A groundbreaking hack for Microsoft’s ‘unhackable’ Xbox One was revealed at the recent RE//verse 2026 conference. This console has remained a fortress since its launch in 2013, but now Markus ‘Doom’ Gaasedelen has showcased the ‘Bliss’ double glitch. Just as the Xbox 360 famously fell to the Reset Glitch Hack (RGH), the Xbox One has now fallen to Voltage Glitch Hacking (VGH).

“In 2013 some kind of iron curtain came down on security, of the Xbox ecosystem, and the Xbox One never got hacked,” noted Gaasedelen in his introduction. The same is true of the Xbox One’s successors, and Microsoft was rightly proud. Seven years after its launch, Microsoft engineers would still assert that the Xbox One was “the most secure product Microsoft has ever produced.”

What made the Xbox One so secure, so special? Gaasedelen referenced prior work and presentations to convey this information. I’ve shared a summary slide about this, too, but let’s fast forward to the demo of the new Bliss hack, which takes place from about 46 minutes into the presentation.

Since reset glitching wasn’t possible, Gaasedelen thought some voltage glitching could do the trick. So, instead of tinkering with the system rest pin(s) the hacker targeted the momentary collapse of the CPU voltage rail. This was quite a feat, as Gaasedelen couldn’t ‘see’ into the Xbox One, so had to develop new hardware introspection tools.

Eventually, the Bliss exploit was formulated, where two precise voltage glitches were made to land in succession. One skipped the loop where the ARM Cortex memory protection was setup. Then the Memcpy operation was targeted during the header read, allowing him to jump to the attacker-controlled data.

As a hardware attack against the boot ROM in silicon, Gaasedelen says the attack in unpatchable. Thus it is a complete compromise of the console allowing for loading unsigned code at every level, including the Hypervisor and OS. Moreover, Bliss allows access to the security processor so games, firmware, and so on can be decrypted.

What happens next with this technique remains to be seen. Digital archivists should enjoy new levels of access to Xbox One firmware, OS, games. There could be subsequent emulation breakthroughs thanks to this effort. We also now have a route to making a Bliss-a-like mod chip to automate the precise electrical glitching required.

Whether PC users, our core readership, will be interested in actually emulating Xbox One, looks unlikely. The 2013 system’s game library is largely overlapped in better quality on the PC platform.

Reports from across the Internet, including Reddit and NeoGAF (the earliest we could find was on July 21 and the latter forum), indicate that some launch model Xbox One consoles were effectively soft-bricked from playing games (online or all depending on severity) or even updating the console until Microsoft fixed the issue with backend updates, per a Tweet from Xbox Gaming Devices & Ecosystem VP Jason Ronald.

This issue happened because some of these launch model consoles, including many that found their way onto the secondhand market, hadn't received software updates since November 2018 or earlier. This also applied to original models that had simply been factory reset before reselling, as is good practice. Mind, the original Xbox One launch was back in 2013, and the succeeding Xbox One S refresh launched in 2016, a year before the mid-gen upgrade of the Xbox One X launched in late 2017. So, it's not wholly surprising that some Xbox One consoles went completely untouched in that timespan, though factory resets also trigger the issue and set a much wider umbrella than just the last update time.

Fortunately for these troubled Xbox One console owners, Microsoft addressed the issue pretty much the instant a large platform— Digital Foundry in its DF Direct series— covered it. However, it's unfortunate that something as simple as factory resetting an original Xbox One model could render it unusable once resold for any span of time. It goes to show the inherent downsides of a console market that's veering increasingly towards always-online requirements, as opposed to owning the console simply allowing you to play your games no matter what, as used to be standard.

This specific issue with this specific launch model even recalls the initial Xbox One announcement, where a mandatory always-online model was planned and received massive backlash from fans across the console gaming space until Microsoft backtracked on the decision. Unfortunately, the Xbox One still launched with a mandatory Kinect peripheral, which not many games utilized, and this raised the price by a solid $100 over the competing PlayStation 4— and the rest is history, at least as far as that generation of console gaming goes.

AMD’s Senior Director of Consumer and Gaming Client Business, Renato Fragale, recalls “helping AMD avoid bankruptcy” when he managed the team that developed the PlayStation 4 processor. The PS4 was launched by Sony in early 2013, and the success of the custom ‘Jaguar’ processor behind it (and in Microsoft’s Xbox One) was instrumental to AMD’s survival during a very difficult time for the company.

The headlining news nugget surfaced on social media when another long-standing AMD ‘lifer’ highlighted Fragale’s LinkedIn career experience statement. AMD’s Memory Systems / Interconnect Performance Architect, Phil Park, told his Twitter/X followers that he also remembers living through the difficult times at AMD spanning the late noughties to early 2010s. Both men have spent around 20 years of their careers at AMD.

In his Tweet/X thread, Park illuminates AMD's troubles during this era and discusses how the firm extricated itself from a dangerous financial situation.

After the 2008 financial crisis, AMD was in a difficult position and faced an energized Intel, which had recently come to market with products like Merom, Conroe, Woodcrest, and Nehalem. It takes time to turn around a chip design company like AMD, and the tricky market and strong competition meant that “We sold multiple IPs like Adreno to raise cash,” noted Park. “Most of us took temporary pay cuts.”

As mentioned in the intro, a lifeline for AMD’s finances arrived with the console contracts, which meant it earned cash by supplying the processors behind the PlayStation 4 (and Xbox One). Thanks to the success of this generation of Sony (and Microsoft) consoles, AMD earned an impressive yet steady stream of revenue. If you read AMD's financial news releases in the late 2010s, you will see that the Semi-Custom Business Unit began to deliver a steady financial stream from which AMD could invest in other forward-looking projects — like the development of the Zen CPU architecture that fueled the company's resurgence. AMD’s stock price touched $1.87 just ahead of the PS4 era, at the time of writing it is $163.90 but has been as high as $227.30 in the past year.

Park has some other interesting things to say about AMD recovering from the brink of bankruptcy. Another stroke of luck, the rise of netbooks, meant that AMD’s Bobcat APUs were a surprise hit with consumers, with around 50 million APUs sold. These AMD chips offered a winning mix of one or two CPU cores with integrated Radeon graphics in a low-power envelope (<18W), which was great for ultraportable affordable PCs.

Of course, the PS4 (and Xbox One) console processors, codenamed Jaguar, were built on the foundation that Bobcat provided but steered towards delivering modern gaming in a single APU. Jaguar delivered the advantage of more modern process technology, an octa-core CPU, greater frequencies, improved IPC, broader instruction set support, doubled bandwidth, and more.

PS4 and Xbox One consoles went on sale in 2013 and were phased out in the early 2020s as the next-gen machines started to prevail. The PS4 had an estimated lifetime sales of 117 million, and the Xbox One had around 58 million units, earning a lot for AMD as the processor supplier.

AMD also powers the newest generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles. However, in the interim, AMD recovered strongly from its 2010s doldrums by investing in new architectures like Zen CPUs (from 2017), new Radeon graphics architectures, successive APUs, other technologies, and strategic acquisitions.

I recently had an issue with my trusty Xbox One controller. During my review of the LattePanda Sigma I paired the controller so that I could test its gaming performance. Everything went well and my controller was detected in Windows 11 and I was able to play Bolt Gun and Stray from the comfort of my sofa. 

The problem hit me when I sat back down at my Windows 10 PC. I wanted to test out my new Nvidia RTX 4070 with Forza 5, but my controller no longer worked. “No problem” I thought and went into the Bluetooth menu to remove and re-establish the connection. Except, that didn’t work. Instead I saw many failed attempts to remove the controller. This prompted a few searches and a little trial-and-error in order to get the controller working again.

In this how to I’ll show you how to remove a stubborn Bluetooth device using a little registry hacking.

How To Remove A Bluetooth Device

Before we try anything complex we’ll check if we can remove the device using the Bluetooth settings application. 99% Of the time, this will work.

1. Right click on the Bluetooth icon in the system tray and select Show Bluetooth Devices. Alternatively you can search for Bluetooth from the Start menu.

2. Select the device and click Remove device to uninstall.

3. The device should now be removed from the list.

How To Remove a Stubborn Bluetooth Device

If you have reached this part of the how to, then you have a Bluetooth device which cannot be removed using the Bluetooth application. Our goal is to identify the hardware ID of the offending device, and then surgically remove it from the registry.

1. Right click on the Start Menu and select Device Manager.

2. Click on Bluetooth and select the Bluetooth device. In our example we are using an Xbox controller.

3. Click on the Details tab and from the Property dropdown select Hardware IDs. Make a note of the hardware ID.

4. Search for and select Registry Editor from the Start Menu.

5. Navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Devices\ and look for the entry matching your hardware ID. In our example our Xbox controller has a hardware ID of 9caa1b49a878.

6. Right click on the correct hardware ID and select Delete.

7. Reboot to confirm that the device has been removed.

8. Right click on the Bluetooth icon in the system tray and select Add a Bluetooth Device. Alternatively you can search for Bluetooth from the Start menu.

Apparently, there have been over 21 million Xbox Series X and Series S consoles sold by Microsoft, since launch. A slide reported to have been shared by Microsoft, at the ID@Xbox Developer Accelerator Program in Brazil, has provided this number. That is a lot of consoles, but the number isn't quite as impressive when compared to the sales numbers from console rivals Sony and Nintendo.  

Microsoft has been tight-lipped regarding sales figures for Xbox consoles for nearly a decade. It has been speculated that management decided to hide console unit sales by getting its accountants to publicly weigh Microsoft’s Xbox business in terms of Xbox Live and Game Pass subscriptions. This provides optics than showing the Xbox console unit numbers obviously lagging rivals.

Another revelation concerns the numbers of Xbox One family consoles sold in their lifetime. Remember, it has been so long since we saw Xbox hardware unit sales from Microsoft that it extends to the previous generation. Doing some trivial math, we see that there were 58 million Xbox One consoles sold during its era. Clearly, the Xbox Series X / S still have a long way to go to reach such numbers. To get a good handle on this data, we think a chart is called for.

Note that with the figures above we have tried to source the latest official totals. You can see the Xbox figures that have come from the headlining Microsoft slide at the top. The latest PlayStation 5 and Switch console hardware sales figures come from numbers shared this March, so will be a little out of date by now.

One other interesting morsel from the Microsoft slide concerns the cheaper Xbox Series S. At launch, we contrasted Microsoft’s strategy of launching the Series S with Sony’s. The slide’s assertion that 48% of Series S players are new to Xbox paints it as quite a success. That is a good conversion figure, and that console’s pricing takes it much further into the impulse buying zone than its bigger brother (or Sony’s consoles).

In the current battle royale between the Xbox Series and Sony PS5 consoles, it looks likely that Sony could pull ahead a bit more. Sony was particularly badly affected during the peak pandemic years, with the chip crunch and big stay-at-home demand. However, that period appears to be behind us now and Sony is predicting another 19 million PS5 consoles will be sold by its financial year end (March 31, 2024).

Healthy PC Gaming Market

Last but not least, another slide from the ID@Xbox Developer Accelerator Program showed some figures for PC gaming. Yes, PCs continue to be a hugely important gaming market with “248.6m active Windows gaming PCs,” according to Microsoft.

If there’s one thing the world of microelectronics can do, it’s bring what seems like magic into the real world. Such is the case today with this fantastic Harry Potter-themed project from maker Mo from the YouTube channel That’s So Mo. Using an Arduino Pro Micro, he transformed a Nimbus 2000 broom prop into a working controller that lets him fly more realistically in Hogwarts Legacy—no spells required.

He started by borrowing a Nimbus 2000 replica broom created by CineReplica. If you’re not familiar, this is the classic broom Harry used in the original franchise. With the addition of a few sensors and a little bit of patience, he turned the broom into a motion controller.

At the moment, it only works for PC, so you won’t be able to duplicate this for consoles using the steps and code he’s provided. The PC recognizes the broomstick as a wired Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller. The input signals from a few sensors are translated as directional pad/joystick input, which allows the motion control to register in-game.

In this demo, Mo uses an $800 Nimbus 2000 prop, but you could replace this with anything remotely broom-like. We’re sure if Filch had magic powers, he’d get away with flying on a mop. The controller is driven by an Arduino Pro Micro connected to an Adafruit LSM6DS3TR-C accelerometer and an HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor. You could use a Raspberry Pi Pico instead of the Arduino Pro Micro if that’s what you’ve got on hand. The hardware is mounted to the broom using carefully cut styrofoam pieces and popsicle sticks.

Mo was kind enough to share a detailed breakdown of the code used in this project in his demo video and over at GitHub. If you want to recreate this project, he recommends reading this article from Dave Madison on emulating Xbox controller input with an Arduino and this tutorial from Adafruit on using the accelerometer module.

This is one project you don’t want to miss in action; check out the demo video of the final project shared by Mo over at YouTube. You’ll also find an excellent explanation behind how it works, sure to inspire your inner wizard or at least maker.

A firmware update for Microsoft's Xbox Series X console promises to make the incredibly fast system even speedier. Microsoft's Xbox Insider ring is now distributing a new firmware release that has managed to cut boot times by five seconds. For users that power up their consoles at least once a day, that means around 30 extra gaming minutes per year — time which you can then waste browsing the Xbox Games Pass library.

The firmware update does use a bit of a cheat, though: it reduces the duration of the power-on Xbox logo, which used to take nine seconds, to five seconds. One would wonder if this reduced boot time is only due to a shortened intro, however, considering all the work Microsoft has been pouring on Direct Storage — referring to Microsoft's technology built to allow both consoles and the PC to take full advantage of the latest SSD's blazing-fast speeds (You can see our list of the fastest SSDs if you want the best).

Interestingly, even the original Xbox One has seen improved boot times with the new firmware update, according to Jake Rosenberg, senior product manager lead at Xbox.

The speedup applies to cold boot, or what Microsoft terms "Power Saver" mode, effectively turns the console off. Where it last took 20 seconds, it should now only take 15 seconds from this state until your profile is loaded towards the console's home screen.

Unfortunately, the firmware is only being distributed to Xbox Insiders, which take part in Microsoft's Beta program to receive firmware and software updates ahead of time. Microsoft allows anyone to apply to be an Insider, so you could do it yourself and benefit from faster boot times today. Do however keep in mind that these updates aren't finalized and may not have all the bugs ironed out.

In a new Tweet by the GPUOpen team and Xbox's Jason Ronald, AMD's Fidelity FX Super Resolution 2 is dropping its PC exclusivity and is making its way to Xbox consoles soon. Xbox development teams have already received the upscaler and are actively testing it right now for future deployment in games. Xbox consoles receiving FSR 2.0 support include the Xbox Series X and S, as well as the previous-gen Xbox One console.

