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AMD announced FSR 3.1 in March 2024, and its first implementations are being announced. FSR 3.1 is a step up from FSR 3.0, in that it not just has frame generation, but also improvements to its upscaler up from FSR 2.2. If you recall, FSR 3.0 had only introduced frame generation, but its upscaler was carried over from FSR 2.2. The newer FSR 3.1 introduces image quality improvements to every performance preset of the upscaler, and introduces new presets, including the Native AA mode that's analogous to NVIDIA's DLAA. The game is rendered at native resolution, but the upscaler attempts to enhance details, making it an advanced AA mode. AMD today announced that FSR 3.1 is implemented with "Horizon: Forbidden West," "Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart," "Ghost of Tsushima," "Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered," "Spider-Man: Miles Morales," and "God of War: Ragnarök."

AMD also recounts that FSR 3.0 now spans over 60 available and upcoming games (which includes the above titles with FSR 3.1). The company is announcing implementation for "Dragon's Dogma 2," "EVERSPACE 2," "Gray Zone Warfare," "House Flipper 2," "NARAKA: BLADEPOINT," "Pax Dei," "Senua's Saga: Hellblade II," "Ships At Sea," "Still Wakes the Deep," and" The Thaumaturge." Recently added upcoming titles include "Concord," "Creatures of Ava, Dungeon Stalkers," "Farming Simulator 25," "inZOI," "Nobody Wants to Die, Preserve," and "The First Descendant."[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

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Hori, a veteran Japanese peripheral maker, is set to release a Valve-licensed Steam controller in Japan on October 31. Priced at ¥7980 (about $50), the controller will come in four vibrant colors: Neon Yellow, Luminous Violet, Shiny White, and Midnight Black. This Japan-exclusive launch represents an intriguing development in the Steam Controller's evolution and potentially signals Valve's ongoing efforts to capture the Japanese gaming market, long known for its affinity for portable gaming. Unlike its predecessors, the Hori Steam Controller avoids trackpads in favor of traditional analog sticks and D-pads, a design choice that may appeal to console gamers, particularly Nintendo Switch users.

Despite this significant change, the new controller retains several key features from earlier Valve designs. It boasts dual analog sticks with touch sensitivity, a feature inherited from the Steam Deck that enables precise gyro aim toggling. The controller offers comprehensive Steam Input configuration options in its "Steam Mode," as well as an "XInput Mode" for non-Steam games. It supports both Bluetooth and wired USB connectivity and includes built-in gyro functionality. Additional features include four programmable buttons, rapid-fire capability, and dedicated Steam and Quick Access buttons for use in Steam Mode. While its availability beyond Japan remains uncertain, this release shows Valve's commitment to expanding its footprint in the global gaming hardware market.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

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Intel today released the latest version of its Arc GPU Graphics drivers for its A-series discrete GPUs and Arc Graphics iGPUs powering its Core Ultra processors. Version 101.5593 Beta comes with optimization for "The First Descendant" and "Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail," which includes support for ray tracing in the former. The company did not fix any issues with this release, but identified a few new ones to fix in future releases. These include application crashes with "No Man's Sky" and "Enshrouded," intermittent flickering and display corruption in the game menu of "Doom Eternal," and Topaz Video AI throwing up errors when exporting videos after using some models for video enhancements. Grab the drivers from the link below.

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AMD is developing a new technology that promises to significantly reduce the size on disk of games, as well as reduce the size of game patches and updates. Today's AAA games tend to be over a 100 GB in size, with game updates running into tens of gigabytes, with some of the major updates practically downloading the game all over again. Upcoming games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is reportedly over 300 GB in size, which pushes the game away from those with anything but Internet connections with hundreds of Mbps in speeds. Much of the bulk of the game is made up of visual assets—textures, sprites, and cutscene videos. A modern AAA title could have hundreds of thousands of individual game assets, and sometimes even redundant sets of textures for different image quality settings.

AMD's solution to this problem is the Neural Block Compression technology. The company will get into the nuts and bolts of the tech in its presentation at the 2024 Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (July 3-5), but we have a vague idea of what it could be. Modern games don't drape surfaces of a wireframe with a texture, but also additional layers, such as specular maps, normal maps, roughness maps, etc). AMD's idea is to "flatten" all these layers, including the base texture, into a single asset format, which the game engine could disaggregate into the individual layers using an AI neural network. This is not to be confused with mega-textures—something entirely different, which relies on a single large texture covering all objects in a scene. The idea here is to flatten the various data layers of individual textures and their maps, into a single asset type. In theory, this should yield significant file-size savings, even if it results in some additional compute cost on the client's end.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

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SK hynix announced today that it developed PCB01, an SSD product with the industry's best specifications, for on-device AI PCs. The product marks the first case where the industry adopts the fifth generation of the 8-channel PCIe technology and brings innovation to performance including the data processing speed. The company expects the latest advancement in the NAND solution space to add to its success stories in the high-performance DRAM area led by HBM, enhancing its leadership in the overall AI memory space.

