Today we have for you a special giveaway. Grab a key and you’ll get a starter edition access for Trinium Wars on Steam, the new MMORPG developed by JW Lee, Lead Artist of Diablo 3. Each access provides you with access to the game, 5000 cash currency and an exclusive gas mask. Last week we […]
Star Wars: The Old Republic is EA/BioWare's free to play MMORPG set in Lucas/Disney's Star Wars franchise, a game filled with features including PVP, PVE, Questing, Exploration, Crafting and the in depth story content provided by BioWare. Players will be transported back to a time long before the films in an era where Jedi and […]
WEBZEN announces that the martial arts MMORPG Age of Wulin released a new expansion “Chapter 8: Uncharted World” today. Players can explore new regions starting from today, expanding the variety and beauty of Age of Wulin as sun-scorched deserts, stunning and vast grasslands, breath-taking snowy peaks and mysterious forests of stone are introduced. Each new region will […]
SMITE on the Playstation 4 will be hitting Open Beta on March 22nd, 2016. At that point, the game will be Free to Play to anyone on the PS4, but if you're eager to play before the 22nd, you can grab a Beta Code HERE. The PS4 Open Beta will be happening alongside SMITE's 2nd […]
When Nvidia told us that it managed to shrink its desktop GTX 980 GPU to fit inside notebooks, we went through two stages of denial. The first stage was disbelief. "The 980 is a huge and powerful card," we thought to ourselves. The second stage was dismissiveness. "It's got to throttle tremendously." To prove us wrong and to fan the flames of hardware absurdity, Sager armed its sexily named NP9870-S gaming notebook (seriously, who names these things?) with both a desktop 980 and a high-end 6700K Skylake desktop CPU. On paper, it's an abomination of a laptop, but crazily enough, it actually friggin' works!
Of course, if you're going to squeeze desktop components into a laptop chassis, you shouldn't expect an ultra-portable package. The Sager here is of the big, bulky 17-inch variety, and it has a hefty 14-pound carry weight to match its size. If there's one criticism we could levy against Sager in the past, is that its gaming notebooks were very bland looking. There are a few aesthetic bells and whistles this time around. In addition to the nice silver Sager logo on the back, there are some pulsating LEDs, which add a little bling to the look (if you're into that). The chassis also has some sharp lines and edges, which give it a slightly futuristic look.
More exciting is the 1080p display. While we would have preferred a 1440p screen, the monitor here uses a 75Hz IPS panel that supports G-Sync. That's a lot of cool display tech in one sentence. The rest of the design is good. The speakers by Sound Blaster are competent, the LED-backlit keyboard offers some nice travel, and the trackpad is solid and has two discrete click buttons and a fingerprint reader. The notebook also sports enough ports to warrant its desktop-replacement label, which include: two Ethernet, five USB 3.0, one USB type C, two DisplayPort, an SD card reader, and an HDMI port.
But you probably aren't reading this review to hear about the laptop's ports. "How well does it perform?!," you're probably screaming. Cool your jets, we're getting there. The 980 outfitted here has the same 256-bit memory interface width and 224GB/sec memory bandwidth as its desktop sibling. One advantage that this 980 has over Nvidia's discrete card is double the VRAM. Your reference 980 has 4GB VRAM, whereas this card rocks 8GB. Considering that the notebook is relegated to a 1080p panel, you'd be hard pressed to actually use up all that VRAM (or anything near it), but it's still nice to have. Compared to our Alienware 14 ZP laptop, which is getting long in the tooth with its GTX 765M GPU, we saw a 106–234 percent performance delta in our graphics benchmarks. It's really not a fair comparison at this point, so we decided to see how it stacks up against the 3D Mark 11 Extreme numbers we ran on CyberPower's Syber Vapor system we reviewed last year. If you'll recall, the Vapor rocked a 4790K and GTX 980 desktop card in a small Mini ITX chassis, which makes it a fair comparison point for the Sager.