Besides the Steam Deck, FSR 2.0 integration with Xbox marks the first time AMD's new temporal upscaling will be used outside of the PC ecosystem. Time will tell how prominent FSR will become in Xbox games, but there is huge potential for version 2.0 of the tech to be a big hit on Microsoft's gaming console.

Resolution upscalers are incredibly common to see on consoles such as the Xbox. Due to the incredibly long lifespan some of these consoles have, upscaling is almost a necessity for ensuring the console's GPU does not become obsolete within a few years. Almost all Xbox (and PlayStation) games have some form of upscaling whether that be a competing temporal solution (that isn't FSR) or checkerboarding in order to hit a target frame rate of 30, 60 or even 120 fps on current-gen consoles at higher resolutions.

We can't say how much better FSR 2.0 will look on consoles, but presumably its temporal algorithm to be at least on par with competing for temporal solutions already on the latest Xbox games, and almost certainly better than checkerboarding with its more simplistic upscaling algorithm.

But, the biggest hurdle will be in developer integration of FSR 2.0 which could be quite probablematic for many titles. FSR 2.0 more advanced temporal solution requires additional data, that might not already be included in the game engine, including depth buffers, motion vectors, and color buffers. This additional data can take much longer to implement than FSR 2.0 itself, which will extend the development time of FSR 2.0 implementation. 

The only exception to this will be games that already include a temporal upscaling solution, meaning these additional data points will already be available in the game engine. All the developers need to do is add the FSR 2.0 source code to the engine.

Perhaps the most surprising announcement from the tweets is FSR 2.0 integration with Xbox One and its much older hardware compared to the Series X and S. On the PC side of things, FSR 2.0 already has a quite rigorous minimum GPU requirement at 4K with an RX 5700 and RTX 2070, and a GTX 1080 and RX 6500 XT for 1440P, making us wonder if the Xbox One's GPU can handle such a compute-heavy upscaler.

It will be interesting to see how performance shapes up with FSR 2.0, but if Microsoft has greenlit support for the Xbox One, it must believe this older console can handle FSR 2.0's heavy computing requirements without a problem. We fully expect Series X and S to benefit greatly from FSR 2.0 though, with GPUs powered on the same RDNA2 architecture as the RX 6000 series desktop GPUs from AMD.

When console gaming first appeared in our living rooms, the tech was crude compared to contemporary PCs, and serious gamers stuck to their well-stocked towers with speedy CPUs, lots of RAM and powerful graphics cards. Today’s newest consoles have come a long way from those humble beginnings. With plenty of processing power, they can run fully rendered graphics in Ultra HD resolution at 120 Hz with Adaptive-Sync.

That kind of performance demands a good monitor. Some televisions are up to the task, but if you’re looking to add a PS5 or Xbox One to your gaming arsenal, it might be easier to have one display that can handle both systems. Many of the newest screens are Xbox-ready with HDMI 2.1, Ultra HD, 120 Hz and Adaptive-Sync, and we’ve already reviewed a few of them. The latest example on the test bench is the Philips Momentum 329M1RV. It’s a 32-inch IPS panel with the aforementioned specs, plus a wide color gamut and Philips’ unique Ambiglow bias lighting system. It also sports a decent pair of built-in speakers with DTS tuning, as it makes a stong play for a spot on our best 4K gaming monitor list.

Philips Momentum 329M1RV Specs

Since advanced consoles have blurred the lines between entertainment device and computer, it’s only logical that displays have followed suit. The 329M1RV can handle PCs and consoles with equal ease. A quality IPS panel sits at the core of what I would term a luxury monitor. It sports premium build quality and high performance with Ultra HD resolution, 144 Hz max refresh rate, Adaptive-Sync and extended color. Though it's not certified by Nvidia, it is fully G-Sync compatible and runs on FreeSync systems over a 48 to 144 Hz range.

Picture quality is also given the premium treatment, with an extended color gamut that covers over 85% of DCI-P3, according to my test results. Color fidelity is guaranteed with an included calibration datasheet. I was able to verify its accuracy during testing. The 329M1RV is also HDR compatible, with VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification. I measured a much higher peak brightness than that, over 570 nits with dynamic contrast that took the HDR contrast ratio to an impressive 8704:1. This monitor certainly delivers in the image quality department.

Gamers will appreciate the 329M1RV’s performance for sure, and its gaming features. It’s an easy hookup to the latest consoles with 120 Hz and Adaptive-Sync capability over HDMI. You can run a PC through HDMI or DisplayPort 1.4 inputs at up to 144 Hz. Both SDR and HDR modes include Xbox picture presets. And you get a handy aiming point to help newbies rack up more frags in their favorite shooters.

Further extending its utility, the 329M1RV includes a KVM feature. With USB-C, USB-B and four downstream 3.2 ports, and three HDMI 2.1 inputs, it can accommodate multiple systems at once. The OSD includes management features for that, along with multi-source PBP.

Philips has also included its unique Ambiglow feature. The LED lighting found in most gaming monitors is purely for show, but Philips makes Ambiglow a truly useful tool. You can make it flash and breathe the entire spectrum of color if you want and even have it shift along with what’s happening on screen. However, it’s best used as a bias light. Setting it to emit a soft white glow around the edge of the panel improves perceived contrast by closing the viewers’ pupils slightly. Like closing down the iris in a camera lens, the light extends depth of field and contrast as it’s seen by the human eye.

At this writing, the 329M1RV is selling for $900, so it is a luxury purchase. But with the ability to work as both a computer and console gaming display, it is two products in one in many ways.

Assembly and Accessories

The 329M1RV ships in a large clamshell box with plenty of carefully-engineered cardboard, rather than crumbly foam to secure the contents. The panel, upright and base are assembled without needing tools and form a sturdy and heavy package that’s rock solid. Build quality is very high. The cables come in their own box and include an IEC power cord, plus one each of USB, USB-C, HDMI and DisplayPort. You also get a calibration data sheet with color and screen uniformity test results.

Product 360

Philips embraces a simple aesthetic, with straight lines and angular shapes. The base and upright are metal and finished in a medium gray matte. The panel is covered in black plastic across the back, with a minimal front bezel that’s flush-mounted. The bottom strip has a small Philips logo, a white power LED and an Xbox Gaming Features label. The sole control is a tiny joystick on the back right side. It toggles power and accesses the OSD and all monitor functions. The anti-glare layer is effective at keeping the picture sharp and colorful while avoiding washout from ambient reflections.

In the back, you can see the Ambiglow LEDs. This feature is about the lighting and not about glowing logos or projections. It’s controlled by the OSD and has various color and effect options. It works best as a bias light. When configured to emit a soft white glow, it will enhance the image with higher perceived contrast and color saturation. It sounds a bit hard to believe but trust me, it works. I have bias lighting behind my home theater projection screen, and it absolutely improves the viewing experience.

The side view shows the 329M1RV’s angular and clean styling. The stand offers a complete set of ergonomic adjustments – 130mm height, 20 degrees swivel to each side and 15 degrees back tilt. Unusually and welcomely, it does not tilt forward. I love this because that makes it easier to set the panel at a perfect vertical. And it sits high enough that I can put my eyepoint at the center of the screen.

All the inputs are up and under. You get three HDMI 2.1, a DisplayPort 1.4 and USB-C for video. USB is version 3.2 and includes one upstream and four downstream ports. The two yellow ones can accommodate fast charging up to five volts and 7.5 watts. There’s a 3.5mm jack for audio, or you can use the excellent built-in speakers. They have five watts of power and DTS tuning, with DSP modes available in the OSD.

OSD Features

The 329M1RV’s OSD is full of features and options for the video and audio experience. Gamers will find plenty of video processing settings, and there’s a vast array of choices for the Ambiglow lighting. To activate the OSD, click the joystick once to the right.

First up is the Ambiglow menu. The lighting can be set to follow audio and video or to present different effects like breathing or color shift. You can also set a static color and brightness. Xbox presets light up a menacing green glow behind the panel. For ideal bias lighting, set the color to white and the brightness to bright (the lowest option). This will enhance picture quality for all content, both SDR and HDR. If you prefer to have no lighting, it can be turned completely off.

Game settings include an Adaptive-Sync toggle, crosshair and SmartResponse, which is a three-level overdrive. To use MPRT, the blur reducing backlight strobe, turn off Adaptive-Sync. MPRT has 20 levels of pulse-width modulation. The higher you go, the darker the image becomes, and the more blur is reduced. It works pretty well and is a usable alternative to Adaptive-Sync. The overdrive works best on its middle (Faster) setting.

In the Picture menu, you’ll find the SmartImage picture modes. There are ten presets, but my favorite was Off. It’s the most accurate choice and doesn’t require calibration. If you’re looking for sRGB, that’s hidden away in the color temp menu. Here, you also get five gamma presets.

The 329M1RV’s audio is a cut above the norm with decent speakers and DTS modes. You can choose between six DSP options. If you turn DTS off, there’s a multi-band equalizer for those who like to tweak.

You can adjust color temp by Kelvin value (the best option) or RGB sliders. Unfortunately, the sliders change the gamma and not in a good way. I’ll explain more about that later. If you want the sRGB color gamut, that option is here as well.

The USB menu lets you manage KVM settings and standby options for the power-capable ports. USB-C can be used for peripherals and as a video input.

Philips Momentum 329M1RV Calibration Settings

The 329M1RV measures well out of the box with SmartImage turned off, and it matches the included calibration datasheet. That’s a good thing because I could not calibrate it to a higher standard despite the inclusion of gamma presets and RGB sliders. The User Define color temp option skews the gamma to the point where color looks off and highlight and shadow detail is obscured. The best way to go is to set brightness to taste and leave the color temp on 6500K and gamma on 2.2. I tried out the sRGB mode and found it very accurate as well. The Xbox mode does some unusual things with color that we'll delve into in detail on pages four and five.

For HDR signals, there is a different set of six modes. The best pick there is DisplayHDR 400. It grays out all other image options but measures well and looks quite good with deep dynamic contrast and vibrant color.

Gaming and Hands-on

As a gaming monitor, the Philips 329M1RV excels. It delivers excellent image quality and video processing, making the play experience a premium one. Ambiglow is a nice bonus that can serve as a useful picture enhancement or as additional entertainment. I preferred it set to a static white so it would work as a bias light. This increases perceived contrast. My usual gaming setup places the display near a neutrally colored wall, so the glow reflects all around the screen and up to the ceiling.

I also tried its ability to follow video or audio. This proved interesting and sometimes distracting. When playing Doom Eternal, there was one scene where a thunderstorm played in the background. The LEDs flashed like lightning which was startling and cool at the same time. Following video created a series of breathing and flickering colors that made it hard to concentrate on the game.

The 329M1RV’s audio quality is a cut above the norm. An external sound system or headphones are still better, but the built-in speakers here deliver very high volume without distortion. Bass is a bit lacking, but dialog is far more balanced and richer than you'd expect from monitor speakers. The DTS modes weren’t all that different from one another, but Theater seemed a little more expansive than the rest.

Image quality was excellent in both SDR and HDR modes, with the latter looking particularly good. Contrast is very high, with bright highlights and deep shadows with plenty of detail. I spent some time with Doom Eternal’s HDR adjustments to get the best color saturation, but Call of Duty WWII looked great with no changes. Like most HDR displays, each game will require its own approach. But in every case, HDR looked better than SDR. The 329M1RV does justice to the format.

SDR games like Tomb Raider maintained good depth and dimension with SmartImage turned off. The picture modes might appeal to some users, so I suggest trying them all out. Xbox mode was particularly odd, with a very blue cast. I couldn’t figure out what Philips was going for there.

Video processing was some of the best I’ve seen. G-Sync and FreeSync worked flawlessly at the high frame rates I was seeing. My speeds ranged between 100 and 144fps with detail maxed. The overdrive also worked perfectly, with no ghosting and near-total motion blur elimination. Even during the fastest movements, there was no smearing.

As a workday monitor, the 329M1RV is more than capable. The image is crisp and clear, with enough contrast to keep small black text sharp against white backgrounds. 140ppi of pixel density means there are no visible jaggies or dot structures. You can sit two feet away and still not see individual pixels. HDR can be used in Windows without a downside. It maintains proper color rendering and contrast in productivity apps looks about the same as SDR mode.

With more 32-inch Ultra monitors appearing in the marketplace, I have a few more screens to make useful comparisons with the 329M1RV. There’s MSI’s Xbox model, the MPG321UR-QDX, along with Asus’s PG32UQ and ViewSonic’s Elite XG320U. I also included two smaller displays, the 28-inch Asus VG28U and the 27-inch Eve Spectrum D03.

Pixel Response and Input Lag

Click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

The 32-inch Asus can hit 155 Hz, but that won’t give it a noticeable performance advantage over any of the 144 Hz screens. All draw a full white field in 7ms except the MSI, which can do it in 6ms. That makes it a tiny bit smoother than the rest though we’re talking extreme subtlety here. The 329M1RV has average control response for the Ultra HD 144 Hz category, with a total lag of 34ms, the same as the Asus and Eve screens. The MSI and the 28-inch Asus are a touch quicker at 31ms. This difference will require advanced gaming skills to appreciate. The Philips is more than capable of hair-trigger play and smooth on-screen movement with minimal blur and no visible smearing.

Viewing Angles

The 329M1RV is one of the better IPS monitors I’ve seen in terms of off-axis image quality. Though a slight green shift can be seen at 45 degrees to the side, there is no reduction in brightness or detail. This screen is large enough, and good enough, to be shared by two players. The top view is somewhat washed out but retains more brightness than most monitors I’ve reviewed, regardless of panel type.

Screen Uniformity

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, click here.

My 329M1RV sample did not need any part of its Screen Uniformity picture mode. A 4.52% deviation is about as low as an LCD screen can get. It’s one of the best panels I’ve measured to date. There is absolutely no visible aberration in brightness or color in any test pattern or content..

To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.

Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level

The 329M1RV is rated for 400 nits, but I found much more brightness than that in both SDR and HDR modes. The SDR peak was over 605 nits, which is incredibly bright for such a large screen. You’ll never turn the brightness slider up all the way, unless you plan to game poolside in direct sunlight. The only drawback is that each click of the slider changes output by 3 to 4 nits. It’s hard to be precise when setting levels, but this is a minor complaint. The black level is relatively low, which makes this one of the more contrasty IPS panels I’ve tested. 1246.5:1 is a good bit higher than average for this tech.

After Calibration to 200 nits

My calibration consisted only of lowering the brightness slider to achieve 200 nits peak output. This dropped contrast slightly but not visibly. The 329M1RV still has the highest contrast of the group. The gap to the Eve Spectrum is small but it can be seen in a side-by-side comparison.

