the 20-plus included maps. The maps have five sizes, ranging from "tiny" to "large", with support for up to six players. There are three different terrain types as well, to keep things visually interesting. If the included maps aren't enough, there's a map editor as well.
If you're looking to practice against the computer before going online, there are seven AI difficulty levels to choose from. Online options include ranked matches as well as open custom battles. The game itself can feel a bit sparse right now, due to the lack of a story. Also, maybe I'm missing some setting, but the "Ranked match" keeps telling me that it "failed to start matchmaking," possibly due to running the press-access beta. (Considering I have my hands more than full with the AI, it's probably for the best; I'm just here for the benchmarks and DX12 technology.)
The official launch is currently set for March 22, which means Early Access will be coming to an end soon enough. If you're hoping to get warmed up for multiplayer matches in advance, now's the time.
Your choice of monitor isn't something to take lightly. After all, it's the one piece of equipment you'll stare at each and every time you use your PC. The first thing to do is to figure out a set of criteria. Looking for something big? And wide? With FreeSync support? And doesn't cost a fortune? Well then, check out today's top deal for an LG 29UM67P Black 29-inch Adaptive-Sync (FreeSync) 21:9 UltraWide, 60 Hz 5ms (GTG) IPS for $280 with $1 shipping (normally $300 - use coupon code: [EMCEGGJ29]). If you're a fan of UltraWide monitors, you'll find lots of horizontal space with this one, and it's rocking an IPS panel to boot.
For nearly 13 years, Slysoft has been fighting the good fight by releasing software that allowed people to make backups of their optical media, both for games and movies. It's also been the target of immense government pressure, and in a short statement on its website, the company announced that it's no longer developing or supporting its AnyDVD and AnyDVD HD software.
"Due to recent regulatory requirements we have had to cease all activities relating to Slysoft Inc. We wish to thank our loyal customers/clients for their patronage over the years," Slysoft said.
A team member for Slysoft elaborated ever-so-slightly in the company's forums in response to a forum user calling Slyosft CEO Giancario Bettini a "wimpy moneybag."
"I regret you that, but you are wrong. SlySoft is under massive pressure since 2007. From Websheriff over Irdeto, US department of Justice to AACS-LA. He resisted for many years. More than anybody else. So please, be fair," the team member responded.
Anyone who already owns a copy of AnyDVD can continue to use it to backup DVDs and perhaps some Blu-ray discs. However, as PCWorld's Jared Newman points out, it would be easy for big media to thwart future attempts to rip certain Blu-ray titles, ones that require access to an "Online Protection Database," which could be shut down at any time.
That isn't the only bit of bad news for Blu-ray collectors who might want to backup their discs. DVDFab makers Fengtao Software announced today that it's not going to crack or circumvent the next version of Advanced Access Content System (AACS), a copy protection scheme for 4K Blu-ray discs.
It's the end of an era, though by and large, these programs served their customers well for many years when optical media was more relevant than it is today. That's not to say that Blu-ray is dead, but with the advent of streaming video, this would have been a much bigger deal if it happened several years ago.
It's a big deal when Google announces expansion plans for its 1Gbps Fiber service because it's comparatively affordable and of course crazy fast. The service is also fairly rare—it's only available in a few locations at the moment—but little by little, it's expanding. One of the places Google Fiber is headed to is San Francisco. Well, sort of.
In the six years since Google's been driving its Fiber initiative, it's focused mostly on building fiber-optic networks from scratch. That's not always possible, or feasible, so more recently Google's been looking at different ways to serve big cities. What it decided on for San Francisco is to tap into an existing fiber network to service parts of the city—namely, some apartments, condos, and affordable housing properties.
"In thinking about how best to bring Google Fiber to some residents in this unique city, we considered a number of factors, including the city's rolling hills, miles of coastline, and historic neighborhoods. By using existing fiber to connect some apartments and condos, as we've done before, we can bring service to residents more quickly," Google stated in a blog post.
This is similar to how Google approached things in Atlanta, Georgia, where it utilized an existing fiber-optic network to bring its service to some apartment complexes in the suburbs. And in Provo, Utah, Google outright purchased an existing fiber-optic network rather than build its own.