The results? The Sager not only performed on par with the desktop PC, but actually ran three percent better! Older drivers on the Vapor could explain some of this delta, but still, getting anywhere near close to the desktop card in this form factor is insane. Consider us believers in this Nvidia voodoo. CPU performance was also great. We saw up to an 11 percent increase in single-threaded CPU tests compared to our ZP laptop's Core i7-4700MQ laptop proc. In multithreaded tests, we saw a huge 43 percent difference. Yes, it did get a little loud under load, but it's running top-tier desktop parts in a laptop chassis, so what do you expect?
One performance hurdle that we ran into pertained to boot times. It took roughly 25 seconds to reach Windows, despite the notebook using a premium Samsung 850 Evo SSD. Sager tells us that this is because the gaming notebook has so many built-in peripherals for the drive to check, so it takes a little longer. That seems fair.
At $2,850, you'll be paying a high price for this kind of performance, but at the same time, it's kind of an engineering marvel. To fit this much power out of a chassis of this size boggles the mind. You can max out pretty much any game at 75fps here. Whether you're looking for a high-end gaming system, editing rig, or VR machine on the go, the Sager NP9870-S has you covered. It might not be cheap, but it's still pretty Kick-Ass.
BENCHMARKS
Zero-point
Sager NP9870-S
Percent difference
Stitch.Efx 2.0 (sec)
962
970
-0.8%
Proshow Producer 5 (sec)
1,629
1,459
11.7%
x264 HD 5.0
13.5
19.4
43.7%
Bioshock Infinite (fps)
36.1
74.6
106.6%
Metro Last Light (fps)
30.4
74.6
145.4%
3DMark 11 Perf
4,170
13926
234%
Battery Life (min)
234
124
-47%
Our zero-point notebook is an Alienware 14 with a 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-4700MQ, 16GB DDR3/1600, 256GB mSATA SSD, 750GB 5,400rpm HDD, a GeForce GTX 765M, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. BioShock Infinite tested at 1920x1080 at Ultra DX11 settings; Metro: Last Light tested at 1920x1080 at DX11 medium quality settings with PhysX disabled.
SPECIFICATIONS
CPU
Intel 4GHz Core i7-6700K
RAM
16GB of DDR4/2133MHz
Chipset
Intel Z170
GPU
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 w/8GB VRAM
Display
17.3 inch, 1920x1080 display (matte)
Storage
250GB SSD, 1TB HDD
Connectivity
5x USB 3.0, headset and mic port, SD card reader, 2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI port, 2x Ethernet port, fingerprint reader, USB type C
Building a PC isn't rocket science. Heck, it's not even regular science. If you can use a screwdriver without poking your eye out, you can build a PC. Need a place to start? Check out today's top deal for a SuperCombo Upgrade Pack: AMD FX 8300 3.3GHZ 8-Core CPU + GIGABYTE990FXA-UD3 MOBO + G.Skill Ripjaws X 8GB Memory for $230 with free shipping (normally $275; additional $20 Mail-in rebate). BAM! With that one purchase, you have a solid foundation to build upon.
It's not unusual for grade school teachers to assign their students homework that requires Internet access. The problem is that more than half of all households making under $25,000 don't have broadband Internet service, versus a 95 percent broadband penetration rate among households with incomes over $150,000 per year. To help close the gap, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is circulating a proposal to FCC members to approve a broadband subsidy of $9.25 per month for low income homes, according to The New York Times.
"When we talk about digital equity, we need to remember that we're talking a key part of the answer to many of our nation's greatest challenges — issues like income inequality, job creation, economic growth, U.S. competitiveness," Wheeler said last month when talking about the plan.
Wheeler's proposal is the latest version of the FCC's Lifeline program created in 1985 to bring landline phone services to low income households. The FCC added mobile phone service to the subsidy in 2008, and now it wants to add broadband service.
If the proposal goes through, those receiving the subsidy would have the choice of using it for phone service, broadband Internet, or both, according to Reuters. The budget for the program would be $2.25 billion a year, up from $1.5 billion currently. With those additional funds, around 5 million more households would be able to take advantage of the program, though the FCC doesn't anticipate using the entirety of the budget right away.
"Five million American families with students at home go without regular broadband access," said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. "We need to bridge this gap and fix this problem because our shared economic future depends on it."
