Oxide Games Reveals VR-Only Nitrous 2 Engine, 'Not Enough Bullets' Game

AMD had much to say during the Capsaicin and Cream event, but the Red Team wasn’t the only company with news to share. Dan Baker from Oxide Games took the stage to introduce his next game and the next-gen game engine powering it.

Baker is up to his old tricks again. The co-founder of Oxide Games is out to push the performance boundaries of next generation game development technology. He and his company are hard at work building the second-generation Nitrous engine–and this time he’s not letting the old guard hold him back.

Baker played a role in bringing the Khronos Group’s Vulkan API to market, and his company was among the first to embrace AMD’s Mantle API. You may also recall that a little over a year ago, we spoke with Baker about his experiments with DX12 in the first Nitrous engine.

At the time, Ashes of the Singularity was still in the development, but a lot of eyes were on Oxide Games because Ashes was poised to be one of the first DX12 games on the market. Baker spent the time to explore DX12’s Explicit Multiadapter feature, which allowed him to build an experimental build of the game that simultaneously supports Nvidia and AMD graphics cards.

Now that the development of Ashes of the Singularity is out of the way, Baker looked towards the virtual reality market and wondered what boundaries he could push next.

“When we finished Ashes [of the Singularity], and we had the first DX12 engine, we said ‘Well, ok. We still have to support the old APIs, but what could we do if we did next-generation only? And what would a new engine look like if you were only DX12 and only VR? And what would it look like?’” said Baker. “What we came up with is Nitrous 2.0.”

By dropping the old APIs that restricted development of advanced features and hamstrung performance, Oxide Games was able to use the available resources more efficiently than ever before. Baker said that the first generation Nitrous engine allowed Oxide to squeeze approximately 85% of the available performance out of all the GPU cores and CPU cores you could throw at it. Nitrous 2.0 kicks it up a notch and allows for “complete utilization of all cores.”

Baker said that Nitrous 2.0 features a new shading technique, which plays a key role in scaling the performance efficiency to 100%. Oxide leverages asynchronous compute to run the rasterization and shading workloads simultaneously.

“We have this new technology where we’re actually able to rasterize the entire scene at 90 [fps], and in the asynchronous compute we shade at 30 [fps]–We decouple the two. And we can share the data between the eyes,” said Baker. “So, that means, in theory, our shading can be 6x more efficient than it ordinarily would be. And async compute is working perfectly for this.”

As was the case with the first Nitrous, Oxide Games isn’t developing Nitrous 2.0 for other developers. As Baker told us in his interview in 2015, “Oxide is a game development company first and an engine licensing company second.” As such, the developer is building a game with the new engine.

Oxide Games did a live demo of a game called Not Enough Bullets running on one of AMD’s new Ryzen processors and Vega GPUs, and pushing all 16 CPU threads to the limit. The game crashed a few seconds into the demo, which is a shame, but not surprising for early software running on an in-development game engine, on an engineering sample graphics card. They were able to launch the demo again moments later.

Unfortunately, the scenery in the game is quite dark, and we weren’t able to make out exactly what was going on in the demo. We suspect that Not Enough Bullets is another real-time strategy game, as the original Nitrous Engine is optimized for the genre.

Baker made no mention of when we can expect to see more of Not Enough Bullets or the Nitrous 2.0 engine.

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti release date, news and features: everything you need to know

Update: With Nvidia’s GDC 2017 livestream now through, we’ve overhauled this page with loads of new details on the GTX 1080 Ti.

It’s official Nvidia has just launched the GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, an immensely powerful follow-up to last year’s GTX 1080.

Naturally, the card boasts even more power to push cutting-edge gaming graphics in native 4K resolution, and while it’s based on the same Pascal GPU architecture as the GTX 1080, it’s most definitely a marked upgrade over the older (yet still very powerful, and now cheaper) GPU.

Nvidia now continues its pattern of releasing a mainline GPU series (along with an incredibly powerful Titan variant) one year, then following up with a slightly more powerful Ti variant the next year.

So, if you’re looking forward to a GPU that’s more powerful than the GTX 1080, and more affordable than the Titan X, then read on to find out all the news, rumors and release date information we know so far about the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The latest in Nvidia’s top-range graphics cards
• When’s it out? Next week, Nvidia says
• What will it cost? Starting at $699 (about £565, AU$912)

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang showing off the card on stage

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti release date

• Announced on February 28
• Set to release next week

During its event on February 28, Nvidia simply stated that the GTX 1080 Ti will be released “next week.”

While CEO Jen-Hsun Huang provided no more specifics than that, we’re going to take that as the week of March 5.

There have also been rumors that the GTX 1080 Ti will make an appearance at PAX East in Boston a few weeks later, on March 10.

Unsurprisingly, it photographs well

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti price

• Starting at $699 (about £565, AU$912)

There weren’t a huge amount of leaks or rumors about the price of the GTX 1080 Ti leading up to the announcement, but probably because it wasn’t surprising to begin with.

Nvidia revealed the GTX 1080 Ti price to be $699 in the US, taking the previous highest-end card’s place in its pricing scheme. That’s right, the GTX 1080 is now just $499 in the US.

But, Nvidia failed to mention any pricing or availability details regarding the UK and Australia. We’ll update this space as soon as we learn more on those fronts.

The bigger numbers mean better things

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti specs

• 11GB GDDR5X memory
• 1.6GHz boost clock
• 3,584 CUDA cores

Seeing what Nvidia has up its sleeve when it comes to its latest all-powerful graphics card is always exciting.

Yet, somehow, the firm managed to skirt by releasing one major detail regarding the GTX 1080 Ti: its base clock speed. Alas, we know that the chip’s 3,584 CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) cores run at a boosted speed of 1.6GHz and can overclock up to 2GHz.

We also know that this version of the GTX 1080 uses 11GB of GDDR5X memory at a clock speed of 11Gbps. Plus, it’s capable of processing up to 11.5 teraflops, or floating operations per second.

All told, Nvidia promises a 35% increase in performance from its GTX 1080 of last year to the GTX 1080 Ti of this year.

Other key specifications include the same 250W of TDP, or thermal design power, as the Titan X of last year, and more than the GTX 1080’s 180W. That’s because you’re looking at 12 billion transistors inside this bad boy, not 7.2 billion like before.

Stay tuned to this space for all the latest on Nvidia’s latest and greatest graphics card.

