NVIDIA reserved some prime middle of the night time to officially announce
the rumored GTX 1000 series of GPUs based on their new Pascal architecture,
saying GTX 1080 graphics cards are launching this month and 1070 cards will come next
month. A
post on the
GeForce website has
a
trailer and all the details on the 1080, calling it "the world's fastest and
most advanced graphics card, as they say it will outperform a Titan X or two GTX
980s in SLI. They also tout new technology to make VR processing more efficient
and to create more realistic perspectives in multi-monitor configurations, and
this video "shows what
Pascal can do for VR." They also invoke Ansel Adams in unveiling NVIDIA Ansel, a
new approach to screenshots that they liken to "game photography." Here's word:
The GeForce GTX 1080 is a quantum leap in performance. Faster than both
the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and GeForce GTX TITAN X, the GeForce GTX 1080 is built
with the very latest technology to deliver unprecedented performance and
efficiency, giving gamers the horsepower to play the newest games with settings
maxed out. Whether they’re on your monitor or in Virtual Reality.
These gains in performance and power efficiency are enabled by the marvels of
the Pascal architecture. The first of these marvels is the introduction of
cutting-edge 16nm FinFET chip construction. This new, smaller chip design uses
fewer Watts of power and emits less heat, enabling us to crank up the core clock
speed of the GPU, which is key for increasing a graphics card's performance.
Alongside the GeForce GTX 1080’s powerful 16nm FinFET chip is 8GB of GDDR5X
memory, a new, faster type of video card memory. This cutting-edge and blazing
fast, High Bandwidth memory ensures performance won’t be bottlenecked by
memory-related operations in the most demanding games.
Surrounding the GeForce GTX 1080's powerful hardware is a redesigned vapor
chamber and fan for cool, quiet operation; a polygonal shroud, and a backplate
for the dissipation of heat from the rear of the graphics card. This premium
design enables excellent overclocking and whisper-quiet operation, a trend we
began with previous-generation NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs.
Continue here to read the full story.
GamesIndustry.biz - Steam's turned toxic, and Valve doesn't care.
"The problem is this; Steam is almost entirely unmoderated, and Valve
makes pretty much zero effort to reign in any behaviour on its platform that
isn't outright illegal. As a consequence, it's open season for the worst
behaviours and tactics of the Internet's reactionary malcontents - the
weapon of choice being brigading, whereby huge numbers of users from one of
the Internet's cesspits are sent to downvote, post terrible reviews or
simply fill content pages with bile. Targets are chosen for daring to
include content that doesn't please the reactionary hordes, or for being
made by a developer who once said a vaguely liberal thing on Twitter, or -
of course - for being made by a woman, or for whatever other thing simply
doesn't please the trolls on any given day. The reviews on almost any game
on Steam will often contain some pretty choice language and viewpoints, but
hitting upon a game that's been targeted for brigading is like running
headlong into a wall of pure, frothing hatred."
Got some true excitement today, a driver safety class. This earns a break on
auto insurance, but that only lasts three years, so it's that time again. I
actually found the last time useful, as I think it finally cured me of any
remaining impatience-related driving issues, so I don't think there's any hope
for a further transformative effect, this will just be boredom. You may be able
to save 15% off your car insurance in 15 minutes by switching providers, but
after that, the next 10% is going to cost you more like five hours.
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