On Friday night, Nvidia announced the GeForce GTX 1080, its newest and most powerful GPU. Now, as part of the announcement event, id Software developers demonstrated the soon-to-launch Doom running on the ultra-powerful graphics card–and the results are impressive.
Take a look:
PC Gamer shot this video of the demonstration, and explained that the game was running using the Vulkan API. As you can see, at the start of the video, Doom runs at 1080p/60FPS, but after V-Sync is disabled, frame rate jumps to 120-200FPS. Note that 1080p was the limit of the monitor.
“id says there are still a few graphical glitches they’re working to fix, specifically when the game hits 200 FPS,” PC Gamer said. “Apparently there are some bugs in the game engine at 200FPS that they ‘weren’t able to detect until they had the performance of the GTX 1080.’”
Halo 5‘s Memories of Reach free update arrives later this month. While you’ll need to wait a little longer to play the new content, 343 Industries has now revealed all of its Reqs and talked more about what other changes are coming to the game with the update. All of this was shared in a post on Halo Waypoint.
One of the new features introduced to Halo 5 through the Memories of Reach update will be new search preferences for matchmaking across Arena and Warzone. Players will be able to choose from Balanced (the current default setting), as well as Expanded and Focused. Below are breakdowns of each from 343:
Balanced: Search for a match based on your fireteam’s skill and network connection quality.
Expanded: Widen search parameters to find the first available match with reasonable skill matching and network connection quality.
Focused: Narrow search to find the best match based on your fireteam’s skill and connection. Search times may be longer than normal.
The Memories of Reach update also makes tweaks to the Post Game Carnage Report. When the update comes out, the PGCR will display an overview of every reward you earned in the match, as well as up to three rare and legendary medals. Not only that, but a new Player Recap screen will display the following:
All Medals earned from the match, including quantity, medal rarity, and description
Tool of Destruction
Killed Most (see who each player killed most, and how many times)
Killed By (see who each player fell victim to the most, and how many times)
Press LB or RB to view Commendations or Progress from your Recap
Press LT or RT to view Recaps of other players from the match.
You can click through the images below to see what the new PGCR looks like:
Memories of Reach also makes changes to player movement in multiplayer. Specifically, 343 has fixed a bug where the Spartan Charge ability.
“We’ve fixed a bug where Spartan Charge would not properly target enemies at the edges of a red reticle on the horizontal plane (you can still get red reticle and miss vertically),” 343 explained. “Fear not, though–players who skillfully evade a Spartan-Charging player with Thrust will still escape without taking damage. Additionally, Spartan Charge with Speed Boost will no longer be a one-hit kill, and Spartan Charge with the Gravity Hammer will no longer be a one-hit kill.”
Additionally, 343 is implementing a “slight increase” to movement speed while crouching. Why?
“This has been increased to allow for crouching to be a more viable choice for players to flank and attack,” 343 said. “The speed isn’t drastic, but after months of testing we’ve found it to be the sweet spot.”
Also in the blog post, 343 revealed the complete Req lineup for Memories of Reach. In addition to Noble Team-inspired armor, there is a new Arena map (Stasis) and the zombie-themed Infection mode arrives. You can see all of the Reqs below, while this blog post reveals the Infection medals and criteria to earn them.
Additionally, 343 showed off some concept art for the Stasis map (below). The developer also announced that it will hold a livestream event on May 11 during which it will show off the first-ever live gameplay on the new map, and also provide an overview for Memories of Reach’s other content.
Memories of Reach will be Halo 5’s sixth free expansion following the game’s launch in October 2015. The others were The Battle of Shadow and Light (November), Cartographer’s Gift (December), Infinity’s Armor (January), Hammer Storm (February), and Ghosts of Meridian (April). This monthly streak came to an end with Ghosts of Meridian, as it came out in April.
Are you looking forward to Memories of Reach? Let us know in the comments below!
Battlefield 4 faced a rocky launch in 2013, suffering through severe and widespread issues. Now, developer DICE has come out to say it is hopeful to avoid a repeat of those troubles with this year’s Battlefield 1.
Asked by GamesBeat what DICE is doing to ensure a Battlefield 4-like launch won’t happen again, lead designer Daniel Berlin said Star Wars Battlefront‘s smooth rollout is evidence that DICE is improving. He also said he expects Battlefield 1’s upcoming beta to help hammer out any issues before launch.
“It’s a focus for us,” Berlin said about ensuring Battlefield 1 gets off on the right foot. “We know [Battlefield 4] was a difficult launch. We’ve been working on this for a long time. We released Battlefront, which did really well. We’re pushing an open beta to ensure stability. We’ve taken a lot of learnings from that experience, and we feel like we succeeded with Battlefront. We’ll take everything we learned there and apply it to Battlefield 1 as well.”
