TechPowerUP NEWS

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Get ready to embark on a thrilling scientific odyssey! Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, the latest creation from Saber Interactive, the renowned studio behind MudRunner and SnowRunner, reveals Runners of the Lost Ark, a new action-packed trailer paying tribute to legendary tales of exploration and to adventurers from all around the world. The perfect way to pack your bag for Expeditions' arrival on March 5, 2024 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC. Feel the excitement of adventure in a journey filled with gripping moments and spectacular sceneries. Become a famous explorer trading a whip for a winch and a hat for a roof rack. In a pitiless wilderness, avoid all the traps, look danger straight in the eye and discover all the secrets of a thrilling world.

Your itinerary, your odyssey
You're not alone facing sharp cliffs and muddy terrain in Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, as you can always count on your equipment. Whip out your incredible tools and make your way in these gorgeous landscapes. Whether you're defying the law of physics with your winch, conquering the biggest precipices with your self-deploying bridge or scouting your path with your drone, you and your gadgets form an unbeatable team. Drive until the sun sets and make every bend an adventure.
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[NextPowerUP]

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition had a landmark year in 2023 with the addition of the Return of Rome and The Mountain Royals expansions. More than four years after launch, the game continues to grow. Telling more stories from the world's rich history as well as bringing more civilizations to play. The next chapter for Age of Empires II: DE will be the single player focused DLC Victors and Vanquished, coming March 14th.

Introduced by its Creator, Ramsey Abdulrahim, this DLC will be like no other we've made before for AoE II: DE. Victors and Vanquished features 19 epic scenarios. Your strategy and choices will decide your fate: will you emerge as the ultimate victor, or fall as the vanquished? You'll play as Ragnar Lothbrok, Oda Nobunaga, Charlemagne and more. Each scenario features professional voice acting, new music, achievement and the quality you'd expect from an official Age of Empires scenario.
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[NextPowerUP]

Last October, Qualcomm introduced Snapdragon X Elite as its most powerful computing processor for PC, but the ARM-based mobile solution is still months away from launch—officially mid-2024. Company leadership has indicated that their custom Oryon CPU—for the "thin-and-light notebook market"—could be hitting retail at the same time as Microsoft's heavily rumored "Windows 12" inauguration. Several PC news outlets have picked up on a mysterious Qualcomm "ZH-WXX" platform appearing on Geekbench Browser—the February 22 entrant seems to be a prototype notebook that sports a "Snapdragon X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm Oryon CPU," and 32 GB of LPDDR5x memory.

There are no next generation operating system revelations here—the system was running a 64-bit install of Windows 11 Insider Preview. Overall Geekbench 6.2.2 tallies are 2574 (single-core), and 12562 (multi-core)—positioning the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite engineering sample just above AMD's Ryzen 9 7940HS top-end mobility-focused "Phoenix" APU in terms of performance. Geekbench Browser's "CPU Information" section identifies the alleged high-end Snapdragon X Elite processor as a "ARMv8 (64-bit) Family 8 Model 1 Revision 201" part. Average clock speeds were listed as 4.01 GHz (base frequency). Cluster 1 seems to contain eight Nuvia-designed Oryon processor cores, while Cluster 2 receives the remaining four units.

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[NextPowerUP]

Last year, it was revealed that the masters of remasters at Nightdive Studios have taken on the task of bringing the beloved 90s classic Star Wars: Dark Forces to modern audiences. The remaster is set to release February 28 on PS5 and PS4, nearly 30 years after the release of the original game from LucasArts in 1995. Similar to Nightdive's previous endeavors with titles like Quake II and Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster honors the strong foundation of the original while updating it for modern consoles through the studio's proprietary KEX engine, allowing the game to run at up to 4K resolution at 120 FPS on PlayStation 5. With this, fans of the original as well as a whole new generation of gamers, will be able to experience Star Wars: Dark Forces and appreciate what made it such an essential title within LucasArts' (now Lucasfilm Games) impressive catalog. Further honoring the work that went into its initial development, it's been revealed that Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster will feature a special Vault jam-packed with never-before-seen content from the making of the 1995 original!

