By Hilbert Hagedoorn @ GURU3D
EK is back and this round with a massive 360 Predator series liquid cooler. We test the Predator 360 on a Core i7 4790K processor and will add a Radeon R9 Nano to the all-in-one liquid cooling loop. The end result is terrific as even overclocked our graphics card would not even pass 40 Degrees C. The nice thick radiator, proper tubing and an excellent water-blocks that are pre-filled and fitted kit are downright terrific.
Source: techPowerUp!
NVIDIA released its second “Game Ready” GeForce drivers in a span of a week, with version 358.91 WHQL. These drivers are “game-ready” for Fallout 4, Star Wars: Battlefront, and StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void. This means game optimizations, SLI profiles, and GeForce Experience optimal settings for the three games. This closely follows last week’s GeForce 358.87 WHQL release, which was game-ready for Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
You can download the new GeForce 358.91 WHQL drivers from GeForce Experience and GeForce.com.
Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.
By Alex Osborn, IGN
Call of Duty: Black Ops III released today across an array of different platforms, and it looks like PC gamers are getting the short end of the stick.
Many who picked up the game for Windows are having major issues with Treyarch’s new shooter, citing unacceptably low frame rates and in some instances an inability to play the game entirely.
Polygon notes that users have taken to the official Call of Duty forums as well as Steam’s Community forums to level their complaints, with several claiming the “game doesn’t even start.”
Treyarch is aware of the issues and has suggested players edit one of the game’s INI files. “There have been reports of certain i5 CPUs having performance issues causing very low frame rates – We are still working on the final solution for this issue, but we have had reports that changing WorkerThreads = 4 to WorkerThreads = 2 in your config.ini file can help.”
Firefly Studios have just released their fourth Stronghold Crusader 2 DLC character pack, meaning ‘The Jackal & The Khan’ is now available at 33% off on Steam! “The Jackal & The Khan” is designed as the ultimate challenge for Crusader players and it is planned as our final release for the game. While those who own all Crusader 2 DLCs are in store for a few little surprises in-game, we would rather players discover these for themselves. We do however have something else to reveal.
If you’ve been holding out until now with dreams of owning the complete Stronghold Crusader 2 package then today is a good day. Out now on Steam with 33% off, the new Ultimate Edition of Crusader 2 comes with all four character pack DLCs and a second copy of the Stronghold Crusader 2 base game to gift to a friend. All Special Edition content is also included giving you an art book, soundtrack and Stronghold Crusader HD. We’ve even added the previously pre-order exclusive ‘Delivering Justice’ and ‘Freedom Fighters’ bonus mini-campaigns to the pack and several exclusive in-game shields, allowing you to own everything we’ve ever created for the game!
Watch the Stronghold Crusader 2 “The Jackal & The Khan” DLC launch trailer here.
Watch the Stronghold Crusader 2 Ultimate Edition launch trailer here.
By Nathan Kirsch @ Legit Reviews
AMD has released Catalyst 15.11 Beta drivers that contain performance optimizations for Call of Duty: Black Ops III. The beta drivers can be downloaded here and contain eight other bug fixes. For example Ashes of the Singularity shouldn’t crash on some AMD Radeon 300-series cards now or fail to launch on video cards that have just 2GB of video memory. AMD Also fixed a timeout error that was discovered on Star Wars: Battlefront and Hitman Pro. These are all pretty big bug fixes, so it looks like this driver is a must. This driver still has a number of known issues though. The largest issue is going to impact those playing Black Ops III today with an AMD Radeon CrossFire multi-GPU setup. Those folks playing in DirectX11 mode with AMD Crossfire enabled might see a flickering issue.
AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition drivers are still said to be coming later this month after AMD completes the brand new driver package. Could this be the last Catalyst driver launch?
The wait is over: Black Ops is back! After months of anticipation, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is available now around the world. With an all-new campaign that can be played solo or in four-player co-op, the 1940s film noir zombies experience, Shadows of Evil, and massive new multiplayer features, like a new momentum-based, chained movement system and the introduction of Specialists—Black Ops 3 is the biggest, most ambitious Blacks Ops game to-date.
