40°

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 2GB vs 4GB review

Digital Foundry:
We have unfinished business with Nvidia's GTX 960. On launch, we lauded its power efficiency, overclocking and cutting-edge media acceleration but we had two issues: firstly, there was no clear win over the competition in terms of performance, and secondly, it was a 2GB card in a world where console-level visuals were starting to demand a 3GB minimum. However, in line with its AMD counterpart - the R9 380 - 4GB variants are now available, and we've finally acquired one.

Read Full Story >>
eurogamer.net
120°

6 Games That Genuinely Deserve A Current-Gen Upgrade

Games such as Mad Max, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Batman: Arkham Knight desperately deserve a modern-day revisit.

thorstein52d ago

Mad Max is underrated. Such a fun game.

Cacabunga52d ago (Edited 52d ago )

RDR2 still looks astounding on PS4 Pro. i cannot imagine how it could look with a next gen upgrade.

JonTheGod51d ago (Edited 51d ago )

Probably not very different.

No idea why this article is highlighting recent beautiful graphically-advanced games and saying they need current gen makeovers. They already look better than most new releases; just compare Arkham Knight and Suicide Squad!

exputers51d ago

I see what you did there.

Yi-Long52d ago

It's obviously never gonna happen since Sony killed the game and studio, but Driveclub. Even in its current state, 10 years after release, it still puts many competitors to shame ...

Demetrius51d ago

I'm not into racing games but yeah I even looked at gameplay of that sometimes

redrum0624d ago

It's a shame they cancelled the game. Definitely the best racing game I've ever played on Playstation. Just got GT7, but it feels so slow and less arcade-y, which is to be expected of a sim racer of course, that I just enjoy it less.
Driveclub also graphically looked insanely good for its time. I wonder what a Driveclub 2 would look like for the PS5.

Demetrius51d ago

Mad max ikr! Far cry primal, it amuses me how ubisoft just left ac unity hanging, sadly most of the good staff left from rocksteady while being forced to make that abomination smh

330°

Nvidia DLSS 3.7 drives a further nail in the coffin of native performance

Nvidia DLSS 3.7 is the latest update to the long-running AI upscaling technology, and it further shows native performance doesn't matter.

DustMan57d ago

I think hardware development is at a point where they need to figure out how to draw less power, These beefy high end cards eat wattage, and I'm curious if using DLSS & AI in general will lower the power draw. It would seem like the days of just adding more VRAM & horsepower is over. Law of diminishing returns. Pretty soon DLSS/FSR will be incorporated into everything, and eventually the tech will be good enough to hardly notice a difference if at all. AI is the future and it would be foolish to turn around and not incorporate it at all. Reliance on AI is only going to pick up more & more.

Tapani57d ago (Edited 57d ago )

DLSS certainly lowers power consumption. Also, the numbers such as the 4090 at 450W does not tell you everything, most of the time the GPU stays between 200-350W in gameplay, which is not too different from the highest end GPU of 10 years ago. Plus, today you can undervolt + OC GPUs by a good margin to keep stock performance while utilizing 80% of the power limit.

You can make the 4090 extremely power efficient and keep 90% of its performance at 320W.

However, in today's world the chip manufacturing is limited by physics and we will have power increases in the next 5-10 years at the very least to keep the technology moving forward at a pace that satisfies both businesses and consumers.

Maybe in 10 years we have new tech coming to the markets which we are yet to invent or perhaps we can solve existing technologies problems with manufacturing or cost of production.

On the other hand, if we were to solve the energy problem on earth by utilizing fusion and solar etc. it would not matter how much these chips require. That being said, in the next 30-40 years that is a pipedream.

MrBaskerville57d ago

I don't think fusion is the way forward. It will mosy likely be too late when it's finally ready, meaning it will probably never be ready. Something else might arrive before though and then it becomes viable.

Firebird36057d ago

We need to stop the smear campaign on nuclear energy.
We could power everything forever if we wanted too.

Tacoboto57d ago

PS4 Pro had dedicated hardware in it for supporting checkerboard rendering that was used significantly in PS4 first party titles, so you don't need to look to PC or even modern PC gaming. The first RTX cards released nearly 6 years ago, so how many nails does this coffin need?

InUrFoxHole57d ago

Well... its a coffin man. So atleast 4?

Tacoboto57d ago

PSSR in the fall can assume that role.

anast57d ago

and those nails need to be replaced annually

Einhander197257d ago

I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is, but PS4 Pro was before DLSS and FSR, and it still provides one of the highest performance uplifts while maintaining good image quality.