With improved spritework and remastered cutscenes, those looking to dig deeper into a truly unique story within the Star Wars galaxy will be able to enjoy a visually pleasing narrative experience as they join protagonist Kyle Katarn, a defector turned mercenary for hire working for the Rebel Alliance, in foiling the Galactic Empire and its secret Dark Troopers Project. As much as we'd love to continue gushing over why this has been such an exciting project for Nightdive and must-play title for fans and newcomers alike, let's dive deeper into the fascinating history and behind-the-scenes work of breathing new life into Star Wars: Dark Forces with Nightdive's Project Lead and Producer, Max Waine.
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[NextPowerUP]

A Razer Viper V3 Pro wireless gaming mouse model appeared briefly in an Amazon France listing—the prematurely published page seems to have been deactivated since its discovery was shared on the popular Mousereview subreddit. Internet sleuth, SwitchBoy500 managed to preserve details in a couple of posted screengrabs, although no product photos were included in the now removed Amazon.fr entry. The leaked price was €179.99 (~$195)—not surprising given that this resides within Razer's premium tier—although it is suggested that North American customers could be paying $159 on launch day, with a "HyperPolling True 8KHz Wireless Receiver Dongle" bundled in. The leaked release date was March 28—perhaps Europe specific (or subject to change). Many specifications seem to align with Razer's DeathAdder V3 Pro model, although one internal difference appears to be a choice of mouse sensor. Current "Pro" flagships are fitted with the Focus Pro 30K Optical (PixArt PAW3950), while the upcoming Viper could sport a fancy new "Focus+ Gen-2 Optical Sensor."

Several thread commenters are already familiar with the Razer Viper V3 Pro, albeit from a distance—commenters pointed out that pre-release samples have been spotted at competitive multiplayer gaming events. According to social media tips, Nexa (real name Nemanja Isaković) from G2 was observed using a "new Razer Viper V3 Pro with HyperPolling dongle" at a January 2024 "Blast CS2 LAN" tournament. Prototypes and preview units are often sent to professional Esporters, online influencers and reviewers—it is not a big surprise to see leaked examples appear online weeks or months in advance of an official product rollout. The Viper V3 Pro is believed to share the same overall design aesthetic as seen on the mid-range Viper V3 Hyperspeed sibling. Close analysis of blurry tournament footage or photographs suggest that the Pro model's DPI switch is positioned underneath, rather than on top (behind the mouse wheel)—as seen on Razer's current Viper Hyperspeed variant.

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[NextPowerUP]

Dell Technologies will introduce the broadest portfolio of commercial AI laptops and mobile workstations designed to bring organizations and employee productivity into the AI era. "The next generation of PCs is emerging at a pivotal time - with upcoming refresh cycles and new capabilities on the PC creating the perfect storm," said Patrick Moorhead, founder and CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy. "Dell's commercial AI PCs and workstations, coupled with its ecosystem of peripherals, software and services, offer an AI continuum designed to enhance the user experience today and set organizations up for success in the future."

"Every company that wants to remain competitive will have to implement AI in some way, and AI PCs will be central to that," said Sam Burd, president, Client Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. "From running complex AI workloads on workstations to using day-to-day AI-powered applications on laptops, the AI PC will be an important investment that pays dividends in productivity and paves the way to a smarter, more efficient future. Dell's advantage starts with offering more AI PCs across the commercial portfolio from day one, giving customers the ability to start future proofing for AI today."
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[NextPowerUP]

Brett Simpson, Partner and Co-Founder of Arete Research, sat down with AMD CTO Mark Papermaster during the former's "Investor Webinar Conference." A transcript of the Arete + AMD question and answer session appeared online last week—the documented fireside chat concentrated mostly on "AI compute market" topics. Papermaster was asked about his company's competitive approach when taking on NVIDIA's very popular range of A100 and H100 AI GPUs, as well as the recently launched GH200 chip. The CTO did not reveal any specific pricing strategies—a "big picture" was painted instead: "I think what's important when you just step back is to look at total cost of ownership, not just one GPU, one accelerator, but total cost of ownership. But now when you also look at the macro, if there's not competition in the market, you're going to see not only a growth of the price of these devices due to the added content that they have, but you're -- without a check and balance, you're going to see very, very high margins, more than that could be sustained without a competitive environment."

