Given that they needed 4 Tesla V100 to make that Star Wars/UE4 demo, yes, I agree with you that it will take time and several generations.

http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/hdd-mining/

Ray Tracing is already being used, has been for years.
https://www.cinemablend.com/games/Geomerics-Interview-Next-Gen-Consoles-Battlefield-4-Ray-Tracing-46541.html

For now... Developers will continue along the path of using the regular rendering paradigm, which is rasterization as it's cheap on hardware.
Then Ray Tracing will be used to enhance the scene, I.E. Lighting.

Next gen however... Things will really start getting interesting.

Thanks.

You know what I meant .

As for next gen, that will only happen if Sony/MSoft go with more capable machines than what PS4/X1 were at launch. Otherwise, it will ge at last a couple gens. After all, not many publishers will invest in that tech if it can't be used on console games.

I don't know why I'm doing this today, a non labour day, but it's Friday so why not? Let's go with the news:

SALES & "SALES"/DEALS

Spec Ops: The Line is now available for free for the next 48 hours on Humble Bundle
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/spec-ops-the-line-is-now-available-for-free-for-the-next-48-hours-on-humble-bundle/
Following the amazing free offer of The Darkness 2, Humble Bundle is now offering the incredible Spec Ops: The Line for free. This offer will end in 48 hours and Humble Bundle will provide a Steam key for Windows, Mac, or Linux to all those who are quick enough to acquire their free copy.

>>Grab it from here.

SOFTWARE

Jurassic World Evolution will be using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/jurassic-world-evolution-will-be-using-the-denuvo-anti-tamper-tech/
And this completely passed under our radar. A few hours ago, we informed you about the preliminary minimum PC requirements for Jurassic World Evolution. However, the game’s http://store.steampowered.com/app/648350/Jurassic_World_Evolution/" target="_blank">Steam store page has also revealed that it will be using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech.

>>Well, that sucks!

AMD and Unity showcase a fully open source high performance GPU-accelerated ray tracing engine
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/amd-and-unity-showcase-a-fully-open-source-high-performance-gpu-accelerated-ray-tracing-engine/
AMD and Unity have showcased a fully open source high performance GPU-accelerated ray tracing engine for low level engine developers and supporting OpenCL, Vulkan and C++ backends, called AMD Radeon Rays. AMD Radeon Rays can be used as an important building block of a renderer supporting global illumination rendering, sound rendering.

MODS/EMULATORS

-empty-

GAMING NEWS

Battlezone: Combat Commander – 1.6GB of 3D assets available to modders for free
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/battlezone-combat-commander-1-6gb-of-3d-assets-available-to-modders-for-free/
Rebellion has made 1.6GB of 3D assets from Battlezone: Combat Commander available to all players on the game’s website. As the press release reads, eager modders can now access the 3D models and textures for all of the remastered buildings, characters and vehicles for free.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance Patch 1.4 available, fixes 200 major bugs, adds new HD Texture Pack
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/kingdom-come-deliverance-patch-1-4-available-fixes-200-major-bugs-adds-new-hd-texture-pack/
Warhorse Studios has released the highly anticipated patch 1.4 for Kingdom Come: Deliverance. This patch fixes 200 major bugs and adds the first free DLC which is a HD Texture & Audio Pack for PC.

Brutal MooD is an amazing top down shooter inspired by classic first-person shooters, demo available
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/brutal-mood-is-an-amazing-top-down-shooter-inspired-by-classic-first-person-shooters-demo-available/
Doom fans, here is something special for you today. Quad Damage Games is currently working on a top-down shooter that is heavily inspired by the classic first-person shooters, called Brutal Mood. Brutal Mood features lots of action and gore violence inspired by pioneers of the shooter genre, and there is a demo that you can download and play.

>>And there's a demo, whose download link is here. Don't ask me why the demo isn't available on Steam because I don't really know.

Guacamelee! 2 is officially coming to the PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/guacamelee-2-is-officially-coming-to-the-pc/
DrinkBox Studios has announced that Guacamelee! 2 will soon come to the PC. In order to celebrate this announcement, the team has released a new trailer dedicated to the game’s Steam version that you can view below.

Here is almost one minute of gameplay footage from Human Head’s cancelled Prey 2 prototype
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-is-almost-one-minute-of-gameplay-footage-from-human-head-cancelled-prey-2-prototype/
Andrew Borman has shared a video, showing one minute of gameplay footage from Human Head Studios’ cancelled version of Prey 2. This prototype version will obviously never see the light of day so it’s pretty cool we are at least getting some videos from it.