With a validation process with a global PC customer underway, SK hynix plans to mass produce and start shipping the products to both corporate customers and general consumers within this year. PCB01 comes with the capabilities of sequential read and write speeds of 14 GB and 12 GB per second, respectively, bringing the performance of an SSD to the level unseen before. The speeds allow the operation of a large language model or LLM, for AI training and inference, in a second.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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Steam has officially launched its Summer Sale, and there are plenty of good game titles to be found across all genres. In addition, Steam is also doing a neat promotion on Steam Deck LCD models.

We had a quick look through the list and picked out a few that have caught our eye, but there are a lot of titles so we might have missed a few. As said, Steam is also running a promotion for its Steam Deck LCD models, the 64 GB and 512 GB one, [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]. This year, Steam also launched a list of "extra-deep discounts", which is a selection of games that you just might not want to miss.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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At Xbox, we're committed to bringing the joy and community of gaming to everyone. Today, we're announcing a collaboration with Amazon where Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members in over 25 countries can play games directly from the Xbox app on select Fire TV devices via cloud gaming, giving people even more choice in how they play their favorite games. In July, the Xbox app will be available on the Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2023) ($59.99) and Fire TV Stick 4K (2023) ($49.99). For people new to console gaming, or for those looking for another way to play, it's a great low-cost, convenient, and portable option to enjoy a huge library of incredible games.

To get started, players just need a Fire TV Stick, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless controller, and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership to gain instant access to hundreds of phenomenal games, including Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Starfield, and Forza Horizon 5, among others. Plus, Bethesda Game Studios' beloved Fallout games are also available with Game Pass Ultimate, including Fallout 76 and Fallout 4. Fallout fans will be able to play these games on select Amazon Fire TV devices alongside the acclaimed Fallout TV show on Prime Video, which released in April.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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More than 500 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Following yet another week of excellent DLSS game launches and announcements, we've got even more DLSS news to share this week - PAYDAY 3 and TRIBES 3: Rivals have upgraded from DLSS 2 to DLSS 3, and the Riven remake has launched with support for DLSS 2! And next week, The First Descendant launches with day-one support for DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, ray tracing, Reflex, and DLAA. Learn more about each integration of our experience-enhancing technologies below.

The First Descendant Launches July 2nd, Featuring DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, Reflex & Ray Tracing
The First Descendant is a free, third-person cooperative action-RPG shooter powered by Unreal Engine 5. Experience the fun of strategic boss fights through 4-player co-op, using an extensive range of unique characters, with exciting gunplay, and looting. Battle through the engrossing story, and tackle World Missions against huge bosses in The First Descendant.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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Today we've launched Steam Game Recording into Beta, a new built-in system for creating and sharing your gameplay footage, that works on any game on Steam. From capturing highlights to documenting entire campaigns, there are many ways to use this all-new set of features.

The Steam Game Recording Beta can record, replay, clip, and share all your favorite gameplay. You can set it to record automatically in the background every time you start playing or record on demand. Although still in Beta phase, there are plenty of features with promise of more to come.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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Schneider Electric, the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, has today announced the availability of its APC Back-UPS Pro Gaming uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) in Europe. Celebrating 40 years of Legendary Reliability and leadership in critical power protection during 2024, the new, stylish, and state-of-the-art UPS has been designed to protect gaming equipment from power outages and deliver a robust power connection, despite energy spikes and failures.

Back-UPS Pro Gaming has been specifically designed with gamers, streamers, and influencers in mind, delivering uninterruptible power protection, even in regions where the grid is unstable, keeping GPU-powered PCs, leading consoles, streamers, and gamers connected to both their online gaming experiences and audiences, regardless of power disruptions. To deliver robust protection, APC Back-UPS Pro Gaming UPS features sine wave battery backup power - delivering the smooth electrical current required by sensitive electronics and AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation), and helping to protect against power irregularities that can result in glitches and buffering during an outage to extend the lifespan of gaming equipment.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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Get ready to feel some chills, even amid the summer heat. Capcom's award-winning Resident Evil Village brings a touch of horror to the cloud this GFN Thursday, part of three new games joining GeForce NOW this week. And a new app update brings a visual enhancement to members, along with new ways to curate their GeForce NOW gaming libraries. Members are showcasing their favorite locations to visit in the cloud. Follow along with #GreetingsFromGFN on @NVIDIAGFN social media accounts and share picturesque scenes from the cloud for a chance to be featured.

The Bell Tolls for All
Resident Evil Village, the follow-up to Capcom's critically acclaimed Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, delivers a gripping blend of survival-horror and action. Step into the shoes of Ethan Winters, a desperate father determined to rescue his kidnapped daughter. Set against a backdrop of a chilling European village teeming with mutant creatures, the game includes a captivating cast of characters, including the enigmatic Lady Dimitrescu, who haunts the dimly lit halls of her grand castle. Fend off hordes of enemies, such as lycanthropic villagers and grotesque abominations. Experience classic survival-horror tactics - such as resource management and exploration - mixed with action featuring intense combat and higher enemy counts.[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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