Battlefield 4’s launch problems were attributed in part to “complexity” around the title, including 64-player and the fact that DICE was working with what were new consoles at the time with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Battlefield 4 was a launch title for both systems, so there was never a beta.
Battlefield 1 comes out on October 21 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. A beta will be held before launch, but there is no word yet on when it will begin. EA or Origin Access members on Xbox One and PC, meanwhile, will be able to play the full game on October 18.
New details have to come light regarding Battlefield 1‘s campaign.
Lead designer Daniel Berlin shared some new information and also spoke about how the game overall aims to shine a light on elements of World War 1 people might not know about.
Talking to GamesBeat, Berlin teased that Battlefield 1’s single-player campaign may follow multiple different characters. It “will focus on different stories and different personalities across the world,” he said. One of the playable characters will be the Bedouin woman warrior from the announcement trailer.
As for the character on Battlefield 1’s cover, an African-American Harlem Hellfighter, Berlin said putting him on the cover was meant to represent EA’s overall goal of spotlighting lesser-known elements of WW1.
“When we set out on this game, we wanted to depict not just the common view of what the war was like,” he explained. “We wanted to challenge some preconceptions. We want to delve into some of the unknowns of WW1. Maybe people don’t know that this person fought or that person fought, that this army was involved. We’re stretching out and bringing all those stories into the game.”
Berlin went on to say that some people did not know the Harlem Hellfighters even existed. The game will focus on highlighting diversity, which also extends to the single-player story.
“We want to show diversity in the game,” he explained. “That’s been a key goal. You can see in the trailer that there’s a Bedouin woman warrior on a horse. She’s a playable character in the single-player campaign.”
Battlefield 1 comes out on October 21 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. A beta will be held before launch, but there is no word yet on when it will begin. EA or Origin Access members on Xbox One and PC, meanwhile, will be able to play the full game on October 18.
Star Citizen, the in-development PC space game from Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, has reached a new funding milestone, as its developer laid out plans for the future.
In its latest “Monthly Studio Report” for April 2016, the numerous development teams working on Star Citizen provided progress updates on how things are coming along. If you’re interested in the specifics, be sure to check out the full blog post, which is incredibly thorough and detailed.
“In our four studios around the world and our partner studios in Canada and elsewhere, people work tirelessly to fulfill the promise of this unprecedented project,” a Cloud Imperium Games representative said, referencing all the work done in April 2016. “Whether they’re artists, programmers, designers, engineers, writers, directors, producers, and more, they’re all gamers who want to share this experience with everyone reading these each and every month.”
Looking ahead to the coming months, Cloud Imperium said it will “build on the foundation” of Alpha 2.4, while at the same time picking up the pace of development.
“As the teams in each studio continue to expand, you’ll see our pace of production continue to pick up as it already has since late 2015,” the studio said. “The knowledge and experience we gain with each new ship built, each new character brought to life, each new landing zone realized, and each new game system coming online will inform the next one after that, meaning that not only will the quantity of our output increase, so will the quality continue to improve.”
Captain America: Civil War pulled in around $74 million-$76 million at the box office for its US premiere on Friday night, and is on track to become fifth-highest stateside opening in history.
Deadline, which supplied the figures, goes on to say that Disney pegs the film to make at least $175 million in total Friday-Sunday. Industry estimates supplied to Deadline say the big-budget superhero action movie could land in the $190 million-$200 million range.
We will report back later this weekend when Saturday and Sunday numbers are in.
Civil War had a reported production budget of $250 million. If it can indeed make at least $175 million this weekend, the movie will become the fifth-highest US opening, pushing Iron Man 3 ($174.1 million) down to No. 6. It would still be behind The Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191.3 million), The Avengers ($207.4 million), Jurassic World ($208.8 million), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($247.9 million)–via Box Office Mojo.
The US, of course, is just one market for Civil War. Internationally, the movie, which opened more a week ago, has already passed $300 million. It comes to additional international markets such as China, Argentina, and Russia later this weekend. By Sunday night, the movie could reach $600 million worldwide.
Go to Deadline to see a more in-depth breakdown of Civil War‘s box office performance so far.
For more on Civil War, check out GameSpot’s further coverage below, some of which contain spoilers.
Each week we search and gather up the coolest comic book art you won’t see in actual comics. The reason you won’t is because professional artists often draw sketches for fun or commissions and post them on their websites, blogs, and Tumblrs. Some artists even arrange commissions through their sites so be sure to check them out. This is a way to see the artists working on one book draw characters from other comics or publishers.
Todd Nauck posted some new sketches on his Tumblr this week.
Skottie Young posted some Daily Sketches on his Tumblr.
Andrew Robinson posted some commissions on his Instagram.
Chris Samnee posted a Nightwing sketch on his Tumblr.
Ryan Stegman posted a bunch of commissions and sketches on his Tumblr.
Dustin Nguyen posted new sketches on his Instagram.
Brett Booth posted some new sketches on his Twitter.
