Tag: nVidia

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Nvidia announces 4K streaming on PC and Mac, plus 10 new GeForce Now titles

Nvidia is announcing that 4K resolution streaming is now available through GeForce Now on PC and Mac native apps. In addition, 10 new games, including many that are Star Wars-focused, are available to play now.

As part of the announcement, RTX 3080 members can begin playing from the native GeForce Now apps on PC and Mac at 4K 60 frames per second (FPS). Nvidia’s 4K streaming uses Nvidia DLSS, its groundbreaking AI rendering technology that increases graphics performance. RTX 3080 members can also take advantage of ultra-low latency while playing.

Nvidia also announces that GeForce Now is supporting more 120Hz devices. This means that more devices will be able to stream at 120FPS. RTX 3080 members can now utilize the Samsung Galaxy S22 and S22 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Flip3, and OnePlus 9 Pro to play with higher frames.

While a few days late, Nvidia is getting into the Star Wars spirit by supporting three new Star Wars games from EA. Star Wars Battlefront II, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Star Wars: Squadrons are all available to play now.

Plus, seven other titles are available to play, kicking off the month of May. The full list includes:

  • Bakery Simulator (New release on Steam)
  • Oaken (New release on Steam)
  • Dinosaur Fossil Hunter (New release on Steam)
  • Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (New release on Steam and Epic Games Store)
  • Trek to Yomi (New release on Steam and Epic Games Store)
  • Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit (New release on Steam, May 6)
  • Frozenheim (Steam)
  • Star Wars Battlefront II (Steam and Origin)
  • Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Steam and Origin)
  • Star Wars: Squadrons (Steam and Origin)

Over the course of May, a total of 27 new titles will be available to play. Nvidia has already announced what players can look forward to. The May roster includes:

  • Brigandine The Legend of Runersia (New release on Steam, May 11)
  • Neptunia x SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars (New release on Steam, May 11)
  • Cepheus Protocol Anthology (New release on Steam, May 13)
  • Evil Dead: The Game (New release on Epic Games Store, May 13)
  • Old World (New release on Steam, May 19)
  • Vampire: The Masquerade Swansong (New release on Epic Games Store, May 19)
  • Crossfire: Legion (New release on Steam, May 24)
  • Out There: Oceans of Time (New release on Steam, May 26)
  • My Time at Sandrock (New release on Steam, May 26)
  • Turbo Sloths (New release on Steam, May 27)
  • Pogostuck: Rage With Your Friends (Steam)
  • Raji: An Ancient Epic (Steam and Epic Games Store)
  • Star Conflict (Steam)
  • THE KING OF FIGHTERS XV (Steam and Epic Games Store)
  • The Planet Crafter (Steam)
  • The Political Machine 2020 (Steam)
  • Yet Another Zombie Defense HD (Steam)

GeForce Now is Nvidia’s cloud gaming service. Nvidia offers three membership options including a free membership, granting hourly limits per session. The paid membership grant priority access without session limits for $12.99/month or $64.99 for six months. A premium tier for RTX 3080 members provides the new aforementioned perks. This subscription is available for $24.99/month or $129.99 for six months.

Image credit: Electronic Arts

Source: Nvidia

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Mobile Syrup

Arm to cut almost 1,000 jobs following collapse of Nvidia deal

Arm, the U.K.-based company behind ARM chip designs used in smartphones, Apple computers, and more, plans to cut almost 1,000 employees from its workforce.

The news comes after Arm’s parent company, Softbank, abandoned plans to sell Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion USD (roughly $51.1 billion CAD) due to “significant regulatory challenges.” Instead, Softbank planned to take Arm public.

The Telegraph reported that Arm’s chief executive, Rene Haas, told staff on Monday that the company could cut between 12 and 15 percent of employees. According to The Guardian, Arm has 6,500 employees worldwide — 15 percent would be about 975 employees.

Arm says the majority of the roles affected will be in its U.K. and U.S. workforces. The Telegraph saw an email sent by Haas, which said:

“This is going to be a tough time for everyone, so I want to be clear on why we are doing this.

“To be successful in the opportunities we have ahead of us, we need to be more disciplined about our costs and where we’re investing.

“To stay competitive, we need to remove duplication of work now that we are one Arm; stop work that is no longer critical to our future success; and think about how we get work done. It’s essential that we focus on activities that will move our strategy forward at pace.”

Moreover, The Telegraph reports that Haas says Arm will help staff move to other jobs.