Wheeler's proposal also attempts to address the problem of fraud. Critics of the program point to a history of abuse with many participants double billing for landline phone and wireless services. Wheeler's solution is to appoint a third-party to determine eligibility for the program and to make sure companies are abiding by the rules.
Boutique system builder Origin PC decided to literally downsize things with its new Chronos small form factor desktop for gamers. What makes this particular iteration special for Origin PC is that it uses the smallest SFF case it's ever offered.
The new Chronos SFF desktop measures just 11.75 inches (H) by 4 inches (W) by 13.75 inches (D). It's a custom case that Origin designed and built exclusively for itself, and no, you can't purchase just the case itself.
Cost of entry is fairly reasonable for a gaming rig—$1,440 for a Z170 setup. The default configuration is pretty tame, though. Here's what it comes with:
Origin PC's custom Chronos SFF case
Intel Core i5-6500 processor
8GB DDR4-2666MHz RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 graphics card
120GB "Origin PC approved" SSD
8X slim load DVD burner
450W Silverstone SFX power supply
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Of course, the Chronos SFF is customizable and if you have a bigger budget, Origin PC will happily oblige. You can deck the Chronos SFF out with up to an Intel Core i7-5960X or Xeon processor paired with up to a GeForce GTX Titan Z graphics card, up to 32GB of RAM, and lots of storage options (up to four drives).
Cooling is obviously a concern when dealing with SFF systems. Origin PC uses a Frostbyte 120 sealed liquid-cooling setup to keep the CPU chilly and backs the Chronos SFF with a 1 year part replacement warranty. Longer warranties are available, up to three years with free shipping and lifetime 24/7 support and labor for a $249 up charge.
You may have noticed an increase in the number of small form factor computer cases to choose from these days. That's because SFF builds are suddenly vogue, and to assist with builders looking to piece together a compact system, Corsair today announced the release of its first ever SFX form factor PSUs.
Don't let the size of these new PSUs fool you into thinking Corsair skimped on quality. Just the opposite, Corsair's new SF600 (600W) and SF450 (450W) PSUs are both 80 Plus Gold certified, meaning they're highly efficient. They also use 100 percent 105C rated Japanese capacitors, Corsair says.
Working in small size cases presents some unique challenges. To help ease the frustration, both of Corsair's new PSUs are fully modular. Depending on the case, particularly some mini-iTX enclosures, a fully modular PSU can be a huge help in fitting things into tight confines.
The SF450 sports an ATX connector, EPS connector, four 4-pin peripheral connectors, two PCI-E connectors, and four SATA connectors. It's rated to deliver up to 37.5A over a single +12V rail.
Interestingly, the beefier SF600 model only offers a single 4-pin peripheral connector instead of four like the SF450 model, according to the tech specs section of its product page. The rest of the connectors are the same.
The SF600 also utilizes a single +12V rail design, but ups the ante by making up to 50A available to power hungry components.
Both models use Corsair's "Zero RPM Fan Mode," which means the cooling fan only kicks on when the PSU is under load. That's supposed to make them run virtually silent at low and medium loads.
Corsair says you should be able to find the SF450 and SF600 today for $90 and $120, respectively.
Most of us move through our daily lives with a rudimentary form of AI in our pockets or purses. We tend to think of them as apps rather than intelligent software that learn from our questions and evolve to anticipate what we're asking for. I'm, of course, talking about Apple's Siri, Google's Now, and Microsoft's Cortana, all of which are considered intelligent personal assistants.
Considering there weren't any consumer-grade AI assistants for our smart devices just a scant ten years ago, this virtual glut proves that intelligent hardware and software is evolving at a rapid pace. So, what's on tap in the near future when it comes to AI, and will the coming changes make us look back on these electronic personal assistants as rudimentary at best? To gain insight into what's to come, we'll take a look at what industry leaders are currently working on in efforts to make artificial intelligence, well, more intelligent.