The Philips employs a very high-quality panel in its construction. Its super-smooth screen uniformity contributes to one of the highest ANSI scores I’ve recorded for an IPS monitor. In practice, this makes for a very deep and lifelike image with vivid color and stunning detail.

The 329M1RV has a large array of picture modes, but the best and most accurate image comes when SmartImage is turned off. That provides a D65 grayscale, 2.2 gamma and accurate color that conforms closely to the DCI-P3 gamut.

Grayscale and Gamma Tracking

Our grayscale and gamma tests use Calman calibration software from Portrait Displays. We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.

The 329M1RV’s grayscale tracking isn’t quite perfect, but it is still good enough that calibration isn’t required. That’s a good thing because calibration isn’t really practical. There are slightly visible errors at 90 and 100%, where a faint purple tint can be seen in test patterns but not in actual content. Gamma tracks well except for a slight dip at 10%, which means some shadow areas will be a tad too light. Again, this error is very hard to spot. It is possible to get better measured grayscale tracking, but the resulting gamma is too far off the mark. The skewed luminance tracking I observed in the User color temp mode made highlight and shadow detail very hard to see and made the picture look harsh.

Out of curiosity, I measured the Xbox mode and recorded a very blue color temp with light gamma. These blue errors are blatantly obvious, and I can’t imagine a situation where this picture mode would be appropriate. As far as I’m aware, no Xbox outputs skewed color. They’re all tuned to industry standards like any other video source component, D65 white point and 2.2 gamma.

If you prefer a smaller color gamut for SDR content, the sRGB mode in the color menu is a great choice. Its grayscale tracking is superb, with no errors over 2dE. Gamma isn’t ruler-straight, but close enough that you won’t see any luminance errors. This is excellent performance.

Comparisons

Since I could not find any image improvement with calibration, I’ve charted the same 2.51dE grayscale error for the before and after comparisons. That puts the 329M1RV in the middle for out-of-box performance and last when the other monitors are calibrated. Visually, the differences are slight. Only the brightest steps showed any error, and that was impossible to see in the content I viewed. Though I wish I could calibrate the Philips, I didn’t enjoy it any less when unadjusted.

Gamma tracking is very good as long as the other image controls are left alone. All the monitors have tight tracking that stays close to the 2.2 standard. The 329M1RV is about average in this regard.

Color Gamut Accuracy

Our color gamut and volume testing use Portrait Displays’ Calman software. For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.

The 329M1RV takes a practical approach to color reproduction. Technically, a monitor should only render sRGB for SDR content. But most wide gamut screens show you their entire spectrum, which means over-saturation. Philips has chosen to under-saturate the inner targets slightly for red, green, yellow and cyan. Blue and magenta are slightly over-saturated. This is a good compromise that makes SDR color more vibrant without straying too far from the standard. You’ll see on the next page that HDR color is correctly rendered to take full advantage of the extra hues.

The Xbox mode can only be called bizarre. The blue white point pulls the entire set of targets off-hue. Cyan and magenta are much too blue. Red is well off the mark as well. Only green and yellow come close to their points. I don’t know of a situation where this mode would be useful.

Aside from a slight under-saturation in red, the sRGB mode is perfect. It only takes a few clicks to select this configuration for SDR content. I suspect most users will stick with the extended gamut but I’m glad to see Philips offering the choice.

Comparisons

Like the grayscale and gamma test, the 329M1RV scores well but is a bit behind the other panels because I couldn’t calibrate without skewing the gamma tracking. This is a choice on my part, and the picture quality is best with SmartImage off and color temp of 6500K. And it’s not to say the Philips doesn’t look as good as the rest. That extra contrast makes up for a lot of its issues on the test bench. It is a great-looking screen.

With some monitors trending higher in my gamut volume tests, I had hoped to see the 329M1RV score better. But I have no complaints about 85.48% coverage of DCI-P3; it’s about average for the category. If you’re looking for maximum color saturation, though, the top three screens are the current leaders. The Philips will look equal to the 28-inch Asus and the Eve in side-by-side comparisons.

Our HDR benchmarking uses Portrait Displays’ Calman software. To learn about our HDR testing, see our breakdown of how we test PC monitors.

The 329M1RV switches to HDR mode automatically when an HDR10 signal is applied. You get six new picture modes that offer different interpretations of color and luminance tracking. My favorite, and the most accurate, is DisplayHDR 400. In the color tests below, I’ll also show you the results from the HDR Xbox mode.

HDR Brightness and Contrast

The 329M1RV has a VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification, but it far exceeds that with a peak output of over 572 nits. That’s plenty of juice for bright highlights and high contrast. The black level is quite low thanks to an effective dynamic feature that’s turned on for all HDR content. Though it has less contrast than the other screens, it is far ahead of other monitors that don’t have dynamic contrast. 8,704.8:1 is very high and means the Philips HDR image is superior to its SDR one.

Grayscale, EOTF and Color

For the HDR color tests, I measured the DisplayHDR 400 and Xbox modes. The former is the most accurate, with excellent grayscale tracking and perfect rendering of the EOTF luminance curve. It transitions to tone-mapping just below 70%, which is higher than average. That means clearer highlight detail since the 329M1RV can let the image metadata determine levels. Interestingly, the Xbox mode is similar in its grayscale measurement but vastly different in its luminance curve. The picture is quite light and flat because levels rise too quickly. Again, I would not use this mode since the Xbox puts out a correct HDR signal that needs no compensation from the connected display.

The 329M1RV’s gamut test chart is impressive indeed. Color points are on or close to target, with the expected deficiency in green that most wide-gamut monitors have. 80% red is a bit over-saturated, but I could not spot this error in content. This linear color tracking is what I like to see from HDR monitors because it means all the picture detail will be clearly visible. The Xbox mode isn’t all that different in this test, with only slight variations in color tracking. Only its EOTF is a problem for me. The takeaway is that you should use the DisplayHDR 400 mode for all HDR content, regardless of its source.

With the lines between gaming consoles and gaming PCs blurred, it is only logical that displays have taken the same path. Aside from screen size, there isn’t much difference between a computer monitor and a television these days. The core technology is the same; it’s just a matter of video processing addons. If you want a premium panel to go with your new PS5 or Xbox One, there are TVs and monitors that will fill the bill.

For those that want to integrate a console into their game room though, a more dual-purpose display makes sense. It should have DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1, decent internal speakers, and of course, Ultra HD resolution, at least 144 Hz refresh and Adaptive-Sync. And don’t forget HDR and extended color. The Philips Momentum 329M1RV meets all those criteria.

With premium build quality, the 329M1RV will serve for the long term. It is not inexpensive, but it is a rock-solid display with a superb IPS panel and a bomb-proof stand. Inside, you get high-end video processing with flawless FreeSync and G-Sync operation, well-tuned overdrive, and a decent backlight strobe feature. Picture quality is assured with accurate out-of-box color, a wide gamut and better contrast than most IPS panels can boast. And it delivers superb HDR.

Philips’ unique Ambiglow lighting feature sets the 329M1RV apart. No other gaming monitor has a true bias light built-in. Where others include LEDs for show, Ambiglow can improve image quality when used correctly. And don’t forget the handy KVM feature. With plenty of video and USB options, you can easily hook up a PC, a console, a streaming box and a disc player without swapping cables.

The Philips Momentum 329M1RV is a true luxury display that delivers on its promise. It’s ideal for gaming, no matter what component you choose to connect. If you want to build a media room that includes multiple video sources and systems, it’s a great choice.

Tune in to The Future Games Show Powered by Mana on Saturday, June 11, to get an up-close look at 40 games and titles developed by leading publishers in the industry. The Future Games Show will be broadcast by our sister site, GamesRadar, across multiple sources so you can choose your flavor with streams available on Facebook, Twitch, Youtube, and Twitter. The show is planned to kick off at 12:00 PDT / 15:00 EDT / 20:00 BST.

Highlights include game showcases, world premieres, exclusive announcements, and interviews with top developers, including Thunderful, Team17, and Amanita Design. In addition, viewers are welcome to indulge in an up-close look at new 2022 titles for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC platforms.

Mana CEO Joe Zhou had this to say, “We’re proud to partner with the Future Games Show - it’s a tremendous opportunity to help promote the things we love and all things gaming during an exciting event that is truly important for the community. We also hope to use this opportunity to let the community know—no matter what games you play, Mana is here to empower you and the future of games.”

It isn’t the first Future Games Show, and it certainly won’t be the last. Content Director of Games at Future Daniel Dawkins explains, “The Future Game Show is GamesRadar’s premiere digital games showcase—it reached over 120 million views across three shows in 2021. The June show will be the second of three shows in 2022, with an additional show planned for GamesCom 2022.”

In addition to the upcoming show, Future invites streamers to apply as official partners for the show. While anyone can stream the show for free, official partners receive access to a unique asset pack and an opportunity to be named an official co-streaming partner at GamesRadar+. Check out the official Streaming Partner form to get started—more details are available for streamers on the official GamesRadar website.

After a long wait, Sony announced in a blog post that the PlayStation 5 would gain Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support in patches beginning to roll out this week. The feature will require a TV or PC monitor that uses HDMI 2.1 and is compatible with VRR.

"VRR dynamically syncs the refresh rate of the display to the PS5 console’s graphical output," wrote senior vice president of Platform experience Hideki Nishino. "This enhances visual performance for PS5 games by minimizing or eliminating visual artifacts, such as frame pacing issues and screen tearing."

Some games will be getting patches to optimize for variable refresh rates "in the coming weeks." Those games are:

• Astro’s Playroom
• Call of Duty: Vanguard
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
• Destiny 2
• Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition
• DIRT 5
• Godfall
• Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
• Resident Evil Village
• Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
• Tribes of Midgard

However, games do not need to be patched or optimized to use VRR (those games will have the feature enabled automatically).

You will be able to find VRR under Screen and Video > Video Output > VRR, where there will be a toggle to turn on the setting and allow it on games that aren't officially supported. However, Nishino warns that while VRR may improve quality for some games, others could see "unexpected visual effects" and that the "results may vary depending on the TV you're using, the game you're playing, and the visual mode you've selected for a particular game[.]"

It's really about time that the PlayStation 5 gets VRR. Sony announced it was coming back in March, but the Xbox Series X and Series S have had this option since they launched in 2020. In fact, Microsoft's last-gen Xbox One S and Xbox One X also supported the feature. 

The addition of VRR brings this console generation closer to feature parity with PCs, which have supported a variable refresh rate for a long time — assuming you have the right equipment.

Gamers Nexus recently bought one of Microsoft's Xbox Series X Developer Kits (XDK) while looking for a juicy topic for a tech video. Following a reader tip, the TechTuber acquired the hardware via eBay for a sum in the region of $1,500. Unfortunately, however, Microsoft banned the console before Gamers Nexus could conduct any software testing. Nevertheless, Gamers Nexus soldiered on to explore the hardware side of the mysterious XDK and, among the things discovered, noted that it comes with 40GB of GDDR6 installed. For reference, the consumer console has 16GB of GDDR6.

Gamers Nexus editor-in-chief Steve Burke showcased Microsoft's XDK hardware. After revealing there would be no gaming/software tests due to the unfortunate machine ban from Microsoft, we got a tour of the outside of the machine.

The XDK looks like the Xbox One X dev kit and, therefore, nothing like the Xbox Series X 'tower' that shipped to consumers. Burke highlighted a front panel display that can show the status of various internal hardware components and do things like configure shortcuts or the array of five buttons above the display.

The teardown finally revealed the motherboard at around 9 minutes and 20 seconds into the video. After that, however, the host spent quite some time looking at the thermals and other aspects of the construction before getting down to performance component checks.

At around 16 minutes and 50 seconds into the video, Burke examined both sides of the XDK motherboard, confirming that 40GB of 14 Gbps GDDR6 is onboard. In addition, research revealed that the 20 memory modules (10 on each side of the PCB, surrounding the APU socket) are 16Gb in capacity (2GB each) and thus add up to 40GB GDDR6 of onboard RAM.

The XDK packing so much memory is for when the developers run debug software in the background, work with non-optimized code, and decompress builds onto the console. Interestingly, Burke reckoned that this dev kit's memory quota is one of the reasons that early leaks about the Xbox Series X consumer console suggested it would ship with a super-high memory capacity. Instead, Microsoft's console ended up with 16GB of GDDR6.

You can watch the video for more insights into the construction and the thermal solution in the XDK. However, due to the hardware not being able to run anything more complicated than a menu screen, the thermals will never be under any stress. 

To wrap up the video, Burke appealed to his viewership for any ideas about how to play games on this banned device. Unfortunately, if that cry for help is fruitless, this hardware will end up as a sad deconstructed framed and wall-mounted exhibit piece.

Following its announcement during Gamescom earlier this year, Microsoft has finally begun to roll out Xbox Cloud Gaming for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles. The beta service will allow users to play titles from the Xbox Game Pass cloud library without directly downloading them. The feature will also seamlessly let users play any available game together, even if one friend doesn't own the title.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is available to anyone with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription that lives in one of the 25 regions Microsoft decided to launch first. According to Microsoft, the rollout will begin this month "to a subset of Xbox gamers and scale to all gamers in supported markets over the coming weeks." Brazil can expect support for the service "coming soon."

Xbox One users will experience specific next-generation titles only available for Xbox Series X|S through the service, such as Recompile, The Medium, and The Riftbreaker. In addition, Microsoft says Flight Simulator isn't available yet but will arrive on the cloud game library in early 2022.

Allowing older Xbox consoles access to next-generation titles only enforces Microsoft's aim of letting consumers experience its software via the cloud, no matter the limitations. Xbox Cloud Gaming, originally dubbed Project xCloud, was initially released in April as an invite-only beta for iOS and PC before Game Pass Ultimate subscribers gained access in June.

Microsoft has provided several innovative ways to play some of the latest titles without a current console. It appears the company isn't pressuring its users to upgrade hardware any time soon to play its exclusive games, and given the current climate of snagging products at retail, that's a good thing.

Microsoft's Windows 11 will be able to run apps developed for Google's Android operating system natively (albeit not at launch) in a bid to bring useful programs and games to PCs. Apparently, the software giant might want to go even further and bring Android apps to its Xbox game consoles, too, at least according to a listing at the Microsoft Store. 

To let developers ensure that their Android apps work on Windows 11 and test their stability, Microsoft recently started to offer its Windows Subsystem for Android tool in its Store (as discovered by Slashgear). The program can be used on any x64 or Arm64-based device running Windows 10 version 22000.0 or higher, or on Xbox One. However, the tool is listed as 'available on PC' and cannot be found in the Xbox version of the Microsoft Store.

We don't know exactly why Microsoft listed its Xbox consoles as compatible with the Windows Subsystem for Android program. Perhaps Microsoft wanted to enable Android games developers (especially for games compatible with Xbox controllers) to test them on consoles for some reason. It's also possible that Microsoft plans to bring Android games to Xbox consoles to make them more competitive with Sony's PlayStation 5.