Also as part of Google's high-speed expansion into San Francisco, it wants to help people get online for the first time. To do that, it will connect some public and affordable housing properties to 1Gbps service for free, something it's done in other areas as well.
Google said there's a lot work to do before all this can happen, so it doesn't have details on timing or which specific areas will benefit from the roll out.
AMD recently made available new Crimson hotfix drivers that purport to boost performance in select games while stomping out a whole bunch of bugs.
Starting with the performance benefits, AMD said it worked with Stardock and Oxide to bring optimizations to the Ashes of the Singularity Benchmark 2.0. AMD also points out that it's the first benchmark to ship with DirectX 12 benchmarking capabilities, including Asynchronous Compute, multi-threaded command buffers, and command buffer reordering.
In addition to Ashes of Singularity, AMD spent some time optimizing its latest drivers for Rise of the Tomb Raider and the recently released SteamVR performance test.
"We are pleased to report that our Radeon R9 390, Nano, and Fury series GPUs are all able to achieve 'VR Recommended' status, the highest achievable level of experience possible," AMD said. "In addition to that, our affinity multi-GPU feature is already showing significant performance uplift over a single GPU on Radeon cards in the aforementioned benchmark."
The drivers also bring Crossfire profiles for The Division and XCOM 2, plus several bug fixes, a few of which are related to Fallout 4. Here's a look at those:
Flickering may be experienced at various game locations with the v1.3 game update and with AMD Crossfire enabled
Foliage/water may ripple/stutter when game is launched in High/Ultra settings mode
Screen tearing in systems with both AMD Freesync and AMD Crossfire enabled if game is left idle for a short period of time
Thumbnails may flicker or disappear while scrolling the Perk levels page
You'll also find a handful of fixes that apply to Rise of the Tomb Raider, such as corruption at some locations during gameplay and flickering at various game locations when it's been left idle for a period of time in Crossfire mode under Windows 7.
Our Midrange rig gets a lot of flak for its name. "An i7 isn't midrange," people say, "and a $1,500 budget is performance grade!" Yes, fair builder, for many our Midrange build would be considered a performance machine. But when we can build rigs with the X99 chipset, the title of Midrange starts to feel right on point.
With a budget of $1,500, we have a lot of choices open to us with the Midrange. Different priorities can be chosen, but at the end of the day, we're still looking for good frame rates at 1440p. We also look to create an overclocking platform that will allow users to grab a little extra power for their money.
So, what did we come up with this time around? Let's take a look.
When you're looking for video cards in a build, you have two main camps to choose from: Nvidia (Team Green) or AMD (Team Red). Truth be told, we've fallen on the Green side quite often. Lower power draws and price for performance has favored Nvidia in the last few iterations of graphics cards. Just look at the GTX 980 Ti versus the R9 Fury X, for example. However, the new line of Polaris cards from AMD may change that calculus later this year.
For what's available now though, we wanted to make sure that the Midrange rig was capable at 1440p, while also being comfortably VR-capable.That rules out the likes of the GTX 960. We've gone with the GTX 980 before, but pricing in this round didn't allow for the card in our budget. The GTX 970 felt like too little for this price range. Luckily, AMD's R9 390 happily fills the spot between the two in both price and performance.
At $340, the R9 390 Strix actually is near price parity of the GTX 970. Depending on the models you compare, the 390 can actually cost less than Team Green's 970, making it our recommended card for builders looking for good performance without the price pain of the GTX 980.
In our testing , the 390 held its own when compared to other Midrange rigs that used the 980, with a price tag that's $200 lower. On top of that, it comfortably tops the score of the Oculus Rift recommended spec in 3DMark's Fire Strike as well.
Low center of gravity
For PC enthusiasts who have grown to love the tower-style configuration, going with a smaller, box-shaped rig can feel strange. It can be easy to assume bigger is always better, since big, honkin' towers allow for plenty of airflow and room to work. We're here to tell you that smaller, compact cases can keep your CPU and GPU plenty cool.