DLSS is it's own thing but checkerboarding om PS5 still is a rival to the likes of FSR2.

Tacoboto57d ago

Um. That is my point. That there have been so many nails in this "native performance" coffin and they've been getting hammered in for years, even on PS4 Pro before DLSS was even a thing.

RaidenBlack57d ago

Don't know what's OP's point is either but ... checkerboard rendering was good enough for its time but in terms of image quality its wayy behind what's DLSS 3 or FSR 3 is currently offering.
The main point of the article and what OP missed here is that DLSS 3.7 is soo good that its nearly undisguisable from native rendering and basically throws the "its still blurry and inferior to native rendering" debacle, (that's been going around in PC community since 2019), right out of the window.

Einhander197256d ago

RaidenBlack

DLSS is as i said a different thing from FSR and checkerboard.

But you're talking about FSR 3 which probably is better than checkerboard, but FSR 3 has only started to get games this year, so checkerboard which was the first hardware upscaling solution was and is still one of the best upscaling solutions.

Give credit where credit is due, PlayStation was first and they got it right from the get go, and PSSR will almost certainly be better than it will be given credit for, heck digital foundry is already spreading misinformation about the Pro.

Rhythmattic57d ago

Tacoboto
Yes... Its amazing how many talekd about KZ2 deferred rendering, pointing out the explosions were lower res than the frame itself..
And of course, Then the idea of checkerboard rendering, not being native....
For sure, maybe this tech makes it minimal while pixel counting, but alas, seems performance and close enough , and not native now matters.....
I want to see it run native without DLSS.. why not?

RonsonPL57d ago

Almost deaf person:
- lightweight portable 5$, speakers of 0,5cm diameter are the final nail in coffin of Hi-Fi audio!

Some people in 2010:
- smartphones are the final nain in the console gaming's coffin!

This is just the same.
AI upscalling is complete dogshit in terms of motion quality. The fact that someone is not aware of it (look at the deaf guy example) doesn't mean the flaws are not there. They are. And all it takes to see them, is to use a display that handles motion well, so either gets true 500fps at 500Hz LCD TN or OLED (or faster tech) or uses low persistence mode (check blurbusters.com if you don't know what it means) also known as Black Frame Insertion or backlight strobing.

Also, image ruined by any type of TAA is just as "native image" as chineese 0,5$ screwdriver is "high quality, heavy duty, for professional use". It's nowhere near it. But if you're an ignorant "journalist", you will publish crap like this article, just to flow with the current.

There's no coffin to native res quality and there never will be. Eventually, we'll have enough performance in rasterization to drive 500fps, which will be a game changer for motion quality while also adding other benefit - lower latency.
And at 500fps, the amount of time required for upscalling makes it completely useless.
This crap is only usable for cinematic stuff, like cutscenes and such. Not for gaming. Beware of ignorants on the internet. The TAA is not "native" and the shitty look of the modern games when you disable any TAA, is not "native" either as it's ruined by the developer's design choice - you can cheat by rendering every 4th pixel when you plan to put a smeary TAA pass on it later on. When you disable it, you will see a ruined image, horrible pixellation and other visual "glitches" but it is NOT what native would've looked like if you'd like to honestly compare the two.

Stay informed.

RaidenBlack57d ago

Main point of the article is how far DLSS has come with v3.7 since 2018. If this is what we're getting already, then imagine what we'll get within next ~3 years. Yes parity will obviously be there compared to the then native rendering tech but it'll slowly narrow down to the point it'll be indistinguishable.
Something similar is like the genAI Sora ... AI generative videos were turd back when they were introduced (the infamous Will Smith eating video) ... but now look at Sora, generating videos that just looks like real life.

RonsonPL38d ago

You can improve quality but you will never be able to reach native quality in motion. The biggest part of why these upscallers are so praised is because they use previous frame data. You cannot do that without degrading latency and/or hurting the motion quality. If you put another flaw on top of it, coming from sample and hold method of displaying image, or coming from low framerate, sure, the difference between "screwed up image" vs. "image screwed up even more" may seem small or non-existent. But if you talk about gaming, not interactive movies, the upscallers are overhyped and harfmul tech for the gamers and the whole gaming industry. For example, a game designed around screwed up motion, like the TAA enabled games, will never be played with improved quality even 100 years later when hardware allows for native 16K res. The motion quality will be broken and even if you disable the AA pass, you will still get the broken image, cause the devs were designing their effects with smeary filter in mind - this is why you can disable TAA in some games today, manually, with some tinkering, but you get 1 to 16 understampled crap.
It's annoying that nobody seems to understand the serious drawbacks of AI assisted upscallers. Everyone just praises it and calling it a great revolution. Don't get me wrong. AI has its place in rendering. But NOT in gaming.