Formally, Windows 11 users will be able to discover Android apps at Microsoft Store, then buy them from Amazon's Appstore, and then run them using Intel's bridge technology that enables software developed for Arm-based SoCs and Android to run on x86 processors and Windows 11. In reality, Microsoft does not plan to implement any measures to stop users from installing Android apps obtained elsewhere on Windows 11. Meanwhile, since Microsoft's Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S systems have a lot in common with Windows, there should be hardly any technical difficulties with running Android apps on these consoles. 

At present, it is too early to say that Microsoft plans to enable Android apps on Xbox. In the end, productivity apps for Android could transform the latest Xbox consoles into inexpensive yet quite capable PCs, and Microsoft isn't exactly interested in this. On the other hand, if the company wants to offer platforms compatible with competing platforms, enabling Android apps on Xbox consoles is logical. 

With Halo Infinite launching on December 8, it's finally time to find out if your PC is ready for the game. The system requirements for the PC version of Halo Infinite have hit Steam. While a wide range of PCs will be able to play the game, the recommended specs may be a bit steep for anyone who hasn't been able to upgrade their GPU lately.

343 Industries and Xbox Game Studios haven't suggested what level of performance players should expect with the minimum or recommended specifications. We'd like to think the minimum recs are for 1080p, but it's possible they're for 720p.

When we reached out to Xbox, were informed that "the minimum and recommended specs may be adjusted slightly prior to launch, with 343 wanting to give players enough guidance to make an informed pre-purchase / pre-install decision given pre-orders just went live this week." The Xbox spokesperson said that "We’ll have more to share on specific performance expectations closer to launch."

On the CPU side, the big differences are in the level of CPU and GPU. Minimum CPU recommendations are a 4-core Intel CPU or 8-core AMD FX (which performed about as well as the old Intel 4-core). For the GPU, the RX 570 and GTX 1050 Ti are pretty tame GPUs, both with 4GB VRAM, while the RX 5700 XT and RTX 2070 are much faster — our GPU benchmarks hierarchy pegs them at around 2.25X (RX 5700 XT vs. RX 570) to 3.5X (5700 XT vs GTX 1050 Ti) the potential performance. The minimum GPUs would have cost around $150 when there wasn't a global component shortage, while the recommended GPUs would potentially go for around $350, though GPU prices on both are about twice what they once were.

On consoles, Halo Infinite will launch on the Xbox One, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X. The PC specs more or less work along those lines. The original Xbox One, launched in 2013, had an 8-core AMD Jaguar CPU at 1.75 GHz and a 1.31-teraflop GPU that's roughly comparable to the GTX 1050 Ti. The Xbox Series X has an 8-core processor at 3.8 GHz and a 12 teraflop GPU. The specs aren't too surprising, since the game is running on those consoles, as well as the Xbox Series S and and Xbox One X. 

The good news is that anything you built or bought in the last several years should be able to play Halo Infinite somehow. Those recommended specs are pretty hefty, however, so if you're the type of person who never upgraded from a GTX 900-series or R9 series GPU, you're likely not going to play with all of the bells and whistles turned on. Right now, as parts are being scalped and prices are high during a shortage, upgrading for this game would be mighty expensive. It's likely no easier to find an Xbox Series X or Series S right now, for the exact same reasons (that includes the limited edition Halo Infinite-themed Xbox Series X for the series' 20th anniversary).

Halo Infinite will launch on December 8 for Windows PCs, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and Xbox One, including on Xbox Game Pass.

Updated August 27, 5:33 p.m. ET with comment from Xbox that more specific performance guidelines will be made public closer to the launch of Halo Infinite.

During Gamescom 2021 event, Microsoft announced its new cloud gaming service will finally be released to the public this Christmas. The service is already usable on phones, tablets, and PCs thanks to the ongoing beta program, but most importantly the cloud service will finally be available on both your Xbox Series consoles as well as previous-gen Xbox One consoles on release. For now, Microsoft recommends its streaming service be used to test new games out before downloading them to your Xbox consoles. But, of course, you can use the streaming service however you'd like.

The new streaming service will be part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, so you're good to go if you already have the membership. But, if you want to sign up, you get your first month for just $1, then afterward it's $14.99 per month. The Ultimate membership will give you access to over 100 games that will be streamable to your devices and Xbox consoles.

The streaming service will target 1080P 60FPS for all consoles, which are the same specifications that the current Xbox Cloud Gaming beta service uses. Presumably, you will be able to run at lower resolutions and frame rates if necessary. 

Current requirements for the cloud gaming beta require 10Mb/s at a minimum or 20Mb/s for iPad users. Expect Xbox console requirements to be the same or more than this to ensure a good gaming experience.

When the service goes live later this Christmas, you'll be able to select a game and instantly play on the cloud in a seamless matter. Once you select a game, there will be two buttons, one will allow you to play the game (with a cloud logo), and right next to that button is an install button to download the game to your console.

It's great to see that Microsoft will support previous-gen consoles with this cloud service. This should breathe some more life into the nearly outdated consoles and give gamers a chance to try out new games made exclusively for Xbox Series X and S if getting a new Series console is out of reach, which wouldn't be surprising given the current semiconductor shortage.

Valve's upcoming Steam Deck sees your entire Steam library in the palm of your hands. A dream come true for many gamers but there is a possibility, brought to light by Microsoft's Xbox head Phil Spencer, that Microsoft's xCloud may also be an option.

Microsoft's Own Xbox head Phil Spencer teased the news via a tweet, after a visit to Valve, and speaking to company luminaries Gabe Newell, Erik Johnson and Scott Lynch. In the tweet, Spencer talks of playing Halo and Age (of Empires) and then states that "xCloud works well" before congratulating the Steam Deck team. So has Spencer played those games on xCloud or Steam? For now this a mystery.

Microsoft's xCloud is a game stream service that offloads processing towards Microsoft's Xbox Series X server blades (the company finished the hardware upgrade from Xbox One S consoles back in July) - and then delivers it to your platform of choice. xCloud is currently available via the Xbox app on Android and PC, or via a browser solution - this browser solution was likely the one used to test the Steam Deck with, since it was designed to enable streaming to almost any device featuring a strong-enough internet connection.

While this isn't an official feature confirmation, the fact that xCloud has already been tested on the Steam Deck - and well enough at that, according to Phil Spencer - is a genie that can't be put back inside the proverbial bottle. Microsoft of course wants as many devices as possible to support their xCloud streaming, serving Microsoft's "Play Anywhere" vision - whilst at the same time enticing ever more users towards the Microsoft gaming ecosystem, whether via direct software purchases or via subscription of Microsoft's "Netflix of games" Game Pass Ultimate, which includes access to the xCloud service.

Update: We now have our own full AMD 4700S Desktop Kit review with all gaming and desktop application testing along with detailed memory testing and analysis. You can read the review at this link. 

Original Article:

A Korean YouTuber has put AMD's 4700S Desktop Kit through its paces. While the kit is only available to OEMs, the chipmaker has stated that we can expect up to 80 different systems to hit the market very soon. Based on what we've seen, it probably won't make any best CPUs list, if only because it's only available as a complete kit.

Initially, the AMD 4700S was speculated to be recycled Xbox Series X APUs. However, the latest photographs of the chip showed a shocking resemblance to the APU (codename Ariel) inside the PlayStation 5. The AMD 4700S is soldered to a motherboard the utilizes the A77E fusion controller hub (codename Bolton-E4). The A77E hub was paired with AMD's A9-9820, the chip that powered the Xbox One S. That small detail lead us to believe that the AMD 4700S was somewhat related to the Xbox Series X's APU (codename Arden). However, the AMD 4700S is probably defective dies that didn't make their way into the PlayStation 5.

Wielding eight Zen 2 execution cores with 16 threads, the AMD 4700S arrives with 8MB of L3 cache and 4MB of L2 cache. The octa-core chip comes with a 3.6 GHz base clock speed, but lacks an integrated graphics engine. The AMD 4700S can come equipped with 8GB or 16GB of soldered GDDR6 memory.

Obviously, the usage of GDDR6 memory has its ups and downs. On a positive note, the AMD 4700S excels in memory bandwidth. In comparison to a Ryzen 7 3800XT and DDR4-2666 C20 memory, the AMD 4700S delivered 65%, 260% and 172% higher read, write and copy throughput, respectively. However, the chip suffered greatly in terms of memory latency. The AMD 4700S showed 60% higher memory latency than the Ryzen 7 3800XT.

The YouTuber didn't perform many application tests on the AMD 4700S, unfortunately. It would be interesting to see how the memory bandwidth and latency affect other areas. In the Cinebench R20 comparison, for example, the Ryzen 7 3800XT outperformed the AMD 4700S by a 36% margin. 

Although both processors sport eight Zen 2 CPU cores with simultaneous multithreading (SMT), the Ryzen 7 3800XT does flaunt a higher base clock (3.9 GHz vs. 3.6 GHz), and a higher boost clock and more L3 cache (32MB vs 8MB). The Atlhough we don't know the TDP (thermal design power) for the AMD 4700S, it should be lower than the Ryzen 7 3800XT's 105W rating, considering the AMD 4700S's modest factory cooler.

Without an iGPU, the AMD 4700S has to rely on a discrete graphics cards like any other Ryzen desktop processor. Sadly, the AMD 4700S resides on a motherboard where a PCIe 2.0 x16 expansion slot, which is wired x4 electrically, is the only option for expansion. 

According to AMD, the list of compatible graphics cards revolves around the Radeon 550, RX 550, RX 560, RX 570, RX 580 and RX 590 from AMD's camp and the GeForce GT 710, GT 1030, GTX 1050, GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1060 from Nvidia's camp. Nevertheless, the YouTube executed his gaming tests on a GeForce RTX 3060 at 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution. The results provided in the table correspond to the average frame rate.

The Ryzen 7 3800XT offered 36% and 59% higher average frame rates in Overwatch and Horizon Zero Dawn, respectively. Surprisingly, the AMD 4700S managed to beat the Ryzebn 7 3800XT in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds by a small margin of 3%.

Although he didn't provide any results for the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G, the YouTuber noted in a comment that the AMD 4700S's performance was slightly inferior to the Zen 2 APU. The biggest disappointment with the AMD 4700S is the disabled or lack of integrated graphics, forcing consumers to invest in a graphics card. Due to the PCIe 2.0 x16 @ x4 restriction, it doesn't make much sense to pair the AMD 4700S with a high-end graphics card, which rules out most of the best graphics cards.

It's a shame that the AMD 4700S Desktop Kit is only available via pre-built systems. You end up paying for hardware that you might not necessarily need, such as the SSD, graphics card, power supply and case. The AMD 4700S has the potential to be the foundation for a nice mini-ITX system even if it's not for gaming.

PC gamers aren't the only ones dealing with scarce parts. According to Kotaku this week, last-generation gaming consoles are now equally hard to get as the current PlayStation 5 (PS5) and Xbox Series X/S. That means that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One X/S consoles are now difficult to source, even though they should be old news. 

The report indicated that scarcity is especially present in the U.S., where shoppers at Walmart, Amazon, Target, and GameStop have experienced that stock is close to non-existent.

As anyone who's looked to buy one of the best graphics cards lately knows, if a product is hard to get, its price increases. For example, the 1TB PS4 Slim, which typically retails for $300 is currently listed for up to $430 on Walmart as of writing. 

Meanwhile, Sony is struggling to meet demand for the PS5, and the PS4 still hasn't been discontinued. 

It's a similar story with the last-gen Xbox. An Xbox One S console usually retailing for less than $300 is at $639 on Amazon as of writing. 

Gaming fans eager to get back to adventuring in Night City on their PlayStation 4s have spotted a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of an announcement that the famously broken near-future RPG Cyberpunk 2077 will be returning to the PlayStation Store. The oncoming train comes in the form of a heavy hint that the game should only be played on PS4 Pro and PS5.

‘Crashy,’ ‘buggy,’ and ‘NSFW wardrobe malfunction’ are not the names of Cyberpunk characters, but descriptions of the state of the game on all platforms when it launched back on December 10th last year. The original PS4 console version was the worst of the lot, running at between 720p and 900p, and the game was pulled from the PlayStation Store on December 17th. Since then, it has received patches and improvements, but even though it’s now back in the store, things aren’t looking too good for PS4 owners.

“You can play the game on PlayStation 4 Pro and PlayStation 5,” says the tweet from the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account, followed up with: “Users may continue to experience some performance issues with the PS4 edition while we continue to improve stability across all platforms.”

A rather pretty game when played on a machine that can handle it, Cyberpunk 2077 has an 86% rating for PC on gaming score aggregator Metacritic. This drops to 57% when you switch the hardware to PS4. It’s only just a little bit better for the original Xbox One, the PS4’s console contemporary, which raises the score to 61%. A free next-gen update will be offered to PS4 players in the second half of 2021, assuming that, by then, they have acquired some of the famously elusive PS5 (or Tesla) hardware.

The Xbox Design Lab, which allows gamers to design their own controllers, is back online. While it had previously been using the Xbox One controller, the new Design Lab is based on the Xbox Series X and Series S controllers.

Currently, you can place orders in the United States, Canada and "most" western European countries. Controllers are $69.99 (a $10 add-on to MSRP for store-bought controllers), and an additional $9.99 if you choose to get optional engraving. Controllers are delivered with two weeks of orders being placed.

There are eighteen colors, some of which are seen in existing controllers. Pulse Red, Electric Volt and Shock Blue are new to the Design Lab but are also available on the market without the customizations.

Microsoft is also adding a black-on-color ABXY button option, which harkens a bit back to the original Xbox and Xbox 360 controllers, and black-on-white view, menu and share buttons.

Xbox controllers work not only with Microsoft's consoles, but are also widely considered the best option for PC gaming, as most publishers use Xbox buttons in games by default.

Microsoft had paused the Design Lab back in October as it transitioned to the new consoles. This announcement was made during a post-E3 extended briefing.

The infotainment system inside a Tesla Model S is now as powerful as a PlayStation 5, according to company chief executive, Elon Musk, speaking at a public launch of the Model S Plaid. 

The car is quicker, more expensive, and has a longer range than previous Model S, but what’s really important is that in-car computer, which was shown running Cyberpunk 2077, with Musk commenting that the game can run at 60 fps, on what we’re assured is an AMD Navi 23 GPU. This new RDNA2 entry-level graphics chip packs up to 2048 stream processors and 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, though Tesla hasn’t confirmed the precise specs. It pushes the car’s main 17-inch touchscreen, which has a resolution of 2200×1300, 

Tesla does, of course, have form in this area, having already shown off a 10 TFLOP in-car rig, but with no specifics beyond that. The new system’s CPU has not yet been revealed, but the game recommends an i7-4790 or Ryzen 3 3200G, so it’s clearly going to be a much better spec than either of those. 

