Monster Hunter fanboys and fangirls, Capcom and Tencent's CryEngine 3 powered MMO, Monster Hunter Online, has kicked off its CB Test: Awakening in China today. Players who have activated their accounts can jump into hunting ground to start safari now.
Blade and Soul CN is full of the smell of the Spring now. And on April 23, Blade and Soul will welcome its another spring - a big new update! In this update, Jin Seo Yeon will become a little girl to fight with you, new storyline will keep narrating you more details about Blade and Soul's history and more interesting features are waiting for you, read on guys!
The LITE EDITION of the "Minims - A New Beginning" will be available for free from 1st of May on iTunes, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. In the LITE edition the player is introduced to the Minims world through several snapshots of the story of the full version.
Did you feel regretful for not having a key of Heroes of the Storm Closed Beta? It doesn't matter guys, another storm is coming to the Nexus now! Rally your fellow heroes and get ready for battle, because the portal to the Nexus is about to bust wide open! Blizzard Entertainment has officially announced that Heroes of the Storm open beta will start May 20, followed by the official launch on June 3.
"Crowfall combines open world PvP with a player-driven economy and an destructable environment." said in an in-depth overview by Ziz. The new gameplay footage will give you an idea of the game mechanics, character customization and advancement, Eternal kingdoms, Campaigns and a lot of more about the upcoming MMO Crowfall
The MOBA genre is dominated by League of Legends, with Dota 2 coming in a healthy but still very distant second place. And according to market research firm EEDAR, it's going to stay that way for a good while to come: In a report posted on Gamasutra, analyst Edward Zhou predicted that LoL will hold fully two-thirds of the MOBA market through 2016.
United Front Games today released a new trailer "Own The Underworld" for Triad Wars, showcasing the open-world, online action/adventure found within the game's brutal Hong Kong underworld
The Company Nikita Online began sharing the public information related to its new MMORPG game Scope 3: Enchanted world. Today we will check the main features of the new game.
ArenaNet has announced on their official website that they're partnering with Digital Professional Sports to bring you the third Guild Wars 2 Tournament of Legends, an event open to players of all skill levels in which you can be rewarded for winning a single round.
Our highly anticipated anime MMORPG Tree of Savior finallys will kick off its second closed beta on April 21th in South Korea. This CBT will last 6 days long. And as its publisher in Korea, Nexon has just revealed a trailer of this upcoming CBT2. Via this video, we can learn that there will be more new interesting features in CBT2.
Anarchy Online is releasing patch 18.7.0 to the live servers on Tuesday starting with the new player experience. All new players will now start at Arete Landing with a set of guiding quests, credit rewards, experience bonuses at early levels, and several other buffs to ensure that no one feels hopeless when starting fresh.
It's unbelievable that there're some MMOs can exist and even be popular for more than 8 years. Over the last eight years, almost 4 million characters have been created in MapleStory EU, and to celebrate its 8th anniversary, Nexon has created a new 30 quest storyline surrounding two of Mu Gong's most famous students, Gold Dragon and Red Tiger.
Gameforge and developer Robot Entertainment have expanded the full-action PvP title Orcs Must Die! Unchained ready for the second phase of the closed beta, which includes numerous new features
Most fighting games involve punches and kicks. But not Smooth Operator - it's a co-op kissing game in which you aim to give each other the most pleasure you possibly can. It should be out on iOS in July hopefully. It'll also be coming to Android soon after. Beardo Games has been working on Smooth Operator for the past year.
Independent game developer Hammerfall Publishing has released the opening cinematic to the Warhammer® 40,000®: Regicide campaign, and announced that it will be available on Steam Early Access from May 5. Fans can get their first glimpse of the upcoming single-player campaign story in the opening cinematic below.
Here is a topic about the recent controversy surrounding Mortal Kombat X by NetherRealm Studios. The controversy is about the inclusion of a easy fatality token micro-transaction, that allows you to easily execute fatalities within Mortal Kombat.
Siegelord, a breakthrough in the traditional strategy battle mode, launches a new progressive combat system. Players may deploy a maximum of 5 Generals into each battle. Armies will be queued before the battle starts.