56d ago
Yui_Suzumiya57d ago

How much VRAM is standard today? My laptop has a 1080p QLED display but only an Intel Iris Xe with 128MB of VRAM. I currently do all my gaming on it but certain titles do suffer because of it. I plan on getting a Steam Deck OLED soon to play the newer and more demanding titles.

purple10157d ago

Maybe better to get a budget gaming laptop and link a dualsense to it

= Portable console with far better graphics than a steam deck! + bigger screen and able to use it for work / etc

160°

15 Single Player Games That Divided Fans

One way or another, these games provoked strong reactions.

Read Full Story >>
gamingbolt.com
banger8858d ago

I don't think Days Gone divided fans. For the most part, gamers loved it. It was the reviewers who were divided. Self-loathing racist pieces of shit that took exception to the main character being white. This was a fantastic game, one of the best open-world games I ever played, and I've played them all.

Cacabunga58d ago (Edited 58d ago )

Second you on this.. I had absolute blast playing this game!! Memorable!

TLOU 2 I thought was utter s***.. I still haven’t finished it and stopped about halfway (apparently).

It wasn’t fans divided around The Order, it was a period where xbox fanboys were thinking Rise was a more engaging game so they were spreading a lot of hate..
Today they are hibernating with nothing to play
The Order was short, no denying, but a great game with huge potential

shinoff218357d ago

I enjoyed days gone and last of us 2. PeoPke trippin.

I always thought the order was kinda whack seeming so I never tried it. Id like to now though.

Jon6158657d ago

No thr order was a short, clunky mediocre yet visually stunning game. I thoughts so and pretty much every other reviewer did too.

thorstein57d ago

The Order, where length was a criterion for rating a game, but only this particular game and no others.

Demetrius58d ago

I agree on my 2nd playthrough, ps5 this time

RavenWolfx58d ago

While I enjoy what is there in Days Gone, I mourn what was lost. The first trailers for Days Gone showed a morality system that looked interesting. For example, in the beginning when you are chasing down Leon and after you caught him, you could choose to shoot him or leave him for the freaks. You can see hints of it in other places, like if you catch a bandit unaware sometimes they will disarm and it seems like Deacon had the option to shoot them or let them go (he automatically lets them go).

Crows9057d ago

Whatever...those systems unless revolutionary don't add much...they rarely do in games that do have them.

anast58d ago

For the most part, when it comes to Last of Us 2, incels, homophobes, and closet national socialist types didn't like it. I repeat not all, but most.

Days Gone is a great game and it was attacked by the leftist socialist people that are actually closet fascists. As a great poet once said: "Socialism is the mother of fascism."

The Order got hit from anti-Sony Xbox fans.

Out of these 3, Last of Us 2 stands above as being a work of art. It's still generating a ton conversation to this day.

coolbeans57d ago (Edited 57d ago )

-"Last of Us 2, incels, homophobes, and closet national socialist types didn't like it. I repeat not all, but most."

It's so weird & cringe to see other gamers paint this broad brush of *who* didn't like Part II. Why take the "most who disagree with me are Hitler" type of mentality over game tastes?

-"The Order got hit from anti-Sony Xbox fans."

No other community I've dabbled in - be it social media or gaming forums - has built up such a dedicated defense for The Order like N4G. This attitude fundamentally blows my mind, especially in the face of similar older titles (hello Uncharted 1) that already did a marginally better job at storytelling and gameplay. It almost feels like some N4G group chat made this reflexive defense as a meme and a bunch of posters are still playing along with it. No offense to genuine Order fans, but I simply can't shake that feeling.

Yui_Suzumiya57d ago

Well to be fair, I remember being only one of a few people on this site that actually praised The Order when it for came out and got alot of flack for it. Over time it seems opinions have changed about it.

anast57d ago (Edited 57d ago )

saying something is "cringe" doesn't prove me wrong. You just throw words out and hope they stick. Bring some evidence to prove me otherwise.

I got:

Letizi, R., & Norman, C. (2023). “You Took That From Me”: Conspiracism and Online Harassment in the Alt-Fandom of The Last of Us Part II. Games and Culture, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/155...

You're up. Maybe you can change my mind.

Because NG4 defended it doesn't mean NG4 is the gospel of gaming.

thorstein57d ago

Yeah Yui, it was "the game to hate" at the time. What was bizarre was the, as usual, journalists that were lying about the game and their stories were approved.