Papermaster continued: "And what I think is very key with -- as AMD has brought competition market for these most powerful AI training and inference devices is you will see that check and balance. And we have a very innovative approach. We've been a leader in chiplet design. And so we have the right technology for the right purpose of the AI build-out that we do. We have, of course, a GPU accelerator. But there's many other circuitry associated with being able to scale and build out these large clusters, and we're very, very efficient in our design." Team Red started to ship its flagship accelerator, Instinct MI300X, to important customers at the start of 2024—Arete Research's Simpson asked about the possibility of follow-up models. In response, AMD's CTO referenced some recent history: "Well, I think the first thing that I'll highlight is what we did to arrive at this point, where we are a competitive force. We've been investing for years in building up our GPU road map to compete in both HPC and AI. We had a very, very strong harbor train that we've been on, but we had to build our muscle in the software enablement."

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[NextPowerUP]

Hello there! Your friendly neighborhood Community Manager, Katten here, this time to introduce you to our CONFIRMED release date for Millennia! So, it's time to stock up on refreshments, order the pizza, and mark your calendars for March 26, 2024! Now, I am sure you are all super excited to see what has changed about the game, or for you newcomers, what the game is all about. Check out this amazing trailer below.

With this, Pre-Purchase is now live, with the Base game available for $39.99 and the Premium Edition for $59.99. The Premium Edition includes two skins for early game units as an instant unlock and our two planned upcoming expansions: Ancient Worlds & Atomic Ambitions! Now, don't those two sound like an "Explosive new start"? I now pass the microphone to the Co-Founder of C Prompt Games & Lead Designer of Millennia, Ian Fischer!
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[NextPowerUP]

The University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST), Peking University and the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) are collaborating on new Optical Data Storage (ODS) technologies—a recently published paper reveals that scientists are attempting to create 3D nanoscale optical disk memory that breaks into petabit capacities. Society (as a whole) has an ever-growing data demand—this requires the development of improved high-capacity storage technologies—the R&D teams believe that ODS presents a viable alternative route to traditional present day solutions: "data centers based on major storage technologies such as semiconductor flash devices and hard disk drives have high energy burdens, high operation costs and short lifespans."

The proposed ODS format could be a "promising solution for cost-effective long-term archival data storage." The researchers note that current (e.g Blu-ray) and previous generation ODS technologies have been: "limited by low capacities and the challenge of increasing areal density." In order to get ODS up to petabit capacity levels, several innovations are required—the Nature.com abstract stated: "extending the planar recording architecture to three dimensions with hundreds of layers, meanwhile breaking the optical diffraction limit barrier of the recorded spots. We develop an optical recording medium based on a photoresist film doped with aggregation-induced emission dye, which can be optically stimulated by femtosecond laser beams. This film is highly transparent and uniform, and the aggregation-induced emission phenomenon provides the storage mechanism. It can also be inhibited by another deactivating beam, resulting in a recording spot with a super-resolution scale." The novel optical storage medium relies on dye-doped photoresist (DDPR) with aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIE-DDPR)—a 515 nm femtosecond Gaussian laser beam takes care of optical writing tasks, while a doughnut-shaped 639 nm continuous wave laser beam is tasked with retrieval. A 480 nm pulsed laser and a 592 nm continuous wave laser work in tandem to read data.
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[NextPowerUP]

Samsung Electronics announced that it is participating in the AI-RAN Alliance as a founding member, with the goal of promoting 6G innovation by combining AI technology and wireless communication technology. Officially launched at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2024 today, the AI-RAN Alliance is an organization aimed at revitalizing the convergence of AI and wireless communication and leading technology innovation through cooperation with related companies. A total of eleven organizations—including Samsung, Arm, Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, NVIDIA, SoftBank and Northeastern University—are participating as founding members. This new alliance will collaborate on the development of innovative new technologies, as well as the application of these technologies to commercial products in preparation for the upcoming 6G era.

