Gaming

A new tech review video analyzes the blatant performance issues of the remastered versions of GTA San Andreas and Vice City on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. On Nintendo Switch, the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition even appears to perform catastrophically bad.

We may be a year on from the arrival of AMD and NVIDIA's latest desktop graphics cards, but their prices are still nowhere near MSRP. As research shows, the price of a GeForce RTX 30 or a Radeon RX 6000 series card will set you back roughly 1.9x more than NVIDIA and AMD state they should cost.

Gigabyte has released a new tool to fix DRM issues on Intel Alder Lake processors. Due to the presence of E-cores on 12th gen Intel CPUs, some games were performing poorly. The tool disables E-cores without needing the user to go to the BIOS.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has approved Sony's patent for PS5 faceplates. The patent became active almost a year after Sony filed it, which allowed Dbrand to produce the original Darkplates in the interim.

Moore's Law is Dead recently shared a spec sheet summarizing leaked details about what appears to be an entry-level variant of the Intel Arc Alchemist GPU. The card could be priced as low as US$179, with performance on par with the GTX 1650 SUPER.

More details about the ONEXPLAYER mini have leaked, a 7-inch gaming handheld. The ONEXPLAYER mini is expected to launch with a high-end Tiger Lake processor, perhaps even the Core i7-1195G7. The ONEXPLAYER mini will be much smaller than the Steam Deck and will be on par with the AYA NEO.

MediaTek has unveiled a new flagship SoC for the next generation of premium big-screen devices. The Pentonic 2000 can support resolutions of up to 8K and refresh rates of 120Hz. It can also allow OEMs to pack specs such as AV1 support, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos into their upcoming top-end TVs.

The adequately equipped ROG Zephyrus G15 gaming laptop by Asus is currently discounted by US$300 at Best Buy in the US, making it a perfect deal for everyone who is in the market for a new portable gaming machine.

Rockstar issued an official apology following the launch of GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition, and announced that it would be making the original games available for purchase again.

@BenchLeaks recently spotted OpenCL benchmarks, running on what appear to be an Intel Arc Alchemist GPU with 512 Execution Units. Due to unusually low clockspeeds in the test runs, though, the Intel card struggled to best even the GeForce RTX 2060.

Thanks to Alder Lake's massive IPC improvements, Red Dead Redemption, long the bane of emulators like RPCS3 and Xenia, is finally running at close to 4K/60 FPS on an Alder Lake i9-12900K paired with a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

Battlegrounds India, the local variant of PUBG Mobile, recently banned over 2.5 million accounts for cheating, as part of an effort to improve the quality of the game's multiplayer experience.

Microsoft recently rolled out Xbox Cloud Gaming on the Xbox One and Xbox One S in over 25 regions. This feature allows gamers on previous-gen hardware to stream next-gen exclusive titles like The Medium via xCloud, opening a door to new cross-gen possibilities.

TCL CSOT is developing the world's first 32-inch 4K 240 Hz panel with a 1 ms response time. Further details about this monitor are not available, but the promotional material does indicate a curved screen. TCL is expected to launch this monitor in the coming months and also supply this monitor to other OEMs for rebranding.

AetherSX2 is a new PlayStation 2 emulator for Android. Currently in a closed alpha, the emulator is free and open-source, providing a free option for PS2 emulation on Android. Early testing shows exciting results in many PS2 titles, which is promising for the future of PS2 emulation on Android.

LG has announced that select LG Smart TVs will integrate NVIDIA's GeForce NOW. Gamers can download the streaming service from LG's WebOS in the coming days. The app will launch in beta, but LG asserts that its TVs will maximize the full potential of NVIDIA's technologies.

One-netbook has made the AMD versions of the ONEXPLAYER available to order. The ONEXPLAYER can now be configured with either a Ryzen 7 4800U or Ryzen 7 5700U. The difference between the Ryzen 7 5700U and Core i7-1165G7 model can be minimal in some games, though.

Chinese servers of the popular game Fortnite stopped working on November 15 after the game failed to get approval from the Chinese government. This marks the end of Fortnite's three-year limited trial run in the country. Fortnite's failure to get approval is a byproduct of the Chinese government's tightened regulations of the games industry.

NVIDIA is expected to announce an RTX 2060 with 12 GB of VRAM soon, with a view to easing pressure on the desktop graphics card market. Now, Gigabyte has registered several RTX 2060 12 GB SKUs with the EEC, signalling that it intends to release the refreshed Turing architecture card.

With the release of NVIDIA's latest driver update, spatial upscaling is added into both GeForce Experience and the NVIDIA Control Panel. The six-tap upscaling algorithm looks to be a more direct competitor to FSR than DLSS, and driver-level support makes it possible to enable in any game

Microsoft unveiled the release of Halo Infinite multiplayer on November 15. The free-to-play multiplayer crossed 200,000 concurrent players on Steam, which is a Steam launch record for Microsoft. However, Season 1 has been extended by three extra months to allow for healthy game development.

Following an Igor's Lab report about changes to the LGA 1700 socket design, WCCFTech tested out multiple previous-gen AIO coolers that are theoretically compatible, discovering that many made inadequate contact with the Alder Lake IHS, meaning higher temps and lower boost clocks.

After adding in a kernel-level anti-cheat solution to Call of Duty: Vanguard, Activision revised its enforcement policy, highlighting that severe infractions could result in players getting banned in past, present, and future Call of Duty titles.

