Gaming

Cooler Master has officially unveiled its Orb X gaming pod. The motorized enclosure features a 6-way adjustable seat for the ultimate in both immersion and comfort when gaming or working.

A YouTuber has shown how to fix Joy-Con drift, a common issue of many Nintendo Switch controllers. A little manual skill is required, but the fix is easy to carry out and reliable.

Sony's latest soundbar packs plenty of features, including HDMI 2.1, Dolby Atmos and AirPlay 2. Hence, the HT-A7000 could be an excellent option for pairing with a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X without compromising on sound.

Hopper is most likely to be a compute-only architecture, as the upcoming RTX 4000 GPUs are expected to be based on Ada Lovelace. Nvidia is probably taping out Hopper this soon in order to have everything ready by mid-2022 when Intel's Xe-HPC and AMD's CDNA2 are supposed to hit the market. Hopper is Nvidia's first attempt at a multi-chip-module design and is rumored to be produced on the 5 nm nodes from TSMC.

A report from Bloomberg has stated that Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is keeping a watchful eye over the Nintendo Switch OLED, possibly with a PlayStation 5 price hike in mind. The new handheld console is US$50 more expensive than the regular Switch but comes with few revisions. If it sells wells, Sony could up the price tag of the PS5.

Samsung's 2021 Galaxy Z Fold flagship is projected to launch with the same Snapdragon 888 as its inflexible counterpart, the S21 Ultra, as sold in some regions. Now, a prominent leaker asserts that the former will cope better with heat generation during everyday tasks such as gaming compared to the former.

It may have taken Samsung over four months, but it has finally revealed the launch date of its revised 49-inch curved gaming monitor. The Odyssey Neo G9, previously called the Odyssey G9 2021, will arrive before the end of the month. Its launch price remains unknown.

Users reluctant to upgrade to the upcoming Windows 11 version will be happy to learn that the DirectStorage feature is coming to Windows 10, as well. Faster game load times and improved GPU texture decompression speeds will require Windows 10 version 1909 and up, but Windows 11 is getting the performance edge due to its improved OS storage stack.

At the ongoing GDC 2021 event, Nvidia showcased ray tracing and DLSS running on the ARM platform. The demos, which included Wolfenstein: Youngblood and The Bistro, were run on a MediaTek Kompanio 1200 platform paired with an RTX 3060. Nvidia said that it is porting several RTX SDKs to Linux and Chromium on ARM.

After testing over a dozen different laptops with the GeForce RTX 3060, users can expect up to a 19 percent performance decrease between the fastest and slowest models currently available. There's a catch, however, as real-world gaming performance on the 70 W GPU can be brought closer to average by opting for a newer CPU with higher or faster RAM.

With the TUF Gaming A15, Asus offers a powerful and comparatively inexpensive gaming laptop with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H. It offers decent gaming performance and a fast display.

The Sony Xperia 1 III has been put through its paces against a fierce competitor in the form of the Asus ROG Phone 5. Both Snapdragon 888 phones have a reputation for being fast, but it still comes as a surprise just how far ahead the Xperia 1 III manages to get against the ROG Phone 5 in this latest comparison.

Microsoft won't make a handheld XBox so Valve have done it themselves. The Steam Deck has the potential to fire up a fledging category of handheld PCs for gamers and not just enthusiasts.

Valve’s Steam Deck has been revealed and unsurprisingly the ultra-portable gaming PC and console hybrid has already been frequently compared with the Nintendo Switch (OLED model). However, while the Steam Deck is preposterously more powerful than the new Switch, it won’t stop Nintendo having a huge hit on its hands when the Switch Pro/Switch 2 finally emerges.

reVC, a fan project to reverse engineer Grand Theft Auto Vice City’s source code, just got an unofficial port on the Nintendo Switch. Gamers will need a modded Nintendo Switch to try the game out, however.

Crescendo, a Super Mario Bros speedrunner, recently posted a video showcasing a world record, beating the Nintendo classic in less than 12 minutes, while blindfolded.

In the Zephyrus S17, the hinges simultaneously push the keyboard unit upwards and lift it when the laptop is opened. This allows the case to open a gap in this area, which is supposed to draw in more fresh air. Is this useful and what are the drawbacks?

It seems that the Ukrainian crypto mining setup that used PS4 Slims for the task was something less sinister. An investigation by a local news agency revealed that it was little more than a network to grind FIFA Ultimate Team coins, which would subsequently end up being sold on third-party websites.

Valve's recently announced handheld gaming PCs have received over 75,000 reservations across all variants within just the first hour of reservation opening in the United States alone. Delivery dates have also started to get pushed out to Q2 2022 for new reservations.

Razer has launched some new gaming footwear called the Sneki Snek Slippers. It is meant to keep your feet comfortable during long gaming sessions, and Razer will plant ten trees for every unit sold. They are available for sale on Razer's official website for US$49.

A Capcom spokesperson has stated that the company is aware of Resident Evil Village's performance issues on PC due to Denuvo. Although they didn't mention the exact timeline, a fix should be coming soon.

Tipster @UniverseIce recently claimed on Weibo that Samsung’s upcoming Exynos 2200 SoC would feature a six-core RDNA2 implementation. To put this into perspective, the upcoming Steam Deck, capable of playing AAA PC games, features 8-core RDNA2 graphics. This means that Exynos 2200 powered devices could potentially deliver experiences on par with current-gen consoles.