It’s worth noting that Arm reported an increase in revenue earlier this year, and Haas said it put the company in a good position to keep investing.

However, The Telegraph reports that Arm’s former chief executive, Simon Segars, warned that Arm wouldn’t be able to sustain its current levels of investment if it went public instead of selling to Nvidia.

When reached for comment, an Arm spokesperson told The Telegraph that “Like any business, Arm is continually reviewing its business plan to ensure the company has the right balance between opportunities and cost discipline. Unfortunately, this process includes proposed redundancies across Arm’s global workforce.”

Source: The Telegraph Via: The Verge

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Nvidia reportedly preparing to wind down Arm acquisition

Nvidia reportedly plans to abandon plans to purchase Arm, the SoftBank-owned company behind the ARM chip designs used in a variety of popular tech, like smartphones.

Nvidia announced plans to purchase Arm back in 2020 for a whopping $40 billion USD (about $50.6 billion CAD). However, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter, Nvidia is quietly preparing to abandon the acquisition after failing to win approval for the deal.

Bloomberg reports that Nvidia told partners it doesn’t expect to close the transaction. Meanwhile, SoftBank reportedly plans to prepare for an Arm initial public offering (IPO) as an alternative to the Nvidia takeover.

The acquisition has faced stiff resistance so far, with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suing to stop the transaction in December. The core argument against Nvidia purchasing Arm is that it would make the company too powerful with control over Arm’s designs.

Despite the reports, both Nvidia and Arm continue to plead with regulators. Moreover, Bloomberg notes that leadership from both Nvidia and Softbank still publicly support the deal, effectively saying let’s wait and see what happens.

Bloomberg goes on to detail that Nvidia has an uphill battle to close the deal, taking on both U.S. and Chinese regulators, rival tech companies and more. Plus, analysts told the publication that if the deal falls through, Nvidia will “probably be fine.” The deal ultimately would have helped Nvidia push into data centre chips, but the company’s already pushing into that sector and will likely continue that push, with or without Arm.

Source: Bloomberg

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Mobile Syrup

Fortnite takes a longer route to make its way back to iOS

More than 17 months after being removed from the App Store, iOS and iPadOS users can soon play Fortnite on their iPhones and iPads again, though they won’t be able to head to the App Store and download the title.

Starting next week, you’ll be able to stream Fortnite directly on your iOS or iPadOS device through Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud streaming service. Nvidia announced that it will launch “a limited-time closed beta for mobile, all streamed through the Safari web browser on iOS,” next week. The closed beta will allow Nvidia to test its server capacity and graphics delivery along with touch controls. Nvidia says it aims to add more people to beta in batches over the coming weeks.

“While PC games in the GeForce Now library are best experienced on mobile with a gamepad, the introduction of touch controls built by the GeForce Now team offers more options for players, starting with Fortnite,” reads Nvidia’s blog post. 

Nvidia says that the limited-time beta is now open for registration for all GeForce Now members.

While the streamed version via GeForce Now won’t be as smooth and responsive as an in-device app, it’s still better than nothing for those longing to play Fortnite on their iPhones and iPad again.

Further, Nvidia states that it is working to add more touch-enabled games to its streaming service, many of which it will reveal in the coming weeks and months.

Nvidia’s cloud gaming service offers two membership options. The first is a free route that will give you standard access to the platform with a one-hour gaming limit per session. Once the hour passes, you can queue again to get another hour of free gaming in, although you may have to wait a while.

Nvidia also offers a paid membership option that gives you priority access to gaming servers without any session length limit. This subscription costs $12.99/month or $64.99 for a six-month membership.

Learn more about Nvidia GeForce and its subscription options here.

Image credit: Nvidia

Source: Nvidia

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Mobile Syrup

Steam games can now be played on Xbox via GeForce Now

Xbox owners can now play Steam PC games on their consoles through Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service.

This has been made possible through Microsoft’s Edge browser. With it, Xbox gamers have access to GeForce Now’s entire catalogue, which consists of more than 1,000 games. In particular, this gives Xbox gamers a way to play titles that aren’t otherwise available on consoles, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or League of Legends. 

As The Verge notes, PC games on Xbox isn’t completely new, as the Parsec cloud service also offers this functionality. However, it still requires you to have a PC that can run these games, which is much more limiting than GeForce Now simply running straight out of your console’s Edge browser. GeForce Now also supports mouse and keyboard, although the input lag from streaming means it might not be ideal.