Considering Google acquired a mass of robotics companies (eight in total) back in 2013, it makes sense they would need to outfit their mechanical army with a brain, which is what another Google-acquired company, DeepMind, is developing. The British AI developer has been busy designing a complex neural net that learns by playing games. In fact, the company's first iteration—AlphaGo—recently beat a human opponent in the board game Go.
DeepMind designed its AI platform using what's known as "deep learning" processed by a convolutional neural network using a form of "Q-learning"—otherwise known as "model-free reinforcement learning." In other words, it learns by taking actions through trial and error in a given environment, in this case a Doom-like maze it can successfully navigate by "looking for" apples and portals. What's incredible is that the AI learns how to navigate and play games without having access to the game's software code and after a few runs through the game, is more efficient than humans are.
While it may seem like a novel gimmick, Microsoft Garage recently released a new app for the iPhone that identifies dog breeds and matches them with humans based on personality traits. If that sounded a bit goofy, it will also try to identify which breeds users most look like. Goofiness aside, the app's identifying skills are done using an AI system that learns in similar fashion as Google's DeepMind—through deep neural networks.
Instead of learning by playing video games, Microsoft's AI focuses on object recognition using numerous images; the more pictures it sees, the more accurate it becomes. In this case, dog breeds were the subject. Microsoft actually employed a team of dog experts and kennel club members to make sure they had accurate images of various breeds as well as data for each including disposition, size, and coat, allowing the AI to correctly identify numerous breeds in different images. The cognitive learning is accurate enough that when images of objects other than dogs are introduced, it specifies that no dogs are present.
When it comes to socially acceptable behavior, murder isn't ethical. While most of us accept this notion out of hand, a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology is making sure robots know it as well. Researchers Mark Reidl and Brent Harrison are developing AI, dubbed Quixote, to learn acceptable social behavior and ethics by reading children's stories. To put it more accurately, the AI learns the acceptable sequence of events outlined in the stories, and applies it to tasks in social settings. In the case of software, this is known as "value alignment."
The researchers are developing Quixote using their Scheherazade system as a base platform, which is another AI platform that is capable of acquiring the correct sequence of actions through crowd-sourcing story plots found on the Internet. Essentially, Scheherazade identifies what a normal plot sequence and outcome is and passes that data structure to Quixote, which in turn converts it to an award signal for expectable behaviors while punishing other outcomes based on trial-and-error learning. It's easy to see why children's stories are preferred, as most have good-natured protagonists as opposed to those found in adult books, who might very well be murderous anti-heroes depending on the story.
Most AI platforms are developed making use of neural networks, which are virtual networks of simple processing units that are modeled somewhat after the human brain. Most of those implemented use GPUs such as those from Nvidia (CUDA) as they're more efficient over CPU cluster—notably, communication latencies are reduced and power consumption is significantly decreased. Considering mobile GPUs are becoming more powerful and are able to render 3D graphics, why not use them for mobile AI applications?
That's what researchers from MIT asked themselves, and their answer was to design their own mobile GPU to implement neural networks for mobile applications. Their chip, dubbed Eyeriss, is optimized for deep learning and can crunch data locally rather than being processed remotely using servers, like that of Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana. The researchers claim the chip is 10 times more power efficient than those found in smartphones such as ARM's Mali series GPUs, and could even be implemented with IoT-connected devices, making them much more intelligent by being able to learn as a way of interactive programming.
At one point or another, we've all wondered what would happen if our favorite video game characters became intelligent and were able to think for themselves. Would they be able to overcome obstacles on their own, would they collaborate with one another, would they switch from being good to being evil? Scientists from Germany's University of Tübingen decided to find out by giving Mario and his friends social AI based on human behavior and thinking.
The university's Modeling Group outfitted Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Yoshi with their Social Intelligence AI platform, which uses a motivational system that generates "drives" or goals–including want of wealth (coins), curiosity (hitting power-up boxes), going forward in the level (self-explanatory), and staying healthy (getting power-ups, etc.). Those drives in turn trigger specific game events; for example, Mario may gain a strong desire for wealth, his reasoning then transitions to planning on how best to gain that wealth, and then he will enlist another character, based on the abilities needed, for help in attaining coins.