Also visible at the event was a Tesla-branded game controller, with sticks in a PlayStation configuration. A standard Xbox One pad was also spotted sitting on the passenger side of the car’s fascia.

The Tesla Model S Plaid is on sale now, starting from $122,990.

While in-person Computex has been canceled, companies still have new product to roll out, and today Western Digital adds a trio of new drives to its gaming-focused WD_Black line. There are a pair of D30 Game Drives targeting next-gen consoles, with one model aiming for the PlayStation 5 market, and a WD_Black D30 Game Drive SSD for Xbox targeting Sony's console competition. But for PC builders and gamers, the internal WD_Black SN750 SE will be of most interest, as it brings PCIe Gen4 support at a starting price of $54.99. But without DRAM, it will probably have a hard time making it to our best SSD list.

But first, let's tackle the console-focused externals. Both models will come in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, with the Xbox model starting at $99.99 and the more generic WD_Black D30 Game Drive SSD starting at $10 less ($89.99). Both come in typical bulky-looking rugged housings with detachable stands, with the non-Xbox model delivering claimed speeds of up to 900 MBps. This drive will allow you to play and store PS4 games, but only allow for archiving of PS5 games. (The PS5 only plays the latest-gen games from the internal SSD).

The D30 Game Drive SSD for Xbox, meanwhile, will ship with a one-month membership of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to help make up for the slight price difference. Similar to the other drive, you'll be able to play and store Xbox One games on the drive, but only archive Xbox Series X/S titles. WD says the white-accented Xbox-branded drive should arrive in June, while the more generic black model should be available today at "select retailers" and the WD Store.

Shifting to the new internal M.2 drive, the WD_Black SN750 SE is an NVMe drive that supports PCIe 4.0 (and is also backwards compatible with Gen3). WD says it will deliver read speeds of up to 3,600 MBps. So it's no barn-burner, but WD says it will consume up to 30% less power than the previous SN750, which may help its appeal for laptop gamers. Note, though, that this model will be a DRAM-less drive, which no-doubt helps keep costs (and power consumption) down. 

The WD_Black SN750 SE will start at $54.99 for the 250GB model. Pricing on the 500GB and 1TB capacities has not been revealed, nor is there a mention of a 2TB model. But we're sure to learn more (and hopefully have a full review for you) as we get closer to availability. WD says the WD_Black SN750 SE is available for preorder from WD now, and will land on store shelves this summer.

Xbox Cloud Gaming will come to Windows 10 PCs and Apple iOS devices in a limited beta tomorrow, April 20, the company announced today. For now, the beta will be available to 22 countries, with more being added at a later date.

This beta will be exclusive to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, so if you’re not a member, you won’t be able to participate in the beta. Even then, only "select" subscribers are being invited.

The service will be available at www.xbox.com/play on iPhones, iPads and PCs, where those who have been invited can play more than 100 Game Pas tittlies through Safari, Edge or Google Chrome. 

 To play those games, you’ll need a compatible Bluetooth or USB-connected controller. Touch controls will also be available for 50 of the 100 games and will work similarly to how they do with Android devices. 

Microsoft and Apple previously had public disagreements about Game Pass, where Apple wanted each game to be to be run through the App Store, and Microsoft ultimately had to take to web browsers as a workaround.

If you don’t already have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, you can sign up for one month of gaming goodness for just $1. Otherwise, it is priced at $14.99 per month and provides access to over 100 games for Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Windows 10. Recently, Microsoft and Electronic Arts teamed up to add EA Play to Xbox Game Pass as well.

When Microsoft announced that Auto HDR would make its way to the Xbox Series X and S, many wondered if it would also make an appearance on Windows 10. Today, Microsoft has announced that a test build of Windows 10 (21337) is currently available and incorporates Auto HDR.

To give the preview a test drive, you'll need to be a member of the Windows Insider Program (Dev Channel) to gain access to the Windows 10 21337 build (see also how to get Windows 10 for free or cheap). If you aren't already a member, you can join and access the proper channel here. You'll also need a display that's capable of handling an HDR signal. If you don't have a monitor, you can also try using a 4K TV if you have one of those.

Auto HDR is a technology developed by Microsoft for use with the Xbox Series family of consoles and Windows. It uses artificial intelligence to convert standard dynamic range (SDR) material to a high dynamic range (HDR) image. This is made possible thanks to Microsoft’s use of machine learning., which then trains the Auto-HDR algorithm on what to look for when converting from SDR to HDR. 

In the image below, Microsoft has provided examples of an SDR image (left), Auto HDR image (middle), and one in native HDR (right). As we can see by the heatmap, the lighting or luminance isn't as pronounced in the Auto HDR example but does provide the benefit of HDR, without the impact that running a title at native HDR image would produce. 

As of now, there's a limited amount of titles that support Auto HDR, but Microsoft says that more PC games, both DirectX 11 and 12, will benefit from Auto HDR. The company says that is working through the process of selecting titles and will announce the selection of games when they become available.

Currently, Auto HDR is a preview/beta build and Microsoft is still working to improve it. If you do enable the preview, you will encounter bugs, and things may not work correctly. So be sure to provide any feedback to Microsoft via its feedback hub app.

Aya, a startup behind the industry's first crowdfunded handheld Windows 10-based game console, has begun its Indiegogo campaign. The start of the campaign was postponed earlier due to components shortages, but now Aya thinks that the market situation is right to start the company's crowdfunding campaign.  To be the first to get the Aya Neo, one must pay as much as $789 via the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform, reports Liliputing.

The Aya Neo uses the AMD Ryzen 5 4500U system-on-chip produced using TSMC's N7 fabrication process (7 nm-class). This APU has six cores running at 2.30 GHz/4.0 GHz along with with the Radeon Vega 6 graphics unit (384 SPs), 16GB of memory, and 1TB of PCIe/NVMe storage. The AMD system-on-chip is cooled down using a proprietary cooling system with two copper heat pipes and a fan.

The console has a 7-inch IPS LCD touch-enabled display along with analog sticks, a D-pad, and other game-specific buttons. The Aya Neo exceeds expectations with regard to connectivity, which includes Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, stereo speakers, a 3.5-mm audio output, and three USB Type-C ports.

While a 7-inch x86 Windows-based PC seems impressive, the Aya Neo has its peculiarities. In particular, the console uses a six-year-old Polar/Vega GCN 1.4 graphics architecture that first came to life in the form of the Radeon RX 470 GPU in early 2016. AMD and game developers support this architecture for now, but only time will tell for how long this architecture will be supported given the fact that AMD is promoting its RDNA/RDNA2 GPUs and it is the RDNA2 architecture that powers both new generation game consoles, the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox One X/S series.

In any case, without any doubts the Aya Neo is an interesting device from engineering and gaming performance standpoints. 

CD Projekt Red has released its first Cyberpunk 2077 patch of 2021, bringing a slew of stability improvements and bug fixes for all platforms. This is the first of two updates that CD Projekt Red promised towards the end of 2020. However, it's definitely not the massive patch that many were expecting and it isn't the magic "fix everything" update that many were hoping for.

"In this update, we focused on various stability improvements, which you can find outlined in the patch notes below. We will continue this work in patch 1.2 and other upcoming updates. At the same time, we will keep fixing the bugs you encounter and listening to your feedback on how to improve the overall game experience." 

You can read the full list of patch notes by heading over to the Cyberpunk 2077 website. However, it's worth pointing out a couple of key points. First are the PlayStation-specific updates that address the rampant crashing on the PlayStation 4 while also providing some much needed PlayStation 4 optimization that addresses the crowds on the PS4 Pro and PlayStation 5. The Xbox wasn't left out as CD Projekt Red has done some optimization to memory utilization, which is sorely needed. Even the Stadia version gets some love, though nothing appears to help the title's performance. 

This update weighs in at roughly 5.4GB on Steam and considerably smaller at 1.1GB on GOG. While the patch is a step in the right direction, it still doesn't address the number of outstanding issues, such as the buggy AI, missing content, and a large number of quests that are still broken. Here's hoping that the upcoming patch 1.2 will address those concerns and more.

Following the initial blockbuster sales of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red faced a massive backlash due to performance issues that impacted gameplay on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the PC. This eventually led to refunds being offered to consumers not happy with the title's performance, prompting PlayStation to remove the title from its PlayStation Online and Xbox to apply a warning to anyone looking forward to purchasing the game. The company is also facing multiple lawsuits from investors who felt misled by CD Projekt Red. 

Microsoft has made a change to its Microsoft Store page to warn shoppers that Cyberpunk 2077's performance on the console is lacking. The move follows a string of recent moves by retailers to deal with the fallout of the now notoriously buggy title. 

By now, you're probably familiar with the recent developments surrounding CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077. The game has turned into a debacle that has prompted several companies such as Microsoft, Sony, Gamestop, and even Best Buy to change their refund policies, allowing frustrated consumers to return both the digital and physical copies of the game. 

Sony went one step further and removed the game from its PlayStation Online store, a move that sent a shock across the gaming industry. Many had expected Microsoft to follow suit and remove the game from its Xbox and Microsoft Online stores, but while Microsoft didn't emulate Sony's move, it did comment on the situation:

"While we know the developers at CD Projekt Red have worked hard to ship Cyberpunk 2077 in extremely challenging circumstances, we also realize that some players have been unhappy with the current experience on older consoles," Xbox Support said in a tweet.

Following the tweet, Microsoft made a change to its Microsoft Store page to include a warning for anyone looking to play the game on an Xbox One: 

"Users may experience performance issues when playing this game on Xbox One consoles until this game is updated."

There's little doubt that Microsoft wants to continue selling copies of the game, and most gamers agree that the game itself isn't bad – It's just flawed and needed more time to the oven. Still, leaving it on the Microsoft Store with a warning is definitely the right call for anyone who wants to play the game. Interestingly enough, this warning doesn't appear on the Xbox store.

CD Projekt Red has promised that two huge updates will be released in January and February 2021, both of which will include performance updates for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The recent hotfix 1.05 has addressed several issues and will be the first of many updates that will be released for the game.

If you've been following the recent developments surrounding CD Projekt Red and how the company has handled its latest game, Cyberpunk 2077, then you know that there has been one colossal mistake after another. PC users have had a hard time meeting the Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements and getting strong performance while PS4 and XBox One users have had painful console experiences.

These have led to both Microsoft and Sony changing their refund process to allow frustrated owners of the game to get a refund with no questions asked. Sony then went one step further and removed Cyberpunk 2077 from its online store. The more recent development even involves the developers at CD Projekt Red addressing their frustration on how everything has been handled. 

Outside of the refunds, CD Projekt Red has announced that the outstanding issues, including the lackluster performance of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, would be addressed in two patches, which are scheduled for January and February 2021 releases. 

However, it would seem that due to the recent events, that timetable has been moved up as a new patch was released just this evening. Hotfix 1.05 addresses a huge number of bugs for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions. This is also being released for the PC very shortly.

While the list of specific fixes is way too large to include here, the patch promises "multiple stability improvements" across all platforms, but we don't know what those are specifically. This update also includes a fix for incorrectly identified AMD Ryzen processors, which led to disabled cores. 

Other PC highlights include removing the use of AVX to stop crashes on non-AVX CPUs, adjusting the lighting so ray-traced effects are not too bright and solving an issue with the Steam overlay. The company also removed the debug console to "prevent functions that could lead to crashes or blocked quests." However, it says that it plans to do something to accommodate the "modding community" in the future.

When CD Projekt Red first spoke on the issues, it assured everyone that the developers would have some time to relax and enjoy the upcoming holiday. Now it seems like that is no longer the case, as the events surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 and the mishandling of the game by CD Projekt Red's management have kicked things into overdrive.

CD Projekt Red, the developers of Cyberpunk 2077, further acknowledged issues with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game in a conference call held yesterday.

"The game had a strong opening and we've got positive feedback from players enjoying it on stronger machines — PCs and next gen consoles and Stadia — but the initial feedback from those playing it on the oldest last-gen consoles is way below our expectations," said Adam Kiciński, joint-CEO of CD Projekt, per a transcript of the investor call.

He admitted that following three delays, management wanted to get the game released, that "we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles. It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy," especially when the company showed the game primarily on PC in marketing. He followed up stating that the company hopes to "rebuild the trust we have lost."

On the fact that base last-gen console footage wasn't shown, CFO Marcin Iwiński stated that "The reason is that we were updating the game on last-gen consoles until the very last minute, and we thought we’d make it in time." Reviewers got it one day before release, he said, because of these fixes, but it was not intended to hide it, he said.

Yesterday, CD Projekt Red tweeted from the game's account that those who bought the game and were unhappy could seek refunds directly from the Xbox and PlayStation online marketplaces, as well as attempting to return physical disks. It seems, from the call, that Microsoft and Sony weren't consulted prior to the announcement.

"One has to understand: Microsoft and Sony have refund policies for every product that is released digitally on their storefronts," said board member Michał Nowakowski. "Despite several articles I’ve seen that things are being set up just for us, it’s actually not true – these policies are in place and have always been in place; they’re not offered specifically for us. Anyone who has purchased any title on the PlayStation network or the Microsoft storefront can ask for a refund, and if it’s made within certain boundaries, usually related to time, usage and so on, can ask for that refund. Our procedure here with Microsoft and Sony is not different than with any other title released on any of those storefronts. I want to state that clearly, as there seem to be certain misconceptions."

Many users have found that they are not receiving refunds, particularly on PlayStation. The company has also stated it would prefer customers do not return the game, but be patient and wait for a series of patches coming to improve performance on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game. Kiciński added that while sales numbers will be announced to investors in a sales report near Christmas, the company hasn't decided on whether it will share the number of refunds outside the company.

Cyberpunk 2077 released on December 10 for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, Playstation 4  and Google Stadia. The developers did ultimately work under crunch conditions, and the company did not respond to a question about a potential change in the bonus policy reported by Bloomberg that would give developers a reward no matter how the reviews turned out.

A recording and transcript of the call can be found on CD Projekt Red's website.

It's been a rough few days for anyone who purchased CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 for either the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Due to several issues, such as buggy AI and performance-related issues, many customers have taken issue with the state of the game.

Sony was already allowing some refunds through its online store. Now, CD Projekt Red has come out and provided a detailed outline regarding the state of Cyberpunk 2077 and is suggesting unhappy customers of the digital versions apply for refunds through Sony and Microsoft's console marketplaces.

Simultaneously, the developer is suggesting that those who purchased physical copies should try to request a refund at the store where the game was purchased and reach out to CD Projekt Red directly if they aren't able to do so. The company has an email that will be available for one week, until December 21, which is before the Christmas gift-giving period.

