An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This weekend, Intel released preliminary information on its newest laptop part -- the Xe Max discrete GPU, which functions alongside and in tandem with Tiger Lake's integrated Iris Xe GPU. We first heard about Xe Max at Acer's Next 2020 launch event, where it was listed as a part of the upcoming Swift 3x laptop -- which will only be available in China. The new GPU will also be available in the Asus VivoBook Flip TP470 and the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1.

During an extended product briefing, Intel stressed to us that the Xe Max beats Nvidia's entry-level MX 350 chipset in just about every conceivable metric. In another year, this would have been exciting -- but the Xe Max is only slated to appear in systems that feature Tiger Lake processors, whose Iris Xe integrated GPUs already handily outperform the Nvidia MX 350 in both Intel's tests and our own. The confusion here largely springs from mainstream consumer expectations of a GPU versus what Intel's doing with the Xe Max. Our GPU tests largely revolve around gaming, using 3DMark's well-known benchmark suite, which includes gaming, fps-focused tests such as Time Spy and Night Raid. Intel's expectations for the Xe Max instead revolve, almost entirely, around content creation with a side of machine learning and video encoding.

Xe Max is, roughly speaking, the same 96 Execution Unit (EU) GPU to be found in the Tiger Lake i7-1185G7 CPU we've tested already this year -- the major difference, beyond not being on-die with the CPU, is a higher clock rate, dedicated RAM, and separate TDP budget. Tiger Lake's Iris Xe has a peak clock rate of 1.35GHz, and it shares the CPU's TDP constraints. Iris Xe Max has its own 25W TDP and a higher peak clock rate of 1.65GHz. It also has its own 4GiB of dedicated RAM -- though that RAM is the same LPDDR4X-4266 that Tiger Lake itself uses, which is something of a first for discrete graphics and might lead to better power efficiency.

An anonymous reader shares a report: For the better part of the last decade, Google's Chromecast dongles were the company's primary homegrown solution for streaming video to your TV. But with the recent explosion in streaming services, even the most sophisticated Chromecast wasn't really cutting it anymore, which is something the new Chromecast with Google TV is hoping to change in a big way, but bringing an actual streaming device OS to a Chromecast dongle. The big change for this new $50 Chromecast is that it's not your typical Chromecast at all. Sure, it still plugs in via HDMI and you can still use it to stream videos and content to your TV from your phone. However, instead of being based around the very basic Chromecast interface, this new Chromecast runs on Android TV platform which Google has improved with an enhanced UI and a few new features, which is where the Google TV part of Chromecast with Google TV comes in.

And when you factor in the Chromecast with Google TV's new dedicated remote these upgrades could completely change how you watch and interact with content. Starting with the hardware, the Chromecast with Google TV consists of two parts: there's the dongle that plugs into your TV and Google's included remote. For the Chromecast with Google TV, Google is going with a simple ovular puck that comes in three different colors (Snow, Sunrise, and Sky) and features an attached HDMI cable that plugs into your TV along with a USB-C port and bundled cable that you'll need to plug in for power. The Chromecast with Google TV comes with support for 4K video at 60 fps with HDR via Dolby Vision, which ticks all the major boxes when it comes to streaming video quality.

Oakland's nonprofit "Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment" housed 40,000 historic pieces of videogame memorabilia — including 11,000 playable games. In 2017 they were the ones urging America's copyright office to allow museums and libraries to circumvent DRM to preserve abandoned online games like FIFA World Cup, Nascar and The Sims. The museum's sponsors include GitHub, Google, PlayStation, and Dolby Digital.

But now the MADE is "set to close its doors, with uncertainty ahead about whether it'll ever be able to reopen," reports GamesIndustry.biz: Founder and director Alex Handy said in an interview with GamesBeat that the group managing the museum couldn't reach an agreement on rent for the place during the COVID-19 crisis... 80% of its budget comes from admissions, its website says, and since it's been closed since March due to the pandemic, it's now forced to shut down and move its collections to storage.