Friday news, part two:

Overwatch's 'Uprising' event returns in April
https://www.pcgamer.com/overwatchs-uprising-event-returns-in-april/
The Overwatch Uprising brawl will return on April 10, Blizzard announced today, taking players back to "a pivotal moment in Overwatch history" when the team fought against rampaging Omnics in the city of London.

PC Building Simulator lands on Steam Early Access, overclocking support coming
https://www.pcgamer.com/pc-building-simulator-lands-on-steam-early-access-overclocking-support-coming/
Remember PC Building Simulator? It's still a work in progress, but has graduated to Steam Early Access and, from what we can discern from the trailer video and screenshots, is much more polished than the last time we looked at it.

>>I don't know if I should laugh or be impressed by how serious the guys behind this game are. I think I'll do both.

Superb stealth game Mark of the Ninja is getting remastered
https://www.pcgamer.com/superb-stealth-game-mark-of-the-ninja-is-getting-remastered/
Mark of the Ninja: Remastered will freshen up one of our all-time favorite stealth games later this year, developer Klei Entertainment announced.
A standout even among Klei Entertainment's sterling repertoire, Mark of the Ninja originally released in 2012, and while its cartoony art has aged well, Klei reckons it could do with a tune-up. So for the remaster, they're targeting "fully redone 4K visuals for both gameplay and cutscenes along with enhanced audio and new particle effects."

Aragami: Nightfall introduces new characters, powers, and 'complex scenarios'
https://www.pcgamer.com/aragami-nightfall-introduces-new-characters-powers-and-complex-scenarios/
The Nightfall expansion will see two Shadow Assassins, Hyo and Shinobu, hunt down the Alchemist in an effort to bring back a long-lost companion, a tale told across four new story chapters recounting the events that led to the awakening of Aragami. The Steam page promises "more complex scenarios for experienced players," with three new Shadow Techniques and support for cross-platform multiplayer.

PUBG's latest limited-time Event Mode is live and focused on flares
https://www.pcgamer.com/pubgs-first-limited-time-event-mode-is-live-and-focussed-on-flares/
Flares have been added to PlayerUnknown's Battleground? Nice! The game definitely needs better clothes. Not sure how I feel about bell-bottomed breeches, mind you, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

Dying Light's free 'Content Drop #4' is a new Prison Heist mode
https://www.pcgamer.com/dying-lights-free-content-drop-4-is-a-new-prison-heist-mode/
Dying Light continues its 10in12 loyalty bonus initiative with Content Drop #4 and Content Drop #5. So far, the free-stuff-for-playing run has given us weapons, attachments and community events. Number four, on the other hand, brings with it a new mode named Prison Heist.

Mafia 2 and Mafia 3 join GOG with limited-time 50 percent discounts
https://www.pcgamer.com/mafia-2-and-mafia-3-join-gog-with-limited-time-50-percent-discounts/
"We've known each other for many years, but this is first time you've come to me for help," says Vito Corleone to Amerigo Bonasera in the opening scene of The Godfather. Swap out the word 'help' for 'the chance to discuss selling Mafia on our digital storefront', and I imagine that's how GOG secured Illusion Softworks' 2002 open world crime sim last year.
I suspect a similar strategy was behind bringing Mafia 2 and Mafia 3 to the online distributor too, which means the organised crime series is now available to play DRM-free in its entirety. To mark the occasion, each game is subject to a limited-time 50 percent discount—66 percent if pick them up together. Is that an offer you can't refuse? You tell me.

And now, the GOG and Steam deals for this weekend:

+GOG

Besides the Mafia games deals, there are another 5 deals to look at:

• The daily deal is Her Story, 75% off: https://www.gog.com/game/her_story
• Next is the weekly sale: https://www.gog.com/promo/20180326_weekly_sale
• The special promo #1 revolves around the publisher 11-bit studio: https://www.gog.com/promo/20180328_11_bit
• The "Games to play with Faraway friends" sale includes games like Absolver, Shadow Warrior 2 or Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000: https://www.gog.com/promo/20180327_interplay_special
• And lastly, comes an Interplay special promo: https://www.gog.com/promo/20180327_interplay_special

+Steam

• Killing Floor 2 is 60% off: http://store.steampowered.com/app/232090/Killing_Floor_2/
• The LEGO franchise is on sale: http://store.steampowered.com/sale/LEGO/
• Frontier is the star of the weekend publisher deal: http://store.steampowered.com/sale/frontier/
• And of course, there's the games featured on the weekly sale

And that's it. Have a happy and gaming weekend.