GeForce Now Priority tier users report that NVIDIA is capping their framerates in certain games below 60 FPS, going as low as 45 FPS in titles like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Cyberpunk 2077. This is despite the fact that Priority Tier uses an RTX-capable GPU which should be able to hit 1080p/60 FPS, even in intensive titles, raising questions about artificial limitations.

A YouTuber has showcased the performance of the ONEXPLAYER with a Ryzen 7 5700U APU. The ONEXPLAYER will also be available with a Ryzen 7 4800U, both with a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM.

In addition to the rubberized grips and metallic finishes that are returning to Xbox Design Lab, the list of customization options available for Xbox controllers and their parts also includes a few new color options and designs inspired by Skyrim, Battlefield 2042, Forza Horizon 5, and Riders Republic.

Gucci and Microsoft have collaborated on a limited-edition Xbox Series X console. The device celebrates the 100th anniversary of Gucci and the 20th anniversary of Microsoft.

The release of the highly anticipated remastered versions of GTA 3, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas is a huge disappointment for many fans. Rockstar Games has now even stopped selling the PC version of the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition due to technical issues with the official Rockstar Launcher.

ViewSonic has confirmed the pricing and release date of the Elite XG271QG, its long-awaited 240 Hz gaming monitor. The Elite XG271QG has a 27-inch panel, is VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified and runs natively at 2.5K.

Panic has announced that it is unable to fulfil Playdate orders until 'early 2022' at the earliest. Future orders will not ship until 2023 either, with battery issues and CPU shortages cited as a reason for the delay.

We are getting to know that AMD's upcoming Navi 31 RDNA 3 GPU is likely to feature 120 workgroup processors or 15,360 streaming processors. Also being speculated is a 256 MB or 512 MB 3D Infinity Cache and a 2.5 GHz boost clock that could yield 75 TFLOPs. Nvidia's Lovelace AD102, on the other hand, is now being touted to offer up to a 2.4x uplift over Ampere and up to 92 TFLOPs of FP32 performance.

Microsoft has quietly brought GTA San Andreas - The Definitive Edition to Xbox Game Pass subscribers on the same day as the US$59.99 trilogy goes on sale. While the game is not free on PlayStation, GTA III will be from early next month.

A new version of the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 15 has leaked with next-generation AMD and NVIDIA hardware. The 15.6-inch laptop will be available with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX, an octa-core APU with 16 threads. ASUS has also equipped the next ROG Strix Scar 15 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, an unannounced GPU with 7,424 CUDA cores.

Due to issues with the supply chain network, Valve has announced that the Steam Deck will be postponed until February 2022. The Steam Deck is Valve's newest device to entice gamers who desire PC gaming in a handheld form factor. However, lucky gamers who reserved the device will have to wait longer as the company grapples with logistic challenges due to the pandemic.

Modder Digital Dreams recently posted a YouTube video showcasing Forza Horizon 5 running with ray-tracing enabled in gameplay sections, via a Cheat Engine tweak. While system specs weren't given, it appears that Digital Dreams is running the gain at a fairly locked 60 FPS.

EVGA's Precision X1 overclocking tool recently received a major update that overhauls the VF (voltage-frequency curve) editor, as well as a way to synchronize the in-app frame limiter with the frame limiting option in the NVIDIA control panel.

PUBG: New State, the hotly anticipated successor to the original PUBG, has launched officially on Android and iOS in over 200 countries and territories. New State sports significantly enhanced graphics, larger maps, and a futuristic setting, along with features like weapon customization and drone combat.

A new report from Bloomberg suggests that it will be harder to get your hands on a PS5 in 2022. Sony has reportedly lowered its sales targets due to component shortages. It hopes to sell about 15 million consoles by March 2022 instead of the originally planned 16 million.

The new exclusive open world racing game for Microsoft's platforms looks amazingly realistic on the Xbox Series X, and with the right settings it can even look a tad better on PC, arguably making it one of the most beautiful video games of all times.

With the acquisition of all the artist tools, core pipeline, intellectual property and engineering talent from Weta Digital, Unity is set to become the premier video game engine to power future metaverse projects.

Niantic, famous for developing games like Pokemon GO, has released an Augmented Reality Developer Kit (ARDK) for people who want to build AR games. The ARDK is available for free and allows developers to build upon Niantic's core technologies.

An industry insider (RalphsValve) has heard that Rockstar is planning to remaster Grand Theft Auto 4. The game will be launched for all major platforms sometime in 2023. It will be single-player only and include content from the 'Episodes from Liberty City' DLC pack.

The upcoming mini PCs will support up to a Ryzen 9 5900X desktop-grade CPU coupled to a discrete GPU. MinisForum mentions that the power consumption can range between 120 W and 1000 W, so it also offers support for ATX SFX power supplies. For increased efficiency, the processors are cooled with liquid metal and the included power adapter features gallium nitride technology.

GPD has started selling the GPD XP online. The Android-based gaming handheld has a 6.81-inch display, a 7,000 mAh battery, modular controllers and is available for under US$350.

One-netbook has confirmed that it will be bringing an AMD Ryzen version of the ONEXPLAYER to market. Additionally, the company is planning on releasing an ONEXPLAYER mini too with a 7-inch display.

OnePlus has lifted the lid on the PAC-MAN Edition of the Nord 2. The handset will launch on November 15 across the EU, India and the UK. The OnePlus Nord 2 x PAC-MAN Edition can be won in a PAC-MAN web-based game or purchased for INR 37,999, €529, and £499.