It’s worth noting that GeForce Now games can be streamed for free in one-hour sessions. Otherwise, the service costs $64.99 CAD/six months for 1080p/60fps, six-hour streams or $129.99/six months for 1440p/120fps, eight-hour streams.

For now, this is just a solid workaround to playing PC games on Xbox before an official solution becomes available. Earlier this year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said the company’s intention is to use its Xbox Cloud Gaming service to bring PC titles to consoles. He said this will come after Xbox game streaming arrives on consoles this holiday.

Via: The Verge

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Electronics manufacturers halt production amid China’s mandated power shutdowns

The ongoing chip shortages plaguing smartphones, computers, game consoles and cars will likely get worse as China plans to shut off power to reduce emissions.

According to Tom’s Hardware, the country plans to temporarily shut off power in several major manufacturing hubs, and do so on a scheduled basis going forward. The mandated power shutdowns are reportedly an effort to reduce emissions as China shifts away from coal-powered electricity. The power shutdowns will likely impact electronics companies like Apple, Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm and more.

As of 2019, as much as 65 percent of the electricity in China came from coal. Although China has promised the UN that it would not build any more new coal-fueled power plants and would increase reliance on other energy sources, the transition will take time. With coal prices surging, China has ordered the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong to cut total energy consumption. That’s why local governments plan to cut electricity supply to industrial customers and malls for several days each month.

The cuts will impact some companies more than others. For example, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm have production facilities in China that have received orders to stop production for several days in late September. Eson Precision Engineering, a mechanical parts supplier for Apple and Tesla, received orders to halt production from September 26th to 30th.

However, Reuters notes that the restrictions won’t apply to manufacturers with continuous production cycles. That includes TSMC and UMC — TSMC makes chips for Apple, AMD, Nvidia and several other companies.

Apple’s leading manufacturing partner, Foxconn, also shut down several facilities on Monday, according to Nikkei. Pegatron, another iPhone assembler, also had to shut down but has continued operations using diesel generators. Other manufacturing facilities are considering night shifts to make up for the lost time from power cuts.

Ultimately, it remains to be seen what impact, if any, the mandated power outages have on emissions. As Tom’s Hardware points out, most manufacturers will find ways around the restrictions, such as implementing night shifts, using generators or boosting production at other facilities not impacted by the limits. In other words, companies will shift power consumption to different times if they can, which could mean the mandated outages won’t have a significant impact on emissions.

Source: Tom’s Hardware, Reuters, Nikkei

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Huge GeForce Now leaks teases tons of PlayStation, unannounced games on PC

A datamine of Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service has seemingly leaked a slew of games that are coming to PC.

As broken down on Reddit, C++ developer Ighor July found listings for dozens of games from PlayStation and other companies that haven’t yet been confirmed to be coming to PC.

Firstly, PlayStation exclusives God of War (2018), Returnal, Demon’s Souls and Ghost of Tsushima are all listed. Further, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection — which was only confirmed last week for both PS5 and PC — is listed with its full, accurate title.

Overall, these ports aren’t too surprising, as PlayStation said in May that it plans to bring more of its games to PC following the successful launch of Horizon Zero Dawn on the platform. Sony also recently acquired Nixxes, a studio with significant PC experience, as part of this initiative. Interestingly, though, PlayStation exclusives Marvel’s Spider-Man and Bloodborne were not listed in the database.

But what’s arguably more interesting is that the datamine also points to the existence of a variety of unannounced games, including Resident Evil 4 Remake, Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Remasters, Titanfall 3, Kingdom Hearts IV, BioShock 2022, Final Fantasy IX Remake, Injustice 3: Gods Will Fall and three new, untitled games from Square Enix.

Some of these are games we’ve heard credible reports on but have not yet been confirmed by their respective publishers, like RE4 Remake and the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy remaster. However, games like Kingdom Hearts IV, Final Fantasy IX Remake and Injustice 3 are somewhat surprising to see.

It’s important to stress that these listings aren’t solid confirmations of existing games. These could be placeholder titles, prototypes for games that ultimately become significantly changed or projects that have been (or will be) cancelled. We’ve even seen a major video game convention use random words like “Canada” when testing a list of banned words for its forums and website.

However, Windows Central, a credible source for Microsoft-related news, lent some weight to these listings by corroborating the Xbox-specific games that were listed in the database. This includes Gears 6 from the Vancouver-based The Coalition, a new Forza, Project “Typhoon” (which it says is Avalanche’s recently revealed Contraband) and a new strategy simulator codenamed “Oxide.”

Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see from the individual publishers about each of these games, which could be a while given the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Ighor July