"Finally, we would always like everyone who buys our games to be satisfied with their purchase." The statement reads. "We would appreciate it if you would give us a chance, but if you are not pleased with the game on your console and don’t want to wait for updates, you can opt to refund your copy. For copies purchased digitally, please use the refund system of PSN or Xbox respectively. For boxed versions, please first try to get a refund at the store where you bought the game for boxed versions. Should this not be possible, please contact us at helpmerefund@cdprojektred.com and we will do our best to help you. Starting from today, you can contact us for a week up until December 21st, 2020." 

If Microsoft and Sony accept refund requests, it is benevolent. Per their purchase and pre-order policy, once someone has downloaded a game to their console, they can no longer request a refund. There's no doubt that the game's numerous issues have prompted Sony and Microsoft to intervene, and it's good to see the companies working to accommodate their user bases.

Neither the PS4, PS4 Pro, or the Xbox One can provide a steady 30 frames per second, and segments that involve driving and gunplay can see drops as low as 20 frames per second. It's clear that there is still some optimization work to do, and CD Projekt Red has its work cut out for it with getting the console versions to an acceptable and playable level.

While the author of this piece is enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 on his PC, it is hard to recommend anyone playing this on the base version of the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation 4 Pro, or Xbox One for that matter. The best way to play the game, is via PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, X or Google's Stadia, which runs surprisingly well. In the meantime, CD Projekt Red has acknowledged the issues and has already released an update that addresses several game-breaking bugs.

Also, the company has recently announced its plans to "correct" the current status of the game across the last-generation of consoles. However, there are still numerous bugs that have yet to be patched, as many of us are well aware of.

"Together these should fix the most prominent problems gamers are facing on last-gen consoles. We will be informing you about the contents of each patch ahead of their release. They won’t make the game on last-gen look like it’s running on a high-spec PC or next-gen console, but it will be closer to that experience than it is now."

For now, you'll have to decide if you'll either hold on to your copy of Cyberpunk 2077 or if you'll request a refund and see how the situation plays out.

While we don't have the official next-gen console versions of Cyberpunk 2077 just yet, that hasn't stopped CD Projekt Red, Sony, and Microsoft from adding a few extra graphical features to the PS5, Xbox Series X, and S consoles when you run Cyberpunk 2077 in compatibility mode. Digital Foundry found out in its next-gen console review that the PS5 received a 60 fps cap while Xbox Series X gets some extra graphical enhancements, even on the series S.

The enhancements to the Playstation 5 are pretty self-explanatory: If you load up the PS4 version of Cyberpunk 2077 on the PS5, the game will detect it is running on the next-gen console and will automatically switch the frame rate cap to 60 fps. Besides that, Digital Foundry believes you get the same graphical settings as the PS4 Pro.

The Xbox Series X meanwhile receives a few graphical enhancements and inherits the same Quality and Performance modes from the Xbox One consoles. If you run the Series X in quality mode, limiting frame rates to 30 fps, you will receive ambient occlusion and a much higher NPC population in Night City.

The Xbox Series S sits in a weird middle ground between the Series X and PS5. The Series S has a 30 fps frame cap, but with that cap, you receive ambient occlusion for extra graphical oomph.

It's nice to see some extra enhancements were implemented into the next-gen consoles while we wait for the official PS5/Series X version of Cyberpunk 2077 coming out next year. If you're wondering about performance, it's very playable on the new consoles, thanks to the new Zen 2/RDNA2 SOC and high-speed NVMe storage. That means you won't have to worry about frame rates tanking like on the PS4 and Xbox One. If you want to play Cyberpunk 2077 on something that isn't a PC, the next-gen consoles will offer a good gaming experience, even in compatibility mode.             

After seven long years of anticipation, Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out, and so far we’ve had the opportunity to benchmark it on PC and play it on Stadia. Our impressions of the game’s performance have been generally positive so far, but these aren’t the only platforms the game is on. The game’s PS4 and Xbox One versions are also out today, but aside from two short gameplay videos, developer CD Projekt Red hadn’t given press any access to the game on console. Now that the game’s officially launched, though, we’re starting to see reports hit social media from all over, and the results are concerning. 

Until now, all we had seen of Cyberpunk's console versions were a few sequences of pre-recorded gameplay running on the Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, Xbox Series X and PS5. The version in these videos was technically built for current-gen consoles, with a proper next-gen update slated for next year, though the base versions of the PS4 and Xbox One were mysteriously absent from these videos. If reports starting to come out from players are to be believed, though, we might now know why. 

Videos are starting to hit Twitter that show the game running on the base PS4 and Xbox One, and they’re filled with muddy textures, flat surfaces, heavy pixelization, crashes and plenty of unreactive or buggy AI.
 

We’ve also seen complaints that the game runs in 720p on the base PS4 and Xbox One, with frequent dips below 30fps.

There’s a caveat to some of these user complaints, however. While Cyberpunk 2077 launched on December 10th in the US, we first started seeing footage of the game running on base consoles hit American social media on December 9th, which means that the users behind those posts may have adjusted their time zones to access it early. This means that some of them might not have been playing with Cyberpunk’s supposedly extensive day-one patch. While CD Projekt Red ensures that the game should automatically have the patch applied if you preloaded it, Ethan Gach of Kotaku said that when he attempted to play Cyberpunk early by adjusting his time zone, his copy was stuck on a pre-patch version with no option to download updates. This persisted even after re-downloading the game from scratch.

But certain post-patch members of the press are having a bad time, too. Speaking to Eurogamer, Tom Morgan of Digital Foundry said “Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 looks very blurry, running between 720p and 900p resolution, and the framerate for any driving around the big city areas is constantly at around 20 [fps].”

He also said that he experienced frequent hiccups and texture pop-in issues. Most of these issues went away by playing on the PS5, despite the console version out now being branded for current-gen consoles, but Morgan said that glitches like T-posing persisted.

Because of these issues, and because CD Projekt Red did not provide us a console copy of the game, we here at Tom’s Hardware haven't yet tried it. However, Tom’s Hardware freelance contributor Kieth Mitchell told us that he also experienced “low frame rate and resolution” on his base PS4, though these issues went away when playing on the PS4 Pro.

To be fair to Cyberpunk 2077, this is a 2020 game running on 2013 hardware, which some of the game’s fans have pointed out on social media. Others, however, are posting counterexamples of similar high-fidelity recent open world games that run much more smoothly on base current generation consoles.

Regardless, what we can say is that while the versions being sold for console right now are branded for the PS4 and the Xbox One, it might not be worth buying them unless you have a PS5 or Xbox Series X. For now, at least.

A week ago, CD Projekt Red posted the first footage we’d yet seen of Cyberpunk 2077 running on consoles, using both the Xbox One X and Xbox Series X for its demonstrations. Now, Playstation owners are getting some attention as well, with a new trailer that shows about 4 minutes of PS4 Pro footage and about 2 and a half minutes of PS5 footage. Unfortunately for those of us who are still on the PS4's launch model, there’s nothing to show off how the game runs on Sony’s base current-gen (last-gen?) machine.

Like with the Xbox footage, the video showing off Playstation gameplay maxes out at 1080p and doesn’t support 60 fps, so we’re mostly stuck to anecdotal impressions here. Also like the Xbox footage, the video here takes place early into the game and jumps around to avoid spoilers, which means it shows off a good deal of situations, though there’s a bit of a catch.

Before we get started, though, the video’s narrator reminds us that the footage we’re about to see doesn’t include all of the day-one graphics enhancements set to come as a free patch at launch, though it does have “a great number of those fixes.” She also affirms that a “full, next-gen upgrade is coming for free sometime next year,” which means that the video's Playstation 5 footage is from the game running via backwards compatibility. 

That’s quite a few disclaimers, probably because of the game’s many delays and reports of crunch at the studio, but perhaps most noticeable in this video is the lack of side by side comparisons that we saw in the Xbox footage. Instead, the video starts with a sequence of PS4 Pro footage and ends with some brief PS5 footage.

That’s a bit of a shame, because it means that while the video does show off driving, combat, daytime, nighttime, clear weather and rainy weather, only some of those effects show up on certain consoles. On my watch, the character and vehicle models looked great on either console, with the major difference being the effect fidelity. There’s a small moment around 3:35 where the shadows on a dossier seem to pixelate and glitch out as a character flips through it on the PS4 Pro, and rain looks more dense on the PS5 than on the PS4 Pro. 

It’s a little difficult to make direct comparisons, though, because certain effects, like rain droplets accumulating on a car window or the sun’s rays shining down in the desert, only appear on one of the consoles. 

Still, if you’re planning on playing Cyberpunk 2077 on Playstation, this video might be useful to you despite being as manicured as it is. We’re going to have to wait to get our hands on official benchmarks, as well as to see how that day one patch and next-gen upgrade pan out, but for now, it seems as if you’ll be able to run the game just fine on either generation. Except, perhaps, if you own a base model PS4 or Xbox One, which we again still haven’t seen any footage from.

Today, GeForce Now became the first publicly available cloud gaming service to officially support iOS devices, but there’s a catch - you’ll only be able to play through the Safari browser, rather than a dedicated app. That’s also the solution that Microsoft will be using for iOS support of its xCloud service sometime next year, and Google announced today that it’s planning a similar iOS web app expansion for Stadia in the coming weeks.

It’s currently in beta, but starting today, you can now access GeForce Now from the iPhone and iPad versions of the Safari browser. There is one limitation, though. For now, you’ll have to use one of the service's supported controllers, like the Xbox One controller or the mobile-first Razer Kishi, since "keyboard and mouse-only games aren't available." But Nvidia is otherwise promising full featured game streaming, barring potential beta issues. This includes RTX ray-tracing and Nvidia DLSS super-sampling.

This marks a first for cloud gaming on iOS. The App Store currently bans game streaming services like GeForce Now, xCloud and Stadia from the app store unless they submit every game on their platforms for app store review and subject them to Apple’s 30% app store commission. Customers would also have to download each game individually, even if they’re played off the cloud. Of course, not every company’s willing to jump through those hoops. 

“This remains a bad experience for customers,” Microsoft told The Verge earlier this September. “Gamers want to jump directly into a game from their curated catalog within one app just like they do with movies or songs, and not be forced to download over 100 apps to play individual games from the cloud.”

Nvidia’s solution isn’t exactly novel, but it is among the first to offer it to users. Amazon launched Luna, which is currently in early trials, with a web app as well. Earlier this October, Business Insider also reported that Microsoft told employees to expect xCloud to wind up on iOS via browser within 2021, and Google announced today that it’s also planning to bring Stadia to iOS as a web app in the “coming weeks.”

The elephant in the room here is Fortnite, which Apple pulled from iOS earlier this August after Epic introduced an in-app payment system that bypassed the typical App Store commission. Epic is now in a legal battle with Apple over the App Store that might change how games and services like GeForce Now release on iOS even further down the line, but for now, Nvidia’s workaround means the popular shooter will be coming back to iOS soon. And, unlike the rest of GeForce Now’s iOS-compatible catalog, you’ll be able to play it without a controller.

“Alongside the amazing team at Epic Games, we’re working to enable a touch-friendly version of Fortnite,” Nvidia said in its GeForce Now on Safari announcement post. “Members can look for the game on iOS Safari soon."

GeForce Now on Safari actually isn’t the first time Nvidia’s brought it’s cloud gaming solution to browsers, either. The service is also currently available on Chrome, though only if you’re using a Chromebook.

None of this is ideal, nor is hardware really the issue here so much as App Store rules. But with Nvidia saying that 10% of its user base currently plays on Chromebook, maybe it’s a sign that we can expect services like this to expand to even more devices and distribution methods in the near future. 

Cyberpunk 2077 is finally set to drop in a little under a month, but so far, all the pre-release footage we’ve seen has been on PC. That’s finally changing, though, with a new trailer showing off Cyberpunk footage from both the Xbox One X and the Xbox Series X. Notably, the Xbox One S and Xbox Series S weren't featured.

Before we get started, there’s a big caveat her e- the Xbox Series X footage is from the Xbox One version of the game. We’ve already noted in our Xbox Series X review that even backwards compatible games play noticeably better on the Xbox Series X, but we’re not going to know what the proper next-gen version of the game will look like on consoles until it arrives as a free patch sometime next year. 

The new console gameplay video shows a single mission in the game across both consoles, with parts cut out to avoid spoilers and shorten the video, but still shows off a decent amount of gameplay in sunlit and nighttime exteriors, as well as neon-lit interiors. Activities shown also vary between driving, shooting, talking to NPCs and exploring in general.

Unfortunately, the video doesn’t have 4K or 60 fps viewing options, so we’re mostly limited to giving anecdotal impressions of the game’s various effects. Still, with FHD playback, we didn’t notice any stuttering across either console, and the Xbox Series X footage does appear a touch smoother even if it’s not playing back at 60 fps.

Facial, combat, vehicle and character animation is predictably strong across either console, though some Series X character models still look a little last-gen to me. What’s most impressive is the environmental effects, especially on the Series X.  

The video cuts back and forth between both consoles, which can make direct comparisons a little difficult, but a single sequence around 6 and a half minutes into the video shows the same neon street market in quick succession on both the One X and Series X.

On One X, store sign text appears a little blurry, as does a hologram of a dancing girl outside one of the shops. These problems are fixed on Series X, where lighting and reflections also look more vibrant and water effects less glossy and more realistic. At least, to my eye.

We’re going to have to wait to get official benchmarks, of course, so the best you can do for now is watch the video yourself and be your own judge.

Cyberpunk 2077 finally launches on December 10th, after several delays and confirmed crunch at the studio, so we’re eager to get our hands on more official performance numbers on release.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S launched two days ago, and Microsoft’s closing out the week by sharing some celebratory news - the Xbox Series X/S launch was apparently the company’s “most successful [console] debut in history.”

If the dozens of sold out online listings weren’t a clue, the Xbox Series X and S sold very well when they became available to the public this Tuesday. Granted, we can attribute some of that to scalpers, but according to Microsoft, writing this off completely as aftermarket shenanigans wouldn’t be telling the full story. We don’t have actual sales numbers yet, but the company did pull back the curtain on what play looked like in the first 24 hours of launch.

“More games played, 3,594 total, spanning four generations, setting a record for the most games ever played during an Xbox console launch,” Microsoft said of its Xbox Series X/S player ecosystem on launch day. That means some actual players must have gotten their hands on the thing.

However, what’s more impressive is that the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S together sold “more new consoles than any prior generation” did at launch. Microsoft didn’t post official numbers, but we can infer how impressive this achievement is from past sales. The Xbox One, for instance, sold “more than one million consoles” at launch, and while we don’t have official numbers on Xbox 360 launch sales, that console is famous for beating the PS3 to market by almost a year, which made it the only HD console option for a significant amount of time.