It was all clickhate all the time for the Order. I defended it too.

coolbeans56d ago

@Yui

-"I remember being only one of a few people on this site that actually praised The Order when it for came out and got alot of flack for it."

That could've been the case right at release, but you should see more recent opinion articles on here. There's a pretty substantial cadre who defend it on here as being "unfairly tarnished" that I simply don't see elsewhere.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 56d ago
Skuletor57d ago

Most of the backlash against The Last Of Us 2 was people upset that Joel was killed off, simple as that.

anast57d ago

There is that too, but the other groups pilled on too, which increased the numbers. I really don't see why we have to ignore everything but Joel being killed.

Inverno57d ago

I didn't like Part 2 and I'm not any of. The game sold like crazy, it's just hard for people to understand that most found the story to be arse.

anast57d ago (Edited 57d ago )

Prove what I say is wrong. I will need evidence. I didn't not say all. Your exception rule doesn't work. Find evidence that counters mine. So, we can have a real discussion.

Inverno57d ago

There are plenty of legitimate criticism in hours long analysis videos and reddit posts actually critiquing Part 2. The people you're talking about are such a minority, and they attack just about everything because they see the "wokeness" in the most subliminal ways. They're insignificant because the game still sold pretty well, and reviewed well regardless. Keep in mind the game released world wide, and western politics and views can't be applied to every corner of the world. I can agree that Days Gone was attacked, and unlike Part 2, due to these sites being so heavily political biased it did do some damage.

anast57d ago

I am at least showing the group was large enough of a concern for a journal to publish an article.

Where's your evidence?

Crows9056d ago

He's not looking for evidence. Don't bother with him.

Crows9057d ago

The last of us part 2 was bad story wise. Not some nonsense that you speak of...most of the negative people were random...lots of the critical reception from anything other than mainstream journalism thought that the game had huge problems.

Angry Joe and skill up being prime examples of that...unless of course like most socialists out there you wanna just lable people.

anast57d ago (Edited 57d ago )

Where's your evidence?

Crows9056d ago

@anast

Oh geez...Twitter is full of trolls...common sense.
The YouTube critics I mentioned are innocent till proven guilty. And proven with facts not opinions. I gave you evidence of 2 prominent youtubers and yet you ask for more...either you can't read or you aren't looking for evidence.

As far as groups being "large" for journos to get their panties all tied up...well then again you must be extremely gullible. As if we haven't seen thousands of articles claiming players are offended, angry or backlashing based solely on 1 or 2 posts. They love grabbing very specific individuals and using them to represent a much larger base....whatever is convenient to them making the case that gamers bad and journos good.

coolbeans56d ago (Edited 56d ago )

-"saying something is "cringe" doesn't prove me wrong. You just throw words out and hope they stick. Bring some evidence to prove me otherwise."

It doesn't "prove" it, but I have a solid success rate with the term - which seems to be the case here too. With regards to your article, I should break this down into parts:

1.) For starters, bleating for countering "evidence" after brandishing a media analysis paper (or papers) shouldn't be treated as some kind of trump card. That's not to say these researchers did nothing, mind you. Only that expecting counter-ideologies within this field who'll make this specific kind of work for TLOU Pt. II is absurdly demanding on its face. Nevermind the probability of non-progressive types getting the administrative approval being next to nil, but that's another can of worms.

2.) While I have critiques about x or y (some anecdotes being more flimsy than others, GG speculation, etc.), let's say for this argument that it's a solid piece overall. Having read the whole thing, there is literally *NOTHING* that validates the broad brush with which you painted TLOU2 critics in your first comment (speaking as someone who thinks it's a good game). The discussion about alt-fans, anti-fans, etc. does paint an ugly picture about the TLOU subreddit, Twitter users, certain YouTubers, and more; however, there's no positive declaration about TLOU2's critics ending at these particular clusters either. Even if you say "most, not all" in your first comment, that still seems overly broad compared to the text I read. (EDIT: That's not to disregard the nastiness or modest size in its own right.)

It's also worth noting how much of that paper's material is inspecting a pre-/at-release sort of backlash. But the game's been out for several years now. More and more people who AREN'T incels, homophobes, closet Nazis have played it past 2020 and you don't really see this new broad consensus about its accomplishments; in fact, you see more of a continued split over whether or not it deserves such monumental praise. Here's just a few other sub-communities near its release that don't fit your description:

- https://www.youtube.com/wat...
- https://www.youtube.com/wat...
- https://www.youtube.com/wat...

-"Because NG4 defended it doesn't mean NG4 is the gospel of gaming."