The low profile mechanical keys are softer and quieter which some users may appreciate. However, a few drawbacks like the deeply recessed USB-C port or always-on LED indicator are hard to ignore.

Valve has launched the Steam Deck, a fully-fledged handheld gaming PC. The device features an AMD Zen 2 and RDNA 2-based APU that delivers 1.6 teraflops of graphics processing power.

PowKiddy has started selling the Q20 Mini, another retro handheld based on a Nintendo design. Supposedly, the Q20 Mini lasts up to four hours between charges and can emulate numerous systems, including the SNES and the PlayStation 1.

Since Nvidia allows for a wide variety of TGPs on all of its mobile GPUs, the RTX 3050 Ti does not really make any sense. OEMs can easily replace this model with a lower TGP RTX 3060 and still keep the 6 GB of VRAM. Slapping only 4 GB on the RTX 3050 Ti is not even the bare minimum for some current AAA games, let alone whatever games will be released in the coming years.

In a perfect world, honest customers should not be bothered by DRM mechanisms that silently run in the background while playing a game. However, a cracked version of CAPCOM's new Triple-A title Resident Evil Village has now unveiled that the integrated copy protection may be the root cause for the poor performance that is plaguing the PC version of the highly-anticipated horror game.

Renowned tech evangelist Robert Scoble has posted a tweet claiming that Apple’s long-awaited Apple Glass AR headset is due to make its first appearance at WWDC 2022. It will be joined by a new iPod that is said to be integral to the new AR experience.

The Twitter handle that deals with Bethesda merchandise inadvertently Tweeted about some new Mass Effect goodies two times within an hour. Bioware and Bethesda use the same company (Dpipromo) for merch-related things, meaning an employee likely forgot to switch handles.

Many users on Lenovo's forums are reporting missing encoding codecs on their Legion laptops after a recent BIOS update. This issue appears to exclusively affect Legion units sold in Germany, potentially due to now-settled litigation with Nokia.

A 25-year-old, unopened copy of the game Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64 has been sold at an auction for the mind-blowing price of US$1.5 million. It's the first video game to sell for more than US$1 million, after the prices of two other classic Nintendo games had only climbed to six figures.

The under-the-hood changes should are expected to boost GPU performance by about 10 to 20 percent from last year's 10th gen Intel Blade Pro options. Prices start at $2399 USD for the RTX 3060 up to $3699 for the RTX 3080.

Razer has upgraded the Blade 15 Base with current-generation hardware such as the Intel Core i7-11800H and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070. Key Razer Blade 15 Base Model specs include a 15.4-inch QHD screen clocked at 165Hz, 16GB of 3,200MT/s RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi 6, and a 65Wh battery. Pre-orders are open on Razer's website, with prices starting at US$1,799/€1,899.

As promised, Rockstar has brought DLSS to Red Dead Redemption 2, NVIDIA's super-sampling technology. DLSS should deliver up to 45% better framerates, drastically reducing the system requirements for running the game smoothly in 4K.

Initially rumored to hit 5.5 GHz on a single core, the i9-12900K might not be able to get turbo boosts higher than 5.3 GHz, at least according to the latest leaked qualification sample specs. Still, this does not appear to hinder the overall performance of the upcoming high-end Alder Lake models, as the multi-core scores in Cinebench R20 are rumored to be at least 800 points higher than the Ryzen 9 5950X.

The TAG Heuer Connected is one of the most premium Wear OS smartwatches out there. Its latest, variant might be a big draw for some of its fans, with its re-designed Super Mario-themed case and colorway. On the other hand, it will go for even more than its vanilla counterpart.

Cyberpunk 2077 made a quiet return to the PlayStation Store on June 21. It is now the best selling game on the PS4 for June 2021, which is quite an impressive feat for a title that has been on the platform for nine days. Furthermore, Sony also recommended PS4 players to steer clear of the title, given its inability to run properly on the base console.

Nintendo’s new Switch console brings a few new key features to the table, but not necessarily everything fans may have wanted. Chief among the omissions was a faster processor, but it also looks like Nintendo doesn’t appear to have done anything to address the long-standing Joy-Con drift issue.

Acer claimed to have had its best May for seven years in its financial report for that month. Now, it notes it has done the same in June 2021. The OEM made 30.02 billion new Taiwanese dollars (NTD, or US$1.07 billion) in that month. It attributed this success to the sales of its Chromebooks and gaming hardware.

Pokémon GO has been an enormous success for Niantic. New figures quantify just how much money the company has made and the year-on-year growth Pokémon GO has experienced since it launched five years ago.

MSI is adding a new Delta series with slim and light design that can be equipped with a Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and a Radeon 6700M GPU, while also introducing a redesigned Alpha series with improved cooling and processor options up to a Ryzen 7 5800H complemented by a Radeon RX 6600M GPU.

Rockstar has announced plans to bring NVIDIA's DLSS super-sampling to Red Dead Redemption 2. The feature will be available from next week through the game's next major update, which also contains Red Dead Online: Blood Money.

@BenchLeaks recently spotted a Geekbench 4 entry for a purported Intel Sapphire Rapids dual-socket part with 40 cores in total. The possible engineering sample scored roughly 30,000 on Geekbench 4, a ways off, even from weaker commercial parts like the Ryzen 9 5800X.