Storage will be paid for thanks to donations — still open on this page and will also go towards eventually finding a new space for the museum. "The current plan is to stay in storage for two years while we raise the funds and make plans to create our dream video game museum," the museum's website reads. "When we're ready, we will be back and better than ever, mark our words."

"A photo and film restoration specialist, who goes by the name of DutchSteamMachine, has worked some AI magic to enhance original Apollo film, creating strikingly clear and vivid video clips and images," reports Universe Today: Take a look at this enhanced footage from an Apollo 16 lunar rover traverse with Charlie Duke and John Young, where the footage that was originally shot with 12 frames per second (FPS) has been increased to 60 FPS... And I was blown away by the crisp view of the Moon's surface in this enhanced view of Apollo 15's landing site at Hadley Rille... Or take a look at how clearly Neil Armstrong is visible in this enhanced version of the often-seen "first step" video from Apollo 11 taken by a 16mm video camera inside the Lunar Module...

The AI that DutchSteamMachine uses is called Depth-Aware video frame INterpolation, or DAIN for short. This AI is open source, free and constantly being developed and improved upon... "People have used the same AI programs to bring old film recordings from the 1900s back to life, in high definition and colour," he said. "This technique seemed like a great thing to apply to much newer footage...."

DutchSteamMachine does this work in his spare time, and posts it for free on his YouTube page. His tagline is "Preserving the past for the future..." And he's planning to keep it all coming. "I plan to improve tons of Apollo footage like this," he said. "A lot more space and history-related footage is going to be published on my YT channel continuously." He also has a Flickr page with more enhanced imagery. [And a Patreon page...]
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 calls it "similar to what Peter Jackson did with old World War I footage for They Shall Not Grow Old ."

Microsoft will be holding its next Xbox Games Showcase on July 23, the company announced today. Ars Technica reports: Unlike Microsoft's May promotional event, which focused on third-party launch titles for the upcoming console, the July 23 event is expected to discuss first-party exclusives from Microsoft's own Xbox Game Studios. That likely includes new footage of Halo Infinite, which saw a new teaser trailer a few weeks ago. That lineup of first-party studios now includes Psychonauts 2 developer Double Fine, which Microsoft acquired in June, and The Outer Worlds developer Obsidian Entertainment, which Microsoft acquired last November.

Long-time Slashdot reader frootcakeuk quotes an article from Hot Hardware: Earlier this year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation hooked up with Igalia to start development on an open-sourced Vulkan graphics driver for the Raspberry Pi. However, Martin Thomas, an engineer at Nvidia, beat them to the punch.

Thomas announced yesterday via his personal Twitter that his RPi-VK-Driver is ready for primetime. The talented engineer had been working on the Vulkan driver in his spare time for more than two years.

Technically, Thomas' iteration isn't a Vulkan driver per se because it doesn't comply with the official standards established by The Khronos Group. Nonetheless, the resourceful developer produced a driver that adheres to the Vulkan parameters as much as possible, and as close as the hardware would permit it. There's just one limitation with the RPi-VK-Driver though. Unlike the official Vulkan driver that's still in the works, Thomas' version is only compatible with the Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU that's found inside the Raspberry Pi 1, 2, 3 and Zero devices.

AMD "has a potent combination of both CPU and GPU technologies," writes Slashdot reader MojoKid, that "can play well in the laptop market especially, where a tight coupling of the two processing engines can mean both performance and cost efficiencies." One of the first all-AMD laptops to hit the market powered by the company's new Ryzen 4000 mobile processors is the Dell G5 15 SE, it's a 5.5 pound, 14.4-inch machine [with a 15.6-inch display] that sports an understated design for a gaming notebook but with an interesting glittery finish that resists fingerprints well. With a retail price of $1199 (starting at $879), the model tested at HotHardware is powered by an AMD Ryzen 4800H 8-core processor that boosts to 4.2GHz and an AMD Radeon RX 5600M mobile GPU with 6GB of GDDR6 memory...