The Xbox Series S may be what made the difference here, as Microsoft says that its budget next-gen console added “the highest percentage of new players for any Xbox console at launch.” That wording’s a little confusing, but we’re guessing this means that, of players who didn’t own an Xbox One and bought a next-gen Xbox, most of them bought the Series S.

Sony has yet to post any insight into how the PS5 launch went, so we won’t be able to compare statements anytime soon. But that console is also universally sold out now as well, and as we can tell from the Xbox One’s eventual fate, lots of launch sales don’t necessarily transfer to long-term success.

Still, the Series X is taking a different tack than the Xbox One intended to take at launch, focusing less on being an all-in-one set-top box and more on being a sort of mini-gaming PC. It’s also got Game Pass, which Sony has yet to compete with seriously. Both consoles earned equal marks in our reviews, so whichever one ends up being on top this generation is still up in the air.

Tomorrow, Nov. 10, the Xbox Series X and S will launch. On Thursday, Nov. 12, the PlayStation 5 will follow suit. I've had the opportunity to review both systems, and they're both pretty great. But for many, waiting and seeing will be the best option, at least for a while.

Let me get this out of the way now: If you have money to burn and want your games, including backwards compatible games, to play the best they can on a console, go for it if you can find one of the new consoles in stock. But if you're still happy with your  PS4, Xbox One or have a capable PC, read on.

The games are still on what you have

To start, both systems have few games that won't be available on the consoles you probably already have. The PS5 is launching with more exclusives, like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Astro's Playroom and the Demon's Souls remake. Of those, Miles Morales and Sackboy will both be on the PS4 as well. Third-party exclusives, like Bugsnax and Godfall will also be on PC, and the former will be on PS4 and Mac, too. That leaves the Demon's Souls remake as the real draw, but you could break out an old PS3 and play that.

On Xbox Series X and Series S, there aren't any exclusives launching with the consoles. The two we expected this year, Halo Infinite and The Medium have been delayed to 2021. Upgrading your Xbox will be like upgrading your PC in that the games will play better, but you won't have access to new ones. You could subscribe to Xbox Game Pass for over 100 titles to play and access to new Xbox Game Studios games at launch, but you could get that access on Xbox One, or, with Game Pass Ultimate or the PC version, your gaming PC or gaming laptop.

Other third-party titles on both platforms, like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be cross generation and on PC as well. 

Good luck finding one

Of course, if you haven't pre-ordered, you may not be able to find a new console to buy anyway. I can't tell you if this will be as bad as the RTX 3080 launch, but pre-orders certainly sold out fast. 

It sounds like there will be stock at launch, and possibly afterwards. But some stores, like Best Buy won't let you buy the new consoles in stores in an attempt to keep eager gamers from lining up outside a store in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. That will put many units online or for curbside pickup, and possibly in the hands of scalpers (not like scalpers can't go to stores, too).

Simply for your own sanity, it may be better to wait until production ramps up and the systems become more plentiful.

Waiting will also give you a better sense of when games are coming. A trailer for the PS5 says that Gran Turismo 7, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal are all expected in the first half of 2021, with Horizon: Forbidden West anticipated in the second half (the latter is another game that will also be on PS4). On Xbox, we still need a firm date for Halo Infinite. 

Patience is a virtue

And waiting, eventually, brings bundles. When I bought my PlayStation 4, it came with Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. I grabbed a Nintendo Switch with Super Mario Odyssey. And eventually, both of these consoles are likely to come with games, subscription services, or both.

The PlayStation 5, specifically, also needs some time to put out a software update for one of its best features: the ability to use a standard, PCIe NVMe SSD to expand storage. And hopefully, in that time, the prices on the expandable storage for the Xbox will drop from its eye-watering $219.99 for 1TB.

Historically, we've also seen redesigns of systems a few years in. In general, I don't suggest waiting years. It's one thing to suggest people wait for a few more games, it's another to say to wait for a smaller system. But if you do wait that long, which means you have far more patience than me, that's also often when the price drops. If the $499 price tag for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 and $399 for PS5 Digital Edition are rich for your blood, you can hope for that, but who knows when it will happen?

2021 may be the sweet spot

When Microsoft and Sony started developing and marketing these consoles, neither were expecting a global pandemic. That surely affected game development and definitely affected millions of people's paychecks. Both consoles are very good and I believe they will prove to be worthwhile.

But next year, you'll see a wider array of games, including exclusives for Sony and Microsoft's consoles (Xbox exclusives will also be on PC). You may start to see bundles then too, which are simply a better deal. Features are likely to be more fully baked next year. Also, there are likely to be more monitors and televisions that support HDMI 2.1 so you can get that full 4K 120 Hz experience.

There is no shame in playing on the console or PC you currently have for a few months (and if you updated to the newest parts, your PC is already more powerful, but that's a different story). Will the games look their best? Probably not, but cross-gen games largely have fewer differences anyway. For Xbox players, games that support Smart Delivery will be ready on Xbox Series X and S if you bought them on Xbox One.

And then, when you do make the console generation jump, either as your primary gaming machine or as a partner for your PC, it will be in a fuller, more vibrant time for both the PlayStation and Xbox Series X and S. And, thanks to cross-gen games, you won't have missed too much.

Note: As with all of our op-eds, the opinions expressed here belong to the writer alone and not Tom's Hardware as a team. 

Ubisoft's Watch Dogs Legion is one week away from being released on October 29th, 2020. With the date quickly approaching, Ubisoft has released a roadmap as to when pre-loads will start and when the game will be playable for all platforms.

If you're looking to get a jump on having the game downloaded and ready to play on launch day, it's recommended to start the pre-load as soon as possible. Otherwise, you'll find yourself fighting for bandwidth with thousands of other gamers on launch day. 

Below, we have provided the pre-load and launch times for each region.

Pre-load Start Times

• PC (Epic Game Store and Ubisoft Connect): October 26th, 8 AM PDT / 11 AM EDT (North America),  October 26th, 4 PM CET (Europe & Middle East), October 27th, 2 AM AEDT (Asia & Oceania)
• PlayStation 4: October 27th, 12:01 AM Local Time (All Regions)
• Xbox One: Pre-loads are available now (All Regions)
• Stadia: Stadia is a cloud-based streaming service, there's no need for a pre-load

Launch Times

• PC (Epic Game Store and Ubisoft Connect): October 29th, 12:01 Local Time (All Regions)
• PlayStation 4: October 29th, 12:01 AM Local Time (All Regions)
• Xbox One: October 29th, 12:01 AM Local Time (All Regions)
• Stadia: October 29th, 12:01 AM EDT (North America), October 29th, 12:01 CET (Europe & Middle East), October 29th, 12:01 AM (Asia & Oceania)

PC Specs Detailed

For those looking forward to playing Watch Dogs Legion on PC, the minimum and recommended specs have also been released. Below you can see where your PC falls in and if you'll need to grab some upgrades before the game is available to play. 

Watch Dogs Legion will feature DLSS 2.0 and Ray-Tracing for those with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 3080/3090 GPUs. The latter being two of Nvidia's more recent and most powerful consumer-grade GPUs ever released. 

They're also extremely popular and hard to acquire, so be sure to check out our guide, which provides some tips and tricks which just may help you out if you're looking to score an RTX 3080 or 3090. 

Without Ray Tracing

Minimum System Requirements for 1920x1080, Low Preset, DX12

• CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2 GHz, AMD Ryzen 5 1400 3.2 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970/GeForce GTX 1650
• Video memory: 4GB
• RAM: 8GB (Dual-channel setup)
• Hard Disk Space: (45GB)
• OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)

Recommended System Requirements for 1920x1080, High Preset, DX12

• CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6 GHz, AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060/GeForce GTX 1660 Super
• Video memory: 6GB
• RAM: 8GB (Dual-channel setup)
• Hard Disk Space: (45GB)
• OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)

Recommended System Requirements for 2560x1440, High Preset, DX12

• CPU: Intel Core i7-9700 3.0 GHz, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super
• Video memory: 8GB
• RAM: 16GB (Dual-channel setup)
• Hard Disk Space: (45GB)
• OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)

Ultra-System Requirements - 3840x2160 (4K), Ultra Preset DX12

• CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti or GeForce RTX 3080
• Video memory: 10GB
• RAM: 16GB (Dual-channel setup)
• Hard Disk Space: 45GB (+20 GB HD Texture Pack)
• OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only) (For optimal experience use DX12, also compatible with "DX11")

With Ray Tracing Enabled

Watch Dogs Legion is one of the more anticipated games being released that features ray tracing, and you're going to need a beefy computer to run the game at the highest settings. You'll also notice that for both the recommended and ultra-system settings, the RTX 2080 Ti has been replaced by the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. 

Minimum System Requirements - 1920x1080, High preset, Ray Tracing Medium, DLSS Quality, DX12 only

• CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 2.8 GHz, AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
• Video memory: 6GB
• RAM: 16GB (Dual-channel setup)
• Hard Disk Space: (45GB)
• OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)

Recommended System Requirements - 2560x1440 (1440p), Very High preset, Ray Tracing High, DLSS Quality, DX12 only

• CPU: Intel Core i7-9700 3.0 GHz, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
• Video memory: 8GB
• RAM: 16GB (Dual-channel setup)
• Hard Disk Space: (45GB)
• OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)

Ultra-System Requirements - 3840x2160 (4K), Ultra preset, Ray Tracing Ultra, DLSS Performance, DX12 only

• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
• Video memory: 10 GB
• RAM: 16GB (Dual-channel setup)
• Hard Disk Space: 45GB (+20 GB HD Texture Pack)
• OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)

Watch Dogs Legion releases on October 29th, 2020, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC (Epic Games Store & Ubisoft Connect), and Google Stadia. Both next-generation consoles will also receive enhanced versions that will be made available on November 10th, 2020 for the Xbox Series X|S, and November 12th, 2020, for the PlayStation 5. 

With the launch of Microsoft's next-generation consoles, the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, right around the corner, Xbox has released a list of games that have been optimized for the hardware.

These titles are different from the backward compatible games, which are essentially brute-forced on the Xbox Series X|S with some enhancements being added to the games via the hardware. The optimized titles are different because the developer has provided an update that further enhances the games. In some respects, these games will run on par with their PC counterparts, or better.

Gears 5 is a good example, too, as the developer of the game, The Coalition, has confirmed that the game will use full PC Ultra settings with higher-resolution textures and volumetric fog. Also, Playground Games confirmed that Forza Horizon 4 would support a native 4K 60 frames per second, higher visual fidelity at longer distances, and faster loading times.

Here's a list of the games that have been optimized for play on both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. 

You'll notice some of these games include upcoming titles such as Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition. While titles that once graced the Xbox One and Xbox One X, including Gears 5 and Forza Horizon 4, will look and play differently on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Smart Delivery) 
• Borderlands 3 (Smart Delivery) 
• Bright Memory 1.0  
• Cuisine Royale (Smart Delivery)
• Dead by Daylight (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery) 
• Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition  
• DIRT 5 (Smart Delivery) 
• Enlisted  
• Evergate
• The Falconeer (Smart Delivery) 
• Fortnite  
• Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery) 
• Gears 5 (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery) 
• Gears Tactics (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• Grounded (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery) 
• King Oddball (Smart Delivery) 
• Maneater (Smart Delivery) 
• Manifold Garden (Smart Delivery) 
• NBA 2K21
• Observer: System Redux 
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery) 
• Planet Coaster (Smart Delivery) 
• Sea of Thieves (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery) 
• Tetris Effect: Connected (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• The Touryst (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery) 
• War Thunder (Smart Delivery) 
• Warhammer: Chaosbane Slayer Edition  
• Watch Dogs: Legion (Smart Delivery) 
• WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship (Smart Delivery)
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Smart Delivery) 
• Yes, Your Grace (Smart Delivery) 

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will launch on November 10th, 2020. Did you manage to get a pre-order in? Or are you looking to test your luck by picking up either of the consoles in stores on launch day? We'd love to know in the comments.

A nameless motherboard with the A9-9820 APU (via @momomo_us) has emerged on AliExpress with a $125.30 price tag. It is believed that the A9-9820, which comes with Radeon R7 350 graphics, and should offer similar performance to that of Microsoft's Xbox One S console.

The A9-9820 is a real processor, but you won't find it anywhere on AMD's database. The model name insinuates that the chip belongs to AMD's 7th Generation A-Series family of APUs. The APU appears to come with an eight-core, 16-thread configuration and a boost clock speed of 2.35 GHz. The AliExpress sellers claims that the A9-9820's performance is comparable to the Core i5-7400. On the graphics end, the A9-9820 reportedly sports the Radeon R7 350 unit that brings 512 shaders clocking up to 935 MHz.

Chuwi, a popular computer manufacturer in China, uses the same A9-9820 APU in the brand's AeroBox mini-PC. A representative from the Chinese company has gone on record as stating that the AeroBox uses a similar motherboard that's inside the Xbox One S. The statement spurred speculations that the A9-9820 could be faulty dies that don't meet requirements for the Xbox One S. As a result, the APU could perform close to what you can expect from the gaming console.

The merchant alleges that Biostar is the manufacturer of the motherboard, and that it adheres to the CEB form factor. For reference, the ATX form factor comes in at 12 x 9.6 inches (305 x 244mm), while CEB measures 12 x 10.5 inches (305 x 267mm). That means the motherboard is just a bit wider than that we're normally accustomed to.

Power goes to the motherboard through a standard 24-pin power connector and 4-pin power connector. The APU obviously comes in a BGA package. Despite housing an AMD APU, the motherboard comes with a mounting pattern for Intel's LGA115x socket. Its other attributes include four DDR3 slots, four SATA III ports and even a PCIe x1 expansion slot. The seller didn't provide an image of the rear I/O, but it seems to house two PS/2 connectors, maybe a HDMI port, an Ethernet port, a couple of USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, as well as three 3.5mm audio jacks. 

We're less than one month away from the launch of Microsoft's next generation of gaming consoles; the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S. While one will empower gamers to game at 4K, and the other at 1440p, there's one thing that both consoles will be able to do: Providing owners of either console with a vast catalog of Xbox games that spans generations, all of which will be accessible as soon as both consoles are available.

Microsoft has been keen on providing backward compatibility for quite some time now and doubled down on this initiative for the past few months. It started with both the Xbox One backward compatibility program, which ended not too long ago since that console was discontinued. It didn't mean the work stopped, though; instead, the focus switched over to the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

Trust me when I say that what Xbox has accomplished will ensure that you'll want to revisit those old games that you haven't played in a while.

How's this all going to work?