Joe Osborne has also contributed to this report

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Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti turns the dial to 11

The long awaited Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is finally here, and it’s a doozy of a graphics card.

Packing 12-billion transistors and 3,584 CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) cores, it’s one of Nvidia’s most impressive graphics cards yet. What’s more, Nvidia has engineered the GPU’s 11GB of GDDR5X RAM to operate at an even higher 11Gbps compared to Pascal GPUs – including the Nvidia GTX Titan X – that only went as high as 10Gbps.

Nvidia’s highest-end gamer-focused GPU also can overclock to 2GHz and has a boosted frequency of 1.6GHz. That makes it a hair quicker than even the Nvidia Titan X that normally operates at 1.5GHz.

All of this amounts to what Nvidia claims is its best Ti card, offering a 35% increase in performance over the original GeForce GTX 1080.

But wait, there’s more

The GPU maker isn’t leaving its older models in the dust with this reveal, and has announced it will launch overclocked versions of the Nvidia GTX 1080 packing 11Gbps G5X memory and a GeForce GTX 1060 with 9Gbps G5 VRAM.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti also features a re-engineered power design with a 7-phase dual field-effect transistor (FET) and 14 dual-FETs architecture. Combined with a vapor chamber and double the amount of cooling area, the graphics card runs 5-degrees Celsius cooler and 2.5 decibels quieter than the original.

As with Nvidia’s previous GPUs, the 1080 Ti will be first available in a Founders Edition directly from Nvidia with vendor models from MSI, Asus and others coming later. The Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti will be released on next week for $699 (about £560, AU$910). 

Stay tuned for our full review of Nvidia’s latest titanic graphics card.

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Nvidia Announces GeForce GTX 1080 Ti; $700, Coming Next Week

Nvidia has the three fastest graphics cards on the market in its Titan X, GeForce GTX 1080, and GeForce GTX 1070, but it isn’t waiting for the competition to catch up. A new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is imminent, based on the same GP102 processor as Titan X, and it’s aimed at at the big gap between its $700 $600 GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition card and the $1,200 Titan X.The new 1080 Ti is $700, and it’s coming next week.

Expect performance to land closer to the latter than the former, though. All 28 of the chip’s SMs are turned on, yielding 3584 CUDA cores and 224 texture units at a rated GPU Boost clock rate of 1.6GHz (that’s slightly higher than the Titan X).

The back-end does receive a small haircut: One of its 32-bit memory controllers is disabled, yielding an aggregate 352-bit pathway. This does some funny things to the configurations GeForce GTX 1080 Ti supports, and as a result, the card includes 11GB of memory. Despite the narrower memory path, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti actually offers more theoretical bandwidth than Titan X due to the introduction of 11 Gb/s GDDR5X memory (it moves up to 484 GB/s to the $1200 card’s 480 GB/s).

In introducing GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, Nvidia made a point of discussing the challenges tied to pushing memory to 11 Gb/s. By overcoming them, together with Micron, it created opportunities to offer other SKUs with higher-performance memory. Thus, Nvidia said it plans to sell GP104 GPUs to board partners for GTX 1080 cards with 11 Gb/s GDDR5X and GP106 GPUs for GTX 1060s with 9 Gb/s GDDR5.

Cutting one controller naturally takes out a corresponding ROP cluster, leaving 88 ROPs. It trims a 256KB slice of L2 cache, too. What remains is 2,816KB, down from Titan X’s 3MB.

GPU	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	Titan X (GP102)	GeForce GTX 1080 (GP104)	Titan X (GM100)
SMs	28	28	20	24
CUDA Cores	3584	3584	2560	3072
Base Clock	?	1,417MHz	1,607MHz	1,000MHz
GPU Boost Clock	1600 MHz	1,531MHz	1,733MHz	1,075MHz
GFLOPs (Base Clock)	?	10,157	8,228	6,144
Texture Units	224	224	160	192
Texel Fill Rate	358.4 GT/s	342.9 GT/s	277.3 GT/s	192 GT/s
Memory Data Rate	11 Gb/s	10 Gb/s	10 Gb/s	7 Gb/s
Memory Bandwidth	484 GB/s	480 GB/s	320 GB/s	336.5 GB/s
ROPs	88 ROPs	96	64	96
L2 Cache	2816 KB	3MB	2MB	3MB
TDP	250W	250W	180W	250W
Transistors	12 billion	12 billion	7.2 billion	8 billion
Die Size	471 mm²	471 mm²	314 mm²	601 mm²
Process Node	16nm	16nm	16nm	28nm

Although we typically praise Nvidia’s cooling solutions for exhausting waste heat rather than recirculating it in your case, our thermal testing typically shows these designs underperforming the axial fan-based coolers from board partners, which often facilitate lower temperatures and generate less noise.

Nvidia used this feedback to improve the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti’s power supply, making it more efficient, thereby dissipating less heat. What results is a lower operating temperature at a given fan speed, or similar temperatures at lower fan speeds. The benefit comes from doubling up on the GeForce GTX 1080’s dualFET configuration for each of the card’s seven power phases.

Company representatives also say the 1080 Ti’s cooler is better than previous versions. First, the output panel sheds its DVI port, leaving the card with three full-sized DisplayPort connectors and one HDMI interface. For folks who still require DVI connectivity, a dongle will come bundled with the card. The expansion bracket is reportedly redesigned as well, allowing significantly more airflow.

Of course, it remains to be seen how the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti fares in our performance, thermal, acoustic, and power testing. Cards should be arriving soon, so you can count on our usual thorough evaluation in the days to come.

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Intel B250 Motherboard Price List

Hands-on Preview: Lenovo Miix 320 is all things for you

Can’t decide between a laptop and a tablet? Alas, the first world has many such problems.

Thankfully, devices such as the 2-in-1 hybrid are here to eliminate the need for that choice, delivering the convenience of a tablet with the utility of a keyboard in one handy, transforming package.

Usually, though, they’re priced to match. Not this Lenovo one: at US$199 it sits squarely in Chromebook territory – despite running Windows 10.

Is it any good, though? And can it compete with powerful tablet offerings at similar price points – like the strong, similar Microsoft Surface 3? We gave the Miix 320 a good poke at MWC 2017 in Barcelona to find out.

LENOVO MIIX 320: BUILT ON A BUDGET

Scoop up the Miix 320 and there’s no escaping that this is a budget machine: the shell is largely plastic and, pulling the screen from the keyboard base, there’s a bit of flex in the whole unit that sets it below the metal-bodied convertibles of Dell and HP.