At first glance, the Thermaltake V21, looks similar to the dimensions of the Fractal Node 804 we used with the Fall 2015 Turbo build. Aside from rough dimensions, the similarities end there. While the Node 804 had a dual-bay setup that mounted the motherboard vertically, the V21 opts for a horizontal tray for the mobo. We like this type of layout for one clear reason: It allows for multiple large video cards to be mounted easily, without worrying about warping the PCI Express connections.
The horizontal motherboard configuration helps eliminate problems that come with sagging graphics cards.
While we opted for going with an M.2 SSD, the 2.5-inch drive mounts are movable and removable. The 3.5-inch drive mounts sit under the motherboard tray, adjacent to the PSU. This leaves plenty of space up top for full-length video cards, which gave our R9 390 plenty of room to breathe.
One of the things that you'll either love or hate about the case is that there's grating on every side of it. The case comes with removable, magnetically-attached mesh that covers the grating to help keep dust under control. That's great for attaching fans wherever you want, but it's tougher to get air to flow from one place to another without a lot of fans. Without solid side panels, there's no channeling of air, so that's one thing to consider. On the plus side, heat can escape though any side of the case.
Bigger isn't always better
We went with micro-ATX for a couple of reasons. First, micro-ATX cases can be more exciting and different than full-ATX cases can be. That holds even more true for mini-ITX, but we wanted this build to offer the opportunity to use Crossfire in an upgrade.
You don't need a huge tower to accommodate a lot of cooling options.
Adding a second video card requires another PCIe slot, so micro-ATX was the only way to go if we wanted to stay clear of full-ATX. We also had to make sure we had enough power for a second card if we wanted it, so we went with a 750W PSU. The 750W that the EVGA PSU can supply would be just barely enough if we wanted to add another R9 390 and give the i7-6700K a conservative overclock. Of course, this build is somewhat light on storage, so if we were to add spinning HDDs to that list, going with an 850W PSU would offer more peace of mind.
The benchmarks
One of the great things about this PC is that it offers performance that beats the GTX 970 for about the same price. That makes the PC Oculus-ready, which is a good goal to shoot for in 2016. The rig beat the Oculus Rift recommended spec score in 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra by a few hundred points, though the test wouldn't verify our score since we use the recent Crimson hotfix drivers.
For reference, the "Build It: Gloriousness" rig used a GTX 970 and an i5-4590, which is pretty much the CPU-GPU combination recommended by the spec. You can see the difference in scores by mousing over the bars below.
While beating the Oculus spec is nice, not everyone is aiming to strap a pair of goggles onto their dome. The real aim of the Midrange rig is to dominate the 1440p battlefield. While the the R9 390 doesn't have the muscle to slap the GTX 980 around, it does have the price to make the buyer think twice. We wouldn't recommend playing games at 4K with this card, since its frame rates dip down into the 30s in Shadow of Mordor and averages just over 31 in Tomb Raider. That could be playable with a FreeSync monitor, but it's a far cry from topping the ideal goal of 60 fps.
While the rig's marks aren't impressive for 4K gaming, things started looking a lot better once we scaled down to 1440p. It's true that 1440p doesn't look or sound as sexy as 4K does, but when it comes down to it, nearly all of the high-end gaming monitors available are built with a native resolution of 2560x1440. If you plan on playing games, the 1440p mark is a safe bet, especially if you are going to use FreeSync (or G-Sync with Nvidia GPUs).
In this realm, the R9 390 did very well, and tied with the Fall and Summer builds from 2015, both of which were powered by GTX 980s. At 87 fps, the Winter 2016 Midrange rig crept up and showed why the R9 390 is a good value compared with the GTX 980.
For the CPU tests, the i7-6700K does quite well. In single-threaded applications, the unlocked Skylake's speed is challenged only by the i7-4790K Devil's Canyon. A base clock speed of 4GHz is the main reason for this, and is why the 6700K makes mincemeat of its younger cousin, the i5-6500 (with a base clock of just 3.2GHz).
In Gigapan Stitch, we can see that multiple cores can be used, but most of the test rests heavily on single-threaded performance. Were this not true, we'd see lower completion times from the Haswell-E chips. It is worthwhile to note that while the Build It: Rocket Science rig has a Haswell-E CPU, it was overclocked in the spirit of following the Dream Machine. (The Build It was in the same print issue as the Dream Machine, October 2015.) While we often use K-SKU CPUs, we usually only test them at stock clocks.