Today, I've found these three news that I thought I'd share with you:

NVIDIA Announces Dual-GPU TITAN W, New Weissman Architecture
https://www.gamersnexus.net/news-pc/3273-nvidias-new-titan-w-graphics-card-weissman-gaming-architecture
Revealed to press under embargo at last week’s GTC, the nVidia-hosted GPU Technology Conference, nVidia CEO Jensen Huang showcased the new TITAN W graphics card. The Titan W is nVidia’s first dual-GPU card in many years, and comes after the compute-focused Titan V GPU from 2017.

The nVidia Titan W graphics card hosts two V100 GPUs and 32GB of HBM2 memory, claiming a TDP of 500W and a price of $8,000.

“I’m really just proving to shareholders that I’m healthy,” Huang laughed after his fifth consecutive hour of talking about machine learning. “I could do this all day – and I will,” the CEO said, with a nod to PR, who immediately locked the doors to the room.

CORSAIR Launches "STOP GPU ABUSE" Campaign With #GPURESCUE
https://www.techpowerup.com/242864/corsair-launches-stop-gpu-abuse-campaign-with-gpurescue
Corsair, in a welcome, interesting and heartfelt marketing ploy, has taken its place on the side of gamers worldwide against the unintended, hear-wrenching abuse felt by graphics cards used for mining everywhere. The soft, unyielding music does a great job of just showing how much of a "crying out" these graphics cards that are being put to sweaty, inhuman, ever-worsening working conditions are releasing.

If you were as touched as other users (and Corsair marketers) in doing this video, there are a lot of ways for you to donate and contribute to the liberation of these shackled miners. For your donation, Corsair will buy back a mining-set graphics card, and send you a photo of your "adopted" GPU happily crunching frames inside a gaming computer - its real home. Just contribute via PayPal, your choice of credit card, venmo, or... Bitcoin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGOUuXFucEg

AMD RTG Project Canis Flagship Leaked: An Intel & AMD Desktop GPU Joint Venture
https://wccftech.com/amd-project-canis-flagship-intel-joint-venture/
Canis Majoris is the largest star second largest star in the known universe, it also happens to be the code name of a leaked Intel and AMD joint venture named Project Canis. The JV aims to unify Intel’s outstanding fabrication facilities and RTG’s graphics ambitions. In simpler words, RTG will be designing the GPU and Intel will be fabricating it. In an oddly gracious gesture, GloFo decided to allow this partnership to go ahead without any financial penalties for – old times sake (or a lot of $$$).

Reliable sources have told us that the JV documentation was personally carried to Intel HQ by Raja Koduri and represents the start of a burgeoning alliance between the two chip powerhouses. AMD’s RTG division has always been quite good at the designing part of the chip process and with Intel’s foundries in the equation (which are hands down the best on the planet I might add) this is going to utterly disrupt the entire graphics industry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rgo32f6wk8

Before we go any further lets go over the leaked specifications of the GPU. The graphics card will be manufactured on the Intel 10nm++ process and will consist of 2 dies of 400mm2 each connected by a brand new TSV based interconnect. Each die will house 80 Control Units with 64 SP each for a grand total of 10,240 stream processors on the board. Remember how AMD used Infinity Fabric to connect different Zen dies in Threadripper? Well, this is like that – but for GPUs. Because this is manufactured in Intel foundries, early reports indicate the chips can boost as high as 2.4 GHz, which is absolutely bat-shit crazy for a GPU.

The TDP numbers are a bit high at 350 Watts but that is something to be expected considering this is going to be an absolute monster in terms of raw performance. At the stated rate of 2441 MHz, AMD RX Canis GPU will be able to boost to 50 TFLOPs of compute performance (single precision). If this isn’t an insane value – I don’t know what is. This truly represents a generational leap in performance as far as graphics cards go.

So, on January 1st, I decided to check how much time I waste spend playing games on Steam, and posted a table to keep track of it.

Surprisingly, given my lack of commitment, I still keep track of my playtimes three months later and, while I won't be posting the current table, I'll say (much to my own shame), that of the first 90 days of the year, I've played (with a bit of help of my brother) a total of 9 days and 8.7 hours.

...

*Edit*

By the way, since I don't know how long it will last, Steam is having a special deal where you can get the Steam Link for $1/£0.80/1.1€ if you buy it bundled with DOOM, Hollow Knight or Human: Fall Flat, games that are on sale right now. More info at PCGamer or Steam.

Yeah, I'm just going to go into hiding for the next 24 or so hours.
I don't know if I could handle a HL3 joke from Valve.

One thing I'm wondering about the AMD joke, is if they're using it to hide a little easter egg (perfect time for it) in that story. And I'm talking, obviously, about the multi die part.

It's not the first time something like this has been rumored for Navi with the scalability tag featured on its reveal in that roadmap and, if they manage to bring it to life, it could do wonders for them.

About that, there's a dark story behind his absence ...