Still, it’s a relatively slim machine – with a depth of 17.5mm – that feels like it’s built to travel. While it might lack finesse (the bezel around the screen, for example, is huge), the Miix 320 feels like a machine you’d happily stick in your rucksack and not worry about.

Tug the tablet from the keyboard base and you’ll get a 9mm-slim 10.1-inch screen. With a resolution of 1920 by 1200 it’s good enough for everyday use, though it seemed to lack the pop and brightness of more expensive siblings and devices such as the iPad Pro, while the coating was both prone to smears and oddly resistive to finger movements. This was all under display conditions, though, so we’ll need to test it in a real-world setting for a full impression.

As a combined device, the unit weighs in at a little more than 1KG which, while lighter than a Dell XPS 13, is significantly heavier than a 9.7-inch iPad Pro (which weighs in at just 444g), despite that plastic build.

All the same, at at US$199 is tough to complain too much about a bit of chunk on an otherwise durable-feeling – if uninspiring – machine that offers both physical keys and a touchscreen experience.

LENOVO MIIX 320: POWER TO PLAY WITH

Get the Miix 320 running and you’ll find mid-spec hardware that’ll happily handle most everyday tasks.

An Intel Cherry Trail Atom chip – like the one found in the Surface 3 – takes charge behind the scenes and, paired with options of up to 4GB RAM things run relatively speedily.

Switching between apps rapidly can institute a little judder in the Windows 10 interface and things generally don’t feel quite so fluid as with a more expensive machine but, for everyday browsing and media handling, early impressions suggest the Miix 320 will be more than capable.

With 128GB of eMMC storage, the 320 is unlikely to replace your laptop – but that’s plenty of space for music, movies and a host of documents, if you’re into that sort of thing. Admittedly, a little more storage would be welcome – particularly given 128GB capacities can now be found on the likes of the OnePlus 3T – but it’s probably a case of keeping costs down.

As for battery performance, this isn’t something we were able to test in the environment of the MWC convention centre because the Miix 320 was constantly connected to power; on-paper you’ll get 10 hours of life out of a full charge – but only a full review will reveal the truth.

LENOVO MIIX 320: ALWAYS CONNECTED

One of Lenovo’s big sells for the Miix 320 is its ability to offer uninterrupted connectivity.

While that’s unlikely to translate into a genuine, seamless connection, the presence of both Wi-Fi and LTE (as an option) on the 320 should make it attractive to those who need to be online all the time, such as business folk and the Netflix-addicted.

Of course, 4G will need a data plan which will likely hike the cost of the up-front U$199 slate to quite a lot more. That said, with such a low price, there’s every chance we’ll see the Miix 320 offered on data-only contracts.

We weren’t able to test the reception and reliability of the Lenovo 2-in-1’s 4G connection, but that plastic shell bodes well for a decent signal strength.

LENOVO MIIX 320: WINDOWS ON THE GO

As for the OS, the Lenovo Miix 320 carries Windows 10 as standard. It’s an operating system that works well on the 2-in-1, with the combination of keyboard controls and touchscreen inputs delivering a thoroughly usable interface for on-the-go computing. 

Yes, there are jitters, with a little start menu lag, for example, when running several programs and downloading at the same time, but for the kind of basic activities you’re likely to run on the 320, Windows 10 makes a lot of sense. 

Admittedly, things can look a little cluttered on the 10.1-inch screen of the Miix 320, especially in tablet mode. While Windows 10 feels like it should be a more powerful, versatile system offering than the likes of iOS on an iPad Pro, at times we craved the simplicity of poking app icons, versus delving through the start menu. 

Still, propped up with a keyboard the Miix 320 feels much closer to a mini-laptop than many of its budget tablet rivals – and a lot of that is thanks to Windows 10.

LENOVO MIIX 320 INITIAL VERDICT

We didn’t get too long to play with the Miix 320 and we’ll need to spend a good week or so with the hybrid laptop to get a full impression of its capabilities and how it handles in day-to-day situations.

That said, it’s clear even from a few hours spent poking it that the 320 is a machine built for those on a budget – and still able to deliver decent power.

Battery will be key to the success or failure of the 320. With relatively speedy specs, an uninspiring but usable screen and a plastic build that ought to be durable enough to survive most satchels, the big question has to be the daily longevity of its cell. Launching in March, that’s something we’ll only be able to test in a full review.

Still, with that US$199 price tag, the Miix 320 already feels like it could be a solid second-laptop choice.

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AMD To Add Support For Valve’s Asynchronous Reprojection

During the Capsaicin and Cream event at GDC in San Francisco, AMD revealed that the next Radeon driver release will enable Valve’s Asynchronous Reprojection on AMD graphics cards.

Graphics performance is of utmost importance for virtual reality games and experiences. In VR, if the framerate drops below 90 FPS, you’re probably not going to enjoy the experience. Valve and Oculus have continued to develop technology that helps developers maintain smooth performance across a wide range of VR-ready hardware, but it’s up to hardware manufacturers as well as software creators to adopt those methods.

Oculus employs Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW) to give the illusion of a smooth frame rate, even when the performance dips below the desired 90 FPS. ATW examines the positional data of your headset from the current frame and re-draws the previous frame with the new positional data.

Valve initially used a different approach to solve the same problem. Interleaved Reprojection automatically cut the frame rate in half whenever it dropped below 90 FPS, and then reprojected the previous frame.

Asynchronous Timewarp and Interleaved Reprojection work well for an experience that doesn’t include tracked hands and a lot of moving objects, but they don’t solve the full problem. In November, Oculus revealed Asynchronous Spacewarp, which calculates the position of your tracked hands (or controller), character movement, and camera movement, not just the headset orientation, before drawing a new frame.

Valve’s Asynchronous Reprojection, released to the beta track of Steam VR in October, and rolled out to all SteamVR clients on November 15, is akin to ATW, offering more fine-grained control over context switching (between reprojection and normal frame rendering).

When Valve launched Asynchronous Reprojection, it supported Nvidia graphics cards with GeForce driver 372.54, but AMD graphics cards weren’t supported (normal interleaved reprojection was, however). It took AMD more than five months to build support for Asynchronous Reprojection into its graphics driver, but the wait is almost over. The next iteration of Radeon Software Crimson ReLive, which is expected in March, enables the helpful performance feature on AMD GPUs.