RATING: Pros: Nice visuals, half decent soundtrack, attempted action based combat. Cons: Mindless repetitive quests, nearly exactly the same as every other RPG they've published. Score: TBD We recently took some time to check out Stormthrone: Aeos Rising from R2Games, currently in open beta it is a browser based free to play MMO and we […]
Blizzard Entertainment has just communicated plans to start open beta testing of Heroes of the Storm on May 20, followed by the game’s official release on June 2 with 7 dynamic battlegrounds to fight on and over 30 heroes to play as. The company has moreover announced a live-streaming event to be held on June […]
The closed beta testing of Orcs Must Die! Unchained today enters its 2nd phase and testers will be faced with in-depth modifications to the general gameplay and combat system. They will also benefit from a brand-new map, more polished graphics as well as a plethora of new features. The title now sports a trait builder […]
With Games of Glory, Lightbulb has just revealed their current F2P MOBA project, which is set for launch on PC and Steam in early summer, with a precise date to be announced throughout the upcoming weeks. Mixing in the action, the perks and the skill-based gameplay of a shooter, the title is a unique take […]
Company ESTSoft has just provided the public with a new video on CABAL II, in which GM Icee gives an outline of the game’s various dungeons. The sequel to the popular CABAL Online is being optimised at the moment for its upcoming release in Europe and North America and will features different kinds of dungeons. […]
Although you probably haven’t heard anything about Arena: Cyber Evolution yet, this is a really unique title, as it’s actually the very first Multiplayer Online Sports Arena (MOSA), a unique blend of MOBA mechanics and sports that allows players to engage in 3v3 battles in a futuristic themed setting. We’re distributing gift packages that include […]
We also say adios to technical editor Tom McNamara.
In episode 238 of the No BS Podcast, we tackled a number of hot issues that include the PC release of GTA V and what it looked like in 4k using three Titan Xs. We then switched over to Linux's chicken-or-the-egg problem with proprietary software and paying customers. In addition, with Apple Watch coming out, we talk about that (we figure you might want to hear our thoughts on the subject). We also had to say farewell to Tom McNamara, who will be leaving Maximum PC at the end of the week. Alex says he's going to miss letting the air out of Tom's tires. C'est la vie. In all seriousness, we're going to miss Tom and wish him well. And, finally, as always, we take time to answer some reader questions.
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Most case mods involve flashy lights, obvious branding, and a shtick of some sort. Brendon Serack's unnamed build is all about clean lines, clean componenets, and clean cable management. It may not be a toaster, but it's still a stunning rig that's more than worthy of being this month's Rig of the Month.
Brendon tells us that this machine's been in the works since 2012, when he embarked on a quest to build the cleanest system possible. It took two separate iterations before he finally settled on the spectacular system featured in the gallery below. The machine is based on a Lian Li PC-V77F that Brendon modified inside and out. He didn't like the way that the components sat inside the rig, so he spun the motherboard around with a reverse-ATX modification. A false floor hides the pump's wires and covers the array of cable management holes drilled into the case from the factory. What makes the entire endeavour even more impressive is that all of the additional aluminum pieces were cut and filed by hand.
Beyond the obvious touches, Brendon also spent hundreds of hours optimizing the case's cable management. He focused on making everything flat and straight throughout and even went as far as painting and dyeing pieces of various components to match the blue-and-black theme.
The rig wouldn't be half as cool as it is without the awesome components contained within. Brendon installed an Intel i7-4770K on a Gigabyte Z897X-UD5H with 32GB of Team Group Elite DDR3 memory, an Asus GTX 980 Strix, and a Silverstone ST1000-G power supply with MDPC-X sleeving. All of this is cooled by two massive radiators, a waterblock for the CPU and GPU, as well as a EKWB pump and XSPC Photon reservoir.
Have a case mod of your own that you would like to submit to our monthly feature? Make sure to read the rules/tips here and email us at mpcrigofthemonth@gmail.com with your submissions.
Do you happen to know Brenden M.? Niether do we, but he had some awfully nice things to say about today's top deal. Specifically, he said "it's quiet, stylish, and will cause nothing but envy to those who know what gaming is all about." We're glad you like it, Brenden, "it" being today's top deal for an XFX Black Edition Double D Radeon R9 280 Graphics Card for $180 with free shipping (normally $200; additional $20 mail-in-rebate). We could go on and on about the features, like the custom cooler that runs quieter and cools better than stock, but isn't being the envy to those who know what gaming is all about enough?
Microsoft's been fairly mum when it comes to offering a release date for Windows 10, though the company has said to expect it sometime "this summer." That's only semi-helpful if you're planning a new build around Windows 10 and don't want to bother with the free upgrade. In that case, how's end of July suit you? During an earnings call last week, AMD CEO Lisa Su let slip that Windows 10 will launch in just three months.