"Emerging services in the 6G era will revolutionize the way people interact with technology, and AI will be an integral part of this trend," said Charlie Zhang, Senior Vice President at Samsung Research America. "The AI-RAN Alliance will foster collaboration, drive innovation and usher in a new era of transformation around AI and 6G networks. We believe this coalition will create new value for end users and operators through AI-based use cases and innovations."
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[NextPowerUP]

Samsung Electronics today announced the company has successfully completed the industry's first end-to-end call in a lab environment with a future Intel Xeon processor (codenamed Granite Rapids-D), on a virtualized Open RAN network powered by Samsung's vRAN 3.0. This achievement between Samsung and Intel is another milestone in the companies' multi-year collaboration and represents the companies' mutual dedication to advance virtualized Open RAN for enhanced performance and capacity.

Conducted in Samsung's R&D lab in Korea, the companies completed the end-to-end data call using Samsung's versatile and O-RAN-compliant virtualized RAN (vRAN) integrated with Intel's Granite Rapids-D, Samsung's Core and test devices. During the test, Samsung achieved significant gains as well as reduced power consumption. The test results will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2024 (Samsung Networks booth, invitation-only).
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[NextPowerUP]

NVIDIA released a Hotfix driver update to fix certain issues with the NVENC hardware encoder of GeForce GTX 16-series "Turing" GPUs, such as the popular GTX 1660, and GTX 1650 Ti, etc. Apparently, applications utilizing the hardware acceleration provided by the GPU's NVENC unit would result in corrupted videos or spring up error messages. The Hotfix driver is based on GeForce 551.68, and is not WHQL-certified. NVIDIA may include fixes contained in the hotfix in one of its upcoming GeForce Game Ready or Studio main trunk drivers. GeForce GTX 16-series "Turing" GPUs feature an NVENC unit that can accelerate H.264 and H.265 encoding.
DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 551.68 Hotfix for GTX 16-series NVENC Issues
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[NextPowerUP]

AMD announced three new entries to the growing list of games that support FSR 3.0, "The Last of Us Part 1," "Remnant II," and "RoboCop: Rogue City." The three will soon get patches from their developers that add FSR 3 support. "The Last of Us Part 1" is a particularly important title in the list. FSR 3 entails updates to the upscaling algorithm that provide more image quality at a given preset compared to FSR 2, but more importantly, it introduces frame-generation, with an interpolation technology that nearly doubles framerates. FSR 3 support will be available to those with Radeon RX 6000 series and RX 7000 series GPUs.

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[NextPowerUP]

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today unveiled two new additions to their audio lineup: the Razer Seiren V3 Chroma and the Seiren V3 Mini. These microphones are a fusion of Razer's iconic aesthetics with cutting-edge functionality, tailored to be the centerpiece of any gaming setup, streaming studio, or content creation space.

"We are thrilled to launch the Seiren V3 Chroma and Seiren V3 Mini, showcasing Razer merging top-tier audio quality with the dynamic flair of Razer Chroma RGB," says Nick Bourne, Head of Razer's Mobile, Console & Streaming Division. "These microphones are designed to cater to the multifaceted demands of modern content creators, offering unparalleled customization, control, and clarity that truly stands out."
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[NextPowerUP]

The existence of Intel's upcoming Core i9-14900KS processor has been confirmed by a series of insider leaks and premature retail listings—an "alleged" example was photographed and appeared online right at the start of 2024. French e-tail listings produced evidence of two packages—a traditional retail box version, and a barebones tray option for OEM purposes. Earlier today, the I_Leak_VN social media account uploaded proof of a single "Special Edition" box sitting in an unnamed Vietnamese warehouse—it is not immediately clear whether units have reached retail facilities, or have just arrived on Southeast Asian shores. The embargo-busting post seemingly corroborates global insider information/whispers about distribution networks receiving stock—possibly in preparation for a rumored mid-March launch. VideoCardz believes that Vietnamese customers will be paying roughly $765 a pop—30% pricier than the current cost of 14th Gen Core flagship ownership.

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