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Government sets out post-Brexit digital strategy

Tagged animals at risk from hunters and nature-lovers

Nintendo Turns To Indies With 'Nindies Showcase'

Nintendo published an 18-minute-long Nindies Showcase to highlight some of the indie games heading to the upcoming Switch console.

Switch will debut on March 3 with just a few physical releases: 1-2 Switch, Super Bomberman R, Just Dance 2017, and the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. That isn’t bad for a launch day lineup–remember when the Nintendo 64 was released with just Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64?–but it does put the Switch well behind established rivals like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Nintendo seems to hope that indie titles will help fill in the blanks.

It might just be right. Switch offers many features that its rivals don’t. Besides the obvious ability to be used as a home console or handheld device, Switch also supports motion controls; allows for easy multiplayer thanks to the detachable controllers; features precise haptic feedback Nintendo decided to curse with the HD Rumble moniker; and boasts a 6.2″ touchscreen in addition to the physical controllers on either side of the display.

Nintendo Switch Nindies Showcase

Many of the indie games Nintendo highlighted focus on that HD Rumble. This could be a small thing–better vibrations aren’t all that important to many titles–but it could also enable more physically stimulating experiences on the Switch. Overcooked: Special Edition, for example, promises to let players “feel every chop through a tomato and the slosh of soup in a pot,” but the main draw is that a well-regarded multiplayer game is now more portable.

The same could be said for the news that the Switch will be the first console with support for popular farming sim Stardew Valley‘s upcoming multiplayer gameplay. If the multiplayer is possible through just one Joy-Con Controller per player, this could take Stardew Valley from lonely masterpiece to communal pass-time. No other console makes playing a game with friends as easy (especially on-the-go) as the Switch and its Joy-Con Controllers will.

But those are just bonuses. Nintendo called out the main benefit of wooing indies when it said in a press release that this will “deliver a steady flow of unique and original experiences to Nintendo eShop.” Switch’s debut is bound to be rocky: it won’t even have the Virtual Console at launch, for example, and so far the most anticipated releases are either sequels to Wii U games (Splatoon 2) or re-releases (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe) or kinda weird (Arms). Even Breath of the Wild, the most hyped launch title, isn’t exclusive to the Switch. It will also be released on the Wii U on March 3.

Switch owners will also have to wait a while for Nintendo’s flagship franchises. Super Mario Odyssey isn’t set to be released until the holiday season, and new entries to popular series like Super Smash Bros. haven’t even been announced, to say nothing of the noticeable lack of a new Metroid title. Third-party devs will have to help make those waits seem a little shorter. Support for and from Unreal Engine will help on the AAA side of things; videos like this Nindies Showcase and Nintendo’s willingness to work more with small developers is likely to help bring more indie titles to the console, too.

Switch will debut on March 3 and retailers like GameStop and Best Buy have said they have limited quantities to sell to people who couldn’t pre-order the console.

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Raspberry Pi squeezes wireless onto tiny Zero

The Raspberry Pi lot now has built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth 4.1 and Bluetooth Low Energy. As well as all of its original spec: 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, microSD card slot for the operating system and a mini HDMI port for 1080p video out.

This frees up the USB port for doing something else other than being jammed up with a clunky wireless adaptor. Which can break the kind of tight-space projects that Zeros tend to get used for. And/or, the budget. The original Pi Zero was only £4, but a wireless adaptor or USB hub could cost several times that. Still comparatively small change, but if you’re project involves ten or ten thousand Zeros running in a system, it all mounts up. The new Pi Zero W is $US10, bare bones.

Raspberry Pi, which is also celebrating its fifth birthday, has also released an official custom case for the Zero W, complete with different lids to work with the camera module or some kind of widget attached to the GPIO pins. 

But, as ever, the company’s many retail partners and enthusiastic community will be offering custom parts, accessories and bundle packs. Get started at Raspberrypi.org. We’ve got a Pi Zero W here and are embarking on some interesting stuff with it – watch this space.

This article originally appeared at Stuff.tv

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Hands-on Preview: Lenovo Yoga 720 – the 4K, GTX-powered 2-in-1 laptop

Lenovo’s Yoga lineup has always been about versatility. These 2-in-1 laptop/tablet hybrids are seriously portable, but they’ve typically been a little underperforming compared to their clamshell counterparts. This year’s Yoga 720 defies those ingrained preconceptions, packing Kaby Lake i7s, 4K displays and dedicated graphics.

Designed as a premium Windows 10 laptop, 2017’s Yoga 720 comes in two distinct flavours. The 13in model is markedly cheaper – with prices starting at $US860 – but you’ll have to fork out at least $US1,100 for its 15in counterpart. Obviously, there’s that screen-size difference, but what else differentiates the two? And are they decent enough to make a dent in the already-oversaturated hybrid market?

Lenovo Yoga 720 review: Key specifications and release date

Lenovo Yoga 720 (13in)	Lenovo Yoga 720 (15in)
Up to 7th-gen Intel Core i7	Up to 7th-gen Intel Core i7
Up to 16GB RAM	Up to 16GB RAM
Up to 1TB PCIe SSD	Up to 1TB PCIe SSD
Intel HD Graphics 620	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050M
13.3″ 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160) 13.3″ FHD (1,920 x 1,080)	15.6″ 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160) 15.6″ FHD (1,920 x 1,080)
1.3kg	2kg
Starting at $US860	Starting at $US1,100
April 2017	April 2017

Lenovo Yoga 720 review: Design, key features and first impressions

Both Yoga 720s are noticeably more impressive than their hybrid counterparts, at least at face value. With the 13in measuring just 13.9mm and the 15in 19mm, both are slim enough to be slipped into your rucksack and weigh just 1.3kg and 2kg respectively.

They’re gorgeous to look at, too. Considering you’re paying top-tier prices, you should expect lavish build quality, with both Yoga 720s seriously looking the part. That all-metal chassis is a welcome change of pace and isn’t too heavy either.

Take a look on the right side and you’ll spot a solitary USB 3.1 port, while the left houses both regular USB 3s and a USB Type-C port for charging. Both models ship with a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello login, too.

The biggest difference between the two lies in the graphics card options. While you’re stuck with the bog-standard integrated Intel HD Graphics 620 chip for the 13 (perfect for Minecraft but not much else), there’s the option to upgrade to a proper Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050. Should you go down this route, expect a big hit to both your battery life and your wallet. Pair that with the Kaby Lake processor and 16GB of RAM, though, and you’ll be all set for on-the-go gaming.