Our next test is ProShow Producer 5. The program reports to use all available threads, and gets eight to play with from the i7-6700K. Hyper-Threading matters, and is one of the big things that sets the i5 series apart from the i7s. If you need more logical cores, the i7 is the only way to go. For this test, the 6700K supplies those cores with gusto.
Finally, we come to the X264 benchmark, which really puts each core to the test, so the PC with the most threads almost always comes out on top. Overclocking can affect the score here, but the number of threads is by far the biggest determinant of success. Note the scores for the Dream Machine and the Zero Point. Both PCs use the i7-5960X and dominate the other rigs, but the Dream Machine pulls ahead by way of overclocking. The overclocked 5930K in the Build It: Rocket Science still falls behind the stock clock of the Zero Point's 5960X. With eight logical cores, the i7-6700K does well, but still falls short of the hexa- and octa-core Haswell-E CPUs.
All in all, the Midrange rig is a beast of a PC for the vast majority of gamers out there. It can hold its own in workstation applications too, but shouldn't be expected to best a Haswell-E just yet.
If we could put more into this PC, we'd spend a little more on storage. Five hundred gigabytes is nice, but it can quickly fill up. With marks like these, however, it's hard to say that spending another $200 to go from the R9 390 to a GTX 980 is a tough sell, but may be preferable for fans of Team Green.
Last week, Apple was served a court order requesting that it generate software for the FBI so that the agency can gain access to the iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooting suspect Rizwan Farook. As the situation stands now, the FBI is faced with overcoming a security feature that will wipe the device if the passcode is entered incorrectly 10 times. The FBI wants to bypass this feature so that it can use "brute force" to gain access to the device by manually entering an indefinite number of passcode entries.
According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, nearly half of the American population is siding with Apple, which is fighting the court order and has indicated its reluctance to generate software that would help the FBI. The government agency says this simple "tool" would be used on this specific iPhone, but Apple says that the government wants a completely new operating system void of specific security features that would essentially provide a back door to iOS.
The poll results, release on Wednesday, show that 46 percent of those whoparticipated in the poll side with Apple, and that 35 percent of the participants disagree with Apple's decision to oppose the court order. Around 20 percent of the participants were unsure.
The poll also asked participants, who were interviewed online between February 19 and February 23, if the government should be allowed to look at data stored on the phones of Americans as part of the process of protecting the country against terror threats. A surprising 46 percent agree with this statement while 42 percent disagreed.
Participants were also asked if they think cyber criminals will soon be able to steal data from locked iPhones if Apple is forced to unlock the controversial iPhone 5c for the government: 27 percent strongly agreed, 27 percent somewhat agreed, 14 percent somewhat disagreed, and 20 percent were not sure.
The Reuters poll didn't primarily focus on Apple and the FBI. Participants were asked if they would give up privacy of their email accounts if it would help the government "foil" foreign terrorist plots. Unsurprisingly, 69 percent of those surveyed did not agree to the idea while 31 percent said yes. When asked about domestic terrorist plots, 71 percent said no while 29 percent said yes.
The poll goes on to show that the majority of Americans want to keep their text messages, phone records, and Internet activities private despite the US government's desire to thwart local and international terrorist threats. Most of the "no" answers ranged from 70 to 79 percent, indicating that the government will likely hit a brick wall when asking nicely for access to private information.
Finally, the poll reveals which party sides with Apple in the dispute. Regarding Apple's decision to oppose the court order, 37 percent of the polled Republicans agree with the company while 45 percent disagree. For the Democrats, 54 percent agree and 31 percent disagree.
On the topic of the government having access to data stored on Americans' smart phones, 54 percent of the Republicans polled agreed with the idea while 38 percent did not. On the Democrats side, 46 percent agreed and 43 percent did not.
Reuters reports that younger Americans are more likely to side with Apple than the older population. Participants between the ages of 18 and 39 were asked to agree or disagree with Apple's opposition; 64 percent agreed, which Reuters says is nearly twice the percentage of the older participants who sided with Apple's stance.