"What we also are factoring in is, you know, with the Windows 10 launch at the end of July, we are watching sort of the impact of that on the back-to-school season, and expect that it might have a bit of a delay to the normal back-to-school season inventory build-up," Su said, according to VentureBeat.
So end of July it is, right? Well, we still don't know for sure. Microsoft could come out and deny that Su knows what she's talking about. Or if the end of July time frame is accurate, it's not known if that will be when OEMs get their paws on Windows 10 (RTM, or Release to Manufacturing) or if that's when consumers will be able to pick up a copy and/or upgrade.
Either way, this is the most reliable source yet outside of Microsoft, which itself isn't ready to announce specific dates. If the end of July time frame Su referenced is indeed for RTM status, you can probably expect the general release to consumers in August.
Fractal Design rightfully assumes that there's a userbase no longer interested in optical drive bays. That's not to say everyone falls into that category, but with Valve's Steam platform dominating game sales and companies like Microsoft and Adobe moving services to the cloud, the need for an optical drive lessens by the day. So, some will find Fractal Design's decision to omit optical drive bays in its new Define S to be a good one, especially since it purportedly means a better focus on airflow and silence.
On the topic of airflow, the Define S with its "Scandinavian inspired construction" introduces a new internal layout providing a straight airflow path to the CPU heatsink for air cooling setups, along with various radiator mounting possibilities for those who prefer to water cool their rigs. That includes being able to house radiators up to 420mm in the top and 360mm in the front.
You'll also find reservoir brackets featuring drill-free reservoir mounting on the front of the motherboard tray and pre-drilled pump mounting holes on the bottom panel.
To keep librarians and anyone with a hangover happy, the case is equipped with sound dampening material to keep noise at a minimum. There's also two low-noise Fractal Design Dynamic GP14 140mm fans included, plus ModuVent fan slot covers for the option of additional cooling or maximum sound absorption.
There are three newly designed hard drive trays sitting vertically behind the front partition of the mobo tray. Two additional SSDs can be mounted behind the mobo tray.
Patriot Memory on Monday fleshed out its solid state drive lineup with the introduction of the Ignite Series. The Ignite is a line of M.2 SATA SSDs that Patriot says is intended for portable devices such as ultrabooks, notebooks, and ultra-compact PCs, or mini PCs as they're also called (think along the lines of Intel's NUC and Zotac's Zbox systems). The obvious benefit here is faster boot times from a piece of hardware that's about the size of a stick of bubble gum.
This is Patriot's first foray into M.2 territory. Coming along for the ride is the Phison S10 controller and multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory. The combination adds up to rated performance of up to 560MB/s sequential reads and up to 320MB/s sequential writes. Not too shabby, though write times seem to have taken a hit compared compared to Patriot's regular (2.5-inch) Ignite SSDs.
Other features include end-to-end data protection (ETEP), advanced wear-leveling, advanced Garbage collection, Smart ECC (multiple levels of ECC protection), and Smart Refresh.
Patriot says you'll be able to purchase the Ignite M2 line in 240GB ($110 MSRP) and 480GB ($210 MSRP) capacities beginning in May.
According to a FAQ published by the search engine giant, QUIC supports multiplexed transport over UDP while guaranteeing security comparable to TLS/SSL. By relying on UDP instead of TCP, it is able to cut down on latency.
In so far as latency-sensitive services like Google Search are concerned, the UDP-based QUIC outperforms TCP through its ability to establish connections without any round trips so long as it has communicated with the server before. This is in stark contrast to how things work right now.
"The standard way to do secure web browsing involves communicating over TCP + TLS, which requires 2 to 3 round trips with a server to establish a secure connection before the browser can request the actual web page," Google wrote in a blog post Friday.
Likewise, QUIC gets the better of TCP in poor network conditions as well, owing mainly to improved packet recovery and congestion control.
"Packet sequence numbers are never reused when retransmitting a packet. This avoids ambiguity about which packets have been received and avoids dreaded retransmission timeouts. As a result, QUIC outshines TCP under poor network conditions, shaving a full second off the Google Search page load time for the slowest 1% of connections. These benefits are even more apparent for video services like YouTube. Users report 30% fewer rebuffers when watching videos over QUIC."