Let’s talk 4K. Both Yoga 720s come with 4K resolution options (Full HD is on the cards should you want to save your pennies), something first seen in 2016’s disappointing Dell XPS 12 hybrid. Hopefully, the screen doesn’t hog battery life as much here, but expect to run out of juice far quicker than its Full HD counterparts.

Lenovo Yoga 720 review: Early verdict

Let’s get down to pricing. Both Yoga 720s ship with a hefty premium, with Lenovo remaining tight-lipped about higher configurations’ prices, but expect to see the 15in model with all the bells and whistles to retail for nearly two grand. That’s not cheap, but remember, no other hybrid offers this choice when choosing specs. Yet.

Stay tuned for my full Lenovo Yoga 720 review in the not-so-distant future.

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Survios Announces ‘Sprint Vector,’ Introduces New VR Locomotion Technique

Raw Datacreator Survios revealed its next title, Sprint Vector, during the AMD Capsaicin and Cream event at GDC.

Sprint Vector is a first-person VR head-to-head race on “interdimensional courses” (whatever that means) that are meant to “challenge you both mentally and physically.” You’ll scale “skyscraper-height” walls and dive off of giant towers while approaching 300mph. That sounds like a recipe for a motion sickness-induced disaster, but Survios said that its Fluid Locomotion system makes it all possible.

Locomotion in VR is a big problem that many developers are trying to solve. If implemented poorly, movement systems in virtual reality games can induce nausea and dizziness, commonly referred to as VR sickness or motion sickness.

The standard thumbstick movement that we’ve enjoyed on consoles for more than a decade doesn’t translate well to most VR games because acceleration can trigger vestibular disconnect. There are a handful of cases where thumbstick locomotion works well (Onward, Arizona Sunshine, and Resident Evil VII come to mind) but you usually move slowly in those games. Moving fast in VR is a different ball game.

VR developers often use teleportation methods to navigate virtual spaces quickly, but some people find that teleporting breaks the immersion for them. Most other VR locomotion techniques, of which there are many, fall short of solving the problem. Survios thinks it might have cracked the nut, though.

Sprint Vector is a multiplayer parkour-like race first person foot-race in first-person VR that Survios calls an “adrenaline platformer.” For the game to go from idea to reality, Survios needed to find a locomotion system that could allow players to travel great distances at breakneck speeds, without spewing all over themselves in the process. (Our apologies for that mental image.) Such a technique didn’t exist before Survios started building Sprint Vector, so the developer created one for its purposes. Survios calls its locomotion system Fluid Locomotion.

“Survios is always creating unique solutions to tackle VR’s biggest challenges,” explained James Iliff, Survios’ Chief Creative Officer, and co-founder. “With Sprint Vector, we’ve taken one of the biggest challenges in VR right now—realistic motion—and created a smooth, intelligent locomotion system that not only feels comfortable but can also read the player’s intentions.”

Survios said that Fluid Locomotion is a natural and intuitive arms-driven movement system that uses natural “intended motion” to drive and steer your avatar. If you pay attention to how your arms move when you walk, you’ll notice that they swing back and forth each time you take a step. Survios used that observation to its advantage and mapped the movement controls to that swinging motion.

Fluid Locomotion resembles ArmSwinger locomotion, and its hard to say what’s different between the two before we get a chance to try it out. Just like with Arm Swinger locomotion, Fluid Locomotion lets you swing your arms to move, and you can reach out to grab onto objects to thrust yourself into the air. We’ve never tried ArmSwinger locomotion to travel at the speeds you’ll reach in Spring Vector, though.

Survios didn’t say when it plans to release Sprint Vector, but the developer is on-site at GDC this week giving demos of the game alongside the latest build of Raw Data.

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AMD Ryzen Motherboards Could Pose Heatsink Pressure Problem

Major new CPU launches rarely go without a hitch. Tom’s Hardware has learned that Ryzen motherboards (Socket AM4) could pose a potential problem with some of the announced CPU cooling solutions. This problem is specifically related to the backplates designed to secure the heatsink on the processors.

We’ve discovered that the backplates provided with some major motherboard brands could come with a screw that is too long. The screws reach their safety stop too soon, leaving the spring with too much headroom, and then the pressure of the sink on the CPU is inadequate.

According to our sources, AMD has provided the location of the fastening screws, but not the height of the screw holders. Sinks that use the backplate supplied with the motherboard could pose problems, especially those that have a compatibility kit.

We found that a few large cooling solutions may be impacted, as well as some popular motherboards.

The sinks (heatsink and waterblock) using their own backplates should not pose a problem, however.

In a statement an AMD representative said: “Our cooler works well and we have shared the platform design guide with NDA partners that includes the clamping force required to correctly mount coolers on the AM4 platform.”

This could also amount to some discrepancies in information between AMD and manufacturers, which might be clarified and addressed quickly. If we receive any further information or updates we’ll post updates here. Meanwhile, just in case, you’d be wise to make sure that your cooling solution comes with its own backplate.

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Bethesda pledges to optimize its PC games for AMD Vega and Ryzen

AMD just wrapped up its Capsaicin & Cream 2017 event today to show developers and fans alike what’s next for the graphics technology firm – as well as its latest partner: Fallout series creator Bethesda Softworks.

Held during this year’s Game Developer Conference, the event teased not just some of the features coming to the AMD Vega GPU architecture – its cards to now be known as Radeon RX Vega. But, perhaps most importantly, AMD also revealed the company’s newly made alliance with Bethesda.

Known for putting out games such as Fallout 4, Doom, and the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda is teaming up with AMD in a long-term strategic partnership in an effort to further its PC gaming technologies.

More important than even a melding of mutual minds in the realm of PC gaming, AMD’s partnership with Bethesda looks to spell better-optimized games for PCs running the publishers games past, present and future.

The new name for AMD’s future graphics cards

GPUpping the ante

Specifically, one aim of the partnership is to “develop and accelerate” the adoption of lower-overhead APIs like Vulkan, (which was first implemented in a AAA-budget game last year with DOOM, according to a press release.)

AMD hopes buddying up with Bethesda will maximize the capabilities and computing power of its GPUs, including its AMD Ryzen and Vega cards, across the game maker’s library of titles. 

“Working independently, game developers and graphics companies will eventually address the challenges of this new era of gaming,” said AMD senior vice president and chief architect Raja Koduri, “but working in close collaboration, the pace of that progress can advance exponentially.” 