Correct, but you're just solidifying my point. Even PS fans elsewhere (social media or gaming forums) don't go to bat for The Order with the enthusiasm and consistency they do here in my experience. That's what makes your assessment of "anti-Sony Xbox fans" so fascinating to me.

anast56d ago

1) Speculation and emotion

2) Speculation and emotion

2a) Might be an argument if you gave me something other than your own opinion and emotions over the subject, but it's left as an anecdote without any real research. By the way, we can't negate the at release behavior, because it fits your narrative. It existed and those groups were involved.

The article is not a trump card and the fact that you seem to think so is more troubling on your end than mine. The article was to see if you could find other people that researched this phenomenon and we can have a conversation, but you still refuse to do this. Instead you wrote a sermon, which is a shame because maybe you had something with point "2a: It's also worth..." But this point still tries to side step actual events.

The final point doesn't solidify anything unless you are trying to solidify your own opinion. Albeit, it is passive aggressive, which is strange.

coolbeans56d ago

-"Speculation and emotion"

I mean... okay? Where am I wrong on 2.) though? Asking for a conflicting media studies research paper on this specific topic is already a random ask, given the environment with which these are made.

-"Might be an argument if you gave me something other than your own opinion and emotions over the subject, but it's left as an anecdote without any real research."

Wait. Just so we're clear: a research paper that focuses most of its attention towards a subreddit and social media comments to Neil Druckmann means you get to sustain your overly broad claims while contrary social media sources that don't exhibit the same kind of "alt-fan/anti-fan" rhetoric can't be counted? Now I feel even more confident in my initial assessment b/c all you're after is just whatever can be found with some accreditation behind it - regardless of quality.

-"By the way, we can't negate the at release behavior, because it fits your narrative. It existed and those groups were involved."

That's the thing: I never said they wasn't a sizable contingent of that either. From the start, my response was just how wild it was to paint *MOST* detractors with such a broad brush. I still don't think I'm off-base in saying it's cringe to just say "most people who shit on x game are closet Nazis or bigots of some sort," especially when your research doesn't really validate that.

-"The article is not a trump card and the fact that you seem to think so is more troubling on your end than mine."

Bro, you literally responded with "Bring some evidence to prove me otherwise.... You're up. Maybe you can change my mind." I don't really see how I'm speaking out of turn there given this and your original comment.

-"The article was to see if you could find other people that researched this phenomenon and we can have a conversation, but you still refuse to do this."

If no other people *HAVE* researched this phenomenon, then I don't see how the next best option is highly-popular sources which counter your original claim. Given that all you're promoting is a media studies paper hyper-focusing on a specific cluster of media, why wouldn't other forms of media work as some kind of substitute? That's not side-stepping events in the slightest.

-"The final point doesn't solidify anything unless you are trying to solidify your own opinion. Albeit, it is passive aggressive, which is strange."

I don't know what that first sentence means, honestly.

Look, I'll just put it like this: try to have a frank conversation about The Order on some other non-N4G gaming forum. There isn't going to be this clean split between 'Sony fans' and 'Xbox fans' that love it or hate it. Ask Sony fans how they'd feel about paying full-price for it and you're not going to get the ardent defenses compared to some of its most popular comment sections here.

anast55d ago

Still no evidence. I ask for you to bring contrary evidence, so maybe I might change my mind, all research can be falsifiable. This is what you are missing. We are thinking in two different universes.

You are writing sermons, which is a waste of everyone's time including yours. Bring some research and we will discuss it. As of now you have only brought superstitions.

coolbeans55d ago

-"I ask for you to bring contrary evidence, so maybe I might change my mind, all research can be falsifiable."

But I literally read YOUR evidence and it doesn't support the broader claims you made at the start. I'm not sure where else to go with that.

-"Bring some research and we will discuss it. As of now you have only brought superstitions."

Bro, leveraging this kind of language is so wild in the face of what you've provided. It's like unless those different communities I linked where fused together in a random media studies paper, you'd magically consider it valid. I don't understand how you're leveraging that, especially when it doesn't fortify your initial claim. You're basically retorting to me writing too much, regardless of the content itself. Just the oddest conversation with you thus far and I don't quite get it.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 55d ago
D0nkeyBoi57d ago

Amazing gameplay, but TLOU2 had one of the worst, most convoluted and uneccessary plots I ever seen in a sequel. Terrible story and the characters were forgettable. I didn't give an F about anyone in the story.

Inverno57d ago

I don't think any of these divided fans, other than LoU2. The rest were either victims of biased reviews or just generally agreed that they weren't as good as they could've been or just overall disappointing.