It gets better—characters can also exchange information about what they've learned. For instance, some blocks in Super Mario can't be destroyed while others can. A character, say Luigi, figures this out through verbal commands from a human player. He can then tell another character that those blocks are indestructible and that character learns it as well. They can also form allegiances with one another, working or fighting against others to achieve a goal. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the future and how difficult it will be to "out-think" computer opponents.
What comes next?
No matter how you feel about advancements in AI, one thing is certain, it will continue to evolve in one form or another—be it is cognitive learning and adapting, becoming more proficient in an assigned task, or becoming socially aware, or perhaps all three! Will it become a detriment to society or a benefit is still too far away to tell at this point, and perhaps best answered by those developing their respective platforms. Still, what's on the drawing board today will make the big three (Siri, Cortana, and Now) look like old Speak & Spell toys from the early '80s by comparison.
Elder Scrolls Online has expanded again with the arrival of the Thieves Guild DLC. To celebrate the launch of Thieves Guild, devs have sent out a brand new video that features gameplay in the new location of Abah's Landing.
Visionary Realms is ready to show off gameplay from Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. The event will take place on the Pantheon Twitch.tv channel and viewers will get to see some of the game's locations, a bit of combat and will learn what makes Pantheon a "unique classically-spirited MMO".
CCP Falcon has posted a short notiification on the EVE Online site that lets players know that the March update scheduled for Tuesday, March 8th has been delayed. Falcon also announced that a more definitive release date will be revealed over the next week or two.
Fallout 4's Deacon goofed up a bit today with an inadvertent slip up that announced he was working on Fallout 5 which, according to the now-removed Twitter post, is now in pre-production.
Fans of Epocylipse: The AfterFall will be pleased to hear about the third playable faction called The Texas Stars. Fancying itself as more family than anything else, The Texas Stars will 'have your back to the bitter end'.
Bioware's Mass Effect Andromeda has lost a third team member in nearly as many months. Cameron Harris, a senior editor at Bioware, announced her departure from the company and from the gaming industry via her personal Twitter account.
Crate Entertainment has some fantastic news for players and fans of Grim Dawn with the announcement that modding tools will be coming soon. Builders will be able to take advantage of an Asset Manager tool, World Editor, Quest Editor, Conversation Editor, Database Editor, and a LUA Scripting tool. Crate is looking forward to seeing what players come up with and will be taking questions about the tools and featuring some "how to" instructions as the time for the release nears.
Gaijin Entertainment has released a new teaser video to show off some of the things players can expect with the next update to War Thunder. Among other things, several new planes, new tech and the Snowy Valley will be introduced with the patch release. Check it out!
Sunday morning in sleepy Santa Ana, California saw HEX fanatics lined up outside a modest red brick building, chattering excitedly and no wonder. Day two of the HEX Invitational was about to begin and at the end of it, one player would walk away not only with HEX Master bragging rights, but $40,000 in deck-expanding cash.
Want to try out Wild Terra? This could be a golden opportunity with all bundles now on sale, some up to as much as 65% off. The deals are available from now through March 9th.
A "Crunch" is a time when studios hunker down, dig in their heels, block out all distractions and grind like its launch day in a new MMORPG! It's an emotional rollercoaster of hard work and determination during which the outside world must simply be put on hold in the name of the game! Here to create a distraction and break through the bubble is MMORPG.com!
Valve will be showcasing its new division next week during the annual Game Developers' Conference. Called "The Lab", the section will be focused on virtual reality experimentation.
With games like The Repopulation, Albion Online, Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, Black Desert Online, and countless others, developers are finally starting to harness the creative power sandboxes contain. But will any of them ever be able to topple the greatest sandbox MMO of all time?
Microsoft has announced via its official blog that development of Fable Legends has ceased and that Lionhead Studios in the UK will be closing. Fable Legends has been in development exclusively for XBox One and Windows 10.
Scarlet City Studios has announced that a limited number of Early Access packages for Aetherlight: Chronicles of Resistance. The game is expected to unravel over several chapters with release occurring over the forthcoming months. Founders Packages range from $12.99 to $500, each with its own set of bonuses and more.