A study concerning two enormous blobs beneath the Earth's outer crust that have baffled scientists was recently released. Each of the blobs are said to be 100 times taller than Mt. Everest, to give you some perspective on the size.
Earth is made up of layers. It is comprised of an outer crust, a thick viscous...Read more...
The short life of AMD’s Mantle graphics API is nearly over, thanks to Windows 10 and DirectX 12. AMD announced that developers should begin concentrating on DirectX 12 while promising full support for games that are already heavily invested in Mantle, like EA and Visceral Games’ Battlefield Hardline. The announcement...Read more...
AMD's Future of Compute event was this week and the company has made a number of announcements regarding new technology and the future of its HSA, Mantle, and FreeSync projects. First up, there's Carrizo, AMD's upcoming follow-on to Kaveri and the first chip to use its "Excavator" CPU cores.
AMD is projecting that...Read more...
Buried in the details of Microsoft's technical preview for Windows 10 (look for our own discussion in short order), is a bit of a footnote concerning the operating system's requirements. I say footnote because this news -- that Windows 10 will have exactly the same requirements as Windows 8.1, which had the same...Read more...
Crytek -- developers of the CryEngine and the hit Crysis series -- is, by all accounts, in significant trouble. Reports of problems are mounting at multiple publications as employees speak out about missed paychecks, layoffs, and multiple staff departing in the wake of non-payment. Eurogamer is reporting that Crytek...Read more...
One of the ongoing questions around AMD's Mantle API is how much support it would garner in actual shipping titles. True, EA had committed to adding support to the Frostbite engine, but that's the kind of announcement that can be quietly swept under the rug or might be integrated into the engine but with a minimal...Read more...
We've known for several days that EA would unveil a new chapter in the Battlefield universe at E3 2014, but the company has done more than that -- it also launched a surprise beta test for the upcoming Battlefield Hardline. The new game will be an urban cops-and-robbers shootout that drops players into the boots of...Read more...
One of the hot topics in the wake of Titanfall's launch has been whether or not DirectX 12 would make a difference to the game's sometimes jerky framerate and lower-than-expected 792p resolution. According to Titanfall developer Jon Shirling, the new Microsoft API isn't needed to improve the game's performance, and...Read more...
At GDC a few weeks ago, NVIDIA teased a new set of drivers that it promised would offer huge scaling benefits for both single-GPU and SLI configurations. The new driver, 337.50 Beta, drops today -- so what kind of gains can users expect? If you own a high-end NVIDIA card, apparently quite a bit, especially if you game...Read more...
We recently had the chance to sit down with some folks at NVIDIA to discuss high performance graphics APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). With all of the noise recently surrounding AMD’s Mantle, DirectX 12, DirectX 11 and even OpenGL, NVIDIA wanted to clear the air somewhat, and explain the...Read more...
One of the most anticipated announcements of GDC this year has been Microsoft's unveiling of DirectX 12. The event today was light on some details, but didn't disappoint -- DirectX 12 looks like a huge step forward for gaming. The problem DX12 wants to solve is the same issue that drove Mantle. DirectX 11 isn't very...Read more...
Earlier this month, Microsoft acknowledged that it would debut DirectX 12 at GDC this year, with promises that it would offer many of the same features as AMD's Mantle. Fast on the heels of that announcement came news that the API would also be deployed on the Xbox One, presumably as part of a future update. Now, a...Read more...
Nvidia may have just announced GameWorks support will be baked into Unreal Engine 4, but the Red Team is firing back with its own announcement today: Upcoming versions of Cryengine will support AMD's Mantle API. Just to be clear, this announcement refers to an upcoming engine that hasn't been used for a shipping title...Read more...
Buzz has been building for the last week that Microsoft would soon unveil the next version of DirectX at the upcoming Games Developer Conference (GDC). Microsoft has now confirmed that its discussion forums at the show won't just be to discuss updates to DX11, but that it's putting a full court press behind the...Read more...
Today, AMD is officially announcing its Radeon R7 250X, a new $100 GPU that the company is positioning against NVIDIA's GTX 650 in the entry-level, discrete graphics market. Like all of AMD's other recent product launches, save for the R9 290 family, the new Radeon R7 250X is a rebranded HD 7000 part -- but it...Read more...
As we mentioned a few days back, AMD’s been working on a new set of drivers for its GCN-based graphics cards and APUs, which enable Mantle and a number of other features as well. Just to quickly recap, the Catalyst 14.1 betas (which were just released and are available here) are the first publicly available...Read more...
AMD has a new set of drivers coming in a couple of days that are poised to resolve a number of longstanding issues and enable a handful of new features as well, most notably support for Mantle. Though the number/naming convention may change by the time the drivers are actually released, we’re told the upcoming...Read more...
There's a great deal riding on the launch of AMD's next-generation Kaveri APU. The new chip will be the first CPU to incorporate significant architectural changes to the Bulldozer CPU AMD launched two years ago and the first chip to use a graphics core derived from AMD's GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture, which debuted on the desktop two...Read more...
With the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 both launched, the pressing question is: Which one should you pick? Comparing stats on the two is the typical way websites tackle this issue. I'm not going to. If you've read anything about the two devices, you already know the following: The PS4 is more powerful than the Xbox One...Read more...
Last October AMD debuted its Never Settle game bundles, and the company is rolling full steam ahead with more. The latest is a doozy: Starting today, if you buy any AMD Radeon R9 Series card (wouldn’t you know it, we have a review of one right here), you can get a gratis copy of Battlefield 4. AMD says that the...Read more...
One of the major planks of AMD's APU13 developer conference has been an in-depth discussion of its next-generation API, Mantle. Mantle, which first debuted at the company's Hawaii unveil in late September, has been billed as a high-performance alternative to DirectX 11. Prior to today, AMD has mostly discussed Mantle...Read more...
EA took the wraps off Battlefield 4 this past week, offering players a chance to experience a taste of what the game offers via an early beta. We've spent time with the game, tested its early performance, and come back to report the findings. AMD, of course, has been talking up the Battlefield 4 combination with a vengeance, highlighting the...Read more...