In the benchmarks, AMD's SmartShift technology load-balances CPU and GPU power supply for optimal performance and very respectable numbers that are competitive with any similar Intel/NVIDIA powered machine. The Dell G5 15 SE put up north of 60 FPS frame rates at maximum image quality in current-gen game titles, but with a significantly better price point, relatively speaking.
The GPU also has 2,304 stream processors across 36 compute units, and "Overall, we think Dell hit it out of the park with the new G5 15 SE," the review concludes.

"This all-AMD budget blockbuster has all of the gaming essentials: a fast processor, a powerful GPU, and a 144 Hz display."

Jeff Grubb, writing for VentureBeat: One of the tidbits revealed during the first Xbox 20/20 event today is that Dirt 5 supports 120 frames per second on Xbox Series X. Publisher Codemasters' racing game is coming in October, but it supports Smart Delivery. So if you get it for Xbox One, you'll get the Xbox Series X version at no additional cost. And what does the Xbox Series X-optimized version of Dirt 5 get you? In an interview with the Xbox team, Codemasters confirmed that Dirt 5 supports the next-gen console's high-framerate feature. This means you can drive around the rally racer at 4K and 120 frames per second. High framerate is one of a number of key features for the next-gen consoles. And that makes sense. Racing games already have nearly photorealistic visuals. More graphical effects are not going to make much of a difference to the presentation of a Dirt 5. So this enables Codemasters to put that extra horsepower toward running the game faster.

OK, so the Xbox Series X can run Dirt 5 at up to 120fps, but that's not going to matter if you don't have the right display. High-refreshrate content is common on the PC, but consoles have primarily topped out at 60fps. Because of this it hasn't matter that most TVs top out at 60Hz. But it is a problem for the next-gen consoles. To actually see Dirt 5 running at 120fps, you'll need a TV that runs at 120Hz or faster. That means the TV updates its frames 120 times every second. The good news here is that a lot of TVs already have this feature. The bad news is that even if you have an HFR panel, support is a lot more complicated than that. The issue comes down to the audio/video interface running between your TV and the Xbox Series X.

Mike Bouma is Slashdot reader #85,252. (And judging by his Slashdot profile, he was also a participant in the short-lived Amiga webring.) He writes: KK of the demo scene group Altair is making a Doom clone for the Amiga 500. The system requirements are a mere 7 Mhz Amiga 500 with 1 MB of RAM!

Have a look:

Dread Ep 01 — making "Doom" clone for Amiga 500

Dread Ep 02 — "Doom" clone for Amiga 500 — Laying out the map...

You can find KK/Altair at the English Amiga Board.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hollywood Reporter: Call of Duty maker Activision has prevailed in a closely watched trademark dispute brought by AM General, the government contractor for Humvees. On Tuesday, a New York federal judge responded favorably to Activision's argument that it had a First Amendment right to depict contemporary warfare in its game by featuring Humvees. "If realism is an artistic goal, then the presence in modern warfare games of vehicles employed by actual militaries undoubtedly furthers that goal," writes U.S. District Court Judge George B. Daniels in granting summary judgment in favor of Activision. The video game publisher fought AM General's claims along with Major League Gaming Corp., a professional esports organization. The dispute was potentially worth tens of millions of dollars, and the discussion attracted intellectual property professors and the Electronic Software Association to weigh in with amicus briefs. You can read the full opinion here.

Today, we get another diminutive desktop option, but this one is designed for Linux and privacy. From a report: Yes, Purism is finally launching a tiny desktop, and it will come pre-installed with the Debian-based PureOS. Called "Librem Mini," the cute bugger has 4 USB-A ports on the front, along with a 3.5mm audio jack, and the power button. On the rear, there are two more USB-A ports, a single USB-C port, Ethernet, HDMI, DisplayPort, and the power port. "Announcing the Purism Librem Mini. Our small form-factor mini-PC that puts freedom, privacy and security first. We're really excited about the Librem Mini, it's a device our community have wanted and we've wanted to offer for some time. The Librem Mini is accessible, small, light and powerful featuring a new 8th gen quad core i7 processor, up to 64 GB of fast DDR4 memory and 4k 60 fps video playback. It's a desktop for your home or oïfce, a media center for your entertainment, or an expandable home server for your files and applications," says Purism.