Of course, in true Black Ops fashion, there’s so much more for fans to discover and experience—whether it’s exploring the data vaults of the Safe House in campaign, uncovering the heavily-rumored Nightmares mode, or gaining access to the new Dead Ops arcade*. Those that pre-ordered Black Ops 3 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC also get instant access to the reimagined fan-favorite multiplayer map, Nuk3town, as a bonus map. And for zombies fans, there’s The Giant, the next chapter in the classic Black Ops zombies story that’s included with Black Ops 3 Collector’s Editions and for Season Pass owners.
But there’s even more to come—Black Ops 3 will help usher in a new era of Call of Duty eSports with the inaugural season of the Call of Duty World League, which kicks off this January.
More game info available at the Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 official website.
Full review coming within 48 hours of launch.
By Brian Albert, IGN
With alternate histories and crazy weapons, Treyarch’s Black Ops games have always been Call of Duty’s oddballs. After killing mind-wolves with a swarm of nano-bees in the new campaign, I’m happy to say Black Ops 3 not only continues that trend, but smartly embraces its sci-fi oddities more than ever before.
All Profits from Limited Edition Merchandise Will Support the Call of Duty Endowment’s Work to Connect Veterans with Quality Employment
Activision Blizzard have announced merchandising partnerships with Costco Wholesale Corporation and GameStop Corp. to support the Call of Duty Endowment’s nationwide work to help veterans find high-quality careers after military service. Costco will sell exclusive, limited edition dog tags packaged with the highly-anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops III in its U.S. stores, and GameStop will offer an exclusive limited edition Call of Duty: Black Ops III challenge coin—sold separately from the game—in its stores. These unique items will be available on November 6, 2015, in conjunction with the Call of Duty: Black Ops III launch. All profits from sales of the dog tags and challenge coins will go towards the Call of Duty Endowment‘s support for organizations that prepare veterans to reenter the job market.
This Smart News Release features images of the dog tags and challenge coin. View the full release here.
Destructibility Improvements, New Maps and First British Tanks
Gaijin Entertainment today announced that its award-winning MMO WWII online game, War Thunder, will be introducing a host of new and upgraded features in a forthcoming update for War Thunder’s 10 million players to enjoy.
War Thunder is starting to implement an improved version of its engine, known as Dagor Engine 4.0, and part of this is physically based rendering. War Thunder has always prided itself on its unrivaled attention to detail, even going as far as to correctly interpret the way light interacts with objects within its environment, including the diffusion and reflection of light on shiny and opaque surfaces and materials, such as wood, steel, rubber and glass. In short, it means that War Thunder will look even more realistic than ever before.
Another part of the improved engine is the integration of NVIDIA GameWorks technologies. NVIDIA PhysX Destruction aids War Thunder’s quest for increased realism by enabling the introduction of larger destructible objects to the game: wall fragments, ruins and entire buildings will all react to in-game ballistic physics. Players now have the ability to destroy enemy’s cover or create new firing positions, changing dynamics of tank battles.
The inclusion of NVIDIA WaveWorks technology generates incredibly realistic waves and foam for oceans, seas, rivers and lakes, which will also factor wind direction and strength. All of the maps in the game will benefit from this addition, aerial and ground combat ones alike.
The name “Firestorm” for update 1.53 comes from the introduction of a deadly set of new multiple rocket launcher systems: namely, the American M26 Pershing tank with mounted T99 system, the German Panzerwerfer 42 and Russian BM-24-8. These vehicles provide a formidable barrage of high-explosive rockets and continue to expand the armored vehicle design variation in the game.
Fans anticipating British tanks will rejoice, as an initial set of four exclusive vehicles become available: the A13 Mk II, the Sherman Firefly, the M10 Achilles and the A43 Black Prince Infantry tank. The main British Ground Force line-up will appear in War Thunder in the next updates.
In total, there are over 20 new vehicles in update 1.53, including the amphibious Soviet tank PT-76, Cold War-era Jagdpanzer 4-5 and, eagerly awaited by fans, the top-range British jet fighter the Hawker Hunter.
Finally, two new ground combat locations were added, a winter map of the Stalingrad tractor plant district, which has been painstakingly reproduced based on real photographs taken during the bloody battles for the city and “Advance to Rhine,” based on late-war Cologne with its towering cathedral and maze-like streets that will provide the optimum challenge for urban warfare.
Steam Achievements are now available for the PC version of the game. There are many more improvements and features in this update, of course. To see a detailed list, click here. Or visit the War Thunder developer’s blog.