Kevin Wada posted some recent commissions on his Tumblr.
Ramon Perez posted some commissions from Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo on his Instagram.
Adam Kubert posted more commissions from Napoli Comicon on his Tumblr.
Franco posted some more Daily Doodle on his Instagram. You can buy his original art here.
Joel Gomez posted some new sketches on his Tumblr.
Tonight during a special event, Nvidia announced the GTX 1080 card, which is faster than the Titan X, the company’s previous top-of-the-line card. It launches this month and will start at $600. The card boasts “irresponsible amounts of performance,” Jen-Hsun Huang joked when announcing the GPU.
“…the 1080 is faster than two GTX 980s in SLI…”
The GTX 1080 is based off the company’s new Pascal architecture, which supersedes the company’s Maxwell architecture, used in the company’s 900 series graphics cards. According to Nvidia, billions of R&D dollars went into Pascal and it is the company’s most efficient architecture based on the 16nm finfet process, which makes it the first of its kind. [Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article stated the card would use G5X. This was incorrect.]
The GTX 1080 is also extremely stable from a power standpoint. Huang showed a slide on stage that showed a GeForce GTX 980 having a peak to peak power fluctuation between 209mV. The 1080, on the other hand, featured a much more consistent power usage with a range of just 120mV. This should make performance more stable for the end user.
In terms of performance, Huang said that the 1080 is faster than two GTX 980s in SLI. It is worth noting that he did not specify under what conditions or resolution. Huang also mentioned that the card is faster than the company’s current consumer flagship king, the GeForce GTX Titan. He added that it also consumes much less power.
To demonstrate the power of the card, Huang invited Tim Sweeney on stage to show off Epic’s upcoming MOBA Paragon running in real time. In the demo, it was revealed that the GPU clock was running at 2.1GHz, which makes it the fastest core clock on an Nvidia GPU either air cooled or water cooled. This is impressive because the 1080 is an air-cooled card, and air-cooled cards generally do not run as fast as their water-cooled counterparts. We also saw the memory clock running at 5508MHz during the demo with a memory usage of 2655MB, all while running at a cool 67 degrees Celsius under load.
Did we mention that the demo looked great and ran at a constant 60fps?
Huang also said that the 1080 is “crazy overclockable,” would have 8GB of video memory, and would retail for both $599 and $699, the latter of which would be for the company’s “Founder Edition’ card which would be even more overclockable.
Huang did not delve into what makes it more overclockable compared to the stock version.
Huang then went on to reveal that the card would be coming out on May 27. And if that wasn’t enough, Huang also unveiled the GeForce GTX 1070, which he stated is faster than the $1,000 Titan X. This is impressive since Huang revealed that the card would retail for $379 (with the Founder’s Edition running for $449). The 1070 features 8GB of GDDR5 video memory and will release on June 10th.
Consoles, as they are traditionally known, may be going the way of the Dodo bird. That’s according to Electronic Arts Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore, who said in a new interview that the rise of streaming may signal an end to consoles as we know them.
“I’m not sure there will be consoles, as we know them anymore,” Moore told The Daily Orange. “Games will be accessed by streaming technology, so we don’t need hardware intermediaries in between the two.”
He added: “If you and I want to play Battlefield 12 against each other, we’ll just jump into a game via whatever monitor we happen to have in our homes. It’ll be on a chip, rather than in a box.”
The Daily Orange reported the Moore said the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are “well set up to advance as technology does.” This point is particularly interesting, given that rumors have suggested that Sony or Microsoft, or both, might be planning to release incremental updates to their latest consoles.
Bear in mind that what Moore is talking about sounds like its something of a far-future prediction. He is not alone, however, in believing that consoles as we know them won’t be around forever.
In 2013, Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada offered this take, “When there’s the PS5, it will probably be just a controller and a monitor. Then, the thing that will be left is the name of the service.”
In more news about the just-announced Battlefield 1, the preorder bonuses for the digital PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions have been revealed. Below is a breakdown of what you get (via DualShockers).
PS4:
Hellfighter Pack (contains items themed around the Harlem Hellfighters)
A Theme
7-day early access “to a map released later in 2016.”
Xbox One:
Hellfighter Pack (contains items themed around the Harlem Hellfighters)
7-day early access “to a map released later in 2016.”
1-month EA Access membership; must be redeemed by November 3
Battlefield 1 is set during World War I and features new melee weapons, horses, and biplanes. EA revealed the game during a special event streamed through Twitch and YouTube. Weapons and vehicles featured in the game include tanks, battleships, artillery, and flamethrowers. Given the game’s setting, trench warfare will also be a core element of the gameplay. You can watch the first Battlefield 1 trailer above and see some screens below (and more in this gallery).
EA or Origin Access members on Xbox One and PC will be able to play the game on October 18. The full release is scheduled for a few days later, on October 21.