Microsoft has provided detailed tech specs for its forthcoming Xbox Series X gaming console, reader Dave Knott shares. Full system specs are as follows: CPU: 8x Cores @ 3.8 GHz (3.6 GHz w/ SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU
GPU: 12 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU
Die Size: 360.45 mm2
Process: 7nm Enhanced
Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 w/ 320b bus
Memory Bandwidth: 10GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s
Internal Storage: 1 TB Custom NVME SSD
I/O Throughput: 2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed, with custom hardware decompression block)
Expandable Storage: 1 TB Expansion Card (matches internal storage exactly)
External Storage: USB 3.2 External HDD Support
Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-Ray Drive
Performance Target: 4K @ 60 FPS, Up to 120 FPS. Digital Foundry visited Microsoft and provides a deep dive article detailing their hands-on experience with the new hardware including the following information.

Microsoft revealed new details on its next-generation console, text, on Monday morning, confirming specifications on what the company calls its "superior balance of power and speed" for its new hardware. From a report: The next-gen Xbox, Microsoft said, will be four times as powerful as the original Xbox One. The Xbox Series X "next-generation custom processor" will employ AMD's Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architecture, head of Xbox Phil Spencer wrote on the Xbox website. "Delivering four times the processing power of an Xbox One and enabling developers to leverage 12 [teraflops] of GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) performance -- twice that of an Xbox One X and more than eight times the original Xbox One," Spencer said. He called the next-generation Xbox's processing and graphics power "a true generational leap," offering higher frame rates -- with support for up to 120 fps -- and more sophisticated game worlds.

That 12 teraflops claim is twice that of what Microsoft promised with the Xbox One X (then known as Project Scorpio) when it revealed the mid-generation console update back in 2016. Spencer also outlined the Xbox Series X's variable rate shading, saying, "Rather than spending GPU cycles uniformly to every single pixel on the screen, they can prioritize individual effects on specific game characters or important environmental objects. This technique results in more stable frame rates and higher resolution, with no impact on the final image quality." He also promised hardware-accelerated DirectX ray tracing, with "true-to-life lighting, accurate reflections and realistic acoustics in real time." Microsoft also reconfirmed features like SSD storage, which promise faster loading times, as well as new ones, like Quick Resume, for Xbox Series X.

Gizmodo shares the saga of a now-deleted video claiming to show Call of Duty's new "battle royale" mode: The YouTube video, initially posted by a user who goes by TheGamingRevoYT, was slammed with a copyright claim and ripped from the platform. Meanwhile, other gamers noticed that Reddit posts and Twitter threads even mentioning the upcoming release were being taken down for "copyright infringement." Last week, when one Redditor found a leak of what appeared to be the cover art for the new game, that got hit with a copyright claim too — and some other legal action. According to court documents obtained by TorrentFreak, Activision has spent the last week actively subpoenaing Reddit to uncover the identity of the Reddit user who leaked the initial artwork...

It's worth noting, as TorrentFreak points out, that there wasn't technically any "infringing content" posted to the thread itself — just an external link to a site that hosted the image in question.

Id software has released a new trailer for their upcoming Doom sequel set on a demon-infested planet Earth in the year 2151. And GameSpot has uploaded a 10-minute clip of gameplay while Collider released 15 minutes.

Collider writes: Doom Eternal takes everything that was gloriously batshit about Doom 2016, throws it in a Lamborghini full of Slayer albums and catapults it into the sun. This game is out of its goddamn mind in the best possible way, and I literally cannot wait to get my hands on the full version... The Fortress of Doom is massive. I wasn't able to access every area, and could only guess at the function of some of the areas I did see. One section had the original Doom Marine costume on display in a glass case, and the game's director, Hugo Martin confirmed that the skin is an unlockable. Moreover, he indicated that there are several unlockable player skins in the game, including one he was clearly excited about but couldn't reveal, saying that it was still in the licensing approval stage...