This means Bethesda games could potentially receive improved performance on computers running AMD tech, though exact details of how this would be accomplished (and when) were not provided. 

But what about Vega?

While noticeably lacking in any hard details like price or release date for AMD’s Vega technology, the announcement still demonstrated a healthy number of the upcoming GPU’s talents.

Designed with VR and 4K UHD gaming in mind throughout, Vega will feature High Bandwidth Cache Controller (HBCC) features to lower strain on graphically-intensive games and Rapid Packed Math (RPM) capabilities to cram exponentially more details into a frame, like individual strands of hair.

Vega will also be part of another AMD partnership, this time with LiquidSky – a game streaming service that plans to use Vega tech to beam top-tier games to not-so-powerful devices, like low-spec Windows laptops or even Android phones.

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Unity Unveils Version 5.6, Unity 2017 Engines, Adds XR Foundation Toolkit For VR Development

Unity revealed at GDC 2017 a new version of its namesake game engine. With Unity 5.6 developers will have access to a new API as well as additional VR platforms for their mobile games. A new market will also be available, and those working on VR titles will get a head-start with a new toolkit.

More API, More VR

Vulkan is still a fairly new API, but it can be a great option for developers as it reduces the overall overhead in the development stages while also increasing performance in the final version of the game. Now, mobile game developers can use the API to get better performance from their games. One slideshow during the presentation showed two versions of the same game with one Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone utilizing OpenGL ES and another S7 phone with Vulkan running. According to Unity, the phone using Vulkan showed a 10-15% reduction in battery usage, which can make it an appealing choice not just for developers, but for players who fear running out of battery life while playing a game on the go.

Unity 5.6 also comes with support for Google Daydream and Cardboard. Along with high-end VR platforms such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, there is a rise in content for mobile VR. The addition to Unity means that more developers can use the engine to create even more mobile VR content.

The engine’s EditorVR package also received an update. Since the package’s alpha release in December, it was downloaded over 6,000 times in order to help developers create their VR games within the virtual world. With the release of 5.6, it will receive the XR Foundation Toolkit, which provides developers with the basic tools to create VR experiences so that they don’t have to build it from scratch. According to Clive Downie, Unity’s chief marketing officer, the toolkit contains content not just from the company, but from fellow developers as well. Additional content in the form of tools and plugins will continue to be added after the toolkit is launched. An open source beta is planned for the near future, as is a public roadmap.

The Next Unity Engine

Version 5.6 marks the end of the company’s two-year stint with the current version of the engine. In April, the company will begin a beta version of the next version of its engine, called Unity 2017. Aside from more improvements for programmers, the new version will also have some focus towards designers and artists as well.

One such example was the new Timeline feature, which lets developers control cinematics and scripted events. Within the program, designers can control the camera angle in a specific scene. Afterwards, the camera zooms back to its original position for gameplay. The transition is seamless, but the attractive part of the entire program is that there isn’t any programming script required to manipulate the camera or any of the cutscenes. In a way, it’s almost akin to the UI of Adobe Premiere Pro, and developers can drop in assets as needed to improve or add content. One sub-feature that Downie singled out on Timeline was its ability to extract and list all of the developer’s available animations. From there, a single person can add specific camera angles to an animation in an instant. In the past, a developer had to not only set the camera in the scene, but also create or implement a script that would allow for specific camera movements when the character hit a specific trigger in the area. With Timeline, the need for programming script is gone, and you can easily add any camera movement or angle you want by simply dropping it in the scene.

Two Engine Versions In 2017

The beta for Unity 5.6 is available today and is set to officially release on March 31. The beta for Unity 2017 will begin one month later. One might think that Unity is spreading itself thin with two versions of its engine this year. However, Downie believes that those using version 5.6 will eventually move on to Unity 2017 at some point.

“It’s a question of when, not if,” he said. “That’s how we also think about support as well. If you think about [version] 5.6, we already committed that 5.6 will release patches…for 12 months. Customers on 5.6 are going to benefit from critical patches for 12 months…but Unity 2017 will be available from beta anyway in April, and there will be a launch cycle after that. The two [versions] will run concurrently to make sure we service the maximum needs from developers, be they first-time developers just starting production, mid-production, or live. At some point, you are going to want [Unity 2017] because it will undeniably allow you to create better products.”

Unity will undoubtedly release more information on both version 5.6 and Unity 2017 in the coming weeks, but developers can now get a taste of 5.6 through the beta program. If you want to see this morning’s keynote in full, you can watch it on Unity’s website.

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CloudPets Teddy Bears Leaked Private Data, Voice Recordings

“Have I Been Pwned?” operator Troy Hunt revealed that internet-connected teddy bears dubbed CloudPets leaked personal information. This put voice recordings, email addresses, and other sensitive data pertaining to children and their parents at risk of compromise by who-knows-how-many people.

CloudPets are billed as “a message you can hug.” They read stories, play lullabies, feature interactive games, and let parents record messages for their children. The problem: The devices stored user data in an easily accessed database without any form of password protection. Hunt said in a blog post that the CloudPets database was indexed by Shodan, a search engine for Internet of Things (IoT) products, and has been accessed by “many people.”

Hunt said information from roughly 821,000 people was compromised in this way. Within the databases, he said, “are references to almost 2.2 million voice recordings of parents and their children exposed by databases that should never have contained production data.” That would be enough of a problem on its own, but upon further examination of the CloudPets mobile app, Hunt discovered still more easily exploited security problems.

CloudPets apparently stored user information in an Amazon S3 bucket that also doesn’t require any form of authentication to access. The only thing needed to view someone’s profile picture, the name of a child, and the name of the relatives with whom they can communicate via their futuristic teddy bears is the proper file path. Voice recordings from children and their family members can be found in the same way. Somehow it gets even worse.

Hunt discovered that CloudPets has no strength requirements for user passwords. Someone could just type “L” as their password–and CloudPets explicitly advises parents to use “qwe” as a password in a “getting started” YouTube video. Neither option is secure in any way, and Hunt explained that even though CloudPets stored passwords as a bcrypt hash, cracking those simple passwords would be trivial for any hacker worthy of the moniker.

But that’s not all! Hunt also discovered that the products’ creators were warned about these issues at least four times. The company never responded to any of those emails. Just to recap: a bunch of internet-connected teddy bears stored information in public-facing databases without password protection, served data via Amazon S3 buckets without other safeguards, actively encouraged people to use weak passwords, and ignored several warnings.