Thanks to the power that's packed into the Xbox Series X and Series S, backward compatible games will see a visual jump. This means that games that may not have run quite so well on the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One will run at their fullest on the new platforms as the developers originally envisioned them, and without the need of a boost mode. Backward compatible games that either ran at 30 frames per second or struggled to hit that magic 60 frames per second will be a thing of the past, as both consoles will push them further and faster.

For example, Xbox showcased a game that was notorious for running poorly on the Xbox One and even the Xbox One X – Fallout 4. Both consoles struggled to keep the game running at a solid 30 frames per second, while the Xbox Series X and Series S can run the game as it was meant to be.

Take a look at the video of Fallout 4 being played on the Xbox Series S below:

We're not just talking better frame rates either, as games will also feature improved texture filtering and enhanced anisotropic filtering. Most backward-compatible games will see an improvement to 16x anisotropic filtering.

We can't forget to mention HDR (High Dynamic Range), which has become synonymous with existing and upcoming next-generation games. Here, both consoles will apply what Xbox has coined "Auto HDR." This will add HDR enhancements to games - even if they were developed and shipped without HDR support. This feature will complement the original artistic intent of games and will not require any support from developers. It will be applied on the fly, all by the hardware on the Xbox Series X and Series S, and won't impact your gaming experience.

What does this all mean for you?

For those of you who are either upgrading to the Xbox Series X or Series S, or making their first Xbox console purchase, either console will benefit from backward compatibility enhancements.

All backward compatible games will feature higher frame rates, enhanced visual definition, and unlike a remaster, which typically includes these features at a cost, it won't cost anything extra. If you already own the game, you'll just insert the disc into the Xbox Series X or download it from Xbox Live to your Xbox Series S. 

All those games that you loved but don't play anymore for one reason or another are about to get a new lease on life. I already know a few older games that I loved but didn't perform the best that I'll be revisiting again.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will be released on November 10th, 2020.

Xbox Series X units are finally starting to hit reviewers, and with that comes performance tests. There aren’t any next-gen titles to test the systems with yet, but that hasn’t stopped Digital Foundry, since the Xbox Series X makes strong efforts towards backwards compatibility, with Microsoft continuously reminding Xbox owners that they’ll have “thousands of games at launch,” some with more performance than before. Digital Foundry’s now put those claims to the test, and shown just how well the Series X runs older titles.
 

The results? Pretty impressive. Regardless of mode and whether or not Microsoft has gone out of its way to enhance the title to better leverage Series X architecture, the next-gen console ran most of the Xbox One X games Digital Foundry tested at a mostly stable 60 frames per second (fps).

Take Final Fantasy XV, which usually runs closer to 45 fps on its 1080p Lite mode on Xbox One X. The Xbox Series X bumped that up to a stable 60 fps, according to Digital Foundry's tests. 

Hitman 2, meanwhile, usually hits around 40 fps in its 4K mode on Xbox One X, but only occasionally dropped below 60 fps on the same mode on Xbox Series X, the testing found. 

According to Digital Foundry, Monster Hunter: World also hit a mostly stable 60 fps in its 4K resolution mode on Xbox Series X, while it runs closer to 30 fps in the same mode on Xbox One X.

There were some sub-60 fps exceptions, but nothing too glaring. Rise of the Tomb Raider showed a 30 fps cap on its 4K mode on both the Xbox One X and Xbox Series X, though swapping the game over to 1080p resulted in a more reliable 60 fps on the Series X, while the Xbox One X tends to vary between 40-55 fps. 

Sekiro, meanwhile, consistently dipped between 55 - 57 fps on Series X, which is still much higher than its 36 - 40 fps standard on Xbox One X.

On the other hand, Gears of War: Ultimate can now run at 4K on Xbox Series X at twice the frame rate as it does at FHD on the Xbox One X (though Digital Foundry didn't provide numbers for this game). This is a pretty drastic improvement over everything else Digital Foundry tested. The channel attributed this to Microsoft’s compatibility team, saying “work is being done there for select titles.”

Games that aren’t being enhanced by hand to take full advantage of the Series X’s hardware still fared pretty well. Digital Foundry discovered that this is probably because they can take full advantage of the Xbox Series X’s GPU power (though not all of its architecture), meaning that most of the lost performance comes from either the CPU or certain options not being available.

As the Xbox Series X matures, we’ll have to see how much developers, or Microsoft itself, support backwards compatibility. For instance, like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy XV’s Resolution mode caps the game at 30 fps, even though the Series X could probably well exceed that even at 4K, (which the Resolution mode also doesn't quite hit on consoles). Square Enix or Microsoft would need to patch the game to allow it to pass the 30 fps cap on Series X.

That’s actually not too unlikely, though, as Microsoft’s backwards compatibility efforts have only grown over time, and the existence of Game Pass only gives the company more incentive to keep expanding its compatibility efforts. Still, even out-of-the-box, the Series X seems to almost double performance across numerous games.

The Xbox Series X went up for pre-order today, but if Amazon's sales ranking charts are to believed, there may be a lot of people getting the wrong console this holiday season.

Nintendeal founder Andrew Wolf, under the Twitter handle @AndrewAlerts, found that the Xbox One X, Microsoft's most powerful console last generation, had skyrocketed on Amazon's sales charts under "Movers & Shakers in Video Games."

As of this writing, the Xbox One X is up 431% to a rank of 317, though Wolf saw it as high as 747%. And that begs the question, did people buy the wrong console on Amazon among the pre-order confusion? The two product names are a single word apart, and each could be listed with the same 1TB storage configuration. In a search for Xbox Series X (the new console), the Xbox One X (the old console) does still come up, both as new and renewed systems. Microsoft discontinued the Xbox One X in July, but it's possible there's still stock out there.

It's possible that some potential buyers wouldn't notice the difference, especially if they're not usually big into video games. The new Xbox Series S also has a similar name to the current Xbox One S.

 Tom's Hardware has reached out to Amazon about the situation and will update if it responds.

 The new and old consoles' names, and whether they are confusing, has been brought up before, and some people in forums and on Twitter have debated whether there are truly any issues at all. But if this many people bought the last-gen Xbox on the pre-order day? Well, then there's probably something to it.

Following up yesterday’s leak / announcement of the Xbox Series S, including its $299 price tag, Microsoft is today giving us a detailed look at the specs behind the upcoming console. The result? It seems pretty similar to the Xbox Series X...except for the GPU. 

Xbox Series X vs. Xbox Series S Specs 

Microsoft detailed the Series S’ specs in a blog post this morning and in a 9-minute-long YouTube video this afternoon. The key takeaway is that the Xbox Series S uses the same CPU architecture as the Series X (albeit at a slightly slower 3.6 GHz clock speed versus the Series X’s 3.8 GHz), but a drastically less powerful GPU. At 20 CUs compared to the Series X’s 52 CUs, the Series S’ graphics processor can only muster 4 teraflops of power, as opposed to the Series X’s 12.15.

Four teraflops is even less powerful than the current-gen Xbox One X, which has 6 teraflops of power. Still, that’s not too unusual considering that, despite running older games, the Xbox One X targets 4K resolution while the Series S aims for 1440p. The better last-gen comparison, then, would be the Xbox One S, which has just 1.4 teraflop of graphics power.

That’s probably why Xbox Head of Platform Engineering and Hardware Liz Hamren said in the company’s blog that the “Xbox Series S delivers 4x the processing power of an Xbox One console.” She also emphasized its 120 fps support, something that isn’t possible on any Xbox One model.

Aside from the graphics power, the Xbox Series S also uses the same custom PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD as the Xbox Series X, but reduced from 1TB of storage to 512GB.  In the Xbox 's video, it shows the Series S loading The Outer Worlds in 12 seconds, while the Xbox One S takes 53 seconds. 

The SSD also enables the Series S’ quick resume feature, which it shares with the Series X. Quick Resume lets players suspend multiple games at once and resume playing them later without needing to restart them. In the video above you can see the Series S swapping between 4 games within 30 seconds.

The other major parity between the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S is memory. While the Series X has 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, the Series S only has 10GB of GDDR6 RAM.

The Series S is also digital-only, which could prove an issue for players who want to keep multiple games downloaded at once, as the only way to expand the console’s memory (at least for current gen games) will be a proprietary 1TB Xbox expansion card.

At $299, though, the Series S seems like a good option for playing all the same games as the Series X, assuming you don’t care about 4K. And its touted ability to support 120 fps is nothing to sneeze at, especially for staying competitive in multiplayer games. We're looking forward to testing Microsoft's claims for ourselves come November. 

After months of waiting, Microsoft finally revealed the price for the Xbox Series X today via Twitter and blog post. Let’s not beat around the bush -- the Xbox Series X is $499. That’s $200 more expensive than the Xbox Series S, which Microsoft revealed yesterday. It’s also the same as the Xbox One’s price at launch, and only $100 more expensive than the original Xbox 360’s launch price.
 

For that $500, you’ll get a 12 Teraflop RDNA 2 GPU, a custom Zen 2 APU,  a 1TB NVMe SSD, and 16GB of GDDR6 memory. Microsoft’s aiming to push those specs towards 4K @ 60 fps gaming, 8K @ 60 fps gaming, 120 fps gaming and ray-tracing. It’s also developing the “Microsoft velocity architecture,” which will use the console’s SSD to allow users to suspend multiple games at once, on top of achieving faster load times.

Microsoft and Sony have been in what has seemed like a game of chicken for the past few months, with neither company wanting to be the first to drop a price. But Microsoft taking the initiative over its competitors isn’t necessarily new -- the Xbox 360 came out nearly a year before the PS3. Still, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a PS5 price drop soon.

$500 is certainly a hefty chunk of change, but seeing how much the Series X improves on the Xbox One, it’s impressive that you’ll be able to snag one for the same price. There will also be an installment plan available starting at $34.99 a month for 24 months, though be aware that this will eventually add up to $839.76.

As for the launch date, Xbox also announced in the price reveal that you can get your hands on an Xbox Series X (or Series S) starting on November 10th, giving us a solid date over the previous "November" promise. If that's not soon enough for you, pre-orders for the Xbox Series X/S begin on September 22nd.

Microsoft’s supposed new budget console, the Xbox Series S, got leaked yet again this morning, making for the third time the company’s worst kept secret has hit the public eye before any official announcement. 

The leak comes courtesy of Twitter user @braviarybrendan, who stumbled across some Xbox Series S promotional material in a new Xbox controller he bought. Packed in with the controller was a 14-day free trial code for Xbox Game Pass, which said “Includes Xbox Live Gold and unlimited access to over 100 high-quality games on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows 10.”

At this point, it almost feels like Microsoft is leaking the Series S on purpose. We first heard about this console back in June, when an Xbox dev kit leak referred to a 1440p @ 60Hz variant of Microsoft’s next Xbox codenamed “Lockhart.” Then in August, another controller leak showed branding that said it was compatible with “Xbox Series X/S.”
 

Tech site TweakTown has since mocked up a spec sheet for the Series S based on “info we’ve collected over years of reporting,” which Verge senior editor Tom Warren seconded on Twitter. According to the mock up, we might expect the Series S to have 4 terraflops of GPU power along with the same CPU and storage specs as the Series X.

Microsoft still has yet to officially confirm the console’s existence, or to give us any inkling of a launch date.

Earlier this week, a Twitter user who goes by zakk_exe posted what appeared to be a new Xbox controller. After examining the packaging, he quickly discovered the controller was designed for a new, not-yet-released Xbox console.

The controller was purchased through Offer Up for just $35. When asked, the seller casually stated he acquired the controller "from a homie", leaving an open question about the true source of this hardware leak.

The new controller features a solid white color scheme. While Microsoft had already announced the new device, similar in size and design to the current Xbox One controller but with a redesigned directional pad and share button, it had not yet shown it in white.

The box contains a list of compatible consoles, one of which is the Xbox One. However, it also includes "Xbox Series X|S". This may imply the development of two models, both the X and S edition.

Microsoft hasn't yet officially announced the Xbox Series S, reportedly codenamed Lockhart, which is rumored to be a cheaper, less powerful system than the Xbox Series X coming later this year. We don't know yet when this will be released or how much it will cost, but it can't be too far away if people are already buying the controller.

You can check out the full original post on Twitter.

That Xbox Elite controller you paid $180 for has a rival. It comes from Joshua R. A. Horstmann, who was recently highlighted by Cherry for utilizing its MX Blue switches as triggers on an Xbox One controller. Cherry highlighted the project on Twitter.

Horstmann, who goes by nepomuk_ra on Instagram (the account is currently set to private), replaced the controller's triggers for faster feedback in shooting games. He also has switched out the control sticks, opting for a lengthier right stick for more control in aiming.

Horstmann told Tom's Hardware that he finds gaming with a controller far more comfortable than sitting at a mouse and keyboard. He started gaming on consoles before moving to PC to play Fortnite. But when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone came out, he felt he wasn't competitive.

"I saw how often I died only because of pure input delay differences," he said. The Xbox One controller triggers only fired when he pressed them all the way down, so he tried remapping firing to bumpers, which he also found uncomfortable, so he took to a video on YouTube explaining how the triggers on the controller work.

"I took out the trigger of my controller and designed something that fit int he same mounts," Horstmann said. A friend of his father's printed the mounts for the Cherry MX Blue switch. You can even take the Cherry switches out and hotswap with the original trigger, though that does involve some soldering.

The other beauty of the design is that you can change the keycaps to choose what's most comfortable for you. Hopefully Horstmann works on caps that look and feel more like traditional controller triggers.

Many of us on the Tom's Hardware staff love Cherry Blues for typing, but we do wonder if linear switches like Cherry Reds may have been better for this project. But like many things, that comes down to personal preferences.

If you use a mouse and keyboard, sure, you can have a whole mechanical keyboard. But sometimes controllers are great for sitting back on the couch, and this definitely makes it a bit more of a PC experience.

This Raspberry Pi handheld, created by Reddit user Penkamaster, takes PC streaming to the next level with gyroscopic camera control. That let's you move the system around in real-life to look around in-game environments.

The project uses a Raspberry Pi 4 along with a recycled 8.9" tablet screen. The screen is mounted to an Xbox One controller, creating a single handheld unit. Games are streamed from a PC using Moonlight, a software designed for streaming PC games to the Raspberry Pi.

When the Raspberry Pi first boots, the Xbox One controller connects automatically before moonlight-qt launches. Moonlight has a UI that you can easily navigate with a controller.

The handheld uses an MPU6050 gyroscope that's attached to the screen. You can use the gyroscope to aim the camera in-game with the help of a little code. Penkamaster was nice enough to share the source code on Github if you want to check out the project yourself.

According to Penkamaster, the end result is a bit bulky due to the cables, but the sacrifice was worth it as this lends to a lighter weight system. If you want to check out the project yourself, visit the original thread on Reddit. Be sure to follow Penkamaster for more cool Pi projects!