Doom Eternal, like its predecessor, is a fast game, pitting you against hordes of powerful enemies that force you to constantly be on the move and quick-swapping weapons to inflict maximum damage while avoiding death. You have a few tools at your disposal to earn guaranteed life, ammo, and armor, which are the over-the-top glory kills, the terrifying chainsaw, and the brand-new flame belcher respectively. Glory kills are special instant-death maneuvers you can unleash on enemies after staggering them, and the addition of a retractable arm blade has heightened the graphic absurdity of them to such a degree that I was giggling like an idiot every time I pulled one off.

I spent the next three hours murdering my way across three massive levels that were incredibly varied in terms of design, beginning in a blasted post-apocalyptic city, then moving to a vast overgrown temple, and finally ending up in a heavily-fortified arctic base... Each stage had a completely different feel -- the city was very ground-based, with dark subway tunnels and skeletal office buildings. The temple was spread out across what felt like miles, with an unexpected amount of verticality and traversal thanks to the new climbing mechanic. Yep, Doom Guy can now cling to certain walls, as well as swing from poles to extend his jump and gain access to distant ledges. The climbing controls are a bit funky, like Spider-Man with a rotator cuff injury, but the traversal puzzles are fun and satisfying, and allow for some truly massive environments...

Martin promised that players will continue to be introduced to new enemies and environments right up until the end of the 22+ hour campaign. He describes Doom Eternal as a thinking person's action game, and that the team's goal was to create a combat puzzle worth your time.
DOOM Eternal is scheduled to be released on March 20th.

theodp writes: Over at Polygon, games journalist Colin Campbell remembers the late Silas Warner in The Man Who Made Wolfenstein. Before Doom, there was Warner's Castle Wolfenstein (1981) and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (1984), which counted id Software's legendary John Carmack and John Romero as fans. After completing his degree in Physics at Indiana University, Warner found work at IU installing a new system called PLATO, which he used to fork John Daleske's Empire (1973), which is sometimes credited as being the first multiplayer shooting game. Ultima creator Richard Garriott called Warner's Escape (1978) a major inspiration that "changed my life." Warner's Robotwar (manual, pdf) also did double-duty as a stealth learn-to-program tutorial. Sadly, Warner was plagued with bad health and passed away at age 54 without receiving the proper credit or rewards he was due.

FPS (first-person shooter) games have been a staple in the video game industry ever since the explosion of Wolfenstein 3D back in 1992. Since then, the genre has been evolving with graphical upgrades, huge budgets, and an eSports ecosystem. But what about its core, the shooting mechanics? How have we progressed on that front? Why do some guns feel like it's the real thing, while others feel like toys?

At the 2019 Game Awards today, Microsoft revealed the name and console design of its next-generation gaming console: Xbox Series X. The Verge reports: The console itself looks far more like a PC than we've seen from previous Xbox consoles, and Microsoft's trailer provides a brief glimpse at the new design. The console itself is designed to be used in both vertical and horizontal orientations, and Microsoft's Xbox chief, Phil Spencer, promises that it will "deliver four times the processing power of Xbox One X in the most quiet and efficient way."

The Xbox Series X will include a custom-designed CPU based on AMD's Zen 2 and Radeon RDNA architecture. Microsoft is also using an SSD on Xbox Series X, which promises to boost load times. Xbox Series X will also support 8K gaming, frame rates of up to 120 fps in games, ray tracing, and variable refresh rate support. Microsoft also revealed a new Xbox Wireless Controller today. "Its size and shape have been refined to accommodate an even wider range of people, and it also features a new Share button to make capturing screenshots and game clips simple," explains Spencer. This updated controller will work with existing Xbox One consoles and Windows 10 PCs, and will ship with every Xbox Series X.