That’s all bad news. It gets worse still, though, because apparently this tale was destined to become a great epic like the Iliad. (With significantly more references to stuffed animals, databases, and security issues.) Eventually the databases were erased and held for ransom by unknown attackers…several times. Eventually the databases disappeared from Shodan and it seemed that CloudPets had responded to the problem.

Whew! Finally, it’s all done. Except, well, of course it wasn’t. Hunt wrote:

It’s impossible to believe that CloudPets (or mReady) did not know that firstly, the databases had been left publicly exposed and secondly, that malicious parties had accessed them. Obviously, they’ve changed the security profile of the system and you simply could not have overlooked the fact that a ransom had been left. So both the exposed database and intrusion by those demanding the ransom must have been identified yet this story never made the headlines.

So it seems the company knew about the issue but didn’t inform its customers of the problem. That violates California laws that require companies to disclose any data breaches. At every juncture, from setting up the databases to designing the mobile app to warning users that their and their children’s personal information was probably accessed by someone else, CloudPets did the worst possible thing it could do in regards to user privacy and security.

CloudPets aren’t the only internet-connected toys with privacy issues. EPIC, a digital privacy rights group, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in December 2016 alleging that Genesis Toys and Nuance recorded children’s voices without parental consent. Problems have also been found in Mattel’s “Hello Barbie” doll and other IoT playthings. Right now the message is clear: Don’t buy internet-connected toys for your kids.

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Boston Dynamics takes big jump with two-legged Handle robot

Robotics company Boston Dynamics has built a two-legged, wheeled robot that can roll down a flight of stairs and jump on and off a table, all while maintaining its balance and speed.

Handle, a 6-foot, 5-inch tall robot, can travel at 9 mph and jump four feet, according to Boston Dynamics, a Alphabet-owned company, which posted a video of the robot on YouTube.

With 10 actuated joints, the robot has a range of 15 miles on one battery charge.

What has attracted attention to the Handle video, which was posted on Monday and had more than 1.5 million views by Tuesday afternoon, is the robot’s ability to balance itself while moving, jumping and even having one leg roll up a ramp while the other leg rolls across the floor beside it.

“Handle uses many of the same dynamics, balance and mobile manipulation principles found in the quadruped and biped robots we build, but with only about 10 actuated joints, it is significantly less complex,” Boston Dynamics said in the video. “Wheels are efficient on flat surfaces while legs can go almost anywhere.”

Boston Dynamics did not respond to a request for comment.

A few years ago, the company’s two-legged Atlas humanoid robots were used by several robotics teams to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

While some robots were able to open and walk through doors, climb stairs and walk over rubble, the ones that succeeded were often shaky and struggled to balance.

Programming the ability to balance into a two-legged robot is a challenging task, and Boston Dynamics has taken a huge step in overcoming this obstacle, said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. “First, it’s on two limbs, which is harder than four. Wheels aren’t necessarily easier than walking, and I’m impressed by the speed and nimble movement even when going down the stairs or across uneven or even slippery terrain.”

The headless robot has two arms that are connected to the machine’s hip area. The arms extend in back and are able to pick up and carry as much as 100 pounds.

With that ability, the robot could be used to deliver packages to customer’s homes or within an enterprise, Moorhead said.

“I could see enterprises using this to deliver mail or even packages in an office environment and even moving parts around in a space-constrained environment like a factory,” he added.

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Graphics Rendering Technology Comes Full Circle: AMD Introduces Forward Rendering Path For Unreal

During the AMD Capsaicin and Cream event, AMD announced that it is bringing back a graphics technology relic from days gone by, and for a rather ironic reason—the benefit of the virtual reality industry. AMD created a forward rendering path for Unreal Engine 4.15, which is intended to improve rendering performance and help developers achieve the constant 90fps performance benchmark they seek for VR games.

Forward rendering isn’t a new technique. It was used in the early days of GPU rendering, but several years ago, the technique was supplanted by deferred rendering because it saves work by splitting the geometry and lighting work into to separate passes instead of rendering everything at once.

The deferred rendering technique is helpful to improve lighting in a scene, but it is incompatible with post-processing anti-aliasing techniques. It also comes at a per-frame performance cost and high memory usage. Thus the advanced lighting features, such as screen-space reflections, that deferred rendering brings to the table are untenable for VR applications.

Forward rendering doesn’t offer as many fancy bells and whistles as deferred rendering, but it delivers where it counts. Forward rendering is a simpler and lighter weight process that the GPU can handle faster than deferred rendering, and therefore offers higher rendering performance (AMD claimed it offers a 30% improvement). Forward rendering is also compatible with multi-sample anti-aliasing technology, which is of great benefit to VR experiences, because smoothness is of great importance hen you’re up close and personal with a screen.

AMD is already working with a handful of developers to explore the benefits of its forward rendering path for Unreal Engine. Epic Games is exploring those benefits with Robo Recall; First Contact Entertainment is implementing forward rendering into its upcoming expansion for ROM: Extraction, called Overrun; Limitless Studios is putting forward rendering to use in a new title it’s building, called Reaping Rewards; and Survios (creator of Raw Data) announced a new game called Sprint Vector that leverages AMD’s new old technology.

“AMD has been on a continuous mission to make VR accessible to as many people as possible, and the forward rendering path in Unreal Engine 4 is a big step in that journey,” said Raja Koduri, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD. “Anyone who has experienced Epic’s Robo Recall will immediately attest to the benefit of forward rendering in VR. We are working with VR developers to explore the benefits of forward rendering, which can result in beautiful, high-performing games on Radeon graphics.”

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HP's Pavilion x360 with a Kaby Lake processor has dropped to $479

LiquidSky Desktop Hosting Service Adopting AMD’s Upcoming Vega Architecture

AMD announced that LiquidSky, a cloud-based gaming desktop service, committed to adopting its upcoming Vega GPU architecture to power the machines in its 13 global data centers.

LiquidSky is a cloud-hosted service that provides gaming class desktop performance for people who don’t have a gaming PC. LiquidSky’s service is accessible through almost any internet-connected device, such as a low-end Windows PC, a system with Linux installed, or a Mac. LiquidSky even offers an Android app to let people play their PC games on the go.

The service already boasts 1.5 million subscribers across 13 data centers, and it’s still in beta. That’s a lot of GPUs to house in data center servers. And when the LiquidSky service officially launches, the company hopes to increase its subscriber base, so the company is preparing to bring even more systems online soon.