Buoyed by the results, Google has great hopes for QUIC. First, it wants to continue to increase traffic over the protocol, with the ultimate aim of entrusting it with all traffic from Google clients to Google services. Then it plans to approach the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) with a proposal to make the protocol an Internet standard, but says there are some changes it needs to make first, "like changing the wire format" and decoupling the current implementation from SPDY (another Google-developed protocol) and moving to QUIC-over-HTTP2.
The interplay between Chrome OS and Android is not just limited to the ongoing effort to get Android apps to work on the former. They are drawing close to each other in other respects as well, and the latest Chrome OS update, which began rolling out on Thursday, is a case in point.
Included in the update is a new app launcher that has the Google Now personal assistant baked right into it, enabling it to deliver a whole host of personalized info—everything from weather updates to stock quotes—to the user. This is, of course, in addition to the launcher's primary role of firing up your favorite apps for you.
Also included in Chrome OS is an updated File Manager. It has been redesigned "Material-ly", bringing Chrome OS aesthetically closer to the latest flavor of Android — Lollipop. Google said late last month, when the update entered beta, that other areas of Chrome OS were also in line for a similar Material design-inspired facelift.
Other changes in Chrome 42 include a new Calculator app and the ability to open password-protected Zip files. And another Material design-inspired move, the default typeface has been changed to Roboto for Latin and Cyrillic for Greek.
Sorry spammers, you need to pay $5 per account to keep enjoying the service
With spam on Steam getting out of hand and users becoming increasingly fed up, Valve has finally stepped in. The company has tweaked the prerequisites for lifting of limits on new user accounts.
As first pointed out by Reddit user "KillahInstinct", Valve now requires that a user spend a minimum of $5 in order for the various limits on a new user account to be lifted. Seeing as chatting and sending friend invites are among the things that are off limits to such accounts, this should nip Steam's growing spam and phishing problem in the bud.
It was earlier possible to unlock Steam accounts by activating a Steam gift card, purchasing a game, or even making a micro-payment. Following this change in policy, however, the cost of spamming has gone up manifold, effectively making the whole thing unviable.
Nvidia's latest and greatest GPUs remain unchallenged
Advanced Micro Devices will talk about its much-awaited (and long overdue) next-gen graphics cards later in this quarter, the company's CEO Lisa Su said in an earnings call earlier this week. This is significant because if there was ever a need for a graphics card refresh, it's right now.
Until recently many people were wondering if the launch would happen in time for GTA V's PC release, but AMD remained noncommittal, offering nothing more than a vague, albeit tantalizing, response. "We're giving finishing touches," is all it said. GTA V is already here, of course.
To be fair to AMD, it's not as if they promised something in a particular timeframe and failed to deliver on time. Even during the previous quarterly earnings call all Su would say is that the company had some "very good" graphics cards lined up for the second quarter of 2015. But the company is not doing itself any favors by letting Nvidia's latest and greatest GPUs go virtually unchallenged for so long (over 9 months and counting).
"So as we go into the second half of the year, we would like to see some regain of share in both the desktop and the notebook business," Su said, responding to a question from Credit Suisse's John Pitzer.
"I've talked about Carrizo being a strong product for us, I talked about some of our graphics launches that we'll talk about later this quarter. So from our standpoint, I would say the first half of the year, we had some, let's call it, some of our issues that we were correcting in terms of the channel, and then a weaker than expected market environment."
The first quarter wasn't a particularly good one for the company as it slumped to a $180 million net loss. Although a significant improvement over the previous quarter in which it reported a net loss of $364 million, this is several times worse than the $20 million loss it recorded during the same period last year.
![The Munims: A New Beginning Lite Edition [iOS] Launching on MAY 1st](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uP7xnLX3A57XIjK3uAwRaTHJ68bsAQugsn5bazg6kCU9DUOqvSNwdirzW5B6X09Vj-TFxjtgm4UVelRQtRk9T4bAZ2pp6E-AkaEFSRjhjjEgZBypdXSkzD5dfF-qMn6ccz=s0-d)
We also say adios to technical editor Tom McNamara.
Mark your calendars?
Out with the old and in with the new
Fast upgrade option for SFF PCs
Company feels its UDP-based QUIC network protocol is almost ready for prime time
And a dollop of Material design
Sorry spammers, you need to pay $5 per account to keep enjoying the service
Nvidia's latest and greatest GPUs remain unchallenged