Scott Stein, reviews Google Stadia cloud gaming service for CNET: Stadia's launch day was earlier this week... sort of. Really, consider this the start of Stadia's early-access beta period. Because Google's big promises haven't arrived, and at the price of the Stadia's Founder's Edition, I can't recommend anyone jump onboard at the moment. Google's experimental game streaming service, Stadia, launches without many of its promised features, and just a handful of games. It works, but there's not much incentive to buy in. We've heard about the promises of streaming games over the internet for a decade. Stadia really does work as a way to stream games. I've only played a couple of the 12 games Google promised by Tuesday's launch, though. That short list pales compared to what Microsoft already has on tap for its in-beta game-streaming service, xCloud. It's no match for what Nvidia's game streaming GeForce Now already has or what PlayStation Now offers. Prices of Stadia games at launch in the US are below. They're basically full retail game prices. This could get crazy expensive fast.

[...] Stadia has so few games right now, and I'm trying them with no one else online. It isn't clear how things will work now that the service is going live, and what other features will kick in before year's end. I'm curious, but I might lose interest. Others might, too. I have plenty of other great games to play right now: on Apple Arcade, VR and consoles such as the Switch. Stadia isn't delivering new games yet, it's just trying to deliver a new way to play through streaming. One that you can already get from other providers. Until Google finds a way to loop in YouTube and develop truly unique competitive large-scale games, Stadia isn't worth your time yet. Yes, the future is possibly wild, and you can see hints of the streaming-only cloud-based playground Stadia wants to become. But we'll see what it shapes into over the next handful of months and check back in. Raymond Wong, writing for Input Mag looks at the amount of data playing a game on Stadia consumes and how the current state of things require a very fast internet connection to work: Like streaming video, streaming games is entirely dependent on your internet speed. Faster internet delivers smooth, lag-free visuals, and slower internet means seeing some glitches and dropped framerates. Google recommends a minimum of connection of 10Mbps for 1080p Full HD streaming at 30 fps with stereo sound and 35Mbps for 4K resolution streaming (in HDR if display is supported) at 60 fps with 5.1 surround sound. Reality didn't reflect Google's advertising, though. Despite having a Wi-Fi connection with 16-20Mbps downloads in a hotel room in LA, streaming Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Destiny 2 to my 13-inch MacBook Pro wasn't 100% stable. The visuals would glitch out for a second or two about every 10 minutes of playtime. [...] A fast internet connection isn't the only thing you need for Stadia to work right. You need a lot of bandwidth, too. One hour of playing Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1080p resolution on my 46-inch HDTV via a Chromecast Ultra ate up 5.3GB of data. This seemed insane until I saw an hour of Destiny 2 on a Pixel 3a XL with 6-inch, 1080p-resolution display gobbled up 9.3GB of data!

An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian: "Give us more guns!" is a common battle-cry among players of first-person shooters, the videogame industry's bloodiest genre. Doom co-creator John Romero has a rather different opinion. "I would rather have fewer things with more meaning, than a million things you don't identify with," he says, sitting in a Berlin bar mocked up to resemble a 1920s Chicago speakeasy. "I would rather spend more time with a gun and make sure the gun's design is really deep -- that there's a lot of cool stuff you learn about it...."

Modern shooters are too close to fantasy role-playing games in how they shower you with new weapons from battle to battle, Romero suggests. This abundance of loot -- which reflects how blockbuster games generally have become Netflix-style services, defined by an unrelenting roll-out of "content" -- means you spend as much time comparing guns in menus as savouring their capabilities. It encourages you to think of each gun as essentially disposable, like an obsolete make of smartphone. "The more weapons you throw in there, the more you're playing an inventory game." Romero contrasts this to the sparing design of the original Doom, which launched in 1993 with a grand total of eight guns. "For Doom, it was really important that every time you got a new weapon, it never made any previous weapons useless...."

Doom is also a game that knows how to keep a secret. It isn't just a firefight simulator but a treacherous, vaguely avant-garde work of 3D architecture. Its levels are mazes of hidden rooms and camouflaged doors that screech open behind you -- sometimes revealing a pile of ammunition, sometimes disgorging enemies into areas you've cleared. Today's shooters set less store by secret spaces, Romero says, because they cost so much to make.