LiquidSky turned to AMD’s Vega architecture to help stifle its staggering cost of growth. Dedicating one GPU per client is simply not a sustainable business model–the company needed a solution that could share the resources of one GPU with multiple virtual machines without introducing latency constraints.

AMD’s Vega GPUs offer exactly the feature that LiquidSky was looking for. AMD said that in a virtualization situation, you could split Vega into as many as 16 VMs per GPU. AMD uses a hard split method to segment the GPU and memory buffer together, which is to say the allocation per VM isn’t dynamic. In most cases, a pool of virtual machines will divvy the available compute resources on the fly, so if 16 VMs are online, each VM will get one 1/16 of the performance. But if four VMs are offline, the rest of the compute power gets shared between the remaining VMs.

That sort of performance variation is fine for virtual machines in an office setting, but LiquidSky demanded guaranteed performance for its clients. The Vega architecture allows LiquidSky to lock a predetermined section of the GPU for each VM. Each client gets no more and no less than they sign up for.

“LiquidSky’s game streaming service delivers the very best visuals, detail, and pure performance, regardless of the device you’re using,” said Ian McLoughlin, LiquidSky’s co-founder, and CEO. “AMD’s Vega-based GPUs will have the perfect blend of bleeding-edge hardware virtualization features and tremendous rendering horsepower. This means consistent framerates and quality of service that’s simply not possible with existing technologies.”

AMD’s Vega GPUs are capable of powering 16 simultaneous virtual machines, but LiquidSky leaves you with more than 1/16 of the GPU resources. The desktop hosting service gives one-quarter of each GPU, which includes 4GB of memory, to each subscriber.

AMD didn’t say when LiquidSky would receive its first shipment of Vega-based graphics cards, but it said that Vega-based GPU products would ship in the first half of 2017 and LiquidSky will have Vega cards on day one.

LiquidSky offers a range of subscription prices, including an ad-supported plan, which gives you access to a high-end gaming PC free of charge.

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Microsoft Announces Xbox Game Pass, The Latest 'Netflix For Games'

Microsoft announced Xbox Game Pass, a new service that will offer access to “more than 100 games” for $10 per month, when it debuts this Spring.

Xbox Game Pass is the latest effort to create a “Netflix for games.” It might be able to succeed where other attempts have failed, however, because Microsoft won’t limit the service to streaming games from central servers to someone’s Xbox One. Instead, subscribers will be able to download games  to their consoles. This should prove more convenient for games were streaming-induced lag can be a problem or for people with spotty internet access.

Microsoft also said Xbox Game Pass subscribers will receive an exclusive discount on titles included in the service. This will give people a chance to experience a game with little upfront cost–$10 for more than 100 games is a much better deal than $60 for a single game–while also receiving a nice little price reduction if they do buy something. (The discount offers 20% off base games and 10% off add-ons for anything in the service’s catalog.)

Other details about the program are sparse. Microsoft didn’t provide a full list of titles available at launch, probably because it’s still negotiating with other companies to bring their games to the service, and instead listed a few publishers and specific games that will support Xbox Game Pass at launch:

With great games from top industry publishers such as 2K, 505 Games, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, Capcom, Codemasters, Deep Silver, Focus Home Interactive, SEGA, SNK CORPORATION, THQ Nordic GmbH, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Microsoft Studios, there’s something for everyone to enjoy and you will always find something exciting to play across a variety of genres. Some of the fan-favorite titles coming to Xbox Game Pass when it launches to the broader Xbox community later this spring include Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16 and SoulCalibur II.

We do know that Xbox Game Pass will include both Xbox One titles and “backwards compatible” Xbox 360 games. That’s a better offer than Sony’s PlayStation Now service, which costs more but only streams PlayStation 3 games to a shrinking number of devices, and combined with the ability to download titles it could make Xbox Game Pass the more appealing solution even if someone owns both an Xbox One and a PlayStation 4 or PS4 Pro.

Microsoft said it’s already testing Xbox Game Pass with “select members of the Xbox Insider Program in the Alpha Preview ring” and “a very limited number of titles.” Xbox Live Gold members will also get early access to the service. The company said it will reveal more information closer to launch.

One potential morsel of information that could be revealed as Xbox Game Pass approaches its debut is whether or not the service will be available on PC. Several eagle-eyed Redditors noticed that a previous version of the service’s FAQ said that “Xbox Game Pass will only be available on Xbox One and Windows 10 devices.” That line has been amended in the current version of the FAQ to say that Xbox Game Pass is restricted to Xbox One consoles.

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Rebellion Announces 'Rogue Trooper: Redux' For PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PC

Rogue Trooper is getting another shot at life. Rebellion announced that the third-person action game originally released in 2006 will be remastered as Rogue Trooper: Redux by TickTock Games this year for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC.

Rogue Trooper is based on the 2000 AD comic series of the same name. It features a blue-skinned Genetic Infantryman named Rogue who uses his fallen comrades as biochips to become “a one-unit squad of death and destruction” on “the chem-blasted battlefields of Nu Earth.” It debuted on PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC in April 2006; a Wii version titled Rogue Trooper: The Quartz Zone Massacre was released in February 2009.

Rogue Trooper Redux – Teaser Trailer | Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC

Rebellion said in a press release that the original Rogue Trooper was “widely acclaimed for bringing the cult sci-fi strip to life in an authentic, tactical, cover-based third-person shooter that debuted before the genre became the gaming staple it is today.” MetaCritic disagreed–the PS2 version of the game has a Metascore of 71 and a user rating of 8.2–but it seems the title was popular enough to warrant a remaster on several current-gen consoles.

It will be interesting to see what the Nintendo Switch version of the game is like. Switch is best known for bridging the gap between handheld devices and home consoles, but the Joy-Con controllers on its sides also support motion controls, which could allow for a different gameplay experience from the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions of the title. TickTock Games could, however, merely downgrade the game to accommodate the Switch’s lower power.

Rebellion didn’t say when Rogue Trooper: Redux is expected to debut. The company did note however that the remaster is the first 2000 AD-related title developed outside the company. That’s because Rebellion owns 2000 AD and, until recently, didn’t allow other developers to make games with its IPs.

Title	Rogue Trooper: Redux
Type	Action, Adventure
Publisher	Rebellion
Developer	TickTock Games
Platforms	PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC
Release Date	TBD

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